Mumbles Posted January 18, 2009 Posted January 18, 2009 I know the good always come with the bad. At least the bad tend to ween themselves out eventually. It could be good for some of those people. I know TOTSE has a bad reputation. There is no way around it, there was a lot of dumb crap on TOTSE. There is good in there, but you have to sift through all the threads and files on how to get high off peanut skins, and making drugs out of ritalin and toothpaste. Perhaps some of the people with an honest interest will get some exposure to more legitimate fields and ideas. A similar thing happened a while ago when the Hive went down. Most of them went to Science Madness. You know, to talk about theoretical proceedures that SWIM was using to make phenyl-2-propanone. I'd imagine a similar thing will happen now. We'll probably get some, E&W will get some, Science Madness will get some. It is my personal belief that, like the Hive shutdown, there will be an influx of the untintelligent. I haven't been to TOTSE in a while. The last time I was there though, nearly every notable person involved in pyrotechnics was a member of at least one of the other major pyro/chem boards. Their favorite hangout might be changing, but they're far from new. I know very few legitimate people involved in energetic chemistry that are not members of one or more of the more well respected forums. I don't really anticipate an issue from this. Hopefully we get some newer people in here, stimulate some discussion, get new view points, etc. The Boomers arn't going to last long here. They all have to go through me personally to get HE access, and they have to prove themselves first. While we're not nearly as strict as E&W, I'm still not going to tolerate dumbasses trying to blow up mailboxes or asking why their m-80s don't work.
flying fish Posted January 18, 2009 Posted January 18, 2009 (edited) Yay, tablet PCs! Most of my college friends have been swearing by tablets for a while now. My sister actually just got one as well, and I was playing around with it a few hours ago...An HP, 2 Ghz, vista, basically the lower end of the new tablets. In any case, I think I'm sold now. I was utterly shocked at how well it recognized my handwriting. It was able to convert most of horribly sloppy writing correctly to text! I'm talking a computer that can recognize my handwriting at least as well as I can! And it wasn't even calibrated for my handwriting yet! The thing writes beautifully and note taking software is quite versatile. But the real selling point for me is the fact that I have horrendous organization with my notes...and I hope this will help. Heck...even in the worst case scenario if I don't organize my tablet notes at all - they would still automatically be organizable by date, as with any computer files. Not to mention they will all be in the same place(s) - the hard drive and whatever I back it up on. So basically, it is the "passive" organization of notes that seems like it would help me in school and at work, big time. My plan seems foolproof, though it would set me back about $900. Sound like a good plan? Anyone here use a tablet? Edited January 18, 2009 by flying fish
Swede Posted January 18, 2009 Posted January 18, 2009 WW, you're a good man, thank you for the offers. I've got more mesh than I know what to do with. I've been participating in a sort of parallel thread over on Science Madness... good forum. Anyway, I've got a few ideas I want to try, with the goal being a lead dioxide anode that DOES NOT require my insane sort of setup. Smaller amounts of reagents. Less "stuff". Electrochemistry has really sparked my interest (bad pun) and I'm enjoying myself immensly. One of the SMDB guys pointed out (rightly so, I think) that a thick, massive coating should in theory NOT be necessary. If the chemistry is correct, and the substrate will not passivate (hopefully the MMO will prevent that) then all that is required is a thin, modest coating applied correctly. I think I went a little nuts; this thing is HEAVY and dense for its size. So the real goal is a small pot, one-shot plating that works. I've been told that the PbO2 that you'd buy from a chemical dealer is not the correct form (alpha vs beta), but the 500 grams of PbO2 that I do have, is deep black and may be the active form. I'd still like to discover a route to a composite anode using that stuff. I know I mentioned it somewhere, but the idea is a PVC binder (made from CPVC glue and PVC powder) + MEK, maybe 3% to 5% by weight, with PbO2 powder, hydraulically pressed into a copper tube. Etch the copper tube away with ferric chloride except for a 1" section which will take your connection. There's your anode. Stuff like that, I definitely want to try in the future.
Richtee Posted January 18, 2009 Posted January 18, 2009 Coffee out on the deck this AM anyone? http://i471.photobucket.com/albums/rr72/esalink/100_8247.jpg
TheSidewinder Posted January 18, 2009 Posted January 18, 2009 Is that the Winter's accumulation, or just last night's snow? We're getting snow here again, but it won't amount to squat. Thank god our temps are above zero. We had an 86 hour stretch of below-zero temps here this week. Whee..... every year about this time I remember just how much I *HATE* Winter.
flying fish Posted January 18, 2009 Posted January 18, 2009 (edited) ^^^same here in Michigan. I remember me and my friends celebrating (in a satirical manner) when the temperature finally made it above 0 F on friday. Now the cold seems to be over, as we seem to be back to a nice, tropical 22 degrees! We did get some snow though. Something like 5-8 inches over the last 24 hours. When my parents went out to shovel, I justified my not-going-out-to-help via the "law of diminishing returns" I learned about in my economics class. The theory being that we don't have enough capital equipment to justify three people going out to shovel. We have one snow blower, one good shovel, and one shovel with a broken handle. If I were to go out, I would be using the ghetto broken shovel - which is not a very efficient way to shovel and thus the returns of having an extra worker outside will have diminished. Isn't school wonderful? Edited January 18, 2009 by flying fish
Richtee Posted January 18, 2009 Posted January 18, 2009 Is that the Winter's accumulation, or just last night's snow? The last week's pile. About 8" or so last night, 4" the day before, 3 to 4" a couple days before that...ad nauseum...
TheSidewinder Posted January 18, 2009 Posted January 18, 2009 Hrmph. Normally, here in Minne-snow-ta, we get snow *OR* cold. Not this year, dammit. We've got snow *AND* cold. Snow I can handle, cold I hate. And the older I get, the less I can tolerate it. *sigh*
Richtee Posted January 18, 2009 Posted January 18, 2009 (edited) Hrmph. Normally, here in Minne-snow-ta, we get snow *OR* cold. Not this year, dammit. We've got snow *AND* cold. Snow I can handle, cold I hate. And the older I get, the less I can tolerate it. *sigh*Cold has beem fugging me up...I have 17 lbs of pork belly I'm trying to cure... it's been so cold my fridge in the garage ain't working of course... so I been shuttling a cooler in and out for 4 days now trying to keep the 36-40° range. Grrr!http://www.smoked-meat.com/forum/showthrea...p?p=37#poststop Edited January 18, 2009 by Richtee
mormanman Posted January 19, 2009 Posted January 19, 2009 (edited) I built a propane burner for casting metal. Its sweet. I'll see if my video is done processing. Edited January 19, 2009 by mormanman
crazyboy25 Posted January 19, 2009 Posted January 19, 2009 My friend (superman1451) and I just made ethyl benzoate (fruity ester) and I made methyl salicylate (minty ester) previously. Next up methyl benzoate and hopefully the esters for the smells banana, orange, grape, pineapple, strawberry, pear and apple. I plan to wash the methyl salicylate and use it to make triboluminescent sugar.
Swede Posted January 19, 2009 Posted January 19, 2009 All I can say is Muhahahaha for all you Northerners. I know the drill... grew up in the Chicago area. One year we had snow so deep (I am NOT exaggerating) that we had to shovel a canyon to the driveway from the front door. The canyon walls were >6' deep. The snow had drifted to the house gutters. In the military, I lived all over the South and vowed to never subject myself to Northern winters again. We settled in TX. Xetap nailed it... temps in the 50's through most of the winter. Of course the summers are unbearable, but hey! There are three places in the U.S. with a perfect climate. #1 is Hawaii, #2 is Southern California, #3 is the Florida Keys. In the Keys, you get the nicer Caribbean weather rather than the sultry Southern summers. Otherwise, it is a tradeoff somewhere between hot and cold.
flying fish Posted January 19, 2009 Posted January 19, 2009 I personally love the northern winter. Snow is fun stuff. You can throw it at people, you can eat it, make snowmen out of it, ski down a slope of it, practice some low-speed drifting, and hike through it randomly. Very versatile! Shoveling is just the extra exercise I need. You can even walk barefoot through it for short periods of time...depending on the weather! Diving into it naked is usually not suggested though. My parents keep telling me and my brother and sister...that after we are all out of college we better settle down in a WARM place. And I'm feeling rebellious....
hst45 Posted January 20, 2009 Posted January 20, 2009 There's nothing better than winter in the North. Last Thursday I went skiing, tomorrow I'm going ice fishing. The wood stove gives off comforting long wavelength energy that warms the bones to combat the -24 degree cold we had here Saturday. "let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...."
flying fish Posted January 20, 2009 Posted January 20, 2009 (edited) Just bought a Gateway C-143XL tablet PC! That was a $1005 investment...I sure hope it works out for me. It was "on sale", actually cheaper than the lower model! Can't complain about getting a Radeon graphics card, faster hard drive, faster processor, and a few other nice upgrades on a computer that was actually $100 cheaper than the "one-down" model which had an integrated graphics card and slightly lower specs! Sounds like a sales ploy at getting people to buy the thing compulsively! Putting that aside, the Gateway really was the best deal for the type of computer that I wanted. HP also makes affordable tablets, but unfortunately they really skimp on stock battery life, which is not conducive to note taking in a 4 hour block of classes with no easy access to an outlet. On a different note, I saw this thing behind my house today (walked outside and snapped a picture of it): http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b330/WhyAreAllUserNamesTaken/Weirdbirdthing-1-19-09-BehindSchenc.jpgMy uncle say that he thinks it is a wild turkey. Googling "wild turkey" seems to confirm this. Anyway, I thought it was cool how close to the wildlife I really am! Well, in Lake Orion anyway. Edited January 20, 2009 by flying fish
tentacles Posted January 20, 2009 Posted January 20, 2009 My uncle say that he thinks it is a wild turkey. Googling "wild turkey" seems to confirm this Only one way to be sure - eat im!
flying fish Posted January 20, 2009 Posted January 20, 2009 LOL. The land behind my house is a public preserve, so eating the wildlife is not allowed. As a result, the wildlife are freeloading off of us...The deer eat our bird seed and occasionally hang out on our front porch!
Richtee Posted January 20, 2009 Posted January 20, 2009 LOL. The land behind my house is a public preserve, so eating the wildlife is not allowed. As a result, the wildlife are freeloading off of us...The deer eat our bird seed and occasionally hang out on our front porch! Actually, eating them there is allowed. It's the killing them there that's the problem. Heh... Indeed a wild turkey... I have a small army of 'em down the road. They roost in the pines quite often. Cool pict!
Mephistos Minion Posted January 20, 2009 Posted January 20, 2009 Whenever I consume too much wild turkey I suffer the following symptoms: Disorientation,Nausia,Lack of Self control,Attraction to fatties All this is followed the next day by a shocking headache and polaroids of things I don't remember happening.
Brakkie Posted January 20, 2009 Posted January 20, 2009 I don't get you guys... You live in the states, pretty much all of you have a gun and I know some of you got absolute crates full of ammo right now... It's dinner time guys! I hear people talking about deer, turkey, etc. in their garden. Dammit, if it was my property I'd have a christmas dinner every night! lol
WarezWally Posted January 20, 2009 Posted January 20, 2009 Still deciding whether or not I should stay up till 3:30AM to watch your inauguration on TV.
Richtee Posted January 20, 2009 Posted January 20, 2009 Still deciding whether or not I should stay up till 3:30AM to watch your inauguration on TV. Hmmm no one told me I was getting inaugurated! Dang..I better get moving! LOL. I'm ignoring the whole thing.
WarezWally Posted January 20, 2009 Posted January 20, 2009 I don't even like the guy... but it is a historic moment.
Brakkie Posted January 20, 2009 Posted January 20, 2009 I'm watching that's for sure... You know me and my old man were discussing something hypotetically. What IF Obama gets shot at his inauguration? I mean it only takes one bullet from a psychopath. I know there'a lot of cops and army and shit but I mean just being in a window far away, good high powered rifle and the guy is down. I know there's plenty of people that would rather see him dead than in the oval office... So what IF? What would happen?
WarezWally Posted January 20, 2009 Posted January 20, 2009 How far back do those guys go? The only way your getting a chunk of metal near him is with some sort of handmade 30mm cannon and ahh you wont be getting that into and out of position in a hurry.
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