Wither the elementary and middle school science fair
The impact of the CPSIA on the educational market is getting more and more worrisome. Two recent events shocked me for their implications. First, Michael Warring of American Educational Products reports that a school opted to stop using AmEP’s rocks to teach Earth Science and will instead rely on a POSTER. Not quite the same educational experience . . . . Yes, the school has become convinced that rocks are too dangerous for kids to touch. [...]I wish teaching Earth Science by way of a poster was my biggest concern. I have been on record for a long time worrying about how Science would be treated under this terrible law. For many reasons, science items are particularly exposed. That does not mean they are dangerous – their record for safe use is sterling – but under the rigid and unthinking arbitrary standards of the CPSIA, they are verboten, whether it makes sense or not. Up to now, perhaps you thought this issue was simply a product of my feverish imagination. Then comes along the Potato Clock. This clever product can be purchased from more than one source, and is also a DIY home science project, perfect for Science Fairs. Please note that the homemade Potato Clock utilizes “dangerous” items like nails, clips, wire, batteries, etc. Welcome to science education . . . .
Anyhow, recently a manufacturer of the Potato Clock decided to test its version for compliance with the newfangled CPSIA. In their eager beaver-ness, they shot themselves in the foot, discovering (horrors) that the insulation on the product’s potato wires contain trace amounts of lead over the arbitrary limits of CPSIA. Not that anyone has ever been hurt from wire insulation (at least not from nibbling on it). Unfortunately, safety is the least of anyone’s concerns under the CPSIA.
[...]This will not be the end of the devastation of science education in this country. I have previously noted that microscope light bulbs have a little dot of solder on their base that will fail the lead tests. That means no more light for our school microscopes. Oh well. Other items commonly used for science education include fasteners (nails, screws and bobby pins), wire, magnets, rocks, glass and crystals, metal cups, aluminum foil, steel wool, switches, solar panels, lab equipment like thermometers, scales and ceramic ware, motors, aquariums – the list goes on and on. These items won’t make it under the CPSIA for many reasons, some economic and some physical. NONE of them will fail because they are unsafe or because they have poisoned children in schools. Still, American elementary science education will be severely damaged thanks to your friends in Congress.
Science-schmience. Who cares? It will just free up more time to make sure your five year old is up-to-date on LGBT issues.
I would say you need to have your kids write a Thank You note to Henry Waxman, except ink pens are not CPSIA compliant, either.
(h/t Overlawyered)
Comment by SarahW on 5/28 @ 9:52 pm #
Things have changed. I found an old and rather extensive rock collection of my Dad’s in the attic at Humble Hall; dozens and dozens of specimens in faded little boxes. It sat in a hallway for month as I went through other things and one day I just picked up a little matchbox, I tried to see if I could guess it’s contents. I couldn’t and the label was a little hard to read I had to hold it up close. Oh, uranium. :)
Comment by dicentra on 5/28 @ 10:20 pm #
Ace has got Craig T. Nelson on Glenn Beck, saying that things are so nutso that he’s going to refuse to pay taxes anymore until Our Betters can prove that they’re going to be fiscally responsible. (Yeah, right.)
If CTN does this alone, he’ll go to jail. But what if everyone did the same thing at the same time? They can’t arrest all of us.
It’s to the point where civil disobedience ought to come into play. The debts that Obama and Congress is piling on us are starting to amount to indentured servitude: we are obligated to pay taxes to pay off debt, not to support normal government functions.
If they don’t even read the bills they pass, how can we say we’ve been represented at all?
Of course, if the whole economy implodes, the issue of To Pay Or Not To Pay becomes moot. Already tax revenues are down by 1/3.
Jackasses. They act out their little ideological fantasies and power plays while grinding the rest of us under their wheels. Were the French Aristocracy any worse?
Comment by apotheosis on 5/28 @ 10:54 pm #
Yeah, and they can’t run the economy like this and make it succeed either, but that isn’t stopping them from trying, is it.
Comment by JD on 5/28 @ 11:04 pm #
Waxman is every bit as scary as Pelosi.
Comment by Joe on 5/28 @ 11:10 pm #
Waxman is actually scarier looking than Pelosi, and just as bad if not worse on policy.
Comment by SBP on 5/28 @ 11:23 pm #
We’ve been heading this way for a long time, even before this uber-crappy legislation.
A few years back, I looked for a chemistry set as a gift for my young nieces and nephews.
They all sucked. Bad.
Most of them had language on the box similar to “No flames! No glass! No toxic substances!”
Yeah. No fun, either.
The good folks at O’Reilly are doing something about this, thank goodness, or I’d have no idea where our future scientists would be coming from.
Disclaimer: I haven’t actually read this book, but I know the author by reputation.
Comment by geoffb on 5/28 @ 11:34 pm #
The idea is to turn out kids who as adults are more compliant. The non-compliance of books or science education supplies is just a means to get there. Doesn’t have to make sense, it just has to work.
Comment by bh on 5/28 @ 11:44 pm #
Sweet Mary and Joseph, I couldn’t agree more.
Comment by slackjawedyokel on 5/29 @ 5:56 am #
Given the choices available, I think I’ll opt for becoming a Morlock rather than an Eloi. Morlocks still get to use the cool stuff.
Comment by serr8d on 5/29 @ 6:21 am #
These new CPSC
guidecraplines are just (for now) watered-down versions of EU RoHS rules. I’m thinking the U.S. bureaucracy was embarrassed by the RoHS measures (they got the jump on that ‘cool enviro-left legislation’ before we did!), so this is a first step to RoHS-compliancy on this side of the pond.Comment by BumperStickerist on 5/29 @ 6:24 am #
to quote MST3K’s Joel Robinson:
Burn with the Creepy Crawlers, Learn with the Creepy Crawlers
Getting dinged up is a part of science – hot glass looks like cold glass, waft the fumes to smell them don’t snort them.
Did *I* as an 11 year old learn that whacking a roll of caps with a hammer on an igneous rock without eye protection was a bad idea? Yes, I did. But corneas heal.
Did I learn to identify and use sedimentary rock as the whacking surface because of its properties …yes. Would I have learned that using a poster? No.
Comment by serr8d on 5/29 @ 6:29 am #
Heh. A RoHS-compliant light bulb sold in the UK (to meet both RoHS’s and Al Gore’s demands) sell for about £5.53. Each. I wonder if they would work in my house, where I’ve installed dimmers on every available light?
Comment by katrina on 5/29 @ 6:31 am #
This is so absurd. As a geologist, I can guarantee you that a poster with pictures of rocks is so abysmally lacking that I am shocked anyone would approve of its use over actual hand samples. You cannot learn to identify rocks or minerals by a photo alone, it HAS to be the real thing. Idiots.
Comment by serr8d on 5/29 @ 6:35 am #
katrina, years ago my dad found some a cluster of rocks later identified (but not by a geologist, unfortunately) as petrified asbestos. Have you ever heard of such a thing? I’ve always wondered about that. I have no idea what became of them, unfortunately.
Comment by N. O'Brain on 5/29 @ 6:35 am #
“Idiots.”
Not strong enough.
Try ‘Fucking knuckle-dragging mouth-breathing neanderthal troglodyte moron legislators’
Comment by serr8d on 5/29 @ 6:36 am #
some (a cluster) hmmph. coffee level needs adjusting. )
Comment by Bob Reed on 5/29 @ 7:01 am #
Just Lovely…
I guess that I should just throw away the textbook and cirriculum for the rocket science for talented teens course I’ve been working on…
‘Cuz, if a potato clock is dangerous, well, rockets and aircraft are out of the question…
Besides, the balsa wood for the gliders de-forests gaia anyway…
This is disgusting, but not surprising, given the Democrats hypocrisy on all matters of their professed ideology versus their practices…
But it’s us wingnutz, you see, that are really anti-science…
And I guess that’s simply another debate that’s over…
Comment by Bob Reed on 5/29 @ 7:04 am #
Of course, this legislation won’t effect compact flourescent light bulbs; that necessarily contain mercury…
In fact, I don’t here much talk of the impact of these bulbs on landfills by the whole AGW, enviro-nazi, gaia devotee crowd…
Funny that, eh..?
As I’ve said before, the Pharisees would have been shocked by the Democrats hypocrisy…
Comment by Joe on 5/29 @ 7:06 am #
For kids, danger is one of the biggest motivators. Who did not love going to science class to see something flare up, explode, freeze and shatter, or something similarly cool?
Comment by Rick Ballard on 5/29 @ 7:26 am #
It’s to the point where civil disobedience ought to come into play.
Dicentra,
It may be that the most efficient way to defeat Obamunism (a delightful blend of communism and socialism but predominantly crony fascism) is obedience rather than disobedience. The President is bent on rewarding his bootlicking cronies with spoils but he has enjoined the citizenry to save. If the citizenry complies completely then his cronies will be spending their time in gaining great familiarity with the bankruptcy code.
The productive element within society turned to saving as soon as it became clear that the Obamunists would take power. Saving increased from an annual rate of $20.7 billion in Q4 07 to $475.5 billion in Q1 09. Productive people recognized that the rise of the Obamunists would have a deleterious effect upon the economy increased saving throughout ‘08 and the election accelerated preparation for the economic disaster which Obamunism will impose upon the country.
The President’s remarks regarding saving can be construed as being directed toward the economically worthless core of his supporter, wearing their debt serf collars in the Blue Hells as they struggle to make their rent payments to Obama’s slumlord cronies. After all, how can the slumlords jack up rents if the fool renters are overburdened with other credit payments? I would submit that although the President’s remarks may well have been directed towards his debt serf constituency with the aim of further rewarding the slumlords who provided his initial financial support through the purchase of his votes in the Illinois State Senate, productive people should use his remarks as the justification to “Just Say No” when contemplating any purchase which would satisfy a want rather than a need. When making a purchase based upon need, use a form of cash rather than a credit card. The vendor will appreciate not having to pay Citigroup or Bank of America that transaction fee and Obama’s cronies at Citigroup will have that much less money with which to purchase Obama’s favors.
Be obedient to Obama and save every penny possible – and break the bootlooking cronies who brought him to power.
Comment by Rob Crawford on 5/29 @ 7:35 am #
*sigh*
I really didn’t think I was that old, but I guess I am. When I was in school, it wasn’t remarkable for people to drive to school with a full gun rack in their truck. One of the official school organizations (OK, the Future Farmers of America) raised and sold tobacco as both a learning project and a fund raiser. In physics class we fired off model rockets. For history class I made a demonstration of what napalm does to a thatch hut.
We dissected critters. Our biology teacher would pass around a big, opaque jar that you had to reach into, pull out the 40+ year-old preserved corpse of some sea animal.
*sigh*
Welcome to the Third World, folks. Being part of civilization was fun while it lasted.
Comment by Joe on 5/29 @ 7:42 am #
Meanwhile Patterico and O’Reilly meet at dawn with loofahs.
It is science! It is called ginning up hits. O’Reilly attacks Hot Air, Patterico attacks O’Reilly, Hot Air Reports on it, Instapundit comments…it is a happy circle jerk of hits!
Comment by Joe on 5/29 @ 7:43 am #
We disected fetal pigs. Pretty cool actually.
Comment by Rick Ballard on 5/29 @ 7:47 am #
Rob,
Homeschoolers have a definite advantage wrt the wet lab fun stuff. I’m not sure why anyone of a conservative bent would leave their kids in an Eloi Training Center. It’s not a very nice thing to do to your offspring.
Comment by JD on 5/29 @ 7:53 am #
I got my only B in high school from Mrs. Childers in Chemistry when I said “What happens if you …” while dumping a copious amount some chemical into a sink full of water. Filling the tube of the Bunsen burner with magnesium and phosphorous was also a bad idea. I learn from experience, sometimes.
Comment by SBP on 5/29 @ 7:55 am #
Oh, and Bob: if you don’t already have a publisher, O’Reilly might be a good choice. They’re doing a whole series of books like the Thompson book I linked earlier in the thread.
Comment by Rusty on 5/29 @ 7:59 am #
My college science elective was Geology 101 and 102. Fieldtrips. Hammers. Rocks. Good fun.
ANybody know what a lathe is? Anybody know how to use one? Set type? No? Sad.
Comment by JD on 5/29 @ 8:00 am #
Lathes are Teh Awesome
Comment by thor on 5/29 @ 8:04 am #
Oh please God, make her as loony as her words. Please God, I don’t ask for much, or should I say often ask for much. Do her up in baggy orange and white jail pinstriped jumpsuit, God, and make her highway trash pick-up duty on I-95 near the really bad part of Broward County, ooh, ooh, or near Liberty City north of Miami. Mid-summer too, with the humidity pushing 100, and, God, please provide plenty of animal road kill – scattered and assorted insect-covered fleshy parts – that she’d have to poke at with her trash picker-up stick while wearing her bright orange vest. God, I know you have a sense of humor, I saw Sarah Palin on TV, and dicentra really really sort’a deserves a stint in the Fed. Dept of Corrections because she mocks God’s children. She does! Read her comments on Alinsky’s book, God; ain’t right for her to spit on your spiritual image and likeness the way she did. Please God, please. Amen.
Comment by Darleen on 5/29 @ 8:04 am #
Rob
My school had a FFA, too. The far back lot of the school was a veritable farm, the kids raised all manner of animals that later were later auctioned off (ending up on someone’s plate).
I bet the “meat is murder” crowd wouldn’t allow that now.
Comment by TheGeezer on 5/29 @ 8:07 am #
The public school steachers are making new offspring so stupid that I now longer have to worry about competing with them. Egad, I read a department head’s memo last week and laughed when I realized it would be published in a newspaper. I can go lazy in the final years, thank heaven. Thank you, public schools!
Comment by SBP on 5/29 @ 8:11 am #
ANybody know what a lathe is? Anybody know how to use one?
Yep and yep.
Comment by LTC John on 5/29 @ 8:13 am #
27, 28 – a brake drum lathe maker is one of my accounts. I wonder if I could ask for a sample…for purely work related purposes, of course.
Comment by Techie on 5/29 @ 8:15 am #
Off the meds again?
Comment by Rob Crawford on 5/29 @ 8:22 am #
I almost forgot about shop class.
Is there a law of nature requiring all shop teachers have fewer fingers than is standard issue?
Comment by Slartibartfast on 5/29 @ 8:31 am #
ANybody know what a lathe is? Anybody know how to use one? Set type? No? Sad.
I learned how to do all those things in middle school. I could probably figure it out again on my own, if I had a lathe to work with, or typesetting equipment.
The latter of which, as I recall, requires the use of lots and lots of shims, which weren’t actually called shims. Oh, also the thing you were assembling type in had this tightening mechanism that clamped down on the assembled type to keep it from slipping out, which is one reason why the shims were necessary.
Comment by Slartibartfast on 5/29 @ 8:31 am #
Oh, and: both wood and metal lathes.
Comment by Slartibartfast on 5/29 @ 8:42 am #
A potato clock is dangerous? That particle accelerator I was building at age 12 was probably right out, then.
Other cool stuff I did involved thermite and some unauthorized rocket-fuel testing. None of that left any permanent scars on me or anyone else, or on any property. Take all the risk out of things, and you’ll wind up with people who don’t know what risk is.
Comment by JD on 5/29 @ 8:46 am #
We used to put our trampoline between our ranch house and the pool. Climb on roof, jump onto trampoline, and then see how many flips you could do into the pool. It is a miracle we lived.
Comment by sdferr on 5/29 @ 8:57 am #
Peter Zezel died a few days back of hemolytic anemia at 44yrs. I’d never heard of the disorder but stopping to puzzle at it for a few minutes and then wandering on to hazily imagine the constant unceasing-til-death-and-not-even-then gazillion molecular transactions going on at any taken point in time in a human body, these, while not understood as a miracle, can certainly seem like one, can’t they?
Comment by McGehee on 5/29 @ 9:08 am #
Admit it — you’re really Jamie Hyneman!
Comment by apotheosis on 5/29 @ 9:23 am #
Thermite: harmless fun for the whole family.
It goes right through cars!
Comment by Slartibartfast on 5/29 @ 9:27 am #
“Admit it — you’re really Jamie Hyneman!”
Take that back! Hyneman is a Hoosier, whereas my education occurred at a vastly superior institution.
Although we did occasionally roadtrip to IU to party. Purdue wasn’t much of a party school, in comparison.
Comment by SBP on 5/29 @ 9:28 am #
I got out of junior high shop class with only one scar (burn from a hot metal chip that landed on me) and a few holes burned in clothing from welding. To balance against that, I learned the basics of wood and metalworking — which I’ve used over and over again.
I’ll bet they don’t even have classes like that any more. Eighth graders running machine tools, welding, and carrying around crucibles of molten aluminum? Horrors!
Comment by McGehee on 5/29 @ 9:33 am #
I took a hunter-safety class in a public junior-high school in California — including a trip to a shooting range where our target scores contributed to our final grade.
These days in which a drawing of a gun in a classroom is considered a deadly weapon, even I have trouble believing it happened.
Comment by Slartibartfast on 5/29 @ 9:34 am #
Welding is one thing they didn’t teach us.
They did teach us how to build about 20 square feet of a house, though.
Comment by Ric Locke on 5/29 @ 9:56 am #
Some learn by observation, others by instruction, but some people just have to pee on the electric fence themselves.
Regards,
Ric
Comment by Bob Reed on 5/29 @ 10:03 am #
Thanks for the tip, SBP…
Comment by Rob Crawford on 5/29 @ 10:04 am #
The important thing is how many times it takes them to learn the lesson.
Comment by Rusty on 5/29 @ 10:15 am #
I think shop class taught kids patience and how to reason things out. At least that’s what they taught me.
Comment by sdferr on 5/29 @ 10:38 am #
Who is really anti-science? From the p.o.v. of embryonic stem cell researchers, other scientists tugging on their piggy-bank, the bastards. h/t Insty
Comment by katrina on 5/29 @ 10:46 am #
Serr8d, I did a little looking around. Asbestos is actually a term that describes multiple minerals (chrysotile, tremolite and actinolite are the minerals I know), and minerals can’t be “petrified.” Petrification happens when a living organism is replaced by minerals. Petrified wood isn’t wood anymore, it’s a rock.
I’d say you just have a chunk of tremolite or actinolite. I actually have some tremolite that I found in Montana near an old mine. Both tremolite and actinolite are very common metamorphic minerals.
Comment by JD on 5/29 @ 10:47 am #
Ric – I am a pee-er. And usually I have to do it a couple times. The first time is usually a “holy shit” moment. The second time is a “hey, you will never believe what just happened. Watch this” kind of moment.
Comment by Slartibartfast on 5/29 @ 10:52 am #
May you be tried by a jury of your pee-ers.
Comment by SBP on 5/29 @ 10:53 am #
JD, I’ve seen a claim that that sort of behavior is exactly what makes a scientist.
Normal person: “Holy shit! I won’t do THAT again!”
Scientist: “I wonder if that will happen again?”
Comment by LTC John on 5/29 @ 11:39 am #
“some people just have to pee on the electric fence themselves.”
Or piss on the third rail whilst drunk (ignoring warning signs in three different languages) and then have Corboy, the King of Chicago Torts, sue the CTA and get your widow $1,000,000+.
Comment by Slartibartfast on 5/29 @ 11:39 am #
I think it’s more like:
JD: “I wonder if that will happen again?”
JD: “I wonder if that will happen again?”
JD: “I wonder if that will happen again?”
JD: “I wonder if that will happen again?”
JD: “I wonder if that will happen again?”
JD: “I wonder if that will happen again?”
JD: “I wonder if that will happen again?”
JD: “I wonder if that will happen again?”
JD: “Maybe there’s some kind of pattern, here.”
Comment by SarahW on 5/29 @ 11:52 am #
They didn’t let girls take shop. Which taught me the world is an irrational place. And patience. Revenge is a dish best served cold, and with a fabulous pink cordless impact drill.
Comment by SarahW on 5/29 @ 11:53 am #
Actually I have a an ordinary looking drill. But I though about pasting on some piettes.
Comment by Sammy on 5/29 @ 12:19 pm #
My kids are taking a school field trip to the actual Mt. St. Helens. Something tells me an active volcano won’t quite comply with Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act – but we’ve had the wisdom not to ask.
Comment by Jeffersonian on 5/29 @ 12:23 pm #
Peter Zezel died a few days back of hemolytic anemia at 44yrs.
Peter Zezel, the hockey player??? Shit, he was a good guy. I lived a couple of doors down from him when he was playing in St. Louis.
Comment by Sammy on 5/29 @ 12:45 pm #
Who’s anti-science? The GOP in Alaska and Oklahoma, among many others (new-age nutjobs on the left, rednecks on the right?).
Comment by JD on 5/29 @ 1:00 pm #
I think Slarti figured me out pretty well.
Comment by JD on 5/29 @ 1:02 pm #
Except you forgot the “Damn, that hurts” right before finally noticing the obvious pattern.
Comment by agile_dog on 5/29 @ 1:36 pm #
JD’s comment:
“Ric – I am a pee-er. And usually I have to do it a couple times. The first time is usually a “holy shit†moment. The second time is a “hey, you will never believe what just happened. Watch this†kind of moment.” – I’ve always heard this as the joke: What’s the last thing the redneck said to his friends before he died? “Hey fellas, wtach this!”.
and my outburst at:
“May you be tried by a jury of your pee-ers.”
got me some strange looks from my co-workers. They only surf news sites at work.
Comment by LTC John on 5/29 @ 1:38 pm #
#65 – In Wisconsin, the most common last words spoken in the state are “Hey honey, hold my beer and watch this!”
Comment by Christopher Taylor on 5/29 @ 1:48 pm #
Yeah, that’s just what the country needs. Arrogant justices who talk over people and tell them what they really mean. Because laywers have no recourse against the SCOTUS. There’s no where to go, no one to appeal to, no way to get a fair hearing. If you interrupt, you’re sanctioned and the court will view you negatively. You have to just stand there and take it from other lawyers in robes.
Granted, there’s no good guy in this scenario, but some of them are more bad than others.
Comment by N. O'Brain on 5/29 @ 2:39 pm #
“Comment by Sammy on 5/29 @ 12:45 pm #
Who’s anti-science? The GOP in Alaska and Oklahoma, among many others”
‘Fraid not.
Who’s stopping drilling in the “Pristine Wilderness” of Alaska?
Not the GOP.
Comment by Rusty on 5/29 @ 2:46 pm #
Mt St’ Helens? Pffft! Now Mt Redoubt. That’s a ballsy field trip.
Comment by Sammy on 5/29 @ 3:46 pm #
Just focusing on their insistence that public schools waste time teaching “Creation Science” (whatever that is).
Comment by Mikey NTH on 5/29 @ 4:04 pm #
And while we were exposed to all of these dastardly things, our life expetency rose. Which is a bad thing if you are really green…
Comment by Mikey NTH on 5/29 @ 4:20 pm #
#27 Rusty:
Lathes? Haven’t used one since high school. Set type? Never did that.
Melt aluminum in a forge for sandcasting? Did that in eighth grade. Oxy-Acetylene brazing? Did that in eighth grade. Soldering? Did that in ninth grade.
Watch a blob of mercury swish around in a pan? Tenth grade.
Break a mercury thermometer in a friend’s room? Third grade. Oooooops. (I wonder who now lives in that Haz-Mat house now – thrity-five years after the fact?)
Comment by Mikey NTH on 5/29 @ 4:29 pm #
#47 Ric:
That is soooo true.
Oh, for the days of steel beer cans, which opened up end to end and duct taped together, with a little lighterfluid in the base, and a tennis ball loaded. Place on picnic table, get underneath, send up lighter, and *bang* out into the lake for the tennis ball, to be picked up by the (very leakey) recovery boat (powered by a balky six horse Evinrude).
Comment by Mikey NTH on 5/29 @ 4:33 pm #
#53 JD – Never, ever hold on to the spark plug wire of a lawn mower engine when your ‘friend’ pulls the cord.
Trust me on this.
Comment by SBP on 5/29 @ 4:36 pm #
Mikey NTH: I think the kids use PVC pipe to make tennis ball cannon nowadays.
Comment by Mikey NTH on 5/29 @ 4:38 pm #
#58 Sarah W:
And no matter what is said, do not send three boys who applied for woodshop to home economics just because the class in wood shop is full. Outdoor breathing exercises or underwater basket weaving would be safer and saner to supervise. Under those circumstances sewing machines, mixers, and nearly everything else is dangerous. The results of the ‘cooking’ is itself a WMD.
Green cupcakes? How did we end up with green cupcakes?
Comment by Mikey NTH on 5/29 @ 4:45 pm #
#66 LTC John:
That statement applies in Michigan also.
And giving an eighteen year old the keys to a garbage truck isn’t exactly smart. (“Hey! Can we pack that?”)
Or a wood splitter. (“I bet we can split that stump if we get it on here!” The ram rising in the air, the hydraulic lines spewing on the engine, the smoke, the small bursts of flame, the realization that you are surrounded by wood dust and straw and a gas can, the yelling, the blaming, the pulling the mess out of the fire zone before conflagration…
Good times, good times.)
Hmm. Sometimes I wonder why I am alive. The only scars I got are from hand tools. A bow saw is actually more dangerous than it looks.
Comment by Mikey NTH on 5/29 @ 5:24 pm #
#75 SBP:
See? I am an antique. I never thought of PVC. Hmmm. The longer the tube the longer the propellant can expand behind the projectile, providing the greater range. Then there is the strength of the tube, limiting the amount of propellant. I wonder what is the optimum length of PVC and optimum amount of zippo fluid?
I may have to look that up.
Comment by Mikey NTH on 5/29 @ 5:37 pm #
Now, when I was at MSU, the thing to have was a water balloon slingshot. Fun at range for everyone (but the victim). What we used to do was set up at night in an empty dorm room. The mark was the intersection of Birch and Wilson. When a person would walk under a tree at the intersection we would get ready. When that person stepped out from the tree we would launch. Balloon and person would meet in the intersection.
Good times, good times.
Until we hit Percy Snow that second time. The roar of rage that came up from the street told us we had…miscalculated.
Scatter. Balloons down the incenerator. Go do something else. And act normal (not natural, for the love of God!) when a bunch of six foot plus tall-and-wide guys walk down the hall. That was twenty-one years ago.
Almost as much fun as wrist-rocketing an ice cube off the venilators above the RA’s suites.
Comment by geoffb on 5/29 @ 5:54 pm #
Same here. Still have the miniature anvil I cast. We also did forging. Heat bars of steel up red hot and pound them into shape on an anvil, a not miniature one. 8th grade shop.
Comment by geoffb on 5/29 @ 6:06 pm #
MSU. Winter 66-67. Had a blizzard 24 inches in 24 hours. Drifted on the inner curved walls of Wonders above the 2nd floor. I lived on 2nd and our windows were blocked completely. Everyone started going to the top, 6th, floor and jumping out windows into the drift.
Problem was getting back out before someone landed on top of you. Lot’s of broken bones that day.
Comment by Mikey NTH on 5/29 @ 6:09 pm #
never did blacksmithing, but I have seen it done, geoffb. You see that when your dad is a history techer, you live in Dearborn, and the family has an annual pass to Greenfield Village.
Fire may not melt steel or iron, but it does make it very malleable.
And you get to see what happens to a penny when a steam locomotive passes over it. “Squished” is the technical term, I think.
Comment by geoffb on 5/29 @ 6:13 pm #
From One Cosmos, Jan. 2007.
Sums up my teen years, disaster, but fun.
Comment by Mikey NTH on 5/29 @ 6:19 pm #
I like to think that as a white man (don’t know about wise) I have had a rich variety of experiences that have influenced the way I make decisions in my life.
Heh.
Comment by Mikey NTH on 5/29 @ 6:28 pm #
#83 geoffb:
The problem is that many people don’t quite finish the new wiring, hence the ‘hold my beer, I want to try something’.
Like hooking up old rental surface ‘kayaks’ (paddle-boards, I think) to the back of a dump truck and then ’surfing’ them through an asphalt-paved yard. Fun, yes. Painful to wipeout? Yes.
Would I do it again? Ummm….how much beer are we talking about, and how much nostalgia (same people, same place – reunion time) are we talking about?
Because I can actually see….
Comment by geoffb on 5/29 @ 6:38 pm #
Makes Youtube interesting.
Comment by Mikey NTH on 5/29 @ 6:53 pm #
Comment by geoffb on 5/29 @ 6:38 pm #
“hence the ‘hold my beer, I want to try something’.â€
Makes Youtube interesting.
And certain reunions. Like about 13 years ago when my nephews and their cousins ambushed me with squirtguns. Uncle Mike got out the backpack water fire extinguisher (think a water version of the Ghost Busters unit) and went on ‘revenge’.
heh. That was fun until my dad, my mom, and my late uncle called a halt to the shenanigans. Talk about ‘drive the (five, six, and seven year old) enemy before you with much laughing, and falling, and yelling, and soaking.
I still have that fire-extinguisher and I am not afraid to use it! (Need a new water balloon sling-shot, though.)
Comment by Mikey NTH on 5/29 @ 6:58 pm #
Now, you get an old three-wheeled Cushman (late 1970’s) with the two cylinder Koehler engines and the three-on-the-tree, a vehicle that was clocked at 35 mph in Camp Dearborn, and hit a wide field with lots of litter, and a litter stick in your hand!
Tally Ho! Lancers! Go!
Comment by Rusty on 5/30 @ 6:21 am #
#83
I’m still not sure it got wired back together right.
If life teahes you nothing else, it’s that gravity always works. Usually when you don’t want it to.
Comment by Eric in Atlanta on 5/30 @ 7:50 am #
Sadly, a novel idea: how about we spend class time teaching kids how to safely handle nails, rocks, lead-containing items, glass, etc? Anything where the risk of exposure is tremendously less than the benefit of learning safe handling and use, plus the actual educational benefit of actually seeing and/or using things in real life?
Trackback by Maggie's Farm on 5/30 @ 8:10 am #
Pravda says, plus other links…
I am not sure what Pravda is anymore, but Pravda opines:
It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American descent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me …
Comment by Techie on 5/30 @ 8:24 am #
Life has been found hazardous to your health.
And we wonder why there are so many issues w/ science and technical education in this country.
Comment by JD on 5/30 @ 8:32 am #
Who is really anti-science? Nishit. If she believed in science, she would obey the orderlies, and stay on her meds.
Comment by Rob Crawford on 5/30 @ 8:51 am #
Nah, JD. If nishit really believed what she claims to believe, she’d off herself so as to improve the quality of the human race.
Comment by teqjack on 5/30 @ 1:52 pm #
A few years ago, a college science professor was cited for not having a dangerous chemical locked away. Hydrochloric acid? FLourine gas?
A gallon jug of vinegar he had bought at a market and attached a hand-written label “acetic acid.”
Trackback by wisconsin public record on 8/28 @ 3:00 pm #
wisconsin public record…
Great job with the info. How did you find it? Please let me know….
Comment by Ключи для касперского 2009 on 10/6 @ 5:31 pm #
Впервые на нашем сайте? Странно, мы работаем почти год и стабильно выкладываем рабочие ключи для касперского в ближайшие часы после обновления чёрного списка. Обычно есть ключи для всех популярных версий Антивируса Касперского: ключи для KIS и KAV шестой версии