World conquest…slightly delayed


When we fired up all cylinders on our majestic fish apparatus today, we discovered…leaks. Nothing tremendous, no sprays of water under pressure all over the place, just a couple of slow, steady, trickling drips. We demand perfection since this will be running 24 hours a day for months on end. So joins are being resealed and retested. Damn science. Damn engineering. Damn plumbing.

Have no fear, we’re just pushing back teleostageddon a few days. But the Daniocalypse will happen! We cannot be stopped now! The device is nearly complete!

Comments

  1. alkaloid says

    Isn’t Teleostageddon scheduled to be on the Syfy channel two weeks from now?

  2. ChasCPeterson says

    bah. Your armies navies schools of diminutive cyprinids don’t scare me.

  3. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Call me, SyFy…we’ll do lunch.

    Fish sammiches, of course.

  4. Lofty says

    PZ if you put a webcam in your lab you can market your Piscine Production Pools as Feline Fantasy Flicks.

  5. opposablethumbs says

    Say you’re going to call it The Glooper … it’ll be called The Glooper, right? Please?
    .
    Though of course if you do you’ll have to mind the effect of changing water levels on the world’s gold reserves and the coins down the back of the sofa.

  6. A. R says

    PZ: Your cyprinid armies cannot stand against my weaponized Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia!!!!!!!!!!!

  7. jenniferphillips says

    Fools. Everyone knows that Mycobacterium marinum are the real harbingers of the apocalypse.

  8. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    “I hold in my paws a device so powerful – so revolutionary – that it will change the balance of power amongst all species, making the cat the master! A device so simple that it took a mind as brilliant as mine to create it! SO brilliant, in fact, that simply by harnessing the power of one live frog, it…it…uh…*poke*poke*…world domination has encountered a momentary setback. Talk amongst yourselves.”

    -Bucky Katt (Darby Conley)

  9. says

    Leaks? That sounds like the work of an anti-American traitor who needs to be prosecuted well beyond the fullest extent of the law.

  10. tim rowledge, Ersatz Haderach says

    Fiddle with the inverter flange on the deglutinating framistat. If that doesn’t work, try a bigger hammer. If all else fails, turn it off and turn it on again,

    And AR? Please tell us that you’re not actually working on that?

  11. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Are zebrafish edible? Japanese niboshi is made with juvenile sardines that are about the same size…

    Ask PZ, I was simply trying to funny, and failing it appears.

  12. Larry says

    Got leaks? Two words: duct. tape.

    You can’t run a evil enterprise without it.

  13. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Got leaks? Two words: duct. tape.

    You can’t run a evil enterprise without it.

    And Zip ties. They have replaced chewing gum and baling wire….

  14. says

    @Nerd of Redhead, after watching 6 seasons of Burn Notice, I’ve started carrying Zip ties in my purse (yes guys, I’m a SAHD, I have a purse) just in case I need emergency handcuffs.

  15. A. R says

    tim rowledge, Ersatz Haderach: I don’t work with it personally, but it would be quite easy to get my hands on freeze-dried stock, as it isn’t a human pathogen or a USDA select agent.

  16. A. R says

    And I’ve had contaminating viruses ruin my Vero spinner stocks. Loosing months of work is never fun, but if I was making a joke about my cells taking over the world and someone jokingly threatened to defeat my cellular horde with Ebola, I would be amused. I see very little difference.

  17. Jerry says

    So, PZ will take over the world with The Device. He will always write it as “The Device”, capitalized. It’s a little harder to speak in Initial Capital Letters, but it sounds creppy and he Will Manage. Just as soon as he fixes the Leaks, that is.

  18. says

    Well, I for one welcome our new zebrafish overlords.

    Oh, and #22? Rescue Tape — marvelous self-sealing silicone tape, ideal for small seeps, and comes in a variety of pretty colours, including transparent.

  19. biogeo says

    Eamon Knight: You have just made my frickin’ month if Rescue Tape works as advertised. I have not once managed to get fluid lines set up properly in my lab without spending hours (days!) dealing with leaks.

    My usual solution is to just keep adding PTFE tape to things until the pain finally stops.

  20. DrVanNostrand says

    As someone who deals with crazy high vacuum systems (i.e. 1 – 10 e-6 torr), I completely sympathize with your problems. There are dozens of connections and any one can destroy the system. Too much teflon tape, too little, too much torque, too little, just about anything can screw up the whole system. At least with water you can SEE your problems. I read about your system the last time you posted and it looks awesome. Good luck sorting everything out.

  21. playonwords says

    Stopping these leaks, are you trying to stop the “trickle down” effect? Think of your assistants, man!

  22. Johnny Vector says

    There is something fishy about this whole plan.

    I think he’s a pisces, probably working for scale.

    Chris Clarke and sundiver will get that reference.

  23. RFW says

    Plastic piping? Joining that stuff to create a leak-free system isn’t quite as simple as it may seem. A good friend lives in a high rise condo in Vancouver. The entire water supply system in the building had to be re-plumbed years after construction because it was leaking; the plumber who’d done the work evidently didn’t know how to glue the joints.

    [The re-plumbing was a Major Bad, as all the pipes were inside walls, which had to be broken open. And my friend’s unit got flooded because the re-work on a floor above him leaked, too.]

  24. F [is for fluvial] says

    I have a heating system like that! OK, plus the occasional addition of somewhat pressurized flooding.