at-con side game - Guess Your BAC

[Deviant Ollam]

so, you know how county fairs and carnivals sometimes have booths where a person will attempt to guess your weight? (for the benefit of all you city dwellers, a "fair" is an event where rural folk get together to play games, light off fireworks, look at the new model year's farm equipment, and eat cotton candy)

well, i'm planning on running a mini-game sort of based on that type of fair booth. instead of me doing the guessing, however, participants will be guessing things. what will they attempt to guess? their current Blood Alcohol Concentration.

yes, thanks to a recent purchase i made i think i can pull this off for a little impromptu fun. if you guess your B.A.C. accurately you win a prize. (whether or not this "prize" will be a free drink has yet to be determined.) i've bought a huge bag of sanitary tips for the breathing end, and they worked out to cost just about a buck. if you see me walking around, buy a testing tip for a dollar and see how your body is getting along.

heh, the real challenge will be the fact that the tester doesn't work properly if a person has had a drink in the past 15 minutes... does anyone ever go that long in between cocktails at defcon?

[Nikita]

Deviant, Nice Idea!! I SO can't wait to convince Litchfield and Kaminsky into testing theirs. Matter of fact, It would be a good scavanger item- "Find x-person's BAC"
I Will not type it, but Nikita= Laughed out Loud.

[bascule]

I was playing with a breathalyzer at con last year. I think it got "drunk," as it was spitting out BACs like 0.45%. As long as yours is remotely accurate it might be fun.

[Deviant Ollam]

I was playing with a breathalyzer at con last year. I think it got "drunk," as it was spitting out BACs like 0.45%.

yeah, that is what happens when people blow into it too quickly after consuming a drink. that's acutally bad for the unit and can foul its internal calibration all to hell. i'll have to have a penalty system in place to punish people who do that, since i'd like to keep my little pocket tester working long into the future.

[Tacitus]

Detection Range .00 - .40% BAC (Blood Alcohol Concentration)

Keep this in mind, depending on the circuitry and how it fails, one would just have to drink to above .40% and guess .40%

[theprez98]

I can guess mine now. Unless I down a whole bunch of near beer, I predict 0.00%!

[TheCotMan]

I can guess mine now. Unless I down a whole bunch of near beer, I predict 0.00%!

Perhaps, if either extreme (0 or 0.40) is measured, the prize should be bottled water. ]:>

[theprez98]

Perhaps, if either extreme (0 or 0.40) is measured, the prize should be bottled water. ]:>

I've never seen so much bottled water in my life!

[Thorn]

Will the guess be based soley on observation, or do we get to ask questions?*
Can I play, or would I be considered a ringer?

*When asked by the police as to his type and quantity of ETOH consumption, every barfing-on-his-shoes drunk will answer: "<hic> Two bleers, Occifer." I have no idea why, but it's the standard answer.

[renderman]

Will the guess be based soley on observation, or do we get to ask questions?*
Can I play, or would I be considered a ringer?

*When asked by the police as to his type and quantity of ETOH consumption, every barfing-on-his-shoes drunk will answer: "<hic> Two bleers, Occifer." I have no idea why, but it's the standard answer.

I think yours will be the most entertaining to test. Can we make you walk a line, touch your nose and sing the alphabet too!

[astcell]

.4%? Will this be enough for the defcon crowd? Maybe you can hook up two of them in parallel, or would it be in series? Hmmm.

[renderman]

.4%? Will this be enough for the defcon crowd? Maybe you can hook up two of them in parallel, or would it be in series? Hmmm.

I really wish that gadget was around after last years heroic warp core breach consumption of mine. To put a number on an upper limit would be interesting.

I propose that we have deviant and Thorn have a guess-off. Get it wrong, take a drink. After a while, have each of them guess thier BAC. Repeat till sunrise.

[Deviant Ollam]

it's been fun playing with it so far. educational, as well, actually. a few friends and i sat around with charts and graphs, marking our drinks (one beer or shot every twenty minutes) and our B.A.C. level over the course of a few hours. (we started out doing one beer or shot every ten minutes, but ran into the calibration difficulty since the unit doesn't read properly without a 15 to 20 minute "non drinking" window on the person's part)

in any case, while i had a pretty good idea of how my B.A.C. would rise through the evening (if you know your weight and the alc. percentage of your drink you can pretty much nail those estimates) i was surprised at how i felt when i had hit certain limits. honestly, how it "felt" at the legal driving limit of .08 was a bit of a shock. for those who don't know, .08 is really pretty boozed up. if you've had a glass of wine with dinner and don't feel any buzz at all, you're usually more than cool to drive (note - this is not legal advice) since .08 can pack a bit of a punch.

while i could feel that i was clearly intoxicated once i started reading .08, i didn't have the sensation of being impared. i actually understood how some people can say to themselves "ok, i've been drinking, but i'm cool to drive." to be on the safe side, i've never driven if i've consumed more than one drink with a meal (or if i'm at a party i stop drinking early if driving and will not leave until i have completely sobered up even if that means crashing on someone's couch for a few hours and slipping out quietly at 3:00 AM after everyone else has gone to bed) but it was really freaky seeing how easily a person could fool themselves into a false sense of sobriety. the point at which i really felt impaired (the point where even an intoxicated state i was saying to myself loud and clear, "you shouldn't be in charge of anything that is mechanical at all right now") i was blowing around a .12 ~ .14

if you know someone with a breathalyzer, check yourself out. you, too, may be surprised at how well you hold your liquor or how not drunk you think you are even when you're skirting legal lines.

... and for a bit of really sad but educational fun, drink only one mild cocktail (or just 3/4 of one if you're really thin) and check out how it feels to be "drunk" with a .04 ... keeping in mind that some jurisdictions are considering making this the legal driving limit. a B.A.C. level so mild that it barely registers AT ALL within your nervous system is being considered as the level at which it's illegal to drive your ass home.

[Twigman]

to be on the safe side, i've never driven if i've consumed more than one drink with a meal (or if i'm at a party i stop drinking early if driving and will not leave until i have completely sobered up even if that means crashing on someone's couch for a few hours and slipping out quietly at 3:00 AM after everyone else has gone to bed) but it was really freaky seeing how easily a person could fool themselves into a false sense of sobriety.

I know this isnt really on topic, but seriously...
in my book few= 3 -> maybe 6...so we'll take lower bound of 3...
so 3am minus few hours sleep is 12 midnight.
What a crazy party.
I assume at defcon you arent tucked up in bed by midnight....

have fun

[DaKahuna]

it's been fun playing with it so far. educational, as well, actually. a few friends and i sat around with charts and graphs, marking our drinks (one beer or shot every twenty minutes) and our B.A.C. level over the course of a few hours. (we started out doing one beer or shot every ten minutes, but ran into the calibration difficulty since the unit doesn't read properly without a 15 to 20 minute "non drinking" window on the person's part)

Do you really think some of us will be willing to go 15 to 20 minutes without a drink. For me it would not be a problem - but there are others!