h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Nice article mate.

The 'Earth Loop' comment reminds me of trying to fix a snag about 15 years ago. A signal was being passed from a sonar to a frequency analyser printout, via a cable about 20 feet long which rang above the compartment deckhead. On testing the printer, a big black line appeared at 60Hz on the analyser, I earthed both ends of the cable and it disappeared. Unfortunately my boss at the time made me remove the earth at one end of the cable as I would 'introduce an earth loop and cause interference', once again we have a big 60Hz line. The problem was solved by replacing the whole cable (£££££'s in labour) with a new one - he never realised that the new one was fully earthed :O(