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EMI AND ESD protection differ. http://multimedia.mmm.com/mws/mediawebserver.dyn?6666660Zjcf6lVs6EVs666bOjCOrrrrQ-

Cray has since moved on from the stuff for their middle range computers, but their iconic old big cylinder super computers were completely chock full of the stuff. I found something from 2002 that indicates they still use it in their highest end equipment: http://www.cray.com/downloads/crayx1_dhbrown.pdf

It's also used at SLAC for cooling electronics: http://www-conf.slac.stanford.edu/bfactory-decom/Talks/Wisniewski2.pdf

Looks like it's also used to cool industrial equipment that can't be exposed to reactive chemicals, like wafer ion implantation systems: http://multimedia.mmm.com/mws/mediawebserver.dyn?6666660Zjcf6lVs6EVs666YNqCOrrrrQ-

Would I be correct in assuming that the total number wasn't strikingly higher?

The school quotes tuition as $3500. With all of the buy-outs, it's $4200 (this year). You have to volunteer for bingo. You have to sell bread, chocolates, raffle tickets, Pre-Christmas shopping tickets, candy and so on. Children are not permitted to work bingo because that's gambling and the State does not allow that so busy parents must carve out time. My issue is that it's "mandatory volunteerism."

My wife was constantly wanting to buy things for her students that we couldn't well afford - we had to frequently chat about which items were luxuries and which were really efficient, reusable tools. And sometimes we bought lumber instead of an expensive finished good and I was assigned to the table saw.

How are her writing skills? Has she and has the school considered writing for grant money from some of the retailers and corporations in your area? Where is the Principal and the Administration? Giving to local schools is seen as a way to expiate corporate sins in the eyes of the consumers who buy from them. I also realize that she is one teacher in a large school and something like this needs to be coordinated. I also realize she's working hard, probably on a Masters degree as well as the daily lesson plans and test grading. Also, I would suggest that she ask parents of children in her class to collect boxtops from the various tissue and cereal makers and send them in with her students. It really takes nothing to collect these things and throw them into an envelope for the school and they do result in some needed cash for the district, if not the school.

Mind you, I am not suggesting your local and state government abdicate its responsibility to our children.

I admit to being ignorant of the specifics of the regional legislative actions, but I do hold out hope for both the teachers and students.

Here is what they did in Delaware and Kansas: The Top-Down approach. The Kansas State School Board redefined "Science" and then bought millions of "science" books that included language that specifically was designed to cast doubt on evolution as a theory, essentially reducing it to the level of hypothesis. Then the Theory of "Intelligent" Design was offered with no aspersions to its validity and introduced as "new" and "perhaps superior." If you study theories on how the planets formed, the new ones tend to be considered the most correct and tend to be presented that way to students. This creates a bias.

[W]e covered spontaneous generation as a theory. We also covered Pasteur's refutation of it.

Thas is how science should work. Students should see widely-accepted theories that have been disproven and read the refutations. I also was informed on another theory of evolution called Lamarckian. We studied the issue of heuristics in hypothesis and how that can prove to be a trap. Sometimes these traps can serve as really advantageous accidents.

Check your MSDS. Both products have an ozone depeletion potential of zero - there's no chlorine in them. Fluorinert's 100-year global warming potential is very high - over 5000. Novec, on the other hand (assuming you mean HFE-7100), has a 100-year GWP of 320, which is about the same level as nitrous oxide. It's not the best, but then again it's also in the company's best interest to make sure none of it gets into the atmosphere - it's expensive as hell, so letting it evaporate is like watching money blow away. With this taken into account, I'd probably say that Novec 7100 is the "greener" choice.

Check your MSDS. Both products have an ozone depeletion potential of zero - there's no chlorine in them. Fluorinert's 100-year global warming potential is very high - over 5000. Novec, on the other hand (assuming you mean HFE-7100), has a 100-year GWP of 320, which is about the same level as nitrous oxide. It's not the best, but then again it's also in the company's best interest to make sure none of it gets into the atmosphere - it's expensive as hell, so letting it evaporate is like watching money blow away. With this taken into account, I'd probably say that Novec 7100 is the "greener" choice.

I am also using the 3M Ergonomic Mouse (see picture) and am very happy with it.

With it, you use your thumb for clicking and your whole hand for mouse movements (which may take a day to get used to), so your carpal tunnel stays nearly completely stress-free. But you do need a proper support for your elbow/underarm, either on the table or on your seats armrest.

With the Zero Tension Mouse you still use your index/middle finger to click, which still stresses your carpal tunnel somewhat. But it does give you a thumb scroll wheel, which the 3M Mouse doesn't have.

So, yes, parent is right, the Zero Tension Mouse is nothing new and doesn't look like it is in any way superior to the 3M Ergonomic Mouse.

At work, we have entire rooms stockpiled with the stuff, as well as large buildings full of people who research and develop new tape, and even people to produce said tape. This also might have something to do with the fact that I happen to work at 3M, but that doesn't make it any less true.

Mineral Oil is not nice stuff

Did you see the parts about flammable and a respiratory hazard?

What's next? A guy who uses gasoline for liquid cooling?

May I recommend Fluorinert FC-70?

You don't use enough of the stuff to fill the whole room! From this pdf:

NOAEL (No Observed Adverse Effect Level): 10%
Use Concentration: 4-6%
Safety Margin: 67-150%

In comparison, the same data for other fire retardants:

CO2 NOAEL: (N/A)
CO2 Use Concentration: 30-75%
CO2 Safety Margin: Lethal at Use Concentration

Halon NOAEL: 5%
Halon Use Concentration: 5%
Halon Safety Margin: 0%

Inert Gas NOAEL: 43%
Inert Gas Use Concentration: 38-40%
Inert Gas Safety Margin: 7-13%

I think I'd much rather have this stuff around for fire protection than the alternatives.

Incidentally, you can drink the stuff!

Offtopic, but the submitter opened the door: according to their specs sheet (PDF warning), this stuff has a boiling point of 49.2C (120.6F). Processors burn hotter than that, how useful would it still be for cooling purposes if it were a gas? I also have to wonder what the long-term effects of exposure would be... it's one thing to dunk a laptop for a few seconds, it's something else entirely to have it swimming all day long. At least your machine would never catch on fire.

They might have some information there about how well the stuff will conduct heat, but I got a lousy grade in Chemistry, so I'll leave it to the experts. ;)

The Cray 2 used FC 74 fluorinert, which is no longer produced by 3m. It is apparently identical to FC77, which is described on the msds as "PERFLUORO COMPOUNDS, (PRIMARILY COMPOUNDS WITH 8 CARBONS)". Nice and vague.

I believe the above-referenced liquid N2 cooling project (and others) used 3M's Fluorinert as their coolant medium.

3M has information on it here in PDF format.

Just don't drink the stuff, sounds nasty...

for the time and effort spent on this -- get some flourinert and just full-submerge your PC. a gallon is ~500 bux, cheaper if you buy more. Or hook up with somebody with access to some and buy used liquid for cheap ;-) -- it's used in all sorts of high precision equipment(s)

Couldn't you come up with some kind of translucent bump on the surface to indicate tactile reference points? Use dots of scotch tape or some kind of epoxy that doesn't hurt the surface. Better yet, try these adhesive BumpOns from 3M. Here's some that are transparent acrylic dots.I bet you always wondered where to get those little acrylic dots. These things stick to glass, wood or metal. They stick firm and handle abuse, but come off with no residue.

I've been searching for mouse alternatives today, due to a bout of carpal tunnel syndrome. 3m offers a money back gtd. so I will try them first and if that doesnt work, I plan on giving the whale mouse a try.

Well, they froze that hideously expensive compound, and say that they didn't expect that. This is the first question that comes to mind!

If you go to3M's website, we read:
Key properties: typical boiling point: 155C, pour point: -57C, dielectric strength: 46KV (0.01 inch gap), dielectric constant (1KHz): 1.89.

And they tried to cool it down to -190C!!!
HELLO!!! ANYBODY HOME?
------------------------------------------- ------

In the article, there is a link to 3M's page about Flourinert. Basically, it doesn't conduct electricity, plus it has lots of other good properties, like drying with no residue. Cool stuff.

The EXFO Live Fiber Detector, along with the 3M Photodyne tool work in a similar way: Momentarily bend an optical fiber and catch some of the photons that wander out. They can distinguish between a dark fiber, one with an "optical tone" (1kHz modulated light), and one with a live signal on it. The question is, are there enough photons there to reconstruct the actual signal, or just enough to distinguish it?

At the office end, ADC makes Optical Splitters which are perfect for monitoring optical traffic, just like the MON jacks built into most copper (T-1 and T-3) cross-connect systems. The only problem here is that the NSA has to make their presence known, and might have to present *gasp* a warrant!
Technically, it's trivial to get at the signal in question. Whether they can do anything with the data at that point, is a much more difficult question to answer.

Aside from the obvious problem of sifting through all the voice and data traffic on these lines, you need to identify the parties involved in an interesting call. This would require monitoring the SS7 link and possibly having access to the SCP(s) involved. Simply hearing a conversation doesn't do a lot of good unless you know who was speaking.

The EXFO Live Fiber Detector, along with the 3M Photodyne tool work in a similar way: Momentarily bend an optical fiber and catch some of the photons that wander out. They can distinguish between a dark fiber, one with an "optical tone" (1kHz modulated light), and one with a live signal on it. The question is, are there enough photons there to reconstruct the actual signal, or just enough to distinguish it?

At the office end, ADC makes Optical Splitters which are perfect for monitoring optical traffic, just like the MON jacks built into most copper (T-1 and T-3) cross-connect systems. The only problem here is that the NSA has to make their presence known, and might have to present *gasp* a warrant!
Technically, it's trivial to get at the signal in question. Whether they can do anything with the data at that point, is a much more difficult question to answer.

Aside from the obvious problem of sifting through all the voice and data traffic on these lines, you need to identify the parties involved in an interesting call. This would require monitoring the SS7 link and possibly having access to the SCP(s) involved. Simply hearing a conversation doesn't do a lot of good unless you know who was speaking.

This is my vote (post?) on the best hack ever:

longevity - Its a classic that will be talked about (and used?) for many years to come.
social/tech impact - It has both. Who has never used one of these little yellow guys? And who has never used a digital one?
elegance - It was created by the need to "scratch an itch". It was created using glue that was apparently impossible.
I.S.H.T.o.T-quality - Blah - this is the ultimate example of it. An idea so obvious that anyone could have thought of it and yet...

And the main reason I choose this one is that it is also the easiest way to crack passwords (read postit stuck on monitor) so being the biggest defn. of "hack" possible.*grin*

email: 3->e

3M makes a product that is like a thin layer of film inside a tube that you put a light at one end and it illuminates the whole length of the tube. I saw a demo a couple of years ago, I don't know if they make them in cubicle-lighting size, though. The one I saw was pretty big. Try their website and search on 'light pipe' Another big minus for flourescents is the disposal. The Knucklehead I bought my house from had the living room decked out with a drop ceiling, aluminum foil on the actual ceiling, and no less than 20 48" tubes. Buzzed like a swarm of locusts. Add the 12 fixtures in the basement, the stockpile of burned out bulbs, and I'm sitting on like 2 pounds of Hg, and they cost money to get rid of!

[...] Precision Mousing Surface [...]

I bought one of these today, and it's really, really nice. Highly recommended, despite all of the marketing cobblers on 3M's web site.