Sleep and smoothies, can't go wrong.

Wow very good page.

I wonder if that would work...

It does. It's called a railgun, except it's done with a piece of lucite and a lot more electricity.

Railgun is a high-speed projectile, this comic is targetted lightning.

Same difference. Rail guns are powered by electromagnetic energy. :P

How, again, is a electromagnetically propelled pellet the same as a charged ball that ionizes the air to give a path to the electricity? Of which, I was musing on if the latter would really work.

They both use electricity. That's what I was getting at.

I would say this actually sounds a bit closer to the idea of the electrolaser, but using a marble instead of the laser beam. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolaser

That is a very clever idea! With the right pellet for creating an adequately ionized path, it should work. A pellet made of polyurethane bonded aluminum powder and cesium nitrate (perhaps with some added ammonium perchlorate for greater burn temperature) that is ignited on launch would create quite a dense ion trail.
Ye Olde Aerospace Weapons Physicist & Rocket Scientist

You lost me at polyurethane. >_> But all your big words make it sound like it's possible.

The cesium nitrate does two things at high (burn) temperatures: it emits highly conductive cesium ions, and it provides oxygen to burn the polyurethane rubber binder and the aluminum powder. The ammonium perchlorate provides more oxygen to raise the burn temperature, thereby ionizing more of the cesium atoms. This is just a conventional high performance solid rocket propellant formula with added cesium nitrate.

gotta remeber that when we need to McGuyver something at the next sci-fi-rpg. :)

Mmm fruit smoothies...

Back in college I reverse-engineered most of Jamba Juice's menu. It took four delicious months of experimentation and hundreds of dollars in fruit and ice cream, but it was a good learning experience.

Then I found out other people had already done it and posted the instructions on the internet.

CURSE YOU INTERNET!

mmmmm. smoothies. now I want some strawberry smoothies.

hmmm, I wonder what the zapper has hit.

Glad to hear you're enjoying your life man, better luck with the aim and popcorns next time :P.

Oh man, a Tesla cannon! Awesome! =D

I have seen a picture of this being done with the ionized guide trail created by air breakdown caused by a very high peak power Q switched mode locked laser pulse. Your ion trail pellet should be a hell of a lot less expensive and more portable.

I so want one of those...

Very interesting design, I'd like to see them use it on the local book burner.