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Science

More Ways to Blow Things Up 307

Posted by michael from the friday-special dept.
pitabutter writes "Since the /. crowd seems to appreciate the exciting combination of amateur chemistry and fearlessness (what is it about intelligence and the desire to blow things up?), Sam Barros' site would be worth a look. Rail guns, high voltage, electromagnetic experiements-all there and with videos to boot. Unable to confirm if Sam still has appendages intact........"
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More Ways to Blow Things Up More

More Ways to Blow Things Up

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  • I don't think he mentions it explicitly but I think this guy is still a teenager. Does anybody know for sure?

  • Huh? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I don't get it. What's the connection between intelligence and the /. crowd???

  • Terrorists (Score:1, Funny)

    by cscx ( 541332 )
    Don't give them any new ideas.
  • Is that us?

  • If you like this, try this, too.... (Score:5, Informative)

    by mickwd ( 196449 ) on Friday January 31, 2003 @07:41PM (#5200801)
    George Goble's home page. [purdue.edu]

  • What about amasci and keely-net? (Score:4, Informative)

    by orangesquid ( 79734 ) <orangesquid&yahoo,com> on Friday January 31, 2003 @07:42PM (#5200811) Homepage Journal
    Bill Beaty's Amateur Science Pages [amasci.com] are a great place for this kind of thing, too... Although his site is a little more aimed at electronics, but there's plenty of physics-related (read: explosive) stuff too :)

  • answer (Score:5, Insightful)

    by labratuk ( 204918 ) on Friday January 31, 2003 @07:44PM (#5200818)
    what is it about intelligence and the desire to blow things up?

    Lack of it?

    • Re:answer (Score:4, Funny)

      by Jeff DeMaagd ( 2015 ) on Friday January 31, 2003 @08:58PM (#5201256) Homepage Journal
      >>what is it about intelligence and the desire to blow things up?

      >Lack of it?

      Well, intelligence and common sense aren't always connected. Making these devices requires people with a lot of intelligence and posessing very little common sense.
      • Well, intelligence and common sense aren't always connected. Making these devices requires people with a lot of intelligence and posessing very little common sense.

        My favorite quote from my mother: For being a genius, you are an idiot.
    • Amateurs blowing things up is cool and all but am I the only one who sees this student getting grants to build high-power railguns and thinks "future weapons designer"?

      I don't think weapons are cool or fun, since their only intended use is to kill people and destroy things.

      If this guy wants to keep working on the sort of projects he enjoys, he may very well end up building future WMD (weapons of mass destruction) for some military contractor.

      Not cool.

  • You know it's true ... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ... destructive fun is the *most* fun.
  • Just in case his little server goes down, here's the Google cache [216.239.39.100] of the site.

    Have a great weekend everyone :-)

    *nix.org [starnix.org] -- No flamewars here -- all Unices welcome ;-)

  • intelligence? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31, 2003 @07:45PM (#5200836)
    Q: what is it about intelligence and the desire to blow things up?

    A: they are inversely proportional. just look at the current US administration.
    • Q: what is it about intelligence and the desire to blow things up?

      A: they are inversely proportional. just look at the current US administration.

      from a societal or survival-of-the-fittest point of view, the most successful society is the one most capable of destroying the others. that could be achieved by subsuming the other through culture and trade, but when in doubt, it's easier to just blow the other one up.
  • Wait ... that information was provided for educational uses only ...
  • Talk about an explosive website design.

  • Ham Sandwich! (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Potato Salad!

  • Good lesson for an engineering student (Score:5, Funny)

    by kuhneng ( 241514 ) on Friday January 31, 2003 @07:47PM (#5200849) Homepage
    > January 26th:
    > PowerLabs was featured on a ZZZ Article;
    > traffic triples (now at 4000+ hits/day).

    Let's see what he's learned about scalable designs. I guess Slashdot is going to be part of the "+".
  • Hi, this site is all about Powerlabs [powerlabs.org], REAL POWERLABS. This site is awesome. My name is Sam Barros and I can't stop thinking about Powerlabs. These guys are cool; and by cool, I mean totally sweet.

  • Cool (Score:2, Insightful)

    by jeffbruce ( 166203 )
    Cool work, but this guy has way too much time on his hands.
  • PowerLabs was featured on a ZZZ Article; traffic triples (now at 4000+ hits/day).

    Just wait until he sees what happens when he's exposed to /.

  • Wow (Score:3, Funny)

    by Hercynium ( 237328 ) <HercyniumNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Friday January 31, 2003 @07:49PM (#5200872) Homepage Journal
    I, for one, am thoroughly impressed! This guy has put a lot of time, effort and experience into the gentle art of making SMITHEREENS! :-)

    So what happens when he has kids, I wonder???

    • Re:Wow-TV & Movie reference. (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      " I, for one, am thoroughly impressed! This guy has put a lot of time, effort and experience into the gentle art of making SMITHEREENS! :-)

      So what happens when he has kids, I wonder???"

      He changes his name to Adams.

  • Build, don't blow... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bobwyman ( 175558 ) on Friday January 31, 2003 @07:50PM (#5200877) Homepage
    The site claims to be: "The number one Amateur Science page!" This is a bit depressing if true. I sure hope that amateur scientists are working more useful problems than blowing things up...
    I can't help thinking about Vannevar Bush's article in the July 1945 Atlantic Monthly [theatlantic.com] in which he surveyed the possible uses for organized technological development and concluded that "Memex" - the source of the hypertext idea, was the most important thing to work on. What would a similar analysis uncover as the most important problem for technology and "Amateur Scientists" today? I don't think it would have anything to do with blowing things up...

    bob wyman

  • Neat (Score:3, Funny)

    by KDan ( 90353 ) on Friday January 31, 2003 @07:51PM (#5200884) Homepage
    Send that to the people who have been building potato bazookas and wounding people in germany [slashdot.org].

    Hmm, on second thoughts, no, don't send that to them. Last thing they need is someone to build a portable potato railgun...

    Daniel
  • Since the /. crowd seems to appreciate the exciting combination of amateur chemistry and fearlessness

    I think the correct phrase would actually be "...the exciting combination of amateur chemistry and stupidity..." or you could possibly with stupidity with the word Guiness.

  • Go Edison... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by 403Forbidden ( 610018 ) on Friday January 31, 2003 @07:51PM (#5200888)
    Thomas Edison used AC power to electrocute cats, dogs, a horse, and even a 3-ton elephant. He also created the first electric chair, which ran on DC power and almost set the person to be executed on fire (nowadays they are AC). As our knowledge of electricity expanded so did the uses to which this most versatile form of power has been put to.

    And he was the greatest inventor of all time... why?

    • Re:Go Edison... (Score:3, Informative)

      by Ryan Stortz ( 598060 )
      That's a little wrong. Used AC power to electricute animals and on the first electric chair. The reason was that Edison the creator of DC, wanted to show how harmfull his competetor's (Westinghouse) AC power was.

      Edison thought that once people saw how dangerous it was, they'd use his DC power. AC eventually won out because it was able to be sent down powerlines.

      • Re:Go Edison... (Score:2, Informative)

        by attobyte ( 20206 )
        Wasn't Nikola Tesla that came up with AC? Westinghouse just funded him or something? Tesla worked with Edison for a while until Tesla told him AC was better.

        Atto

  • gone are the days of mr wizard (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Brigadier ( 12956 ) on Friday January 31, 2003 @07:52PM (#5200894)


    I grew up with the Mr Wizard generation. Making bombs from flour, hot air baloons and electricuting weiners. Which looking back could have killed me. In highschool we discovered the proportions to gun powder and made a beaker full .... then lit it. We also did electrolisis of salt water H + OH + Na + CL -> NaOH + CL2 + H2 at the time it was looked on as being smart. Now there are flashback of colmbine. I think twice about showing this stuff to my children because it's looked upon as so anarchist

    • Re:gone are the days of mr wizard (Score:4, Funny)

      by collapser ( 610412 ) on Friday January 31, 2003 @08:51PM (#5201223) Homepage
      electrocuting your weiner can kill anyone.
      Unless you're female, in which case it's someone else's.

    • Re:gone are the days of mr wizard (Score:4, Funny)

      by Blind_Samurai ( 644775 ) on Friday January 31, 2003 @09:18PM (#5201357)
      I have a vivid memory of my mother yelling from the upstairs, "What are you doing!?!" "Nothing..." I was dancing around holding a box fan and herding a big green cloud of chlorine gas I had just liberated from pool chemicals out one of those narrow rectangular windows. I didn't think it would make so much.
    • Most certainly don't tell them that putting a cup of washing soda (Sodum Carbonate, not soap) into two cups of boiling water, then adding bits of aluminum foil produces hydrogen gas. That was always my favorite. Broke quite a few mason jars with that one.

      Finding large polarized capacitors and putting the leads into the 240v 3 phase dryer socket in the basement came in a close second.

      Hey everyone...Watch this!

      • I said that once...right before i set my english class's carpet on fire. Now I know what happens when you take a pen spring, wind it around a pencil and stick the two ends into a wall socket. You end up stamping your foot frantically before the teacher comes back into the classroom.

    • Security through noneducation? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Tuxinatorium ( 463682 ) on Friday January 31, 2003 @10:07PM (#5201545) Homepage
      Seriously, security through ignorance is about as futile as security through obscurity. If High Schools want to water down their chemistry classes in a vain attempt to keep people from learning how to make bombs, I pity them. It's not going to stop a kid who wants to blow up the school from doing so, because the information is everywhere and the materials are common household products. They should just go ahead and teach the kids some cool chemistry with cool demonstrations like methane bubbles, nitrocellulose, thermite, Sugar+KNO3, Zinc+NH4NO3+NH4Cl+H20, etc., all of which I got to do in my AP chem class. :) Plus you can save a lot of money on fireworks around the 4th by making your own ;). Go grab a 20-lb bag of ammonium nitrate, some zinc powder, and then some colorings:
      NaCl (table salt) - orange KCl (salt substitute, road salt) - purple CaCl2 (road salt) - orange Copper - blue
      plus paints are a good source of exotic transition metals, if you can figure out what exactly they contain.
      • Seriously, security through ignorance is about as futile as security through obscurity.

        Not necessarily. The kids who REALLY want to do it will, class or no class.
        But the ones who couldn't be bothered to find out for themselves, the marginal ones... won't, and thus not do it, even by accident.

        There's plenty of chemistry to learn in HS without the chemistry of blowing things up.
        Although is IS a lot of fun...;)
  • from http://www.powerlabs.org/chemlabs/index.html
    It should be noted on going through the list of experiments/demonstrations outlined here that all of them involve serious hazards, either in the form of the chemicals utilized, in the procedures, or in the final products yielded by them. Due to that, these procedures have been written up as illustrations only, not as a how-to guide

    A lesson for Linux How-To writers!
  • If you've not seen it already,
    Mike's Electric Stuff [electricstuff.co.uk]
    More dangerous stuff :)

  • Anarchist's Cookbook (Score:2, Informative)

    by march ( 215947 )
    It used to be that one needed to secretly get a copy of William Powell's Anarchist's Cookbook [amazon.com] ("The best way to build your team's moral is to raid an arms depot").... Now, all this stuff is online. Alas...

    But, it sure is fun! (So I've heard. Yeah, that's the ticket!) :-)
  • If I'm not mistaken Sam's site was linked to from another site which was mentioned in a story the other day.. looks like I'm not the only one who stumbled on that little gem in the process of my normal slashdotting!

  • Report from the general (Score:3, Funny)

    by Joe the Lesser ( 533425 ) on Friday January 31, 2003 @07:59PM (#5200927) Homepage Journal
    'The Rail Gun upgrade should be completed soon. I than plan on firing it with a plasma armature, incorporate an inductor into the circuit, and research the effect on efficiency of different pulse lengths and armature compositions.'

    Excellent. With these new weapons our plans to invade earth will soon be complete. Glory to the planet Zorba!
  • Govmint's gonna get you all for reading this website :-).
  • ...the fire extinguishers in my dorm are water only, so they're no good for chemical fires.
  • Govmint's gonna get us all now for reading this website.

    Seriously, though, there's some really cool stuff on here. I've always been a far of hypergolic reactions :-).

  • "The Rail Gun upgrade should be completed soon. I than (sic) plan on firing it with a plasma armature, incorporate an inductor into the circuit, and research the effect on efficiency of different pulse lengths and armature compositions." This is one guy you DO NOT want to slashdot....

  • Differences in people... (Score:5, Funny)

    by cuyler ( 444961 ) <slashdot.theedgeofoblivion@com> on Friday January 31, 2003 @08:03PM (#5200954)
    what is it about intelligence and the desire to blow things up?

    Oh no, you're wrong. Blowing things up is a univerisal love of all humans. It's just the un-intelligent ones only do it once.
  • ...it is really hard to make one of those work, I tried to make one for an electronics project in high school but had no idea just how hard the timing was. You have to time the pulsing of each electromagnet to a specific (and different) time for each one after the projectile passes the sensors that trigger each electromagnet, and you have to calculate, accurately, the force and speed of the projectile, friction between the projectile and barrel (or whatever you use for a delivery system), even air pressure (although I never got that far because mine wouldn't go fast enough for that to matter), and that's just to begin with. It just makes my head hurt remembering it.
  • Think we can blow up their server? It shouldn't take a rail gun to bring it down.
  • January 26th:
    PowerLabs was featured on a ZZZ Article; traffic triples (now at 4000+ hits/day).

    Just give it a few minutes Sam. And break out that asbestos suit while you are at it.
  • Nuff said? I really enjoyed the part where he used to much energy and the projectile burnt up before it left the rail...

  • Holy shiznit. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Phanatic1a ( 413374 ) on Friday January 31, 2003 @08:06PM (#5200972)

    For my senior EE project, I built a railgun. Used aluminmum bar stock for the rails, milled out a channel for a ball bearing, injected the bearing with a paintball gun. The power supply was a bank of electrolytics in parallel totalling 48 mF at 600V, so around 9 kJ total.

    Didn't look anywhere near so impressive as this guy's.

    • Re:Holy shiznit. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by WolfWithoutAClause ( 162946 ) on Friday January 31, 2003 @10:16PM (#5201581) Homepage
      Actually, secretly, he rather overdesigned it; and it works, but doesn't work so well.

      I think out of the hundred meter per second or whatever that the projectile leaves the breech, about 90+% of the speed is due to the gas injector he uses to avoid spot welding.

      The problem is that the pulse of current happens way too early in the gun, and he skids off a lot of his power in arcing.

      He used to run a forum on his website (it seems to be still there, although it doesn't work right now). There was a lot of people, more or less as knowledgeable as him on his forum really interested in trying to help him design it; but he ran roughshod over the lot of them. And they told him about the pulse length issue. So basically they all got majorly pissed off and went off elsewhere in a huff, and they laughed when it didn't go supersonic; well it was Sam Barros's rail gun, but they were trying to help, and he ignored them, and he suffered. Sam had spent too much time going for 'oxygen free copper' to try to improve the current flow, but it didn't help, because but didn't get the fundamentals right.

      But that wasn't the reason they left; it was just the proverbial straw; the problem is that Sam has a few ego problems, atleast online, he may well be more personable in the flesh; but he enjoyed telling people how stupid they were online. Mostly they were too, but few people came back to the site after that kind of treatment; and sometimes Sam was wrong, so he treated them unjustly for no reason.

      So, basically, the powerlabs forum has basically died, all the contributors went elsewhere.

      His basic technical skills are exceptional, although nothing he has done is actually original, so it remains to be seen whether he can achieve his potential, and as anyone can see from the site- he is good.

  • Babu smash! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Wraithlyn ( 133796 ) on Friday January 31, 2003 @08:08PM (#5200991)
    "what is it about intelligence and the desire to blow things up?"

    I think that's more of a male thing than an intelligence thing.

    All you destructive women out there, feel free to violently disagree. And get it on camera, for fuck's sake.
  • The poor fellow. Here he is, happily keeping his website running, and BOOM! I predict /.'d within 2 hours. Luckily, I managed to read the site first.

    (-:Stephonovich:-)

  • Survival Research Labs (Score:5, Informative)

    by Bowling Moses ( 591924 ) on Friday January 31, 2003 @08:09PM (#5200994) Journal
    This blowing things up reminds me of the Survival Research Labs [srl.org]. Big pseudo-military machines running about and causing destruction and mayhem, like the Pitching Machine? [srl.org] I'd love to see any machine that can huck 2x4's at 120 mph. Anyone been lucky enough to see a show?
  • When I was in Tech Shop in highschool I wired up a capasitor wrong and it blew a hole in the desk I was using, I was scared shitless
  • that make Quake 3 one more step closer to becoming a reality :)
  • Whoooh wait... being able to build a rail gun does not make you intelligent. IF you were truely intelligent, you wouldn't blow stuff up.
  • what is it about intelligence and the desire to blow things up?

    desire(to_blow_things_up) = 1/intelligence
  • FP? So what?

    I -love- explosions. Anything to propigate pyrotechnics is a-ok with me :-)

  • We DO like to blow things up (Score:3, Funny)

    by TerryAtWork ( 598364 ) <research@aceretail.com> on Friday January 31, 2003 @08:26PM (#5201099)
    Including Sam Barros' web site when it gets Slashdotted, right?

  • but actually it's a new page
    just remebered me of some guy taking apart one way photo cams to take out capacitor to build his own homemade gaussian gun [slashdot.org]

  • so, what's worse -
    3DO's crushingly dull non-interactive FMV, or VB's nauseating color scheme?

  • If you make a bomb timer with radio shack part, the feds will come asking us and we'll hand over your address.

  • explosive water (Score:5, Interesting)

    by peculiarmethod ( 301094 ) on Friday January 31, 2003 @08:38PM (#5201164) Journal
    "The principle behind Electro Thermal guns: A poorly understood phenomena where water explodes with extreme violence when subjected to high magnitude electrical discharges"

    I've been working on this for years.. it all started in the bathroom at Moore Jr High School..

    don't drink the tap water.. you're supporting terrorism every time you turn the tap.

    pm
  • From this crackpot's website:

    The discovery of electricity came hand-in-hand with the realization that it could be use to harm and kill living things. In 1945, with the
    invention of the Leyden Jar (the first type of capacitor ever developed, invented in the University of Leiden, Netherlands),

    Sorry, Ben Franklin used those jars in Philly way back before france [franceisoc...ermany.org] was a county in Germany.

    high power
    electrical discharges became a possibility, and with them came numerous salon shows where these discharges would be used to
    electrocute birds, rats and other small animals. Thomas Edison used AC power to electrocute cats, dogs, a horse, and even a 3-ton
    elephant. He also created the first electric chair, which ran on DC power and almost set the person to be executed on fire
    (nowadays they are AC).

    Yes, Edison used DC, his competitors (I think they are called General Electric now but I may be mistaken) used AC and the story is backwards!

    The AC guys made the DC electric chairs to show how "dangerous" DC was and they "showed" how "safe" AC was by it not killing people!

    As our knowledge of electricity expanded so did the uses to which this most versatile form of power has
    been put to.

    yea, that might be right.
  • The slashdot crowd likes to blow up (and/or take down) web servers.

    fp
  • ...I think he needs to visit this guy's house.
  • This is essentially Jackass for nerds??
  • Okay, I wear a trench coat, I was just as alienated as the next teenager, but I find this picture [powerlabs.org] a little troubling. Sam Barros lives in Michigan now, and if you saw Bowling for Columbine [bowlingforcolumbine.com] you know what that means - all the other children are armed too. Teenagers with guns bother me, because my Mom TOOK MY GUN AWAY - I mean, because it's dangerous.

    It's not how long you lived, it's HOW you lived...

    I felt the same way when I was his age :)

    Seriously; there are physiological changes that occur, alterations in brain chemistry, which, let us face facts, impair the judgement and good sense of young people. That is not to say that there are no teenagers with far better sense than the average adult; but even so, it's a stage in neurological development that does not promote sensible behavior.

    It also means that explosions are not nearly as cool as they seem when you're 18. Another fact - chicks do not dig explosions. I learned this the hard way so now I pass it on to the younger generation.

    I don't think explosives chemistry is a good starting place for a junior chemist; Sam Barros has obviously done fine, but I'm not sure how this stands as a role model. For one thing, he clearly does have good sense (note the many safety warnings emblazoned all over his web page.)

    Chemistry involving dyes, optics, visual effects, material science and metallurgy (electroplating, for example) is no more difficult and much safer. Making stuff like this can't indulge your inner pyromanic like a bomb can. I'm not trying to criticize teenage boys for wanting to cause some damage - I certainly did - but it worries me.

    So, I wonder - why does the slashdot story focus on the explosives? His EM devices are cooler anyway.

    Ah, the hell with it. I'm only 23 years old! What am I thinking? It's time I put together a web page on how to weaponise biological and chemical agents. Now THAT would earn you some attention at the science fair.

    Finally - when blowing up your school, wear ear protection! Regrowing fingers and toes is just around the corner (well, hopefully, I have some friends working on this); regrowing your inner ear may never be possible.
  • "You darn kids - just wait 'til I get my cane!"

    "Sorry Mr. Jenkins, we didn't mean to fire our homemade railgun through your window, and your wal, and your car..."

  • I saw the article
    no posts yet
    I'll think I'll wait out
    the slashdot effect

  • The Electrocuting Water Cannon (Score:5, Informative)

    by Alien54 ( 180860 ) on Friday January 31, 2003 @09:20PM (#5201365) Journal
    Well, there's always the Electrocuting Water Cannon [jaycor.com].

    As noted in the Village Voice [villagevoice.com]:

    The innovative savvy of American electrical engineers always astounds. If something terrible can be built in the name of security, they never shirk. Who else would be brilliant enough to come up with a water gun that carries molar-rattling electrical shocks?

    The aqueous electrocutor sprays a "high-pressure saline solution with additives" mixed in to maximize range in putting down that troublesome rabble. "[Debilitating] but not lethal shocks" move through the water jet, according to Jaycor's online brochure. The company hints the voltage can be turned up "to deliver potent electrical shocks to equipment as well as individuals."

    This stuff is starting to scare me. And the basic idea is simple enough that it could be a do it yourself in your own garage type of project for either the profoundly brilliant or profoundly stupid

  • Whatever happened to the Rocket Guy - they guy who was building his homemade rocket for sub-orbital flight - has he blown himself up yet?

  • Sam Barros? Bah! That's kids stuff compared to.... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Dolemite_the_Wiz ( 618862 ) on Friday January 31, 2003 @09:52PM (#5201487) Journal

    ...Survival Research Labratories [srl.org] (Their motto: "Producing The Most Dangerous Shows on Earth.")

    Here's a tesla coil for you!! [srl.org] (Standing 20 Feet Tall)

    With shows like:

    A CALCULATED FORECAST OF ULTIMATE DOOM: Sickening Episodes of Widespread Devastation Accompanied by Sensations of Pleasurable Excitement [srl.org]

    ...and...

    A Carnival of Misplaced Devotion: Calculated to Arouse Resentment for the Principles of Order [srl.org]

    ...and, of course...

    The Best of SRL!!! [srl.org]

    Pretty friggin cool 'eh?

    Dolemite

  • From the video [powerlabs.org] (or the 3 frame JPG [powerlabs.org]) of his test fire, it looks like the blue curley trail from the quake gun aren't actually that far from reality...

    Granted, it appears to have occurred as a result of a malfunction (too short a burst -> mild projectile vaporization), but -- hey, you can't have everything!

  • None of these high-voltage devices can even hold a candle to The World's Only Ass-Kicking Machine [fred.net].
  • Looks like a kid with really rich parents. If all parents were that rich and put all their money into their kid's hobbies we would be a lot farther along. By the time normal kids are old enough to afford just one of these experiments, they've lost the curiosity and imagination.

  • did he get a call from Ashcroft yet? supposedly the gov doesn't free non govermental site like this up because it provides too much informattion to terrorists..

    Of course try explaining that any religous fundamentalist who is edcuated in science can do the same things seems to fall on deaf ears..

    Stop Terrorism Now! BLOW UP TH FREAKING SCHOOLS!
  • I don't get it. I always did it the old-fashioned way. Go to 7-11 and got a box full of 100 packs of matches. Stop buy a hobby shop and buy model rocket wick (water proof, for some reason). Grab a paint scraper and a hammer and cut off all the match heads (the sulfer parts). Pack them in a lenght of pipe (SLOWLY!!!) after you've drilled a small hole in the side for the wick you've just stuck through it. After packing the pipe, fold the other end over in a vice or whatever. Light it and run.

    1 foot of wick == 1 second of time.
  • I love the first line on one of the pages: "Anything is a weapon if you swing it right."

    My man Frued would be proud.

    -UF
  • He has an awfully big collection of really dangerous technology experiments. A lot of comments here about how blowing things up relates to intelligence. I've got to believe he is pretty good and careful about being safe, since it doesn't appear that anyone has been killed of maimed in any of these experiments.

    Not sure I would want him for a neighbor, though. I looked at much the stuff about chemically launching golf balls, culminating with the chrome plated tube from the hydrolics of a constuction machine. They estimated 2500 mph or about Mach 2 and a distance of 10km. I've got to wonder where the golf ball came down for that attempt, hope it didn't hit anything.

  • I wonder what has happened to those home chemistry kits for kids I saw in stores some 25 years ago? I haven't seen them for years, at least in Finland.

    It would also be kind of boring to buy a kit that are classified as "8 years and up", "10 and up", "12 and up", and it stops there. Where are the "30 years and up" boxes???

    The situation to get chemistry kits may have become globally worse in last 1? years. Also here in Finland, a "home chemist" blew up himself in a mall [iltalehti.fi] (pictures from the location), killing about 5 others and wounding some 100. I guess people would look at me very suspiciously if I went to a store asking for a "home chemistry set" now...

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