Straightforward
12/13/03
Downtown
10:44 AM | Comments (18) | TrackBack (0)
Comments
I love that slogan, I may have to use that on my commercial website.
Posted by: John at December 15, 2003 03:31 AM
Excuse my ignorance...but I've been wondering what those nitrogen tanks on the street are for?
Also, what kind of digital camera do you use?
Just curious.
I just bought the Canon Elph Powershot s400.
Posted by: Kelly at December 16, 2003 07:45 PM
I don't know what the tanks are for, but that day I saw dozens of them downtown. It was quite bizarre.
I use a Canon S110. Primitive, I know.
Posted by: Mike at December 16, 2003 08:34 PM
I dig that Fire/Police=cool down photo at the bottom. hah.
btw, the nitrogen tanks -- I believe -- are used by Con Ed for cooling things (perhaps from underground steam).
Posted by: 990000 at December 21, 2003 09:38 PM
On a lot of those notrogen canisters, someone has placed stickers that read "Eyesore by Verizon"
Posted by: johnny at December 22, 2003 01:28 PM
But aren't they eyesores by Con Ed, then?
Posted by: Mike at December 22, 2003 10:56 PM
someone should grafitti "eyesore by verizon" on the nasty old bell atlantic building near the east river.
Posted by: Steve at December 23, 2003 10:58 AM
Actually the tanks are for keeping phone lines dry since nitrogen is a very dry gas.
Posted by: Eric at December 23, 2003 08:19 PM
The Nitrogen is pumped in around the phone lines to push out air and mosisture. Or that is the what they want you to think. Actually, they are cans of a special happy gas, which the city uses to calm people down. That is why the crime rates are down so much recently. They are gassing us all.
Posted by: Ted3 at December 24, 2003 10:22 AM
merry xmas
Posted by: splifford at December 25, 2003 01:35 AM
Is it really safe to be leaving all these canisters of a potentially dangerous substance all over NYC?
Posted by: dan at December 25, 2003 10:20 AM
You and the other's are what NY is all about. As tramatic as it was, for everyone, she probably impacted the lives of everyone involved for the good, because nothing but "good" came out of it. Peace! HB
Posted by: haughty at December 26, 2003 03:24 AM
I see those on wall street\broad street every day. A worked up the nerve to ask one of the army guys what they're for, and he said "get lost". I think that happy gas theory just went down the tubes
Posted by: Frank at April 14, 2004 02:37 PM
They are right, they pressurize the phone cables with the nitrogen to keep water out, people get paid lots of money to open the holes and listen for leaks, exciting job huh
Posted by: R77S at May 3, 2004 10:31 PM
Potentially dangerous substance? Nitrogen? The air you breathe is 70 percent nitrogen. That's one of the main reasons it's used - it's cheap. The ONLY danger is from COLD, and if the tank ruptures/broken/etc the stuff will evaporate amazingly quickly. I used to go through literally thousands of gallons of the stuff a day at one job. There are NO limits for discharge into fresh air - in fact, that's where the get the stuff from - take it from the air! It's a byproduct of making liquid Oxygen - used for medical and other uses - mostly steel mills. As air is 70% mitrogen, 20% oxygen, and the rest "other", you can see that you get a LOT of LN2 when you do this - the stuff sells for about 70-80 cents/gal last I checked (a few years back) - and that was delivered!
Posted by: Charlie at May 9, 2004 02:12 PM
I imagine it's true what they say about pressurizing the phone lines with dry pure nitrogen (its called "creating an inert atmosphere"). What puzzles me is that for that purpose, what would be used is compressed nitrogen (the one stored in very thick-walled, more slender, phallic tanks, which are kept at room temperature, like the ones for fuel gas) and not liquid form, which is EXTREMELY cold and would lead to a lot of water condensation from the surrounding air (that's why a "fog" can be seen when the LN2 is taken out; but remember that somebody said it was important to keep everything dry). And, as Charlie said, the thing isn't very dangerous (compressed or liquid hydrogen, proposed as car fuel, would be orders of magnitude more dangerous and in a moving vehicle). The containers (called Dewar tanks) are designed so not a lot of pressure builds up (when part of the LN2 evaporates). Thats what the peculiar structure on top, in the center of the circle, is for, among other things...
Posted by: Ribozyme at January 1, 2005 03:31 PM
wild horses make great dog food.
whales make great cat food
Posted by: splifford at June 24, 2005 12:25 AM
Ribozyme,
It's called an 'evaporator'. Ypu don't pump the LN2 into the line. You allow it to warm in an enclosed metal regulator, like the ones used for compressed air. The warming of the liquid increases the gas pressure going down the lines. The liquid is easier to handle, as it is more space efficient.