A thread about nothing at all....

[Conniesaki]

... is not full of acetylene but acetone that has absorbed a great deal of acetone. ...

 Really? 

[B.D.F.]

Would I kid you? Really? Why would I bother?

The world is such a truly amazing place, full of all sorts of simply fascinating things that there is no need to make anything up. Just pay attention and a single human will be overwhelmed with all the clever, brilliant, tricky and extremely common things that other, usually very intelligent humans have conjured up and we all use and take for granted. C'mon people, put down the tablet (phone, whatever), stop frolicking with the utter nonsense on FaceTwit and the world will reward you one- million times over with truly great things. Quotes. Sayings. Speeches / writings, starting with those who invented written language ("And then he slew them all", Homer, circa 800 to 500 BC and still used in every other book or movie being produced today "You better bury Ned right! Better not cut up nor otherwise harm no whores, or I'll come back and kill every one of you sons of bitches!" - Wiliam Munny, Unforgiven, 1992). The most interesting inventions imaginable: look at a Geneva mechanism and tell me that was invented by a dumb but 'lucky' guy. Celestial navigation, starting with the need to know exactly what time it was (John Harrison, the H1, 1735) and continuing through a relatively complete mapping of the celestial bodies and finally, sight- reduction tables to correct for the Earth' 'wobble'. Archimedes Screw (Easy Boys!) to lift water. The Pythagorean theorem. Relativity.

Given this and so very much more, why would anyone have to make stuff up?

But, AT ANY RATE (see how I slipped that one in there?), if you need a reference:
https://www.rexarc.com/blog/importance-acetoning-dissolving-acetylene-acetone/

Really? 

[B.D.F.]

And since yesterday's topic was how to store a particular welding gas, let's look at how we generate the various welding gasses, at least some of them.

We pressurize and cool air (just plain 'ole air) until it becomes a liquid. The back the pressure off to exactly the right level for the gas desired, and it will boil out of the liquid air. That's it. We do not 'generate' most gasses at all, we merely separate them from the atmosphere. Some, such as nitrogen and oxygen, are plentiful and we get lots of them out of a single liquid air boiling cycle. Some such as neon, argon, helium, not so much. There is enough argon and neon to be the sourced this way but almost no helium, which is strange as it is second most abundant element in the entire universe... but not so much in our atmosphere.

Well, OK, it IS a little more complicated that that sometimes. Helium is not practical to extract from the atmosphere so we drill for it in the ground. When all the personnel around the drilling rig start talking like Donald Duck, they know they hit helium. Well, maybe not quite that.... helium is found in fair concentrations in natural gas so we separate it out.

Now an interesting side- note is that the US kind of has a lock on the natural gas, and therefore the helium, market. Which can lead to hi-jinks and hilarity, or at least some odd and unfortunate situations: when the Germans conjectured up Dirigibles, they needed a liight gas capable of lifting the entire craft. Two come to the fore: hydrogen (the lightest) and helium (second lightest). Hydrogen has more lift but not all that much and it is EXTREMELY flammable. So the Germans wanted to buy helium from the US but for whatever reason that day, we were cranky with them and would not sell them any. So they used hydrogen with the direct result of the Hindenburg blowing up in New Jersey.

All of which leads us to the startling notion that the line "I have gas." might not be such a bad thing.....

Brian

[just gone]

Brian, I think you missed your typo twice, once when you typed it and then again when it was quoted. Really.
Here's a third chance.

So the tank is not full of acetylene but acetone that has absorbed a great deal of acetone.

Not inaccurate, but probably not what you wanted to type there?

...anyway....you also missed an easy boys here...

(see how I slipped that one in there?)

and then this..

All of which leads us to the startling notion that the line "I have gas." might not be such a bad thing.....

Just for the record, I've never considered it bad, but then mine smell like roses. 

[B.D.F.]

Just got a new type in: a Target Vision brand. Seems nice enough, linked to both an Android phone as well as an IPad. Planning on taking it, both displays (one is my phone) and some Hornady V-Max loads to the range tomorrow if the hooky gods let me away with it (am on a first- name with those guys so here is hoping). Going to set up at 300 yds. to give it a fair distance test, will bring a camera with me to show the relative setup and distances involved.

Package was $350, all- inclusive. One small case, unit stands on a tripod but otherwise is a sealed box. The only target camera on the market with a high- res. camera, and they have another that is much higher res. yet but it bumps into the bandwidth of WiFi and frame rate. Anyway, nice looking unit, easy to set up and the software looks like it may be adequate. Anyway, it is cheaper than a spotting scope that will find 6mm and smaller holes at 300 yds, and will leave a visual record as well as a 'movie'.

BTW: just got done with something like 2,300 "free" Federal .223 casings. PIA to decap them, bigger PIA to swage the primer pocket crimps out and they only cleaned up to 'very good' instead of 'outstanding'. With the price of ammunition falling, and the fact that I really like PMC brass, I think this will be the last "free" L.E. brass that I pick up. Those folks generate it 1/2 of a 5 gallon bucket at a time but I think I will let some other lucky contestant deal with that stuff. Oh yeah, it is mixed with .40 cal brass (all fired in the same session) and so no matter how careful I have been to separate it, enough .40 cal works through my case feeder to make it annoying. And the occasional 9mm case WELDS itself to the base of a .223, making it virtually impossible to separate them. Again, all part of the 'freeness' of the free brass. :-( 

Brian

I'm going to have to check these things out. It's been a few years since I've done some long distance shooting and even with a decent sporting scope it was difficult to see some hits. I can guarantee you my eyes haven't exactly gotten better in the last 5 years. I don't know what you paid for this device but I bet it's a lot cheaper than and really good spotting scope.

[B.D.F.]

Yep, typos. And wordos (wrong word but correctly spelled). Hence my very short career as a book editor. 

I will go back and fix what I can (said the contractor just before things already bad took a turn for the worse). Thanks or the corrections Marty!

Brian

Brian, I think you missed your typo twice, once when you typed it and then again when it was quoted. Really.
Here's a third chance.Not inaccurate, but probably not what you wanted to type there?

...anyway....you also missed an easy boys here...

and then this..
Just for the record, I've never considered it bad, but then mine smells like roses. 

[B.D.F.]

Yep, a mistake and I did not see it even when you quoted it.

Proof that while there are smart people out there, I ain't one o' dem.

Brian

Really? 

[Conniesaki]

Yep, a mistake and I did not see it even when you quoted it.

Proof that while there are smart people out there, I ain't one o' dem.

Brian

For the record, I wasn't trying to give you a hard time, as a lot of the topic was over my head I was sincerely asking if it was intentional ... i.e. some sort of supersaturation. AT ANY RATE, now I know. Well, sorta.

[B.D.F.]

Well, no offense taken certainly. A mistake on my part, I just did not catch it when you pointed it out. Marty knows me and so was less subtle. :-)

And the topic was not over your head; if you found it so, I explained it badly.... although I was telling the story like a 1940 film noir 'cause it was amusing.

It is simple: many different liquids absorb many gasses. The most obvious example of this is water and carbon dioxide: water, in the form of soda or beer, will absorb a lot of carbon dioxide. Look at a bottle of beer that is sealed and all you will see is liquid. Now open the bottle and bubbles come to the surface, that is the gas escaping the beer. It happens because the pressure is lowered a little bit on the liquid. Pour it into a glass and it will continue to produce gas for quite a while. Again, the gas (CO2) coming out of the liquid.

Lots of information about this all over the place but this is one source, along with an explanation of how much gas is in a liquid, and how it 'gets out' regarding pressure: http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/air-solubility-water-d_639.html

And BTW, a liquid does not have to be bubbling a gas out of it to actually contain a gas; water contains a lot of oxygen and that is what fish use and absorb via their gills. We put oxygen into water most readily by surface area of exposure; to put oxygen into an aquarium, we just bubble air through the water. This causes the oxygen in the air (about 20 / 21% of air is oxygen) to "seep" into the water and basically stay there so the fish can extract it. A body of water w/out much or any oxygen will 'die', killing all of the living species from plankton on up.

Brian

For the record, I wasn't trying to give you a hard time, as a lot of the topic was over my head I was sincerely asking if it was intentional ... i.e. some sort of supersaturation. AT ANY RATE, now I know. Well, sorta.

[B.D.F.]

More than fifty years ago, television in the US was settling into the mechanism and methodology that would last, with little variation,  until the present day. It had gone through the 1950's as 'The Golden Age of Television' with a good deal of hope and promise only to clank into the Sitcoms, [police, medical, law, firefighter / emt] dramas and all the rest of the junk we still have, in a format dotted with commercials to pay for it in the 1960's. The head of FCC at the time, showing extreme disappointment in what television was becoming, or more correctly, was being used to broadcast, gave a speech in which he claimed people tuning in to television at the current time (9 May, 1961) would see a "vast wasteland" among other derogatory observances. As the legend goes, more than 100,000 people called and wrote to the FCC asking the time and network on which "Vast Wasteland" aired. Legend or not, the truth that amuses me is that a particularly successful producer, making a fortune in mindless sitcoms, was offended by those remarks.

The head of the FCC, the man who called Television broadcasts a "Vast Wasteland" was Nelson Minnow (still alive today, coming up on 92 years of age). The man who was offended was Sherwood Schwartz (who died in 2011, at 94 years of age), who brought us such gems as Gilligan's Island, The Brady Bunch and others of that ilk. As a swipe at Nelson Minnow, and still a bit cranky about the "Vast Wastland" speech, Schwartz named the boat on Gilligan's Island the S.S. Minnow as a gesture toward Mr. Minnow.

Brian

[maxtog]

Fast forward to the early 80's and the new "cable TV" was supposed to rescue us from nonsense, offering lots of channels for additional viewing choices and diversity.  And a model of stations that didn't need to rely on ever longer and frequent, and more annoying commercials to finance it because they would be paid by the cable operator.  We even had a music TV station that, hard to believe, aired music videos.  Man we were the S*** with our 35 channels!

Fast forward another decade and it was apparent that the idea of commercial free TV was never going to happen outside of one or two pay-even-more-to-access-TV channels like HBO, and maybe a PBS.  But look, so many channels, and some are pretty cool!  Perhaps satellite TV would save us...

Fast forward another decade and it was clear that satellite would just be a clone of cable.  Bills get bigger and bigger and bigger every year while more and more nonsense channels are added.  HD added, and used as another excuse to raise prices.  Mindless "reality TV" now starts to take root and displace regular programming.

Fast forward another decade and the wasteland is complete and total.  Several hundred stations of nonsense.  Almost all highly-regarded stations like the so-called "Learning Channel" and "Discovery Channel" and even MTV play nothing but "reality TV" crap.  Prices as high as some people's average monthly electric bills so you have the privilege of access to hundreds of commercial-ridden mediocre channels.  Failed cable cards and SDTV just to make sure you are locked into horrible, expensive, and backwards equipment with no innovation.  But Netflix might help....

And another several years and here we are.  Still pretty much no choice and big fat monopolies.  Even more nonsense channels added to the point it takes an hour to scroll through them all... and they change every few months.  Netflix and Hulu and such broke the mold a while ago and present another possible idea- IPTV.  But you can't get the shows you want, and network after network decide they all want to go build their own IPTV platform and pull things off Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu.  So now you have to subscribe to cable for the important few things left, high-speed internet to get IPTV, Netflix to get their good stuff, and a dozen other little platforms, each costing another $10 to $15 a month to get various other stuff.

But hey, at least there are tons of "channels"

[gPink]

speaking of nothing....http://youtu.be/YAlDbP4tdqc

[just gone]

For the record, I wasn't trying to give you a hard time,....

OH SURE, make me look the bad guy. 

[Conniesaki]

OH SURE, make me look the bad guy. 

[mikeyw64]

This side of the Pond you can get both FreeView & Freesat without any sort of monthly subscription.

Both offer around 200 TV channels plus some catch up stuff, the primary difference between them is that Freeview uses a "standard" rooftop aerial whilst FreeSat requires a dish


In fact the vast majority of Tellies (or TVs, not to be confused with TVs) have one or more FreeView tuners built in. Alternatively you can but boxes for as little as about £50

Ok it is a fairly basic list and does not include any of the specialist/dedicated sports or movie channels  but its a lot better than a kick in the teeth. It also includes all the "normal" terrestrial channels (ie BBC1,BBC2,BBC4, ITV,Channel4 (Plus S4C the Welsh variant), & CHannel 5) wth the BBC channels being a commercial free (apart from for their own products/programs lol) zone.

Mind you they are a bit creative with their channel count at times eg I would class Channel 4, Channel 4 + 1 & Channel 4 HD as 1 channel, legally they are allowed to count them as 3


That said I've got a Sky Q satellite service with movies and sports which also gives me multiroom viewing and the ability to record 5 other channels whilst watching another one. Alos works seamlessly across to my ipad or phone which costs me around £85 per month. Ok I could get a tve service a lot cheaper but IMHO the Sky service over here knocks spots off all the other offering  and I'm more than happy to pay for it

[B.D.F.]

But on the 'free' services, as I understand it, there is a television 'tax' or gov't fee involved? And if not, what is the mechanism of payment (there is always a mechanism of payment, the only things that change and the delivery medium and the suitableness, i.e. gov't taxes paying for gov't supplied broadcasts).

Brian

This side of the Pond you can get both FreeView & Freesat without any sort of monthly subscription.

Both offer around 200 TV channels plus some catch up stuff, the primary difference between them is that Freeview uses a "standard" rooftop aerial whilst FreeSat requires a dish


In fact the vast majority of Tellies (or TVs, not to be confused with TVs) have one or more FreeView tuners built in. Alternatively you can but boxes for as little as about £50

Ok it is a fairly basic list and does not include any of the specialist/dedicated sports or movie channels  but its a lot better than a kick in the teeth. It also includes all the "normal" terrestrial channels (ie BBC1,BBC2,BBC4, ITV,Channel4 (Plus S4C the Welsh variant), & CHannel 5) wth the BBC channels being a commercial free (apart from for their own products/programs lol) zone.

Mind you they are a bit creative with their channel count at times eg I would class Channel 4, Channel 4 + 1 & Channel 4 HD as 1 channel, legally they are allowed to count them as 3


That said I've got a Sky Q satellite service with movies and sports which also gives me multiroom viewing and the ability to record 5 other channels whilst watching another one. Alos works seamlessly across to my ipad or phone which costs me around £85 per month. Ok I could get a tve service a lot cheaper but IMHO the Sky service over here knocks spots off all the other offering  and I'm more than happy to pay for it

[mikeyw64]

Almost correct

There's a TV licence fee payable by anyone using a TV or other device capable of receiving a signal, doesn't matter whether its BBC/ITV or whatever. If its capable of receiving a signal you need to ave a licence for it.

Or to quote Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_United_Kingdom

"In the United Kingdom and the Crown dependencies, any household watching or recording live television transmissions as they are being broadcast (terrestrial, satellite, cable, or internet) is required to hold a television licence. Businesses, hospitals, schools and a range of other organisations are also required to hold television licences to watch and record live TV broadcasts.[1] A television licence is also required to receive on-demand programme services provided by the BBC, on the iPlayer catch-up service."

In other words even if you don't watch the BBC commercial free channels you still have to pay the licence fee.


Thats currently £147 per year for a Colour TV Licence &  £49.50 for a Black & White TV Licence.

Over 75's get it free and anyone living in a care home pays £7.50

If you're registered blind you get a 50% reduction


http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/tv-licence-types-and-costs-top2

But on the 'free' services, as I understand it, there is a television 'tax' or gov't fee involved? And if not, what is the mechanism of payment (there is always a mechanism of payment, the only things that change and the delivery medium and the suitableness, i.e. gov't taxes paying for gov't supplied broadcasts).

Brian

[gPink]

"If you're registered blind you get a 50% reduction"

  You can get half off the television (a sighted service) fee if you're blind....do you get for free if you're blind and deaf?

[mikeyw64]

"If you're registered blind you get a 50% reduction"

  You can get half off the television (a sighted service) fee if you're blind....do you get for free if you're blind and deaf?

Only if you're 75 & over

[B.D.F.]

And of course you actually get a payment if you are blind, deaf, and not too bright.....

 

Hey, everything can be plotted on a curve, and I was just looking at where this curve was going.....

Brian

"If you're registered blind you get a 50% reduction"

  You can get half off the television (a sighted service) fee if you're blind....do you get for free if you're blind and deaf?