You were writing about water following streaks and finished with;
> I might be making a mountain out of a mole-hill, but it does leave the
> imagination wondering, ya know?
Not to be disrespectful, but you really need to get out with humans every
now and then....<g>.....IMHO the surface tension and/or static attaction
left from the previous water track cut a path which made it easier for
the other droplets to follow....
Let's see, what could be done in a practical sense with this water track
observation....hmmmm, ya know, it sounds like the capillary action that I
was thinking about with the post on the water reservois storage system...
The small tubes they call pipettes use a similar kind of attraction to
pull fluid up into the pipette....much like tree roots, pulling all that
water from the ground to the top and outer edges of the tree...an amazing
feat in itself...
So, if you could make long sheets of these capillary tubes and hang them
down into a water source, they should slowly suck water up and over to
feed the reservoir...only problem, how do you empty them, it's not like
they pump in a continuous stream.....that looks like the biggest problem
that would need some experimentation to resolve...
One other interesting device I found in an old magazine was the rope
pump...it is a BBS file that I've not yet transferred to the
website...basically a continuous loop rope has one end that passed into a
tank of water, then 3 floors up, the rope loops over a pulley...when run
at high velocity, surprising amounts of water are transferred from the
bottom to the top, using only the rope as the lifter...it is an
incredible though simple discovery....seems the rope moves faster than
the water can fall off it. There were some numbers provided, but I don't
have them handy at the moment....I had it in the Ecology section because
it was a low-tech emulation of what a 'pump' does....just a motor, a rope
and two pulleys.....redneck technology....
Yet another plagiarist who disgusts me no end was Thomas Edison....his
Menlo Park lab and subsequent fortune was based on the discoveries of
many of his employees, with little compensation for it other than their
weekly paycheck but with Edison or his company receiving all the rewards
and credit.....many companies today practice similar attitudes with a
clause stating that anything the employee invents while in the employ of
the company belongs to the company, and that's even it is has NOTHING to
do with the company product line...that's why I don't work at Texas
Instruments....screw that....it goes even further, saying for 5 years
after employ, you cannot develop or capitalize on anything you were privy
to at the company....that I don't mind, but the 'anything' clause just
galls me....so unfair....
-- Jerry W. Decker / jdecker@keelynet.com http://keelynet.com / "From an Art to a Science" Voice : (214) 324-8741 / FAX : (214) 324-3501 KeelyNet - PO BOX 870716 - Mesquite - Republic of Texas - 75187