altitude

On a sunny day (Wed, 24 Dec 2014 13:08:45 -0800) it happened John Larkin wrote in :

Just pinch a hole, let the air get out, and then use some scotch tape to fix it again.

Then take it back down to sea level!

But it's not simply air. A whiff of potato chip spices would hiss out of the bag and John is going to eat all the chips. Once open, too late, can't stop. Which, of course, also fixes the problem at hand.

Well, if you're worried about a potato chip fragmentation bomb burst, you can buy a tester that will measure the safe altitude of the bag: I couldn't find any published standards for burst strength, but my guess(tm) is that it should be able to handle 10,000 ft. I've been flying in an unpressurized airplane at 10,000 ft (maximum allowed without supplementary oxygen) and the small pretzel bags in munch kit did not burst.

The bag is full of nitrogen not air. The nitrogen is used to keep the chips from spoiling. When air (oxygen) gets into the bag, the chips eventually become soft and not very crispy. I'm not sure, but I suspect resealing while the bag is exhausting nitrogen might keep the air out of the bag.

Up here, at high altitude and low temperature and humidity, chips and such stay crispy and edible for a long time after being opened.

I once drove above 12,000 feet (in a Chrysler New Yorker) in Rocky Mountain National Park. The car barely ran, and our bodies barely ran either.

A long time ago when I was skiing near Truckee a friends car had a faulty fuel tank vent, it worked ok until we got back down to Sacramento where he could only get a couple of gallons of gas into the car and fuel gauge still indicated full.

After we got back to the bay area we investigated and the tank had done the reverse of your potato chip bag and had crumpled so it would only hold a few gallons, Luckily VW honored the warranty and replaced the tank for free.

kevin

Out behind the Safeway in Truckee there's a nice new 6-space Tesla charging station. So far, I haven't seen any Teslas there. This afternoon, what with the Christmas Eve shopping rush, the charging stations were mostly filled with big SUVs and pickup trucks that couldn't find a handier place to park.

Dad had to get out and reset the fuel mixture on the Mercury once when we were doing that; late '60s/early '70s.

Same here, dad would change the jets in the Holley from 72's to 68's or so at around 5k feet. It was a 73 Plymouth wagon, 400 cid.

Cheers

A gas-trick bypass--curbs cars' overeating.

Cheers, James Arthur

Many years ago, when I was considering where to go to grad school, I visited the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii. There was a house halfway up where folks would spend the night to get acclimated. You had to switch from a sea-level car to a supercharged GMC Suburban for the drive to 14k feet.

When I got to the top, there was a 70 mph wind blowing, but there was no problem whatever closing the observatory door, because the air was so thin.

It did take a bit of getting used to, e.g. having to rest halfway up a flight of stairs.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

The reason for the Nitrogen is to keep the oil in the chips from turning rancid, which is caused by the oil chemically absorbing Oxygen. This is the same reaction as an oil-based paint curing, although in this case the oil (Linseed in the old days, now synthetic) is not edible.

Joe Gwinn

Climbing Kinabalu on Borneo (4100m = 13,450ft) a few years ago was pretty hard but it helped to spend a night partway up the mountain (10,730 ft) before tackling the summit at 3AM.

altitude bothered me (maybe the pollution helped). We get nice thick wet air here.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Don't tell California, or they will require all sorts of warnings on the package.

Cartoon related, from a few days ago:

Many years ago, I forgot it was my first day in Colorado, and went running up a path from the car to an overlook point. When I had to sit down and breathe, I remembered.

Matt Roberds

Try hiking up to the top of the Flat Irons. You have to traverse P a boulder field where they are about ten feet in diameter. One worries about wildcats waiting between (and inside) the rocks. Probably more likely see a snake.