Random Thread #1

[shagaKahn]

Moonshine is a crude drink, much like crude oil to be honest

 

Throw it through a reflux still a few times and carbon filter it and you end up with some drinkable vodka.

 

Good advice, ww. Traditionally the grain was corn but wheat or barley will work too.

 

But absolutely nasty stuff. The distillation process involves no filtration whatsoever so the fusel oil content is downright toxic.

 

Don't know if any of you recall the ancient Russian tradition of sprinkling black pepper on your vodka before drinking it? Well it has nothing to do with a love of pepper. You sprinkle on the pepper and wait till it sinks then drink off the vodka leaving the saturated pepper in the bottom of your glass. The pepper has soaked up the fusel oil.

 

This habit went away with the advent of double and even triple-charcoal filtration which removes the fusel oil.

 

Fusel oil is a byproduct of nearly all grain (and potato) distillations and it is poison--but then so is alcohol so what the hell . . .

[Swede]

Being this the random thread i thought this place was appropriate.

 

My mates feeble attempts at picking up girls with pickup lines. I hope he was taking the piss. Not sure if its his or from somewhere.

 

"Whoa ladies did you fart? Cause you blew me away!"

 

Couldn't breathe I was laughing so hard

 

Worst pickup line I have ever heard: "I can make you SCREAM in pleasure."

 

My friend swore by it. 9 out of 10 times he'd get slapped or elbowed or ignored, but the tenth time... score. If he didn't live up to his pickup line, though, I don't suspect anything ever lasted. How can you form any sort of a relationship with a line like that?

[WarezWally]

Depends what sort of relationship your after

[Ventsi]

Any of you guys interested in SGRS?

Because im going to make me some and i can only get 10# bags of botan rice.

 

If so in what amounts,and prices?

 

I'll post in the Agora when i get around to making some.

Edited April 17, 2009 by Ventsi

[Miech]

I've already made myself a large amount. Sure I'm never gonna do that again, that stuff sticks to anything during making it. I made it by steaming a large ball of glutinous rice dough over a pot of water until it became yellowish semi-translucent and sticky as hell. Then I dried it in the oven at 120^oC and spent the rest of the day getting it out of it. It's actually so hard even my ball mill doesn't grind it up very well. That's when I bought my meatgrinder (6) .

[marks265]

Ok, you have to remember that Freeman is possibly not familiar with specific formulas. If you here an anouncer and said, this shell have M-27. Would you know that It would mean mumble #27 glitter? He's old, and might not have read all the books. You really should give a full discription. Chrysanthemum shell to red glitter is really all that is needed.

 

By they way. You guys should watch out in Iowa in 2 years. I am going for Best first time class B competitor, and no one shall get in my way,

 

 

I was reading through the comet thread and found this. Well Mumbles it's about 2 years now, ya goin'???

[Mumbles]

LOL. Well, the plan remains the same, but the venue shall be changed to 2010 in Appleton. I graduate next fall, and don't plan on getting a job before grad school, so I'll have a lot of time on my hands. I plan on going though. Depends on the job situation. If I can actually get a job this summer, I don't know if I can get a few days to a week off at the end of the summer.

[flying fish]

Hehe...my last semester is this summer...kinda sucks for people that want to go right into grad school. No break at all...In many cases you'll be finishing up Undergrad and Starting grad simultaneously (one of my friends did this...He went off to some Turkish university to study optics and was still finishing stuff up while he was oversees!)

 

That's why I decided to take the year off!!!

 

Well, at least from school. I still plan to work. And heck...I'm learning more at work than I would have at school anyway. Lots of interesting things about waveguide optics and lasers (since I'm helping build a fiber ring laser based on planar waveguide filtering/coupling components). Granted, this information is all probably going to be useless to me once I leave this company...Waveguide optics is really most useful for telecom (which I'm too late for), although supposedly optical computing is going to be the next big thing...

Edited April 22, 2009 by flying fish

[Swede]

Good for you. But I'd skip the work if I were you! It'll always be there waiting for you. A whole... friggin... lifetime of it.

 

Never forget the old but very true saying, "You'll never see a tombstone with 'I wish I had spent more time at the office...' "

 

Time goes FAST. My little kids grew up in the blink of an eye. Soon it'll be empty nest. Have some fun while you're young and have few responsibilities. Like a fat mortgage, IRA's, 401K's, wills, trusts, blah blah.

[hst45]

Take a year off before Grad School and find yourself.

 

You'll find yourself alright, you'll find yourself married, with three kids, a minivan, a mortgage, 30 pounds overweight, in a job that sucks, and you'll always wonder what your life would have been like if you hadn't "settled down." Don't ever loose your edge. If it's your passion go for it NOW; there is no tomorrow. You'll NEVER regret what your reach out for; you'll ALWAYS regret what you reach back for. The only good view is from the edge. Risky? You bet. No reward is earned by those who don't push themselves past their comfort zone.

Edited April 22, 2009 by hst45

[Ventsi]

Hmm..

Anyone now what the compound/s inside a rechargable Li-ion battery are ?

 

Some lithium complex I would think.

I somehow found the stupidity to open one of these and its now in 2 plastic baggies in an airtight conatner.

 

Just curious here , would the compound/s in there be useful?

[Rogue Chemist]

Lithium ion batteries have no Li metal.

 

One electrode is a lithium-intercalated graphite matrix and the other is lithium-intercalated cobalt oxide.

[flying fish]

Good for you. But I'd skip the work if I were you! It'll always be there waiting for you. A whole... friggin... lifetime of it.

 

Never forget the old but very true saying, "You'll never see a tombstone with 'I wish I had spent more time at the office...' "

 

Time goes FAST. My little kids grew up in the blink of an eye. Soon it'll be empty nest. Have some fun while you're young and have few responsibilities. Like a fat mortgage, IRA's, 401K's, wills, trusts, blah blah.

Haha, I could take the year off and travel cross country to pyro events!

Take a year off before Grad School and find yourself.

 

You'll find yourself alright, you'll find yourself married, with three kids, a minivan, a mortgage, 30 pounds overweight, in a job that sucks, and you'll always wonder what your life would have been like if you hadn't "settled down." Don't ever loose your edge. If it's your passion go for it NOW; there is no tomorrow. You'll NEVER regret what your reach out for; you'll ALWAYS regret what you reach back for. The only good view is from the edge. Risky? You bet. No reward is earned by those who don't push themselves past their comfort zone.

 

I'll take that as a warning not to settle down - thought I don't think I was in any danger just yet! For one, I haven't found anyone that I would consider actually settling down with, so there's no pressure to "settle down." In fact there, may be more pressure not to; the physicists who I'm working for (as you might suspect) have academic backgrounds and I have a feeling they will eventually push me out of their company and into grad school...as soon as they find a new lab rat. It's been the way of this company for years... I know at least a few people who have worked here and THEN gone on to grad school (including my advisor at the university!)

 

At this point I probably don't have much of a choice but to delay grad school a year...I haven't applied to any Schools, so it's kinda too late for this year (at least for a PhD program it is...I suppose I could like take classes or something. Maybe I should consider a masters program...but that means paying for grad school, which is fail...very fail).

Edited April 23, 2009 by flying fish

[swervedriver]

Random- My finger was getting tired using my tiny travel sprayer/atomizer for rolling stars, but I like the super fine spray they give for starting tiny cores, sooo...

 

Here's my solution, lazy-man's atomizer, works great -

 

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/disp...temnumber=65297

 

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/photos/65200-65299/65297.gif

[WarezWally]

ANZAC day today

[asilentbob]

I have one of those refill-able sprayers too. They are nice, just make sure you actually use it and clean out the inside good. The inside of mine is starting to oxidize somewhat after I had left water in it for some months. BUT I had never thought about using it for making stars! I might have to do that next time too!

 

Getting ready to move off and go to real college. Still haven't decided for sure... BUT looks like Texas A&M Corpus Christi. So coastal, beautiful, high female scientist concentration . I have a short list of things I have decided that I really must have or must have completed before transferring and moving down there. So that is what I have been working on aside from school stuff. 3ish weeks left of the semester so lots of tests and stuff has been going on.

 

One of those things is a uninterpretable power supply. Just got a used one on ebay tonight that has a lot of good features and massive potential for run-time expansion. Now I can have my server/seeding computer, laptop, external HDDs, and alarm clock on it... So in a power hickup everything keeps running and I wake up on time.

 

Umm pyrotechnics... right. I sorta thought out a possibility for an improved shape charge cone. However it would need a lot of experimentation and testing to determine if it is really an improvement at all. Its not very advanced or anything and I'd share it, but I'm holding onto it for now until I can figure out if people have tested it before... Which they most likely have... but you never know...

 

I've also got a few much smaller firework ideas... that aren't new, but I don't really want to share again just yet. I won't be entering in PGI completions this year so its not like a secret composition or anything. Just want to keep it on the DL in the case that it turns out working really well or... really bad.

 

Umm I need to brew stuff. Bad. Brew and bottle. Gotta stock up for college ya know?

 

I'm going to work over the summer. Haven't decided where just yet. I really want to see if I can get some sort of assistant or trainee type job dealing with explosives blasting or working in a lab of some sort. Failing that, I really don't know. Maybe deliver pizza again and watch my car fall apart faster. I just really want to get a job to give me more experience in something scientific that I'm interested in. AND network. The local Homebrew store would be cool, BUT there is apparently a long list for getting hired... So you put in an application a few years ahead of time lol. And I didn't. ... But bottom line is I need to make enough money for PGI, another trip to the black hole, unforeseen road-tripping, and hopefully a bunch towards a new used car.

[swervedriver]

Blackmatch machine, 1/8" match-

[rocket]

Finished some 1 lb rocket tooling today, took me 2 ½ days of on and off work.

Still tossing up weather to put knurling on the rammers or a hole for a pulling rod.

 

Next thing to do is finish the gerb tooling and look at making a star plate.

 

.....1 lb Tooling Set.....

[Yankie]

Finished some 1 lb rocket tooling today, took me 2 ½ days of on and off work.

Still tossing up weather to put knurling on the rammers or a hole for a pulling rod.

 

Next thing to do is finish the gerb tooling and look at making a star plate.

 

.....1 lb Tooling Set.....

 

I see you have finished making my birthday present

Very nice tooling there, I look forward to seeing what your star plate will turn out like. I recently ordered one from supreme pyro, am still waiting for it to arrive.

[TrueBluePyro]

wat size star plate did you get yankie? and was the shipping a killer how much did it all cost to get to Australia? Edited April 26, 2009 by TrueBluePyro

[Yankie]

wat size star plate did you get yankie? and was the shipping a killer how much did it all cost to get to Australia?

 

10mm, the shipping was insanely high, and Ting tried to take every cent she could, she quoted me, I payed with paypal, they took 2.20 off for the fee, she said could you please send another $5, I said I would send 2.20 if you really want, she replied with yes that would be good if you could send $3!!! Even still it will probably be the cheapest star plate I can find.

[TrueBluePyro]

so how much all up for the shipping for the plate?

 

EDIT: since this is the random thread i can do this: I am now a pyromaniac, though i consider myself a pyrotechincain, but this will have to do, lol

Edited April 26, 2009 by TrueBluePyro

[Yankie]

so how much all up for the shipping for the plate?

 

It ended up being around 30 euros! She didn't quote an exact price, but for the star plate and one 60 mesh screen it was $85 AUD

[TrueBluePyro]

wow thats kind of a b*tch I hope it is good tooling tho mate, it will make things alot easyer (i'm looking on the brighter side )

[WarezWally]

I hope you get what you ordered from supremepyro, I was less than impressed with what I received.