Super Magnets¶
276 words
My parents have a metal ‘pinboard’ on which things are affixed with magnets. It’s only problem is that many of the magnets are quite weak which makes things slide down easily (keep in mind that even a fairly strong magnet may have difficulties keeping things from sliding down a smooth surface at a 90° angle to the direction it’s pointed to). So I was delighted – and with an idea for a christmas present when Ulrich pointed me to a site selling fairly strong little magnets and I ordered a bunch of them – mostly for my parents but with a few for myself as well.
My first impressions are mixed. Those magnets definitely keep their promise of being strong. In fact you can choose them on the web site by their size and power, so you get a fairly good idea about what they can hold beforehand (up to the huge ‘magnet of death’ that’s said to be somewhat dangerous and able to hold 100kg). And even though they give exact measurements as well, the magnets look surprisingly small once you get them. And combined with their strength this is a bit of a usability problem because trying to remove those tiny bits of metal with average or even parent sized fingers can be a bit fiddly.
Nonetheless those magnets are good fun and I hope they’ll be put to slightly good use. Personally I found the really tiny magnets I got very useful. They don’t hold a log but they let you stick a drawing pin in the wall and then fix a photo to it without needing to pierce the photo – nice.
