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Do Your $20 Bills Explode In the Microwave?
msaulters writes "After repeatedly setting off RFID scanners in a truck stop, the author discovered the culprit was a wad of $20's in his back pocket. In a paranoid attempt to keep the government from tracking him, he attempted to fry the embedded chips in his microwave, with interesting results." Alex Jones has interesting theories about a number of things, but evidently a lot of readers were interested in this one.
First off, having worked at a Kmart for several years, I have a pretty good idea how the antitheft systems currently in place in most stores and libraries work, and they don't yet use RFID tags; they use some sort of magnetized strip that is then demagnetized by a magnetic pulse or a powerful magnet at the counter (thus the warning not to set credit cards on or near the demagnetizers, lest they be demagnetized too). In fact, RFID tags as the retailers are thinking of using them are partially intended to replace such a system (and partially to replace bar code scanners). Given that RFID tags are barely even starting to be used by distributors, you're not going to convince me that a truck stop of all places is at the head of the technology curve using this expensive equipment that almost no manufacturers even support anyway. Thus, even if an RFID tag was embedded in the money, that shouldn't set off a magnetic antitheft system at all, because the system is looking for something entirely different altogether.
Second, these magnetic antitheft systems are capable of being set off by odd things, such as items of personal electronics or odd bits of metal. (Heck, I even remember seeing one recent news story about a kid who sets off those scanners just by walking through them without anything in his pockets at all, just because his body happens to generate the precise frequency of electromagnetic energy they're keyed to.)
Third, RFID tag or not, those new bills do happen to have a strip of metal foil running through them, right at about the point of Jefferson's left eye...to make counterfeiting harder, you see. And when you subject metallic material to microwave energy, it heats up quickly...that's just basic physics.
So I'm willing to believe that the bills set off ordinary electromagnetic anti-theft detectors just by reflecting the microwaves in some funky way. (Or heck, maybe they even are magnetized in a way that anti-theft detectors can pick up...or at least can become so magnetized, since I doubt that they're all that way...if everybody shopping with new twenties was setting off anti-theft systems, we'd be hearing about that on the news, and the anti-theft system manufacturers would be making hasty adjustments or going out of business.) I'm even willing to believe that those foil strips will cause the money to scorch in the microwave. But it's one heck of a leap to conclude that this is because of Evil RFID Tags That The Nasty Gum'mint Is Sneaking Into Our Money.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Of course, as a previous poster pointed out... There are not RFID tags in money! It's just a bit of wire to help stop counterfiting.
No, that's a myth.
The only thing that would be against the law is defacing currency and attempting to use it in commerce. So we learned in Business Law.
metallic ink. same thing will happen if you microwave checks, I expect, around the numbers, which are printed in magnetic MIRC ink.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
FYI, if you take a green grape and slice it down the middle the long way, and leave the two halves still connected, it'll spark
GENERATION O98346: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig and remove a random number from the generation. T
In fact, there's an address in Washington D.C. to which you could send the remains of destroied bills and they'll do their best to piece things together and redeem the value of the pile... yep, it really exists.
Once you aquire the money by legal means, it becomes yours so you can do to it as you please.
I once worked at a cutlery corporation where they demonstrated scissors by cutting up coins. and they told us its legal, so if the company gets fried for that, not my fault.
A morning without coffee is like something without something else.
Umm, either my twenties are borked or my microwave... or... these guys are full of shit!! I can't reproduce the effect at all here. There must be something else going on here. Like an attempt to create an urban legend...
====
Crudely Drawn Games
I have no idea what game this guy is playing, but this tale is complete rubbish.
First of all, if there is an RFID tag in a $20 bill (and I doubt it, given the state of the technology), nobody has RFID tag readers in retail stores. In fact, so far as I know, nobody even has such equipment on the market. Store security systems are a completely different system.
There's no reason to even consider a second point.
This is complete, utter bullshit.
It may cause problems in other ways. I believe that one method that vending machine bill readers use to verify authenticity and denomination of an inserted bill is by reading the magnetic ink signature of the bill. If you wipe that, the bill may be come unusable in bill reader mechanisms.
Other methods include conductivity testing and optical and flourescent recognition.
This link describes some of the methods that modern bill readers may use to authenticate paper money:
http://money.howstuffworks.com/question269.htm
-Crolis
Actually, $1000 in cash is not all that much for a trucker to carry.
Remember most long distance truckers are on the road for a week at a time. This includes tolls, fuel, food, etc. I did a rough calculation a trip from Ontario to New York and back cost about $500 out of pocket. And lots of truckers transport fruit from California.
There are no RFID tags in US currency. There is no METAL in US currency. I just microwaved a new $20 for over two min. in a 2000 watt microwave oven to no effect (aside from being warm). And lastly, the new $20 bills do NOT set off anti-theft systems. The photos are obvious photoshops. Slashdot is slowly becoming the new Weekly World News.
"Jeremy, you need to get to an internet cafe and cut and paste some appropriate sentiments about me from the world wide
Note the use of the words FRAUDULENTLY and REISSUED, that is to say, the treasury will not be able to replace the bill. Slightly fscking up the currency is not likely to be sufficient to land you in federal-pound-me-in-the-ass prison unless by some monumental feat of idiocy you were trying to mutilate a $20 into something passing as a $100 as when people try to turn $20 into $60 by cutting off the corners and taping them to $1s. THAT is the kind of "mutilation" the law speaks of. Flattening a penny is not illegal. Melting it into something resembling a quarter, on the other hand, is quite definitely illegal.
US Code Title 18, Part I, Chapter 17
Section 331
Whoever fraudulently alters, defaces, mutilates, impairs, diminishes, falsifies, scales, or lightens any of the coins coined at the mints of the United States, or any foreign coins which are by law made current or are in actual use or circulation as money within the United States; or
Whoever fraudulently possesses, passes, utters, publishes, or sells, or attempts to pass, utter, publish, or sell, or brings into the United States, any such coin, knowing the same to be altered, defaced, mutilated, impaired, diminished, falsified, scaled, or lightened -
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both
Section 333
Whoever mutilates, cuts, defaces, disfigures, or perforates, or unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association, or Federal Reserve bank, or the Federal Reserve System, with intent to render such bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt unfit to be reissued, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.
Now look here, my good chap....
Amazing thing, this Google. I just did 'British slang "fair cop" ' and hit "I'm feeling Lucky!" (because I was), and there you have it. Fair cop, eh wot?
It'll be a shame when SCO sues Google out of business...
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
The history and composition of pennies!
In Sweden it's illegal to destroy (swedish) currency.
Martin
Defacement of Currency
Defacement of currency is a violation of Title 18, Section 333 of the United States Code. Under this provision, currency defacement is generally defined as follows: Whoever mutilates, cuts, disfigures, perforates, unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association, Federal Reserve Bank, or Federal Reserve System, with intent to render such item(s) unfit to be reissued, shall be fined not more than $100 or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.
Feeling with fingernails over Jackson's eyes yields no bump, either.
I get a feeling that IHBT. IWHAND.
While it is true that you can only purchase the exact blend used for US currency if you are the treasury department Krane Super White cotton paper feels identical so you can use that if you wish to simply pass the feel test =) You would lack the off color imperfections, watermark, and foil strip but you would probably be sucessfull 99+% of the time. Not that I advocate passing false currency, that's just dumb. The Secret Service WILL have your ass for it.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I don't know about the serial number, but you need 60% of the bill. Otherwise, we could all double our money with a pair of scissors and a ruler :)
I don't think they print $2 bills any more.
Yes, they do. You can even buy uncut sheets of them from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. I'm sure they're not as actively circulated nowadays, but they're definitely still printed. See the US Bureau of Engraving and Printing website for more info.
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
The $2 bill isn't just something from back in the days of the silver note.
It was brought back into circulation in 1976, and has at least one other printing since then. They're even less popular/used than the $1 coin, so it's not surprising that you think that they're relics of the past instead of mundane, valid currency.
A picture for your pleasure
Laugh while you can, monkey-boy!
I was interested so I looked at the Amana website. A simple explanation is "Sensor Cook uses a humidity sensor to automatically calculate cooking time and power level. No guesswork."
This guy seems to be closest to the target, I think. The reason ants don't fry is that the majority of the microwaves 'miss' them. The ant is smaller than the microwave wavelength (which varies between 10^-1 and 10^-4 meters), and so can miss the crests, so to speak, and avoid frying.
I think it fried all of the bills in the same spot because all of the bills had similar orientation and position, and Jackson's eye was right over a spot of peak intensity. Microwaves don't cook evenly; that's all he's demonstrated.
while (!sleep){
sheep++;
}
No. According to these guys it's 97.5% zinc, not aluminum. It's got a 2.5% copper skin.
Actually, being very forgetful, I often leave my wallet in my pants when I take them off, and then end up washing it. What do I do if I'm in a hurry and have a wet wallet? I leave the wallet to dry itself, but I microwave the money so I don't pay for things with soggy bills. Am I the only one who does this? I've never had any problem with this exploding stuff, btw...
Karma: Bad (mostly due to all those "In Soviet Russia" jokes)
Just so you know, metal does the same thing to microwaves that it does to other electromagnetic radiation: in the absence of a ground, the metal (such as aluminum foil or metal strips in bills) will simply reflect the microwave radation.
The issue is when there is not a sufficient quantity of water (food, glass of water, etc) to absorb the microwaves; they will collide, cause sparks, etc. The metal will resonate and eventually heat up.
Cover your food with aluminum foil and you get sparks. Leave a spoon lying on the plate next to a helping of food and you've got no problem. You just need a sufficient quantity of water inside the chamber to absorb the radiation.
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
Money for nothing, pix for free
US paper currency is printed with an intaglio process whereby the (slightly conductive) ink is rolled onto plates and then the paper is pressed into the plates (rather than the plates being pressed into the paper on most presses.) IE the RECESSED parts of the plates hold the ink, not the bits that stick up.
The effective result of using this printing method can be felt on the bill. On a new bill the ink will be coarse and raised off of the paper. The lines will be very crisp and solid. There will be no 'breaks' even microscopic in the ink.
Since it's slightly conductive (it has some metals in it and whatnot) and the lines (and crosshatching etc) are pretty well continuous it's going to be an excellent absorber of microwave energy. Without anything else in the microwave to absorb the energy better than the money, it's likely the ink near the portrait is going to get really hot really fast. This is pretty much what I'd expect from microwaving money.
All that being said, the RFID equipment or the security equipment that this money was falsely triggering must be some of the cheapest crap on the market!
microwaves don't cook evenly. they're *waves*. they resonate and form standing waves in the chamber of the oven. just like sound. jackson's eye happened to be at a peak of one of these standing waves. since the bills were in a stack, the peak was in the same spot on all the bills.
put any old piece of paper (or more fun, a plate of marshmallows) into a microwave that doesn't have a working turntable. you'll get a pattern of burn marks. you can even measure the distance between them to calculate the wavelength of the microwaves if you want to. basic physics.
this isn't even a *good* conspiracy theory.
The sparks that fly off metal objects like pop tart bags and CD's are caused by poor insulation in the microwave cavity.
Kinda, but not quite.
Sparks on metal objects is caused by uneven voltage developed on the surface of the object because of an uneven surface, uneven radiation pattern, or both.
Because microwaves are such high frequency and the wattages of most ovens is high (most are around 1 kilowatt), high voltages are easily developed and can leap short distances.
Once the spark leaps once, it ionizes the air along the path making subsequent arcs occur at lower voltage.
Once current flows, as in an arc of this type, the metal will heat up very rapidly and could easily burn paper. I suspect uneven radiation (or even minute flaws) of the metal strips in the bills caused arcing between them, which burned through the paper.
There's normally no insulation in the microwave cavity of the oven because the goal is to reflect the microwaves off ground (the metal surfaces surrounding the cavity) until they can be absorbed by water molecules, causing them to heat up, thus cooking the food.
This is why you are normally advised not to run the microwave oven with nothing in it: the microwaves can bounce around the oven and manage to heat the magnetron instead, causing it to burn out spectacularly.
All opinions presented here aren't mine.
The paper describes fancier options, such as only impersonating numbers in some given range so that it only blocks reading some kinds of items, like the serial numbers on 100 Euro banknotes.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Damn, did I set my watch wrong? Mine says it's March 1st, not April 1st.
http://www.federalreserve.gov/faq.htm
Who owns the Federal Reserve?
The Federal Reserve System is not "owned" by anyone and is not a private, profit-making institution. Instead, it is an independent entity within the government, having both public purposes and private aspects.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
It is against the law. Men with earpieces and black suits could come knocking.
Defacement of currency is a violation of Title 18, Section 333 of the United States Code. This comes under the jurisdiction of the United States Secret Service.
Here's the relevant bit of the US Code:
Whoever mutilates, cuts, defaces, disfigures, or perforates, or unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association, or Federal Reserve bank, or the Federal Reserve System, with intent to render such bank bill, draft, note,or other evidence of debt unfit to be reissued, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.
People seem to think there are RFID tags in Euro bills. Let me clearify that they are not there (yet). They try to add them by 2005, according to the eetimes.
I am surprised the government doesn't encourage people to do more destroying of money. When you lose or destroy a dollar bill, the government can print and spend a replacement without causing inflation.
You know, all of those State Quarters that people collect with fervor are almost pure profit for the mint. I mean, it's like the mint has a license to print money!!!!
It is illegal in the United States too.
...but they are openly admitting to committing a felony. It is highly illegal to damage or destroy money intentionally.
Loading...
You are correct that our currency is not backed by precious metals, and is only worth whatever someone will give you for it. However, gold is only worth what someone will give you for it as well, but fiat currency has the advantage that the government can control the total supply of money, and thus limit inflation.
Will someone please mod the parent post back down? Maybe, "-1, Skipped Economics Class?"
Shockwave Flash movies are the greatest thing to happen to non-sequitur humor since Japan.
http://www.federalreserve.gov/faq.htm#frsq3
Who owns the Federal Reserve?
The Federal Reserve System is not "owned" by anyone and is not a private, profit-making institution. Instead, it is an independent entity within the government, having both public purposes and private aspects.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
As the US Dept. of Treasury informs us here, they no longer produce $5,000 and $10,000 bills. but they do accept them as legal currency.
US Code, Title 18, Section 331: Mutilation, diminution, and falsification of coins
Whoever fraudulently alters, defaces, mutilates, impairs, diminishes, falsifies, scales, or lightens any of the coins coined at the mints of the United States, or any foreign coins which are by law made current or are in actual use or circulation as money within the United States; or
Whoever fraudulently possesses, passes, utters, publishes, or sells, or attempts to pass, utter, publish, or sell, or brings into the United States, any such coin, knowing the same to be altered, defaced, mutilated, impaired, diminished, falsified, scaled, or lightened -
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
There's a ton of great things in the US Code if you know where to look.
>> Group it into: ( 2 * 3 ) * 2/3$
Dang, they've thought of EVERYTHING.
US Code, Title 18 Sec. 484. Connecting parts of different notes
Whoever so places or connects together different parts of two or more notes, bills, or other genuine instruments issued under the authority of the United States, or by any foreign government, or corporation, as to produce one instrument, with intent to defraud, shall be guilty of forgery in the same manner as if the parts so put together were falsely made or forged, and shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both.
Which, ironically, is the same thing that happened in Japan a few years ago. The law, at the time, was that 90% of the bill had to exist to have it replaced. Some clever criminal types decided to cut 10% off of 9 10,000 yen ($100 dollar) bills, and reassemble it to be 10 90% complete bills. These were then redeemed (mostly at gambling institutions) for proper bills, and the cycle was continued. Needless to say, the law has since been changed.
This is not unique to where you live, wallets with leftover anti-theft tags are one of the most common things to set of alarms.
It has happened to me, and when it did, that was the first thing the security guy suggested; he said it was very common.
i work at a convenience store/gas station. this provides many opportunities for microwave experimentation. when it rains outside, people tend to pay with soaking wet bills. i regularly dry them by microwaving them for about 10-20 seconds. (we have a higher-wattage industrial microwave.) i have never witnessed any burning like this before, but i usually just microwave smaller bills like 1s and 5s (which, of course, have the older design).
i have, however, seen paper napkins burn and look like this when left in the microwave for a rather long time---say, several minutes. usually this happens when drunk people heat something and forget to turn off the microwave (when not using the timer). since wood pulp napkins would mostly be cellulose, and U.S. paper currency is made from a special blend of cotton (about 90% cellulose) and linen (about 70% cellulose, i think), then i would expect any bill to burn similarly if microwaved long enough.
oh---another fun thing to microwave is halogen bulbs. just about one second and they glow brighter than when they're plugged in.
go look at the picture... some were new, some were older...
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
This is way OT, but still hilarious enough to read again:
& ci d=4731395
http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=45779
"Study your math, kids. Key to the universe." -The Archangel Gabriel
You'd be better off to leave the foil at home and deal with some temporary embarrassment. Wrapping articles in aluminum foil in an attempt to defeat EAS surveillance is using a tool to help you disable an anti-theft device, and is a felony (Burglary).
"All animals are created equal, but some animals are more equal than others." - George Orwell
Just raise the taxes on crack.
Besides, I figured no one except Swedes would be interested in the specifics anyway.
Money for nothing, pix for free
As an employee of a TV station in Ohio I can tell you that there are no FEMA boxes and even the EAS system can be bypassed from the front panel (or the AC plug if you want to be quick about it)
RFIDs did not cause his money to burn. Microwaving the money caused the cloth to burn. I'm guessing that the microwave didn't have a carousel in it by the way the microwaves burned through one spot... What a jackass. The author never even mentions if he tried to take the money out of the wallet and walk through the scanner with just the money or just the wallet... There is probably an RFID embedded in the WALLET. I see these things all the time and sometimes they are well hidden, like under a flap. I hope the bank refuses to take back his burned money and then calls the FBI on him for destroying currency.
Russian Russian Russian RussianDollSig DollSig DollSig DollSig
The store theft detectors are not RFID scanners - they are highly "tuned" metal detectors. If it was the 20's setting it off, then it was probably the "USA $20" strip which has minute traces of metal.
Though I would add that this is a good one for Mythbusters!!!
You are quite right.
Actually it is not possible to place RFID tags into currency at this moment. No, not due to technology restriction but compliance. The ISO standard for currency states that all currency must not exceed a particular thickness (AFAIR its 1/8 inch). Currently no RFID tag is thin enough to meet this requirement.
all serial numbers are logged to each bank (as they are)
Serial numbers on cash are only logged by the Federal Reserve when shipping an order of new currency to a bank. It would be extrordinarily difficult for a bank to record the serial numbers on incoming deposits. Especially business deposits, which are normally shipped via amoured courier directly to a processing center. These deposits can have anywhere from 1 - 25000 bills.
The deposits are counted by large Toshiba currency sorters (Toshiba
Most banks are more worried about the volume of counted bills rather than capturing the serial number off the bill... It would simply take too long.
Get a stack of small sheets of paper (helps if they're slightly absorbant, blotting paper is ideal) and place a small drop of water on one, ensure that is it soaked up by the paper. Put the piece witht he wet spot somewhere near the middle of the stack and leave for a while (let the water soak into the adjacent sheets). With the paper still in the stack put it in a microwave oven and heat on full power for 30 seconds. Depending on the amount of water you put on the initial sheet you might see the paper catch fire in the oven and explode or when you get the stack out you might see a scorch mark on the sheet you put the water on and the sheets either side of it. Very much like the photographs of the $20 bills in the article.
Metal reflects microwaves, water is heated by microwaves. Seeing a burned spot demonstrates the presence of water, not an RFID chip. Microwaves destroy RFID chips much like static electricity destroys CMOS chips, the electric field generated (several thousand volts but tiny amounts of current over very short amouints of time) destroys the P-N junctions. The heating effect is negligable.
I've seen similar effects wiping magnetic tapes in a domestic microwave.
I can only assume that the affected spot on the writer's $20 bills had gotten damp (maybe there's something about the way the bills are made that makes that spot more absorbant).
Stephen
"Don't write down to your readers, the only people less intelligent than you can't read" - Sign on Newspaper Office Wall
I had the same problem, I walked into a store once alarms went off. It turned out my new wallet had a security tag tucked under the lining that was never deactivated.
That's called a 1 bit transponder in some of the RFID literature. So, yes, it is an RFID system. Here's a nice reference at amazon. You can search within the text for "1 bit transponder" if you like.
RFID Book
And here's a nice quote from page 1 of the book: '... vast numbers of 1 bit transponders are used in Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS) to protect goods in shops and businesses. If someone attempts to leave the shop with goods that have have not been paid for the reader installed in the exit recognises the state "transponder in the field" and initiates the appropriate reaction.'
Many of these systems operate by sensing the presence of multiple leaves of magnetic material, much like you would get from stack of the new 20s. So it's all that unlikely. One of the failings of the systems is that occasionally, non-nefarious objects resonate in the sensor field and false-trigger it. Coils of wire set off some of the systems; a close arrangement of magnetizable material sets off others.
Microwaves are non-ionizing anyway, so the worst that will happen in that situation is that you get a little warm. Well, ok, if you're expose long enough you could probably boil all of the water in your body, but that would take a really long time.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
His sig was a joke, get it?
There is a link at the end of that darwin awards story that says that it was a hoax.
...and the blatant bragging of Walmart and many corporations of using 'rfid' electronics on every marketable item by the year 2005.
I thought Walmart was pushing for all of their distributers to use RFID tags on each pallet or case of products, not every individual product...yet.
Just trying to point out this guy's exaggerated conspiracy theories and inaccurate information.
STOP.
Correct. Microwaves are nonionizing.
Correct. The only damage you will take is in the form of localized heating of your body parts.
Incorrect. There is a risk. There are no nerve endings in many places that are highly susceptible to heat damage - places like your brain, the vitreous humor in your eyeballs, and internal organs. If there's a warped/open door, or if you've gone one step further and defeated the safety interlock to power up a magnetron externally, you could be (relatively) safe in location X,Y,Z, but six inches next to X,Y,Z, the big reflecting metal plate of your fridge, your stovetop, and the hole in the homebrew shielding you created have created a local "hot spot" node where localized heating is much more rapid.
Play with a magnetron if you like, but be aware that by the time you feel warmth, it may already be too late.
(As long as the door is intact, as long as the safety interlocks are intact, and as long as you're not afraid of damaging the oven and/or are prepared with a Class C extinguisher to deal with a small fire that manages to escape the confines of the oven, there's relatively low risk. I'd consider the "fry a $20 bill" and "spark a CD" experiments safe, but your mileage may vary.)
"Defacement of currency is a violation of Title 18, Section 333 of the United States Code. Under this provision, currency defacement is generally defined as follows: Whoever mutilates, cuts, disfigures, perforates, unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association, Federal Reserve Bank, or Federal Reserve System, with intent to render such item(s) unfit to be reissued, shall be fined not more than $100 or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.
Defacement of currency in such a way that it is made unfit for circulation comes under the jurisdiction of the United States Secret Service."
I would say they didn't intend to render such item(s) unfit to be reissued....
They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty nor security
I recall hearing that cop is derived from the Latin verb "to capture".
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
Not true. Your college station may have been operating illegally, but all US stations, commercial or not, are required to maintain EAS equipment, monitor two other stations (unless they're one of the primary entry points), keep logs of tests, and participate in required monthly and weekly tests. Weekly tests must be forwarded within 1 hour, monthly tests must be regenerated within 1 hour (this is an expansion of the 15-minute rule - got passed last year). All stations are required to broadcast EAN alerts immediately (though, they do give you about one minute leeway). EAN, incidentally, has never been activated. That's the one where the President gets on the line and tells everyone to stick their heads between their knees.
Flipping off your transmitter will get you in trouble, and so will not rebroadcasting EAS alerts and tests... And both will be picked up not just by your listeners, but by the stations that are monitoring *your* station as one of their required 2. They'll report that you didn't forward if the FCC asks them, and when the inspector comes around to look at your logs of transmitted EAS tests and you have nothing to show, he'll walk out with your license. And most of your equipment.
-T
Maybe you'll take this advice in the spirit it's intended, maybe you'll just get more riled up...
Spelling well is a courtesy to others. It does you no end of good in your personal and professional life to be able to express your thoughts clearly using the conventions of written language that are implicitly and unambiguously understood by your audience, be it a college tutor, a manager, a girlfriend, or a bunch of strangers who you're trying to communicate with through an online discussion board. If you feel you have a problem with spelling, there's a simple way to get better at it: Read more.
And not just stuff you find online - read edited material. Books, newspapers, stuff that's been subjected to scrutiny by people who care about the conventions of spelling, grammar and punctuation. It'll help, trust me. And it'll do you a lot more good than just having a chip on your shoulder about all those jerks who keep complaining about your spelling.
INCORRECT -- heating is far from the worst.
/ 2/449, or google "microwave coagulation")
Microwaves are used medically for simultaneous cautery and coagulation during surgery.
(See http://www.ajronline.org/cgi/content/abstract/171
Medical microwave scalpels have 50-100W of output power, and are directed at specific tissues. Your 1200W GE Profile version is a bit "hotter" and a lot more random.
And random coagulation is bad (google thrombosis).
Beware: I believe all are created equal, and have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Perhaps the metal strip contained in all twenties is the reason the money blew up?
Holding the twenty up to a light with Jackson facing me, I can clearly see the strip just to the left of the zero on the left side. I checked an older "new" twenty and it's there and a new, new twenty and it's also there.
I'm not quite sure why this would cause Jackson's right eye to blow up, but it makes more sense than the RFID transmittor in every twenty.