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> Harm reduction re: consumption of USP 99.9% ethanol According to Ignition! by John Clark, high-purity ethanol used for rocket fuel undergoes a similar phenom

> Harm reduction re: consumption of USP 99.9% ethanol According to Ignition! by John Clark, high-purity ethanol used for rocket fuel undergoes a similar phenomenon when in storage tanks near rocket scientists and Navy personnel. Interesting to see that this also occurs in the proximity of undergrads. Study operators claimed that dissolving the ethanol in H2O, or, preferably, lime juice and/or soda water, merits further study. But yes, I would also be interested in reading that continued series.

function_seven 4y ago
So far the correlation between personnel proximity and tank depletion is just that: a correlation. All attempts at establishing causality have been met with fuzzy recollections, outright denials, and conflicting reports. More investigations are warranted.
int_19h 4y ago
The earliest HDDs were not sealed and required regular maintenance to clean the heads manually; you were supposed to use ethanol or isopropanol for that purpose. There was a story from late Soviet times about this - since they lagged quite badly when it came to computing, even in late 80s there was still plenty of hardware around like that. And for every such hard drive, there would be accounting to track the amount of ethanol issued, so the engineers had to make do with what they could skim after the cleaning. But then around that time some better stuff began to trickle in - instead of 3-5 Mb HDDs, you could get a whopping 30 Mb! Those were sealed and required no cleaning... but the legend goes that, in one such place, it occurred to the engineers that accounting doesn't know that. So, instead, they submitted a request to procure more ethanol for cleaning, on the basis that a 30 Mb hard drive would obviously need 6 times as much for servicing as a 5 Mb one does. It was approved, and the arrangement lasted until the head of the department caught someone drunk and traced the source. (Another version of this legend has a slight variation in that the engineers submitted a request for more than 6x, deliberately making a mistake in math to make it look like a clumsy attempt to get more. Accounting promptly "caught" it and gave them a stern lecture about how they're not getting even one drop over what the proper number required... i.e. 6x.)
- mnw21cam 4y ago
  If you liked that story, you'll love https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKoHMXggEHU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKoHMXggEHU

function_seven 4y ago

So far the correlation between personnel proximity and tank depletion is just that: a correlation. All attempts at establishing causality have been met with fuzzy recollections, outright denials, and conflicting reports. More investigations are warranted.

int_19h 4y ago

The earliest HDDs were not sealed and required regular maintenance to clean the heads manually; you were supposed to use ethanol or isopropanol for that purpose. There was a story from late Soviet times about this - since they lagged quite badly when it came to computing, even in late 80s there was still plenty of hardware around like that. And for every such hard drive, there would be accounting to track the amount of ethanol issued, so the engineers had to make do with what they could skim after the cleaning. But then around that time some better stuff began to trickle in - instead of 3-5 Mb HDDs, you could get a whopping 30 Mb! Those were sealed and required no cleaning... but the legend goes that, in one such place, it occurred to the engineers that accounting doesn't know that. So, instead, they submitted a request to procure more ethanol for cleaning, on the basis that a 30 Mb hard drive would obviously need 6 times as much for servicing as a 5 Mb one does. It was approved, and the arrangement lasted until the head of the department caught someone drunk and traced the source. (Another version of this legend has a slight variation in that the engineers submitted a request for more than 6x, deliberately making a mistake in math to make it look like a clumsy attempt to get more. Accounting promptly "caught" it and gave them a stern lecture about how they're not getting even one drop over what the proper number required... i.e. 6x.)

mnw21cam 4y ago
If you liked that story, you'll love https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKoHMXggEHU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKoHMXggEHU