Apparently unconnected

Oh, you, Timex. Radium watches were manufactured and sold by Timex up until the '50s, and they still will sometimes light up a Geiger counter even if they don't glow at night.

Timex Indiglo watches, on the other hand, excites a phosphor (zinc sulphide atoms) using a high-voltage field through a thin conductive indium tin oxide layer. Unfortunately, wikipedia and howstuffworks lack enough detail on how the physical process works, which is what I was aiming for when I did this googling. Time to call in the experts. (hey, lightjen!)

But the neat thing about Indiglo, that I will perhaps remember for my next McGuyver moment, is this: it uses a 100:1 transformer to generate enough voltage over the watch face, 150 volts AC. I didn't know that, and it's even probably less dangerous for my wrist than radioactive paint.

A brief diversion down memory lane: the song Puff the Magic Dragon holds up so much better than the cartoon version, which I remember being deeply affecting when I saw it on TV. At age 4. I'll stick with my memories, thanks. I was confused about the colours being all wrong in the cartoon, until I realized that I had seen it in black and white.

I wish that my camara-phone would take photos like this:



Instead of like this:



The former is what the free astronomy program Stellarium says the moon looked like at 10:30 last night, and y'know, it was more or less accurate, save the remarkable colours. The latter, well, it got the colours. And, being phone-sized, doesn't quite have room for any optical zoom. Oh well.

Finally, my sweetie makes an awesome fishcake with apple ginger chutney.