I love working in startup land.

[cjsmith]

Just now the CEO of my company, the VP of Sales, and a handful of engineers gathered a bunch of cell phones to test the ol' popcorn-popping thing. Nobody burst the bubble by mentioning that it had already been thoroughly Snopesed, even though at least one of us knew. We had a grand time trying it. Eight or nine people in a conference room at 6:30 on a Thursday night, fooling around with cell phones and popcorn.

"Do we need CDMA phones?"
"I think they were GSM. The video I saw looked like it was in Japan or Korea or something."
"This one has no SIM card. Hang on, let me go get one."
"You don't want to know what microwave popcorn looks like inside that bag, guys."
"Put another phone down! Get them closer together."
"Just let them ring. They weren't talking, just calling them."
"YOU call the Treo. I'M calling the Wafer."
"As soon as you get voice mail, redial."
"This is a cute little ringtone chorus we're getting here."

(No, of course it didn't work. How long does it take popcorn to start popping in a microwave? How many watts is your microwave? How many watts is your cell phone? How much does a cell phone transmit when no one is talking on it? But don't let the obvious get in the way of something fun. I mean, why not? This is how science is done, after all: make a hypothesis and no matter what you think the result will be, GO TEST IT. So we did.)

Comments

[jimp220.livejournal.com]

this is exactly why our financial structure is going counter clockwise down the toilet, most CEO's are arrogant, clueless morons.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

If this had been about cluefulness, any one of the engineers would have stopped it before it began. Fortunately, our CEO (unlike some) does listen to engineers about engineering topics. :-)

[platypuslord.livejournal.com]

I saw a video today where a bunch of people exploded a cell phone by surrounding it with popcorn.

Unfortunately, finding this video via web search is... challenging.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's HILARIOUS! I want to show it to my coworkers. If you do run across it again, send a link to me please? That's awesome.

Edit: FOUND ONE! Mad props to these guys for creativity. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NodlTKv1Amw

[just-cyd.livejournal.com]

y'know, i work in such a place and with such people that i bet i could get a handful of people to help me try this. why the hell not?! i can think of worse ways to waste time

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Yeah, so can I. This doesn't hurt anybody and isn't even fattening! :-)