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Explosives Camp
theodp writes "How about a summer camp where you get in trouble for not blowing things up? Students with a passion for all things explosive and proof of US citizenship pay a $450 fee to attend Summer Explosives Camp, 'We try to give them an absolute smorgasbord of explosives,' quipped a professor at the University of Missouri-Rolla, which offers a minor in explosives engineering. Here's the brochure (PDF), kids!"
According to the EU Commission at least http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/04/ec_frattin i_web_terror_dunce_cap/
So we should deprive kids of safety and proper handling knowledge just in case they decide to turn on us right? Unlicensed? How do you think you get licensed, magic? They get licensed by receiving the proper training and various checks... which is exactly what this is... atleast in introductory fashion.
If those 'kids' got a little 'inspiration' they could find far more dangerous information in a public library. I've got an old chemistry book from 1902, copies or similar books are no doubt common. That book reads like a Betty Crocker cookbook. I'd much rather interested kids receive real training and experience than try some of the stuff they could cook up on their own.
Being an Alumni of UMR (or Missouri School of Technology as the name is changing this year) I can assure you that the camp is for real and not an April fools joke. Additionally, questioning the intellegence of the school, when I was there, it had the second highest entrance exam scores of any US institution, second only to MIT.
Mining explosives is a very specialised subject. The object is to produce shock waves with no blast and no fire (think about it.) You want to break up rock or minerals with the absolute minimum of side effects, using the absolute minimum amount of energy necessary and raising as little dust as possible, not only because of health and safety risks but because any other approach adds cost. If you want to be a mining engineer, you learn explosives at mining school not summer camp. And you learn it, mostly, from mining engineers who are still alive, which gives you some confidence in the training. No, I am not a mining engineer, but I have talked to enough of them, in South Africa and elsewhere, and most of us would not want to earn our living that way.
Pining for the fjords
Britain/Europe is working on making publishing information on how to make bombs illegal. Burn the books, Burn the books!
t icle2023030.ece
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/ar
Anonymous Coward,
As a father whose daughter asked to go last year and was accepted, SAFETY was the first and foremost emphasis. Not only did my daughter have a "blast" (pun intended) it built up her confidence and now she has chosen engineering as her major. She will be attending UM-Rolla next year as a freshman. The course was not only very well done with lectures and practicum, it was done on an campus that refuses to be politically correct. Would be terrorists were weeded out. Some child threatened to blow up a building from the middle east and he was deported 12 hours later. I think they know a lot about safety.
Well, you can for $1295 in Oregon, and the price includes transportation, meals and all the high-order explosives!
(This post does not represent any endorsement of said program)
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I have to say it sounds kinda odd that that could happen, because during the swearing-in ceremony the new citizens disclaim all rights to their country of origin, and supposedly the USA therefore does not recognize dual citizenship. I'd definitely prefer the Canadian way of doing it.