Have You Seen My Doppelganger?

My wife had a weird experience on September 31, 2012. The day before I really wrestled within myself whether I was going on a trip to Orlando to attend a user group. I was tired from studying and the prospect of the traffic and tolls made me not want to take the trip. On the other hand, it was important exposure for my new career; so I got up early to go. My wife woke up just in time to see me off, and proceeded to fall asleep on the couch. She swears that an hour later (when I was 60 miles away) that she was awakened by the front door opening, and I sat at the foot of the couch, telling her I just could not bring myself to make the trip, and to go back to sleep. An hour later, she got up, and not seeing my brief case and computer, panicked and called my cellphone. She thought that she had seen a ghost (of me), fearing I had died in an accident. Funny thing was while I was on the highway, I did feel a lurch and a moment of dizziness, as if I would run into the ditch. Did she see my doppelganger?

wiki on doppelgangers [Link]

My other interests [Link]

Static Field Detector Early Warning System

I had built a simple static field detector before, that would turn on an LED when a comb or a piece of cellophane was brought near its antenna; but I was able to enhance the sensitivity of the circuit using a PICAXE microprocessor. The basic circuit centers around a FET (field-effect transistor) with a long wire on the gate as the static electrical probe. The FET's drain to source current changes in response to minute changes in the gate voltage, and since it is high impedance, it won't drain away static fields. The FET's drain is connected to the ADC (analog to digital converter) of the microprocessor where it is represented by a number between 0 and 255 (8-bits). Through observation in debug mode I set a high sensitivity threshold at 60 and a low sensitivity level at 100. When the static energy exceeds these levels, a brief chirp sounds from the piezo speaker (not loud enough to disturb my wife) and the LED turns on. This little system can detect a charged comb (just run it through you hair) from a meter away. I tried it last night, and it only went off once; at 3:04AM! I am quite pleased with this result. Whatever is bugging me in the 300AM hour is detectable and generates a static field. For a few dollars in parts I might build a bunch of them and distribute them around the house.

The circuit diagram [Link]

The BASIC code [Link]

The parts list [Link]

My other interests [Link]