Water purification tabs are good, but they don't remove dissolved salts - they just kill bugs.
Drinking seawater or one's own urine is physiologically damaging due to the dissolved salts.
At sea, one can carry a hand-pumped reverse osmosis unit.
However, for land use, BorgCo are developing something cleverer. It externally resembles a large drink can. It consists of two chambers; and empty "receiver" chamber, and a feed chamber, the two separated by a reverse-osmosis membrane. The feed chamber also contains a slow-burning pyrotechnic gas generator.
The feed chamber is filled with seawater or urine, then sealed. The unit is placed receiver-side down so as to keep the liquid in contact with the membrane. The gas generator is fired, producing a high pressure in the feed chamber, forcing water through the membrane. The slow burn composition produces a sustained high pressure to encourage osmosis.
After a suitable time delay, the receiver will contain a useful quantity of pure (deionized) water, which may taste awful but is absolutely safe to drink.
The used casing is discarded or recycled.-- 8th of 7, Aug 09 2009 Backpacking Water Purifiers http://www.rei.com/category/4500030 [sninctown, Aug 09 2009] Oh, what the hell... http://www.youtube....watch?v=EMZaCOaLf9YI have to do this. [nineteenthly, Aug 15 2009] So how heavy is this device compared to the amount of purified water it produces?-- Loris, Aug 09 2009 Fairly light; made of aluminium, or ABS, maybe a couple of hundred grams, and capable of processing up to a litre of water.-- 8th of 7, Aug 09 2009 With a hand-pump for pressurization this could be multiple-use.
Aside from their aggressiveness, I think very highly of the Borg.-- sninctown, Aug 09 2009 // aggressiveness //
Try to percieve it more in terms of "enthusiastic friendliness". [gnomethang], take note.-- 8th of 7, Aug 09 2009 For the Borg (at least pre-Hugh), enthusiasm and friendliness only have meaning on a societal level. It is irrelevant that people might not wish to be assimilated and service the needs of the Collective.
On the other hand, the Borg fail less than other Star Trek races at using the networking, augmentation, and replication technologies available. Why didn't Data ever link the replicators and transporters to run off a few million duplicates of himself?-- sninctown, Aug 09 2009 well, one would assume that Data is copyrighted. Who knows what horrible monster the RIAA et al. will have mutated into by the 25th century.... hmm, <glares at [8/7]>-- FlyingToaster, Aug 09 2009 You don't want to know, you really don't.
// people might not wish to be assimilated //
Only because they don't know what they're missing. We have a great health care plan, plus lots of other benefits.-- 8th of 7, Aug 10 2009 +, but a multiuse one would be better, I think.-- Zimmy, Aug 10 2009 Pass the salt please, er...then again maybe I'll just stick to pepper.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Aug 10 2009 // no pyrotechnics needed //
Yes, but what's the point of that ?
You're no fun any more .....
// What sort of pressures do you need //
That depends on the concentration of dissolved salts in the mother liquor.-- 8th of 7, Aug 13 2009 If only we could work out a way to make this gadget produce Gin .... <sigh>-- 8th of 7, Aug 13 2009 Good idea, but Fosters already have a patent on that.-- 8th of 7, Aug 14 2009 Not so. Fosters, maybe, but not *all* beer/lager/ale. One or two of the British beers go down quite nicely and some of the Belgian stuff is quite nice. They're a bit fruity - perhaps they've got badger/squirrel pee (respectively) in them?-- Jinbish, Aug 15 2009 Damn it, and now you've gone and made me interrupt my dinner. I had to move my sashimi to get at the keyboard.
At this moment I'm savoring a Pizza Port Brewery "Hop-15". That's fifteen types of hops added at fifteen minute intervals, and a respectable ten percent alcohol. For those of you with timid palates, it tastes like milkweed and malt, and I'm loving every sip.
I now return to my seared ahi, emblazoned with wasabi and ever so lightly kissed with soy sauce.
So far today we've made [21] google fake poop and urine recycling. I think I like this game.-- normzone, Aug 15 2009 ah yes good ol' "Pizza Port": Fine Ales since Friday last.-- FlyingToaster, Aug 15 2009 See link on my wife's not-so-secret TV career, which involves urine.-- nineteenthly, Aug 15 2009 //I have to do this.//... did you really ? At a granted slightly greater cost, couldn't you have gotten the same effect by quaffing a sports beverage ?-- FlyingToaster, Aug 15 2009 Ah yes, that sweat thing. Well, of course, i don't do it personally, but a person close to me does.-- nineteenthly, Aug 16 2009 random, halfbakery