Posts by Steven Raith

Re: WD Black^2 ?

Because SATA can't talk to two seperate devices on the same bus natively - not without port multipliers being involved (even even then, you'd need a custom connector, etc) - and Fusion Drive needs to have two quite specifically seperate devices reported to it by the SATA controller to work, as far as I am aware.

The WD Black^2 uses a driver solution to make Windows see two devices on one SATA port (hence why no Mac support, and likely no Linux support either), but it won't be as fast as having an SSD on one SATA port, and a HDD on another seperate port due to the way SATA works.

I can see a use for it (those who have a midrange windows laptop, who want more speed, more capacity, and don't want to lose an optical bay) but it's not for me.

Steven R

Re: Non Cancerous?

If you're going to selectively quote to support your own agenda, it's a good idea not to include the source.

"Historically, nicotine has not been regarded as a carcinogen and the IARC has not evaluated nicotine in its standalone form or assigned it to an official carcinogen group. While no epidemiological evidence supports that nicotine alone acts as a carcinogen in the formation of human cancer, research over the last decade has identified nicotine's carcinogenic potential in animal models and cell culture."

There are no reputable human studies that show nicotine causes cancer in humans, period.

I roll my eyes at thee.

Steven R

Re: Most recent EU developments:

Hopefully the above tat will (to quote futurama) get slapped down like the last ones.

I'm struggling to understand why certain parts of the EC seem to fail to see the bigger picture here - which is that with sensibly controlled e-liquids (flavours shouldn't be relevant unless it affects the vapour/effect on the lungs) and good quality, sensibly regulated atomisers, there is an extremely high chance that deaths due to tar, benzine, and the other hundreds of known toxic chemicals in cigarettes aught to drop like a stone. Because e-cigs don't have 'em.

Simple fact is, addictiveness aside low doses of nicotine don't pose a significant health threat. No reputable research says otherwise.

If the EC can bring up some reputable research that does say otherwise, they can propose regulation. But just trying to severely restrict an emerging market because THINK OF THE CHILDREN just strikes me as rampant, DailyMail level fuckwittery.

Steven R

Re: @dogged (was: One point that is often conveniently forgotten ...)

Stuart Longland - compared to ciggies, the smell is nothing and it dissipates in seconds. I've asked people around me this question before and it's always the same issue, it's just not an issue.

I've just done a straw poll with my colleague, and other than the sound of inhalation, he can't tell my smell that I've been using it. And he's six feet away from me. I'm chugging on menthol at the moment from a dual coil atty.

Certainly I can now smell people smoking in other cars in traffic - when I'm hammering my own one in the car.

It's really a non-issue, I'm happy to report.

Steven R

Re: Oh Christ, not another one...

An interesting commment from the end of that article:

"Table 1 lists a range of alarming health effects of the detected exposures, but this seems to be just made up. E.g. 0.2 micrograms of copper inhaled from 10 puffs of e-cigarette are presented as causing 'respiratory irritation, coughing, sneezing, thoracic pain, runny nose and vineyard sprayer’s lung'. Looking this up shows that ACGIH allows that workers can be exposed chronically to an environment containing 0.4 mg/m3 of a respirable aerosol of copper without health effects. Assuming a workday inhalation of 10 m3 and correcting for a 5 day work week, the expected daily copper inhaled dose would be 2860 micrograms. I.e. inhaling over 10,000 times the amount of copper released by this e-cigarette has no ill effects. "

And a response to it from another commenter:

The authors should respond to this rather serious criticism, and place their findings in an appropriate risk framework. It is not adequate simply to detect substances and then argue that these substances are known to have health effects. What matters is exposure, the risks that arise from that exposure, and what level of risk should attract the concern or otherwise of users and regulators - especially in comparison to the very harmful dominant nicotine products, cigarettes, that these products aim to replace.

Clive Bates is one of the people who are pushing for better quality research on this subject, for reference, and he made the second comment in response to the first.

Draw your own conclusions. This is the sort of 'flaky' research I was referring to earlier in the comments section....high on data, poor on process and conclusions.

I'll be honest - I don't want 'positive' research, I want better research.

Re: Isn't Nicotine itself harmful?

On the subject of aromas, it's pretty faint. If I've been puffing away in the workshop on something fruity or sweet, someone will pop up asking who's got the Fangtastics, etc. but it dissipates pretty quickly - within seconds IME unless you've been hammering it. And it really doesn't linger.

It's certainly nothing like as bad as the perfume a lass in here uses to hide her cigarette smoking smells after her lunch break - which makes my fecking eyes water! ;-)

(she doesn't believe she smokes enough to justify giving up or switching to leccy tabs - and as I'm not 'that' kind of ex-smoker, I don't push it. Apart from pointing and laughing when her lighter breaks...muhahaha, etc.)

Steven R

Re: Not the same as the real thing

Quad coil atty?

I'm sorry, I demand a link!

I'm currently using a TW Vivi Nova (it's a joyetech rebrand AFAIK) which is doing me nicely. Tried a Mini Nova last week and found it to be quite good, but a quad coil atty sounds pretty interesting...

Re: One point that is often conveniently forgotten ...

@DigitulSupport - yeah, I know, I know, but I can't help feeling that responding to him might at least convince others of the correct argument, rather than his rampant incorrectness.

Re: @Steven Smoke on the water vapour

Ah, interesting. Got some links to the more technically biased/serious sites?

I'm interested :-)

My local banned it.

I stopped going to my local.

Capitalism in action, kids!

Steven R

Re: fountain pen

I beleive the THC is in a state where doesn't vape cleanly (if at all) hence why it's not really popular - oils, etc, which seperate from the base liquid. People have tried it.

If you could get the cannaboids and other 'whee, my hands feel weird' bits extracted and bound to the PG/VG base (in the same way the nicotine does) then I suppose it'd be technically possible...

Re: @Steven Smoke on the water vapour

Is it possible it's a conflation between what it *actually* is, and what it *effectively* is in terms of expected health effects?

I'm not being difficult, it's just that as you say, you'd think trading standards would get all up in their junk about this if that is the case and there isn't a rational, sensible reason for the description of it as water vapour.

As for transmogrification, well, it is transmogrifying, from a liquid to a vapour - the flash point (boiling point, more accurately, I suppose)for PG/VG vaporisation is a touch over 100deg IIRC - and if you get it over 400deg it will ignite if exposed to a flame. I'd expect *that* would be nasty, as that would be combustion rather than vaporisation, which is a rather different process.

Re: Not as safe as people believe

They'd best ban mobile phones and laptops too - they have been known to have exploding batteries too....

Re: Isn't Nicotine itself harmful?

Thanks Shinku, that was one of the few studies I can think of that has been done in a reasonably sane and sensible manner (as opposed to stuffing someone in a box filled with e-cig vapour and watching them cough, etc).

Re: halo cigarettes

I'll just add that a couple of times I've found I've lacked premix, and I've used all my nicotine base - but I've had some base liquid and flavouring, so I've made up some non-nicotine fluid for myself.

I notice the lack of nicotine, but only after a few hours. It's enough to keep me tided over till I can get to my local stockists, at least.

Not scientific, but there you go - it's definitely a mix of the strong physical interaction, and the nicotine being either equal, or slightly below that for the first few hours.

Steven R

(yes, I know, I'm posting a lot here, but I'm finding a lot of things to respond to and ecigs are something I've very pleased with from a technical and practical standpoint, so excuse me for that please!)

Re: fountain pen

Probably, if someone wanted to, but then you have to put that convenience against the fun of breaking out the droppers, sample bottles and syringes, and doing your 'drugs' in front of colleagues and customers.

Mad scientist evil laugh optional.

Steven R

PS: Obviously, assuming they know what it is your doing - as I've noted before, treating people like human beings and explaining yourself *before* going all Wierd Science on them with chemicals and all that tends to get a better reaction. Just call me Puff The Magic IT Technician, sir...

Re: Isn't Nicotine itself harmful?

You could just google it? ;-)

I had a look into this a while ago, and the idea that nicotine is about as harmful as coffee on the human body was borne true by the more recent studies that have looked at nicotine specifically in humans, as opposed to cigarettes overall, nicotine on mice, etc. There haven't been many studies on passive vaping, which is really what you want to see. The ones that have been done have been....just awfully badly done, at least the ones that I found at the time. They've been ridiculed by the scientific community for their methodology and testing practises.

I'll see if I can dig out the info I found, but I am at work and a bit strapped for time - if anyone else wants to Do The Research for me, feel free, as I recall it was a bit tricky to find and I don't have an hour to go trawling the web at the moment...

Steven R

Re: Smoke on the water vapour

Frank ly - I was of the understanding that when heated to past it's flash point (IE where it vapourises) the PG/VG 'transmogrified' into what is basically water vapour - in the same way that combusing paper turns it into carbon, etc. I'm not chemist, so excuse my poor explanation, but I think you get the gist.

Regardless, it's the same trick as used in smoke machines, and there has yet to be a reputable study that shows significant harm from the vapours, nor have there been any medical problems attributed to the normal use of e-cigs (that aren't already obvious - an asthmatic might not like it much, for example) in any reliable manner in the decade or so they've been on the market.

Comparing this to the extremely well established and obvious harm that normal ciggies do, even if they were proven to be half as harmful as a B+H silver, it's *still* better than smoking for a variety of very relevant reasons.

I'm firmly of the opinion that people who aren't behind E-cigs either don't understand them at a fundamental level, or are just being deliberately ignorant to back up their own prejudices.

Re: One point that is often conveniently forgotten ...

"No, because when they are used in my vicinity, I can feel the affects of the nicotine"

You might feel something, Jake - more likely a placebo/nocebo effect, or just impotent rage that someone else can enjoy their habit without, to the best of our knowledge from *reputable* research that has been done, seriously harming themselves or those around them - but I can tell you now, if you can detect the remnant nicotine in exhaled vapour (somewhere between 5-15% of the original inhalation dose), then smoking a cigarette would make you vomit/faint, by volume of nicotine.

Hope that helps.

Re: One point that is often conveniently forgotten ...

I've had comments from ex-smokers before about my e-cig, and without exception, they've either been highly positive about it, or if they're currently a bit raw from stopped recently, they've been fine with me doing it out of sight/around a corner/in the kitchen/etc.

If they're ex-smokers, they'll appreciate that getting off the tabs isn't easy, and that anything that helps you, me, or any other smoker who wants to stop is a good thing.

If they don't, they're puritan fucks and should have that pointed out to them.

I tried e-cigs one weekend about two years ago, never looked back - I have a ciggy every few months to remind myself why I stopped, they're fucking awful.

Menthol and strawberry at 18mg through a dual-wick clearomiser for me, ta!

Steven R