Magnificent cross-section of an undersea cable. $400/foot

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Too bad the site’s down.

We have a similar cable feeding power to the telescopes on top of Mt. Graham. It’s buried under the road. We also have three huge inductors to keep the power factor near 100%, as those cables have a lot of capacitance.

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Only $400 dollars per foot? I’m disappointed they’re being so cheap with this. I mean sure, the “measurable” power you get from this is the same as if they’d used proper levitating magneto soporific analogue cables, but we’re human beings not machines.

And I know, I know you guys can’t tell the difference, but I have golden fingers. It’s a curse really. When I stick them in the socket I can just tell the signal is a bit muddier, more of a sort of Assam flavour rather than a really fine Darjeeling. Getting thrown across the room is fun sure, but it’s just more authentic if you have the proper equipment that really lets you feel the full detail of the wind that made it.

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Boing’d

Would love a 1" thick piece of that. Trivets for nerds!

Aslo… reminds me of Grace Hopper’s nanoseconds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEpsKnWZrJ8

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The Mt. Graham Observatory bought an extra mile-long spool of cable that they ended up not needing. I will suggest selling it by the inch to tourists as an income scheme. There is as short sample piece in the director’s office.

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The should just solder a bunch of Monster Cables together – it would be cheaper, and the electrons would be better!

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Interesting. Why does it have copper and fiber-optic in there?

Presumably the copper is just for the power, the fiber is for whatever information goes between the turbine and the station.

Copper is to carry the 132kV of power. Fibre-optics to carry control/diagnostic data alongside.

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Oh, duh. I saw “undersea cable” and somehow completely missed the part about “undersea power cable.” I was assuming it was an internet trunk line. My mistake.

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Last time I saw an undersea cable, it was in a vitrine in a modern art gallery.

(Not sure that it was a great idea to put it next to the kids’ play area, but the attendants are very vigilant, and I’m sure they can just top up the water each morning).

$400 a foot - Cheap!
I thinkl Monster® sells one that’s $40,000 a foot.

There’s no actual difference, but sea-cable-philes say the sound is way better.

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The fiber is for data. The Mt. Graham folks forgot to buy cable with fiber, and we’ve been suffering ever since.

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Greetings from Scottland! This land is my land! Come visit any time, Markk. ~Scott

it really is quite beautiful, i’d buy a 1 inch slab cross section.

Germans call it Schottland. But they spell a lot of things differently. Maybe because it’s a different language.

Let’s hope they don’t lay it in the wrong direction…

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Who would listen to some weirdo who thinks Germany is called “Deutschland”?