Poll: People's reactions to seeing lasers!

Byrnz93 · Mar 23, 2010

I get so many different reactions.
Either they make some degrading or sarcastic remark about lasers or say "Wow, that's cool" and are interested for about 5min.
SOMETIMES there will be someone who is genuinely impressed and asks "How far does it go, can it burn, where did you get it, etc, etc". But that's pretty rare lol.

Edit: Also, "It emits light, what's the big deal. It's just an overpriced piece of crap".

FireMyLaser · Mar 23, 2010

I get reactions somewhere between option 3 and 4. There have been quite a few laser incidents in my city...

x90z75ek · Mar 23, 2010

For me the most often is option 3 and the most often after that one, option 1.
Also another thing I noticed is that here in my place girls almost always get scarred when they see a laser beam in the air or a dot somewhere on a wall.

randomlugia · Mar 23, 2010

I haven't really shown anyone but a couple friends, and they think it's cool, and ask to use them regularly. I'm probably going to take my 100mW to my friend's big party next month, not really sure what's going to happen there. And I also don't show them to strangers. You never know, they could be a police officer or something.

And then someone might see the dot, and think "sniper rifle!", which is another reason to not use them in public.

brtaman · Mar 23, 2010

pullbangdead said:
I don't show lasers to strangers, you generally have to be my friend before you see them. So of course people who see my lasers already know me and know kindof what to expect out of my nerdy-self. Of course, it doesn't help that all my friends are fellow grad students who work in labs with lasers just like me.

My wife's friends love them though. I get a lot of requests for parties, so I might bring one or 2 for someone's birthday party or whatever. Then they ask me how they work, and I'm just not capable of giving a simple answer to that, but a couple of them are actually intrigued and like my answers.

My favorite response to a laser ever was actually successfully impressing Shuji with one of my lasers. He hadn't seen a 593.5 pointer before when I used it for my prelim, so that was awesome to actually get an "Ohhhh!!!" out of him. Of course, he was one of the originals when it came to laser experimentation, and reportedly one of the originals when it came to showing off his great work: reportedly, when he gave the first-ever presentation on the first-ever successful blue/violet laser diode, he gave the presentation using his brand new blue-violet laser diode.

Awesome man, must've felt pretty cool to get an "Ohhh" from that man?

For me its mostly wtf is that with a jaw dropped followed by a compulsory, "lemme hold it". Erm...yeah that is the lasers I am talking about.

Crazy Jay · Mar 23, 2010

My family is deathly afraid of my lasers. Even my pussy bro in law. I shined my 200mw green laser at their car during the night to find it and they thought it was going to blow up

Asherz · Mar 23, 2010

*Aliens*

JK, normally something along the lines off is that safe? legal or why do you have it.

What do you do with them? (ugh)

Or as you said jaw hits the floor.

pullbangdead · Mar 23, 2010

brtaman said:
Awesome man, must've felt pretty cool to get an "Ohhh" from that man?

It was nice, but I didn't really have a chance to enjoy it at the time, because then I had to give him and other members of my committee a presentation on which they were grading me. But I passed it, so I can look back on it fondly now.

RA_pierce · Mar 23, 2010

I try not to make myself noticed, but sometimes it's just impossible to use a Class IV green laser without someone noticing.
Lucky for me, hardly anyone around my area even knows it's a laser. The usual reaction is something like, "Whoa! Did you see that green light?" At that point I shut it off and return indoors.

I have only come across someone else with a laser 5 times in my life outside a presentation setting:

1. Zion National Park, Utah- 3 or so years ago... I was pointing a 50mW green on a cliff and noticed another green dot following mine.

2. At the local mall- A young boy was pointing a 5mW red in my eyes and harassing others. I confronted him and he stopped.

3. At Oceanside beach- While shining the same 50mW green on the water, I noticed another green beam following mine.

4. At the local grocery store- someone shined a 5-10mW green in my direction. I immediately recognized the green spot on a nearby wall. I turned but did not see anyone. Judging by the size of the projected dot, the laser either had terrible divergence, or the source was more than 1/2 mile away.

5. While I was on the road, someone driving by in the opposite lane pointed a 5mW red directly into my eyes from the back seat of the car.

So in my experience 60% of laser users I have come across were using their lasers to harass and annoy.

SupermanFTM · Mar 24, 2010

Byrnz93 said:
I get so many different reactions.
Either they make some degrading or sarcastic remark about lasers or say "Wow, that's cool" and are interested for about 5min.
SOMETIMES there will be someone who is genuinely impressed and asks "How far does it go, can it burn, where did you get it, etc, etc". But that's pretty rare lol.

Edit: Also, "It emits light, what's the big deal. It's just an overpriced piece of crap".

Aw, that edit actually made me a little sad when I read it. Not sure why, but it did.

I try to avoid using any of my very small collection of lasers in public. I don't have any neat scanners or projects for show, just a few portable lasers and I prefer people not being around those.

Crazy Jay · Mar 24, 2010

Lasers could represent civilization. Just to fire a beam of light into the night sky makes everyday space travel seem closer. We're not primitive animals. We are intelligent beings and lasers reflect that I believe. :yh:
I mean check this smiley out! :lasergun:
Cool right?

KiLLrB · Mar 24, 2010

Crazy Jay said:
Lasers could represent civilization. Just to fire a beam of light into the night sky makes everyday space travel seem closer. We're not primitive animals. We are intelligent beings and lasers reflect that I believe. :yh:
I mean check this smiley out! :lasergun:
Cool right?

:crackup:

randomlugia · Mar 24, 2010

I don't think <5mW reds really count. I mean, almost everybody has one, right?

cmak · Mar 24, 2010

I second that, randomlugia. Pierce, in the Oceanside story did you end up seeing the person that was the source of the other beam?

peace & thanks
-cmak

Flaminpyro · Mar 24, 2010

@ randomlugia You say "could be a cop" what the ? you sound like you think it's aginst the law to own a laser

@ RA_pierce I'm sorry to hear your stats show 60% I was hoping for something less than 25% of idiots out there.

RA_pierce said:
I try not to make myself noticed, but sometimes it's just impossible to use a Class IV green laser without someone noticing.
Lucky for me, hardly anyone around my area even knows it's a laser. The usual reaction is something like, "Whoa! Did you see that green light?" At that point I shut it off and return indoors.

I have only come across someone else with a laser 5 times in my life outside a presentation setting:

1. Zion National Park, Utah- 3 or so years ago... I was pointing a 50mW green on a cliff and noticed another green dot following mine.

2. At the local mall- A young boy was pointing a 5mW red in my eyes and harassing others. I confronted him and he stopped.

3. At Oceanside beach- While shining the same 50mW green on the water, I noticed another green beam following mine.

4. At the local grocery store- someone shined a 5-10mW green in my direction. I immediately recognized the green spot on a nearby wall. I turned but did not see anyone. Judging by the size of the projected dot, the laser either had terrible divergence, or the source was more than 1/2 mile away.

5. While I was on the road, someone driving by in the opposite lane pointed a 5mW red directly into my eyes from the back seat of the car.

So in my experience 60% of laser users I have come across were using their lasers to harass and annoy.

cmak · Mar 25, 2010

Flaminpyro said:
@ randomlugia You say "could be a cop" what the ? you sound like you think it's aginst the law to own a laser

@ RA_pierce I'm sorry to hear your stats show 60% I was hoping for something less than 25% of idiots out there.

different places have different cops. I've been places where cops will fuck with you just for no reason. My friend was arrested by an a*hole cop one time and the cop didn't like him because he of how he was talking I guess, so he started writing him fake tickets and bullying him...

luckily, my friend had a dashcam :wave::wave::wave:

the cop lost his job and the tickets didn't go through (obviously); however this isn't always the case--a cop may feel intimidated and use this as an excuse to restrain, arrest, or in some situations even point/fire a gun at you. You never know in some places so I would just be careful and try not to attract attention unless you know the cop(s) in that area really well.

peace & thanks
-cmak

Poll: People's reactions to seeing lasers!

What reactions do you normally get from people when they see you shining your laser?

*gasp* *jaw hits the floor* um EXCUSEMESIRWHEREDIDYOUGETTHAT??

take my money, take my iPod, take my phone, just please don't kill me

whoa... *looks for a second and resumes walking*

hey be careful with that thing! Isn't that thing illegal? *annoyed*

hey nice rpl, i love opto! hey wanna come over and see my ArIon?

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gasp jaw hits the floor um EXCUSEMESIRWHEREDIDYOUGETTHAT??

whoa... looks for a second and resumes walking

hey be careful with that thing! Isn't that thing illegal? annoyed