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Started by Kothnok, April 18, 2008, 06:16:35 PM

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Kothnok

April 18, 2008, 06:16:35 PM
My net service is down.  Upon calling, I was told the trouble was fixed.  I had to inform them whatever trouble has been this entire day, it's still down.  I do not have any hopes it will be back up tonight as there's a thunderstorm in the area... but time will tell.  Sorry I can't be there for SSC.  :-\
No matter how often you refill the gene pool, there's always a shallow end.

Kothnok

#1
April 21, 2008, 01:11:49 PM
I am further sorry I was not able to put myself back in queue for the events over the weekend.  I was lucky enough to make the afternoon kara run, but nothing else.

It turns out that some squirrels chewed through the junction box up on the telephone pole outside and let enough water into it so that it shorted out the splitter inside.  That weakened the signal so much that my cable modem wouldn't work, my phone service was up and down a lot and my tv signal was weak (not that I noticed the latter two much).  They also found the splitter was too small for my services and upgraded it to a larger capacity one.  So now I should not only be back online, but with better service.  Woot!
No matter how often you refill the gene pool, there's always a shallow end.

Luise

#2
April 22, 2008, 07:05:19 PM
That's what I would call "nature damage". I'm gald you got a happy ending Koth :)

We don't have squirrels but we get possums in our roofs in Australia and it's against the law to kill them- you have to get a licensed possum trapper to let them go free- only to have them back again in a few months.

Worse than that- I had black ants in the insulation in my roof and the acid from dead ants caused electrical shorts - I had to replace power points, etc. and it took weeks for all of them to die.

Kothnok

#3
April 22, 2008, 07:51:37 PM
> acid from dead ants caused electrical shorts

um... wow.  I never would have expected that.

I wonder if we can make batteries out of dead ant acid  ]:D
No matter how often you refill the gene pool, there's always a shallow end.

Nasanna

#4
April 22, 2008, 08:23:33 PM
I had no idea that dead ants smelled or could cause electrical shorts...

QuoteAs early as the 15th century, some alchemists and naturalists were aware that ant hills gave off an acidic vapor. The first person to describe the isolation of this substance (by the distillation of large numbers of ants) was the English naturalist John Ray, in 1671. Ants secrete the formic acid for attack and defense purposes. Formic acid was first synthesized from hydrocyanic acid by the French chemist Joseph Gay-Lussac. In 1855, another French chemist, Marcellin Berthelot, developed a synthesis from carbon monoxide that is similar to that used today.
from http://vermiculite.eu/formic_acid_en.html

"Formica" is the latin word for ant, which is where the name "formic acid" originates. It's a carboxylic acid, so I don't know if it would be strong enough for a battery. Maybe I'll work on that for my senior project next year ;)
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