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Original article here (sorry, no free version available). I find ridiculous that they provide (mostly self) references to existing art, but they fail to mention commercial felt-tip silver pens.

By a quick look at the paper, their ink has a resistivity of 2*10^(-4) Ohm*cm (25 C print temperature) which is not so lower than the 5*10^(-4) Ohm*cm commercially available ink. They do reach lower resistivity, but with high temperature annealing, so it cannot be compared directly (and they fail to).

Maybe their ink is more flexible, but again they fail to provide comparison with existing ink.

Their ink has probably lower viscosity due to the use of nanoparticles (they are working between 1 and 10 Pa*s) and this probably allows for the use of rollerball pens, but if felt-tip pens are working fine with a most likely cheaper ink, why should I care?

However they do manage to master the acronyms creation art, providing the catchy PoP shorthening for their groundbreaking pen-on-paper circuit drawing approach...

They invented a product that has been available for over 20 years....

http://www.mgchemicals.com/products/pens.html

What's next from these ingenious companies?

That product in general has been around something in excess of 40 years. Mostly used to repair scratched car rear-view mirrors.

They invented a product that has been available for over 20 years....

http://www.mgchemicals.com/products/pens.html

What's next from these ingenious companies?

I agree too that it's too early to start making laws specifically for climate change.

Any laws based on environmental reasons need to be well thought out. As an example of a huge failure: California's Volatile Organic Compound regulations don't allow electronics cleaners to contain more than 75% VOCs. So, 99% isopropyl alcohol is no-go.

Common HFC Propellants 134A and 152A are exempt.

So, in order to bring down their Isopropyl electronics cleaners to 75%VOC, manufacturers are mixing the alcohol down to 75% with a propellant and selling it as an aerosol instead.

Same amount of alcohol vapour gets into the air, but now they have to add some greenhouse gasses to make it legal.

http://www.mgchemicals.com/news/newsletterQ8/article101206.html

And, as briefly mentioned in that Penn and Teller episode, there's the whole DDT thing. Mass overuse of DDT was an environmental problem, so it was banned outright.

Not a huge problem here in North America, but in many parts of the world where malaria is a serious problem, they lost one of the best defenses, and a lot of people died, and are still dying.

Environmental laws are important, but they need to be properly planned, and not hastily implemented by politicians who know nothing about it, except that it makes them look "green" and gets votes.

It's a 500ml bottle of "MG Chemicals Isopropyl Alcohol 99.953% Pure anhydrous". Yummy. And it has a squirty thing on it.

http://www.mgchemicals.com/products/824.html

It was expensive - I'm damn sure it's not $8 worth - but it was a squirty bottle and they'd run out of the cheap stuff (in non-squirty bottles) at the local supermarket anyway. And besides I was buying air dusters and little lint-free dust wipe thingies and a bunch of other trinkets they just don't sell at supermarkets.. $8 is by the by for the convenience of not spending that driving to yet another supermarket to find a better deal.

I think back and I have spent more on a cup of coffee from time to time..

Mg chemicals are good products, really love their nu trol control cleaner/lube. http://www.mgchemicals.com/products/401b.html
I believe Fluorocarbon solvents are used often for this cleaning purpose, but are environmentaly unfriendly, Here is a website I found with a few options: http://www.computronics.com.au/electrolube/solclean/

I have an old (circa 1980) roll of rosin-core eutectic solder, that I don't use any more because of the lead.

I also have a recently purchased some mgchemicals 4900-112G, it is 96.3Sn, 0.7Cu, 3Ag, with a "no clean" flux. It works ok with my old soldering ironing, flows nicely, no idea how it does with tin whiskers. I'm not getting a lot of trouble with cold joints, and I do push my luck (lots of free-hand work, for instance, in-place soldering of LEDs for under-cabinet lights).

MG Chemicals' Part number 832-TC. Conformal coating doesn't conduct heat well and is designed for a very thin coating.

You'd probably want to make sure any heatsink fins are exposed though.

...if there's any kind of transparent film, it will likely impede electrical current. I think you know not of what you speak. Isopropyl alcohol, especially if you get 90% or so, is about all that is in electrical contact cleaner.

Well, I do know of what I speak. Been working in electronics for a long time.
Funny that "howstuffworks" link doesn't provide any references to back up their "facts".
It may be true that the cheap products that call them selves contact cleaner are nothing more than isopropyl. The real commercial grade contact cleaner is much more than that.

The WHOLE POINT is to remove any films or dirt that prevent connection.

That's a little short sighted. If you want the device to last it is important to clean AND protect the contacts. Even if you don't care about the cart you can damage the mating connector inside the unit (gold plating is measured in microns).

Here are a few examples of contact cleaner with lubricant;
http://www.cpcares.com/TAE/puretronics/TAE-5000.html
http://www.mgchemicals.com/products/404b.html
http://www.mgchemicals.com/products/801b.html

...if there's any kind of transparent film, it will likely impede electrical current. I think you know not of what you speak. Isopropyl alcohol, especially if you get 90% or so, is about all that is in electrical contact cleaner.

Well, I do know of what I speak. Been working in electronics for a long time.
Funny that "howstuffworks" link doesn't provide any references to back up their "facts".
It may be true that the cheap products that call them selves contact cleaner are nothing more than isopropyl. The real commercial grade contact cleaner is much more than that.

The WHOLE POINT is to remove any films or dirt that prevent connection.

That's a little short sighted. If you want the device to last it is important to clean AND protect the contacts. Even if you don't care about the cart you can damage the mating connector inside the unit (gold plating is measured in microns).

Here are a few examples of contact cleaner with lubricant;
http://www.cpcares.com/TAE/puretronics/TAE-5000.html
http://www.mgchemicals.com/products/404b.html
http://www.mgchemicals.com/products/801b.html

I've used this to strip logos before, as long as the plastic can take it, this will wipe them off with only one or two "swipes".

Every computer repair shop knows about this trick. Generally it's not done in a freezer, however, it's done with circuit cooler. This only works (obviously) if it's a problem with the circuit board and that the heads haven't in fact crashed or have some other mechanical problem. This works because it causes connections to expand and work for the temporary period that they're cold. You can also remove the circuit board from a working hard drive and swap it with the non-working hard drive for a permanent effect. If you have a head crash or other mechanical problem, generally you need the services of a clean room to retrieve the data.

Not too hard I would think to coat the motherboard.

Its called 'Conformal Coating', avaliable in silicon or acrylic as a spray-on.

You could just mask off a few sections of the motherboard (CPU socket, card connectors) and spray the board. Or just assemble it and spray the whole thing...