mystery

[daren]

Misses was browsing facebook tonight on the main computer, Thought i'd crack out the dell laptop to brows my favourite site only to find that once it had booted i couldn't move the cursor,
Moaning at the misses as she was the last person to use it i shut it down for a restart, same thing happened, was just about to hit system restore when i notice our plasma ball that my son had been playing with was turned on over the other side of the room, Turned it off and bingo the cursor started working!

Anyone know what sort of radiation these things put out :(

[MartinH]

turn the ball back on and see if it effects again, could be a strange coincidence.

[daren]

[quote]turn the ball back on and see if it effects again, could be a strange coincidence[/quote]

Just done as requested, Ball on can't move cursor, Ball off cursor moves.

Think i'll wrap myself in foil next time we turn the ball on :gnorsi:

[stevieb337]

There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call ..........'The Twilight Zone'

lol

[shikari_chaos]

Hmmm bit strange.... but I do know that if you hold a fluorescent light buld near one it excites the fluorescent coating on the inside of the glass which is pretty cool lol. Bit odd that it would effect it if it's not right next to the laptop and even stranger is that you can get USB powered versions of these so maybe not a common issue.
Can't figure out why it would just effect the cursor.... maybe the electro magnetic field that it produces effects the trackpad in some way, after all, trackpads are just a capacitance based device.