Archive for April 9th, 2013

Crossing the streams.

Tuesday, April 9th, 2013

Two of my favorite websites intersect today.

XKCD’s “What if?” answers the question “What’s the worst thing that can happen if you misuse a pressure cooker in an ordinary kitchen?”

Fill the cooker with oxygen up to 5 PSI, then pump in fluorine until it starts escaping through the safety valve. Put the vessel over an open flame until it reaches 700°C (That’s °C, not °F. Yes, this will probably set off the smoke alarm.) Now, pump the hot gas over a liquid-oxygen-cooled stainless steel surface.

I want to start a Kickstarter in order to get someone to do this and put it on YouTube, where I can watch it from a safe distance. Anyway, this is how you get dioxygen difluoride, or FOOF.

The fun part is that XKCD goes on to quote Derek Lowe’s discussion of FOOF (yet another in the “Things I Won’t Work With” series). A part XKCD left out, discussing a scientific paper on the properties of FOOF:

The paper goes on to react FOOF with everything else you wouldn’t react it with: ammonia (“vigorous”, this at 100K), water ice (explosion, natch), chlorine (“violent explosion”, so he added it more slowly the second time), red phosphorus (not good), bromine fluoride, chlorine trifluoride (say what?), perchloryl fluoride (!), tetrafluorohydrazine (how on Earth. . .), and on, and on. If the paper weren’t laid out in complete grammatical sentences and published in JACS, you’d swear it was the work of a violent lunatic.

This also gives me a transparent excuse to link another more recent Derek Lowe post, with YouTube video from France of some scientists doing science! Specifically, the French scientists in question are reacting chlorine trifluoride with various common laboratory objects: plexiglass, wood, and a gas mask, among other items. The results are entertaining, for values of entertaining that include “Gee, I’m glad these guys are doing it and not me.”

Somebody in the comments posted this link to the older version of Air Products Safetygram #39: the newer version is described as “sanitized”, and lacks the photos of raw chicken on fire.

One eyewitness described the incident by stating, “The concrete was on fire!”

Posted in Clippings, Geek, Obits, TV | 1 Comment »

Speaking of guns…

Tuesday, April 9th, 2013

…stolen from my great and good friend RoadRich:

This is why I am such a big advocate of stricter knife control, and most importantly, a ban on assault knives. People don’t need knives that powerful for hunting… what are they planning to do, overthrow the caring, benevolent government? And those clips that hold more than one knife? Those… what are they called, ‘leatherman’ clips? Who needs those for so-called ‘hunting’? What are they hunting anyway, speaker wire and Phillips screws? Ban those too… because if even one person gets stabbed, even while trying to get at the tweezers, it is too many. Too many. Only the Army should be trying to clean a fish or strip a wire anyway.

The only thing I’d add to that is that I’m waiting for the victims of this particular act of violence to show up at a State of the Union address and testify before Congress, etc. etc. etc.

Posted in Clippings, Guns, Knives, Law | Comments Closed

We have met the enemy…

Tuesday, April 9th, 2013

The LAT just put up a profile of noted gunsmith Terry Tussey.

I’ve heard of Mr. Tussey before. I’ve never had any work done by him, or handled any guns he’s worked on. But he is frequently mentioned in the pages of American Handgunner. I gather that he and the editor of AH are friends.

(I’m not implying that there’s anything wrong with that. Just saying.)

I’m happy to see this kind of thing in the LAT. I’m glad anytime I see gun ownership shown positively in the media.

But there are a couple of things that give me pause.

“Assault rifles and plastic guns are machines that shoot bullets,” Tussey says. “There is a big difference between machines that shoot bullets and firearms that shoot quickly, accurately and are beautiful.”

This comes across as kind of snobbish to me, even within the full context of the article. (Tussey is referring to “two revolvers purchased online” that cost “cost under $400 apiece” and are made of “polymer and metal”. No brand name is given.)

The reference to “plastic guns” also seems odd, given that:

He keeps a loaded 9mm Glock on his workbench and a 9mm Rohrbaugh in his pocket.

And then there’s this:

Tussey is sympathetic to efforts to restrict gun ownership, but he doesn’t believe any legislation would stop gun violence.
He favors background checks and hunter safety courses, and he can’t see a purpose for assault weapons or large-capacity magazines, but he is a passionate supporter of the 2nd Amendment.

“can’t see a purpose for assault weapons or high-capacity magazines”, but “is a passionate supporter of the 2nd Amendment”. Uh-huh.

I am hesitant to jump down Mr. Tussey’s throat: it is possible that he was misquoted or misrepresented by the LAT. I’ve used the contact form at his site to ask if this is the case, and will report back if I get any response.

Posted in Clippings, Guns, Media | Comments Closed