Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site dciem.UUCP Path: utzoo!dciem!ntt From: ntt@dciem.UUCP (Mark Brader) Newsgroups: net.jokes.d Subject: Re: Srtringing cables using rats Message-ID: <792@dciem.UUCP> Date: Mon, 19-Mar-84 18:12:08 EST Article-I.D.: dciem.792 Posted: Mon Mar 19 18:12:08 1984 Date-Received: Mon, 19-Mar-84 20:51:52 EST References: <710@seismo.UUCP> Organization: NTT Systems Inc., Toronto, Canada Lines: 24 I can quite believe that the incident in question happened, but it might also be a distortion of the following true one: Some years ago Scientific American published an article about the great nuclear particle accelerator installation at Batavia, IL, which I believe is called the National Accelerator Lab. Someone more diligent than I may look up the reference; the following is from memory (but accurate in substance). Anyway, if you find that article, you can read about the problems they had in getting metal burrs out of the equipment. This had not been anticipated as a problem until the great accelerator was started up and did not develop much output; then they realized that they had a 2-mile-diameter circle of 2-inch-diameter pipe (or some such numbers) buried deep inside large amounts of heavy magnets and other apparatus. So they trained a ferret to pull a brush through a length of pipe of the appropriate size. Worked fine. Then they opened a segment of the real pipe and put him in it. No way! A few feet was one thing, but forget this! (I don't recall reading what they proposed to do about droppings, by the way.) The final solution was to build a little cleaning robot that would drag a brush around the big circle. Mark Brader