A contractor is building a tank for us, now that the fabrication has finished, i now write a report based on quality assessment carried out on the tank. Here is the report:
QUALITY ASSESSMENT REPORT ON LN FABRICATED FIRE WATER TANK.
PAGE 1 of 3
Inspected entity: LN Engineering And
I pay a lot of attention to weird things, and to weird weather. I thought I had heard it all: mammatus clouds, inversion layers, parhelic arcs.
But I can still be surprised! For example, I would’ve sworn up and down that snow rollers — giant rolls of snow that look like huge white Ho-Hos — were fake. But they are, in fact, real. Back in March, Tim Tevebaugh saw some in Idaho and snapped away. I couldn’t believe the photos, they’re so weird, I had to contact Tim. He kindly replied, and gave me permission to post pictures:
There they are, sitting on a plain. Evidently, wind conditions need to be just right, and the snow must be precisely the right consistency. I don’t think anyone has seen them form, but I suspect a small clump of snow gets picked up by the wind and rolls into a snowball. When it gets too big it collapses, starts rolling again, picks up more snow, collapses again, and eventually forms these long cylinders. It’s just a guess, but it seems logical. [UPDATE: several commenters have pointed out that the ball need not collapse to make a roller; I had supposed that happened to help spread the ball out horizontally. I stand corrected!]
Just how bizarre are these things? Here’s another picture:
If you look at the big one on the right, you can see how it looks like a piece of foam that’s been rolled up, a testament to how it formed. It like looking down the maw of the Doomsday Machine from Star Trek. I would love to see something like this as it happened. I’ve not seen anything like it in Boulder, but we’re getting plenty of snow here, and it’s plenty windy here so one day I hope to spot them.
I’m perpetually amazed at the imagination and creative power of nature. Snow rollers! Who knew?
Tip o’ the Frosty magic top hat to James Oberg and my thanks to Tim Tevebaugh for sending me the pictures and giving me permission to post them.
Over at DroidForums they've got a tutorial on how to hack your Droid to enable GUI Wi-Fi tethering, as Moto's Android may do many things, but it stops short at hooking up with your laptop or other wireless gadget.
Modder WebAcoustics says of the hack:
"Please note that this involves rooting your phone, installing a custom recovery image, and a custom kernel. This is not for the faint of heart"
If that doesn't intimidate you, then hop on over to DroidForums for the details. [DroidForums via The Gadgets via Engadget]
plz can anybody understand me difference between adiabatic process and isothermal process
ZOMG! This Christmas tree! It's just...floating! How in the love of Santa Christ did they do that?! Oh, I see, they just hung it from the top.
I will admit that the bottom is pretty badass looking, and it certainly does leave a lot of room for presents. But you need to have a home setup similar to this to pull it off, and you also need to be cool with your tree dangling from a wire hung from a crane-like apparatus.
But really, if it were my dad who did this, I would tell him to quit fiddling with the tree and to reroute that energy to my presents. That's the reason for the season, after all. [Instructables]
From Discovery News - Top Stories:
A Russian rocket blasted off from a cosmodrome in Kazakhstan lighting up the frigid Central Asian steppe Monday, shuttling an American, a Russian and a Japanese to the International Space Station. Standing in the early morning cold, the astrona
From Discovery News - Top Stories:
Just in time for the holiday blizzards, a little piece of nano-engineering to amuse snowbound citizens. David Cox, a scientist in the Quantum Detection group at the National Physical Laboratory in the United Kingdom has built the world's smalle
From Discovery News - Top Stories:
There was a lot of excitement last week about the discovery of a "waterworld" planet called GJ 1214b, as reported on Discovery News by my colleague Ian O'Neill. This world belongs to an emerging class of planets dubbed "super-Earths." It is 6.
Topically applied therapy travels deep into the skin to combat MRSA infections.
Using a technique that provides detailed images of nanoscale structures, researchers at the University of Michigan and Detroit's Henry Ford Hospital have discovered changes in the collagen component of bone that directly relate to bone health.
Sophisticated as it is, a superconducting linac is a conventional particle accelerator that, in a machine like the Next Generation Light Source (NGLS) now under study, can be used to produce superbright laser beams. The inverse is also true: powerful lasers can be used to accelerate charged particles - but in ways that are anything but conventional.
Leticia Espinosa Alonso put catalysts under the microscope and discovered a world of new possibilities.
MIT researchers present conclusive evidence that membrane vibrations in red blood cells require energy input from ATP (adenosine triphosphate), a chemical cells use to store and transfer energy.
Diabetics may soon be able to wear contact lenses that continuously alert them to variations in their glucose levels by changing colours - replacing the need to routinely draw blood throughout the day.
Communication between nerve cells is vital for our bodies to function. Part of this communication happens through vesicles containing signalling molecules called neurotransmitters.
Physiker bremsen ein einzelnes Atom mit Hilfe einer optoelektronischen Rueckkopplung in Echtzeit.
Ecology Coatings, Inc., a leader in the discovery and development of nanotechnology-enabled, advanced coatings, has developed UV-cured coatings specifically to address opportunities within the paper and packaging industry. These opportunities include the need for increased water and chemical resistance, along with solutions to important application and environmental issues, such as lower energy use, sustainability, solvent-free materials, and increased productivity.
Sandia National Laboratories scientists have developed tiny glitter-sized photovoltaic cells that could revolutionize the way solar energy is collected and used.
The cellulose produced by bacteria could be used for artificial blood vessels in the future as it carries a lower risk of blood clots than the synthetic materials currently used for bypass operations.
Strange but true: the recently restarted Large Hadron Collider, the most powerful accelerator in the world, is the direct descendant of Thomas Edison's light bulb. The light bulb was invented before electrons were discovered but nevertheless led to the first vacuum tubes, which for a long time were the principal means of accelerating and controlling charged particles in radios, medical x-rays, and other practical applications.
