Luggage locks - Skeleton Key

A skeleton key is a key that has been filed in such a way as to bypass the security measures placed inside a warded lock. Today, this is also known as a bump key.

A Skeleteon Key can also be used as a key that opens every lock in a house

The term skeleton key is also often misused to describe ‘bit’ type keys.

This misnomer, perhaps, stemmed from its resemblance to a skeletal figure, with an open loop at its end distal to the lock into which it is inserted to open, and possessed of two or more teeth, projecting as perpendicular tusks off the slender shaft attached to the loop, with interstitial spaces approximating the width of each tooth, to engage the tumblers of the lock when inserted. The hole of it is most resemblant of a lion’s shape in certain medieval heraldry, and likely draws its origin from same or vice versa. The lock’s hole into which the skeleton key is inserted is fashioned in the shape of a circle at the top, with flared lines projecting down from it to form the sides of an isosceles triangle, the circle at the top then circumscribing the triangle at about one-third the vertical length of the two sides.

These keys were common in both cabinetry and door locks in early Colonial America and remained in common usage within the United States through the 1940’s, giving way after World War II to the more common house-key locks in use today, as manufactured by Schlage and others. It was uncommon to see skeleton keys and their locks formed of materials other than brass, although pewter was sometimes used as well. Most usually, skeleton keys today are associated with fine cabinetry, not other types of locks; they are insecure locks, not being capable of being ground to unique shapes to form a unique key pattern. Their common usage in earlier times therefore conveys the notion of less need for security than preoccupies the world today and since World War II, generally.

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Luggage locks - Windsor Locks, Connecticut Tornado

The Windsor Locks, Connecticut tornado struck on October 3 1979. The short-lived, but intense F4 tornado (see Fujita scale) caused 3 deaths, 500 injuries, and - with more than $300 million in property damage along an 11-mile path - ranks as one of the most expensively destructive tornadoes in American history.

The tornado touched down in the town of Poquonock, Connecticut, just north of Hartford, Connecticut in the Connecticut River valley. It traveled north through the town of Windsor Locks, Connecticut before dissipating in the town of Suffield, Connecticut, just south of the Massachusetts state line.

The path of the tornado crossed the northern portion of Bradley International Airport, and many vintage aircraft at the nearby New England Air Museum were damaged or destroyed by the storm.

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Tsa locks for luggage - Kentucky River Authority

The Kentucky River Authority is an agency of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Its major purpose is to operate and maintain a set of locks and dams (specifically Locks 5 through 14) along the course of the Kentucky River which was originally built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and are now in the process of being deeded over to the Authority. The KRA was established in 1986.

This system makes the Kentucky River navigable throughout its entire 259 mile (437 km) length from its mouth into the Ohio River all the way up to its headwaters at the confluence of the North and South Forks. However, it is not available for efficient use by many of the modern barge tows due to the relatively small size of the locks and the fact that the channel is maintained to only a six-foot draft rather than the nine-foot draft that is more typical and the standard used on most major river systems in the U.S. The Authority also works to prevent water pollution as much as is practicable along the Kentucky River Basin, in large measure because the stream is the source of the drinking water for approximately one-sixth of all Kentucky residents. The Authority’s responsibility for water quality was added to its mission in 1988 after a serious and prolonged drought brought issues of water quality and availabilty to the fore. In fact, the system is now operated more for the purpose of maintaining a secure supply of drinkable water for Lexington and other communities than it is to maximize navigation.

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Luggage locks - Locks Heath F.C.

Locks Heath F.C. is a football club based in Fareham suburb of Locks Heath, Hampshire, England. They won the Hampshire League title in 1991. Currently, they are members of the Hampshire Premier League Division One. They play their home games at The Recreation Ground, found on Hunts Pond Road. They play in red and black shirts

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Luggage locks - Halden Canal

The Halden canal near Halden, Norway begun construction in 1852. The canal allows boats to make a journey parallel to the Swedish border of 75 km from Tistedal to Skulerud. Engebret Soot (1786 - 1859) was responsible for this canal, as well as the earlier Soot Canal.

Four sets of locks control the water in the canal. From 1857 - 1860 the Strømsfoss and Ørje locks were built. There are 3 locks at Ørje, with a combined lift height of 10 meters. The lock gates are controlled by hand. In 1865 the Stenselv river portion of the canal, with locks both at Krappeto, was completed. The Brekke locks, furthest south, were finished in 1924 with four locks and a combined lift height of 26.6 m, bypassing the greatest lift of the Telemark canal. The locks in the Halden Canal can pass vessels which are 24 m in length, 6 m in beam and of 1.6 m draft.

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Luggage locks - Heartbreak Hill

Heartbreak Hill may refer to:

  • Heartbreak Hill –a set of locks more formally known as the Cheshire Locks on the Trent_and_Mersey_Canal
  • Heartbreak Hill – an album by English guitarist Albert Lee
  • Heartbreak Hill (band) – a Canadian country music band
  • “Heartbreak Hill” – a country music song appearing on the Emmylou Harris album Bluebird

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Luggage locks - Locks-and-keys

Locks-and-keys is a solution to dangling pointers in computer programming languages.

The locks-and-keys approach represents pointers as ordered pairs (key, address) where the key is an integer value. Heap-dynamic variables are represented as the storage for the variable plus a cell for an integer. When a variable is allocated, a lock value is created and placed both into the variable’s cell and into the variable’s ordered pair. Every access to the pointer compares these two values, and access is allowed only if the values match.

When a variable is deallocated, the key of its ordered pair is modified to hold a value different from the variable’s cell. From then on, any attempt to dereference the pointer can be flagged as an error. Since copying a pointer also copies its cell value, changing the key of the ordered pair safely disables all copies of the pointer.

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Luggage locks - McAlpine Locks and Dam

The McAlpine Locks and Dam refers to the series of locks and the hydroelectric dam in Louisville, Kentucky at the Falls of the Ohio. They are located at mile point 606.8 and control a 72.9 mile (117 km) long navigation pool. This was the first major engineering project on the Ohio River, and the first official name of the system of canal locks was the Louisville and Portland Canal, which was completed in 1830 to allow shipping traffic to navigate through the Falls of the Ohio. From 1925 to 1927, a dam for generating hydroelectric power was added, and the system of canals was expanded, first by a private company and then by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The hydroelectric plant at the time was the seventh largest hydroelectric plant in the United States.

The system was renamed the McAlpine Locks and Dam in 1960 in honor of William McAlpine, who was the only civilian to have ever served as district engineer for the Corps of Louisville. At present, the normal pool elevation is 420 feet (130 m) above sea level and the drainage area above the dam is 91,170 square miles (236,000 km²). The average daily flow at McAlpine is 118,000 cubic feet per second (3,340 m³/s). The lock chambers are located at the dam on the Kentucky side of the Ohio River and are capable of a normal lift of 37 feet (11 m) between the McAlpine pool upstream and the Cannelton pool downstream. The hydroelectric plant consists of eight turbine units with a net power generation capacity of 80,000 kilowatts. The hydroelectric plant is currently undergoing an 8-year long rehabilitation project. This will extend the life of the 1920s era turbine-generator units and increase power output to 100 megawatts.

In October 2003, McAlpine was designated a Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

The McAlpine locks are currently undergoing a 10-year, $278 million expansion project scheduled to be completed in 2008.

The hydroelectric plant is owned and operated by LG&E, a subsidiary of E.ON U.S., while the locks are operated by the Army Corps of Engineers.

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Luggage locks - Solenoid bolt

A solenoid bolt is a type of electronic-mechanical locking mechanism. This type of lock is characterized by the use of a solenoid to throw the bolt. Sophisticated solenoid bolt locks may use microprocessors to perform voltage regulation, reduce power consumption, and/or provide access control. Depending on the strength of the solenoid, some models can provide a holding force on the order of 1000 kg. A solenoid bolt can be designed either to fail open (the lock opens on power loss) or to fail closed (the device is locked upon power loss); cf fail safe. Some models may be suitable for high-security sites.

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Luggage locks - Canal pound

A canal pound is the stretch of level water impounded between two canal locks. Canal pounds can vary in length from the non-existent, where two or more immediately adjacent locks form a lock staircase, to many miles.

History

Pounds came into being with the development of Pound locks to replace the earlier flash locks. A key feature of pound locks was that the intervening level between locks remained largely constant, as opposed to the varible levels created by the opening of flash locks.

Types of pound

Pounds can be described in various ways according to their situation;

Summit pound

A summit pound is formed at a summit on the canal, and where all the defining locks descend from the pound. Summit pounds are particularly important in canal design, as every boat entering or leaving the pound causes a loss of water. Summit pounds therefore need an independent form of water supply, which may take the form of weirs on adjacent rivers, reservoirs or pumping stations. Common practice during canal design was to make summit pounds as large as practically possible, in order that losing a lockful of water would not lower the water level too significantly. The Rochdale Canal is a good example of a canal with a relatively short summit pound, which requires restrictions on lock workings at certain times.

Sump pound

The inverse of a summit pound is a sump pound. In contrast to a summit pound, a sump pound is a point where every boat entering or leaving the pound causes an addition of water.

Lock pound

A pound which lies between two locks which lie only a short distance apart. Water levels in the pound are liable to fluctuate as the locks are used.

Side pound

A particular type of extremely short lock pound, which is extended sideways to make up for the short distance between locks so as to avoid excessive level fluctuations. Side pounds should not be confused with side ponds (without the u).

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