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More Ways to Blow Things Up
pitabutter writes "Since the /. crowd seems to appreciate the exciting combination of amateur chemistry and fearlessness (what is it about intelligence and the desire to blow things up?), Sam Barros' site would be worth a look. Rail guns, high voltage, electromagnetic experiements-all there and with videos to boot. Unable to confirm if Sam still has appendages intact........"
I don't think he mentions it explicitly but I think this guy is still a teenager. Does anybody know for sure?
To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
I don't get it. What's the connection between intelligence and the /. crowd???
Don't give them any new ideas.
Is that us?
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
George Goble's home page.
Bill Beaty's Amateur Science Pages are a great place for this kind of thing, too... Although his site is a little more aimed at electronics, but there's plenty of physics-related (read: explosive) stuff too :)
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
what is it about intelligence and the desire to blow things up?
Lack of it?
Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.
... destructive fun is the *most* fun.
Just in case his little server goes down, here's the Google cache of the site.
:-)
;-)
Have a great weekend everyone
*nix.org -- No flamewars here -- all Unices welcome
Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
Q: what is it about intelligence and the desire to blow things up?
A: they are inversely proportional. just look at the current US administration.
Wait ... that information was provided for educational uses only ...
Talk about an explosive website design.
fp nah nah
I remember the first time I did soda and baking powder in a container too small for the amounts... and the ever fun empty or full, spray can in the fire trick.... oh the memories
Potato Salad!
> January 26th:
> PowerLabs was featured on a ZZZ Article;
> traffic triples (now at 4000+ hits/day).
Let's see what he's learned about scalable designs. I guess Slashdot is going to be part of the "+".
Hi, this site is all about Powerlabs, REAL POWERLABS. This site is awesome. My name is Sam Barros and I can't stop thinking about Powerlabs. These guys are cool; and by cool, I mean totally sweet.
I got more rhymes than Jamaica got Mangoes.
Cool work, but this guy has way too much time on his hands.
bus klets ip uw mulle
Jesus Rocks!
prist fost! bitches
PowerLabs was featured on a ZZZ Article; traffic triples (now at 4000+ hits/day).
/.
Just wait until he sees what happens when he's exposed to
Apparently, of the rich, by the rich, for the rich.
I, for one, am thoroughly impressed! This guy has put a lot of time, effort and experience into the gentle art of making SMITHEREENS! :-)
So what happens when he has kids, I wonder???
I'm done with sigs. Sigs are lame.
And they are stupid to send the site to slashdot or consent to the story.
The surveillance regime is real, but they can't follow up every spurious lead. Just the easier ones. Don't make it easy on them!
NI3*NH3 (nitrogen tri-iodide)
Fun for the whole family.
The site claims to be: "The number one Amateur Science page!" This is a bit depressing if true. I sure hope that amateur scientists are working more useful problems than blowing things up...
I can't help thinking about Vannevar Bush's article in the July 1945 Atlantic Monthly in which he surveyed the possible uses for organized technological development and concluded that "Memex" - the source of the hypertext idea, was the most important thing to work on. What would a similar analysis uncover as the most important problem for technology and "Amateur Scientists" today? I don't think it would have anything to do with blowing things up...
bob wyman
Send that to the people who have been building potato bazookas and wounding people in germany.
Hmm, on second thoughts, no, don't send that to them. Last thing they need is someone to build a portable potato railgun...
Daniel
Carpe Diem
Since the /. crowd seems to appreciate the exciting combination of amateur chemistry and fearlessness
I think the correct phrase would actually be "...the exciting combination of amateur chemistry and stupidity..." or you could possibly with stupidity with the word Guiness.
sig.
Thomas Edison used AC power to electrocute cats, dogs, a horse, and even a 3-ton elephant. He also created the first electric chair, which ran on DC power and almost set the person to be executed on fire (nowadays they are AC). As our knowledge of electricity expanded so did the uses to which this most versatile form of power has been put to.
And he was the greatest inventor of all time... why?
... the thing I'm afraid of is some 15 year old gets a hold of this info and hurts himself or others.
I grew up with the Mr Wizard generation. Making bombs from flour, hot air baloons and electricuting weiners. Which looking back could have killed me. In highschool we discovered the proportions to gun powder and made a beaker full
from http://www.powerlabs.org/chemlabs/index.html
It should be noted on going through the list of experiments/demonstrations outlined here that all of them involve serious hazards, either in the form of the chemicals utilized, in the procedures, or in the final products yielded by them. Due to that, these procedures have been written up as illustrations only, not as a how-to guide
A lesson for Linux How-To writers!
Eh... it's always fun to get a block of magnesium.
You mean "Natural Selection"?
i claim this fp in the name of George Nayef Kayatta, R.M. (renaissance man)!
BOOM! BITCH!
You can blow things up, you can blow things down, but what about left to right? I'm fucking pissed, they don't get enough attention dammit.
If you've not seen it already, :)
Mike's Electric Stuff
More dangerous stuff
quad damage?
i am laboriously typing this plea by bashing what remains of the tip of my nose into the keyboard
do not do these things or you will never type a capital letter without CAPS LOCK key ever again
why god why did i have to build the potato bazooka question mark
Just grind up iron oxide and touch a piece of magnesium ribon to it.
It used to be that one needed to secretly get a copy of William Powell's Anarchist's Cookbook ("The best way to build your team's moral is to raid an arms depot").... Now, all this stuff is online. Alas...
:-)
But, it sure is fun! (So I've heard. Yeah, that's the ticket!)
If I'm not mistaken Sam's site was linked to from another site which was mentioned in a story the other day.. looks like I'm not the only one who stumbled on that little gem in the process of my normal slashdotting!
first post bitches
Important Stuff:
Please try to keep posts on topic.
Try to reply to other people's comments instead of starting new threads.
Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said.
Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about.
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page)
Why blow things up?
If there is metal, plastic, etc, just take it to the local recycling center. Just think of the profit from selling the metal from 100 computers...
(a pack of gum is better than trash all over your lawn)
'The Rail Gun upgrade should be completed soon. I than plan on firing it with a plasma armature, incorporate an inductor into the circuit, and research the effect on efficiency of different pulse lengths and armature compositions.'
Excellent. With these new weapons our plans to invade earth will soon be complete. Glory to the planet Zorba!
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
what is it about intelligence and the desire to blow things up? they're inversely proportional.
It's not intelligence and the desire to blow things up...it's sexual frustration.
fp
bmg
Govmint's gonna get you all for reading this website :-).
Are you familiar with dubya?
First Post!
...the fire extinguishers in my dorm are water only, so they're no good for chemical fires.
I like being screwed up, fucking.
Does anyone know?
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
Its 01:05 and im tired, you can all suck micheals little dick and like it.
Seriously, though, there's some really cool stuff on here. I've always been a far of hypergolic reactions :-).
"The Rail Gun upgrade should be completed soon. I than (sic) plan on firing it with a plasma armature, incorporate an inductor into the circuit, and research the effect on efficiency of different pulse lengths and armature compositions." This is one guy you DO NOT want to slashdot....
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
what is it about intelligence and the desire to blow things up?
Oh no, you're wrong. Blowing things up is a univerisal love of all humans. It's just the un-intelligent ones only do it once.
...it is really hard to make one of those work, I tried to make one for an electronics project in high school but had no idea just how hard the timing was. You have to time the pulsing of each electromagnet to a specific (and different) time for each one after the projectile passes the sensors that trigger each electromagnet, and you have to calculate, accurately, the force and speed of the projectile, friction between the projectile and barrel (or whatever you use for a delivery system), even air pressure (although I never got that far because mine wouldn't go fast enough for that to matter), and that's just to begin with. It just makes my head hurt remembering it.
Think we can blow up their server? It shouldn't take a rail gun to bring it down.
January 26th:
PowerLabs was featured on a ZZZ Article; traffic triples (now at 4000+ hits/day).
Just give it a few minutes Sam. And break out that asbestos suit while you are at it.
Nuff said? I really enjoyed the part where he used to much energy and the projectile burnt up before it left the rail...
For my senior EE project, I built a railgun. Used aluminmum bar stock for the rails, milled out a channel for a ball bearing, injected the bearing with a paintball gun. The power supply was a bank of electrolytics in parallel totalling 48 mF at 600V, so around 9 kJ total.
Didn't look anywhere near so impressive as this guy's.
Actually I'm wonder what the US laws are concerning this kind of stuff? Sounds like he's in another country.
aw geez...
i have to deal with lag again???
You do, don't you?
FP Muthafucka!
fp lame!
"what is it about intelligence and the desire to blow things up?"
I think that's more of a male thing than an intelligence thing.
All you destructive women out there, feel free to violently disagree. And get it on camera, for fuck's sake.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
(-:Stephonovich:-)
"Who needs reincarnation when we've got parallel universes?" -Me
This blowing things up reminds me of the Survival Research Labs. Big pseudo-military machines running about and causing destruction and mayhem, like the Pitching Machine? I'd love to see any machine that can huck 2x4's at 120 mph. Anyone been lucky enough to see a show?
When I was in Tech Shop in highschool I wired up a capasitor wrong and it blew a hole in the desk I was using, I was scared shitless
keanmarine.com
Unable to confirm if Sam still has appendages intact........
Or if Uncle Sam still has his rights intact...
that make Quake 3 one more step closer to becoming a reality :)
" I, for one, am thoroughly impressed! This guy has put a lot of time, effort and experience into the gentle art of making SMITHEREENS! :-)
So what happens when he has kids, I wonder???"
He changes his name to Adams.
Whoooh wait... being able to build a rail gun does not make you intelligent. IF you were truely intelligent, you wouldn't blow stuff up.
"Entropy is the bad-guy, and he is everywhere"
Sleep with Marky Mark and BAM your a superstar.
Since when have people on Slashdot had "Intelligence"?
what is it about intelligence and the desire to blow things up?
desire(to_blow_things_up) = 1/intelligence
"Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K
overclocking??!
The best post on /. in a loooong time!
I will never trust a researcher who scatters pictures of himself flexing without a shirt on throughout his website.
FP? So what?
:-)
I -love- explosions. Anything to propigate pyrotechnics is a-ok with me
[este]
I would say first Post, but that would be _Too_ trollish.
Excellent site. I've tried the recipies there and they work!
Don't we have enough all ready?
Including Sam Barros' web site when it gets Slashdotted, right?
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
but actually it's a new page
just remebered me of some guy taking apart one way photo cams to take out capacitor to build his own homemade gaussian gun
stop supporting microsoft with pirating their software!!!!!
so, what's worse -
3DO's crushingly dull non-interactive FMV, or VB's nauseating color scheme?
What the ass?
link to it from Slashdot.org!
If you make a bomb timer with radio shack part, the feds will come asking us and we'll hand over your address.
Beep. Boop. Beep. You have questions. I have answers and your home address.
poopy
Early-ish posts make me happy because it gives me more time to play with my mom's penis later instead of reading /.
- Copyright © 1999 - 2002 by Sam Barros. All rights reserved.
Removing any material from this site for display without consent from its author consists in an infringement of international copyright laws and can result in fines up to $50000 per infringement, plus legal costs. So ASK ME before you remove anything from here.
Looks like Sam's buying drinks tonight, courtesy of you!Hey Sam.
:)
I know this comment won't be rated very high, but i'd like to congratulate you for being slashdotted and creating such a great site. I promise we'll work out the new templates soon.
-- Michell
(good luck paying for your bandwidth this month
-mz
I like to POOPP!!!
Hi,
My name is Lucas, and I'm trying to post about poop. You see, poop is my favorite subject. I really like to talk about it. I've tried posting about it twice now, but I can't find my posts anywhwere. Can you help me?
Thanks,
Lucas
That wouldn't be Serious Sam, would it? (Yeeee haaaa!)
This early post for Ida!
Hmm, this story has been up for 30 minutes with no comments...
Rail guns kick ass!
second billing, 'otches eat a dick, YOU DID IT!
Sorry, Ben Franklin used those jars in Philly way back before france was a county in Germany.
Yes, Edison used DC, his competitors (I think they are called General Electric now but I may be mistaken) used AC and the story is backwards!
The AC guys made the DC electric chairs to show how "dangerous" DC was and they "showed" how "safe" AC was by it not killing people!
yea, that might be right.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
yo
The slashdot crowd likes to blow up (and/or take down) web servers.
fp
...I think he needs to visit this guy's house.
For all you gay linux homo fags.
but then, how many stupid people that like explosives do you see walking around with all limbs intact?
<B>note to self:</B> <I>post as html</I>
From the site... The Rail Gun upgrade should be completed soon. I than(then) plan on firing it with a plasma armature, incorporate an inductor into the circuit, and research the effect on efficiency of different pulse lengths and armature compositions.
Look at us! We're so smart. We can make things that break stuff.
How very American.
Everyone needs their own rail gun. FP?
Isn't it funny how the media and the politicians go after games like Doom after a teenage shooting yet there are many websites like this that teach you had to build a nailgun.
That being said, here's my disclaimer. I don't believe in censoring websites and nailguns don't kill people, people kill people, yadda yadda yadda...
Confucious says: Man who runs behind car gets exhausted.
// jeku.com
Aren't hackers supposed to like building things?
Posted by DanUltra
What
h
This is essentially Jackass for nerds??
I went to school with that guy.. he's definitely one of the most intelligent people I know. He doesn't always put that intelligence to use before trying something new though.. he's had a few close ones :)
/. though - Sam, if you're reading this.. "lekker gebakt??"
Cool to see him up on
"Caffeine is not an option. Caffeine is a way of life."
but so is getting First post!!!
To post this kind of information open for any deranged teenager to peruse in order to blow up his high school a la Columbine should be illegal.
What has America come to when you need a permit to protest war peacefully, but are allowed to post information like this freely?
fp
How damn fake!!!
Take that Beyatch!!!
Microwaves by far...
Did you see that gattling gun?! I want one. =D
- Fail to blow anything up, or
- Blow themselves up quickly, thus ending their foray into the world of explosives.
Intelligent people manage to create explosions, and presumably are smart enough to stay out of the way. This means they can do a whole lot more of it than stupid people.Okay, I wear a trench coat, I was just as alienated as the next teenager, but I find this picture a little troubling. Sam Barros lives in Michigan now, and if you saw Bowling for Columbine you know what that means - all the other children are armed too. Teenagers with guns bother me, because my Mom TOOK MY GUN AWAY - I mean, because it's dangerous.
:)
It's not how long you lived, it's HOW you lived...
I felt the same way when I was his age
Seriously; there are physiological changes that occur, alterations in brain chemistry, which, let us face facts, impair the judgement and good sense of young people. That is not to say that there are no teenagers with far better sense than the average adult; but even so, it's a stage in neurological development that does not promote sensible behavior.
It also means that explosions are not nearly as cool as they seem when you're 18. Another fact - chicks do not dig explosions. I learned this the hard way so now I pass it on to the younger generation.
I don't think explosives chemistry is a good starting place for a junior chemist; Sam Barros has obviously done fine, but I'm not sure how this stands as a role model. For one thing, he clearly does have good sense (note the many safety warnings emblazoned all over his web page.)
Chemistry involving dyes, optics, visual effects, material science and metallurgy (electroplating, for example) is no more difficult and much safer. Making stuff like this can't indulge your inner pyromanic like a bomb can. I'm not trying to criticize teenage boys for wanting to cause some damage - I certainly did - but it worries me.
So, I wonder - why does the slashdot story focus on the explosives? His EM devices are cooler anyway.
Ah, the hell with it. I'm only 23 years old! What am I thinking? It's time I put together a web page on how to weaponise biological and chemical agents. Now THAT would earn you some attention at the science fair.
Finally - when blowing up your school, wear ear protection! Regrowing fingers and toes is just around the corner (well, hopefully, I have some friends working on this); regrowing your inner ear may never be possible.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
... check out his somewhat perplexing pictures/about page.
This might be FP. Not sure though.
Before Ashcroft decides he's a terrorist threat to the U.S.
3000 dead over past 2 years, still no free Palestinians, still
Or could it?
wth is going on with slashdot ?
There's one scientific observation conveyed by this site:-
"Wohaaa that looks fun"
Point to raise #1)
Has anyone got any infomation for any budding amatuer scientists on a budget? Any links? Where can I find info to do the stuff like they do at Powerlabs?
When reading NewScienctist recently there seems to be There is an air of concern over professional science, many instances of results being fixed and even an acusations of the viagra/sex medication industry trying to invent/create a market for female impotency (not frigid; can't get wet). All this gives the idea that sites like this produce better science -
"Amatuer science is better quality due to motive".
Point raised #2)
How are the anti-terror laws affecting amatuer scientists?
A blog I run for the wealth
What on earth? Didn't they just post this?
Neat page. Of course by default anything that has a railgun on it or even mentions one is pretty darned neat. Just comes with the territory.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
This means that if we can tap into the New York City subway power grid and tip on end of the Verrazano bridge up for our rail we could achieve orbit! Hot Dog! Been getting kinda tired of George W. Bush's America. Mars, here I come.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
While I understand a share this guys interest in blowing things up, it is from a mind like this that the truly great weapons come from. I'm sure a young Openhiemer(sp?) would have had a web page like this.
I got page view #10,000 on this page and i thought anyone who reads at -1 might care enough when this is modded to hell...
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
I fail it!
They only thing that gets blown up in this crowd is blowup dolls.
Judging by recent response times though, it appears that someone has bet me..
i would just like to remind everyone that stupid people like to blow things up too... Oh, and "first post."
omg frist post lol xbox is huge
if you want another way to blow something up, just piss off the us through some menial way; well come after you. especially if youre brownskined--then all hope is lost.
first post!
- cornjchob
Am I the only lamer reading slashdot on a friday evening?
is with a chunk of cesium and a lake
WOW!!!
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
-dunar
"Sorry Mr. Jenkins, we didn't mean to fire our homemade railgun through your window, and your wal, and your car..."
There are a thousand forms of subversion, but few can equal the convenience and immediacy of a cream pie -Noel Godin
Perhaps this story arouses no niterest.
I want to keep posting about poop, but it never shows up, is ./ freaked out, or what?
There was this store near me called Natural Wonders when I was a kid that sold these science kits.. one of them had just two squeeze bottles, one with glycerin and the other with some black colored powder. When you combined them, they burst into flames. They pulled them off the shelves quickly, but ever since I have been trying to figure out what that powder was.. any ideas?
someone post something already
beer + fireworks + lighter fluid + laptop = fun
The most exciting thing I got to make in a chemistry class was aspirin.
>:(
"Thomas Edison used AC power to electrocute cats, dogs, a horse, and even a 3-ton elephant."
Man Edison must have really hated animals.
I saw the article
no posts yet
I'll think I'll wait out
the slashdot effect
..........FULL STOP.
google cache
Fried ice cream is a reality. - George Clinton
Is nothing but pseudoscience written by new age types.
The land of the free and home of the brave...
The land where a man's wife and son are killed because the man sawed a piece of metal. The land where 80 men, women, and children were burned to death for supposedly merely having simple mechanical machines.
You can pretty much forget about doing stuff like this. If these experiments don't kill you, the government with it's federal police force will.
I'm sure this will probably get moderated as a troll... and I wish it was.
As noted in the Village Voice:
The innovative savvy of American electrical engineers always astounds. If something terrible can be built in the name of security, they never shirk. Who else would be brilliant enough to come up with a water gun that carries molar-rattling electrical shocks?
The aqueous electrocutor sprays a "high-pressure saline solution with additives" mixed in to maximize range in putting down that troublesome rabble. "[Debilitating] but not lethal shocks" move through the water jet, according to Jaycor's online brochure. The company hints the voltage can be turned up "to deliver potent electrical shocks to equipment as well as individuals."
This stuff is starting to scare me. And the basic idea is simple enough that it could be a do it yourself in your own garage type of project for either the profoundly brilliant or profoundly stupid
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
" I have a vivid memory of my mother yelling from the upstairs, "What are you doing!?!" "Nothing..." I was dancing around holding a box fan and herding a big green cloud of chlorine gas I had just liberated from pool chemicals out one of those narrow rectangular windows. I didn't think it would make so much."
Apparently it can also cause one to lose their sight.
CmdrTaco today confirmed that Slashdot is fucked as a website.
In response he is shifting to the respected Microsft IIS 5/ASP/MS SQL Server combo for a more smooth operation.
Thank you dear readers for your understanding durinfg this difficult transition.
Whatever happened to the Rocket Guy - they guy who was building his homemade rocket for sub-orbital flight - has he blown himself up yet?
what is it about intelligence and the desire to blow things up?
In general, it's an inverse function.
Is it just me, or does seeing this kind of site make anyone else remember and pine for the days of glubco? Where else could you read all about tesla coils, railguns, magnetrons and that oxygen death ray thing, as well as having some downright hilarious editorials?
Sadly, after quickly accumulating a cult following, the guys at Glubco, God bless them, developed somewhat of an ethical issue, and their weaponary division exists no longer. I wish the buletin board and editorials where still up, though. Ah, the nostalgia...
I just heard some sad news on talk radio - Horror/Sci Fi writer Stephen King was found dead in his Maine home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.
Here's a tesla coil for you!! (Standing 20 Feet Tall)
With shows like:
A CALCULATED FORECAST OF ULTIMATE DOOM: Sickening Episodes of Widespread Devastation Accompanied by Sensations of Pleasurable Excitement
...and...
A Carnival of Misplaced Devotion: Calculated to Arouse Resentment for the Principles of Order
...and, of course...
The Best of SRL!!!
Pretty friggin cool 'eh?
Dolemite
Save the World! Use a Quote!
Granted, it appears to have occurred as a result of a malfunction (too short a burst -> mild projectile vaporization), but -- hey, you can't have everything!
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
Since there are so many Q2 references I must post this information as it pertains to it all. I'm sure most have you have played Quake 1/2/3 but the following is the best way to play it.
/
Roll the quote..."The CAVE is a million dollar projection-based VR system that provides real-time head-tracked perspective with a large field of view, interactive control, and stereo display. It's a 10x10x10 foot "cube" with images projected onto 3 walls and the floor." check it out here...
http://brighton.ncsa.uiuc.edu/~prajlich/caveQuake
You aren't free to do anything, until you've lost everything.
Sam's not gonna waste the money on buying booze. He's gonna waste the money on building a still....or more capacitors
None of these high-voltage devices can even hold a candle to The World's Only Ass-Kicking Machine.
It's an inverse relationship.
Looks like a kid with really rich parents. If all parents were that rich and put all their money into their kid's hobbies we would be a lot farther along. By the time normal kids are old enough to afford just one of these experiments, they've lost the curiosity and imagination.
did he get a call from Ashcroft yet? supposedly the gov doesn't free non govermental site like this up because it provides too much informattion to terrorists..
Of course try explaining that any religous fundamentalist who is edcuated in science can do the same things seems to fall on deaf ears..
Stop Terrorism Now! BLOW UP TH FREAKING SCHOOLS!
Don't Tread on OpenSource
I think twice about showing this stuff to my children because it's looked upon as so anarchist
You lost me. What in holy hell does the electrolysis of water have to do with the belief that government is unnecessary to society?
Seriously, security through ignorance is about as futile as security through obscurity. If High Schools want to water down their chemistry classes in a vain attempt to keep people from learning how to make bombs, I pity them. It's not going to stop a kid who wants to blow up the school from doing so, because the information is everywhere and the materials are common household products. They should just go ahead and teach the kids some cool chemistry with cool demonstrations like methane bubbles, nitrocellulose, thermite, Sugar+KNO3, Zinc+NH4NO3+NH4Cl+H20, etc., all of which I got to do in my AP chem class. :)
Plus you can save a lot of money on fireworks around the 4th by making your own ;). Go grab a 20-lb bag of ammonium nitrate, some zinc powder, and then some colorings:
NaCl (table salt) - orange KCl (salt substitute, road salt) - purple CaCl2 (road salt) - orange Copper - blue
plus paints are a good source of exotic transition metals, if you can figure out what exactly they contain.
Repeal the DMCA!
The government knows that the people that comment on slashdot are too stupid to be successful terrorists.
I wonder what it will say after /. is done with his site?
"Current Updates:
January 26th:
PowerLabs was featured on a ZZZ Article; traffic triples (now at 4000+ hits/day)."
I don't get it. I always did it the old-fashioned way. Go to 7-11 and got a box full of 100 packs of matches. Stop buy a hobby shop and buy model rocket wick (water proof, for some reason). Grab a paint scraper and a hammer and cut off all the match heads (the sulfer parts). Pack them in a lenght of pipe (SLOWLY!!!) after you've drilled a small hole in the side for the wick you've just stuck through it. After packing the pipe, fold the other end over in a vice or whatever. Light it and run.
1 foot of wick == 1 second of time.
I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
Actually, almost anything interesting is dangerous. Want to play with fiber optic circuits? You might be blinding yourself with lasers. Want to make soap? you might get chemical burns.
Please make legislation to prevent me from learning, except through a certified school.
Nothing is "safe". You can be killed in various way by the following: Chemistry involving dyes(ANALINE-carcinogen, check the MSDS), optics, visual effects(Ok this can be safe if you use a low power light source), material science and metallurgy (electroplating, for example)(NO WAY! CYANIDE solutions are quite deadly! And the strong acids used for pickling in combination with the cyanide... NaCN(solid) + H+->Na+ + HCN(gas) side effect include immediate death) is no more difficult and much safer. Making stuff like this can't indulge your inner pyromanic like a bomb can. I'm not trying to criticize teenage boys for wanting to cause some damage - I certainly did - but it worries me. Lets face it, natural science involves the ability to work safely with deadly things.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die."
pretty much assures us he will not.
I'm waiting for the Slashback with the link to this guy's place on the Darwin Arwards.
More power to him in the interim though...
My legal education, in nifty podcast format
Nye Thermodynamics
Nothing like the sound of the afterburner kicking in. I want to make a jet ski hovercraft out of these one day...
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
You do know the IQ of a crowd is min(IQ)/N right?
Karma Clown
I....am now the happiest person alive having seen that.
The entire post was an elaborate joke but has elicited serious responses.
How many people do you know who actually injure themselves, each year, doing electroplating? Round figure? Sure, you CAN kill yourself with cyanide - although you can purchase commercial kits that substitute harmless reagents. Even if you do use cyanide, electrplating is not as dangerous as making a bomb.
As for carcinogenic dyes, exposure to possible carcinogens doesn't rate in comparison with blowing yourself up.
Actually, you can do a great deal of biochemistry and molecular biology without exposing yourself to anything genuinely hazardous. Cautious people that we are, we tend to slap safety labels on everything - you aren't supposed to let E. coli come into contact with your skin, for example. The only "hazardous substance" I work with is Ethidium Bromide, which is a probable carcinogen but, actually, if you get it on you it's no more hazardous than smoking a cigarette.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
from a societal or survival-of-the-fittest point of view, the most successful society is the one most capable of destroying the others. that could be achieved by subsuming the other through culture and trade, but when in doubt, it's easier to just blow the other one up.
This may be true up to a point, but in a limitted fish pond -- which is not unlike what we're in -- it may prove to be a bit self destructive as well.
I love the first line on one of the pages: "Anything is a weapon if you swing it right."
My man Frued would be proud.
-UF
then the chemists will have won!
One of the funniest sites ever. Don't miss the movie scripts in "PumpUp2".
Yea we all remembered what happened in Fight Club. First you're makin soap, next thing ya know your part of some cult!
Edison was indeed DC. And Westinghouse and Tesla were AC.
But Edison (DC proponent) created the AC electric chair to show the danger of AC. He would electrocute dogs in it.
The chair was AC, it was made by the DC people and Edison was one of the people behind the slander.
Not sure I would want him for a neighbor, though. I looked at much the stuff about chemically launching golf balls, culminating with the chrome plated tube from the hydrolics of a constuction machine. They estimated 2500 mph or about Mach 2 and a distance of 10km. I've got to wonder where the golf ball came down for that attempt, hope it didn't hit anything.
Do you find this photograph to also be disturbing
:-)
I personally find this one to be horrifying.
All it takes is for one jerk to wear a trenchcoat, and ruin it for the rest of it. Nevermind that it doesn't have much to do with the trenchcoat, but the fact that a murderer once wore a trenchcoat.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
I wonder what has happened to those home chemistry kits for kids I saw in stores some 25 years ago? I haven't seen them for years, at least in Finland.
It would also be kind of boring to buy a kit that are classified as "8 years and up", "10 and up", "12 and up", and it stops there. Where are the "30 years and up" boxes???
The situation to get chemistry kits may have become globally worse in last 1? years. Also here in Finland, a "home chemist" blew up himself in a mall (pictures from the location), killing about 5 others and wounding some 100. I guess people would look at me very suspiciously if I went to a store asking for a "home chemistry set" now...
I said that once...right before i set my english class's carpet on fire. Now I know what happens when you take a pen spring, wind it around a pencil and stick the two ends into a wall socket. You end up stamping your foot frantically before the teacher comes back into the classroom.
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
Incidentally, "Removing any material from this site for display without consent from its author consists in an infringement of international copyright laws and can result in fines up to $50000 per infringement, plus legal costs." Oh dear, I shall be in debt now!!
Last october finnish chemistry student build a bomb and took it to shopping mall. It went off in his back-bag, and he and six others were killed. This student was active member on discussion board about "home chemistry", where teens were exchanging information about explosives and other "cool" stuff. From remains of the bomb police found out that it probably contained a timer, and they believe student did't mean to kill himself. Did he mean to detonate it in mall, nobody knows.
So when carrying those home-made explosives and poisons around stay the hell away from other people, so they don't have to pay because you felt smart and immortal enough to build something cabable of killing instantly if you made even smallest mistake.
Couple links about this tragedy: Finnish police check DIY bomb website and how information about bomber was spread in internet.
Given the recent disaster.
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
Please. You are intelligent individuals - you are not terrorists. Where is the point in blowing things up? Is it cool? Is it something radical? Is it something that makes you looks cool?
Please, do a google search of "petri+myyrmanni" and think about this whole subject again. Petri was a finnish guy who was interested in chemistry and computers. He got mad somewhere along the line and blew up a self made bomb in finnish mall called "myyrmanni", located in Vantaa (near Helsinki), Finland. Several people died because of this. He got the instructions to build the bomb while surfing the internet.
So, who's gonna be the next guy next door who will kill several people with a home made bomb? Is it you?
Yup, doesn't make them wrong either though. Good luck with improving the rail gun Sam, or whatever you do next.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"