POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.off-topic : Life Sucked at My School This Week Server Time
11 Oct 2024 17:46:34 EDT (-0400)
  Life Sucked at My School This Week (Message 31 to 40 of 58)  
<<< Previous 10 Messages Goto Latest 10 Messages Next 10 Messages >>>
From: Darren New
Subject: Re: Life Sucked at My School This Week
Date: 21 Oct 2007 11:35:03
Message: <471b71a7$1@news.povray.org>
Orchid XP v7 wrote:
> Actually, anyone who's ever played with one of these will confirm a very 
> disturbing fact: Almost *everything* is slightly radioactive! Seriously. 
> Everything I put near the thing registered very slightly. Including my 
> lunch...

In the USA, it's illegal to build a nuclear reactor out of quarried 
rock, as the rock is more radioactive than the reactor is allowed to 
leak. Seems kind of silly to me.

M_a_r_c wrote:
 > One of the biggest lies from French authorities : "the Tchernobyl 
cloud did
 > not pass the French boundaries"

As I understand it, the disaster got noticed because the workers in the 
Swedish nuclear reactors were arriving more radioactive than they were 
leaving.

On the other hand, some level of radiation is actually even necessary 
for good health. So it's all in the dosage, really.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     Remember the good old days, when we
     used to complain about cryptography
     being export-restricted?


Post a reply to this message

From: Gail Shaw
Subject: Re: Life Sucked at My School This Week
Date: 21 Oct 2007 11:43:57
Message: <471b73bd@news.povray.org>
"Michael Raiford" <mra### [at] hotmailcom> wrote in message
news:471b6742@news.povray.org...
> > - Apparently if you mix amonia and some other compound together, the
> > resulting mixture explodes when it dries out. We smeared it over a
> > cardboard box in the garden. For some reason, it only ever exploded at
> > night... A succession of small pops and bangs.
>
> sounds like nitrogen triiodide. Contact explosive... supposedly fun
stuff..

Crackle powder (I think). We had great fun with that at university. Scatterd
some across the cmp sci main office floor. Was a thick pile carpet. For some
reason we weren't popular the next morning... *g*


Post a reply to this message

From: Gail Shaw
Subject: Re: Life Sucked at My School This Week
Date: 21 Oct 2007 11:45:43
Message: <471b7427@news.povray.org>
"Brian Elliott" <NotForSpam@AskIfUWant> wrote in message
news:471b6c5d$1@news.povray.org...

> Selecting from tables, their column definitions and table data are only a
> small part of getting the data and structure out:  I have to get the
entire
> application out.  I would also have to make SQL to recreate:
>
> Table type (heap, index-organised, cluster, partition) Definitions of all
> indexes and constraints on each table, foreign-key constraints to other
> tables, tablespace and storage info, remembering again to do the same for
> each of its indexes.
>
> Triggers on the tables -- PL/SQL code that fires before/after an
> insert/update/delete.
> Sequences, including the number they are now at. (So new sequences are
> created from that starting point instead of starting at one)
>
> Views -- named SQL that can be selected and joined as one uses a table in
> most places.
> The program code stored in PL/SQL functions, procedures and packages.
>
> Jobs.  Ugh, I know the least about these.  I'm sure OEM will have job
> schedules registered in the database engine.
>

Dunnon about Oracle, but in MS SQL, all of those are stored in tables as
well and are scriptable, providing you know the right tables.


Post a reply to this message

From: Darren New
Subject: Re: Life Sucked at My School This Week
Date: 21 Oct 2007 11:54:38
Message: <471b763e$1@news.povray.org>
Gail Shaw wrote:
> Dunnon about Oracle, but in MS SQL, all of those are stored in tables as
> well and are scriptable, providing you know the right tables.

And to the extent they aren't, you don't have a relational database. Of 
course, now with some places doing things like storing non-SQL compiled 
code in the database, it's more difficult to make valid backups just by 
copying data without copying structure.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     Remember the good old days, when we
     used to complain about cryptography
     being export-restricted?


Post a reply to this message

From: Brian Elliott
Subject: Re: Life Sucked at My School This Week
Date: 21 Oct 2007 12:14:24
Message: <471b7ae0@news.povray.org>
"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message 
news:471b7099$1@news.povray.org...
> Michael Raiford wrote:
>> school campus heard the resulting bang.
>
> I had friends who worked at a science museum (the Franklin Institute) 
> giving lectures and such. One day Tony filled a 3-foot weather balloon 
> with hydrogen and oxygen, and put it on a long thread so it floated near 
> the top of the lecture hall. (Picture a stadium-seating huge room like you 
> see college lectures being given in in movies.) Then he points the 
> parabolic heat lamp at it and turns off all the switches.
>
> Kurt goes in, turns on all the lights, starts his lecture on liquid air. I 
> walk in, and Tony is in the back of the room, going "SHhh! Shhh!"
>
> About five minutes into the lecture, there's a kaBOOM that literally 
> cracks some of the windows.  Kurt jumps about three feet, looks around, 
> waves to Tony, and goes back to lecturing.
>
> (This is the same Tony that couldn't figure out where the cardboard 
> canister he'd stuffed home-made high explosives into went after he touched 
> it off and blew a 3-foot deep crater in the dirt.)

Two of my favourite things were tins of sodium hydroxide and rolls of 
aluminium foil.  Put together in water, they produced plenty of hydrogen, 
which I and a mate filled many balloons and garbage bags with.  Had to be 
careful, as it is highly exothermic and the mix can easily boil.  We used to 
tie sparklers to the necks, light them, and float them off.  The balloon 
would explode just as the sparkler got near the end of its burn.  Looked 
good at night.

I also used to make bangs with two large bolts, one large hexagonal nut and 
a lot of match-heads.  Half-screw one bolt into the nut, scrape the 
phosphorous from several matches into the well, screw in the other bolt, 
then throw it at a concrete surface or hit it end-on with a hammer.  Four or 
five heads was enough to make a bang.  Twenty matches was enough to make an 
air-splitting gunshot explosion.  On that occasion, one bolt completely 
stripped out of the thread and went so far from the point of impact that we 
never found it.

We were smart enough to duck behind a pile of rocks while it was still in 
midair.

And one strange thing:  Back when the flints on the sides of matchboxes were 
made more substantially than they are today.  Peel them off the sides of the 
matchbox.  Strip as much cardboard off their backs as you can, to get the 
brown flint/phosphor patch on the thinnest paper layer possible.  Place it 
face-down on a cold tin lid.  Burn it.  It fizzes a bit like a match head, 
but the flame is smoky and smelly.  Blow off any ash. You find an orangeish 
semi-liquid condensate on the lid.  Dip a forefinger tip in it, then rub 
your thumb and forefinger together.  White smoke rises from your fingers. 
In the dark, it glows when you do this.

-- 
Brian


Post a reply to this message

From: Orchid XP v7
Subject: Re: Life Sucked at My School This Week
Date: 21 Oct 2007 13:07:07
Message: <471b873b$1@news.povray.org>
Gail Shaw wrote:

> Crackle powder (I think). We had great fun with that at university. Scatterd
> some across the cmp sci main office floor. Was a thick pile carpet. For some
> reason we weren't popular the next morning... *g*

And I thought you were such a *good* little girl... :-0


Post a reply to this message

From: Orchid XP v7
Subject: Re: Life Sucked at My School This Week
Date: 21 Oct 2007 13:12:03
Message: <471b8863$1@news.povray.org>
Michael Raiford wrote:

>> - Apparently if you mix amonia and some other compound together, the 
>> resulting mixture explodes when it dries out. We smeared it over a 
>> cardboard box in the garden. For some reason, it only ever exploded at 
>> night... A succession of small pops and bangs.
> 
> sounds like nitrogen triiodide. Contact explosive... supposedly fun stuff..

Yeah - I recall iodine being involved...

>> - There's a trick you can do with (IIRC) hydrogen chloride. It absorbs 
>> water quite well. So if you will a bottle with hydrogen chloride and 
>> then put a tube into a tub of water, you get a little fountain inside 
>> the bottle as the pressure drops. For added amusement, add some 
>> indicator to the water. (I recall the blue liquid emerging in the 
>> bottle as a bright yellow fountain.)
> 
> I think I need a diagram to understand this one. the description of the 
> set up is a bit unclear.. Hmm.

Take a bottle of HCl gas with a cork and a straw. Insert the straw into 
a tub of water. The HCl is adsorbed by the water, causing the water to 
be sucked into the bottle forming a little fountain. If you add a pH 
indicator, you'll see the water go from 7 to (roughly) 3.

> Actually, I don't know if its the same for the UK, but in the US, 
> potassium permaganate is apparently (according to Wikipedia) considered 
> a drug precursor and is apparently difficult to get without going 
> through all sorts of DEA procedures and forms.

Apparently in the USA, so is LiOH... (How random is that? Drop some 
lithium into a vat of water and you have a controlled substance. Heh!)

Doesn't appear to be a problem in the UK.


Post a reply to this message

From: Orchid XP v7
Subject: Re: Life Sucked at My School This Week
Date: 21 Oct 2007 13:12:57
Message: <471b8899$1@news.povray.org>
Darren New wrote:

> On the other hand, some level of radiation is actually even necessary 
> for good health. So it's all in the dosage, really.

"Oh well - a little water never hurt anyone."

"Yeah, but a lot can KILL ya!"


Post a reply to this message

From: Orchid XP v7
Subject: Re: Life Sucked at My School This Week
Date: 21 Oct 2007 13:15:37
Message: <471b8939$1@news.povray.org>
Brian Elliott wrote:
> And one strange thing:  Back when the flints on the sides of matchboxes 
> were made more substantially than they are today.  Peel them off the 
> sides of the matchbox.  Strip as much cardboard off their backs as you 
> can, to get the brown flint/phosphor patch on the thinnest paper layer 
> possible.  Place it face-down on a cold tin lid.  Burn it.  It fizzes a 
> bit like a match head, but the flame is smoky and smelly.  Blow off any 
> ash. You find an orangeish semi-liquid condensate on the lid.  Dip a 
> forefinger tip in it, then rub your thumb and forefinger together.  
> White smoke rises from your fingers. In the dark, it glows when you do 
> this.

I'm begining quite concerned about the people I'm hanging round with... o_O


Post a reply to this message

From: Gail Shaw
Subject: Re: Life Sucked at My School This Week
Date: 21 Oct 2007 14:00:10
Message: <471b93aa@news.povray.org>
"Orchid XP v7" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:471b873b$1@news.povray.org...
> Gail Shaw wrote:
>
> > Crackle powder (I think). We had great fun with that at university.
Scatterd
> > some across the cmp sci main office floor. Was a thick pile carpet. For
some
> > reason we weren't popular the next morning... *g*
>
> And I thought you were such a *good* little girl... :-0

I wasn't the brains behind this one. Besides, I didn't have access to the
chem lab.
Most of the honours class was in on the prank.


Post a reply to this message

<<< Previous 10 Messages Goto Latest 10 Messages Next 10 Messages >>>

Copyright 2003-2023 Persistence of Vision Raytracer Pty. Ltd.