Iridium

I suppose I identify as a geek, am mainly into computer networking, and have recently recieved a CCNA (yay for me!). I'm a nontheist, and I spend alot of time contemplating life, the universe and everything, and trying not to be an egotistical git about it.

So that's me, see you in nodeland!

"And perhaps the great day will come when a people, distinguished by wars and victories and by the highest development of a military order and intelligence, and accustomed to make the heaviest sacrifices for these things, will exclaim of its own free will, "We break the sword," and will smash its entire military establishment down to its lowest foundations. Rendering oneself unarmed when one has been the best armed, out of a height of feeling-- that is the means to real peace, which must always rest on a peace of mind; whereas the so-called armed peace, as it now exists in all countries, is the absence of peace of mind. One trusts neither oneself nor one's neighbor and, half from hatred, half from fear, does not lay down arms. Rather perish than hate and fear, and twice rather perish than make oneself hated and feared-- this must some day become the highest maxim for every single commonwealth." -Friedrich Nietzsche

Note: This was a node that got nuked, but looking back on it, it probably deserved it since it is really only a question, but I would very much appreciate it if you could answer it for me, thanks.

I have no idea what these are for, and why they are there, but I will try to explain.

If you take any can of salsa, drink, or anything else with one of those metal pop-top lids (also to be found on sauce like Ragu, etc.). They all have these very very strange little symbols on the side somewhere that looks like little crop circles or something. The ones at current (as I think they change every so many many months or every year) have a circle with a line through it, two lines tracing part of the outside of the circle, and thee dots in a triangular pattern pointing down (and I beleive the previous design, being the first one I saw, was simply a circle with some lines or something like that). So why would these designs be printed on all pop-top lids, and why would the FDA or whatever government organization choose such a strange and cryptic design? Just what does this design represent? A Quality Control check? some weird thing required by the patent holder on this technology? Who is to say, really.

Suffices to say this is a mystery to me, and I'm sure there's some sort of rather boring explanation, but I'd like to hear it nonetheless, so please /msg me if you happen to know the answer, and possibly node it as well. Thanks!