This is an amazing set of photos.

Enjoy!

On the topic of environmental regulations.

Professor:
One particular interesting story is about a barge that was sent out of New York. It had hazardous waste in it and they wanted to dump it out at sea. This was before the laws completely prohibited the practice. So the barge goes out and New York says it can’t dump it within their waters. So the barge goes south. And as they go they keep meeting resistance. No one will let them dump the garbage. I mean, if it was solid waste? If it was solid waste they could have put it in a landfill. But obviously this was something atypical. They got all the way down to Costa Rica. And still… nothing. So what happened? Where did they have to go?

Classmate:
New Jersey?

Mechanical Daydream from mikedidonato on Vimeo.

TimBaird and I designed this beast for a project in England in 2004. Check out that sweet 4-bar excitement.

Identify this airport:

It was pretty obvious last week during the airport quiz that Joel knows his airports.

Pam has provided two photographs taken within airports to add to the challenge.

Identify this Airport:

If you have more questions this FAQ has lots of answers.

As well, you can get it in bulk and more variety from this distributor.

Happy Plumbing!

The time savings involved with PEX installations were readily apparent after my initial introduction, but I wanted to know if those time savings would be competing again extra material costs.

My web searches turned up little about the materials costs (other than McMaster Carr which will bend you over 6 ways from Sunday if you let them). So I took a trip to Lowes and found how much some of this would run me.

Copper 10′ ~$10.00 ($1/ft)
PEX 10′ ~$2.80 ($0.28/ft)
PEX 100′ ~$25.00 ($$0.25/ft)

The crimp tools needed ran between $75 and $150. However there are also some powered crimp tools which may be more expensive, but didn’t seem to be available at Lowe’s.

So, today’s features image is a picture of Chtulhu.

Chtulhu is a character that H.P. Lovecraft came up with that is suppose to represent extreme horror and evil.

Awhile ago, Andrew O. found this link. Now putting this link on my website is hard for me to do. Because if there’s anything I hate about the internet, it’s LoLcats. The bad grammar annoys the heck out of me. But the idea of a LoLchtulhu is so amusing to me that I must post.

PEX tubing
Maximum Pressure Range, psi 100-250
Low Temperature Range 0º to +100º F
High Temperature Range +101º to +200º F
Operating Temperature Range +73º to +180º F

Copper tubing
Maximum Pressure Range, psi 250-2000
Low Temperature Range 0º to +100º F
High Temperature Range +101º to +200º F
Operating Temperature Range +32º to +200º F

Source: mcmaster.com

I found this video on the _This Old House_ website

http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/video/0,,1631516,00.html

that details how to make fittings, notice that there is no soldering needed. In addition to that benefit, piping runs can be single lines without joint in your walls, eliminating joints, or points of failure, from being buried in your walls. As you’ll notice, the piping runs become can be laid out much more like electrical wiring this page from Lowe’s has some more detail on that.

http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=howTo&p=Improve/PEX.html

I was just watching _The This Old House Hour_, in this season’s project house in Newton, MA amongst other things, they are adding radiant heating to a foyer and running some supply lines for an upstairs bathroom. All and all this wouldn’t that interesting, except they are doing these improvements with PEX, or Cross Linked Polyethylene. The installation looked so easy and painless I decided to investigate. The next few posts will explore the costs associated with this.

The next four posts are Shamus’ investigations into a new plumbing practice called “PEX.” Shamus did a pretty good job of getting information and sharing.

Thanks Shamus!

Okay, so probably you’ve heard of this thing called Unicode? It’s this character set that tries to accurately represent every character in EVERY LANGUAGE EVER. They’re still working on that, but they’ve been successful enough to become an industry standard, which is pretty great. Anyway, there are a handful of strange and awesome characters included in it, and here are some of them! (If they don’t show up for you, or they show up as question marks, you’re not missing much, but here’s a way to fix that.)

This awesome little guy is called the Interrobang. It was created by an advertiser named Martin K. Spekter, who thought it would be better to “convey surprised rhetorical questions using a single mark”. I guess no one really cared about that, but then the INTERNET found it a few years later and claimed it awesome, but that was probably because popular culture came and made it cool beforehand. That guy always ruins everything.

Anyway, if you haven’t already guessed, it turns “What did you do to my pear tree?!” to “What did you do to my pear tree‽”. It’s not formally accepted in the least, but it’s still a cool little part of the English language that people are sort of trying to hold on to.

All right, before we get into this one, we have to understand 〒. 〒 is the postal mark of Japan, which precedes zip codes. Someone then came up with the idea to turn it into a little face, 〠. I’m not sure why this got included in Unicode, though - the only reason I can come up with is that the people who run it are awesome.

The face (or rather the character represented by the face) is “Number-kun”, according to Wikipedia. I’m guessing it’s some sort of Japanese Mr. Zip, though I can’t find much else on Number-kun. However, sources say they created a new character named Poston ten years ago. Can’t find anything on him either. Is this truly the folly of Wikipedia, or is it merely my inability to translate into Japanese to Google things?

Yeah, it’s technically a swastika, although facing the opposite way of the Nazi-style one. Apparently people were freaking out about this a while back, and then they sort of shut up about it when people pointed it out it was used as a character (and as a sign of peace, too!). If you want to know more about this, please point your interbrowser towards this lovely article that does a better job of explaining this than I could.

Come on. This is just awesome.

So yeah, Unicode is a good thing that probably has many secrets that have yet to be uncovered. There are other awesome things that I didn’t feel like writing about, like the tower of asterisks, the three letters combined into one character, or the ninja holding a hatchet. Maybe if you are kind of interested then you might enjoy this intersite that aims to explain the meaning of each character. If not, continue doing whatever you were.

My friend Sarah who I met at Alicia’s wedding has a writing club. I joined. This is my first contribution to the club.

The challenge was to write about a post-apocalypse world. We were asked to write about the government, the fallout, or whether people were happy or miserable in this world.

this is my entry:

When the lights dimmed and the high rises tumbled
We expected the world to break
But instead it’s really been pretty nice
Since our world was saved by cake.

You see, when order fell into chaos
No one knew what was going on
But the bakers? They compensated
With light fluffy filled chiffons

Nuclear fallout killed billions
Or so the newsmen report
But the bakers resisted radioactivity
with Kransekake and Sachertorte

And now much of the world is restricted
A modern day Fourth Zone
But the people are happy and joyful
overflowing with Panatone.

Now we can’t help but smile in joy
As we walk amongst heaps of debris
For this world is a far better place
With streets paved of Zwetschgendatschi.

When I was young, and just learning to talk, I called cars “GasGoGones”. You put gas in them to make them go, and then they were gone.

Colloidal Silver is a suspension of silver in water, typically 30ppm, which is either ingested or applied topically. The antibacterial properties of silver are well known - solutions as low as 5 ppm can kill many types of bacteria and fungus, and colloidal silver is approved by the EPA as a disinfectant for use in hospitals. You might be more familiar with silver-impregnanted hiking socks, which allegedly prevent foot odor by killing bacteria.

Prior to 1938 colloidal silver was a widely used antibiotic prescribed by physicians, but the discovery of fast-acting penicillin rendered it obsolete. Colloidal silver is still used in alternative medicine, and the FDA allows it to be sold as a supplement, but sellers are not allowed to make any medical claims about the benefits of colloidal silver. It is often marketed as a panacea-type supplement, and will supposedly cure anything from allergies to skin problems to arthritis.

One of the more startling possible side effects from the ingestion of silver is a marked skin discoloration called argyria, characterized by permanent blue discoloration of the skin. Extra silver is deposited in body tissue, and when exposed to sunlight the skin turns a dark blue or gray color ( the skin reacts much like the silver on a black and white photographic print does).

you can see a video of a man with argyria being interviewed by Matt Lauer on the Today Show:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/22534645#22534645

I got crapped on by a bird the other day.

I was traveling with a bunch of people from work, and for some reason, I was chosen to pick up and carry the 7 pizzas from the pizza place back to the hotel for us all to eat. Luckily I had a friend come and open the doors and such, but…on the way to pick up the pizza, I stopped to read an historical sign. Bad move. The birds of the town apparently lurk above such signs, poised to bomb unsuspecting history enthusiasts with their load of disaster.

Direct hit!

Not only did the bird manage to crap on me, it was subtle enough to crap directly on my head. First I was surprised. Then I was angry. Then I was disgusted. And then, my friend pulled a massive block of tissues from her purse and cleaned off my head. Needless to say, I showered thoroughly after that.

This wasn’t my first encounter of the droppings kind. Many years earlier, I was wearing the jacket affectionately referred to as “The Suade McQuaid” in Quincy Market in Boston, and a bird FLEW INSIDE and crapped on The Suade McQuaid. Luckily again, it was easy to clean.

One has to wonder - is this coincidence? Or did I offend a bird elder in my youth, and incur the unending wrath of birds the world over? Only time will tell…

If you’ve never worn a wireless microphone before, they’re rather lightweight, hide under your shirt well, and you forget that they’re there after a bit. No, I’ve never gone undercover for the man, but I am on tv show #2 now (both for robots, what a geek!), so, I’m getting used to it.

Well, the other day, after having it on for several hours running the team brainstorming meetings, talking to the kids, and demonstrating stuff for the PBS camera guys, I was off to the side talking to one of my students. She told me a funny comment that the boom-mic operator had said earlier, and we both a a good laugh. Afterwards, I noticed that the two guys following us around were no longer being really nice to me as they earlier were. It then occurred to me that their headsets are linked directly to my mic and they heard us talking. Whoops

What ever happened to the classic, halarious character-bashing of TV and movies of the 1970’s? I mean there’s a lot of smack talked on TV, but nobody ever has funny, degrading catchphrases like we used to see on Sanford and Son, or All in the Family. Smokey and the Bandit (in my top 10 movies) has some good ones -

“There’s no way, *no* way that you came from *my* loins. Soon as I get home, first thing I’m gonna do is punch yo mamma in da mouth!”

This is probably the funniest thing that I’ve ever seen - ever. Anybody else know of some good stuff from that era (80’s are ok too! Oh, Uncle Buck)?

Normally, i prefer staying away from posts that could be cast in political light. Shamus sent me this video about environmentalism. It’s an interesting perspective and I appreciate the guy’s efforts.

Check it out!

My name is Christopher Aleron Tanner. I’m in graduate school with Irene and was introduced to Mike D. at one of her parties. My hobbies/interests include reading massive amounts of comic books, staring at my 75-gallon fish tank, playing in the woods, tending to my herb garden, swimming laps, and unwinding in the sauna.

I once had a great dream. In this dream, I was the winner of a contest. The prize was a coupon with strange properties. I could use this coupon to get free fajitas at any restaurant that served them. If fajitas were on the menu, I could get them for free, no matter where I was. If they weren’t on the menu, I was out of luck.

What a great dream!

Yesterday I got an email at work. The title of this email was:

“F/U on “

(company X was a real company, but I am removing the name to protect the innocent)

At first I was shocked. Who did I so anger? I haven’t done anything devious lately. There’s no reason for someone to swear at me in the email title.

Then I was nervous. What if I accidentally trod on someone else’s turf and now they were out to get me?

Then I was determined. Whoever this is, they shouldn’t be treating me like this. I’ll go all the way to the top to see justice!

Then I read the email.

F/U was for “Follow Up”.

If you were staying tuned to all the 720 post mayhem, you would have noticed that a week or so ago I posted an airport terminal quiz. Your task was to guess the city from the picture of the airport.

Here are the results of that quiz!

1 Ohare
2 Atlanta
3 Dallas
4 Reagan
5 Logan
6 Bradley
7 san Francisco
8 Heathrow
9 Midway
10 Los Angeles International
11 Houston
12 Denver
13 Tokyo
14 Frankfurt
15 Paris
16 Las Vegas
17 Bangkok
18 Newark
19 London Gatwick
20 Seattle
21 Miami
22 Beijing
23 Hong Kong

I hope for your sake that you were unable to identify a single airport.