Domain: 2spi.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to 2spi.com.
Comments · 7
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The Grease
For those interested here is some technical information on the grease.
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Re:And...When will they outlaw razor blades that only fit one razor?
Only when they can't buy safery razor blades and double edge razor blades and you have to go to a Gillette. There is a standard razor format still out there. The blades fit box cutters and paint scrapers, art tools, medical tools, as well as razors. You can buy the blades at either the grocery store, drug store, or hardware store. Your other option is to go the single vendor lock-in route. You don't have to pirate blades if you decide not to go with a single vendor solution.
You can't find many online music stores selling a variety of formats for several brands and functions of devices. This is the issue. I can buy several brands of razor blades at any one of the stores to fit my open format razor and can shop for the best brand and price. There is no online store selling competing brands of DRM content compatible with whatever brand of music player you happen to like. There is also no price and quality choices. If you buy online for your iPod, the only choice in the USA is 99 cents a track at the only quality level of 128Kbits. If you have a Zen, you can't buy compatible content for any price. If your device plays MP3's, you are SOL at the iTunes store. It's like having a safety razor and absolutely nobody sold blades for it so you had to rip your own from tin cans. (I know e-music, but try to buy any mainstream music there..)
Here are some examples of safety razor blades to fit your any name and function device that uses safety razor blades..
Mekur brand http://www.amazon.com/Merkur-Double-Safety-Blades- 3-Pack/dp/B0001XGNRK/sr=1-1/qid=1169789189/ref=sr_ 1_1/104-5655065-6533564?ie=UTF8&s=beauty
Auto Parts blades
http://www.parts4cars.com.au/cart.php?target=produ ct&product_id=19167&category_id=439
Feather brand
http://www.classicshaving.com/catalog/item/522941/ 906451.htm
Excel brand
http://www.dickblick.com/itemgroups-r/razorblades/
Wilkinson brand
http://www.blademail.co.uk/acatalog/Classic_Twin_E dge.html
Gem brand
http://www.2spi.com/catalog/tools/smtol14.shtml
There are more not listed here.. You can't mix music and players like you can razors. MP3 format works fine, but everyone wants to be the defacto DRM single vendor instead. When will they outlaw music that only be played by one player?
Only when they can't buy music in Rebook CD format and you have to go to a download. There is a standard CD Audio format still out there. The discs CD players and DVD players, computers, and can be freely ripped in iTunes for an iPod. You can buy the CDs at either the grocery store, major music retail outlet, or independent music store. Your other option is to go the single vendor lock-in route. You don't have to pirate music if you decide not to go with a single vendor solution.
The reason the razor blade analogy fails so miserably is that to get an "open format" razor blade, you have to settle for an inferior product, while to get an "open format" digital music file you have to buy a goddamn CD and settle for a superior product. MP3 is a steaming pile of shit as far as audio quality is concerned. I do not understand why people think that the convenience of being able to buy single songs for a dollar a piece is somehow worth losing control of what you can do with media that you have purchased. -
Re:And...
When will they outlaw razor blades that only fit one razor?
Only when they can't buy safery razor blades and double edge razor blades and you have to go to a Gillette. There is a standard razor format still out there. The blades fit box cutters and paint scrapers, art tools, medical tools, as well as razors. You can buy the blades at either the grocery store, drug store, or hardware store. Your other option is to go the single vendor lock-in route. You don't have to pirate blades if you decide not to go with a single vendor solution.
You can't find many online music stores selling a variety of formats for several brands and functions of devices. This is the issue. I can buy several brands of razor blades at any one of the stores to fit my open format razor and can shop for the best brand and price. There is no online store selling competing brands of DRM content compatible with whatever brand of music player you happen to like. There is also no price and quality choices. If you buy online for your iPod, the only choice in the USA is 99 cents a track at the only quality level of 128Kbits. If you have a Zen, you can't buy compatible content for any price. If your device plays MP3's, you are SOL at the iTunes store. It's like having a safety razor and absolutely nobody sold blades for it so you had to rip your own from tin cans. (I know e-music, but try to buy any mainstream music there..)
Here are some examples of safety razor blades to fit your any name and function device that uses safety razor blades..
Mekur brand http://www.amazon.com/Merkur-Double-Safety-Blades- 3-Pack/dp/B0001XGNRK/sr=1-1/qid=1169789189/ref=sr_ 1_1/104-5655065-6533564?ie=UTF8&s=beauty
Auto Parts blades
http://www.parts4cars.com.au/cart.php?target=produ ct&product_id=19167&category_id=439
Feather brand
http://www.classicshaving.com/catalog/item/522941/ 906451.htm
Excel brand
http://www.dickblick.com/itemgroups-r/razorblades/
Wilkinson brand
http://www.blademail.co.uk/acatalog/Classic_Twin_E dge.html
Gem brand
http://www.2spi.com/catalog/tools/smtol14.shtml
There are more not listed here.. You can't mix music and players like you can razors. MP3 format works fine, but everyone wants to be the defacto DRM single vendor instead. -
Re:Wow...
A lethal dose of polonium-210 is an absorbed dose that will deposit about 600 rads (or 600 centigrays, cGy) of internal radiation exposure before it is eliminated from the body. Given its biological half-life of 30 days, this quantity can be calculated at 4 millicuries (4 mCi, 1.5x10^8 Bq) for an 80 kg man. This is only 0.9 micrograms. Not all of an orally administered dose will be absorbed, so the actual amount that would result in lethal poisoning is more than this.
The largest amount of Po-210 that can be purchased in the U.S. without a special license is 500 microcuries. The most abundant readily available commercial source for this is in Staticmaster® Brushes:
http://www.2spi.com/catalog/photo/statmaster.shtml
which contain 250 microcuries absorbed on a plastic resin. This is 2,500 times the amount in the source from United Nuclear. The Staticmaster replacement element (without the brush) can be bought for $20.
Extracting the polonium from, say, 30 Staticmaster elements would take a bit of skilled chemistry. The elements would need to be dissolved and the polonium freed, and it would then need to be concentrated into a modest amount of palatable material. Handling polonium is tricky, it is volatile and is notorious for its ability to "migrate" around the lab (which may account for the contamination found at various sites which Litvinenko visited).
It should be noted that Aleksandr Litvinenko was poisoned with far more than 4 millicuries. A minimal lethal dose would take more than a week to accumulate enough exposure to cause apparent illness, and lethal levels would take a month or more to accumulate with death following weeks later. Litvinenko became ill within one day (it appears), and was dead just over three weeks later. Given the latency of death from Acute Radiation Syndrome (ARS), he must have accumulated a lethal dose within a day or so. The amount administered was likely dozens of times the lethal level.
One possible explanation for the rapid onset of illness and (for radiation poisoning) quick death is that the radiation-sensitive lining of his gastrointestinal system was destroyed before and during the absorption of the polonium. The gastrointestinal subsyndrome form of ARS is very lethal and kills in about three weeks. The transient concentration of polonium in the GI tissue would have been very high, and even polonium that was not absorbed would irradiate the lining. -
Re:antistatic brushes
Yes, available here for example. The 3" model ($47.84) has 500 uCi of polonium-210.
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Re:Polonium-210? What legitimate uses does it have
You can actually buy small amounts of the stuff OTC, in the form of a "Staticmaster" brush for removing dust from film negatives or other sensitive surfaces.
http://www.2spi.com/catalog/photo/statmaster.shtml
The alpha particles emitted from the source ionize the surrounding air, and neutralize any electrostatic charge holding dust particles to a surface. -
Re:Doesn't carbon fibre burn?
As someone who worked in a carbon fiber development lab in the eighties, I will agree that carbon fiber can burn.
But as the MSDS for carbon fiber points out:
Flammability classification: Not classified.
Flash Point/Method: Not known, but very high!
Auto-Ignition Temperature: Not determined
Flammable Limits: Lower: Not applicable
Upper: Not applicable
Carbon Fiber MSDS link