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Zinc Whiskers Cripple Colorado's Computers
Mr. Christmas Lights writes "While zinc whiskers, small metallic fibers which grow on surfaces that have been electroplated with zinc, aren't a problem for Christmas lights, they can cause serious problems for computers. The Denver Post reports how they caused computer outages for the last three weeks in the Colorado secretary of state's office. This basically halted business and elections document filings. Zinc whiskers are becoming more of a problem as computers electronics get smaller. NASA has a good reference site which includes a interesting PDF summary paper complete with pictures. /.'ers with computer rooms might want to check this out."
Shocking! /sorry, couldn't resist.
Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey trousers.
...with a magnet!
I'm probably at the karma cap. Mod up a funny troll instead, it lightens the mood
Zinccccccc Zinnnccccc! Oh my god what have I done!
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I guess we have to shave all zinc cats before we let them into the building.
Never attribute to stupidity what can be construed as a monopoly preservation tactic.
... amazinc.
Zinc Whiskers? Hey, they stole my username!
Ok, no they didn't.
#931654: "Sorry, our computers seem to be growing metallic whiskers. What did you say your username was? bwahahahahaha"
bash: rtfm: command not found
technology rears its cold head, and the zinc-whiskered men and women of the airplane and car rise up against their fathers...
I've had a similar problem with zinc wiskers. I live in southwest Missouri, the zinc capital of the world, and every morning I wake up with a five o'clock shadow of old Atomic Number 30. I find that the Mach3Turbo from Gillette is the best solution to the problem. Word of advice- never use an electric razor, especially if you've recently washed you're face with water. Trust me, it's a volatile mixture.
I work tech support. I can't wait to start using this as an explanation of all sorts of things:
Customer: When I go on mah Innernet, I get this error 'bout id not bein' displayed.
Me: Sir, it looks like you've fallen victom to Zink Wiskers. No sir, you don't need to get rid of your cats.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
They'll do anything to keep Nader off the ballot in a swing state. :-)
dinner: it's what's for beer
"It's not my code, it's the zinc whiskers"
As I recall, old computer used to suffer from mice chewing on the wires and they used to keep a cat to keep the programs running smoothly. Then it was bugs and I am not sure if spiders helped or added to the problem.
I, for one, welcome our new zinc-eating nanobots.