science

Fantasy and Science Fiction: ‘Kiosk’ by Bruce Sterling | Beyond the Beyond | WIRED

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The Fabrikator by Bruce Sterling

THE FABRIKATOR WAS UGLY, noisy, a fire hazard, and it smelled. Borislav got it for the kids in the neighborhood.

One snowy morning, in his work gloves, long coat, and fur hat, he loudly power-sawed through the wall of his kiosk. He duct-taped and stapled the fabrikator into place.

The neighborhood kids caught on instantly. His new venture was a big hit.

The fabrikator made little plastic toys from 3-D computer models. After a week, the fab’s dirt-cheap toys literally turned into dirt. The fabbed toys just crumbled away, into a waxy, non-toxic substance that the smaller kids tended to chew.

Borislav had naturally figured that the brief lifetime of these toys might discourage the kids from buying them. This just wasn’t so. This wasn’t a bug: this was a feature. Every day after school, an eager gang of kids clustered around Borislav’s green kiosk. They slapped down their tinny pocket change with mittened hands. Then they exulted, quarreled, and sometimes even punched each other over the shining fab-cards.

The happy kid would stick the fab-card (adorned with some glossily fraudulent pic of the toy) into the fabrikator’s slot. After a hot, deeply exciting moment of hissing, spraying, and stinking, the fab would burp up a freshly minted dinosaur, baby doll, or toy fireman.

Foot traffic always brought foot traffic. The grownups slowed as they crunched the snowy street. They cast an eye at the many temptations ranked behind Borislav’s windows. Then they would impulse-buy. A football scarf, maybe. A pack of tissues for a sneezy nose.

Once again he was ahead of the game: the only kiosk in town with a fabrikator….

via Fantasy and Science Fiction: ‘Kiosk’ by Bruce Sterling | Beyond the Beyond | WIRED.

The Fabrikator by Bruce Sterling

How It’s Made – Hypodermic Needles

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This is very similar to what I saw when I visited Industrial Strength LLC Sharp Ass Needles, without the hubs, followed by cleaning and chemical passivation. They are ready to be sterilized and used. We use 304 SST and keep on file for every lot of needles we make a passivation certificate. We also have an … Read more

Safe steel for body jewelry?

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A forum participant asked:

please discuss 316l and implant grade 316lvm grade stainless steel

They added a link to an essay titled
“Body Jewelry Materials. Understanding Implant Grade Surgical Steel“

The easy answer:

Neither are surgical implant materials. These are engineering specifications.
*AISI and SAE do not establish standards for biocompatibility.

me+.lMore detail: ASTM ? ANSI ? ISO ?

One thing to know is that ISO and ASTM are both international organizations for standards, but ISO is restricted to members of national standards bodies such as ANSI. Individuals or companies cannot become ISO members.

ASTM members are comprised of representatives of both government and stakeholders in related business, such as me. I joined ASTM in the mid 1990’s to represent the needs and learn more about the responsibilities of the body piercing business, and have been able to attend conferences, contribute my research based evaluations and vote for standards that affect us as body artists.

ISO voting is done for the USA by ANSI. ASTM makes recommendations to ANSI. ANSI has typically voted in accordance with the recommendations of the ASTM.

ASTM F04 and ISO TC 150 have merged to facilitate the flow of information.

The 2013 update that my ASTM F04.12 committee just voted to approve for the most common steel alloy for surgical implant is also most the commonly used for body jewelry, F138.

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ASTM F138-13a specifies chemical, mechanical and metallurgical refinements for 316 series steel alloys for surgical implant. It doesn’t really matter if the material is 316L, 316LVM, etc. The material is only acceptable for body jewelry when specified for human surgical implant and validated for this purpose to a peer reviewed scientific standard such as ASTM or ISO provides. AISI/SAE

As an aside: I don’t personally use steel alloy jewelry for initial piercings. I prefer pure unalloyed metals or simpler alloys with a greater margin of safety and less reactivity in the body.

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Researchers Develop Off-Grid Sterilization with Solar Steam

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Original article: Researchers Develop Off-Grid Sterilization with Solar Steam.

Copyright 2013 by Virgo Publishing https://www.infectioncontroltoday.com/
Posted on: 07/22/2013

Rice University graduate student Oara Neumann, left, and scientist Naomi Halas are co-authors of a new study about a highly efficient method of turning sunlight into heat. They expect their technology to have an initial impact as an ultra-small-scale system to treat human waste in developing nations without sewer systems or electricity. Photo by Jeff Fitlow/Rice University.

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Effects of Non-Condensable Gases (NCGs) on Steam Sterilisation Processes

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Read the full text: Effects of Non Condensable Gases on Sterilization

Summary:

A gravity displacement (class N) steam sterilization process can not reliably remove gases from hollow or porous items, resulting in areas that do not get sterilized, and the failure of the load. They should not be used for body jewelry, needles, tattoo tubes or textiles.

REVIEW

395 CENTRAL SERVICE Volume 13 2005

ZENTRAL STERILISATION

Effects of Non-Condensable Gases (NCGs) on Steam Sterilisation Processes

U. Kaiser

Keywords

  • steam sterilisation process
  • non-condensable gases (NCGs)
  • process challenge device (PCD)

Introduction

The dangers posed by non-condensable gases (NCGs) in steam sterilisation processes have long been underestimated. Biological indicators, or the best chemical indicators on the market, do not signal the presence of a NCG content of up to 10% in a sterilisation process so long as there is mixing of steam and NCGs in the sterilisation chamber.

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Titanium body jewelry

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Titanium!

What Titanium materials are best for body jewelry? My articles at https://jewelry.piercing.org/ and https://brnskll.com/shares/titanium-standards-why-not-g23/ explain that the two most effective Titanium standards are alloyed ASTM F136 and pure ASTM F67, the most common being the former as it is stronger, harder and easier to polish. Both are used for permanent surgical implants.