Month: January 2015

HughPickens.com writes The LA Times reports that Los Alamos National Security, the contractor managing the nuclear weapons laboratory at Los Alamos, NM has been slapped with a $57-million reduction in its fees for 2014, largely due to a costly nuclear waste accident in which a 55-gallon drum packaged with plutonium waste from bomb production erupted after being placed in a 2,150-foot underground dump in the eastern New Mexico desert. Casks filled with 3.2 million cubic feet of deadly radioactive wastes remain buried at the crippled plant and the huge facility was rendered useless. The exact causes of the chemical reaction are still under investigation, but Energy Department officials say a packaging error at Los Alamos caused a reaction inside the drum. The radioactive material went airborne, contaminating a ventilation shaft that went to the surface giving low-level doses of radiation to 21 workers. According to a DOE report, the disaster at WIPP is rooted in careless contractors and lack of DOE oversight (PDF). "The accident was a horrific comedy of errors," says James Conca, a scientific advisor and expert on the WIPP. "This was the flagship of the Energy Department, the most successful program it had. The ramifications of this are going to be huge. Heads will roll." The accident is likely to cause at least an 18-month shutdown and possibly a closure that could last several years. Waste shipments have already backed up at nuclear cleanup projects across the country, which even before the accident were years behind schedule. According to the Times, the cost of the accident, including likely delays in cleanup projects across the nation, will approach $1 billion. But some nuclear weapons scientists say the fine is an overreaction. "It was a mistake by an individual — a terrible mistake — and Washington now wants to punish a lot of people," says Conca. "The amount of radiation that was released was trivial. As long as you don’t lick the walls, you can’t get any radiation down there. Why are we treating this like Fukushima?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

via Slashdot
Nuclear Waste Accident Costs Los Alamos Contractor $57 Million

The Ice Light by Westcott is a $450 light source that many photographers swear by. It is a powerful, variable LED light that can be hand held and gives a nice directional strip-like spread. Then again, it costs $450, which is no peanuts. If you are in the photography stage where you have more time […]

The post How to Make a Pro Looking ‘IceLight’ for less than $30 appeared first on DIY Photography.

via DIYPhotography.net -Hacking Photography, One Picture At A Time
How to Make a Pro Looking ‘IceLight’ for less than $30

The LEGO Movie was one of our favorite flicks of 2014. Not only was it hilarious and clever, it was packed with amazing animation which mimicked low-budget brickfilm style using CGI. They literally built each object brick by digital brick.
via The Awesomer
The LEGO Movie: Behind the Bricks

If your Google search just isn’t returning the quality content you want, this little URL trick might find more in-depth articles on the subject you’re searching for.

Alex Chitu at Google Operating System recently discovered that Google has a section for "in-depth articles", from which it features longer posts from sites like the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Wired, The Economist, and more. It only seems to work in the US, and it only pops up sometimes—but you can manually bring it up by adding this to the end of your search URL:

&tbs=ida:1&gl=us

It doesn’t work all the time, and it’s certainly a bit limiting, but it’s worth a shot if Google just isn’t giving you the kind of results you want.

Find In-Depth Articles | Google Operating System

via Lifehacker
Find In-Depth Articles on Google with a URL Trick

Fascia boards are susceptible to water damage, which leads to rotting wood boards that can become loose and are unsightly. Repair your fascia boards for a subtle home makeover.

Fascia boards run horizontally under a roofs edge and can be made of wood or sheet metal. These boards are installed in segments and the seams should be lined up at the rafters which protects the ends from water damage.

If the paint is peeling from the fascia board (pictured above), but the wood is in good condition, then sand and repaint your boards. If you notice signs of rot, you will need to cut those sections out at the rafters and replace them. Check out the video above for instructions on mitering fascia boards to accommodate corners.

Avoid 16 penny common nails which can cause fascia boards to crack and splinter. Use 8 or 10 penny galvanized finishing nails to install the new fascia boards. Use wood filler to fill cracks at seams and corners and then sand.

Lastly, prime and paint your new fascia boards to complete the look. Check out the video above for more.

Repairing Fascia Boards | Paul Ricalde (YouTube)

Photo by Robin McShaffry

via Lifehacker
Repair Damaged Fascia Boards for an Instant Home Facelift

When we tried the first iteration of Rustoleum’s seemingly magic, liquid-repelling spray, we were actually pretty damn impressed—water beading off toilet paper rolls! Now, though, NeverWet’s come out with a version that doesn’t leave a gross residue. And while this new NeverWet may indeed be less sticky, it is a hell of a lot more wet.

The main problem with the original hydrophobic spray was that it left a thin, chalky glove covering a treated object and everything it came into contact with. Not so with the outdoor fabric spray; as you can see from the below post-treatment photos, NeverWet Outdoor Fabric dried almost totally clear and with minimal, if any, residue.

Convenient! Unlike the actual treatment process. The application instructions read as follows:

Use outdoors or in a well ventilated area. Use when temperature is above 50ºF (10ºC) and humidity is below 85% to ensure proper drying. Avoid spraying in windy or dusty conditions. Allow to dry outside for 24 hours before use.

So if you live anywhere even remotely rainy. Or humid. Or windy. Or dusty. Or if it’s winter. Or late fall. Or early spring. If any of those apply, there’s a good chance you will be out of luck. Granted, the original NeverWet had an even more time consuming (and slightly more toxic) application process in general, but at least you weren’t confined to the tiniest sliver of workable weather conditions. To make sure we were giving our chosen specimens the best chance at success possible, it took us two and a half weeks after receiving the product to finally be graced with a day suitable to NeverWet’s many needs.

Once we did finally start spraying, we hit a few of the same road bumps as we did when we tested the original NeverWet. The bottles claim to cover 20 to 60 square-feet each, depending on what you’re spraying. It took us about three bottles just to cover the shirt, diaper, sponge, and formerly delicious snack cake you see below. And just like last year’s version, the spray itself comes paired with a nice throat-burning sensation and a general scent of poison.

If you ever want to cover anything actually substantial (say, the outdoor patio furniture this product is intended for), you are going to need to shell out for a whole lot of NeverWet. At $15 a pop, that can add up quick. And what’s more, it’s probably not worth it in the first place.

While the first NeverWet did have that unsavory residue problem, at least it kept your shit dry. It was for heavy duty jobs, after all, a little stickiness sloughing off is understandable. But this batch is for your more delicate needs. Your sneakers, shirts, gloves, jackets, tablecloths, etc. And for what it’s worth, Rustoleum definitely took that into consideration—it does dry to a near-invisible silky sheen. But with the less aggressive spray comes a far less effective product.

The sponge might as well have been freshly unwrapped. Unlike the original NeverWet-ed sponge before it, this sucked up water no problem. In fairness, it’s not meant for sponges. But the shirt didn’t hold up much better. There was barely any beading, and it didn’t take more than a few seconds of pouring before the garment was pretty much soaked.

With the diaper, we decided to see if maybe going to to town would help. And after expunging an entire bottle and a half of NeverWet on the baby bottoms, it sort of did! Water beaded for a good 30 seconds before totally permeating the fabric, at least. Which is more than we can say for the shirt. Also, never put NeverWet on something a baby will wear.

But! We did get an almost entirely impenetrable snack cake for a solid minute or so, which probably doesn’t say a whole lot about the snack cake but does at least show, with less porous materials, the new NeverWet can get the job done. It’s just too bad most fabric happens to be porous.

And either way, what we ended up with was nothing like what was being advertised:

Now, it should be noted that if you were to use NeverWet on, say, an umbrella or outdoor patio, furniture it would probably fair a little better. As you can see in the video below, it does at least help prevent stains on outdoor fabric. Does gunk bead and/or wipe off with the ease above? Not quite, and you’d probably have to reapply (god knows how many bottles) each time whatever you were hoping to keep dry would be getting any sort of heavy use.

Still, you have to use an absurd amount of product to cover such a small area. To do the same for the shirt that we did for the diaper, we would have needed to have gone through five or six bottles before coming out with something workable. So if you’re hoping this is the magic solution to your cloth-covered needs, you’re probably better off investing in the original set. Or better yet, just get a poncho.

via Gizmodo
NeverWet’s Clear Water-Repelling Spray: Less Magic, More Wet