Created one, but can't sign in cause the sign-in form rarely shows up (flash?). grrr

-T

I just removed similar tape from my bike handlebars cause it was worn out. Granted, it wasn't on the same nano scale, but the tape I used has small hairlike nubs on it that aid in grip, especially when used in conjunction with gloves also having the greptile material on them. Now it seems it is only being used for golf gloves and grips. Worked amazingly well..

tm

Calcium carbide, in rock form would work, just add water and you get acetylene gas. If you keep that contained and mixed with the proper amount of air before igniting, yeh, it makes a bright flash and loud boom. On a plane though, the rocks take a while to bubble away into the gas, and it smells very strongly of onions. Also, you need a very large amount to do anything serious, on the order of several large garbage bags full (caver rating scale: 2bagger, 3bagger...), stuff very unlikely to go unnoticed. Otherwise you get about the equivalent of a flash-bang.

The rocks are small and look like small bits of concrete, but can be crushed between your fingers. You have to keep them super dry or they start to emit gas just from the atmospheric moisture, which is easily smelled, and would probably show up on the airport screener's volatiles sniffer (I assume the xray machines have these built in these days, tho I have seen some of the wipe-pad ones still around). Otherwise they would blend in with a handful of normal gravel.

-tm

Dalton (your smaller neighbor about 30mi south), and specifically Dalton Utilities, got that all kick started. It was building out massive infrastructure to fuel the booming carpet industry of the late 80's-90's (most millionaires per-capita prior to the dot-com boom), strung fiber along with the new lines, mainly for daq/scada at first, but launched into more general access starting in 2000 when they started installing fiber everywhere. Now they have Optilink, which has up to 2.5Gbps (graph shows 10gbps) though their offerings to the public list only 20mbps. Also independent of the ILECs (GTE/alltel/bellsouth or whatever it is now), and also running phones and TV with the internet service.

-tm

And they dont for fingerprints?? (Which have a much higher false-positive rate)

-Tm

..and start a holy war against Fox for cancelling it.

Tm

Add to that list:

• plastic bags
• Sitting
• Lying down
• Segway scooters
• Sales of cigarettes in pharmacies
• Soda
• The Yellow Pages
• Bottled Water
• Gay Marriage
• Most guns
• Advertisements with guns
• JROTC
• irradiated food
• Smoking in public (parks, on the sidewalk, etc) or in communal housing (ie: apartments)
• Styrofoam
• Electronic cigarettes
• De-clawing cats
• Grasshopper Tacos

*Yes, some are state-level, and some (like bottled water and soda) are for government establishments/schools only, and I think the handgun ban got overturned by the NRA as did DC's, and some are just other proposals. Im glad to see our elected officials using their time so effectively to give us the best supernanny city around!

... expressly FORBID any ISP from mucking with traffic flowing through their tubez aside from normal routing/management activity? Wouldn't blocking all but the top 200 websites from consumers be a direct "ha Im shitting on your face!" violation? Those suing the FCC to block that regulation were promising nothing like this would happen, they were not that evil, yet here it is!

-tm

Err, more like the "Luxury" of paved roads and bridges. How do you think they get money to repave them when they wear out, or expand them when they get too congested, or retrofit or replace bridges when they get too old? Seriously, car travel is not free, it requires upkeep of both your vehicle, and the places you take it. Even dirt roads have to be regraded every few years or they get washed out or washboarded so bad you could walk faster on them.

Bunch of crybabies that want everything for free and feel they are entitled to it.. ugh. Hypocrites too, when they complain that "Obama Care" will require them to do this or that, they want to be able to pay for only what they need/use. Now the "pay per mile", basically pay ONLY FOR WHAT YOU NEED/USE comes up for transportation and they want nothing of it. Heh.

-Tm

No, it is not a penalty for a long commute, it is paying YOUR share for the upkeep of the roads YOU use. Why should my vehicle, which sits at home most of the week while I ride a train to work, pay a flat fee for road upkeep to subsidize other people's commute? I actually already do in the form of Licensing Fees, which in California, for pickup trucks, is based on weight. If its taxed per mile it will be fair for me to pay less since I drive less thus damage the roads less, right?? Same with the gas tax, I drive less, I use less gas, which results in less emissions, thus I buy less gas and pay less in tax there. The new mileage based fees are to get hybrid/EV cars to start paying for their share of road upkeep. These are similar to the arguments being used against "Obama Care", and other "Socialist" programs (ie: I only want to pay my fair share, why should the gvmnt force me into blah blah blah). Funny how it reverses when your car and gasoline are the targets (nooo I want to be subsidized!!). If you dont like paying taxes and gas for such a long commute, MOVE CLOSER TO WORK! Its not my fault you got a job far far away and decide to DRIVE there.

-Tm

Thank you Captain Hind Sight, BUT Not sure how a runaway critical reaction is a better outcome than the current situation. If the SCRAM units did not kick in, the reactors would remain critical, and the state of the rest of the plant would be unknown. What happens if the quake knocks the control rods out of alignment, or disrupts the turbines that generate the power, or bends/cracks/breaks the coolant lines? With a critical reactor the designed power output is up in the 1.1GW range, anything going wrong that could disrupt the cooling systems gives that power nowhere to go, and 1.1GW (or more, if the reaction does actually run away) is a whole bunch of power to concentrate in one spot. SCRAM units take a maximum of 4 seconds to fully insert the rods to stop the reaction, leaving little time for anything else to break and prevent their use. It was the 100% correct thing to do. Even IF the tsunami didnt wipe out the generators AND POWERLINES (remember, it took them over a week to run a new powerline to the plant) between the plants, and one stayed operational, running pumps with nothing in them to pump does little good (cracked cooling line/evaporated coolant/steam releases), as does powering broken pumps or pumping coolant through broken lines (they still arent sure the pumps or lines are operational in some of the buildings).

What went wrong, besides under-designing the seismic and tsunami resistance of the plant, was placing the generators in a position where a tsunami could wipe them out. Had they been on the roof, or on/in an elevated structure (like the top floor of the reactor building itself??) and as protected as the rest of the facility they probably would have remained operational, and kept the coolant flowing long enough to get mains power back without anything reaching any worrisome state.

Newer fail-safe reactor designs are in evaluation as this is all happening. It takes YEARS to get anything rolling with these plants, you cant just switch them out one day. It is the goal to replace the old ones, it just takes time and lots of $$.

Because then you end up with radioactive salts to deal with. Pure water will cool without transporting radiation, since theres nothing in pure water that will take on the extra particles. Salt also accelerates corrosion, and when the water boils away, it leave a nice crust all over everything, possibly clogging pipes/pumps/valves, as well as adding insulation to stuff thats already too hot.