To add to that, I’ve learned at work that it’s considered proper practice to ensure any big tank from which a flammable liquid will be dispensed (as well as the receiving container) is properly grounded.
We used to use a type of brake wash that was notorious for igniting from even the tiniest amount of static electricity; we switched to a different formula after one of the technicians burned his eyebrows off for the second time.
In the UK, during WW2 - weather forecasts were banned from newspapers and the radio. Church bells were not allowed to ring.
On V-E Day (May 8, 1945), newspapers had weather reports in large type, and every church bell around was ringing - the first time in over five years…
TIL that a “buttload” is a real unit of measurement.
Yeah, but it’ll prevent this (last three panels):
In 1982, a 19-year-old college sophomore wrote a paper on a failed 1789 amendment to the US Constitution.
The student argued that, though two centuries had passed, the original state votes were still valid, and the amendment could still be ratified if several more states approved it.
The teaching assistant gave his paper a C.
But the student was undeterred. He started a letter-writing campaign urging state legislatures to ratify the amendment.
And in 1992, that amendment officially became the 27th Amendment of the Constitution.
I don’t buy this. It’s more likely a corruption of ‘boatload.’ ‘Butt load’ (two words) doesn’t show up with any frequency until the 1960s, and it was referring to firearms. ‘Buttload’ (one word) doesn’t show up until 1987. ‘Boatload’ goes back centuries.
“Butt” has been in use as a unit of measurement since at least the Middle Ages. I haven’t found a cite yet for the term “buttload”/“butt load”, but I did find a cite for the Romans using the term “ass load”. I suspect that “butt load” was also in pretty common usage.
And to add to that, that’s why if you’re filling up a gas can, you should always set the can on the ground. Never fill a gas can in the back of a pickup – in that situation the can isn’t grounded and could potentially create a static discharge.
More likely if the truck bed is unlined.
On that same topic, never insert the gasoline nozzle into your car, then go back into your vehicle and wait for the latch on a cold day. You may generate static on your carpet
I remember reading that older people are less likely to cause a fire doing this, presumably because they grab the door frame to help them out of the car and so discharge any static to the frame of the car, while younger people hop out without touching anything, then touch metal near the pump handle.
In 2017, Mr. Watson’s 1982 grade was changed from a C to an A.
~Max
Actually an A+. Here’s a copy of the record update. On it, the professor wrote “In light of the student’s heroic efforts to prove the professor and T.A. wrong in their assessment of his term paper, Mr. Watson deserves A+”.
I thought I read somewhere that UT didn’t give out A+ grades, so it was downgraded to an A.
~Max
That amazes me even more than the late constitutional amendment. Getting a university to fix a grade after the grading deadline? That takes special skill.
I am in Maryland, visiting family. We went to the grocery store. Cartons of cigarettes cost about $100 nowadays. I had no idea.
You’d be surprised what license “Academic Freedom” can give a teacher. I had an adult student whose final project caused her to get an F for the semester. I offered her the option of doing an entirely new project, but she had kids who’d just gotten out of school and the whole family was taking her sick mother on a trip the next day… so she had to take the F.
I ran into her over ten years later. We grabbed a drink, and she said her biggest regret was not redoing that project: “That F just hangs over my life…” I said “What are you doing next week? We can come up with a new project idea right now.”
She made a “Women’s History” board game, her kids helped her with what each card should say, she made fun game pieces, and it was excellent!
Meanwhile, I’d been talking to bureaucrats and the Dean, who said “Well, you’re the teacher. Just put down ‘Student turned in improved final project’ and that should be sufficient. But reeeeally? A decade later?” (exaggerated rolling of eyes)
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TL;DR: Can too!
When I quit smoking in 1979, a carton cost about $10. I thought that was a lot.
My son and I visited the National Museum of the USAF a couple weeks ago.
It’s a very nice museum. And it’s the only place where you can get up and close to the coolest aircraft ever made by the USAF: the XB-70 Valkyrie. It has six jet engines that can push it over Mach 3. 
So while we were standing next to it, one of the museum volunteers approaches us and begins to talk about the aircraft. He appeared to be in his late 70s. He went on for 10 minutes, and seemed to know every little detail of its design. One of his comments has stuck with me:
The skin on the forward fuselage is made of titanium. It is very thin… about the thickness of a soda can. Titanium was very difficult to obtain when it was constructed. The titanium came from Russia, and was purchased through a 3rd party.
The implication was that Russia would never have sold us the titanium directly, being we were in the midst of the Cold War and all. So we had to obtain it through secret channels.
I did some Googling, and couldn’t find anything that would corroborate his statement. So I am a bit dubious at this point. If what he said is true, you would think there would be some info out there on it…
“The airplane is 92% titanium inside and out. Back when they were building the airplane the United States didn’t have the ore supplies - an ore called rutile ore. It’s a very sandy soil and it’s only found in very few parts of the world. The major supplier of the ore was the USSR. Working through Third World countries and bogus operations, they were able to get the rutile ore shipped to the United States to build the SR-71.”
This link to a memoir of the Skunk Works also mentions the titanium
Wow, good find.
And seeing how the XB-70 and SR-71 were built in the same time period, It can only be assumed the volunteer’s comments were correct.
