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Author: Subject: Mad Science at the max, where do you draw the line?
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[*] posted on 16-6-2004 at 10:48


Quote:

I havent.

Haven't what?

Seen pink elephants? Smoked crack? Had sex?




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[*] posted on 16-6-2004 at 11:01


The pink elephants!

of course~Duhh~

What were we writing about in all those previous posts?




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[*] posted on 16-6-2004 at 11:02


You stated that you had "no limits". I pointed this out as a logical fallacy, and you replied with "I havent" (sic).



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[*] posted on 16-6-2004 at 11:27


Well , then it just depends on how you define the word 'limit'.
-1-You can take it as an all-incorporating word.Which gives a possibility of doing insane things.

-2-You can also ,like i did and most of us did[though i can only speak for myself]take it as the limits within , logical thought.

The second definition wouldnt incorporate the possibility of someone blowing him or herself up.

Within that logical and sane thought, the statement 'havent got limit' wouldnt be a logical fallacy'.

Me saying that i havent got limits doesnt mean i ll just blow my self HighSky.

Like i said it depends on how you define things.




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[*] posted on 16-6-2004 at 11:34


The "logical thought" meaning of the word actually implies your 1st definition, but never mind. Let's get back on topic and forget about the misunderstanding, OK?



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[*] posted on 16-6-2004 at 11:50


The difference between the 1 st and second definition is :the first incorporates Everything. The second doesnt ,it only incorporates logical 'sane' things.Everything conducted in a lab anywere is sane,i think. And therefore within my possibilities.Therefore i dont have a limit,because sanity itself is my limit~!

But Let It Be and Let It Rest.

Ok.Lets just get back on topic,whatever that may incorporate{hihihi}.

--=HUG=--




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[*] posted on 16-6-2004 at 11:53


Draw the line? I'm so far past the line that it's just a faint dot on the horizon.. ;)



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[*] posted on 7-8-2004 at 17:37


I am not going to work with very radioactive stuff, explosives that weigh more than I do(no drums of ANFO in a field) or nerve agents and stuff like that.



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[*] posted on 7-8-2004 at 20:35


Nothing is "mad" enough, as long as you have adequate protection and skill.



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[*] posted on 7-8-2004 at 22:23


Certain things I will avoid. Making explosives dosn't scare me too much, unless they are super senistive, like NI3. Other than that I've made 50 grams of AP before.

I will not work with nerve agents, too toxic. Another thing that scares me are heavy metals and their salts. They tend to bio-accumulate, and don't leave your system so it stays with you for a long time. I will avoid working with mercury. I have a jar sealed away.




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[*] posted on 7-8-2004 at 23:41


Hmm, havnt thought about this, I guess I have. No nuclear shit, nerve agents, carcinogins, excessibe amounts of HE's, etc, along those lines.

I only make stuff to see how it reacts etc, unless Im going to make it for doing a job, like some NC for a stump or something.


As far as I see it, you guys define the term "mad scientist", some of that stuff you guys mention I couldnt dream of making.




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[*] posted on 8-8-2004 at 07:35


The line is somewhere between fluoroacetates and nerve agents, I think.
And I generally hate organometallics containing transition metals.
I like radioactive things, as long as they're not radioactive enough to cause thermal burns :D.




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[*] posted on 22-8-2004 at 09:51


For me, the limit is things that will do me loing-lasting damage (sensitive explosives, carcinogens, heavy metal salts, etc). I have no reservations about working with stuff that can just temporarily do harm. That includes gasses that I can smell before they kill me, including ammonia, chlorine, bromine (it fumes a lot, so I consider it a gas), etc).
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[*] posted on 27-8-2004 at 13:38


Nick F
Where do you get your vitamin B12 from if you don't like organometalics containing transition metals?
Presumably, not many of us worry that we and our friends are radioactive.

I think that the point has been made, it's quite possible to do most things safely provided that you take care. The question is "what risks are we prepared to accept and what equipment have we got to offset those risks."
I wouldn't work with nerve agents at home but at work I probably would. That way I get paid and (more importantly) the facillities are ther to do it safely.

(Safe is always a relative term, if somethng can go wrong you are not absolutely safe. While you are alive, you can die. The only way to be safe is to be dead). Someone should explain this to politicians who keep asking "Is it safe?".
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[*] posted on 29-8-2004 at 09:21


Just like to mention something I did many years ago, did not see any problem then.
When I was 15, I went from the UK to France to stop with a family who ran a hardware shop and their friends ran a pharmacy. When they found out I liked chemicals they gave me everything for free, stuff I could not get in the UK at that age. When I came back on the plane on my own, I had in my hand luggage 1litre conc HCl + 130 vol H2O2, 250ml conc nitric + conc sulfuric, potassium chlorate, potassium bromide and iodide, some stuff with mercury in it + others. Luckily nothing leaked, the container were nothing special and no one check my hand luggage.
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[*] posted on 29-8-2004 at 19:46
Draw the line


That's easy - unpredictable primary explosives and most poisons.



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thumbdown.gif posted on 29-8-2004 at 21:01
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When I first started doing chemistry, It seemed as if there were no limits. Chemistry was synonymous with sorcery.

And of course the most accessible websites with the best pictures and easy to understand instructions were illustrating unlawful activities.

It seems that doing harmful and destructive things will always be easier than doing useful and productive stuff.

sigh.

Anyway, It certainly did more than pass through my mind to synthesize the high profit margin chemicals for resale and thereby better my lot and fund my fancies.

I wondered long and hard about it.

But by giving it more thought, I began to really see the evil in what I was considering.

Money for nothing sounds lovely, but I like being able to look in the mirror when I shave without wanting to spit in my own face.

The pyramid scheme of drug dealing depends on exploiting the weakness of the feebleminded and weakwilled and no decent person would have any part of the very real suffering and misery that come with it.

I used to walk by junkies on Hastings + Main in Vancouver. Shambling wrecks and skeletons that looked as if they came out of some cheap horror film, and smelled like they were dead. I was a teenager at the time and naturally just looked at them as lesser life forms to be kicked out of my way or taunted and humiliated.

They were almost universally fearful, like stray cats, and guys I worked with would sometimes beat up a few after a hard night of drinking at the local bar (the Ivanhoe). They were so used to being tormented and victimized they would hardly even protest much less report the assaults.

Now; I don't have any more respect for junkies than I used to. But I also don't want to add any more fuel to that particular fire.

There is no profit in it, only loss.

so that is where I will draw the line.

Hermes.




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[*] posted on 29-8-2004 at 22:40


Quote:
Money for nothing sounds lovely, but I like being able to look in the mirror when I shave without wanting to spit in my own face.


Ah, don't worry Hermes. Even if you'd wanted to tread that path you probably would've discovered before long that it's not really "money for nothing." The fentanyl doesn't just fall out of trees! It seems to be more like "money for a lot of work and stress," for those who sell their products. I know of at least one case where a person with reasonable chemistry experience thought he was going to whip up a few moles of methamphetamine in a couple of weeks and live like a clandestine prince. Instead he suffered from lachrymator inhalation, wounds from flying glass, and the loss of many personal possessions when a procedure went wrong.

Clandestine chemistry-for-profit seems to be for the desperate, the greedy, and the foolhardy. In theory, it looks like there's a lot of easy money to be made. In reality, I think it's harder to imagine a more stressful job than "clandestine chemist." I don't have the foggiest idea how one would go about reliably and anonymously selling the output of one's drug lab. I suspect the answer involves compromising anonymity or reliability. What a lot of hassle when there are already so many legal jobs available to the technically skilled!




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[*] posted on 30-8-2004 at 00:58


Where I work they are trying to make anti-cancer, anti-TB etc stuff (some promising stuff on the TB front). When some people find out what I do its WOW can you make ........The answer is yes if I wanted to, probably be easy compared to the other stuff I have made, but no because, followed by a list of what ifs and anyway why would I want to mess up my dream job.
When a chemical is dropped because it has been found to kill not just cancer cells but just about every other type of cell, its amazing how you start being very careful with the stuff rather than treat it as just another chemical.
Being able to control an explosion or exothermic reaction is practically useful sometimes.
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[*] posted on 1-2-2005 at 10:03


The US carcinogen list was updated yesterday; some additions to the "reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen" list:

Naphthalene, "lead and lead compounds", cobalt sulfate, nitrobenzene, and nitromethane.

Far more hazardous IMO is telling things to people that you don't want to be known. For some reason people do this even though we find from an early age that this never turns out well, and this is learned repeatedly until we finally get it.
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[*] posted on 1-2-2005 at 10:35


Well, I have to say browsing through this I would have to say that some of you are in the wrong field of work. Now that I'm learning a little about chemistry, I am fascinated with halogens. Anybody that would never want to work with halogens has to be crazy, with the exception of fluorine of course. Bromine however is a beautiful element. I'm particularly nervous about the idea of working around mercury vapors. Nerve agents are very fucking scary. I don't really mind HE, I actually feel quite comfortable around them. I'm some what of a natural in this field. However, dangerous primaries scare the shit out of me. I'm always paranoid that I’m going to lose a finger. Placing a detonator isn't very fun either. Actually nitrobenzene sounds particularly dangerous. I've herd reports of fatalities from people wearing clothing contaminated with this explosive.



[Edited on 1-2-2005 by tom haggen]




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[*] posted on 1-2-2005 at 13:37
hey, chillax


just a note to you kids, fluorine will attack copper, nickel, etc, even platinum. you have to realize that any fluorine gas you produce will be wet to a degree and the fluorine will self-catalyze fluorination using small amounts of HF

i am careful with what i do and i research everything i do. i'm skittish around my lab often. my first exposure to chlorine gas was bad because i got an entire breathful and i coughed for two minutes. the last time i worked with chlorine however, i was actually fine despite being exposed to quite a bit of it and i suppose i dont mind it much.

i hate HI fumes, H2S and SO2.
i would never make organophosphates and highly toxic compounds as mentioned above. cyanides? no. i also don't like explosives. i hate bromine. i fear 97% sulfuric acid. the oleum that is evolved is moderately disturbing, then theres the prospect of spilling it et al.




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[*] posted on 1-2-2005 at 14:40


Fluorine will attack most metals, but it usually forms a passivating fluoride coating which resists further corrosion. Oxygen does the same thing to aluminum.
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[*] posted on 1-2-2005 at 14:54


yeah, but there will surely be water in your fluorine and hydrogen fluoride would continue the attack beyond the fluoride layer



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[*] posted on 1-2-2005 at 15:17


That's why you would normally heat the potassium bifluoride before initiating the cell to drive off H2O, you then pass the fluorine formed over sodium or potasisum fluoride which removes the hydrogen fluoride from the gas stream as the bifluoride. The apparatus from Inorganic Synthesis says that it can run for years with no need for part replacement, the high temperature cell I described in the fluorine thread doesn't even need the HF trap, the high temperature process produces very little gaseous HF.

From me June 2004
Quote:
The distillation of a mixture of KClO4 with H2SO4 under reduced pressure is looking feasable....
It was only 2.5 months later that I tried this, then tried it again, and again. And my reasearch on orgaic perchlorates continues, and the fluorine cell.... well... you'll all see one of these days... and then there was that huge Castner cell disaster and the Downs cell I've been working on. Phosgene though, I had to draw the line there, I did not want to use a war gas, no matter how useful, in synthesis.

Oh, and on the subject of bromine, as I've said before I's my favorite halogen, and I like it's slightly sweet biting smell, and it's so very beutiful, I'm currently stockpiling it :)

[Edited on 2/1/2005 by BromicAcid]




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