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Apple Talk / Re: The Compleat Billy Chronicles (thanks to Zenpatista)
« Last post by altered on Yesterday at 11:22:55 pm »Yep. Ignition! is a favorite.
News:
If you really want to hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be a homosexual, the least you can do is go into the arts. But do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites, standing for absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college.
Recent Posts
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Apple Talk / Re: The Compleat Billy Chronicles (thanks to Zenpatista)
« Last post by chaotic neutral observer on Yesterday at 11:15:17 pm »... and 1 big leaking drum of nitric acid.Although I lack direct experience in such matters, I think I would prefer a leaking drum to a swollen one.
That nitric acid though ... I wonder how much of the contents, by weight, are ghastly green iron nitride sludge.You have brought to mind a quote:
Mixed acid, of course, didn't give off those NO2 fumes, and everybody was convinced, as late as 1949, that it didn't corrode stainless steel. [...]
Well, everybody had been wrong. The acid doesn't corrode stainless—at first. But after an induction period, which may vary from minutes to months, and which depends upon the acid composition and particularly the percentage of water, the temperature, the past history of the steel, and presumably upon the state of the moon, the corrosion starts and proceeds apace. The eventual results are worse than with RFNA. Not only is the quality of the acid degraded and the drum damaged, but a thick, heavy, greenish-gray sludge of loathsome appearance, revolting properties, and mysterious composition forms and deposits. I have seen drums of mixed acid with twelve solid inches of sludge on the bottom. To make things worse, pressure gradually builds up in the drum or tank car, which has to be vented periodically.
-- John D. Clark
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Apple Talk / Re: Open Bar: Curbside Pickup Only
« Last post by Doktor Howl on Yesterday at 10:32:08 pm »Hey spags. What’s going on?
Well, aside from a plague, an insurrection, 4 years of Trump, and creeping Cramulus economic theory, not too much. You?
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Apple Talk / Re: Open Bar: Curbside Pickup Only
« Last post by EK WAFFLR on Yesterday at 09:51:25 pm »Hey spags. What’s going on?
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Aneristic Illusions / Re: UNLIMITED Biden thread (for good or for ill)
« Last post by Doktor Howl on Yesterday at 08:15:11 pm »https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-biden-cabinet-lloyd-austin-john-cornyn-army-4d8848273e4e1fe6e4ad2dc8cee7313c
Quote
WASHINGTON (AP) — Lloyd J. Austin, a West Point graduate who rose to the Army’s elite ranks and marched through racial barriers in a 41-year career, won Senate confirmation Friday to become the nation’s first Black secretary of defense.
The 93-2 vote gave President Joe Biden his second Cabinet member; Avril Haines was confirmed on Wednesday as the first woman to serve as director of national intelligence. Biden is expected to win approval for others on his national security team in coming days, including Antony Blinken as secretary of state.
Biden is looking for Austin to restore stability atop the Pentagon, which went through two Senate-confirmed secretaries of defense and four who held the post on an interim basis during the Trump administration. The only senators who voted against Austin were Republicans Mike Lee of Utah and Josh Hawley of Missouri.
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Aneristic Illusions / UNLIMITED Biden thread (for good or for ill)
« Last post by Doktor Howl on Yesterday at 08:14:17 pm »I'll start:
https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-donald-trump-jen-psaki-national-security-terrorism-8ac769920a5a945ed1ccaf44d0906d99
More at link.
https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-donald-trump-jen-psaki-national-security-terrorism-8ac769920a5a945ed1ccaf44d0906d99
Quote
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has directed his intelligence community to study the threat of domestic extremism in the United States, an undertaking being launched weeks after a violent mob loyal to Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol.
The disclosure Friday by White House press secretary Jen Psaki is a stark acknowledgment of the national security threat that officials see as posed by American extremists motivated to violence by extremist ideology. The involvement of the director of national intelligence, an office created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to prevent international terrorism, suggests that American authorities are examining how to pivot to a more concerted focus on violence from radical extremists at home.
More at link.
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Apple Talk / Re: The Compleat Billy Chronicles (thanks to Zenpatista)
« Last post by Doktor Howl on Yesterday at 08:11:56 pm »Also, it's so normal that I can't believe Norton's horrified by it. Pretty much every chemist I've ever known has a dozen stories of the office off of the main lab that had hundred year old equipment gathering dust and a shelving unit bowing under the weight of totally unidentifiable compounds, most of which required a bomb squad or hazmat team to dispose of when the time came to clean it all out. This exact room seems to exist in every chemistry lab in every university on the planet.
Norton is young, and honestly believes that things are done properly in most places.
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Apple Talk / Re: The Compleat Billy Chronicles (thanks to Zenpatista)
« Last post by altered on Yesterday at 07:38:26 pm »Also, it's so normal that I can't believe Norton's horrified by it. Pretty much every chemist I've ever known has a dozen stories of the office off of the main lab that had hundred year old equipment gathering dust and a shelving unit bowing under the weight of totally unidentifiable compounds, most of which required a bomb squad or hazmat team to dispose of when the time came to clean it all out. This exact room seems to exist in every chemistry lab in every university on the planet.
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Apple Talk / Re: The Compleat Billy Chronicles (thanks to Zenpatista)
« Last post by altered on Yesterday at 07:35:43 pm »Hey, at least you /probably/ don't have 50 year old ether lying around, all crusty with peroxides. That'd be a hell of a field trip.
That nitric acid though ... I wonder how much of the contents, by weight, are ghastly green iron nitride sludge.
I once heard of unknown lab chemicals being identified by giving samples to interns or students (I think it was students, but it's been awhile) and assigning them the task of identifying them. You just tell them they are "reasonably common lab reagents or can be made by such" and accept whatever they tell you as gospel truth, apparently. I don't recall if that process ended in anyone missing limbs, but one does have to wonder.
That nitric acid though ... I wonder how much of the contents, by weight, are ghastly green iron nitride sludge.
I once heard of unknown lab chemicals being identified by giving samples to interns or students (I think it was students, but it's been awhile) and assigning them the task of identifying them. You just tell them they are "reasonably common lab reagents or can be made by such" and accept whatever they tell you as gospel truth, apparently. I don't recall if that process ended in anyone missing limbs, but one does have to wonder.
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Apple Talk / Re: The Compleat Billy Chronicles (thanks to Zenpatista)
« Last post by Doktor Howl on Yesterday at 07:26:34 pm »Okay, cleaning out the back lab for the move. 83 chemicals to be lab-packed off, 8 of which are unknown, another one that's probably cyanide, and 1 big leaking drum of nitric acid.
Last purchase date was 1978. Norton is suitably horrified, but I assured him that this is all normal. Which, you know, it is.
Last purchase date was 1978. Norton is suitably horrified, but I assured him that this is all normal. Which, you know, it is.