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Saturday, Nov 7, 2009
VJH
Published Letters: 42 Editor's Choice: 5
I don't know about Russian and WaMu, specifically, but most banks have an idea of their customer's demographics, and target their services accordingly. That WaMu has introduced Chinese and Russian certainly tells you something about either their existing clientele or target demographic.
You didn't say, but it may also be possible that the language choices were selected based on the demographics of the machine's neighborhood. Russian here and Korean someplace else. Why not. It would make a lot of sense for WaMu to have specific language options, since they (and most major banks) are trying to increase the services provided by their ATMs, both to customers and non-customers alike, and targeting their language options accordingly might be one way to get a leg up on the competition.
Basically, it's all about the gas, or at least in this case stuffing that gas into a bottle (watch carefully, and you'll see the watermellonistas put the dry ice or liquid nitrogen into a bottle, and then the bottle goes into the mellon). The volume occupied by a given amount of a liquid or solid increases several hundred times when it becomes a gas. If you do that in a sealed bottle, it becomes pressure, and when that pressure reaches the maximum limit of the bottle it bursts...violently. Pretty simple, eh. Oh, and yeah, those exploding bottles do explode with enough force to cause injury. So be careful if you try this at home, particularly since it's almost impossible to know when it's going to go off.
In this case a typical PET bottle will burst at about 12 atm (about 1250 hPa). That pressure can be achieved with about 25 cc of liquid nitrogen or 30 grams of dry ice in a 2 L bottle. I guess plastic bottles do not generate shrapnel when they burst, but I sure wouldn't want to be holding that bottle when one does.
As for the Mentos in Coke...It has nothing to do with either mentos or coke. The CO2 that's dissolved in the water of any carbonated drink (beer included) can be driven out by adding something else to that. Most likely the candy shell provides nice sites for CO2 nucleation (bubble formation), and that increased nucleation causes the CO2 to rapidly degas from the water. More-or-less, it's like shaking a bottle of soda, with your thumb over the mouth.
I just got back home from a 10 day trip to the US. It's amazing how horrid the mega-US airports have become. On one hand, with the TSA's insistence on individually screening shoes, computers and toothpaste, there needs to be re-screening when transiting from international to domestic flights. I've never been asked to take off my shoes or remove my laptop at NRT, though, this time I was asked if the liquids in my carry-on met the US requirements, but they weren't individually screened. So, I'll guess that there is no international requirement for US bound flights to strictly follow the US procedure.
Interestingly, regardless how busy the ticket counters are at NRT, I've never hand to wait longer than about 5 minutes to get to the security gate. I'm sure that's not always the case, but when was the last time you had less that a 5 minute wait at ORD, or LAX?
My other observation is that Patrick's experience with the minutiae of baggies of indeterminate size and rolled up toothpaste seems to be more common that you would think. Between the security gates at ORD and ATL, I witnessed four instances of people either haggling with the TSA folks over a tube of lipstick, hand creme or some hair product, or outright crying over them, because they didn't fit the size or baggie requirements of TSA. One lady was literally brought to tears over having to part with a tube of expensive "medicated" lotion because her baggie was the wrong size. I was amazed.
Maybe it's more of a problem of airport size. My mother routinely flies out of Newark and sees that sort of thing often, but other family members fly out of MHT and rarely have a problem. Regardless, the time is clearly nigh for the US to craft a comprehensive approach to screening and airport security management...
haha...Like that'll happen in my lifetime. 'eh.
That's funny...well scary coming from the president's mouth, but sort of funny none the less.
It's pretty obvious that the president was not only saying that he lied but that it was the reporters that made him do so. Not content to stop there, it sounds like he was telling the reporters that he'd lie to them too if he didn't like their questions, like during the press conference.
I thought major politcos were coached on the fine art of talking around questions they don't want to answer. It looks like this is another subject that Bush didn't learn very well. Go figure.
This really seems like a lot of smoke without there being much of a fire. Fashion, like music, film and books, does not involve a technological advance to bring about the next design. The US Supreme Court's 1982 ruling on what constitutes obviousness in an invention not withstanding, it doesn't seem like there would be many designs in the fashion industry that could warrant that kind of protection. Moreover, if indeed a technology is invented, in the way of a machine or device, that makes a new fashion design possible, that technology can be patented but not the resultant design. Both the machine and the dress require a creative effort, but the nature of that creation is vastly different. So, it's probably no coincidence that high-value industries like manufacturing and pharmaceuticals enjoy strong patent protection, while relatively low-value industries like fashion do not (even though I'm hesitant to call Versace "low-value"). Just consider for a moment what goes into designing a skirt and computer CPU, and the rationale for the dichotomy should be clear.
The basic bottom like still remains, copy a Burberry and go to Target, copy Intel and go to court.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The Maine fight was supposed to be the dress rehearsal for repealing California's Prop. 8 -- but gay marriage lost
Once one obtains Seriousness credentials in the Washington media, they are irrevocable no matter one's conduct.
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