No Neutral Switchgear Control Power

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We just installed power to switchgear using existing feeders we thought had a neutral but we don't... Some of the control power transformers and meters have a spot for the neutral to land to and I assume reference it as well. I look through the shop drawings and noticed we are taking control pow

Fuel Alcohol Distillation through stripper column

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We are involved in a fuel alcohol distillation project through a stripper column. Distillation is causing corrosion of the copper condenser coils. Our beer is neutral. The process is using sugar, diamonium phosphate, muriatic acid and after fermentation baking soda to a ph of 7. What is causing this

Push, Pull, and…?

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Hello CR4,

I'm working on some database stuff and wondering if a third relationship between two systems can exist, on top of the two infamous push and pull. Any thoughts? Currently, I am working with the following pseudo-definitions:

* Push: System A sends out data to System B. "Sy

Megameter chasm on an icy moon | Bad Astronomy

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I know I haven’t been posting much astronomy the past few days — Comic Con, w00tstock, and "Bad Universe" have kept me hopping — so to make up for it a little bit, here’s a lovely image sent back a billion kilometers from Cassini:

cassini_tethys_canyon

This is Tethys, an ice moon of Saturn. The angle of Cassini, Tethys, and the Sun light the moon as a crescent. The most obvious feature is Ithaca Chasma, a (more than) thousand-kilometer-long gash in the side of the object. Note that Tethys is only about 1000 km in diameter, so the chasm runs along a third of the moon’s surface (circumference = diameter x π, remember).

How big is that? Stand up and take a long stride. That’s about one meter. Now do it 999,999 more times. That’s a megameter: a million meters, or 1000 kilometers. Better pack a lunch.

The chasm is billions of years old, and may have formed when water inside the moon froze, expanded, and cracked the surface open. It’s a hundred kilometers across and 3-5 km deep, too. It’s far larger than the Grand Canyon, the largest canyon on Earth.

Space is big, and weird, where even small objects have huge features. It’s surprising, but surprising things are the best things to know.

Tip o’ the dew shield to Carolyn Porco.

Related posts:

- An otherwordly eclipse
- A billion km distant ice mountain against the black


Wind-Powered Cart Goes Faster Than the Wind

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From Wired Top Stories:

The results are in and a new record has been set in a new category after a wind-powered vehicle officially traveled downwind faster than the wind. Naysayers said it couldn't be done, but Rick Cavallaro and the crew at fasterthanthewind.org proved it coul

Street Light Lux Calculation

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if i have 9m long single arm 150 W HPMV street ligt pole they shall errect side of road max 250 m with equal distance then what shall require standered lux or what is the formula of lux calculating of street light or which distance me maintain between two street light pole as per given data

Shooting a Plane in One of The Quietest Places on Earth | Visual Science

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An RQ-4 Global Hawk Block 20 aircraft hangs inside the Benefield Anechoic Facility at Edwards AFB 6/30/08. RQ-4 Global Hawk is a Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) used by the United States Air Force and Navy as a surveillance aircraft. “R” is the Department of Defense designation for reconnaissance; “Q” means unmanned aircraft system. The “4″ refers to it being the fourth of a series of purpose-built unmanned aircraft systems (UAS).

The Global Vigilance Combined Test Force concluded an electromagnetic profile study for the Global Hawk Block 20 at the Benefield Anechoic Facility in summer 2008. The three-week study marked the first time the test force used an entire Global Hawk aircraft for testing inside the anechoic facility.

“We are testing the aircraft at the BAF (Benefield Anechoic Facility) because we have a sealed chamber, which allows no radio frequency to come into or go out of it,” said 2nd Lt. Christopher Stilson, 772nd Test Squadron project lead engineer. “We are completely sealed off from the outside world and interferences, such as cell phones and radios, which sometimes make it hard to separate the aircraft’s radio frequency from the environment.” The result of this testing is part of the Federal Aviation Administration requirement for the Global Hawk’s airworthiness certification. “It is a certificate required by the FAA to allow an air vehicle to fly in the national airspace,” said Ed De Reyes, Northrop Grumman EMI Test Lead. “Because the Global Hawk is an unmanned aerial vehicle, the FAA is requiring a higher standard for the aircraft.”

Photographer Jet Fabara had this to say about making this shot: “When I first arrived at Edwards Air Force Base, the only fact I was given about the BAF was that it was used in the movie Armageddon and that if I ever had the opportunity to take photos inside the facility it would be different than any other building I’d shoot in. To give you a better idea of the building’s scale, when the BAF was being constructed in 1988, the heart of the facility would be the largest electromagnetic-free environment for flight test programs like the B-52 and C-17 at that time. Since the interior of the test facility is suppose to simulate “free space,” any person that enters the BAF will always tell you that testing in the BAF is like testing in a sound proof booth.”

“The first time I entered the BAF, I remember feeling like I underestimated the size and dimension of the entire facility. Once the facility’s doors close, there is a complete sense of seclusion from the world. The blue stalagmite- and stalactite-looking material that surrounds every facet of the interior creates a cave where noise becomes completely absent. The most interesting thing about documenting inside the BAF is that I had never seen aircraft suspended from the ceiling of a building before. I’d seen aircraft in the air, inverted and banking, but never hanging. The day I was called out to document the RQ-4 in the BAF, I was also impressed at how the wings spanned across the width of the facility.”

Courtesy Jet Fabara/USAF

Isolated in the Farallons, Biologists Have Bizarre “Island Invasion Dreams” | Discoblog

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sealScientists stationed on Farallon Islands, which has one of the world’s most delicate ecosystems, don’t just keep tabs on native species such as sea lions and puffins–they’ve also have been recording their dreams for the past two decades. The findings? Dreams that are “eerily similar,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle:

“Whether scientists are on the island for a few weeks or… stationed there on and off for a decade, their dreams are filled with marauding kids, terrified shorebirds, forest fires, shark attacks and a healthy dose of the absurd.”

It makes sense that scientists stationed there would have some pretty wacky dreams; after all, they go with essentially no human contact for many weeks on end, and are kept company by not-so-ordinary neighbors such as whales, sharks and up to 500,000 birds. The dreams have been dubbed “island invasion dreams.” The Chronicle describes one such dream:

“One scientist dreamed the biologists played the cormorants in a game of hockey on West End Island, cheered on by a crowd of drunken elephant seals. Another dreamed that interns were thrown to the great white sharks that circle the islands during seal breeding season. Biologist Pete Warzybok once dreamed he saw a flamingo on the island, and then he was suddenly riding in his father’s old 1961 Buick. Next a bum began cleaning the windshield with spit and a dirty rag.”

That leaves us wondering: Do the animals on the island have nightmares about the scientists stationed there?

Related content:
Discoblog: Worst Science Article of the Week: We Can See Your Dreams!
Discoblog: Technicolor Dreams: Study Finds Dream Colors Match Childhood TV Shows
Discoblog: Wacky Theory: Bed Coils Amplify Radio & TV Transmissions and Cause Cancer

Image: flickr / ucumari


Flushed with pareidolia | Bad Astronomy

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Pareidolia is the psychology term for seeing faces in random patterns. This usually gets air time due to some vaguely Christlike shape in a stain or something, but not every instance has to be religiously motivated. I don’t want to ignore those secular ones, because, after all, I hate to let anything go to waste.

Behold!

toileteidolia

This picture, taken by Mitchell Whitney, was snapped right after an, um, incident that required some vigorous plunging. The only conclusion is that the toilet itself was relieved when it was all over as well.

I have a series of puns all trying to push their way out of my brain, but I’ll let them go because it’s been an exhausting week. I’m pooped.

Tip o’ the plumber’s helper to Dan Durda.