The Story of Starlite, the 'Blast Proof' Material (bbc.com)

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The Story of Starlite, the 'Blast Proof' Material (bbc.com)

Posted by BeauHD on Monday October 1, 2018 @07:00PM from the lost-forever dept.

OpenSourceAllTheWay writes: The BBC has posted an interesting video series on "Starlite," a white paste developed in the 1970s and 1980s by British hairdresser Maurice Ward that could completely insulate any object it coated, like a raw egg or a piece of cardboard, against extreme heat sources -- even acetylene torches, nuclear blasts and lasers capable of heating an object to 10,000 degrees Celsius. Anything Starlite paste was smeared on could withstand extreme heat exposure without the coated object melting or combusting or heating at all in the process. The heat-proof paste got a lot of attention around the world when it was demonstrated on the BBC's Tomorrow's World TV program in 1990. Ward was an eccentric inventor -- not a classically trained scientist -- who came up with the formula for Starlite by experimenting wildly with different substances. He got the initial idea for Starlite when he was burning garbage in his backyard one day and one particular piece of garbage simply would not burn at all. Ward thought that Starlite would be worth billions when commercialized. He let NASA and other scientists test Starlite -- it did work as advertised -- but never allowed anyone to retain a sample of the substance, fearing that it could be reverse engineered. Starlite never was commercialized properly, and Ward died in 2011 without making the millions or billions he had imagined he would. Sadly, Ward took the chemical formula for Starlite to his grave with him. To this day, nobody knows the exact chemical composition of Starlite, or how one might go about recreating the substance.

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Nuclear blasts? Lasers? by Mathinker · 2018-10-01 19:09 · Score: 3, Informative

nuclear blasts and lasers
There are limits as to how well ordinary matter can resist the ionization of its electrons. As far as I know, energetic enough photons of the correct frequencies can convert anything into plasma.
1. Re:Nuclear blasts? Lasers? by Mathinker · 2018-10-01 19:22 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  In good Slashdot tradition, I posted before doing real research.
  It seems that the material might have been designed to disperse the incoming energy via slow ablation, in similar fashion as spacecraft reentry heat shields work.
  There are limits as to how well a non-moving object can survive this way, I think. Even if the shield absorbed all of the incoming energy, you still end up surrounded by a cloud of super-heated plasma. Anyone want to chime in?
2. Re:Nuclear blasts? Lasers? by surfcow · 2018-10-01 20:10 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Gosh,... on the one hand we have The Standard Model.
  On the other hand ... a dead hairdresser's undocumented process, without samples.
  Extreme claims require extreme evidence.
  It ain't there.
3. Re:Nuclear blasts? Lasers? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-01 20:21 · Score: 1
  
  From what I understood by the videos, it works by turning itself into solid carbon while at the same time expanding the foam between the carbonized surface and the object, thus making an even thicker insulating layer in between.
  I'm not sure if it works via ablation, but they did some tests heating it up and then touching the surface which were not hot, so I would believe that it's more about heat reflection than absorption.
  As for the withstanding of nuclear blasts, they mentioned it's thermal resistant, not blast resistant. So it would survive the heat of a nuclear blast, provided it doesn't get torn to pieces.
4. Re:Nuclear blasts? Lasers? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-01 21:09 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  >Extreme claims require extreme evidence.
  The quote is actually : extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
  The quote should be retired because it is wrong and perpetuates bullshit ideas about how science works.
  Extraordinary claims just require evidence, that is all. Reproducable, confirmed scientific evidence is all that is required.
  The only reason this quote is repeated so often is because of the individual from whom the quote originates.
5. Re:Nuclear blasts? Lasers? by arglebargle_xiv · 2018-10-01 21:59 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  The surrounding discussion indicates something ablative, or at least some form of sacrificial material in general:
  
  Mr Ward came to my lab about a year before his death needing help to turn what was essentially a party trick into a useable & commercialy viable product. The problem he had was although the powder component did exactly as it said on the tin, he had found no way of applying a lasting coating. All he really has was some powder mixed with PVA glue, the problem being that although you could apply it to certain objects it's longevity was no more than 2 weeks. While testing we discovered that a sample he'd kept for almost 10 years could be destroyed in a matter of minutes under a methylacetylene-propadiene propane blowtorch. Unfortunately after many samples & tests we where unable to find a effective application method & we parted company on good terms. Sadly this is the true reason why Mr Ward was never able to sell or bring his incomplete product to market
  As for the nuke-proof claims? Pure fantasy, unless you're quite a long distance from ground zero, but in that case vehicular armour or similar will provide the same level of protection.
6. Re:Nuclear blasts? Lasers? by MachineShedFred · 2018-10-01 22:33 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  You are close; it should be:
  On one hand we have The Standard Model.
  On the other, a dead hairdresser's undocumented process discovered while burning trash in his back yard in the 1970s , without samples.
  Whatever he came up with is roughly derivative of melted and slightly charred packaging and household waste from the UK in the 1970s. It's probably quite the cocktail of asbestos, brominated plastics, lead, and velvet smoking jackets. The formula is probably lost to the world, as we don't generate the same kind of toxic shit headed to the landfill anymore, and we have HOAs to prevent people from "improving" the neighborhood aroma by dumping household waste in a hole in the in the back yard, dousing it with diesel fuel, lighting it on fire, and being surprised by the God-knows-what carcinogenic goop left in the bottom of the hole that just! won't! burn!
  
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7. Re:Nuclear blasts? Lasers? by jythie · 2018-10-01 22:34 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Eh, I think it is still a good phrase. People tend to describe a claim as 'extraordinary' when it not only stands on its own but requires the unseating of other well tested things. So it not only requires evidence of itself but evidence showing why a bunch of other things have been wrong all along, thus 'extraordinary'.
  
  But, at minimal, evidence for a claim needs to match the claim, so if the claim is extraordinary so is the evidence for it.
8. Re:Nuclear blasts? Lasers? by MachineShedFred · 2018-10-01 22:52 · Score: 2
  
  You wouldn't even have to be that far from ground zero, depending on the size of the bomb and the structure you are attempting to protect (for various values of that far - 2.5 km from ground zero would do it for a good 'ol just-fission bomb). The blast wave diminishes with the inverse-cube law, where the thermal pulse diminishes on the inverse-square - with large hydrogen bombs the thermal pulse will out-range the overpressure effects of the detonation by quite some distance.
  Some kind of material that can survive the infrared and UV energy being pumped out by the expanding fireball would go a long way to limiting the damage from a nuclear blast, especially since a lot of the effect caused by these weapons are the subsequent structure fires, choking smoke, and generally removing oxygen from the area due to all the shit that is on fire.
  Of course whatever this crap is / was does nothing to help with the radioactive fallout and the long-term effects of that, and probably has it's own health hazards since it was discovered while burning 1970s household waste in his back yard which is a super-clean manufacturing process, but whatever.
  
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9. Re:Nuclear blasts? Lasers? by Rei · 2018-10-01 23:21 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  Yes. Just an ablative, hyped up by members of the press who don't know what ablatives are.
  
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10. Re:Nuclear blasts? Lasers? by rl117 · 2018-10-02 00:24 · Score: 2
  
  "Just" is a bit dismissive. It was quite an achievement, and one which hasn't been reproduced to date.
11. Re:Nuclear blasts? Lasers? by chill · 2018-10-02 02:02 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Actually, on the other hand, it was tested by the U.S. Military at the White Sands Missile Testing Range by subjecting it to a 5-kiloton non-nuclear explosion. It was also subjected to -- and passed -- tests by the U.K. nuclear weapons agency as well as tested involving high intensity pulse lasers.
  Watch the video series, it is very interesting.
  
  --
  Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
12. Re:Nuclear blasts? Lasers? by Joce640k · 2018-10-02 02:11 · Score: 1
  
  Extraordinary claims just require evidence, that is all. Reproducable, confirmed scientific evidence is all that is required.
  Some people like to use adjectives. If you want to treat every possible claim as equal then that's up to you.
  
  --
  No sig today...
13. Re:Nuclear blasts? Lasers? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 02:17 · Score: 0
  
  It seems that the material might have been designed to disperse the incoming energy via slow ablation, in similar fashion as spacecraft reentry heat shields work.There are limits as to how well a non-moving object can survive this way, I think.
  This is pure speculation, but it could be that the vaporization point and melting point are close enough that the plasma cloud melts the surrounding shield material and it re-flows to the impact point - for something like a laser at least. It still doesn't make it "laser proof" but it can add a bit of time before the laser can burn through the shielding.
  Doesn't work for *very* intense atmospheric heat, though.
14. Re:Nuclear blasts? Lasers? by LynnwoodRooster · 2018-10-02 02:30 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Your attitude is so 20th century, CIS/white biased. Today, extraordinary claims require that you provide it didn't happen. We have to believe the claim, and it's your job to prove the claim could never be...
  
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15. Re:Nuclear blasts? Lasers? by shaitand · 2018-10-02 02:30 · Score: 2
  
  A dead hairdresser's undocumented process but hardly without testing or evidence. Try actually watching the videos.
16. Re:Nuclear blasts? Lasers? by jandrese · 2018-10-02 02:38 · Score: 1
  
  It seems to me that it's an ablative thermal material. The question in my mind is what makes this material superior to reinforced carbon-carbon? It seems like there were some significant drawbacks to this material, one of which is that its inventor is a paranoid kook.
  
  --
  
  I read the internet for the articles.
17. Re:Nuclear blasts? Lasers? by prisoner-of-enigma · 2018-10-02 03:16 · Score: 1
  
  Extraordinary claims just require evidence, that is all. Reproducible, confirmed scientific evidence is all that is required.
  
  I think I get what you're trying to say but you treat "evidence" as an absolute. While that is sometimes -- perhaps even often -- possible, there have been more than a few cases where extraordinary claims were made and the evidence was inconclusive. Not debunked, not confirmed, but inconclusive or otherwise not grandiose enough to fully justify the initial claims. What hat do you sort that result into?
  The evidence should scale to the claim.
  
  --
  In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
18. Re:Nuclear blasts? Lasers? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 03:34 · Score: 0
  
  While I'd like to see more extensive tests done regarding the material's potential toxicity, there was a claim made in the documentary that Starlite is actually non-toxic. The guy even fed it to his animals (dogs and horses I think?) and observed no ill effects.
19. Re:Nuclear blasts? Lasers? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 03:53 · Score: 0
  
  Which means the public lost the formula, not the government.
20. Re:Nuclear blasts? Lasers? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 05:01 · Score: 0
  
  There was still quite a bit of rebar sticking out of the footings that held up the Trinity test shot tower after the device went off. That's only ~100 feet from the actual blast.
21. Re:Nuclear blasts? Lasers? by jwhyche · 2018-10-02 05:11 · Score: 2
  
  Yup, I called BS on this too when I read it. These people get their science from hollywood. They don't really understand what a laser or a nuclear blast really is. They treat a nuclear explosion as just big ass bomb.
  They don't understand that the heat generated by a laser or inside the fireball of a nuclear blast is hot enough that the nuclear forces holding matter together break down. It doesn't matter how "spacy" or advanced the science is when the basic physics holding your shit together cease to work. It all becomes plasma in the end.
  
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22. Re:Nuclear blasts? Lasers? by ChrisMaple · 2018-10-02 06:27 · Score: 1
  
  Sherwin-Williams and others make paints that do essentially the same thing: foam up and insulate the substrate when subjected to flame. Be prepared to pay about $100 per gallon.
  
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23. Re:Nuclear blasts? Lasers? by dkman · 2018-10-02 06:37 · Score: 1
  
  I can understand that "he never commercialized it" so even if governments wanted to buy some there was none to buy.
  And no one was allowed to hold onto a sample.
  But when he died in 2011 there were no samples found???
  No governments stepped in to "snoop" around? No heirs found a chunk sitting around? No safe deposit box?
  I'd imagine that a sample or formula exists somewhere.
  If you have a good thing and it's proven to work why would you not commercialize it? Or partner with some business schmuck who can handle that side of things and still sleep at night. (no offense intended to business schmucks)
  
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24. Re:Nuclear blasts? Lasers? by mark-t · 2018-10-02 07:25 · Score: 1
  
  I remember reading about this in the newspaper when this stuff was first invented... it was apparently demonstrated in front of a number of people that a raw egg could be coated in just a millimetre or so of this substance, and then blasted with a blow torch on full heat for something like 20 minutes. The egg was cracked open and apparently still raw and cold after the demonstration.
  The inventor was terrified that someone was going to try to take credit for his idea and there wouldn't be anything he could do to stop it because he wasn't wealthy enough to defend a patent against some unnamed large company that he feared would take interest and act so unscrupulously, so he didn't patent it, and ultimately took the secret to his grave.
  
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  File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
25. Re:Nuclear blasts? Lasers? by mark-t · 2018-10-02 07:42 · Score: 1
  
  If you have a good thing and it's proven to work why would you not commercialize it?
  I agree with what you are saying, but in this particular case, the inventor was very obviously paranoid... afraid that some large company from whom he could not defend his claim because he was not rich would try and take credit for his invention.
  It is unlikely it occurred to him that if he did not reveal the secret, that he would die before anyone else might be able to benefit from it, which is of course what happened.
  
  --
  File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
26. Re:Nuclear blasts? Lasers? by quanminoan · 2018-10-02 08:49 · Score: 1
  
  If you watch the videos it's not "blast" proof, and they never tested it for any mechanical strength in the videos. However the intense radiation as from a nuclear blast or laser is completely absorbed, with one scientist quoted as saying the depth of damage appears to be exactly the minimum needed to accommodate the laser, nothing is transmitted further. The material then expands to a low thermal conductive carbon foam which is just warm to the touch immediately after an oxy-acetylene torch is turned off. All the material scientists were certainly intrigued.
27. Re:Nuclear blasts? Lasers? by Joce640k · 2018-10-02 08:50 · Score: 1
  
  I remember reading about this in the newspaper when this stuff was first invented... it was apparently demonstrated in front of a number of people that a raw egg could be coated in just a millimetre or so of this substance, and then blasted with a blow torch on full heat for something like 20 minutes. The egg was cracked open and apparently still raw and cold after the demonstration.
  It's almost as if you didn't click the video link in the summary.
  
  --
  No sig today...
28. Re:Nuclear blasts? Lasers? by Raenex · 2018-10-02 08:58 · Score: 1
  
  The quote is actually : extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
  The quote should be retired because it is wrong and perpetuates bullshit ideas about how science works.
  But that really is how science works. If you make an extraordinary claim, such as that you've found particles move faster than light, you're going to need extraordinary evidence before the position is accepted.
  If you're trying to prove the case for ESP, would you accept the same amount of evidence as for a more ordinary claim?
  This is the basic idea behind Bayesian probability.
29. Re:Nuclear blasts? Lasers? by thevirtualcat · 2018-10-02 09:11 · Score: 1
  
  I wouldn't call the claims he made "extraordinary," really.
  He's making a claim about the properties of a material. Such claims are easily tested and verified. The inventor's refusal to provide samples for more than a handful of demonstrations is problematic and contributed to why the material was never turned into a commercial product.
  That said, other people have created similar materials with similar properties since then. (I loved the BBC documentary where his kids were saying "ours is better." That's a nice claim, but you have to prove it.) At the end of the day, this wasn't some miracle material with magical properties. It was a material that had potential to be better than what existed at the time. If it was, the agencies and companies that were interested in it would have been bending over backwards to get their hands on it. At the end of the day, in spite of a few successful TV demonstrations, they all decided that working with this guy was not worth the trouble for what his product offered.
30. Re:Nuclear blasts? Lasers? by mark-t · 2018-10-02 09:27 · Score: 1
  
  LOL, nope... just commenting based on what I remember back in the day. I took a look at the video just now, and I see they have the egg/blow-torch demo in it.
  
  --
  File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
31. Re:Nuclear blasts? Lasers? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 14:27 · Score: 0
  
  NO! WRONG! Legally extraordinary claims must be beyond a shadow of a doubt. Duh!
32. Re: Nuclear blasts? Lasers? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 14:58 · Score: 0
  
  You're an idiot, never heard of hard boiled eggs? They're cooked, and yet still in their shell.
33. Re:Nuclear blasts? Lasers? by arglebargle_xiv · 2018-10-02 16:01 · Score: 1
  
  It was quite an achievement, and one which hasn't been reproduced to date.
  Google "intumescent coating", you can buy it by the tanker-load from a range of vendors.
34. Re:Nuclear blasts? Lasers? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 20:18 · Score: 0
  
  Oh, sure! This coming from someone that embraces whatever's convenient for them in the moment, only to deny not a moment later than it becomes inconvenient.
35. Re:Nuclear blasts? Lasers? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 20:22 · Score: 0
  
  I suspect he gave himself a dim mak, inadvertently, in his sleep.
Tomorrows World by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-01 19:18 · Score: 3, Interesting

As a small child I remember seeing this demonstrated on a UK Science program in the 70's I think. It truly was as amazing as it sounds
1. Re:Tomorrows World by 91degrees · 2018-10-01 20:46 · Score: 1
  
  Yes. He was something of a regular on Tomorrow's World. Must have been the 80's (because I saw it and remember very little about the 70's).
2. Re:Tomorrows World by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-01 22:27 · Score: 0
  
  You don't think NASA would have found out what it was made of?
3. Re:Tomorrows World by mark-t · 2018-10-02 07:47 · Score: 1
  
  They tried, apparently... he wouldn't tell anyone else because he was afraid they would steal it and he would be left out because he wasn't rich enough to defend against a large corporation before he started to see his own profits.
  
  --
  File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
4. Re:Tomorrows World by neoRUR · 2018-10-02 09:43 · Score: 1
  
  Where do you think the Heat Shields for the NASA Space Shuttle came from? They basically do the same thing.
Unobtainium by stooo · 2018-10-01 19:26 · Score: 1

Unobtainium is always good to have in your BOM.
Yeah, it really does wonders, but I can't sell it to you.

--
aaaaaaa
1. Re:Unobtainium by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 00:37 · Score: 0
  
  Unobtainium is always good to have in your BOM.
  Yeah, it really does wonders, but I can't sell it to you.
  In your Byte-Order-Mark?
Patents by bickerdyke · 2018-10-01 19:32 · Score: 5, Interesting

I'm sorry and I know that they aren't very popular here, but that's what patents are for.
Afraid of commercializing something and someone reverse-analysing and stealing it? Patent it! It's public knowledge then, but you can sue the crap out of anyone trying to steal it.

--
bickerdyke
1. Re:Patents by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · 2018-10-01 19:41 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  I'm sure the UK would throw a national security exception on publishing that patent. Maybe they did, and it's in use in their military.
  
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2. Re:Patents by NicknameUnavailable · 2018-10-01 19:47 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Patents haven't worked for people without millions to defend them for years.
3. Re:Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-01 19:55 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Only works if you have a lot of money and this guy did not.
  Patents are okay but they mean e.g. the Chinese can just copy your stuff because it's all hung out there; This guy didn't want ANYONE to be able to copy his formula - He didn't want it to be in the public domain.
  He didn't even keep a copy in a safe or with his family - He knew how precious his idea was but was too greedy/paranoid to trust anyone else to keep the secret... which, judging by how the world is now, was probably right.
4. Re:Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-01 19:55 · Score: 0
  
  Patent it! It's public knowledge then, but you can sue the crap out of anyone trying to steal it.
  You still need a battle chest.
  Many trivial things are patented by large companies. In all likelihood they have something they can counter sue for.
  Even if they don't expect to stay in court the rest of your life. They can fund their lawyers with the profits they make from the product they stole.
  Patents doesn't protect those who can't protect themselves.
5. Re:Patents by 91degrees · 2018-10-01 20:04 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  The guy was a bit of a kook. I could imagine he simply didn't trust the patent system.
  
  The thing is, he could have sold it for millions as a trade secret. He was worried about doing that though, in case it was worth billions. While that makes sense on one level, in practice, he didn't sell it, so made £0.00
6. Re:Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-01 20:06 · Score: 1
  
  Patents don't prevent re-engineering, they make it redundant by telling you exactly how to copy.
  Patents prevent commercialization of those copies for a limited* period.
  * For practically infinite values of "limited".
7. Re: Patents by sberge · 2018-10-01 20:09 · Score: 1
  
  Absolutely. People say you need millions to defend your patent or it's worthless. Not so. If your patent is good, then there is a commercial market for it. Maybe you won't be able to afford to defend it, but if say Boeing and Airbus both want it, they would pay good money to keep the other one from getting it.
8. Re:Patents by Joce640k · 2018-10-01 20:21 · Score: 1
  
  If only there was a short video available to explain the reasons why he didn't want to patent it.
  
  --
  No sig today...
9. Re:Patents by GuB-42 · 2018-10-01 20:40 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Patents prevent commercialization of those copies for a limited* period.
  * For practically infinite values of "limited".
  Patents are limited to 20 years, hardly unlimited. We are seeing the result of expired patent everyday. If you see a barrage of knockoffs of a popular product seemingly appearing out of nowhere, it usually mean its patent has expired. Another well discussed result of expiring patents are generic drugs.
  You may be confusing patents with copyright, for with every work published after and including Mickey Mouse gets effectively unlimited protection.
10. Re:Patents by james_gnz · 2018-10-01 20:44 · Score: 2
  
  I'm sorry and I know that they aren't very popular here, but that's what patents are for.
  That's OK. I don't have a problem with chemical (or pharmaceutical) patents, since those ones (and only those ones) actually work.
  Bessen, James & Meurer, Michael J. (2008) Patent failure. Princeton University Press.
11. Re: Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-01 20:58 · Score: 0
  
  Watch the videos, his wife/daughter sold a version of the recipe to a company, but another daughter in the video claims she has a better recipe. So this appears to be prep for a hype phase.
  I wonder if the carbon comes from co2 in the air or the paint. The paint expanded so there must have been some chemical reaction in the interior of the paint.
12. Re:Patents by Opportunist · 2018-10-01 20:59 · Score: 1
  
  Have you tried filing for an international patent? I mean, as someone ordinary, not someone richer than some corporations combined?
  
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13. Re:Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-01 21:05 · Score: 0
  
  Here's a secret:it's means it is. You wanted "its". No apostrophe.
14. Re:Patents by war4peace · 2018-10-01 21:09 · Score: 1
  
  I have. It completely sucks. It's weird, requires lots of money and paperwork, takes ages and then there's the yearly fee.
  
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  ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
15. Re:Patents by Solandri · 2018-10-01 21:10 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  More broadly, this is why technology barely advanced for thousands of years. Paranoid craftsmen discovering new techniques but keeping them secret, whispering them to their children while on their deathbed. Except like this guy, a lot of them never managed to pass on the secret, causing it to be lost, only to be discovered again later, to be lost yet again, etc. (We're still trying to figure out how Stradivarius made his violins.) It's not a coincidence that the pace of technological advancement began to pick up around the same time as the printing press - when ideas could be made semi-permanent by publishing, thereby entering them into the shared knowledgebase of the human race.
16. Re:Patents by AmiMoJo · 2018-10-01 21:14 · Score: 2
  
  If it really works... Rumour has it that while it performed well in demonstrations it was not durable, which would have greatly limited its commercial applications. A cynic might suggest that he was hoping someone would pay him for the rights to his invention before discovering this, and hence he did not want to patent it or allow others to retain samples for longer term testing.
  
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17. Re:Patents by Xest · 2018-10-01 21:14 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Maybe that explains this:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
  During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Challenger 2 tanks suffered no tank losses to Iraqi fire, although one was penetrated by an Improvised explosive device (IED). This was, at the time, unprotected by Dorchester armour. The driver was injured. In one encounter within an urban area, a Challenger 2 came under attack from irregular forces with machine guns and rocket propelled grenades. The driver's sight was damaged and while attempting to back away under the commander's directions, the other sights were damaged and the tank threw its tracks entering a ditch. It was hit by 14 rocket propelled grenades from close range and a MILAN anti-tank missile. The crew survived, safe within the tank until it was recovered for repairs, the worst damage being to the sighting system. It was back in operation six hours later. One Challenger 2 operating near Basra survived being hit by 70 RPGs in another incident."
  Or maybe they were just using non-penetrating warheads being fired from ineffective angles, which might be an effective approach against a Humvee but is a bit like using a BB gun to try and destroy a land rover when used on a tank. I suspect this is more likely to be the case than secret magic armour, though the good version of Chobham armour the Challenger 2 uses is still a state secret even if it probably contains nothing magical I believe.
18. Re:Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-01 21:45 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  > (We're still trying to figure out how Stradivarius made his violins.)
  I'm still trying to figure out why it's taking so long for people to understand that there is nothing particularly special about Strads when they are tested in rigorous, double-blinded tests.
19. Re:Patents by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2018-10-01 22:01 · Score: 1
  
  RPGs, especially the old ones, are not very effective against modern tanks. The number of shots fired may not matter any more than the number of pistol bullets fired at a thick steel plate. It's the simplest explanation.
  
  --
  Ezekiel 23:20
20. Re:Patents by Tom · 2018-10-01 22:02 · Score: 2
  
  There are plenty of stories of inventors without an army of lawyers losing their patented invention to some corporation which does have access to a medium-sized village of lawyers.
  If you are a bit of a paranoid type, those stories give you plenty of a reason to not trust the patent system.
  Though unless you are also a sociopath, you would leave a secure copy with someone you trust. If you are very distrustful, you can encrypt it and leave the key with yet another person, both not knowing who the other party is.
  
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21. Re: Patents by jythie · 2018-10-01 22:37 · Score: 1
  
  If I recall correctly he tried to sell the stuff to one of the major aerospace companies, but kept asking for more money and kept refusing to really let them play with it, so they smelled scam and moved on.
22. Re:Patents by sad_ · 2018-10-01 22:51 · Score: 1
  
  Indeed, it is, but apparently the patent systems isn't even good for that anymore because the 'lone inventor' clearly doesn't trust the system.
  
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23. Re:Patents by Artem+S.+Tashkinov · 2018-10-01 22:52 · Score: 1
  
  That's exactly what he was talking about in interviews: once he patented it, everyone would know the formula and would be able to create this material without paying him anything.
  There are quite a lot of countries in the world where US patents cannot be enforced.
24. Re:Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-01 22:57 · Score: 0
  
  The reason why copyright is effectively forever and patent are not is because Hollywood and the media and the banks are from the same group as half the US Senators, half the Congresspeople.
  Merchants, media, money. They don't produce much physical assets, so they don't need much patents.
25. Re:Patents by MachineShedFred · 2018-10-01 22:58 · Score: 2
  
  RPGs are great for taking out cars and jeeps and low-flying aircraft, but they're only good for telling a tank exactly what bearing you're on so they can put a couple hundred machinegun rounds in your general direction.
  For dealing with tanks, you need anti-tank weapons where the ordinance works like a shaped charge to punch a hole in the metal and direct as much damage as possible at as small a surface area as possible. There is a reason why the arms manufacturers make both.
  
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26. Re:Patents by DNS-and-BIND · 2018-10-01 23:13 · Score: 1
  
  Those people were paranoid for a reason. Recipes were stolen and the creator died penniless. It's not like they were idiots. Europeans in particular raped countries for their ideas and techniques. Just look at how they stole silkworms from China, for example.
  
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27. Re:Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-01 23:24 · Score: 0
  
  So where is the total sum of all human knowledge stored at? Old textbooks at the libraries are thrown out or sold at book sales. Eventually, any knowledge they contain is lost - particularly if the knowledge is considered obsolete. Should a end-of-the-world scenario occur, one would need these old books to start over if that knowledge is the only knowledge around and one doesn't have high-tech methods to reproduce it. I.e. I can't start a fire with a match since I don't remember or know that the tech exists; however I found a book that shows how to rub two sticks together or a more advanced book on using flint. So the point being, I can't reproduce the match, but at least I can accomplish the goal keeping warm using ancient techniques. Hopefully wikipedia will still be around for me to use as a reference :)
  I still have books that a really old person gave me to learn about TV's that he had learned in the 1940's from correspondence school. They are very well written. However, all this old knowledge and detailed explanations of how the circuit worked is still useful but would be lost should I throw out all of these manuals all because the electronics is mostly digital now vs. analog.
28. Re:Patents by Baron_Yam · 2018-10-01 23:27 · Score: 1
  
  If you don't have access to a gang of lawyers and the money to fund them - sometimes for decades - the patent system doesn't work if someone else really wants to steal your idea.
29. Re:Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-01 23:44 · Score: 0
  
  The irony of course is that the wheel turns, and these days it's the Chinese ripping everyone off.
30. Re:Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-01 23:48 · Score: 0
  
  I'm sorry and I know that they aren't very popular here, but that's what patents are for.
  Afraid of commercializing something and someone reverse-analysing and stealing it? Patent it! It's public knowledge then, but you can sue the crap out of anyone trying to steal it.
  Taking a patent cost money. Just the attorney fees involved cost at least 5000USD. Money is that one particular thing that most of these crazy inventors don't have (hence they turn to universities to help them with their "work")
31. Re: Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-01 23:54 · Score: 0
  
  or smallpox innoculation, for another
32. Re:Patents by stealth_finger · 2018-10-01 23:55 · Score: 1
  
  The guy was a bit of a kook. I could imagine he simply didn't trust the patent system.
  Then you do it for a percentage. Can bite you in the butt either way I guess. Just ask the author of the witcher.
  
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33. Re:Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 00:00 · Score: 0
  
  I've seen them horrifically abused. "Human" insulin, for example, was released to the market just as a stack of insulin refining technologies had their patents about to expire. Mexican factories were gearing up to lower the price of insulin to about $20/bottle with generic insulins. The "human" insulin was touted as superior becuse it matched the human molecule exactly, but there is in fact no medical benefit to it. There is even a medical *loss* from it, the human insulin contributes to unawareness of hypoglycemia. Unfortunately for me, I can't even *get* beef insulin anymore. And the price jumped from less than $100/bottle for a month or so's supply, to roughly $500/bottle for the same volume. And it doesn't last as long, so I use more insulin.
  The sexy new insulin patents also now use genetically modified e. coli bacteria, the old methods refined it from slaughterhouse beef and pork. Guess which one costs a hell of a lot more and burns many times the resources, and can't be easily reproduced in third world nations?
34. Re:Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 00:02 · Score: 0
  
  > So where is the total sum of all human knowledge stored at?
  The Akashic records.
35. Re:Patents by Bert64 · 2018-10-02 00:09 · Score: 1
  
  Pharmaceutical patents often result in death and suffering where patients who could have benefitted from a treatment are unable to afford it, but would have been able to afford a generic version sold for a much lower price.
  
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36. Re: Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 00:10 · Score: 0
  
  supposedly he insisted that any deal had to leave him with 51% ownership which let's be real, no mega-corp is going to ever agree to that
37. Re:Patents by ath1901 · 2018-10-02 00:20 · Score: 1
  
  pharmaceutical patents sort of work.
  FTFY. Even pharmaceutical patents have issues. There's suboptimal research where patentability is a more important property than efficiency. There's no motivation for doing research on old drugs or natural non-patentable substances. It is better to create something similar but just different enough to make it patentable and then do research on this "new" drug. Even if there is no improvement you can still patent it, do a bit more research until some studies show a tiny improvement by pure chance and then do some heavy marketing.
  There's also the moral issue when sick people in poor countries can't afford an expensive patented drug and are not allowed to make cheap generic copies.
  So, even if medical patents kind of work, they are not perfect.
38. Re:Patents by SunTzuWarmaster · 2018-10-02 00:25 · Score: 2
  
  Similarly, 0 M1 Abrams (the US Main Battle Tanks) fell to RPG fire in the conflict. I guess they also had super-armor?
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
39. Re:Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 00:25 · Score: 0
  
  (We're still trying to figure out how Stradivarius made his violins.)
  Eh, no, that's just a myth, there is nothing special about Stradivarius violins, they are as good as other well made violins. It's a myth that keeps their prices high though...
40. Re: Patents by tazan · 2018-10-02 00:36 · Score: 2
  
  You obviously have never read the story of Robert Kearns and the intermittent windshield wipers.
41. Re:Patents by branchingfactor · 2018-10-02 00:41 · Score: 1
  
  Bingo! Patents don't protect anything without the ability to sue deep-pocketed infringers.
42. Re:Patents by Zontar_Thing_From_Ve · 2018-10-02 00:58 · Score: 1
  
  Patents are limited to 20 years, hardly unlimited.
  Yes. And some patents do expire as planned. Yet perhaps you are unaware of the term "evergreening" which is a way that patents about to expire are extended by making minor changes and then getting a new patent to cover the changes. It's used a lot in the pharmaceutical industry, but not just limited to them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
43. Re: Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 01:01 · Score: 0
  
  If Wikipedia isn't still around just look on youtube
44. Re:Patents by timholman · 2018-10-02 01:03 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  If it really works... Rumour has it that while it performed well in demonstrations it was not durable, which would have greatly limited its commercial applications. A cynic might suggest that he was hoping someone would pay him for the rights to his invention before discovering this, and hence he did not want to patent it or allow others to retain samples for longer term testing.
  The whole affair smacks of pseudoscience. It has many of the classic symptoms:
  (1) An inventor without any training or scientific background who purports to have invented a device or solved a problem that has eluded scientists and engineers.
  (2) Unreasonable secrecy about the details of the invention, and reluctance even to work with impartial third parties operating under a non-disclosure agreement.
  (3) Public demonstrations, but only when made under the direct control and supervision of the inventor.
  (4) Proclaimed distrust of the patent system, or else an attempt to manipulate the patent system by filing a non-enabling patent disclosure.
  (5) An attitude of "pay me the money first, and then I'll show you how to make it". In other words, you have to put your faith in the inventor and give him your money, and then he'll show you the way to "salvation". (The religious parallels are quite common with pseudoscientific inventions.)
  Based on my own experiences dealing with a pseudoscientific invention (and inventor), I would bet that Ward did indeed have Starlite secretly tested, perhaps numerous times ... but you never heard about those tests, because Starlite didn't work as claimed. That leads to the final symptom of pseudoscience:
  (6) Despite claims of an amazing invention, the inventor seems completely incapable of doing anything useful with it on his own. It's the equivalent of the inventor who claims to have a machine that generates free electricity, but who still pays the power company to keep his lights on.
45. Re:Patents by Bob+the+Super+Hamste · 2018-10-02 01:08 · Score: 1
  
  It is mostly the mythology around a very good very old version of something. A great modern violin will sound much the same as a Stradivarius but is also made of the same materials, has the same dimensions, and was also created by a master violin maker. The cheap ones like my oldest is learning on sound terrible but my wife's one or my kid's teacher's one sound great. It isn't just the player either as his cheap one sounds like crap when one of them plays it too.
  
  --
  Time to offend someone
46. Re:Patents by bluefoxlucid · 2018-10-02 01:11 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  That's because pharmaceutical drugs have an inverse relationship between usefulness and cost.
  It costs a penny to manufacture a pill, but $300 million to get it tested for safety and efficacy--and 90% of drugs that make it to clinical trials turn out to have intolerable side-effects, so patients won't use them, so they fail. $3Bn to find a good drug.
  This happens because you can't tell what drugs do by looking at them. There's a chemical compound--n-methyl-alpha-methyl-beta-hydroxide-phenethylamine--which in its (1R,2S) configuration acts as a systemic adrenal stimulant. If you remove a single oxygen atom, it becomes n-methyl-alpha-methyl-phenethylamine. If the alpha-methyl group is leaned away from you (phenethylamine on the left, alpha-methyl on the bottom), it's a harmless nasal decongestant; if it's leaned toward you, it's d-Methamphetamine. If you bind a CO2 to the 3 and 4 positions on the phenethylamine ring, it's MDMA and will destroy your serotonin system.
  Notice one of these was "harmless, does nothing in relatively-high doses" because a bond was tilted a little in one direction, versus "will totally fuck you up and cause brain damage and severe addiction if you regularly take 2-3x as much as necessary to stay awake for 30 goddamn hours" for leaning the bond in the other direction.
  One compound we found will kill you immediately at micro-doses in a certain chirality.
  We don't know what kind of long-term damage these drugs are doing, so we test on rats for 2-3 years, then on isolated human tissue, then at high doses in preclinical trials to check safety when we're pretty sure we won't seriously injure people. There's a 3-year follow-up after filing hundreds of thousands of pages of data with the FDA for approval: you have to get more data from the drug in use on actual patients.
  So what if you made a new ADHD drug?
  It's expensive...kind of. $20/pill is pricey. I actually think they should bank on re-standardization, e.g. $5/pill but try to get a bigger market--although people also hate pharmaceutical companies for pushing doctors and patients to move onto their new drugs. If it's safe and it works, you can try it as a front-line treatment to help disperse those R&D costs, right? Why not?
  A lot of people have ADHD. ADHD drugs disperse cost extremely well.
  What about a Hepatitis-C drug?
  Yeah, few people have Hepatitis-C, and the drug cures it in 3 months. You're not going to sell very many pills in total, even selling to everyone. If you get a lot of market share up front, you're going to eradicate the disease and kill your market. That's going to be one hell of an expensive drug.
  In this case, a government bail-out seems fine by me: you made a drug that can totally eradicate a disease, and it only cost $3 billion! You can sell it for $90k/pill or we can buy it from you outright.
  ...then you have the Shkrelis.
  Several pharmaceuticals--Mylan's Epipens, Shkreli's toxoplasmosis pills, one generic drug that got marked up to $40k after being bought, and even athsma inhalers--get big numbers due to rent seeking. Pass a law requiring Epipens in schools and the price jumps up for no reason. "We're going to $1 billion, baby!" total profit seeking. Mismanage R&D into new applications for an old drug and jack up the price to recover. Inhalers and insulin injectors use old, cheap drugs in constantly-tweaked new delivery devices, artificially maintaining patents (devices are expensive to manufacture in small batches).
  These people are unscrupulous con artists who prey on the lives of the weak and vulnerable. They need their toys taken away.
  
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47. Re:Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 01:17 · Score: 0
  
  Patents have never worked the way they were intended.
48. Re:Patents by coofercat · 2018-10-02 01:20 · Score: 1
  
  As I remember it, he thought $megacorp should just pay him $money for the formula, and then he'd be done with it. Of course, all such companies looked at what he had and knew it would take some additional work to really commercialise it. Thus, they offered less money than he thought it was worth.
  I remember seeing something about this on TV some years ago - my thoughts were that it was a cool product, but for any company to actually be able to use it, much less sell it, they'd have some work to do. He said it was worth "billions", which it probably is/was, but not until you'd spent several million on it. He didn't have those millions, or indeed the know-how, and as such it never went anywhere. Shame really, it really does look promising.
49. Re:Patents by 93+Escort+Wagon · 2018-10-02 01:43 · Score: 1
  
  I'm sure the UK would throw a national security exception on publishing that patent. Maybe they did, and it's in use in their military.
  The Untold Story - How the British really won the Second Falklands War.
  
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50. Re:Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 01:45 · Score: 0
  
  Sure, because you're the expert.
  op didn't claim that.
51. Re:Patents by angel'o'sphere · 2018-10-02 02:34 · Score: 0
  
  RPG as in rocket propelled grenade, that is usually not an anti tank weapon. So why are you faking your surprise?
  
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52. Re:Patents by phantomfive · 2018-10-02 02:49 · Score: 2
  
  Tank armor is layers of steal and depleted uranium. It takes special weaponry to penetrate it. See for example.
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
53. Re:Patents by Whorhay · 2018-10-02 02:51 · Score: 1
  
  That is actually how an RPG works. Modern tanks have of course been designed with defending against those kinds of attacks in mind. The effectiveness of a shaped charge projectile is highly dependent on it being detonated at the right time. If detonation happens to early then the plasma jet won't be effective on contact, and the same is true if the detonation is too late. The larger in diameter your shaped charge is the longer your plasma jet will be and so the more leeway you have in timing the detonation. Man portable systems are necessarily restricted in their size because obviously a person has to be able to carry it along with all their other gear. If you've seen pictures of modern anti-tank infantry systems you'll notice that they've gotten pretty rotund, and that is so that they will produce a more useful plasma jet.
  Even back in WWII tanks were utilizing systems designed to cause premature detonation of the shaped charges. I'd bet dollars to donuts that modern tanks are using protective measures that still try to accomplish early detonation. On top of that armor plating is no longer just steel plates, instead armor is made of layers upon layers of composite materials that are designed to resist a plasma jet much more effectively. The result is a modern tank can withstand quite the pummeling from small RPGs, and even larger more modern HEAT weapons aren't guaranteed one hit kills.
54. Re:Patents by greylion3 · 2018-10-02 02:52 · Score: 2
  
  I remember seeing an article, possibly this year, suggesting that the wood for the Stradivarius violins originated from trees that grew during a particularly cold, decades-long period. The wood was therefore more dense, with better acoustical properties.
  With dense wood readily available everywhere for such purposes for many decades now, it's no surprise that newer violins are superior (and the Stradivariuses may have deteriorated in various ways), but for a very long time, it's quite possible those violins were the best you could make, at the time, and for centuries after, without knowledge of what they were made from, and access to extremely dense (maple) wood.
  The Wikipedia page about them https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
  also supports this:
  "In 2008, researchers from the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, announced further evidence that wood density caused the claimed high quality of these instruments. After examining the violins with X-rays, the researchers found that these violins all have extremely consistent density, with relatively low variation in the apparent growth patterns of the trees that produced this wood.[12]
  Yet another possible explanation is that the wood was sourced from the forests of northern Croatia.[53] This maple wood is known for its extreme density resulting from the slow growth caused by harsh Croatian winters. Croatian wood was traded by Venetian merchants of the era, and is still used today by local luthiers and craftsfolk for musical instruments."
  The wikipedia page also mentions various wood treatments as being possibly significant, as the wood contains higher amounts of notably copper and aluminium than newer violins, but I think that goes a bit too far to discuss here.
  
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55. Re:Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 03:07 · Score: 0
  
  Patents aren't popular here because there are a lot of low quality (e.g., obvious) patents, particularly in the realm of software development. We should be very skeptical of government-granted monopolies on anything, so it's vexing to see the patent office and judicial system be so ineffective at protecting the commons. Cronyism strikes again.
56. Re:Patents by Bite+The+Pillow · 2018-10-02 03:17 · Score: 1
  
  And he was a very good violin maker. Dense wood and quality craftsmanship. I'm sure he had a few custom tools that he invented or improved, and a few assistants who worked on scrub wood until they were ready for the good stuff.
  Around that time, his was the best product. And the reputation stuck even after people had better tools that made the average builder better, And the better builders strad quality. But they didn't have the dense wood.
57. Re:Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 03:26 · Score: 0
  
  Patents have a lifespan of 20 years. If you are an inventor and are not sure 'when' you are going to commercialize it, or are thinking of your kids possibly commercializing the product, patenting it would just be giving it away to some big manufacturer. If you have a team of lawyers you might be able to keep it 'patent pending' for quite a while, but not everyone can afford that.
  It's often the case that a company will say 'oh, what a cool idea. No thanks.' Years later, after your patent has expired and it's in the public domain, they then manufacture it from the plans you brought to their attention, without paying you a dime.
58. Re:Patents by prisoner-of-enigma · 2018-10-02 03:26 · Score: 1
  
  If detonation happens to early then the explosively-formed penetrator won't be effective on contact, and the same is true if the detonation is too late./quote>
  FTFY. Shaped charge weapons do not operate on the principle of plasma and do not generate near enough energy to create plasma. The work on the principle of using a shaped chemical explosive which deforms a metal liner -- frequently copper or other dense, malleable metals -- into a long, thin penetrator and accelerating it to high speeds in the process.
  
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59. Re:Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 03:28 · Score: 0
  
  There are plenty of stories of inventors
  Anecdotes are not data.
60. Re:Patents by cheesybagel · 2018-10-02 04:10 · Score: 1
  
  Actually the RPG-7 was an anti-tank armor in its time. It's just that modern tanks are too heavily protected for either the HEAT or tandem-HEAT charges available for them to work. Most insurgents don't even have access to the tandem-HEAT charges. So it mostly ends up being used against light armored vehicles and buildings now. The Russians have more modern and effective anti-tank weapons like the Metis or the Kornet but they are less portable.
61. Re:Patents by cheesybagel · 2018-10-02 04:10 · Score: 1
  
  s/anti-tank armor/anti-tank weapon/
62. Re:Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 04:28 · Score: 0
  
  I remember seeing an article, possibly this year, suggesting that the wood for the Stradivarius violins originated from trees that grew during a particularly cold, decades-long period. The wood was therefore more dense, with better acoustical properties.
  If that were truly a significant contributing factor, than I humbly submit that the wood available on the Italian peninsula hundreds of years ago cannot hope to compete in the "grew while cold and was dense" category when matched against wood available today from Canada, Russia and other northern countries.
  Or, to put it like my irish stickfighting instructor did years ago, "Shillelagh literally means 'oak stick', but if they'd had access to canadian hickory back then, it would mean hickory stick. European wood just can't compete with what we have here."
63. Re:Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 04:55 · Score: 0
  
  Erm, that's not what your link says, in fact, it says Abrams were taken out by rocket fire. In fact, it says in a mere 3 years of action in Iraq that 530 Abrams had to be sent home for repair. That's 1/3rd of the entire US military active Abrams force put out of action in 3 years!!!
  How does that really even remotely leave the Abrams comparable to the Challenger 2 which the GP's article pointed out literally zero were put out of action by enemy fire?
  The Challenger 2 does even better, not one has been lost to enemy combat action EVER. The only one lost at all was due to friendly fire hitting an open hatch and dropping flammable debris internally triggering a fire.
  Sorry but you have no idea what the fuck you're talking about if you think the Abrams has even remotely as good a survivability record as the Challenger 2. The Abrams has other advantages, such as better firepower, but the service record of the two has heaps of Abrams destroyed by enemy RPGs both under American ownership and other users such as Iraq and Saudi Arabia vs. the zero Challenger 2's destroyed by enemy action, there's just no comparison.
  Even your own link entirely contradicts you.
64. Re:Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 05:09 · Score: 0
  
  Nah, that was probably more related to this capacitive anti-rpg armour that had been demonstrated the year before.
65. Re:Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 05:12 · Score: 0
  
  Tank armor is layers of steal and depleted uranium. It takes special weaponry to penetrate it. See for example.
  With that kind of armor, they have to steel themselves against the blows they will receive.
  If you meant steel (metal) and not steal (robbery) - that makes a bit more cents (money).
  No wait! since (time). Ugh, which one is it? sense (???). See - even native speakers mess it up from time to time.
66. Re:Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 05:30 · Score: 0
  
  Uhm. 90% of warheads in RPGs you see people using are PG-7V shaped charges. I have seldom seen anyone actually anti personell rounds like an 0G-7V or any thermobarics.
67. Re:Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 05:31 · Score: 0
  
  Actually modern warheads for the RPG-7 arent that bad. Like you said tho, insurgents are left with 30year old PG-7V rounds that are single warhead and can be effectively stopped by reactive armor or even fence armor.
68. Re:Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 05:37 · Score: 0
  
  RPG-7s are usually used for anti tank work. You rarely to never see any insurgent types running OG-7V frag rounds or thermobaric. They all run PG-7V warheads that are shaped charges exclusively meant for taking out tanks. Why are you faking your knowledge?
69. Re:Patents by DRJlaw · 2018-10-02 05:52 · Score: 2
  
  Yes. And some patents do expire as planned. Yet perhaps you are unaware of the term "evergreening" which is a way that patents about to expire are extended by making minor changes and then getting a new patent to cover the changes. It's used a lot in the pharmaceutical industry, but not just limited to them.
  And your point is? The new patent does not cover the material disclosed in the old patent.
  The reason that evergreening is pretty much limited to the pharmaceutical industry is that there is not only the patent barrier, but the (new) drug approval barrier, where one must either run a complete set of trials to demonstrate safety and efficacy or prove that your prospective competing version is therapeutically equivalent to the original drug in an "Abbreviated New Drug Application" or ANDA. Meanwhile, the existing drug manufacturer can deny you the samples that you need to prove equivalence (either by control or by changing the product via 'evergreening'), lock out the drug from the market via pharmacopia agreements with benefit managers, and if need be drop the price below one that recoup the new capital investment while still providing them a profit over their sunk and well-amortized costs.
  Nothing to do with patents. You link to wikipedia after saying that the practice is "not just limited to them," but wikipedia has no non-pharmaceutical examples.
  So where are they?
70. Re: Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 06:07 · Score: 0
  
  You obviously have never read the story of Robert Kearns and the intermittent windshield wipers.
  I have, an example of what's wrong with are patent system. I know the courts don't agree with me, but if you'd asked any engineer to make an intermittent wiper that's one of the designs they would have come up with. This was a trivially obvious solution. Patents should be for solutions to difficult problems, not for the first to think of an easy problem.
71. Re:Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 06:23 · Score: 0
  
  or you could watch the videos where a government or two tested the claims, and they passed.
72. Re: Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 06:41 · Score: 0
  
  [quote]Shaped charge weapons do not operate on the principle of plasma and do not generate near enough energy to create plasma. [/quote]
  Actually, they do.
73. Re:Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 07:49 · Score: 0
  
  Oh, there are anti-personel RPG rounds?
  I miss my early 2000s vid games.
74. Re:Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 08:13 · Score: 0
  
  But, according to the average right-wing /.er, it's your own fault for being a fat ass! Stop asking others to support the consequences of your poor life style choices.
75. Re:Patents by serviscope_minor · 2018-10-02 08:30 · Score: 1
  
  RPGs are great for taking out cars and jeeps and low-flying aircraft, but they're only good for telling a tank exactly what bearing you're on
  1950s era ones like the RPG-7 sure. Not so much recent one like the RPG-29
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
  
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76. Re:Patents by Areyoukiddingme · 2018-10-02 08:35 · Score: 1
  
  Patents have never worked the way they were intended.
  Patents have always worked the way they were intended. They were intended to give buddies of the king exclusive access to free shit. See letters patent.
  All that crap about being for the common good and protecting inventors is propaganda.
77. Re:Patents by quanminoan · 2018-10-02 08:58 · Score: 1
  
  A great book about how patents boosted civilization:
  https://www.amazon.com/Most-Po...
78. Re:Patents by Bert64 · 2018-10-02 09:38 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, while the costs are high manufacturers are usually unscrupulous and the motivations are tilted towards profit and away from actually helping anyone, so research is aimed at more profitable drugs (ie someone has to keep taking it rather than providing a cure)...
  So have research done by government and charity, with pharmaceutical companies only allowed to perform the physical manufacturing. You could also encourage more collaboration so research could be pooled rather than wasteful parallel research conducted by competing companies.
  Profit seeking and healthcare are not really compatible, and without regulation you end up with the illegal drug market where the goal is to get people addicted.
  
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79. Re:Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 09:45 · Score: 0
  
  Problem with patents is their (by design) limited life. If you can't produce a ready-to-sell version before the patent expires, your invention can be used by every big company with no licence required. The moment you get the patent the clock is ticking, hence the desire to get the product ready before filing.
80. Re:Patents by Tom · 2018-10-02 13:35 · Score: 1
  
  Anecdotes can change the behaviour of people, and my comment was about how these stories can influence an inventor to act the way this guy did.
  So +100 bubble points for completely missing the point.
  
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81. Re:Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 14:32 · Score: 0
  
  Yeah that is how come in movies when everybody was hit hard during the fighting the english guy is walking out in a smoking jacket without a hair out of place.
82. Re:Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 14:38 · Score: 0
  
  Well I can say the cardboard bike guy has a product but his personality or whatever is keeping it from market https://www.cardboardtech.com/the-cardboard-bike/ its such a shame. Can't imagine how much it might have helped the environment if it had just been massed produced and sold as usual.
83. Re:Patents by james_gnz · 2018-10-02 21:00 · Score: 1
  
  I don't have a problem with chemical (or pharmaceutical) patents, since those ones (and only those ones) actually work.
  In response to AC, Bert64, ath1901, bluefoxlucid: Yes, I think I've overstated the case. I agree there are serious problems with chemical and pharmaceutical patents, and there may well be a better approach to funding this research. To scale my claim back, I think it's fair to say that chemical and pharmaceutical patents provide a net benefit overall, although I also think it's fair to say that the distribution of the benefit is inequitable.
84. Re:Patents by bluefoxlucid · 2018-10-03 01:06 · Score: 1
  
  so research is aimed at more profitable drugs (ie someone has to keep taking it rather than providing a cure)
  Research isn't really targeted as well as you'd think. Atomoxetine, for example, was a promising antidepressant because it's an NET inhibitor; it turned out to not work well for depression (it works GREAT for some people). Atomoxetine works quite well for hyperactivity by selectively inhibiting NET in the prefrontal cortex, where dopamine is also transported primarily across NET instead of DAT: it's a non-stimulant ADHD drug. Without the DAT action, it won't get you high; it also won't improve the function of your attention system, so results may vary. Pitching ATX as an ADHD drug was sort of a saving throw.
  These things aren't engineered; they're injected into rats and then examined in trays of cloned neurons to see what happens. Sometimes they see activity against a virus or bacteria (notably, drugs with action against grahm-positive and grahm-negative bacteria are easy to identify, since they do very specific things to a sample and you can test further on a standard set of bacteria). Sometimes they find inhibition of a Cytochrome P450 enzyme.
  In psychiatry, you're not going to cure anything: drugs won't rewire your brain; they only poke at neurons. Opium doesn't cure chronic pain because the source of pain is physical while opium just inhibits the response. ADHD drugs plug up the drains for certain neurotransmitters so your brain has more floating around, but don't go in and surgically rewire anything to pump out more without more drugs. You can't do that without genetic modification.
  Antivirals, on the other hand, work quite well for suppressing and removing diseases, so long as your immune system can handle those diseases and the virus doesn't incubate in a protected space. HSV and HPV are in locations not accessible to drugs, and saturation with an antiviral won't work; likewise, forcing an antiviral into the cells would also damage and destroy the cells themselves. Hepatitis-C is easier to reach and destroy. Rabies literally creates factories inside neurons.
  It's convenient to think that there's some great conspiracy out there, even though researchers move around, information is hard to contain, what is discovered with modern science can be re-discovered, the next shop over will find the same thing and cut your profit machine out from under you, and the regulators have copies of everything you've ever tried and every experimental report ever written even for drugs that went nowhere fast. The most profitable avenue is to patent the drug and sell it for as much as you can, then wind it down--and hope you don't get ripped apart by price gouging laws.
  
  So have research done by government and charity, with pharmaceutical companies only allowed to perform the physical manufacturing. You could also encourage more collaboration so research could be pooled rather than wasteful parallel research conducted by competing companies.
  That's what public universities and NIH grants do already. You might notice the UK and Norway haven't discovered the cure to HIV yet, either, even though it's at the top of the list for the entire world.
  
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85. Re: Patents by Can'tNot · 2018-10-03 06:28 · Score: 1
  
  It's not necessarily that you need the millions to defend the patent, but you need millions regardless. The guy who invented, and patented, television got screwed over by RCA. They never really attacked his patents, they just attacked his ability to capitalize on those patents and then waited for them to expire. The patents expired in 1947, and by the mid 1950s the market had grown 100,000% with RCA controlling ~80% of that.
86. Re:Patents by greylion3 · 2018-10-14 07:18 · Score: 1
  
  "grew while cold and was dense" category
  To clarify, the "particularly cold, decades-long period" meant decades almost without summers where the trees grew, resulting in wood with very uniform (and high) density, due to nearly no 'summer-tree-rings' in the wood. Perhaps I should've made that a bit more clear.
  And yes, the industrial revolution in the 1800s definitely brought about easy access to better wood from northern climates, but decades-long periods without, or almost without summers, is a very rare occurrence.
  
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Carbon foam by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-01 19:32 · Score: 0

Sounds like some sort of carbon foam
1. Re:Carbon foam by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-01 21:18 · Score: 0
  
  Maybe the paste forms the right kind of nano surface structure spontaneously in the right conditions. Such surfaces have later shown their near magical properties in terms of heat resistance.
2. Re:Carbon foam by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 03:35 · Score: 0
  
  Sounds more like bullshit.
3. Re:Carbon foam by greylion3 · 2018-10-02 04:07 · Score: 1
  
  Almost what I was thinking.
  Btw, carbon foam would oxidize and burn away over time.
  Off the top of my head, it could be some sort of aerogel.
  I just don't know of any, that are stable at high temperatures.
  Maybe a wolfram/tungsten oxide aerogel?
  If the structure has voids inside, that are just slightly too small to contain an air molecule, it would certainly have extremely low heat conductivity.
  Otherwise, what oxides would be relatively 'common', or not un-common, in 1970s garbage?
  Titanium oxide? Perhaps a mixed silicon-titanium oxide?
  
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4. Re:Carbon foam by greylion3 · 2018-10-02 06:13 · Score: 1
  
  I wish I could edit my post now, as I just saw the later videos. (I thought there was only one).
  There is definitely some form of carbon foam being created when subjected to extreme heat, but it seems to be protected by something else in the formula.
  I suspect a component to be common baking powder, as it has (some form of) sodiumphosphate.
  I do not see why phosphate would 'stick' to the carbon foam, but that would definitely protect it.
  There is also (commonly) starch in baking powder, which will produce carbon foam when heated with some desiccant mixed in.
  The desiccant could be magnesium oxide.
  The daughter mentions some stages to put it together in, meaning there's some chemical reaction happening, that would not happen if mixed in the wrong order.
  As it is a paste, there's some fluid in it, probably not water. They mention glue of some sort, so this would contain some organic solvent.
  I am not familiar with common 1970s glues, any suggestions?
  The odd thing is, there's barely any smoke coming from it, so all reactions are either almost completely contained within the compound, or produce invisible gases, such as CO2.
  
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5. Re:Carbon foam by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 09:12 · Score: 0
  
  I am not familiar with common 1970s glues, any suggestions?
  That's one difficulty, right there. An unknown glue containing possibly forbidden substances from a company that may or may exist and may or may not have been patented their formula at the time.
Necromancy by The_Dougster · 2018-10-01 19:36 · Score: 4, Funny

Surely one of you adepts can pull his soul from the great beyond and bind it to an Alexa or something so we can recover this important lost secret!

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Clickety Click ...
1. Re:Necromancy by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-01 19:49 · Score: 0
  
  Maybe you're joking, but that would probably work. Pull together as much data as possible about his life, link it to as much data as possible about the people who had any contact with him, link it to science from the field, see what patterns emerge. Then offer a reward for anyone who can use the evidence to duplicate the product.
  RESULT: his mind (or the part we care about) now lives on.
2. Re:Necromancy by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-01 20:00 · Score: 0
  
  Surely one of you adepts can pull his soul from the great beyond and bind it to an Alexa or something so we can recover this important lost secret!
  Wait, I'll ask aunt Mary if she can take out that special CHAIN that she uses to chain-up nasty souls that she summon from the beyond ...
3. Re:Necromancy by Mathinker · 2018-10-01 21:50 · Score: 1
  
  Tony did it --- but now he's dead, too!
  Be careful what you wish for! We're talking "knowledge of good and evil" here! :-)
Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-01 19:42 · Score: 0

If he had been encouraged to patent it we would know it's secret today. So goes the anti-patent 'trade secret' way of doing things.
I wouldn't want this if it's recycled by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-01 20:23 · Score: 0

I vaguely recall reading about this some years ago, and the thing that immediately sprung to mind as a candidate for it is (wet/moist?) diaper filling.
Patents by DrYak · 2018-10-01 20:32 · Score: 1

Patents don't prevent re-engineering,
But you need to come up with a sufficiently different way to solve the same problem, or a new way which solve a ton of other problems. (in the realm of (stupid) software patents: see marching tetrahedron vs marching cubes, range encoding vs. arithmetic coding, etc.)
Here some groups of chemists and material engineer must come up with an entirely different recipe (an entirely different chain of synthesis reactions) which happen to give the same end product.
It's possible, but non trivial.

they make it redundant by telling you exactly how to copy.
On the other hand, the patent describes very precisely *what is* the invention and thus how to recognize any corporation attempting to steal the invention.
(Burt patents should be banned for something like software).

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C'mon, it's easy. by Opportunist · 2018-10-01 20:58 · Score: 5, Funny

It's made of catskin. Proof: Anyone who ever had a cat knows that any amount of heat can easily be absorbed by a cat. Cat thermodynamics also mandate that heat always flows from the warmer body to the cooler body, except in the presence of a cat body whereas all warmth flows to this.

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1. Re:C'mon, it's easy. by 93+Escort+Wagon · 2018-10-02 01:50 · Score: 1
  
  Back when my wife and I first got married, there was this semi-feral cat that used to hang out in my father-in-law’s shop. That thing would lay down on the top of a lit cast-iron wood stove.
  It was as if his fur were made of asbestos.
  
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This could be useful by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-01 21:00 · Score: 0

This could be useful in the war against Islam.
Maskelyne's Cream by alanw · 2018-10-01 21:03 · Score: 2

Jasper Maskelyne, a British stage magician, claimed to have invented something very similar during the Second World War. One of the ingredients, however, was asbestos.
https://books.google.co.uk/boo...
Sort of like fidget spinners by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-01 21:06 · Score: 0

The inventor of the fidget spinner patented her work, and entered into negotiations with a large toy manufacturer. The negotiations never went anywhere - until the patent expired. Then they became a fad, and the inventor got nothing.
Hmm. AC
1. Re:Sort of like fidget spinners by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 12:00 · Score: 0
  
  You mean the toys that act just like the old roller bearings I played with - 55 years - ago?
  Repackaging a roller bearing should not be patentable.
That's OK, there's always Firepaste by 50000BTU_barbecue · 2018-10-01 21:11 · Score: 1

Oh wait
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

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1. Re:That's OK, there's always Firepaste by samwichse · 2018-10-02 05:36 · Score: 1
  
  Oh man, I used to love watching those Project Grizzly videos when I was in high school/college.
Wasn't there a reason for not succeeding? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-01 21:34 · Score: 0

I seem to remember that the reason this stuff never went anywhere is that because it lost its insulating properties over time.
So you'd have to apply fresh stuff every so often.
The biggest markets I can think of for heat insulation all involve long term installations like buildings, safes, various vehicles, etc.
Most people don't want to be ripping out and replacing the fire insulation every 5 years.
He took the secret to his grave by DrXym · 2018-10-01 22:19 · Score: 1

His coffin was coated in starlite and they couldn't cremate him. Ended up burying him instead.
Role playing games vs. Real tanks? by pem · 2018-10-01 23:03 · Score: 1

Yeah. Pretty ineffective.
1. Re:Role playing games vs. Real tanks? by 93+Escort+Wagon · 2018-10-02 01:46 · Score: 1
  
  Except one Iraqi dude had a +5 mace.
  
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2. Re:Role playing games vs. Real tanks? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 04:18 · Score: 0
  
  Except one Iraqi dude had a +5 mace.
  What's he going to do, spray it in the air intakes?
Re: Walk Away from Corporate Social Just-Us by stealth_finger · 2018-10-01 23:07 · Score: 0

Afraid you won't be able to steal our work when we all just Walk Away?
Just walk away. You can put a stop to all this. Just walk away and we will spare your lives. Just walk away.

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I hate stories like this by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-01 23:57 · Score: 0

Why don't you simply examine a sample of it? Then you'll know what it is made of, and you'lll have a pretty good idea of how to make it. This isn't rocket science. It's just science.
1. Re:I hate stories like this by rl117 · 2018-10-02 00:31 · Score: 1
  
  He intentionally prevented any samples of the material from getting out of his hands, so there are no samples to examine as far as I'm aware.
Just watch the BBC videos for facts by Moskit · 2018-10-02 00:11 · Score: 4, Informative

Just watch the BBC series of videos to get actual information.
Material was tested by Ministry of Defense, they used 4kt nuclear bomb equivalent. Goal of material was to disperse heat (thermal energy), provided it withstands the shockwave. There is also many more details available on lasers (tested energy), view of the inventor on patents (from an interview)...
1. Re:Just watch the BBC videos for facts by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 02:18 · Score: 0
  
  IMO.
  Considering how it was discovered, it's very unlikely the components would have been reverse engineered (burning random pieces of garbage) in an era before recycling. Given the career the inventor had, it likely was a result of then-toxic materials used in the house and/or job, that by chance came together.
2. Re:Just watch the BBC videos for facts by jwhyche · 2018-10-02 05:18 · Score: 2
  
  I'm not where I can watch the video today but did they actually use a nuclear bomb to test it? If not then they really didn't test it for being nuke proof. There is no real equivalent to a nuke short of a nuke. Sure you can simulate blast effect with conventional explosives but you can't simulate the nuclear fireball of a few million degrees.
  
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3. Re:Just watch the BBC videos for facts by Moskit · 2018-10-03 01:06 · Score: 1
  
  This was not testing blast effects or radiation effects but thermal effects.
  They wouldn't need to use a real nuclear bomb for such specific test like thermal protection for military objects outside of fireball range. In the video the person from MOD mentions that the blast might have damaged the object/Starlite anyway. Starlite was not protection against nuclear bomb explosion.
Flame Proof Gels available by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 00:39 · Score: 0

There are gels that are consistently used in a firefighting and plumbing commercial setting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_retardant_gel
Estate sale time by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 01:09 · Score: 0

I expect there will be certain companies and governments waiting for the estate sale of property to purchase in the hopes of finding a sample. A jar of what looks like whipped mayonnaise and a popsicle stick inside could be the next billion dollar industry.
1. Re:Estate sale time by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 04:36 · Score: 0
  
  A jar of what looks like whipped mayonnaise and a popsicle stick inside
  Hey Bob, you didn't happen to put that on your sandwich did you? That happens to be my jar for collecting my semen in!
Patents-piracy by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 02:05 · Score: 0

Piracy shows the ONLY way to prevent people "borrowing" your stuff is to never release it. So he was at least good in proving that there is a way to prevent the selfish and greedy from prospering from the sweat of one's brow no matter how much "information wants to be free". Even the "other's can come up with it too" argument didn't work.
You forgot the part where the NASA ... by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 04:05 · Score: 0

... confirmed its properties.
Also: Fuck your assumptions. Even the Standard Model is "just a model", that turned out to be very reliable and hence useful. But that is only true until something is discovered that contradicts it. (General relativity is such a case. Or, remember those particles that left Earth in Antarctica, that may have been new science?)
People always argue about "true" and "false", and neither side wants to accept the third, most natural answer: "I/We don't know!". (This is a clear sign for discussions that are not scientific, but religious, and hence useless.)
Re:No matter what by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 04:08 · Score: 0, Insightful

get over it, hillary, you lost.
There's a sample somewhere... by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 04:43 · Score: 0

Yea, if the US military and company tested this thing and it was nuke and laser proof they would of killed the hairdresser on the spot if he represented any real danger to their ability to use or obtain it. It didn't die with him, he just didn't get rich off it.
Like A Carnie Barker by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 05:14 · Score: 0

Wasn't this the guy who cooked up all those bizarre, attention-getting demonstrations?
As I recall he made a "hat" out of Starlite, put it on his head and turned a blowtorch on it. It's the kind of thing you see at carnivals, trade shows and old chemistry labs back in the 50's and 60's.
It lacked the serious approach of engineering. It lacked a targeted sales pitch that a financially-driven approach would have. It lacked a focus on any specific company, materials problem, industry sector, or value proposition. You never got the feeling that he had the ability to actually sell the product, in any context. Not by his own company or anyone else's.
It was all just, "look at this bizarre material! Incredible! Watch me do something you never thought you'd see!"
sodium polyacrylate by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 07:49 · Score: 0

Probably a super absorbent plastic like sodium polyacrylate, which is why a sample wasn't provided.
What is the stuff?
It's in disposable diapers. That stuff does NOT burn.
Lol
Only Greek fire melts it? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-02 08:20 · Score: 0

It was said that only Greek fire would melt it!
Wait... by frank_adrian314159 · 2018-10-02 10:57 · Score: 1

Something is very fishy here.
You want me to believe that various military and governmental science agencies got their hands on the stuff for testing and saw it working, but didn't get a sample for their own analysis? That's the extraordinary claim for which we need extraordinary evidence.
The stuff's gotta be bullshit.

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That is all.