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jas little

Member since: Jun 5th, 2006

jas little's Latest Comments

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Boeing's Hydrogen-Powered Airplane Completes Test Flights (Switched)

Apr 4th 2008 10:05PM Every glass of water is part hydrogen. Adding the numbers one gets 18 as the molecular weight of the compound. 2 of the 18 are hydrogen. So about 11% is the weight fraction of hydrogen. Extracting it and storing at high pressure or as a liquid is not a basement hobby lab exercise.

Almost any chemistry introduction has a demonstration of using DC current to fill two water filled columns with the separated gasses, O2 and H2. Volume of hydrogen is obviously twice that of oxygen.


Boeing's Hydrogen-Powered Airplane Completes Test Flights (Switched)

Apr 4th 2008 10:05PM Every glass of water is part hydrogen. Adding the numbers one gets 18 as the molecular weight of the compound. 2 of the 18 are hydrogen. So about 11% is the weight fraction of hydrogen. Extracting it and storing at high pressure or as a liquid is not a basement hobby lab exercise.

Almost any chemistry introduction has a demonstration of using DC current to fill two water filled columns with the separated gasses, O2 and H2. Volume of hydrogen is obviously twice that of oxygen.


Man Dies Trying to Extract Gold From Computer Parts (Switched)

Apr 4th 2008 9:55PM Mercury killed many alchemists. Boiling mercury, and liquid even at room temperature generates a toxic concentration of vapor unless there is very good fume hoods (with filters to remove the Hg) to remove them. Many dental offices in the last century were contaminated by spilled mercury. I have some in tooth fillings.

Gold is used in few places in a computer in sufficient amounts to be worth small scale recovery. Many plug in parts have gold plated contacts, the thickness of a few millionths of an inch. Copper also dissolves in mercury as does silver.

As the first message states: Another Darwin award waits this one. The gene pool is slowly improving.

duke


Insurance policies to avoid: No need to cover your kids, your cruise or your clunker (WalletPop)

Feb 28th 2008 11:39PM Boy, Oh boy. There must be a thousand insurance agents and lawyers
reading this advice for those who really need help.

As one who had a childhood paid for policy issued in 1932 for the
huge face amount of a thousand dollars of pre-crash money, I finally used
it by taking a loan of the cash value some fifteen years ago. By investing it in
a common stock that is now worth more than ten times the face value
of the policy, I have become the winner in this race.

Because of this when my wife and I retired we retained only the "free"
part of the employer's policy. Why? Because we invested money for
all our working years and like Mr. Buffet, chose wisely and still hold 90% of
our choices. And the house we bought at the time we got hitched is paid in full.
We pay our plastic bills in full each month. Our spending is less than our pensions
by a significant amount. We buy new vehicles when the old one is a few miles beyond
reasonable life. And we have money put away for full cost of replacement.

Our investment income is still reinvested and not needed for our lifestyle.

We have no need for any insurance beside the protection of house value with
significant liability coverage and an umbrella for over limit risk. Same for vehicle
coverage. These could show significant losses if there was an accident.

And we have good medical coverage.


duke

Should Warren Buffett assist a GE break up by buying GE Plastics? (BloggingStocks)

May 9th 2007 5:15PM Mr. Buffett looks for bargains, not a bidding war!



GE plastics does NOT meet this criteria. Also does he understand the business? criteria two.

Home Depot headed for $100 billion buyout? (BloggingStocks)

Dec 5th 2006 4:05PM Should the buyout take place I trust that the autocrat would be replaced by a better person.
\
OTOH as a small potato shareholder, I would like to see a change at the top if it stays public.

Bill Gates invests in boring stocks! Utilities and hotels? (BloggingStocks)

Nov 7th 2006 12:38PM Mr. Gates has the bucks to buy anything. I didn't some forty plus years ago when I graduated, got married and had little spare cash. But, I asked myself and spouse what does everyone need, is regulated so it is profitable no matter what. Answer: utilites. So I bought into five local ones over a decade. Still have them. Reinvested earnings to speed compounding.

Now we are retired, have very significant assets, zero debt for decades.
We put money that used to be house payments into tax free fund and it is our emergency backstop.

It is possible to be well off as long as one spends less than income after taxes.

duke

Wal-Mart to possibly get bad rap in Maryland (BloggingStocks)

Jul 8th 2006 6:59PM Wal-Mart was singular target only because every other big employeer had health coverage for ALL employees. W-M does its best to part-time and temporary as many as possible to avoid this significant cost. As a Maryland tax payer I object to using public funds to cover what should be an employer expense! The size was carefully chosen and can be lowered if more try tricks to avoid this cost.

GE jet engine flies apart during testing (BloggingStocks)

Jun 14th 2006 5:34PM What part failed? Obviously it was some part of the rotating mass, and not the engine shell. The Iowa crash was a flaw in the titanium compressor disk. Any info if similar part on this engine?

Details would be welcome. At least it was on the ground and zero injuries.

Microsoft raising an iPod killer? (BloggingStocks)

Jun 5th 2006 1:13PM Twenty two years after 1984 Microsoft still hasn't
made an operating system that is as good as the
original Mac's. What makes you believe they can copy
the iPod inside the next twenty?

Obviously biased, we have two iPods and one iShuffle.