Björk Teaches You About Electronics

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75WFTHpOw8Y]

As we often suspected, [Björk] is quite the technical mastermind. In the video above, she teaches you about the ins and outs of her television. We think she’s making a strong bid as the next person to join Prototype This! Her hacking philosophy is the same as ours: “You shouldn’t let poets lie to you.”

89 thoughts on “Björk Teaches You About Electronics

  1. um evan, she hasnt disappeared into the void! she has been fairly active. she will not allow herself to be exploited as someones POP product though.Shes out there just under the surface of mainstream. I just saw her in atlanta a few months back and it was an awesome concert, hadnt seen her since ‘debut’ in berlin germany. ALL geeks should know bjorks ‘hyperballad’ video. its geeky goodness!

  2. Sigh. Wondering about the relative cluelessness of Bjork vs people who think TVs contain “huge capacitors” that stay charged after the TV s off and contain “enough energy to throw a man across a room.” :-(
    (the only cap that is famous for retaining charge is the tube itself. And that’s got a nice zap to it, thanks to the hefty voltage, but is hardly “huge” as capacitors go. And it’s your muscles contracting in response to being shocked that throws you across the room. The actual energy is pretty small (or it would be throwing your dead and charred body across the room :-) The power supply caps are pretty dangerous too, but they don’t USUALLY retain much charge once things are off.)

  3. I guess I’m the only one that doesn’t find her terribly hot. She’s pretty cute, but there’s something about her that makes her none-too-attractive to me.

    Also, I was fully expecting a Bjork-B-Q by the end of the video from her playing around the magic suction cup. Disappointing that this only appears to have happened before they were recording (as evidenced by her hair).

  4. I have an old monitor that weighs about 75 pounts for a 21-incher. I want the metal out of it. Is it true to properly ground a monitor, you have to short the positive and the ground together until …?

  5. As others have pointed out, if you don’t know what you’re doing DO NOT open a CRT television. The capacitors in the EHT section hold their charge for a lot of time after the TV has been turned off. This stuff can kill, so beware.

  6. I am an electronics design engineer by profession
    and would be happy to explain as well as giving safety advice on any aspect of electrical or electronic matters to her in person.
    I am not surprised that they have all those banking problems in Iceland if none technical people think & spread information in that way!

  7. Her interest in learning is attractive.
    Interesting conceptual speech on her part.
    I always enjoy her learning process and analytical process that she chooses to share; unique and intriguing.

  8. @everyone sane:
    Yes, she really was damn hot (and still is despite her age).

    @everyone else:
    Shut up, she IS hot.

    @evan:
    “disappeared into the void”? What exactly are you talking about? Her latest album is from 2007 (the ones before from 2000, 2001, 2004, 2005), the three lastest singles came out this year and she has many live-performances all the time. Strange way of “disappearing”… ;)

  9. BEWARE of capacitors when pulling apart your old TV. There’s a capacitor (or more) in there that can throw you across the room if you touch anything it’s connected to. Here’s an example of a smaller capacitor found in a camera. When I was young, I was taking apart a camera with built-in flash. I grabbed it with my hand on the circuit board and my hand immediately clenched up, squeezing the camera until the capacitor completely discharged. I even shook my hand as an immediate reaction but the capacitor had my hand clinging so tight that it wouldn’t let go. I could feel the charge running through my body. It was a very painful and traumatizing experience. I don’t even want to know what would happen with a television capacitor. (I did actually take an old television apart when I was young – thank God I didn’t touch the circuitry)..

  10. LOL, what a buncha wimps, the caps hold some charge, but not enough to kill. Do TV’s come with warnings of lethal voltage? No they warn of “risk of shock”! Don’t you think the back of the TV would be covered in yellow and black LETHAL VOLTAGE STAY OUT OR YOU WILL DIE messages if that was the case?

    I’ve poked around in tons of tvs, even gotten tickled up the arm by an anode that was on, and lots of tingles from touching the 110 v AC line accidentally. Wouldn’t want to touch a 200V main filter cap though. Keep one hand behind your back or in a pocket, that way you won’t hurt when you do something stupid. Two hands in is might not be wise if you have a heart condition! Discharge the big caps by putting a 1000 ohm 1/2 watt resistor across them unless you like sparks in which case use a screwdriver.

    If you don’t believe me, go ahead and try to find cases of electrocution by TV. I think you’ll be hard-pressed to find any cases. Go ahead, poke around in your TV and have fun but keep your eyes open.

    If you really like sparks, my friend and I had a TV and two butter knives and hooked them up to an AC cord, one wire on each knife secured and wrapped with black electrical tape as insulation. Then we plugged the knives in, and did some “surgery” on the TV. The deflection coil sparked beautifully! The electricity bill came to $650 that month, time to move anyway.

  11. Was anyone else just waiting for her to brush up against the wrong capacitor and go flying across the room? I cringed when she started pointing at the caps…. “it’s just elike eh city, this could be an eleva…” *KRZZAP*

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