I always assumed it was like a PTT walkie talkie, in that if you left your key down, it would prohibit anyone else from broadcasting...

Yes. Well said.

That's basically what I was suggesting. Well said.

Are we to believe that this photo, particularly the girl's face was created from scratch from the initial "pencil sketch"? Given the exceptionally cheesy and poor quality of the "finished product" I have a hard time believing that the sections where the artist "airbrushed" in the girl's face by hand were real... looks…

Well researched article, but I'm actually REALLY happy with the city streets, highways, and freeways I routinely take. Of particular note is the recently re-surfaced 101, between Camarillo and Calabasas. It is smooth as glass now that they've resurfaced it and leveled most of the divots. And the LA City streets are in…

I just use my keys. When the season comes, I always take my keys out of my pocket first and pick the largest one (my house key is best), and I hold it and touch the doorknob with it. The increased surface area of my fingers on the key dissipates the single-point discharge that normally happens without them. I can see…

For me, it's the lack of support for Google Apps users. I took the leap and switched our household over to Google Apps from the mish-mosh of various GMail and other Google accounts we had. Doing that precluded the ability to use Google Profiles, which, in turn, precluded me from using Google+

Agreed. I think this video was released in the mid-1990's, not 1987... the Performa in the background and other items are a give-away. I visited the Apple TV group (RIP) in Cupertino around this time, and remember them showing me this video. It was in the Sculley years, so it had to be 1996 or so.

I've never had the chance to use the microspheres, but I'd like to. We use corn starch, since there's no cancer risk as there is with talc.

No, but if we were doing Grease, that would be one of my first projects! :)

We're also making some of the other props from the show out of CF as well: styrofoam base with the CF/epoxy overlay. It is revolutionizing how we think of theatre sets and props, and has forced our wood/lumber-centric master carpenters to learn new skills.

Yep. Mache has it's place, but has a VERY limited lifespan. Our goal is to rent this piece after we're done with it. It's an iconic vehicle from a famous movie musical, and our group is among the first to receive rights to do the show.

Actually, it DOES need the structural integrity. The finished car will be 11' long and about 4' wide, and to keep it from folding in on itself under it's own weight, we decided CF was cheaper and easier to work with than FG. Our supplier offered a discounted per-yard rate on the CF cloth (~6 wide with white…

Exactly. We're good with labor (volunteers who want to play with new techniques), and the pressing/vacuu-bagging helps get rid of enough of the excess epoxy. This is ONE vehicle, no mould, so it's the perfect approach for us.

For those who are interested in experimenting with carbon fiber and 2-part epoxy, our vendor for the materials is US Composites in Florida, uscomposites.com. For less than $300, you could get a small batch of materials and start experimenting yourself. It's cool stuff, but toxic if you don't handle it properly.

We're working on an automobile prop/set piece for an upcoming theatre production, and the body of the car will be made entirely of carbon fiber. We use standard house insulating styrofoam sheets, cut into tubular supports that are wrapped in about six layers of carbon fiber strips and epoxy resin. Each pair of layers…

Wasn't on first pass. :)

*conversation

Or, more importantly, how quickly will it turn into a filming location?

Again, you only need two sheets, but ULINE has much better pricing on corrugated plastic, if your project needs more than the HD offering... [www.uline.com]