PBS has a new series, “Hidden Killers”
re the mondo hazards at turn of last century, in Victorian houses populated by folk with even greater ignorance of ‘chemistry’, physics than our current crop of dullards-with-game-boxes in their pockets 24/7.
Tonight’s opus showed an early Gilbert’s™ chemistry set, a lot like one I played with as a post-tyke (when ‘home’, being ‘quiet’ as Mater slept prior to work, say.) Vanity aside, yes, I was ‘precocious’ esp. re my earliest obsession: Chem stuff. My kit had the added utility of a roll of Mg-magnesium tape ~ 1/8” wide and thin. This was only a year or two before I discovered ‘Phlogiston’/not its original (wrong-) concept re how “things burned”.
In brief, these primitive ‘sets’ had innocent vials of sulfur, carbon-powder, nitrates etc (no liquid usual-suspect acids, bases and like that.) But many home products provided all the basic chem utility/solvents as we modrins can imagine. The PBS series is about showing (oft newspaper clips of) just How-interesting [also Powerful] were/are the things you can make, do with these elements and their common salts. And the admixture of [n+1] of such. Web-land is rife with extrapolations ... but always there were weirdos 'into' such matters; but NOW
... you needn't be weird to have experienced at least a --> fleeting wondering about.. oh.. maybe "WTF *IS* a -proper- greeting? for an an ad hoc Group of brown-shirted ones ... wandering down Your block, who might like Your pad for their new club-house (and sporting shiny new boots and The Shirts)/for a few: their first-ever set (??) of New Clothes for das neue ad-hoc-Adventure involving Free-will. Und lebensraum.
Point? well, if recent developments have not galvanized thoughts of er, Resistance to [whatever on Your list] … wasn't it Rosanne Rosannadanna’s? quip so often “..never mind.” For those who shall not go quietly into that ‘good’ night, there are those who (with or sans cats) are more like..
Do Not Go Gentle to That Damned Vet by Dylan Thomas's cat, " The Human" by Edgar Allan Poe's cat and other works … Phlogiston, mentioned numerous times in these parts, plus Things you can do with Mg-ribbon may be more useful matters to grok than ..any of us, previously ..would have imagined bothering about.
Recipes available to various of the non-feebleminded … as matters seem unlikely to fix-themselves ‘going —> forward’ as they say (ugh..|mindless-cliche). But for those who do not curse the dark/but find ways to illuminate it quickly (and eschew day-time projects ..for all those cameras-on-poles) ..for these: LIfe's a Beach.
Carrion + some colored powder can indeed become Interesting. Learn to 'titrate' or remain un-equipped, I say.
"Be Prepared" it's the Boy Scout's marching song; T. Lehrer says so. Alas there are other sorts of 'scouts', usually older even middle-aged; pre-pubescent nonetheless.
Tonight’s opus showed an early Gilbert’s™ chemistry set, a lot like one I played with as a post-tyke (when ‘home’, being ‘quiet’ as Mater slept prior to work, say.) Vanity aside, yes, I was ‘precocious’ esp. re my earliest obsession: Chem stuff. My kit had the added utility of a roll of Mg-magnesium tape ~ 1/8” wide and thin. This was only a year or two before I discovered ‘Phlogiston’/not its original (wrong-) concept re how “things burned”.
In brief, these primitive ‘sets’ had innocent vials of sulfur, carbon-powder, nitrates etc (no liquid usual-suspect acids, bases and like that.) But many home products provided all the basic chem utility/solvents as we modrins can imagine. The PBS series is about showing (oft newspaper clips of) just How-interesting [also Powerful] were/are the things you can make, do with these elements and their common salts. And the admixture of [n+1] of such. Web-land is rife with extrapolations ... but always there were weirdos 'into' such matters; but NOW
... you needn't be weird to have experienced at least a --> fleeting wondering about.. oh.. maybe "WTF *IS* a -proper- greeting? for an an ad hoc Group of brown-shirted ones ... wandering down Your block, who might like Your pad for their new club-house (and sporting shiny new boots and The Shirts)/for a few: their first-ever set (??) of New Clothes for das neue ad-hoc-Adventure involving Free-will. Und lebensraum.
Point? well, if recent developments have not galvanized thoughts of er, Resistance to [whatever on Your list] … wasn't it Rosanne Rosannadanna’s? quip so often “..never mind.” For those who shall not go quietly into that ‘good’ night, there are those who (with or sans cats) are more like..
Do Not Go Gentle to That Damned Vet by Dylan Thomas's cat, " The Human" by Edgar Allan Poe's cat and other works … Phlogiston, mentioned numerous times in these parts, plus Things you can do with Mg-ribbon may be more useful matters to grok than ..any of us, previously ..would have imagined bothering about.
Recipes available to various of the non-feebleminded … as matters seem unlikely to fix-themselves ‘going —> forward’ as they say (ugh..|mindless-cliche). But for those who do not curse the dark/but find ways to illuminate it quickly (and eschew day-time projects ..for all those cameras-on-poles) ..for these: LIfe's a Beach.
Carrion + some colored powder can indeed become Interesting. Learn to 'titrate' or remain un-equipped, I say.
"Be Prepared" it's the Boy Scout's marching song; T. Lehrer says so. Alas there are other sorts of 'scouts', usually older even middle-aged; pre-pubescent nonetheless.
