My ex girlfriend could attest to this... If she had known that she was delusional. She'd stay up for days on end, pulling the old "I'm not tired, I don't need much sleep" and acting manic and extremely self destructive. I'd eventually have to put her into bed and sleep right next to her for the next twelve hours to be sure that she was all right. Then maybe two days later the cycle would start again.
(DISCLAIMER: I saw no copyright notice on the article, and I think the guy just wants people to know about his hobby and be in awe of him (which this page accomplished for me), so think this cut n' paste will only help his cause. If you can't reach his site, read below; but BE SURE to go back to his site at a lower traffic time to check out the presumably sweet videos (which I have yet to check out:-)). And now, so more geeks can understand just how cool this chemistry is:) ____________________________ Sodium Party Periodic Table home
I'd read about, and heard stories about, throwing sodium into water. It's a classic thing chemistry students do in college, and based on the reports I have been able to find on the internet, they are often drunk at the time.
While anecdotal evidence would suggest that many people have thrown sodium into the lakes and streams of the world, they have been reprehensibly lax in documenting the results. I could find no reliable, and I stress the word reliable, reports on what actually happens. What reports I did find were contradictory: As you will see, I now know why. The only videos I could find were of pathetic thumbnail-sized bits skidding about in a bowl. (Click here to see my version of this: It's really boring, trust me.)
(A note on videos: All the videos on this page are in QuickTime format, and most of them require QuickTime V5 or better. You can download the latest version of QuickTime for Macintosh or Windows from http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download.)
To do better than that, I decided I should produce a comprehensive online reference on sodium dropping, with documentation on the size and shape of the chunks, how thrown, and most importantly with videos of the resulting explosions. To do this, I held a Sodium Party. People brought chips and soda and we had a cookout.
The first step was the procurement, through eBay, of three and half pounds of solid sodium metal for about a hundred dollars. This is a decent price for a small quantity like this. Small being a relative term: It's used by the ton in industry, but anything more than a few grams is a dangerous quantity if found in your home. Three and a half pounds is enough, for example, to blow your home to bits under the right conditions.
Next I constructed a patented Sodium Release-o-tron:
It was designed to be constructed in less than an hour using only things I already had lying around the shop, be very unlikely to go off by accident, and be unable to fail when activated. So far so good.
Here's a picture of the first lump I loaded into it, in a preliminary experiment about a month before the party:
Click here for a video showing how this lump was cut off of the main block: A wood chisel and some pushing is all it takes, because this stuff is very, very soft.
And here's a picture of what happened when we pulled the string:
Click here to see a video of this first explosion. (But only if you've got a fast connection, because it's not the best video by far: See below for much better ones if loading these takes time for you.)
This chunk, about 50 grams, gave a surprisingly strong bang, especially considering that there was no containment and no intentional pre-mixing of reactive chemicals, at least one of which is normally a prerequisite for a sharp report.
My theory is that it's a fuel-air explosion caused by mixing of the hydrogen gas with air, ignited a second or two later (as you can see in the video) by the heat that builds up in the sodium. The heating of the sodium acts as the time fuse needed to make any fuel air bomb work. This theory would imply that only a minimal shock wave should be transmitted into the water, since the explosion would be happening well above the surface, as the picture seems to show. Unfortunately that theory is not supported by the fact that the metal bucket was split at the seams, even though less than an inch of rim extended over the level of the water.
Which brings me to a safety warning: Sodium is really rather dangerous. If we had been anywhere within 15 feet of this explosion, it would have sprayed us with molten sodium and sodium hydroxide. Even a tiny amount in the eyes would have been a serious medical emergency. That's why I built a device that let me release it in a very controlled way from a great distance: If you want to do anything even remotely like this, you should take similar precautions. While it's safe to drop a tiny piece, maybe a few millimeters on edge, into a bowl of water, if you are wearing safety glasses, the force of the explosion goes up non-linearly with size. A lot of people have hurt themselves by going to bigger and bigger pieces thinking it's just going to do more of the same. It doesn't: At some point it turns from a fizzle and flame into a real explosion, like a shotgun.
There's also the issue of smoke, of which a lot is produced. I'm not sure what the smoke is, but I suspect it's powdered soda lye (caustic soda, otherwise known as sodium hydroxide), which means you really, really don't want to get in the way of it. Or it could be powdered sodium oxide, which might react over time with carbon dioxide in the air to form sodium carbonate or bicarbonate. I really don't know. But if it is powdered soda lye it would severely burn your eyes, lungs, and skin, and no safety glasses would protect you. Be sure you are upwind.
We had wet down about a 15 foot radius all around, and true to expectations, there were a series of secondary explosions as balls of sodium ejected by the main explosion hit the ground. Unfortunately I was taken aback by the explosion and jerked the camera, so you can't see them. That's one reason the later videos came out better: I used a tripod.
I had planned to hose down and maybe neutralize the driveway the next morning, but in a fascinating display of nature, the driveway was full of little yellow butterflies the next morning.
I've read that male butterflies collect sodium as a present for their mates, and they sure seemed to like mine, so I decided to leave it. I'm surprised they liked what must be a fairly basic solution, but then maybe it's just neutralized decades of road acid.
According to the popular radio entomologist May Berenbaum from the University of Illinois, I was right about the butterflies. She writes: "They're called sulfur butterflies (in the family Pieridae) and the general consensus is that they are indeed after sodium, which is transferred to females in the spermatophore or sperm package. Here are some references about the phenomenon: Adler, P. and D. Pearson, 1982. Why do male butterflies visit mud puddles? Can. J. Zool. 60: 322-325. Arms, K., P. Feeny and R.C. Lederhouse, 1974. Sodium: stimulus for puddling behavior by tiger swallowtail butterflies, Papilio glaucus. Science 185: 372-374. Smedley, S. R. and T. Eisner 1996. Sodium--a male moth's gift to its offspring. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 93:809-13.
There's something intensely sad about this. These tiny creatures have nothing to give but a little package of sodium, but this they give with all their heart. It is their life, their hope, their future, and they give it, asking nothing in return, that their children might have a better start in life. I suppose it should be uplifting, but somehow it just seems terribly sad to me.
Moving on, I still needed to work out the details of my Sodium Party. The classic thing to do with sodium is to throw it in a lake. I own a lake. It's obvious what to do, right? Actually, it's not that simple. For one thing, I care a great deal about the fish and frogs in my lake, and don't wish to poison or shock them. Sodium certainly isn't poisonous, but it could raise the pH measurably, even in my acre and a half lake (I did the math). More of a problem would be intense shock waves. After all, fishing with dynamite is a redneck tradition, and I don't allow fishing in my lake, even by me.
There was also that phone call from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, which somehow got wind of my idea. They believe that sodium is a caustic waste material which may not be dumped into the waters of the state in any quantity. I question that on two grounds, first I question that there is no lower reporting limit on sodium, and second I question that my lake is a water of the state. Having worked as a volunteer for an environmental water quality watchdog organization, and having spoken with several people there about this, I think I'm almost certainly right in believing that I have the legal right to dump a few ounces of sodium into my private lake if I so choose. The representative of the IEPA, however, disagreed with me on that conclusion.
Fortunately, no constitutional crisis developed out of this impasse, because by the time he put is foot down, I had already decided that I really didn't want to place my fish in harms way anyway.
The day before the party a few intrepid souls came out to test my ingenious workaround. I cleared a small floating deck, put a tarp over it with edges so I could flood the whole thing with about an inch of water, and put a small kids swimming pool full of water in the middle. Then I anchored the whole thing out in the middle of the lake with the sodium release-o-tron on it.
I loaded the machine with a 109.5 gram solid lump of sodium (about twice as big as the piece in my first experiment on land), rowed away, and started the cameras rolling.
The idea was that the sodium would explode in the pool, and at most a trivial amount would escape to the surrounding lake, where it would be instantly vaporized. I could then neutralize the pool water with a touch of hydrochloric acid ("Muriatic acid" at any hardware store), leaving only slightly salty water in the pool. (Sodium goes to hydrogen gas plus sodium and hydroxide ions in the water. Hydrochloric acid is chlorine and hydrogen ions: The hydrogen ions combine with the hydroxide ions to form water and neutralize the pH, while the sodium and chlorine ions are what is more commonly known as dissolved table salt. Not even the IEPA, I believe, has a regulation against dumping slightly salty water.)
But that's not quite how it worked out. There was an initial large explosion:
Then there were a series of secondary explosions obviously caused by a single fairly large chunk that was literally hopping across the lake. It was thrown high up into the air, came down to hit the water at a high rate of speed, and was then thrown back up into the air by the resulting explosion. This happened at least three, maybe four times, so far as I can tell from the video.
This is quite alarming: The longest time between impacts, timed on the videotape, was 3.12 seconds. If you do the math, this means the chunk was thrown almost 40 feet high. Fortunately it was going reasonably close to straight up and down, and we were quite far away (about 200 feet). But this skipping behavior, which so far as I know is documented here for the first time on the internet, clearly gives the whole thing far greater potential reach. It's easy to imagine a chunk skipping hundreds of feet.
I think this skipping behavior is one reason reports on what happens to sodium when you throw it in water are so varied and contradictory. As you will see in the videos below, it varies tremendously depending on the size of the chunk, how hard it hits the water, how deep the water is, and probably on the temperature of the air and water.
Very small pieces skid around and may or may not burn, but don't generally explode. Larger pieces explode and disintegrate themselves. Still larger pieces explode but stay intact, ejecting a solid chunk high into the air. Of course when the chunk comes back down, it's anyone's guess what happens next.
If someone were to throw a chunk like this (about three ounces) by hand into a lake, it could very easy come back and hit them. This video tape clearly demonstrates that sodium can throw itself farther than you can. And more ominously, you can clearly see on at least one of the jumps that it tends to come back at the direction it was thrown from. My theory is that when it hits the water it forms a cavity as it plunges down. This cavity acts like a cannon barrel to direct the chunk back in the direction it came from, when the steam and evolved hydrogen explode.
For this reason, I think a repeat of this method of deployment would be ill advised. It simply isn't predictable enough to be safe. When the pool is surrounded by wet driveway, there's no obvious way for chunks to skip long distances, and that's the way I decided to do it for the main party.
On the day of the party I set up the Release-O-Tron at one end of our parking lot, and laid out a pair of hoses connected to the well pump in the lake (which provides an endless supply of water). I ran the hoses for about an hour to get the whole gravel area wet down, and they were left running most of the time, to keep a good puddle about 40-50ft in diameter around the swimming pool.
Starting around 5:30 we set off a bunch of explosions, using a variety of different sizes and configurations of sodium, during daylight and night time. Some were solid chunks, others were cut up into sugar-cube sized bits:
Here are all the videos together in one place, in chronological order. Click on the picture to see the corresponding movie.
Sample Image Movie Size Description
452KB About one gram chip in a bowl. Boring. This is the experiment that makes a lot of people try bigger pieces, thinking that they will get more of the same. Instead they get an explosion they weren't expecting. Unless, of course, they've visited this web page.
4.6MB How to cut up sodium with a chisel. Wear gloves and safety glasses.
2.5MB Our first explosion, about 50 grams in one piece. I jerked the camera. Very Blair Witch.
4.7MB Our second explosion, in a tub floated on the lake. 109.5 gram single piece.
3.7MB First explosion of the party, done during daylight because some people had to leave early. A small 18.5 gram solid piece.
3.9MB In this explosion we cut up 59.0 grams into sugar-cube-sized chunks to see if it made a difference. I think this configuration gives the most pleasing explosions.
10.4MB 151.5 grams cut into cubes. This is one of the best videos.
1.2MB 70.8 grams in one piece. This video is included for documentary completeness only: It's out of focus and not really worth watching.
1.8MB 83.5 grams in one piece. This video is included for documentary completeness only: It's out of focus and not really worth watching.
7.5MB 145.0 grams cut into cubes. This is probably the best video of the lot.
2.2MB 119.5 grams in one piece. This video is somewhat out of focus, but it's a huge explosion to somewhat worthwhile to watch.
21.4MB In this video we used a propane torch to light about 10 grams of it in a bowl, to see how it would burn. It burns sort of like magnesium, but easier to light. Sodium burning in air is very gentle, slow, controlled. Try to put it out with water and you're in big trouble.
13.8MB More burning in air, about 50 grams this time. We used a stick to stir it, and the stick started burning like a fuse, probably because of moisture in it.
2.3MB 87.5 grams in one piece.
1.0MB Our biggest chunk ever: 175.0 grams in one piece, dropped in a bucket in the pool. It shot up like a rocket and landed on the driveway largely intact.
12.7MB This video shows us tracking down and detonating the stray chunk from the last explosion. Ed and I sprayed it from a distance with water hoses. The video starts slow, but gets more interesting as it goes on.
______________________
(Sorry if this pissed you off...if the author asks/. to remove this post, I completely agree with his request.)
MS Sales: Thank you for your purchase of our new operating system, Windows EXT!
Customer: Ok, bye!
MS: Have an insecure day...
C: What do you mean by that?
MS: Well, we didn't try too hard with security in this release, and know of a handful of really dangerous bugs.
C: Can you fix them?
MS: Yes.
C: Phew! I thought my network was screwed!
MS: I didn't say we would fix them. Not for free anyway
C: Huh?
MS: As part of our new Windows EXT OS, we've introduced a new system to save you money by selling basic security!
C: But how does that -
MS: You wouldn't want to get hacked by the RIAA for that illegally included Metallica MP3 we put on your system, would you?
C: Damn you and your italicized sarcastic threats!
MS: Sir, that comment violates the ULA that your MS Intellimouse auto-clicked for you. Your license is now terminated. Thank you for using Windows EXT!
C: But I haven't even instal -
MS: [click...tone]
And Windows XP 2003 will not run on anything else.
Would that violate any of the anti-trust agreements with the justice department (the agreement that lead to XP SP-1?)
I wouldn't mind a Hardware revolution these days, even Microsoft-led, as long as it introduced something completely new and exciting, with new functions and uses.
Besides speed/capacity, have PC's really changed in the past 15 years?
I've been playing computer games since Lode Runner and King's Quest 1 came out when I was a wee young lad with a $2000 Apple IIe. Recently, I've been playing Icewind Dale, Diablo II, Fallout 1/2, Aethra, and Tactical Ops (bad_bad_leroy:-)), to name a few.
None of these games need a $400 Radeon 9700 card. They work wonderfully on my regular old Radeon 32mb, whose newest brother, the 7000, sells for around $70.
Ok, I'm not a die-hard FPS enthusiast. But I'm just as serious a gamer as anyone.
6 or 7 years ago, my friend got a brand new packard bell computer, and it came bundled with a doomlike/flightsim game called Magic Carpet. The relevant part is that it had a stereo-vision mode, which made all the graphics appear as those magic eye images do. So if you crossed your eyes just right, you'd play with some pretty sweet effects.
Anyone else ever play this one? Is this the same deal as with the LCD monitor in the article? The article was vague (for me) as to what the 3D image would look like.
Let's keep in mind that the average user does not care about technical details, like different recording qualities (to a degree), or size/quality ratios, etc. They just want to know that CDex will let you save CD's to your computer, period. Once they get used to that they can start learning about different file formats, compression methods, and nuances of audio-quality tweaking.
Did they go through the appropriate bidding process that is needed whenever a substantial government contract is offered?
If you used all Sun, Linux, or Apple software/hardware, you'd have the same compatibility bonuses as you do with Microsoft. Compatibility is not unique, or even native, to Microsoft. Hell, they removed from Office XP the ability to open other office suites' documents with the default install; isn't that a step BACKWARDS for compatibility?
does listening to the concert, or watching the athletic event cause the lessened ability to the people that have paid for it?
No, but neither does one extra user on a network designed to support hundreds or thousands of users. A warchalking epidemic may cause a network performance hit, but like someone else said in a previous post, it's hard not to notice 200 geeks on the sidewalk using their laptops.
If a companys network administrator doesnt understand the possibility of bandwith theft (and I think it is a theft), Does it make it legal to do it?
Nice question, you should be a lawyer:-). Regardless of inept Network Admins, we still haven't established that it was ever illegal, unless it has been clearly posted somewhere publicly accessible that using the bandwidth is Unauthorized (posting a virtual 'no trespassing' message at login, implementing security software that a squatter would need to knowingly circumvent, etc.) Something isn't illegal just because you think it is; it needs to be defined by law or judicial opinion.
I can assume the door to your dwelling being open gives me the right to come in and eat stuff out of your fridge?
To read my argument about how trespassing laws combined with publicly available property ownership documents DO in fact legally prevent you from entering my residence and consuming my food/resources without my permission, refer to this other post.
Similar laws might apply to unsecured wireless networks, but the hotspots of those networks need to be legally documented and publicly available.
Not to mention the fact that you won't find much to eat in my fridge anyway, unless you like to eat baking soda.:-)
Here we disagree again. There is no "No Trespassing" sign on my front door. I am not required to post public documents stating that random passers-by may not enter to use my water, bathroom or electricity.
Yet, there are publicly available documents stating that your doorway is located on private residencial property, at certain coordinates, with clearly defined borders, and clearly listing you (or your landlord) as the owner of the property. Those documents, combined with trespassing laws, legally secure your residence from unauthorized access. It'd be very difficult to prove in a court that you had a right to stop someone from entering a certain property and using its resources if you couldn't present proper documentation to back up your claim to the ownership of the property. (far-fetched example, but valid nonetheless).
Similarly, servers that are intended to be private need to send messages at the initial log on to the effect of "This is a private network. Unauthorized use is strictly prohibited. If you have obtained access without explicit written permission granted by the owner, you must disconnect immediately."
It is a reasonable assumption to be made by reasonable individuals that this is, in fact, the case.
Agreed, but 'reasonable' assumptions are not 'legal' until signed into law or stated in official judicial opinion. Many people, unfortunately, hide behind technicalities in the law even though all reason seems to say otherwise.
That just won't work; I think that any wireless network, which allows my computer to access it and use its connected bandwidth without bypassing any security systems, does indeed grant me unsaid authorization. In America, people are empowered by freedom and you are innocent until proven guilty: until some law says otherwise, you may do anything you like. The only reason I can't legally enter your house without your permission is that trespassing laws and property ownership documents state that you the property owner make the decision; just 'knowing it' (that you prefer I not enter) isn't enough to make it legal, (although reasonable people would probably respect your preference.)
me: "Panasonic 'Super-Bass' Ghetto Blaster Mark 12? Aw man, I'm stuck with this lousy Mark 11."
Mark 11, now melting in fire: "Don't throw me away, I can still make you happy! To the maaaaaaaxxx!"
for instance, tuning into and listening to analog cell phone conversations that come thru the wall of your house by using an old tv uhf tuner...Good lord, you won't believe what people talk about when they *think* they're having a private conversation - drug deals, endless babblings about relationships. I actually heard this yahoo call his wife from the truck and say, "Honey, I'm in desperate need of a blow job".
Sheesh, just how much time do you spend eavesdropping with your TV? Sounds like you need a new hobby:-)
But if you left them in your house, and forgot to lock your front door, and someone came in and took them (then left a sign by the road saying "this house is unlocked! help yourself!") then that would be a crime.
True, but the crime would be trespassing. Other than the Trespassing or Entering (not breaking), I don't think there's any law saying you couldn't sit down on their couch and watch their TV.
Unless a message appears on your console, you don't know that the open wireless access point wasn't intended for public use. When you see a store on main street with its door open, you don't have to stand outside and ask for authorization to enter (where you'd consume valuable, limited resources, such as air conditioning, drinking fountains, and floor space.)
No way can that concert analogy come even close.
Yes the concert analogy does hold water, because I'm using their amplifiers, musicians, and electricity to get for free what they hoped I'd pay for. If they were worried about only having paying customers use their resources, they'd make efforts to better soundproof their arena, just like a network admin should better restrict AP access.
If I mistakenly leave my frontdoor unlocked, it does not entitle anyone to come into my house, use my bathroom, drink my water, use my lights or anything of mine without my permission beforehand.
You're half right; I may not enter your house, but it's because that would be trespassing. But if you had a bright light that shone out from your house onto the sidewalk, there's no reason I can't use that light to read a book, or power my solar powered calculator.
Assuming you're not running a server or using excessive bandwidth, the infrastructure of a typical company is easily capable of supporting one extra unexpected wireless user without any noticable network performance hit.
The only counter-argument I can think of is that you're going through their network without proper authorization. However, no court is going to rule that it's your fault for using the network when there were no signs saying you couldn't, no public documentation saying you couldn't, and no security systems you had to actively bypass. And no company/network admin would be willing to accept the professional embarassment that would come shoud they whine publicly about their own lack of security.
Unless the company owns the land and airspace where the wireless network reaches, people should be free to stand on public ground and use their computers. If there's a hilltop in a public park from which you can see and hear a concert, or athletic event, is it 'stealing' to sit on that hill and enjoy the entertainment? Any network administrator that allows an insecure wireless signal to be accessible from a sidewalk should know better.
Companies can't just say, 'we're going to leave this [money, confidential documents, unprotected wireless AP] right where any chump on the sidewalk can get at them, but you can't touch them cause Nokia says it's stealing' and call it a security plan.
It used to be OK; things were too technical for most people to understand. Similarly, locking mechanisms on bank safes used to be simple; now they're as complex as any sci-fi fan could dream of. And in the computer world, there's no excuse for any security-by-complexity setup less than large-prime algorithmic encrytption.
This is the last comment I expected to be questioned on! It's not like I'm proposing any sort of revolutionary new idea of egyptian burial customs; it's common knowledge among those with any knowledge at all that burials were seen as transitions for the journey to the afterlife. They'd even entomb some with boats, to help them on their journey. Some mummified their cats.
Slashdot Mirror
My ex girlfriend could attest to this... If she had known that she was delusional. She'd stay up for days on end, pulling the old "I'm not tired, I don't need much sleep" and acting manic and extremely self destructive. I'd eventually have to put her into bed and sleep right next to her for the next twelve hours to be sure that she was all right. Then maybe two days later the cycle would start again.
Talk about high maintenance!
Hope she turned out ok.
(DISCLAIMER: I saw no copyright notice on the article, and I think the guy just wants people to know about his hobby and be in awe of him (which this page accomplished for me), so think this cut n' paste will only help his cause. If you can't reach his site, read below; but BE SURE to go back to his site at a lower traffic time to check out the presumably sweet videos (which I have yet to check out:-)). And now, so more geeks can understand just how cool this chemistry is:)
/. to remove this post, I completely agree with his request.)
____________________________
Sodium Party
Periodic Table home
I'd read about, and heard stories about, throwing sodium into water. It's a classic thing chemistry students do in college, and based on the reports I have been able to find on the internet, they are often drunk at the time.
While anecdotal evidence would suggest that many people have thrown sodium into the lakes and streams of the world, they have been reprehensibly lax in documenting the results. I could find no reliable, and I stress the word reliable, reports on what actually happens. What reports I did find were contradictory: As you will see, I now know why. The only videos I could find were of pathetic thumbnail-sized bits skidding about in a bowl. (Click here to see my version of this: It's really boring, trust me.)
(A note on videos: All the videos on this page are in QuickTime format, and most of them require QuickTime V5 or better. You can download the latest version of QuickTime for Macintosh or Windows from http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download.)
To do better than that, I decided I should produce a comprehensive online reference on sodium dropping, with documentation on the size and shape of the chunks, how thrown, and most importantly with videos of the resulting explosions. To do this, I held a Sodium Party. People brought chips and soda and we had a cookout.
The first step was the procurement, through eBay, of three and half pounds of solid sodium metal for about a hundred dollars. This is a decent price for a small quantity like this. Small being a relative term: It's used by the ton in industry, but anything more than a few grams is a dangerous quantity if found in your home. Three and a half pounds is enough, for example, to blow your home to bits under the right conditions.
Next I constructed a patented Sodium Release-o-tron:
It was designed to be constructed in less than an hour using only things I already had lying around the shop, be very unlikely to go off by accident, and be unable to fail when activated. So far so good.
Here's a picture of the first lump I loaded into it, in a preliminary experiment about a month before the party:
Click here for a video showing how this lump was cut off of the main block: A wood chisel and some pushing is all it takes, because this stuff is very, very soft.
And here's a picture of what happened when we pulled the string:
Click here to see a video of this first explosion. (But only if you've got a fast connection, because it's not the best video by far: See below for much better ones if loading these takes time for you.)
This chunk, about 50 grams, gave a surprisingly strong bang, especially considering that there was no containment and no intentional pre-mixing of reactive chemicals, at least one of which is normally a prerequisite for a sharp report.
My theory is that it's a fuel-air explosion caused by mixing of the hydrogen gas with air, ignited a second or two later (as you can see in the video) by the heat that builds up in the sodium. The heating of the sodium acts as the time fuse needed to make any fuel air bomb work. This theory would imply that only a minimal shock wave should be transmitted into the water, since the explosion would be happening well above the surface, as the picture seems to show. Unfortunately that theory is not supported by the fact that the metal bucket was split at the seams, even though less than an inch of rim extended over the level of the water.
Which brings me to a safety warning: Sodium is really rather dangerous. If we had been anywhere within 15 feet of this explosion, it would have sprayed us with molten sodium and sodium hydroxide. Even a tiny amount in the eyes would have been a serious medical emergency. That's why I built a device that let me release it in a very controlled way from a great distance: If you want to do anything even remotely like this, you should take similar precautions. While it's safe to drop a tiny piece, maybe a few millimeters on edge, into a bowl of water, if you are wearing safety glasses, the force of the explosion goes up non-linearly with size. A lot of people have hurt themselves by going to bigger and bigger pieces thinking it's just going to do more of the same. It doesn't: At some point it turns from a fizzle and flame into a real explosion, like a shotgun.
There's also the issue of smoke, of which a lot is produced. I'm not sure what the smoke is, but I suspect it's powdered soda lye (caustic soda, otherwise known as sodium hydroxide), which means you really, really don't want to get in the way of it. Or it could be powdered sodium oxide, which might react over time with carbon dioxide in the air to form sodium carbonate or bicarbonate. I really don't know. But if it is powdered soda lye it would severely burn your eyes, lungs, and skin, and no safety glasses would protect you. Be sure you are upwind.
We had wet down about a 15 foot radius all around, and true to expectations, there were a series of secondary explosions as balls of sodium ejected by the main explosion hit the ground. Unfortunately I was taken aback by the explosion and jerked the camera, so you can't see them. That's one reason the later videos came out better: I used a tripod.
I had planned to hose down and maybe neutralize the driveway the next morning, but in a fascinating display of nature, the driveway was full of little yellow butterflies the next morning.
I've read that male butterflies collect sodium as a present for their mates, and they sure seemed to like mine, so I decided to leave it. I'm surprised they liked what must be a fairly basic solution, but then maybe it's just neutralized decades of road acid.
According to the popular radio entomologist May Berenbaum from the University of Illinois, I was right about the butterflies. She writes:
"They're called sulfur butterflies (in the family Pieridae) and the general consensus is that they are indeed after sodium, which is transferred to females in the spermatophore or sperm package.
Here are some references about the phenomenon:
Adler, P. and D. Pearson, 1982. Why do male butterflies visit mud puddles? Can. J. Zool. 60: 322-325.
Arms, K., P. Feeny and R.C. Lederhouse, 1974. Sodium: stimulus for puddling behavior by tiger swallowtail butterflies, Papilio glaucus. Science 185: 372-374.
Smedley, S. R. and T. Eisner 1996. Sodium--a male moth's gift to its offspring. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 93:809-13.
There's something intensely sad about this. These tiny creatures have nothing to give but a little package of sodium, but this they give with all their heart. It is their life, their hope, their future, and they give it, asking nothing in return, that their children might have a better start in life. I suppose it should be uplifting, but somehow it just seems terribly sad to me.
Moving on, I still needed to work out the details of my Sodium Party. The classic thing to do with sodium is to throw it in a lake. I own a lake. It's obvious what to do, right? Actually, it's not that simple. For one thing, I care a great deal about the fish and frogs in my lake, and don't wish to poison or shock them. Sodium certainly isn't poisonous, but it could raise the pH measurably, even in my acre and a half lake (I did the math). More of a problem would be intense shock waves. After all, fishing with dynamite is a redneck tradition, and I don't allow fishing in my lake, even by me.
There was also that phone call from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, which somehow got wind of my idea. They believe that sodium is a caustic waste material which may not be dumped into the waters of the state in any quantity. I question that on two grounds, first I question that there is no lower reporting limit on sodium, and second I question that my lake is a water of the state. Having worked as a volunteer for an environmental water quality watchdog organization, and having spoken with several people there about this, I think I'm almost certainly right in believing that I have the legal right to dump a few ounces of sodium into my private lake if I so choose. The representative of the IEPA, however, disagreed with me on that conclusion.
Fortunately, no constitutional crisis developed out of this impasse, because by the time he put is foot down, I had already decided that I really didn't want to place my fish in harms way anyway.
The day before the party a few intrepid souls came out to test my ingenious workaround. I cleared a small floating deck, put a tarp over it with edges so I could flood the whole thing with about an inch of water, and put a small kids swimming pool full of water in the middle. Then I anchored the whole thing out in the middle of the lake with the sodium release-o-tron on it.
I loaded the machine with a 109.5 gram solid lump of sodium (about twice as big as the piece in my first experiment on land), rowed away, and started the cameras rolling.
The idea was that the sodium would explode in the pool, and at most a trivial amount would escape to the surrounding lake, where it would be instantly vaporized. I could then neutralize the pool water with a touch of hydrochloric acid ("Muriatic acid" at any hardware store), leaving only slightly salty water in the pool. (Sodium goes to hydrogen gas plus sodium and hydroxide ions in the water. Hydrochloric acid is chlorine and hydrogen ions: The hydrogen ions combine with the hydroxide ions to form water and neutralize the pH, while the sodium and chlorine ions are what is more commonly known as dissolved table salt. Not even the IEPA, I believe, has a regulation against dumping slightly salty water.)
But that's not quite how it worked out. There was an initial large explosion:
Then there were a series of secondary explosions obviously caused by a single fairly large chunk that was literally hopping across the lake. It was thrown high up into the air, came down to hit the water at a high rate of speed, and was then thrown back up into the air by the resulting explosion. This happened at least three, maybe four times, so far as I can tell from the video.
This is quite alarming: The longest time between impacts, timed on the videotape, was 3.12 seconds. If you do the math, this means the chunk was thrown almost 40 feet high. Fortunately it was going reasonably close to straight up and down, and we were quite far away (about 200 feet). But this skipping behavior, which so far as I know is documented here for the first time on the internet, clearly gives the whole thing far greater potential reach. It's easy to imagine a chunk skipping hundreds of feet.
I think this skipping behavior is one reason reports on what happens to sodium when you throw it in water are so varied and contradictory. As you will see in the videos below, it varies tremendously depending on the size of the chunk, how hard it hits the water, how deep the water is, and probably on the temperature of the air and water.
Very small pieces skid around and may or may not burn, but don't generally explode. Larger pieces explode and disintegrate themselves. Still larger pieces explode but stay intact, ejecting a solid chunk high into the air. Of course when the chunk comes back down, it's anyone's guess what happens next.
If someone were to throw a chunk like this (about three ounces) by hand into a lake, it could very easy come back and hit them. This video tape clearly demonstrates that sodium can throw itself farther than you can. And more ominously, you can clearly see on at least one of the jumps that it tends to come back at the direction it was thrown from. My theory is that when it hits the water it forms a cavity as it plunges down. This cavity acts like a cannon barrel to direct the chunk back in the direction it came from, when the steam and evolved hydrogen explode.
For this reason, I think a repeat of this method of deployment would be ill advised. It simply isn't predictable enough to be safe. When the pool is surrounded by wet driveway, there's no obvious way for chunks to skip long distances, and that's the way I decided to do it for the main party.
On the day of the party I set up the Release-O-Tron at one end of our parking lot, and laid out a pair of hoses connected to the well pump in the lake (which provides an endless supply of water). I ran the hoses for about an hour to get the whole gravel area wet down, and they were left running most of the time, to keep a good puddle about 40-50ft in diameter around the swimming pool.
Starting around 5:30 we set off a bunch of explosions, using a variety of different sizes and configurations of sodium, during daylight and night time. Some were solid chunks, others were cut up into sugar-cube sized bits:
Here are all the videos together in one place, in chronological order. Click on the picture to see the corresponding movie.
Sample Image Movie Size Description
452KB About one gram chip in a bowl. Boring. This is the experiment that makes a lot of people try bigger pieces, thinking that they will get more of the same. Instead they get an explosion they weren't expecting. Unless, of course, they've visited this web page.
4.6MB How to cut up sodium with a chisel. Wear gloves and safety glasses.
2.5MB Our first explosion, about 50 grams in one piece. I jerked the camera. Very Blair Witch.
4.7MB Our second explosion, in a tub floated on the lake. 109.5 gram single piece.
3.7MB First explosion of the party, done during daylight because some people had to leave early. A small 18.5 gram solid piece.
3.9MB In this explosion we cut up 59.0 grams into sugar-cube-sized chunks to see if it made a difference. I think this configuration gives the most pleasing explosions.
10.4MB 151.5 grams cut into cubes. This is one of the best videos.
1.2MB 70.8 grams in one piece. This video is included for documentary completeness only: It's out of focus and not really worth watching.
1.8MB 83.5 grams in one piece. This video is included for documentary completeness only: It's out of focus and not really worth watching.
7.5MB 145.0 grams cut into cubes. This is probably the best video of the lot.
2.2MB 119.5 grams in one piece. This video is somewhat out of focus, but it's a huge explosion to somewhat worthwhile to watch.
21.4MB In this video we used a propane torch to light about 10 grams of it in a bowl, to see how it would burn. It burns sort of like magnesium, but easier to light. Sodium burning in air is very gentle, slow, controlled. Try to put it out with water and you're in big trouble.
13.8MB More burning in air, about 50 grams this time. We used a stick to stir it, and the stick started burning like a fuse, probably because of moisture in it.
2.3MB 87.5 grams in one piece.
1.0MB Our biggest chunk ever: 175.0 grams in one piece, dropped in a bucket in the pool. It shot up like a rocket and landed on the driveway largely intact.
12.7MB This video shows us tracking down and detonating the stray chunk from the last explosion. Ed and I sprayed it from a distance with water hoses. The video starts slow, but gets more interesting as it goes on.
______________________
(Sorry if this pissed you off...if the author asks
MS Sales: Thank you for your purchase of our new operating system, Windows EXT! ...
Customer: Ok, bye!
MS: Have an insecure day
C: What do you mean by that?
MS: Well, we didn't try too hard with security in this release, and know of a handful of really dangerous bugs.
C: Can you fix them?
MS: Yes.
C: Phew! I thought my network was screwed!
MS: I didn't say we would fix them. Not for free anyway
C: Huh?
MS: As part of our new Windows EXT OS, we've introduced a new system to save you money by selling basic security!
C: But how does that -
MS: You wouldn't want to get hacked by the RIAA for that illegally included Metallica MP3 we put on your system, would you?
C: Damn you and your italicized sarcastic threats!
MS: Sir, that comment violates the ULA that your MS Intellimouse auto-clicked for you. Your license is now terminated. Thank you for using Windows EXT!
C: But I haven't even instal -
MS: [click...tone]
Would that violate any of the anti-trust agreements with the justice department (the agreement that lead to XP SP-1?)
I wouldn't mind a Hardware revolution these days, even Microsoft-led, as long as it introduced something completely new and exciting, with new functions and uses.
Besides speed/capacity, have PC's really changed in the past 15 years?
I've been playing computer games since Lode Runner and King's Quest 1 came out when I was a wee young lad with a $2000 Apple IIe. Recently, I've been playing Icewind Dale, Diablo II, Fallout 1/2, Aethra, and Tactical Ops (bad_bad_leroy :-)), to name a few.
None of these games need a $400 Radeon 9700 card. They work wonderfully on my regular old Radeon 32mb, whose newest brother, the 7000, sells for around $70.
Ok, I'm not a die-hard FPS enthusiast. But I'm just as serious a gamer as anyone.
Magic carpet had 3 or 4 different 3d display modes.
:-) Glad I'm not imagining things! I was so impressed that the game could render 3D in real time, I'm surprised more games didn't use this technology.
The title of this post made me think it was an activist campaign like "Free Mumia!" or "Free Hat!". Nope, just a regular, law-abiding science guy :-)
6 or 7 years ago, my friend got a brand new packard bell computer, and it came bundled with a doomlike/flightsim game called Magic Carpet. The relevant part is that it had a stereo-vision mode, which made all the graphics appear as those magic eye images do. So if you crossed your eyes just right, you'd play with some pretty sweet effects.
Anyone else ever play this one? Is this the same deal as with the LCD monitor in the article? The article was vague (for me) as to what the 3D image would look like.
screw Lasik, I want a shine job like Vin Diesel had in Pitch Black!
LAME, Ogg, conversion protocols, source code...?
Let's keep in mind that the average user does not care about technical details, like different recording qualities (to a degree), or size/quality ratios, etc. They just want to know that CDex will let you save CD's to your computer, period. Once they get used to that they can start learning about different file formats, compression methods, and nuances of audio-quality tweaking.
Anyone ever seen Office Space?
;-) Let's start calling it "Michael Bolton/GNU"
Anyone ever breathe air?
Did they go through the appropriate bidding process that is needed whenever a substantial government contract is offered?
If you used all Sun, Linux, or Apple software/hardware, you'd have the same compatibility bonuses as you do with Microsoft. Compatibility is not unique, or even native, to Microsoft. Hell, they removed from Office XP the ability to open other office suites' documents with the default install; isn't that a step BACKWARDS for compatibility?
does listening to the concert, or watching the athletic event cause the lessened ability to the people that have paid for it?
No, but neither does one extra user on a network designed to support hundreds or thousands of users. A warchalking epidemic may cause a network performance hit, but like someone else said in a previous post, it's hard not to notice 200 geeks on the sidewalk using their laptops.
If a companys network administrator doesnt understand the possibility of bandwith theft (and I think it is a theft), Does it make it legal to do it?
Nice question, you should be a lawyer:-). Regardless of inept Network Admins, we still haven't established that it was ever illegal, unless it has been clearly posted somewhere publicly accessible that using the bandwidth is Unauthorized (posting a virtual 'no trespassing' message at login, implementing security software that a squatter would need to knowingly circumvent, etc.) Something isn't illegal just because you think it is; it needs to be defined by law or judicial opinion.
I can assume the door to your dwelling being open gives me the right to come in and eat stuff out of your fridge?
:-)
To read my argument about how trespassing laws combined with publicly available property ownership documents DO in fact legally prevent you from entering my residence and consuming my food/resources without my permission, refer to this other post.
Similar laws might apply to unsecured wireless networks, but the hotspots of those networks need to be legally documented and publicly available.
Not to mention the fact that you won't find much to eat in my fridge anyway, unless you like to eat baking soda.
Here we disagree again. There is no "No Trespassing" sign on my front door. I am not required to post public documents stating that random passers-by may not enter to use my water, bathroom or electricity.
Yet, there are publicly available documents stating that your doorway is located on private residencial property, at certain coordinates, with clearly defined borders, and clearly listing you (or your landlord) as the owner of the property. Those documents, combined with trespassing laws, legally secure your residence from unauthorized access. It'd be very difficult to prove in a court that you had a right to stop someone from entering a certain property and using its resources if you couldn't present proper documentation to back up your claim to the ownership of the property. (far-fetched example, but valid nonetheless).
Similarly, servers that are intended to be private need to send messages at the initial log on to the effect of "This is a private network. Unauthorized use is strictly prohibited. If you have obtained access without explicit written permission granted by the owner, you must disconnect immediately."
It is a reasonable assumption to be made by reasonable individuals that this is, in fact, the case.
Agreed, but 'reasonable' assumptions are not 'legal' until signed into law or stated in official judicial opinion. Many people, unfortunately, hide behind technicalities in the law even though all reason seems to say otherwise.
If you're authorized, you'd know it.
That just won't work; I think that any wireless network, which allows my computer to access it and use its connected bandwidth without bypassing any security systems, does indeed grant me unsaid authorization. In America, people are empowered by freedom and you are innocent until proven guilty: until some law says otherwise, you may do anything you like. The only reason I can't legally enter your house without your permission is that trespassing laws and property ownership documents state that you the property owner make the decision; just 'knowing it' (that you prefer I not enter) isn't enough to make it legal, (although reasonable people would probably respect your preference.)
me: "Panasonic 'Super-Bass' Ghetto Blaster Mark 12? Aw man, I'm stuck with this lousy Mark 11." Mark 11, now melting in fire: "Don't throw me away, I can still make you happy! To the maaaaaaaxxx!"
for instance, tuning into and listening to analog cell phone conversations that come thru the wall of your house by using an old tv uhf tuner...Good lord, you won't believe what people talk about when they *think* they're having a private conversation - drug deals, endless babblings about relationships. I actually heard this yahoo call his wife from the truck and say, "Honey, I'm in desperate need of a blow job".
:-)
Sheesh, just how much time do you spend eavesdropping with your TV? Sounds like you need a new hobby
Innocent until proven guilty; until the AP owner publicly says No, you can assume leech access is allowed.
But if you left them in your house, and forgot to lock your front door, and someone came in and took them (then left a sign by the road saying "this house is unlocked! help yourself!") then that would be a crime.
True, but the crime would be trespassing. Other than the Trespassing or Entering (not breaking), I don't think there's any law saying you couldn't sit down on their couch and watch their TV.
As with every new windows technology, this one's bound to have some bugs, annoying unexpected features, and unfortunate tendencies to be cracked.
Unless a message appears on your console, you don't know that the open wireless access point wasn't intended for public use. When you see a store on main street with its door open, you don't have to stand outside and ask for authorization to enter (where you'd consume valuable, limited resources, such as air conditioning, drinking fountains, and floor space.)
No way can that concert analogy come even close.
Yes the concert analogy does hold water, because I'm using their amplifiers, musicians, and electricity to get for free what they hoped I'd pay for. If they were worried about only having paying customers use their resources, they'd make efforts to better soundproof their arena, just like a network admin should better restrict AP access.
If I mistakenly leave my frontdoor unlocked, it does not entitle anyone to come into my house, use my bathroom, drink my water, use my lights or anything of mine without my permission beforehand.
You're half right; I may not enter your house, but it's because that would be trespassing. But if you had a bright light that shone out from your house onto the sidewalk, there's no reason I can't use that light to read a book, or power my solar powered calculator.
Assuming you're not running a server or using excessive bandwidth, the infrastructure of a typical company is easily capable of supporting one extra unexpected wireless user without any noticable network performance hit.
The only counter-argument I can think of is that you're going through their network without proper authorization. However, no court is going to rule that it's your fault for using the network when there were no signs saying you couldn't, no public documentation saying you couldn't, and no security systems you had to actively bypass. And no company/network admin would be willing to accept the professional embarassment that would come shoud they whine publicly about their own lack of security.
Unless the company owns the land and airspace where the wireless network reaches, people should be free to stand on public ground and use their computers. If there's a hilltop in a public park from which you can see and hear a concert, or athletic event, is it 'stealing' to sit on that hill and enjoy the entertainment? Any network administrator that allows an insecure wireless signal to be accessible from a sidewalk should know better.
Companies can't just say, 'we're going to leave this [money, confidential documents, unprotected wireless AP] right where any chump on the sidewalk can get at them, but you can't touch them cause Nokia says it's stealing' and call it a security plan.
It used to be OK; things were too technical for most people to understand. Similarly, locking mechanisms on bank safes used to be simple; now they're as complex as any sci-fi fan could dream of. And in the computer world, there's no excuse for any security-by-complexity setup less than large-prime algorithmic encrytption.
show me the evidence for your statements
This is the last comment I expected to be questioned on! It's not like I'm proposing any sort of revolutionary new idea of egyptian burial customs; it's common knowledge among those with any knowledge at all that burials were seen as transitions for the journey to the afterlife. They'd even entomb some with boats, to help them on their journey. Some mummified their cats.
If you must have evidence, try this yahoo news story.
Or, just try this google search.
And stop asking people for sources on obvious subjects. It just makes you look stupid.