Sciencemadness Discussion Board

What should we do for anniversaries at MSDB?

BromicAcid - 23-5-2004 at 15:20

I was kind of expecting a post about this from someone else first but Sciencemadness' second anniversary appears to have passed without any fanfare. But I remembered, I even ate a cupcake in honor of this wondrous moment! Sciencemadness just keeps growing and growing and after the retrospective thread I just can't shake the sense of pride I get from being a part of this form.

So in honor of this time of year I am going to attempt to get out and do some heavy duty experimenting in the next week or so. But what should we do as a whole? I'd be neat if everyone could get out and do one experiment and post the results here or in a relevent thread. What would be a good way to celebrate "The Art and Science of Amateur Experimentalism" in style!

Maybe we could could do some mock awards too or something else for fun!

The_Davster - 23-5-2004 at 16:56

Arggg, I knew MSDB's aniversay was coming, but I completly forgot:mad:. I was planning to spend the entire day in the lab in celebration.

madscientist - 23-5-2004 at 19:22

The MSDB's birthday was a long time ago - February 11th of 2002, I believe.

The_Davster - 23-5-2004 at 20:42

Wow, really. I thought it was May 20, 2002 because thats when the first member, madscientist, signed up.

Cyrus - 23-5-2004 at 22:06

Perhaps we should all detonate something simultaneously:D It would be a boom heard 'round the world! Well not quite, but still fun.

madscientist - 24-5-2004 at 04:03

That's when this board was created. There first was pub69.ezboard.com/bmadsciencediscussionboard that I created and immediately made Polverone a moderator (pretty much was a joint effort... and we constituted damn near the entirety of discussion), and then after we got fed up with not being able to post "-->" (it caused your entire post to be erased) I set up UBB at msdb.cjb.net (via free.prohosting.com), which worked great for a while... until the server started deleting files at random. After that, we decided "to hell with this free garbage," and Polverone registered the sciencemadness.org domain and the account for the server (believe me, manually transferring all the threads from UBB to XMB was a pain in the ass - I'm just thankful we did it as soon as we did!). Notice that a lot of the member accounts were all created on the first day (that was me manually reregistering all of them).

[Edited on 24-5-2004 by madscientist]

KABOOOM(pyrojustforfun) - 24-5-2004 at 06:09

I had seen MSDB on ezboard but I wasn't registered that time I still have some of the saved pages. (see the attachment. I thought it might be interesting for some ppl)

Attachment: interesting.zip (32kB)
This file has been downloaded 931 times


PHILOU Zrealone - 24-5-2004 at 15:09

Indeed:11 february on Ezboard:Electronic folder.
> Reciever/transmitter |
Author Comment
HOOPS123
Registered User
Posts: 1
(2/11/02 3:59:15 pm)
Reply
Reciever/transmitter
A few of my friends and I have been working on a transmitter and reciever for model rocketry(thats what we use it for now to test it). The T/R came from an old toy car. The range that we are getting on it is about 50 yards.
Is there any way to increase this range? Is there anything cheap we could buy that we could place between the T/R and possibly double the distance that way? Thanks for any help. ... 1st post :) ...

It was not the first post but it was one of the first. :cool::cool::cool:

BromicAcid - 24-5-2004 at 18:42

Why wasn't this mentioned in the retrospective thread then??????

Regardless, my thoughts still hold true, the anniversary passed with no fanfare and what should we do, if not for this anniversary then for future events. We should get some of the good writers together and write an awards ceremony and have each person write their own acceptance speech then post it all at once? But I'm atleast going to go out and make some powerful oxidizers or something soon :D

Polverone - 24-5-2004 at 18:47

It wasn't mentioned in the retrospective thread because, until madscientist brought it up, I had completely forgotten our earliest efforts using free hosting instead of paid webspace.

Theoretic - 27-5-2004 at 05:24

I say we should try out something really out-of-line - i.e., a novel method of chemically preparing sodium, those that didn't yet - try to prepare ethyl perchlorate, a novel method of chemical chlorine preparation, starting with chlorine in -1 oxidation state, phosphine preparation and storage... not simply an experimentation week, but a week of doing some experiments we wouldn't usually do...

madscientist - 27-5-2004 at 05:37

I personally believe anything beyond a basic time-based celebration of time (i.e., a calendar) to be a bit silly. All the other thoughts as for celebrations involve doing things that are relatively pointless or are less useful/more dangerous/less effective versions of what we already do on a daily basis. I say we note the occasion, look back on where we've come from, think of where we want to go, and leave it at that. :)

[Edited on 27-5-2004 by madscientist]

Blind Angel - 27-5-2004 at 19:21

Wouhou! i'm not alone to think that calendar related thing a too relative for ou life to be based on. On an other note, MSDB has been online for over 800 sunrise, which is a lot for a board, so i think that we should celbrate the 1000 one which will happen on August 28 2004, also this will show our difference in the view of the world, one that is neutral and objective. :)

Yay!

BromicAcid - 13-7-2004 at 17:21

Today is my one year anniversary! 575 messages, 1.57 messages a day, currently only one of two people with the International Hazard ranking. Yes, it has been a busy year. Looking though my old posts it looks like I've done a good job, I ramble a bit, but I give good information and try to use good grammar. I think I've been a credit to sciencemadness, because aside from my own 575 messages I have helped spawn many more messages.

I hope things keep going well for me and sciencemadness and things keep going up and up. I just wanted to say I'm so happy to be here all over again!

Thank You Everyone!
Expecially Chemoleo and Polverone

Current projects: Castner Tiegel, Sodium from thermite type reaction under varying concentrations of numerous reactants, Cesium.... nahhhh...., B-Trinitroborainze, boron trichloride, need to get beryllium, air liquefaction, ferrates, perbromates, bromic acid, need more bromine..., sodium bismuthate, more phosphorus/different methods, fluorine (yes, I said fluorine), hydrazine, nickel powder, barium, sodium nitrite, perchloic acid, boron, need to buy a nitrogen cylinder for dichloroacetylene.... and the list goes on and on and on....

Polverone - 13-7-2004 at 17:45

You're very welcome! I'm certainly glad that I took the time to recruit you from Usenet. I will consider myself paid back in full when you have an optimized phosphorus-production method ready to share :D

chemoleo - 13-7-2004 at 18:55

Thanks, too, Bromic :)
Indeed- it's soon my anniversary, too - and it seems decades ago! Now I am thinking, arghh, I really did write some noob posts in the beginning - but no more I hope :) (Dont u pick up threads to contradict this!)
But yes, I remember how stunned and delighted I was at finding this forum - all this information, all at hand, while for decades before all I had was the library...
Vive l'internet! - and the freedom of information!

Since Bromic brought up his current projects - I am just too tempted to do so myself!
Well here it comes: - Na via electrolysis, hydrazine via various methods, hydroxylamine+formic acid + HNO3, KClO3 electrolysis to get KClO4, the making of anhydro enneaheptitol, crystal growth, rocket design, making Cs, and of course (my speciality) at last testing a huge number of thermites! I am expecting a number of oxides soon... so keep checking :)
As to organic chemistry projects - I always meant to make acetaldehyde - I got all the reagents, so what's stopping me? Either via the C2H2 route and HgCl2, or via K2Cr2O7 and EtOH. An interesting downstream product would be pentaerythritol. , of course. Then, hexachloroethane..via Kolbe reaction...using trichloroacetic acid. Then... with the respective products - making a vast variety of complex salts - energetic or not.
Then... the making of a furnace. Electrical, or by induction, preferably. It's safer that way. Guandidinum nitrate, perchlorate, you name it...
Oh well they will get done one at a time... slowly, but some day they will. I always told myself... when I have enough money, I will get myself a little caravan, outside (out of harms way) and experiment there... it does sound like some juvenile dream, I know... but you got to admit it has some appeal!

On another note.... all of us happily posting - what do u think what will happen in the future? in 20 years time? Are we going to regard this hobby as sad, boyish and such? I sure hope not. I will make sure my kids (if they are ever to be) will appreciate the mysteries of chemistry.
Well so much for a rant!

[Edited on 14-7-2004 by chemoleo]

Cyrus - 14-7-2004 at 21:34

I predict this forum and other such forums will be banned or censored within 15 years. If not, they will die out on their own. By then it will be rather hard to get any chemicals anyways, so the forum would be near useless even if it existed.


Just Kidding. I hope.:( We will see.


I think this forum ought to last for a while, but most of the current members will move on and "grow up."

Yes, I'll make darn sure my kids appreciate chemistry too. I do not want any chemophobics in my house.
The first word of my future son or daughter had BETTER be "bowiktwimethileshtur":P

Quantum - 14-7-2004 at 22:09

^ Thems fighting words!

I think if that ever happened we would all know what to do.

The_Davster - 14-7-2004 at 22:24

I sure hope the people here do not "grow up". Its not like this place is just composed of teens.
I personally am unable to see myself leaving here for any reason short of death, or losing all possible apendages that could possibly be used to type with.

However in the future, chemicals will be harder to obtain. But that is why this site will live on. If all products that contain a chemical are banned, our type will turn to the ways of the ancient alchemists, extracting everything from natural sources. Thus making this site necessary for the exchange ideas for the obtaining reagents from natural resources.

I am unsure on how a website could be banned, some enterprising individual will always move the server to some rock in the middle of nowhere. But I am not computer smart so there may be ways to ban a website that I do not understand.

I will make all human effort possible to have my eventual child appreciate chemistry, and not become another mindless sheeple that thinks if it contains the word "chemical" it is bad. I will make them think about what he/she is taught at the local "sheeple indoctrination facility"(thanks for the applicable term for school, NBK :P).

And finally, jeez Cyrus I spent a good 4min trying to figure out what "bowiktwimethileshtur" meant.(boric trimethyl ester;))

Cyrus - 15-7-2004 at 13:59

If the gov. tries to ban this site, or bust my door, or both (more probable) I am ready too.

Cyrus raises imaginary shiny scientific wonderweapon and cocks it ominously.

chemoleo - 21-7-2004 at 17:23

As to 'growing out of the hobby' - right now I think it's not possible.
There are, as Rogue said, many non-teen members here! Yet we (the old guys) prevail.. so far. The reason I was wondering this was because many people stop doing what they are doing once they are married, and have kids of their own. Just like the dad of my recently departed friend. All he ever did was to give us (me and his son, my dead friend) some advice here and there - never too much, but enough to make us want to carry on.
There were a few members who posted a lot for qutie some time, but suddenly disappeared (Examples? Hermes, ignorantly, Philou for some time, pyro, etc etc) - and I wonder whether this is related to the 'growing out of it' business. I hope not.
As far as I can see, this won't be happening to me soon... but then, never say never! ;)

Saerynide - 21-7-2004 at 20:01

Where *are* Hermes and Ignorantly... they havent been around since May... I hope nothing's happened to them :(

Magpie - 21-7-2004 at 20:38

I miss Hermes too. I wrote to him but no response.

When I was young I had a few simple hobbies including chemistry. Then when I reached young adult stage I did the professional job/marriage/house in the suburbs/kids thing. There I was so busy taking care of my responsiblities that my only chemistry time was at work. And I had one expensive hobby that involved the whole family. Now with the job and the soccer games behind me I have returned to my true loves - the simple hobbies of my youth, which includes chemistry.

I too fear that chemicals will get hard to get. I think this depends on how much mayhem the terrorists cause. I tend to buy chemicals before I need them as I'm afraid they may not be available in the future. I really don't like doing that as I don't have proper storage set up - yet.

madscientist - 22-7-2004 at 05:19

Quote:
As to 'growing out of the hobby' - right now I think it's not possible.


I don't think people are going to grow out of the hobby either, but I'm sure many will find themselves a position where they are unable to pursue it for a long period of time. That's where I'm at, at least... no lab, no books (pretty much), and very tight finances.

[Edited on 22-7-2004 by madscientist]

Zinc - 9-7-2006 at 14:06

I think that every one who likes explosives should prepare 10 kilograms of ANFO. Then we all should meet in one place and place all the ANFO on one pile and detonate it. For those who do not like explosives everyone should buy 1 liter of 30% H2O2 or a higher concentration (those who can buy it). Then we all should meet in one place pour the H2O2 in one container and in that container full of H2O2 drop a large quantity of KMnO4.

neutrino - 9-7-2006 at 14:45

That's a good deal of ANFO. You sound like you belong here. :D

enhzflep - 9-7-2006 at 20:06

Now THAT would be one hell of a weekend.
Planes, Cars, Girls, Rockets, Fireworks, Explosives, etc (in no particular order)- basically a weekend full of technologically adept pyromaniacs/lunatics.

How about a annual competition. 5 or 10 bucks entry, voting by appointed pannel of judges or by entants themselves. Aim of competition to produce most interesting/usefull synthesis/experiment using improvised(for the most part) equipment. Prize could be nominated by the winner as being a cash prize, or chemistry equipment/supplies as chosen by winner up to a $ value.

Of course, an award (real/mock) for the members deemed to have contributed the most to the board in the year would be a much cheaper and equitable option, albeit harder to administer on account of the size of the task.