haynes@ucscc.UCSC.EDU (Jim Haynes) (03/14/89)
This is one I heard at least third hand, so it is genuine folklore.
A computer company and a railroad got up a project together in the
early 60s to see if computers could help the railroad keep track of its
freight cars. In the course the the project people had occasion to
rummage around in a freight yard in Los Angeles. One thing they discovered
was a boxcar filled with brand new 10-year-old automobiles. Another
discovery was a carload of hides which had been shuttling endlessly between
L.A. and Kansas City for a long period of time, during which the hides
got pretty ripe!
haynes@ucscc.ucsc.edu
haynes@ucscc.bitnet
..ucbvax!ucscc!haynes
"Any clod can have the facts, but having opinions is an Art."
Charles McCabe, San Francisco Chroniclemsmith@topaz.rutgers.edu (Mark Robert Smith) (03/15/89)
Here's another one: The lab I work for on occasion had a long bench made out of what is apparently sheet rock. On one end of the bench, one set in either corner, sat some apparatus with a very strong magnet included. These apparati have sat on this bench for a few years. One day, a salesman for a computerized chemical analysis system came in with a demo model, which he placed on the end of the bench away from the apparati. It sat there for two days, and at the end of the two days, his screen was blazing in technicolor. He figured that the monitor was going bad. Later, my boss put a computer that had been displaced by a newer model at the far end of the bench. After a week, the monitor was Easter Egg Blue, and the system refused to boot. He moved it, and the monitor cleared, but parts of the hard disk were wiped. Luckily he had a backup. So, he tried divining with metal stirring rods, and sure enough, wherever he put the rods on the bench, they spun to face north! The whole bench is magnetized!!! The apparati have been moved to separate benches, and now my boss is trying to figure out a way to demagnetize the bench (any ideas?). (NOTE: this note is not for distribution to pay-per-view or pay-per-timeperiod computer systems, or rec.humor.funny) Mark -- Mark Smith (alias Smitty) "Be careful when looking into the distance, RPO 1604; P.O. Box 5063 that you do not miss what is right under your nose." New Brunswick, NJ 08903-5063 rutgers!topaz.rutgers.edu!msmith (OK, Bob?) msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu Copyright 1989, Mark Smith. All Rights Reserved.
brown@colima.CWRU.EDU (Dan Brown) (03/15/89)
Well lets think physics, the bench is magnatized, so the particles are all organized in a nice orderly fashion. Making them disorganized would solve your little problem. So, how can we accomplish this, well several ideas come to mind 1) Drop the bench out of a tall building. 2) Drop something heavy and hard on it (see alt.sex no, just kidding) 3) Heat it, no need to melt it, but 5000 deg should be fine. 4) Put annother magnet on it, with the poles reversed 5) Hang it on the wall and use it to hold tools. 6) Get a bunch of liquid N and use the bench for super conductor research. 7) Donate it to a computer lab and forget about it. If that helps, Lemmi know. Nuff said!! Dan Brown brown@skybridge.scl.cwru.edu 11911 Calrton rd, Cleveland Oh. 44106 (216) 754-1833
rag@pyrps5 (Robyn Grunberg) (03/15/89)
In article <Mar.14.12.44.24.1989.7465@topaz.rutgers.edu>, msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu (Mark Robert Smith) writes: > So, he tried divining with metal stirring rods, and sure enough, > wherever he put the rods on the bench, they spun to face north! The > whole bench is magnetized!!! The apparati have been moved to separate > benches, and now my boss is trying to figure out a way to demagnetize > the bench (any ideas?). Donate the bench to a student computer lab, the students will really appreciate it! I'm sure that's what was wrong with the terminals and PCs at the college I attended. Robyn Grunberg. no .sig required
tsn@neoucom.UUCP (Tom Napoletano) (03/16/89)
>magnetized bench top
My father, now retired, worked for an electric motor manufacture and had
a similar magnetism problem with large shaft (5 foot +) motors. It seems
that when the armature was pressed (forced) on the, shaft showed flux lines.
The fix that he (or they) came up with was to loop a couple of turns of
an AC arc welder electrode around the shaft and attach the stinger to the
ground lead. Power up and down momentarily and check for magnetism.
After a couple of cycles the shaft was back in tolerence.
In response to the list of fixes that was posted a few days ago, I recall
that if you energize a coil around a steel rod and tap it with a brass
mallet you help align the fields and increase the over all flux. Is
this true?
(from "tech" notes for repairing the model T Ford)
tomaubrey@val.UUCP (Aubrey McIntosh) (03/17/89)
A friend of mine, some 10 years ago, was working on what we now call a PERT chart program for his companies manufacturing group up in Dallas. He believed the program ready to face the world, and went out to manufacturing to get "real data." The actual data was for some hot project due to a customer in 4 or 6 months. After setting everything up, he came up with the result that the current activity was critical, and had to be finished some months in the past. After days of digging through his code, he got pencil and paper. Boy were they behind! -- -------------------------------------------------------------- Whatcha call a boomerang that doesn't come back? A stick. 1-(512)-346-5781 (v) using Modula-2. enquiries welcome. Austin, TX 78759 ...!cs.utexas.edu![oakhill|kvue]!val!aubrey