However, in retrospect I realized the post (and the comments it generated) is actually far more political than I first thought.

Since that was not my intent and this has turned into more of political discussion than one of technology, which was the intent, I have decided to close comments.

Come on guys, it’s Zener diodes.

Ooops amazing how your eye can just look right past simple misspellings like that, while you are focused on other stuff. Added that critter to my spell check dictionary —- I hate it when I do that.

Larry

I had a mid-1980s Detroit car. When the power locks went out, it took my full weight, applied through my accounting textbook, to lock it.

Besides the show of strength that will be needed, most such steering and braking systems have considerable “play” once the power-assist fails.

> Zenier Diodes
> ziener diodes
> zenner diodes

Come on guys, it’s Zener diodes. I heard him talk once at CMU. IIRC, he
had very little to do with the development, but knew the people who did.
They figured a name like Zener just had to be used for some device so they
used it for their’s.

And lest we forget the only nation that has ever used a nuclear bomb on a civilian population – twice. “”"

Well Marcus,

I still remember exactly where I was sitting when we saw the newspaper stories about that first bomb. As it turns out, I was sitting in exactly the same spot talking with the same kids on Dec 8th 1941 when the attack on Pearl Harbor took place; and a year earlier we were all sitting there marvelling about the successful recovery of the British Expeditionary force from the beaches of Dunkirk; so I remember what life was like back then.

By the way; why on earth did the US have to drop that second bomb; how many seconds does it take to say “We quit” in Japanese. Had they known there was no third bomb; they would not have surrendered.

It’s easy in 20-20 hindsight to condemn a decision that was not made lightly. The next such decision you can bet will be made as soon as it is physically possible for them to do it; with no thought for the consequences.

George; who was there !

Actually, I once survived living in a disaster zone with no eletricity for over two months. I lived on the island of St. Thomas in 1995. On 9/15/95 hurricane Marilyn hit the island. Most of the electric lines were blown down. I was off island when the storm hit; I got back 10 days later.

Restoration of electric service did not begin until 2 months after the storm. I was lucky; the house I was living in was just up the road from the resort that the power crews were living in (and the start point for repairing the power lines). My landlady made a point of going down to the resort with cookies every day to bribe the crews. As they were coming up the hill, they made a left turn at the corner where our house was. The crew made a slight detour and we were the ONLY house on the right side of that intersection to get power restored.

Central power was down, but within a few weeks, everyone had an electric generator. I don’t know how long the gas stations were closed; they were fully functional by the time I got back on island.

I suspect that there were probably more businesses down there with emergency generators than on the mainland, so my experience there may not be relevant. But, people adapted very quickly. LIfe was not back to normal for a very long time, but we were able to survive and deal with the basics pretty quickly.

The day after the storm, I bought my first laptop. When I got back to the island, it was the only functioning computer in my office. Woo hoo! We had no electricity there…but another government office had a big generator so I went there every day to charge up my cell phone and laptop.

However, I have absolutely NO desire to ever go through that exprience again. It was boring. It was uncomfortable. It was frustrating (okay, life on that island was like that even BEFORE the storm…but it was more so afterwards). I really HATE the sound of hundreds of generators running during the night. My landlord and landlady only ran their generator for an hour or two in the morning and an hour or two at night (just so they could charge up the fridge).

The Germans didn’t get to build a nuclear weapon because they were trying to send all their top Jewish scientists to the gas chamber. They killed 30 times as many people with common chemicals as died at Hiroshima.

Instead, Albert Einstein (the pacifist) wrote a letter to Roosevelt telling him how critically important it is for the US to make a bomb – which ultimately saved millions of lives in 1945 and has been a most effective deterrent against another world war – leading to 65 years of unprecedented quiet.

What scares me most is the fact that we have a president with zero experience running anything. Terrorists have no fear of him at all. The situation reminds me of Iran when Jimmy Carter was president. The Iranians laughed at Carter for over a year. Then on the same day that Reagan was sworn in, Iran released every hostage.

If a president who is currently trashing his country overseas isn’t a recipe for encouraging future attacks, I don’t know what is.

And regarding your comment about using nuclear bombs in a war, maybe you should consider the alternative: click

Terrorism? LOL Are you scared?

The mechanical construction of the FCG is actually quite simple — an effective design of such a device can be accomplished by a college graduate in electronics or physics. Because of this fact we will not discuss the details for security reasons. Suffice to say that the non-nuclear EMP device can be manufactured anywhere a machine shop and electronic supplies are available. The electronics and explosives, while not available at your local Radio shack or hardware store, are, never-the-less much easier to procure by terrorists than any type of nuclear materials. Build the device’s structure, add the electronics and explosives, and all you need is a timer to set off the explosion. Today, universities are already building prototype devices for further exploration of EMP weapons designs as well as non-lethal devices for use by police to disable vehicles. Countries such as India and several other asian nations are working on both devices and countermeasures.

Try not to make such silly connections between two unrelated points and you’ll have a bit more traction with any point you are attempting to make.

Mark