I don't get it (again)

JerryP

JerryP

Lets' go Yankees!
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In the news, with all the floods, I see many people rising to the occasion and filling sand bags (like they did in multiple floods before). I think a person can do about 20 bags or so an hour. I also think it's wonderful and it provides them a level of "fighting back" and that sort of thing BUT what are their elected officials thinking??? (or not thinking).
If I were the mayor, lets say, of let's say, Quincy, Ill, on the banks of the Mississippi (which has been known to flood my fricken town a time or two), wouldn't I buy A MACHINE TO MAKE SANDBAGS if I were in my right mind. I imagine a $100,000.00 machine could make about 200 sandbags an hour and I could then use the good citizens of the town to schlep (that's what we call it in NYC) them to the best place to prevent billions in damages.
Is my idea weird or what?
 
How about having folks who are given "Community Service" time fill sandbags and stockpile them on pallets in a warehouse.
Then when needed, get out the forklift and the flatbed truck and slap those puppies in place.
 
Here's another thought:


Build the Levee higher
 
and this is why you two aren't politicians...


























(you think too reasonably)
 
One of us would have to be President and the other Vice-President. As reasonable as we might be or think, I don't believe this could be amiably resolved. Then again, I'm sure that I have fewer vices :convinced:



JerryP for President! Has a nice ring to it ;)
 
I'm good with that. The VP has the best job, although I'm sure I would have to be busy.
 
DanC said:
I'm good with that. The VP has the best job, although I'm sure I would have to be busy.
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yeah, let jerry give speeches and deal with human rights issues while you stay busy shooting your friends, misspelling words at spelling bees, and inventing the internet LOL
 
I've already done all those things.

How about if I work on replacing imported crude oil with sustainable domestic products that don't require a massive change in infrastructure?

Yes, there are such things, but they're not 'glamorous'.
 
speaking of generating... did you see this???

http://www.efluxmedia.com/news_A_Nano_T_Shirt_To_Power_Your_iPod_14116.html

Thanks to a new special T-shirt created by the nanotechnology researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology, it is possible that very soon we will have a new method to power small electronic devices.

Zhong Lin Wang, a Regents professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and his colleagues are developing a shirt that harvests energy from the wearer's physical motion and converts it into electricity.

Their project, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and described in the Feb. 14 issue of Nature, is based on pairs of textile fibers covered with zinc oxide nanowires.

The fibers generate electricity in response to applied mechanical stress. Known as "the piezoelectric effect," the resulting current flow from many fiber pairs woven into a shirt or jacket could allow the wearer's body movement to power a range of portable electronic devices.

The fibers could also be woven into curtains, tents or other structures to capture energy from wind motion, sound vibration or other mechanical energy.

"The two fibers scrub together just like two bottle brushes with their bristles touching, and the piezoelectric-semiconductor process converts the mechanical motion into electrical energy," explained Zhong Lin Wang. "Many of these devices could be put together to produce higher power output."

Wang and collaborators Xudong Wang and Yong Qin have made more than 200 of the fiber nanogenerators. Each is tested on an apparatus that uses a spring and wheel to move one fiber against the other. They estimate that a square meter of fabric made from the special fibers could theoretically generate as much as 80 milliwatts of power.
Click to expand...
 
And just where are the stock piles of sand being stored waiting to be turned into sand bags?

The last time i looked at a map, there wasn't any beaches in the Mid-West.
 
diGriz said:
And just where are the stock piles of sand being stored waiting to be turned into sand bags?

The last time i looked at a map, there wasn't any beaches in the Mid-West.
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I think those are being ready to be shipped to LiveSquid :( :rip:


those were the days!
 
Oh yeah! I completely forgot he was collecting sand. I'll have to ask him if he still is.
You're right! Those were the days. :verysad:
 
diGriz said:
And just where are the stock piles of sand being stored waiting to be turned into sand bags?
The last time i looked at a map, there wasn't any beaches in the Mid-West.
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You would store them in quonset huts or something like that. They wouldn't require heating or cooling. There are plenty of sand resources no matter where you go. This would be especially true near water areas. As they say "it's as common as dirt". I'm still inclined to think that every municipality sound just have their own bagging machine and just truck the sand to the actual machine just as they do not with the "human machine". Then again, I think DanC has the best idea, "built the levees higher".

It probably will require a "feasibility study" and a congressional investigation at the very least. Then it will have to go to ballot and if passed, maybe 2 or 3 floods from now, something might be done about it.
 
If there's not enough sand, why don't they fill the sandbags with junk mail? That should get heavy pretty quick.
 
spazntwitch said:
If there's not enough sand, why don't they fill the sandbags with junk mail? That should get heavy pretty quick.
Click to expand...

Good idea but the ink would leach into the aquifer.


:doh: There I go again, being serious :worry:
 
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