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How Regulations Hamper Chemical Hobbyists
An anonymous reader writes "Chemical & Engineering News just ran this story that relates how government regulations create a terribly restrictive atmosphere for people who do chemistry as a hobby. (A related story was previously posted.)" The article gives some examples of why hamfisted regulations are harmful even to those who aren't doing the chemistry themselves: "Hobby chemists will tell you that home labs have been the source of some of chemistry's greatest contributions. Charles Goodyear figured out how to vulcanize rubber with the same stove that his wife used to bake the family's bread. Charles Martin Hall discovered the economical electrochemical process for refining aluminum from its ore in a woodshed laboratory near his family home. A plaque outside Sir William Henry Perkin's Cable Street residence in London notes that the chemist 'discovered the first aniline dyestuff, March 1856, while working in his home laboratory on this site and went on to found science-based industry.'"
I would have credited Goodyear's wife for figuring out how to bake on a stove.
When your bureacratic reactant
Is but a silly distractant
Try the anionic surfactant:
Burma Shave
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
I am a hobby chemist. I make things like pies, cakes and coconut cookies. Tonight the kitchen, tomorrow the world!
Now all the tinkering is just done in labs that have access to "controlled" substances. It has the same effect. We have regulations to stop people who are a few neurons shy of a full brain (probably from playing with too many chemicals) harming themselves or others. There are many responsible people who can tinker with chemicals but there are many irresponsible ones who would end up seriously harming themselves or others, accidentally or on purpose.
""Chemical & Engineering News just ran this story that relates how government regulations create a terribly restrictive atmosphere for people who do chemistry as a hobby. (A related story was previously posted.)"
How about those doing home biochemistry?
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
Chemical Hobbyist? Is that like a drug user?
Today the mad scientist can't get hazardous chemicals, tomorrow it's the mad grad student! Where will it end?!
This comment is for entertainment purposes only. Any similarity to real insight or information is purely coincidental.
I make soap, partially for fun and partially due to allergies. I had a neighbor say "You're allowed to do that?" with total disbelief. I also make bread (not on the same day), and had the same reaction.
I imagine that any kind of scientific exploration is viewed with distrust and quite a bit of fear. My son has recently discovered the world of electronics, and I feel bad for him since even radio shack doesn't carry what it used to.
I wonder if this shift is endemic in our country, from a nation of strivers to a nation purely of consumers.
--
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meh
have been done by hobbyists, i humbly submit this isn't possible anymore. all of the historical advances made by hobbyists were done decades ago, involving simple concepts. all advances today are not simple, but require the support of an advanced facility, simply because all of the fundamental, simple advances in chemistry have already been scoured
similar to hobbyist game makers of just 20, 30 years ago, and how there is no way they could compete on the same footing with modern mainline game studios and the high end graphical renderings they crank out
however, i also humbly submit that if you want to tinker in your shed, try genetics. genetics is still very much a frontier where the fundamentals are still being worked out, and although much equipment required for genetics research (centrifuges, gel electrophoresis, etc.) are still expensive, none of it is outside the realm of the committed hobbyist
i fully expect to see lone hackers working on the human genome in my lifetime. on the plus side, they break the monopoly of conglomerates who claim intellectual property over our genetic heritage. on the negative side, well, they are hacking the human genome. if the ethical considerations of that will give anyone pause
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It's supposed to be hard to be a chemical hobbyist.
Chemical hobbies -> Meth, bombs, and so many other things I do not want you making in your (mother's) basement.
Charles Goodyear figured out how to vulcanize rubber with the same stove that his wife used to bake the family's bread.
You should never use the same equipment for your chemistry as for your other household things. If you're going to do chemistry at home, do it safely. This means having a separate (well-ventilated) room for your work, and using separate ovens, microwave, glassware, and other equipment for your work. Chemical contamination is a real threat. You may look at a chemical reaction and deem all the reactants and products to be safe... but if you make a mistake you may contaminate a room/oven/glassware with a more dangerous side-product. And you do not want to be then ingesting these contaminants (worse, you do not want to expose your family and friends).
So, like I said, be safe and use dedicated equipment for your experiments. (And don't brush your teeth with the toothbrush you use to clean your test tubes.)
In the US, even crystalline Iodine is regulated now... but a popular YouTube video made by a free-thinking chemistry hack shows how to make it at home quite easily. Which makes the regulation nothing but expensive bullshit.
Don't let people experiment with stuff that they might be able to make a bomb out of, or a meth lab because we law enforcement agents can't tell the difference, and besides, only terrorists and criminals are interested in chemical reactions. right?
That says nothing about the fact that even if it is illegal, terrorists, criminals, and drug czar wannabes will still have their labs. This can only hurt the honest law abiding citizenry.
It's about time we had much less government interference, and more government support of engineering and entrepreneurship in these United States. Do you have any idea what it costs for a safe chem storage locker? If price is not enough, they put regulations out to make it near impossible to do simple things, never mind experiment with any chemicals.
Why would someone want to do that? Hmmm perhaps you might be looking for a heat transfer fluid for a closed system solar power electric generator. Perhaps you are experimenting to find the optimum chemical recipe for heat transfer fluid on a home/earth heating/cooling system for your area. Perhaps you are trying to create a cheap cleaning solution that is environmentally friendly. There are hundreds of reasons that someone might want to set up a chemistry lab at home for hobby use. I mean seriously, if you find a cheap clean easy method to convert old motor oil to some sort of valid fuel... go for it. Perhaps you find the exact chemical soup required for quickly biodegrading rubbish or plastics in a quick ecologically sound manner.
The roomba did not come from government research facilities or even Boeing or Lockheed-Martin. Why should we expect that all chemical discoveries would come from commercial enterprises? That's just fucking stupid.
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America's culture of the 21st century is a culture of fear. People fear what they don't understand and because of the modern age of fear selling tactics. If people actually learned something in schools instead of public school being a social experiment, then the public might understand intelligent hobbyists such as this.
Instead, the media has labeled every science hobbyist as a mass murderer waiting fora chance to unleash their techno-death on the world!!! Mwuhahahah!!! Then it will be robot apocalypse!! Dogs and cats living together!! Mass hysteria!! YES!!!!
Playing with chemistry toys could eventually enable you to do weapons, despite its good uses. A lot of things in a plane (from scissors to suspicious liquids like breast milk) in a plane could be used as weapon eventually.
But of course, is legal, even is a constitutional right or something similar, to own weapons, things that are only meant to kill, in the US.
Irony kills too, lets ban it.
Without wishing to sound like a libertarian, this is true for a great many things that are regulated - from the outside those regulations either a) are totally uninteresting, or b) seem pretty reasonable. But when you're on the inside of whatever activity is being regulated it's often the case that you can see how stupid/harmful regulation is.
It's not unlike watching a news report on TV about something you're familiar with. You see how badly they butcher the subject, and then start wondering what they do to subjects you don't know about...
you need cells
you can pick them out of your cheek
and then, with some lab equipment that, while expensive, is not out of the realm of a committed hobbyist, you can play with your genes
the chemicals involved are not weird or tricky either
something like the chemical edta? its a food additive
simple bases, simple acids
meanwhile, in chemical research, to do cutting edge research, you need exotic chemicals. well, you don't NEED exotic chemicals, but then, whatever research you are doing, is not cutting edge, its ground already covered and scoured
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
And chemical labs don't want people at home making any discoveries so the labs can make all of them and profit.
What kind of search engine kills people when you do a search?
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Get your PDF copy here while you still can of the number one classic kids chemical experiment book that's been banned from libraries for decades.
i think you've used the completely wrong example
the radioactive boyscout is dying, he's got kaposi's sarcoma all over his face, and he is still trying to steal fire detectors. he's an obsessed maniac, a danger to himself and others, and soon he will be prematurely dead from the effects of radiation
this is a sobering picture form last year when he was arrested
in other words, if you are defending the hobbyist scientist against 9/11 fearmongering, the radioactive boyscout is the LAST person you want to mention
because the radioactive boyscout is the very worst example of the hobbyist scientist: very much a danger to himself and others, and obsessed to the point of lawless behavior
do NOT mention the radioactive boyscout, unless you wish to enforce draconian measures
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I always wondered why my chemistry set was lacking the ONE chemical that I really wanted.
You can only be young once. But you can always be immature.
It's quite possible to make explosives and poisons using only household chemicals. *sighs* All it takes is a few weeks of study on the Internet, a decent library, and some systematic note-taking.
But you can't stop that sort of thing without prohibiting oft-used household chemicals. So it's not widely talked about.
The general public hasn't got a clue about what is or isn't dangerous, and neither do most of the Authorities. Starting with the police.
It's long since ceased to be about ensuring safety for neighbours and society at large, it's simply cover-your-backside regulation on part of otherwise clueless officials.
It's Ok that something's done to prevent people from building complete plastique factories and amphetamine laboratories in their basements, but with a little common sense and some understanding of chemicals it's s completely doable to safeguard the neighbourhood.
Register people with home laboratories if you must, but leave them alone. Like HAM radio amateurs.
Hey, we said it was Beta. -- Google
1. the hobbyist chemist can indeed do many important and useful things, like make soap. but he can't do basic science research. that's all i'm refuting. i'm not saying hobbyist chemistry can't be rewarding, i'm just saying its not a valid avenue for basic science research, which the story summary suggested
2. 'Yet games like Portal and Crayon Physics help change the direction of the industry.' i'm sure those are great games. so are games like arkanoid, and tetris, which at one time were blockbusters. but today, they would not rank with modern blockbusters, like halo, or WoW: financial juggernauts that require huge studios of 3D modelers and artists and programmers
there will ALWAYS be a place for hobbyist gamers and hobbyist chemists. its just that hobbyist chemists will not be doing fundamental research anymore, and hobbyist gamers will not be releasing financial blockbusters. thats all i am saying. you are extending my argument beyond what i said, into conclusions i did not make
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Is this hypothetical idiot making nitroglycerin in a packed elevator? Do you have any real idea how much high explosive it takes to cause the kind of mayhem you're envisioning?
You want to see something that will really freak you out?
Go read up on Tannerite. This stuff is loads of fun, 50 state legal, and available over the internet. What you'll find even more amazing is that as far as I know, not a single person has died from it's use.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
You didn't have people making methamphetamine, Ketamine, MDMA, etc. in their garage's back in the day, also.
Want to be able to purchase chemicals? GO do it, and get the appropriate paperwork to do so.
I'm much happier having a tenth of the meth labs in San Diego that we had in the 80s.
Yes, it sucks, trying to get some chemicals (I use them in electronics), but at the same time, much less people blowing themselves up, and their neighbors.
Not the only reasons, but we can thank people like Feinstein and Pelosi for this: They introduced the meth based laws back in the late 80s and through the 90s.
Democrats, welcome to your future.
--Toll_Free
Government regulations create a terribly restrictive atmosphere for people who do __________ as a (hobby/profession).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zubbles
After an unexplained breakthrough in his kitchen, he was able to produce blue bubbles.
Popular Science named them the "Innovation of the Year" for 2005, and Reader's Digest said they were one of the "Best Innovations" of the year in 2006.[1]
I suspect you are trolling, but the mods giving you +5 Interesting have apparently bought your post whole.
http://yarchive.net/explosives/nitrates.html
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
"Don't let people experiment with stuff that they might be able to make a bomb out of, or a meth lab because we law enforcement agents can't tell the difference, and besides, only terrorists and criminals are interested in chemical reactions. right?"
The problem with home experimentation isn't that they'll turn out to be a terrorist or a drug maker, but that most human and common of frailties...ineptness, carelessness, apathy, etc. How many experimenters will take the proper precautions in consideration of themselves and others? It's easy to say "I will" but that leaves an awful lot that will not. How many here dispose of used motor oil properly?
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
i humbly submit this isn't possible anymore.
Most companies start out as a hobbyist that begins to turn a profit. The article said what he was working on and that he was in the process of selling it. Obviously, there was a basic simple concept that hadn't quite yet been used in the useful way he was doing it.
The same goes with video games. Some guy in a garage doesn't just spit out Sins of a Solar Empire. They start out by seeing a need, filling it, and reinvesting any money made into growing their business. Stopping people from having the opportunity to work toward something like that just hurts us all in the long run.
all of the historical advances made by hobbyists were done decades ago, involving simple concepts. all advances today are not simple, but require the support of an advanced facility, simply because all of the fundamental, simple advances in chemistry have already been scoured
There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Circletimessquare, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Your defeatist statement reminds me of similar claims made regarding the writing of new music. There are even fewer musical notes available for combining than there are chemical compounds, yet somehow people keep managing to write new music.
"There is nothing new under the sun but there are lots of old things we don't know." -Ambrose Bierce
-- The reader anything less than completely failing to not misunderstand this sig is cursed.
The problem is that people who will give up their liberty at the drop of the hat. These people believe against all evidence that criminals and irresponsible people are honest enough and responsible enough to follow the laws. These laws only enslave those law abiding hobbyists. Johnny methlab doesn't care about the laws against creating meth. Why do you think he'll care about the laws against getting the chemicals to make meth?
anybody that needs a large investment to do research goes into that research with such a expectation of what they may get in return that their research can be largely worthless.
Yes, there need to be selected tests to explore ideas, but extravagant tests are usually used when everyone is running out of ideas cause their forgot how to think and are trying to keep their paycheck.
When I was in High School, I set up a full lab, with the full array of chemicals like Sulfuric Acid, Hydrazine, Ethyl Acetoacetate etc etc. I learned a tremendous amount and made some interesting chemicals, but in hindsight I have serious reservations:
1) Most people will have a very hard time coping with hazardous waste in a proper fashion, and the temptation to cut corners will be irresistible.
2) If you look at the current state of chemical research, you'll see that the home hobbyist *HAS NO CHANCE* of keeping pace with a modern research lab. Palladium catalysts? Glove Boxes? Preparative Chromatography? NMR? Organometallic chemistry? Suzuki couplings? If you want to advance the state of the art and make meaningful contributions you need heavy tools nowadays. Yes, you might find something interesting, but most all of the easy chemicals have been made.
3) The risk of fire, explosion and toxic contamination is very real. Someone trying to distill a liter of THF in their garage is asking for trouble, and if my neighbor was doing this I would be very concerned.
If someone wants to spend $600,000 and lease space in an industrial park, more power to 'em, but it doesn't sound like a hobby at that point.
I eventually packed everything up and took it to a 'hazardous material collection day' run by the local fire department. They were quite surprised, and it all went off to a HazMat landfill.
I heard about this book recently on NPR, though I haven't had a chance to read it yet, so can't comment on how good it is: http://www.amazon.com/Crime-Reason-Closing-Scientific-Mind/dp/0465005071/
"One empirical experiment is worth a thousand expert opinions." --Bill Nye, the Science Guy
I must have been 7 or 8 when I got my first "ChemCraft" chemistry set for Christmas. By the time I was in Junior High, my best friend had a well-equipped chem lab in his basement, and I had one in an unused upstairs bedroom (my father even ran in gas for my bunsen burner). We used to make regular trips (driven by parents, of course) to a local science supply business to purchase glassware, chemicals, and such.
Now we have stupid paranoid lawmakers passing stupid paranoid laws, and even stupider fogbound bureaucratic government agencies enforcing the laws in a totally ham-handed manner.
Aaaarrrrgh!
Is there **ANY** way to get rid of all this idiotic nonsense?
(I could suggest that we elect Libertarians to **ALL** public and lawmaking posisitons, but I have a feeling that's not going to happen ... anyone have a better idea?)
Teen Angel - a Ghost Story
science happens when a couple of hobbiest get together and think of something interesting and do it, not when some big company with profits and very short-sighted goals, or huge goverment grants that have to go for 'cancer research' get dumped to whoever can do the most bullshitting.
Except that in one situation you still have freedom, and in the other you don't. Why do we have to have this "nanny state" watching out for us everywhere? Why can't the government leave us alone to build and create? Saying people can just go to a lab is not the same thing at all. It substitutes true individual freedom with institutionalism, and puts you to some degree under the control of the institution. And the odds that you can find any lab that will hire you and then just let you tinker or work on whatever project you want are exceptionally low.
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
regulations matter, they make things more difficult. without regulations, there might be {X} number of hobbyists. with regulations, there will be {X}/3 number of hobbyists. with draconian regulations, there will be {X}/27 number of hobbyists. regulations matter for the casual hobbyist
the existence of commited maniacs does not tell us anything about the casual hobbyist. i don't want more regulation any more than you do, but i know that your argument against regulations is wrong. this argument "someone somewhere will do it anyways regardless of the regulations" is not a valid argument, because regulations very much destroy the casual hobbyist
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Good point. It would take a lot of nitroglycerin to kill more the then idiot making it.
My point is that if you live in the berbs you will live with this kind of stuff. Heck I got a notice because I didn't bring my garbage cans into the garage.
If you want to have a lab, build an airplane, or put a three meter radio telescope in your front yard your life will be simpler if you move to a more rural area.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
"give controlled access to chemicals to irresponsible people in a way that ensures no other people are harmed."
The irresponsible people are allowed to buy incredible amounts of extremely hazardous materials like fireworks, while many chemicals that require qualifications, to even know what to do with them, are heavily restricted.
But then, someone wishing to do harm to others, can cause a lot of damage with just some gasoline and a lighter. The chemical isn't the danger, its the actions and intentions of the people using it.
Therefore the solution isn't to be found in ever more extra controls and banning parts of chemistry, its to be found in psychology. (We have enough controls on chemistry to avoid accidents, but ever more controls can never stop some people causing intentional harm towards others).
The answer to this problem is actually easier, than the relentless government solution of continued prohibition, of anything else they detect that can be used to harm others. There will always be things that can be used to cause harm to others. There will also always be new things found that can cause harm to others. Prohibition will never work. Its always going to be less than required. Plus they cannot block everything. (Even a house brick can cause harm to others, so they cannot ban house bricks). The solution of prohibition of chemicals and even at times, knowledge itself cannot work.
Psychology shows why people cause harm to others, for their own gain. The harm is caused intentional, there is a reason why they choose to cause harm to others. Only when enough people learn how to recognize the psychology of the ones who cause harm towards others, can we finally move towards a world, without fear of people causing intentional harm to others.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world... those who understand binary and those who don't.
show a modern chemical advance that was made in someone's garage in the past 20 years, not 100 years ago
let's put it this way: astronomy is interesting, even if all you are doing is looking up at night. but you aren't going to making fundamental advances in astronomy doing that. at one time, that's all you had to do, but now, you need time scheduled on a satellite or a large array of radio telescopes to make any fundamental discoveries in astronomy
if you understand why that is true, you will be intellectually honest and admit the same is true nowadays in chemistry too. that doesn't mean the hobbyist chemist can't have fun, its also lots of fun to look up in the night sky. but you won't be winning a nobel in the modern age as a hobbyist chemist or a hobbyist astronomer. just have lots of fun, and perhaps pave the way for you to win your nobel when you finally get your hands on some expensive equipment
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"while you still can" has passed, for your link at least.
It is still out there, though.
I grew up with a heroin lab on one side and a dog owner on the other. The dog owner was a constant irritation from day one, with the dog barking at all hours and crapping on the lawn. The heroin lab were decent neighbors who didn't really affect us until the night the cops came. Make all the meth/heroin/whatever you want, but keep your blasted dogs away, I say!
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
Without home stills, there would never have been bootlegging. Without bootlegging, we wouldn't today have NASCAR.
That ought to get a few red-state politicians to rethink their positions.
It's true, you raise an important point about the mad scientists. How is one supposed to perform mad science without the requisite chemicals? I suppose next they'll ban the use of decorative Tesla coils...
But there's another angle: we have to consider how this kind of legislation impacts the upstanding, college-educated, pipe-smoking benevolent scientist. How is Small-Town-Plagued-By-Bizarre-Monsters to be saved if their local College-Educated Scientist can't perform the experiments necessary to find the one chemical which will defeat the evil fiends? How will the comrades of said scientist defeat the monsters if they can't travel to a nearby chemical supply warehouse to get the chemical they need in sufficient quantity?
Now, not all monster scenarios require a chemist, it's true. From time to time a monster will appear whose one weakness is something as simple as Sodium Chloride ("Ordinary table salt!") - but what about the monsters who are vulnerable to sodium in its pure form? Or what if defeating the monsters requires large quantities of hydrochloric acid, or Potassium Iodide, or any one of a number of other sciency-sounding things?
Yep, before you know it we'll be overrun by superintelligent ants or fish-men or mole people or giant lobsters and then we'll just wish we hadn't cracked down on all this science!
Bow-ties are cool.
thought.
W/ the number of chemicals you can get at your local Home depot, Shucks, and grocery store, how is this industry related? You can isolate a lot of compounds out of that vast pool of chemicals. Then if you store it all in a "Shop" looking lab you'd never be found out!
As a side note, this story reminds me of a Halloween party I threw where we had a mad scientist themed bar, where we mixed drinks w/ beakers and flasks, and used dry ice to make the vodka bubble, and small chunks of dry ice to make the drinks fog. What a hoot that was... but I had to stay sober to make sure the chrushed dry ice stayed in (really) small chunks, didn't want any frozen throats.
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
I don't care what "dangerous" chemicals terrorists or any other boogeyman can get their hands on in general. Thats because context matters: that's what compound(s), time, location, amount, etc. We can be reasonable about which chemicals are banned for the home hobbyist, which are restricted (by amount, or maybe a background check) without practically banning dihydrogen monoxide like we are now. Besides everyday household products can contain large amounts of dangerous chemicals anyway. If I want to make home-brew napalm without using any illegal chemicals, it'd be pretty easy to do (dangerous, but easy). Freedom is 100% dead long before you can get 100% security...which doesn't exist anyway.
Obvious typo, industry related
Should be Hobby regulated.
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
I discovered the uselessness of nitrogen triiodide as a high explosive in my home lab.
Other findings:
- It will explode if left underwater, but can be kept for long periods of time under ammonia
- It's difficult to get a good report because you can't clump it- the crystals are continuously letting off little explosions as it dries
- Clumping kitty litter gets around this nicely
- After very long periods of time under ammonia the crystals change color from black to a very bright orange- for reasons that are not clear from the literature
- If it gets on you or your clothes you can expect to be snapping and fizzling all day
- Try not to make too much
I would recommend that serious hobbyist look for another country.
The US has been anti-technology for the better part of 40 years. The education in science and math has become abysmal, there are a few good schools, but not enough. And most of those that graduate from College are rewarded poorly.
I would like to be proven wrong, but point me to one major US technical company that could survive with just their scientist and engineers of US citizenship.
I'm afraid that the US is heading to an age where we are going to be a 3rd world country or what we would consider a 3rd world country. Our only chance of not going in this direction was by increased science and technology (making better mousetraps). But we farmed this out to other countries, who saw these jobs as truly lucrative. So now we are dependent on foreign money, foreign technology, and foreign manufacturing.
I imagine it depends what you search for on it.
Get your own free personal location tracker
Johnny methlab doesn't care about the laws against creating meth.
Dammit! I was glad to finally stop hearing about Joe the Plumber, and now this!
Fnord.
This has already been covered, but it is easy to get large amounts of chemicals without the MSDS and by paying cash. Then you are free to put them in your car and take them where ever you please.I bet you can find oxidizers next to organics on every cleaning aisle in the world! Education and freedom is the answer here, lack of education and criminalization will only lead to things like this: http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/wwl042908tpmethexplode.b13959fe.html
insert inflammatory comment here!
In Galt's Gulch we'll have
- no state occupational licensure
- no criminalization of "substances"
- no restrictions on what kind of machines a person can own
Killing people will still be illegal. Same with destroying someone else's property. We expect you to be smart enough not to do it.
The human animal is such that it will always find newer and more "ingenious" ways of hurting itself, at a rate that vastly outpaces the ability of a few governors to dream up and criminalize risky behaviors ahead of time. The futility of such an endeavour in governance is not lost on us, even were we to think it a meritous end.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
Except it wasn't chemical labs passing these laws, most labs want to decrease the regulations so they don't have to waste their time following them when they don't make sense. Also as a general rule, most chemical companies have an interest in innovators at home. It seems to me that most research that goes on in those labs are things the average home chemist wouldn't be able to do in their garage. How many garages have NMR capabilities?
It seems to me then that competition from home labs is pretty limited. Anything you DID discover in your basement that would compete with a major chemical lab would probably be very interesting to that chemical lab, because they could replicate it themselves for cheaper.
Anyway, your conspiracy theory is a bit ridiculous.
I am told that if you mix equal parts of gasoline and orange juice concentrate you can make napalm.
Are just terrorists in training, so what is the problem? You cant honestly thing anyone needs to have this knowledge outside of the government can you?
( for you slow ones out there, this was sarcasm )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Hum no not really. Regulations are always supported by insiders as a way to protect themselves from outsiders. The existing corporations have political power, the unborn competitors don't. Generally speaking, the state is a system by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else.
\u262D = \u5350
DO NOT ATTEMPT TO TAKE THESE ON AN AIRPLANE!
That's honestly the only warning needed for Tannerite.
"I'm a well-wisher, in that I don't wish you any specific harm."
Not people, but Microsoft Live does kill a kitten each time you perform a search there, Yahoo just makes a puppy cry.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
It's one thing if a city or HOA wants to limit the kind of chemicals and experiments people can play with in their jurisdiction, but blanket federal laws about it are a different story because they affect the guy living 50 miles from a paved road just a much as someone living in a 200 foot^2 apartment in Manhattan.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
What next ? A crack down on people who grow gourmet mushrooms ?
The old saying "the more you know, the less that you know that you know" doesn't apply to everyone, like this guy:
http://blogs.kansascity.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/08/03/boyscout.jpg
Sure, David Hahn was delving into radioactivity, but same principals apply to goofballs playing with chemistry.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,292111,00.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn
Unfortunately, it's idiots like this guy that causes all sorts of overly protective legislation that keeps us from having real chemistry sets.
Where'd you get this deluded crap, from some Ford auto commercial?
As much as I detest having to waste my time playing parent and telling you what to do, I damned well do have the right - nay, the obligation - to do just that if your actions and behavior have an extended social cost that you have no intention of paying, if you even acknowledge that cost at all. In this specific instance, clearly you don't acknowledge that cost, because if you did you might have to swallow your self-centeredness and consider a little self-censorship for the sake of the rest of us.
That rampant delusional self-centeredness and lack of self-censorship and self-control is exactly why we all (Americans, at least) have to put up with thumping car stereos and so much more unpleasantness. As a culture this message of "you can do whatever the hell you feel like doing, whenever you feel like doing it" has been drummed into children and adults for nearly a century, by both government and especially by corporate interests. We're reaping the dubious rewards of all that indoctrination now. This twit's attitude and delusional thinking is just one small consequence.
Fuck the We, it's all about Me, huh?
Holy fucking shit. You'll get my Erlenmeyer flask and stir plate when you pry them from from my dead, cold, sticky-with-malt-extract hands. "And oh no, this plastic baggy is labeled 'Diammonium Phosphate!' That sounds dangerous!!"
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Unless you're willing to ban fire, water, air, and dirt, you're not going to be able to stop eeevildoers. All you'll do is make the hobby more inconvenient, dangerous, and dirty.
It's all just so tragically silly and pointless. We've cut off an entire branch of childhood curiosity and achievement, just to pretend we're doing something about "drugs" and "terrorists". Meanwhile, alcohol and tobacco are freely available OTC, and an extremely volatile, toxic and energetic material perfectly suited for large-scale fuel-air explosions is dropping back toward $2/gallon here in the US.
Wow. A government regulation restricting freedom has negative economic consequences for society as a whole? Who would have thought.
http://search.murderbot.com, naturally.
Go ahead! Try it!
One man's constant is another man's variable.
The reason for we cant buy decent chemicals in this country is more about litigation and insurance than anything to do with the drug war.
The real problem is that people insist on suing others when they fuck up. There's a good chance that someone who hurts themselves fiddling in their basement is going to sue the chemical supplier. Or they might get sued by the next door neighbor for making "noxious vapors" or somesuch because it hurts property values.
Stop suing each other into oblivion, then we can have some real freedom back.
I wonder if we could get the UK to ban house bricks just by spreading the rumor that house bricks are the new "non-antique single-edged curved blade longer than 50 cm".
Oh, even better, also say they are really banning them to decrease housing prices by making it easier to build non-restricted stick frame housing, but think that adding bricks to the Offensive Weapons Order is easier than changing building codes.
I hate to tell you this, but killing 20 people is already illegal. I know it's a shocker, but it's true.
Now if that same idiot decided to get up to 60 in his car and swerve onto the sidewalk, he could also kill those 20 people. Or if he decided to grab *insert any tool here* and go on a rampage, well, it might not be 20, or it might be more.
In no instance will any new laws keep someone who wishes to cause harm from doing so. Perhaps it may impact the scale, but there is as great a chance that it would result in a creative burst (i.e. thinking out side the box) and result in more harm. With the car example, said idiot may in fact kill 30 by doing something different.
The long and the short of it is this: You can't regulate crazy.
Any attempt at balance is limiting those who never would cause harm in order to *possibly* halt the few who would. As I stated above, murder is already a crime, yet it is not onerous because it does not limit us, rather it punishes those who choose to break from societal bounds. Chemicals, alcohol, drugs, and firearms, while potentially dangerous, do not in and of them selves provide the impetus for causing harm. Any harm that comes from such items is the result of choice, and no law can make people make good decisions.
Thomas Edison is also a good example they should have listed...of course, he blew up (literally!) a railroad box car round the age of 12 playing with his chemistry set. (Try to top that!) He later went on to create a number of different things, including making major contributions to the light bulb so that it would be useful for more than 1 or 2 minutes at a time.
(There are some that want to claim Edison didn't invent the light bulb - and he didn't. But he did make it usable - before him, a single light bulb would be burnt out after about 2 minutes, which is pretty useless.)
If you get to Paterson, NJ - you should check out the Edison Library & Museum near the Railroad Museum. (They also had some of the early submarines last I was there - but that was nearly 20 years ago.)
Of course there are a lot of other inventors of the same nature too, which is the point of TFA.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
There is a torrent for it, too: http://torrents.thepiratebay.org/4015400/The_Golden_Book_of_Chemistry_Experiments_(1960).4015400.TPB.torrent
You might have a point, except that the social costs of prohibition are much worse than those of regulation. If you really care about "extended social costs", you'd support policies to minimize that cost. Policies such as regulation, and treatment of addicts, instead of just throwing them in jail and forgetting about them. What do you think the extended social cost of turning millions of otherwise well adjusted, non-violent marijuana smokers into criminals is?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Discovering stuff on your stove is nice, but are there any recent examples? I'd be surprised if there any _non hobbyist_ labs around in 1856.
--
Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
I do support those "policies" you mention, and I agree that drug use should not be criminalized, but none of that legitimizes the OP's self-centered and delusional rationalizing. Hardcore drug use has a significant social cost, just as do alcoholism, heavy smoking, and non-genetic obesity. There's plenty of other non-chemically-aided behaviors that have social costs too, of course.
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In the U.S., consumer fireworks are regulated - and legal purchases in "incredible amounts" is difficult and expensive.
The Federal Hazardous Substances Act, prohibits the sale of the most dangerous types of fireworks to consumers. These banned fireworks include large reloadable mortar shells, cherry bombs, aerial bombs, M-80 salutes and larger firecrackers containing more than two grains of powder. Also banned are mail-order kits designed to build these fireworks.
In a regulation that went into effect December 6, 1976, the CPSC lowered the permissible charge in firecrackers to no more than 50 milligrams of powder. In addition, these amended regulations provide performance specifications for fireworks other than firecrackers intended for consumer use, including a requirement that fuses burn at least 3 seconds, but no longer than 9 seconds. All fireworks must carry a warning label describing necessary safety precautions and instructions for safe use.
The Commission has issued a performance requirement to reduce the risk of potentially dangerous tip-over of large multiple tube mine and shell devices. Tip-over of these devices has resulted in two fatalities. Consumer Product Safety Commission: Fireworks Fact Sheet
The fact sheet summarizes state regulations as of June 1, 2008.
If you want to do chemistry, why not do not do within the framework of a chemistry club - associated, perhaps, with a local high school or community college?
This is - after all - how many dangerous sports and recreational activities have been organized for a century and more.
You want to work with antique sporting arms?
Join a black powder gun club. You'll learn more and learn it more quickly - while still keeping your eyebrows intact and all ten fingers.
Have you tried making cuprous acetylide instead?
"I believe it's best for everyone when you spread the regulations around."
That's because heroin, particularly crude heroin, is just a simple semisynthesis with not particularly hazardous chemicals. The largest risk would be that if they purified it, they used ether, which is dangerously flammable. Meth labs, on the other hand, are much nastier. Agree on the dog issue, though. The original purpose of keeping dogs in bourgeois households was purely for bragging rights of the higher classes - that you could feed not only your family, but also a completely useless thing like a dog. The dog tax should be $5000-20000 per year, and then it'd be just like in the good old days.
Wow, when did that happen?
O wait, it didn't, we're just thinking of the children.
Except it wasn't chemical labs passing these laws, most labs want to decrease the regulations so they don't have to waste their time following them when they don't make sense. Also as a general rule, most chemical companies have an interest in innovators at home. It seems to me that most research that goes on in those labs are things the average home chemist wouldn't be able to do in their garage. How many garages have NMR capabilities?
It seems to me then that competition from home labs is pretty limited. Anything you DID discover in your basement that would compete with a major chemical lab would probably be very interesting to that chemical lab, because they could replicate it themselves for cheaper.
Anyway, your conspiracy theory is a bit ridiculous.
Not necessarily. Commercial labs focus on things that have an immediate and obvious profit while university labs focus on things that sound cool enough to get grant money. Some of the more interesting home lab discoveries happened when someone was working on things that would be marginal at best on both counts.
Parent post needs to be read by all users and guests.
You're quite right. You're forgetting one thing, however. Governments excel at banning things. They tend to do poorly at critical thinking tasks, such as "evaluate where the real problem is".
Disclaimer: The opinions and actions of the US Gov't are in no way representative of those held by this author or its ci
This is what happens when society's understanding of responsibility becomes corrupted.
Communist 5th columnists have been working very hard to poison our society with the notion of "group responsibility." Instead of individuals being responsible for their actions alone, secondary and tertiary participants in that action are made to shoulder the blame as well, regardless of whether they were aware of their participation or not.
When Chernobyl blew up, everyone who worked at the plant was punished, even people who were not there at the time and had absolutely no responsibility for the disaster whatsoever. The concept of "group responsibility" was and is a central part of communist ideology. In the Soviet Union it kept everyone paranoid and distrustful, making the society as a whole easier for the thugs at the top to abuse and oppress.
The same insanity has been creeping into our society as well. Suing a store because it sold a perfectly legal device to someone who then used it to commit a crime is absurd and abusive. That case should have been dismissed with prejudice and the lawyer representing the plaintiff censured, if not disbarred.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Long before he manages to make enough to kill 20 people, he blows up his mom's stove and gets his butt beat.
Wow, terribly naive.
Oil and water do not mix. Remember that mantra you were told at school? Well it was wrong.
A home hobbyist, beit a professional chemist but still made the discovery at home, discovered that oil and water do actually mix ... perfectly. Google it. The solution was amazing simple. The labs you are talking about are looking at the complex. They tend to overlook the simple.
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Regulations are always supported by insiders as a way to protect themselves from outsiders.
Blanket statements are always wrong. ;-P Seriously, that is not the reasoning for these laws, and there aren't "outs" for big corporations. Home labs only get noticed when the fire department comes. Big labs have scheduled inspections.
So you go to your independent electronics retailer and buy a 5 pack of those same resistors in Jim-Pak retail packaging for, oh, 5/$1.
Your local dealer's gotta pay rent somehow...
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
It was possible to invent something useful in your own lab in 19th century, but what about now? Are there any examples of ppl inventing new chemical processes/reactions in last ~30 years, w/o using complex lab tools?
"The problem is that drug laws and enforcement (particulary in the US) are insanely draconian."
Compared to what? There are many places in Asia where possession carries life imprisonment or even the death penalty.
Check this out.
Community service, court-ordered rehab, even a couple of years in jail hardly seems draconian.
Stupid fucking mods cannot handle dissent and only like it when everybody thinks the same as them. I'm tired of the bias on this fucking website!
When will the day come when science is encouraged, and not looked at with suspicious eyes and squashed through lack of funding, crazy regulations, and policies set to defend the one guy who shouldn't need defending, God (Intelligent Design in schools, I'm lookin' at you).
Google: "All your data are belong to us."
Seems to me more likely insurance companies will effectively ban this activity.
What's the premium for insuring your home when your hobby is "explosive experimenter" and how does it change after you screw something minor up and just burn down a wall or something.
It's fun to experiment, but who wants to live next door to the next Marie Curie ?
My impression is that most of the shining examples given were of people doing relatively innocuous things in less litigious times. I'm sure that there are more honest mistakes than malicious intentions among the hobbyists.
There probably is some interesting and worthwhile chemistry to be done with non-exotic ingredients that don't easily go boom or convert to phosgene.
Maybe less fun though...
Nullius in verba
Well, as long as you don't want to see me thrown in jail I don't have too much problem with that.
But I wonder if you've considered the effect of this "extended social cost" problem with respect to other basic liberties. What if someone decided that the extended social costs of, say, Judaism outweighed the benefits?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I had a friend who spent a good part of his teen years in his basement, experimenting toward the goal of perfecting the "potato gun."
[While you could Google this, potato guns are the combination of plastic piping, potatoes, and all manner of common propellants used to develop "potato rifles," "potato bazookas," and even "potato canons."]
Potato guns are cheap, loud, fun, and besides, how much damage could a person do with potatoes? (Danger Will Robinson, foreshadowing alert!)
[For the remainder of this text, we'll refer to my friend only as "Mike."]
At first, Mike experimented with tube diameters of one, three, and six inches.
Each round was fired at his basement wall, a sturdy cinderblock structure backed up by more than twelve feet of soil.
Then, Mike graduated to a twelve inch diameter pipe. He securely tied to the pipe a plank mounted on top of a saw-horse. He lit the fuse and then ran to crouch behind the sofa in case something unsafe happened with the pipe itself. (Who says hobby chemists aren't also focused on safety.)
Unfortunately, the mass of potatoes at the rear of the pipe weighed the pipe in an unbalanced manner.
The cannon tipped backwards and before my friend could jump up and right it, the device ignited with a deafening blast.
Did I say deafening? Yes. Intentionally. It would be days before he heard anything else.
A split-second after the blast there was a tremendous (silent) crash of dust and debris. Mike had not merely blown a hole in the basement ceiling. He had not merely blown a hole in his mother's previously meticulously maintained kitchen floor. He blew the ENTIRE floor up to damage the kitchen ceiling whereupon the entire floor then crashed back down to the basement. As Mike told the story, his mother, who had been taking laundry from the line in their backyard, rushed to house and opened the door only to peer straight down to a stunned Mike looking up from the basement.
No, there is no type of hobby chemist regulations that should be endorsed by the readers of slash dot. After all, what teenage boy would pay attention anyway?
Live Long and Prosper - Thanks Leonard. You are missed.
Actually, it might; we can already make that case for Christianity. ;-)
I grew up with a heroin lab on one side and a dog owner on the other. The dog owner was a constant irritation from day one, with the dog barking at all hours and crapping on the lawn. The heroin lab were decent neighbors who didn't really affect us until the night the cops came. Make all the meth/heroin/whatever you want, but keep your blasted dogs away, I say!
Clearly the solution was to give the dog meth/heroin/whatever to stop it barking! Bet you're kicking yourself for not thinking of that now!
(I kid of course!)
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Indeed, I don't think in these case big laboratories give a fuck what amateurs do in their basement.
But :
All I am doing is refuting the argument that big chemical corporations can't be behind it because they are hurt by the regulations. Generally large existing corporation benefit from regulation.
Of course I am not saying these specific regulations come from a business interest.
\u262D = \u5350
And when we said Beta, we meant Beta.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
There probably is some interesting and worthwhile chemistry to be done with non-exotic ingredients that don't easily go boom or convert to phosgene. (emphasis added)
Burn some PVC plastic (pipe, wire insulation, whatever) some time and see what you get.
Chemists, or those of us who learned chemistry through doing, understand these things.
-- Alastair
It was loads of fun.
Don't try this at home, though! Really.
If you don't know exactly what you are doing (and you don't -- the video makes it look deceptively simple without discussing the hazards), you should not try doing this.
It is dangerous in several different ways! First off, this form of iodine is extremely poisonous. It burns skin and eyes on contact, and can cause blindness. The fumes must not be breathed. The Nitrogen Tri-iodide compound is also very poisonous, and when it is set off, it sprays poisonous dust everywhere. Further, large amounts can be dangerous because even though it is not a particularly powerful explosive, it is so extremely unstable and unpredictable that it makes nitroglycerin look downright tame by comparison. When dry, even direct sunlight can sometimes set it off.
Also, it stains everything it touches, even metal, and is so reactive and penetrative that it can work its way through plastic containers such as polyethylene.
Be safe... just don't try it.
Nonsense! We live in Barack Obama's world now, where not a regulation conceived by any inherently-imperfect man could ever *possibly* be imperfect, undesirable, counterproductive, or unjustifiable.
This is the Age of Obama: the sooner we enslave children (via mandatory national service) and take away freedoms (through increased regulation) and stifle what little remains of an actual free-market in the U.S. (so it can be blamed for all our ills, yet-again), the better.
C&E News is apparently a tool of those dirty libertarians. For shame!!
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
There is a simple, logical reason why chemicals are so heavily regulated. It's because too many people have experimented in the past, and that cost often
Question: what does a person do with their failed (or even successful) projects? Well, there's going to be refuse - chemical byproducts - for nearly any reaction, and they're not mostly going to be harmless gases which will float away.
They are, more than likely, going to be water soluble or suspended in water, to one degree or another. Most reasonably advanced science projects will result in waste equivalent to pouring lead powder in someone's water softener.
For instance, let's say someone's experimenting with metals, like maybe stainless steel electrodes in their quest for world conquest or free power, or some such rot. Stainless steel used as electrodes for electrolysis will... get this, result in chromate byproducts. You know, those nasty things which are highly regulated by the EPA, have MSDS with big angry words on them, and generally anger a lot of people when poured down drains due to the impact on plant and animal life. Apparently it kills shit and prevents new shit from growing.
And that's just one idea off the top of my head while this kind of regulation is a "good" thing. There is no liberty for an individual in this; it's selfishness.
There comes a point of diminished return for the society to allow for people to tinker with things they don't quite understand, and to require a high threshold for entry. Encourage that entry, yes; but people are much more likely, at this point, to rediscover a hundred thousand mistakes, and maybe a couple dozen pre-existing discoveries, than to make a genuine discovery using commonly available chemicals. Just not going to happen.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Would you ban sales of PVC pipe? Hairspray?? Potatoes???
Exactly what type of restrictions would have prevented such a Darwin Award contestant from blowing up his basement?
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
On of the points that history teaches which without fail falls upon the deaf ears of Homo Sapiens is that perfect worlds invariably involve the slaughter of significant percentages of human populations.
Common sense: People can flee a burning building, but none can outrun a shockwave. Nothing is more politically (in the MaxWeberian sense) effective than explosives. How would governments exercise authority without brassclad measures of explosives sitting behind slugs of lead? How would armed forces kill people and break things without flying metal cases filled with explosives? Go ask William Ayers. That is why there is Bombers Row in FCI Florence if one be not put down like the patron saint of white males in Terre Haute on 6/11/01.
There is less of a need to regulate because purchases are traceable (even if there are no tagging agents in the materials). There have been so many foiled plots and the following is the reason. Some 'chemicals of interest' are still sold to the general public because the outlets (like Home Depot) that sell such commodities have cameras at the checkout (albeit for different reasons). Security images and sales receipts can be cross indexed by time stamp to get the faces of people buying such should one use cash. Fuel is everywhere but oxidizers are not. Show me where you can buy HTH or Solidox without some camera in view or the clerk asking for ID? As long as the purchase of critical chemicals are traceable (cameras at the checkout or other locations or ID checks), the process of manufacturing explosives will be difficult to obscure.
In the realm of hacking, this is why it would be inappropriate to purchase components like wireless network interface controllers in a 'monitored environment' by reason of the MAC address which with a little police work can be traced to the purchaser (NEED I SAY 'SARAH PALIN EMAIL HACK'?). That is yet another reason to crack down on computer shows (like gun shows). There's no safe hacking from any wired location: DSL (the other end of the line has a fixed address on the subnet beyone PPPoE), cable (MAC address in box already registered to user), or dialup (Caller ID or realtime/ billing ANI and police patrol attention despite U.S. v Katz).
'Cool America'
A weak America is a cool America until there is a Rwanda.
A strong America is a cool America until there is a Hallibur^XA strong America is never cool.
Submission as evidence constitutes plaintiff and/or prosecutorial misconduct.
How about some perchloroethylene and granular calcium hypochlorite (usually called HTH)?
Double bonds in carbon break easily and monatomic oxygen rushes in for the loose electron pairs!
C2Cl4 + Ca(ClO)2 yields CaCl + 2COCl2 [skull_bones.svg]
Now watch the feds ban perc sale to the general public, notwithstanding DC v. Heller.
Submission as evidence constitutes plaintiff and/or prosecutorial misconduct.