1.5 Million 400 Troy Ounce Fake Tungsten Gold Bars - Goldfinger - A New Take On Operation Grand Slam

[ASH]

Re: 1.5 Million 400 Troy Ounce Fake Tungsten Gold Bars - Goldfinger - A New Take On Operation Grand

PS: I loved the steam tunnels.

DEI! ;)

ten characters

[newnewthing]

Re: 1.5 Million 400 Troy Ounce Fake Tungsten Gold Bars - Goldfinger - A New Take On Operation Grand

DEI! ;)

lol. There was a, now defunct, company called "Data Electroincs Inc," almost universally known as DEI started in Pasadena. They made 3M cartridge digital tape recorders for computer backup. I used them from time to time on IBM-AT PCs. I've always wondered if a DEI founder was a Techer.

BTW, what package are you using for the finite element work?

My specialty ranges from microvolt signal processing to control systems to power electronics and associated firmware/sim software. So I lived by C++, Matlab, and Spice.

[ASH]

Re: 1.5 Million 400 Troy Ounce Fake Tungsten Gold Bars - Goldfinger - A New Take On Operation Grand

lol. There was a, now defunct, company called "Data Electroincs Inc," almost universally known as DEI started in Pasadena. They made 3M cartridge digital tape recorders for computer backup. I used them from time to time on IBM-AT PCs. I've always wondered if a DEI founder was a Techer.

BTW, what package are you using for the finite element work?

My specialty ranges from microvolt signal processing to control systems to power electronics and associated firmware/sim software. So I lived by C++, Matlab, and Spice.

I used an older version of COMSOL's software, which I find to be relatively inexpensive, flexible, and user-friendly, but also somewhat less optimized for specific tasks than some of the standard packages used for structural mechanics or semiconductor device modelling.

Actually, I don't do much work with this simulation software. I bought the finite element package to do some quick and dirty thermal analysis, but never became expert. I had the idea that I could also use the package for 3D semiconductor device modelling (for, like, 1 or 2 orders of magnitude lower cost than the industry standard package), but in the end I didn't have enough time to work out the kinks. Some of the quantities in semiconductor device physics change by several orders of magnitude over very short distances, and the aspect ratio of some of the structures can be very extreme, which means that you have to work hard to get the right mesh to make a finite element model converge. The problem was "conceptually solved", but in the end, it proved to be faster to use the purpose-built package rather than train this general tool.

Anymore, I do less and less engineering and more and more management and business development. Most of the modelling I did is 1D stuff that I split between a freeware semiconductor device simulator and code I wrote myself in Mathematica. In terms of my own code, I did cookbook 1D transmission matrix-based calculations for optical propagation through dielectric stacks or electron propagation through potential barriers. The only substantive thing I have written is a Monte Carlo model of impact-ionization which I used to design avalanche photodiodes (APDs). But that was all in 2004-2005 or so. Once I had the "better mousetrap" APD designed, I spent another couple of years trying to build the damn thing -- finally got some traction in 2007. Now I spend most of my time trying to optimize the APD and develop products based upon it.

Anyway, I'm not a real programmer. I did some coding in undergrad, but afterwards, it has all been higher-level languages like Mathematica. But my wife (another Caltech grad) -- she's a real coder. The last thing she did was real-time flight software for rockets.


Cheers,
Andrew

[grapejelly]

Re: 1.5 Million 400 Troy Ounce Fake Tungsten Gold Bars - Goldfinger - A New Take On Operation Grand

Just talked to the local mint manager here

Told me you can't fabricate tungsten coins as tungsten is too hard to strike with a die

Go the coins!

conceivably you could use tungsten powder though even in coins.

I think on the whole coins are not easy to counterfeit and are easy to detect fakes even tungsten powder core, just by dropping them on a formica table or tapping them with a plastic wand.

But bars are another story, at least larger bars would be. I would always stick to gold coins if I was to buy gold. And if you go with 24kt coins such as Philharmonics or Mapleleafs, those are even more difficult to counterfeit than, say, Krugerrands which have a lower SD than solid gold and could be more easily monkeyed with.