Gilded

cricket bat = would be a strange creature feature

Stranger = bum rum

I'm going for one hundred decimals. I like pi(e), no other reason. AND, it's a good way to bore people to death. Hey, now that this is a wallpaper thread, has anyone found a good pic of northern lights/aurora borealis? With a high resolution, of course, for desktop wallpaper purposes. :| Yes, I tried Goo-Ghaling but couldn't find any nice enough. I should probably take advantage of freezing my ass in here, and take some pictures of actual live aurora borealis.

"Aren't there any girls in Finland?" Nay, thar be only arctic creatures (only sucky arctic creatures like lemmings, no polar bears or that sort :<) and... cloudberries.

Arrh, thar be spanking around too. Ye'll be all spanked in the dawn, yarrrh. "found an S&M magazine under the bed" Mmmm... S&Ms. So tender and chocolatey... No wait, I meant M&Ms.

Welcome to Science Forums; where the grass is greener on the other side of the... umm, quark? Bah. "Do not ask these people for recipes! They'll give them to you with all the ingredients in chemical symbols." Aye, ye'll be mixing C12H22O11 with H2O, then ye'll be adding a little NaCl...

Arrrh, thar be Brittish humor about. Pull high the Jolly Roger and load yer muskets. (Actually, I've always loved Brittish humor :> ) A man is driving a truck. Soon, the truck's motor shuts down. The driver starts to swear and tries to start the truck again. Soon, a priest comes by. Priest: Do not swear! That's not going to help! Truck Driver: Well, what do you suggest I should do. Priest: You must pray! *Truck driver turns the key and the truck starts* Priest: Oh $hit, who would have believed? Another truck driver joke: A man drives a truck through a dark forest. He thinks to himself "Ahh, sure it's dark, but I've got a six pack of beer and a tasty sandwich!". Soon, a yellow man jumps from the bushes, and prevents the driver from driving further. "Hey, I'm a faggot! Gimme something to drink!" the yellow man says. The truck driver is very homophobic, so he throws his six pack from the car window and continues his journey. Soon, a red man jumps from the bushes. "Hey, I'm the faggot you saw earlier! Gimme something to eat!", the red man says. The truck driver starts to get really pissed off and throws his sandwich and continues driving. Soon, a blue man jumps from the bushes! The truck driver shouts at the man "OK, WHAT DO YOU WANT YOU F***ING FAGGOT?!?" "I'd like to see your driver's license", says the policeman.

It's always about urine, ISN'T IT?! Hey, try cleaning a gallium stained table, I found out today that it's very hard. The gallium's sticking ability seems to be greatly exaggerated, though. Perhaps you could try making your own cleaning chemical of MEGADEATH from household chemicals?

Yay, got my gallium and bismuth today. They are AWESOME. Now I have xenon, krypton, argon, neon, iridium and the gallium and bismuth. :> Only about 85 elements to go!

Hmmh you've got a point there YT. I'd be pretty pissed if I had been given crappy advise. Sooo... Let's see. Lots of glue and plastic (as YT mentioned) experiments going on... Maybe even a small yield thermite reaction. Or if it's not so specific, perhaps a nice essay of acids and where they are used + a little demonstration would be great. Or maybe a short sublimation demo? Or electrolysis? Do you find any of these interesting?

Hmmh... Haven't seen any Farscape miniseries around here either. Or then I just missed them.

I do like Kerry. Strangely, I live in Finland. Dammit! Go Kerry!

The Basics (and a bit more) about element collecting So, you want to start your own collection of elements, the noble building blocks of the universe? Great! First you might want to define what sort you prefer; elements in their everyday use form (spark plugs, lightbulbs, nuclear reactors), perhaps minerals with interesting elements in them or pure (+99%) lab/reagent grade samples, or a mix of these. Some providers to get you started: Red Green and Blue Company’s Element Collection page, www.element-collection.com If you’re lazy, or just want to get a brilliant assortment of ALL naturally occurring elements straight from hydrogen (1) to uranium (92). RGB also provides individual samples at reasonable prices (even thorium and uranium as pure metals!). They seem to ship incredibly fast (took three days for a delivery from UK to get to Finland, and it has a one day notice-sending delay added!). They ship from: UK it seems, although some eBay auction items seem to be located in US. Look RGB up at eBay! Speciality: Marvellous set of elements, nice promethium and radium watch dials Variety: All naturally occurring elements (1-92 atomic numbers) Smart Elements www.seltenerden.de A marvellous European element provider. They also have some assortments (noble metal and rare earth, to be exact). Quite reasonable prices, perhaps a bit high for some common elements. They ship from: Germany and Austria Speciality: Incredible metal crystals, cheap cesium, extremely beautiful uranium marbles Variety: Some missing from the 92, such as sodium and potassium, no radioactive elements except for the U-marbles (by the way, bismuth isn’t considered radioactive here ) Metallium Inc. www.elementsales.com An awesome provider from the US. Nice elements, reasonable prices. Some incredible auctions at eBay (for example, a 50g rhenium pellet starting at about 20$!). They ship from: United States Speciality: Astonishing metal rods and pellets Variety: No gases, except for chlorine. No radioactive elements Emovendo http://www.emovendo.net Another great provider from the United States. Reasonable prices, except for the eBay auctions which are amazing not only for the price but the cool samples. They ship from: United States Speciality: Large samples of some elements (for example, a 2.5kg piece of strontium!) Variety: Mostly metals, some others (like sulfur and selenium) American Precious Metal Exchange http://www.apmex.com Oooh, shiny! Precious metals (silver, palladium, gold, platinum) all the way, with very good prices. They have a minum order of 25$, and don't currently ship internationally (though it seems they are planning to do so in the future). They ship from: United States (and currently only to US) Variety: Only silver, palladium, gold and platinum, but many different forms of the metals are available (bullions, coins...) Sooo… Perhaps you would like to get your hands on some of those elements too? You don’t know what to do with them? Here’s Gilded’s Fairly Good Guide to Element Storing. 1. Remember to have your toxic elements in a safe place, where no small kids or pets can reach them. A good example of these is beryllium and thallium. Beryllium should be of minimal harm if it’s in solid form, and NOT in powder form 2. Reactive gases such as chlorine and fluorine? I recommend a glass ampoule (in which they are mostly sold). These are also good things to keep away from all things that might break or consume them. 3. Metals? Find out if they oxidize in room temperature, those ones should be under mineral oil or argon (or possibly both). Sodium and potassium are good examples of these. Gold, iridium and other very inert metals you can keep just about anywhere, especially somewhere where they can be viewed and lusted after by your guests. Don’t let them steal your gold bars though! 4. You even found yourself some radioactive samples? Keep them in lead boxes (thick iron pots should help a little too). A minimal amount of extra radioactivity never hurt anyone, but still, radioactive is something not to be played with. And don’t, and I mean DON’T keep alpha emitting material near to beryllium or aluminum! Kick ‘em with alpha and they’ll kick you with neutrons! Anyway, dangerously radioactive samples are quite unusual, and regulated too, so you won’t be seeing them that much. Remember: Alpha doesn't even go through a sheet of paper. Beta goes through the paper, but not through a thin metal sheet. Gamma goes through a thick concrete wall with ease, a thick walled lead container is recommended for samples with high gamma activity. 5. Allergy? If someone’s allergic to a certain metal or some other elements, keep the allergy causing samples in glass ampoules. If it isn’t in powder form, you shouldn’t have a problem with allergic reactions (unless the person actually sleeps in the pile of metal dust). 6. Use common sense, and element collecting can be fun, interesting and SAFE! Links: www.theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable - brilliant element collection (it's an actual TABLE) www.webelements.com - nice information about elements ***this is not a Complete listing, It`s currently work in progress. and will be updated regularly as and when New sources and data arrive.*** List-o-updates: 10-20-2004 Added Emovendo to the provider list, upgraded the radioactive sample-storing section 10-29-2004 Added American Precious Metal Exchange to the provider list (thanks jdurg!)

Hey, wasn't ammonium nitrate the stuff that cools things? You know, put it in water and the temperature will drop dramatically. Or then I'm just eating too much weird mushrooms out of our backyard, again.

"how does one light said grenade without blowing ones hand off?" That's the beauty of it! No, the trick is to close the bottle, leave a small outdoors torch/candle near it and run away.

A very interesting thread indeed. Starting to sound a bit like The Matrix though. What about this: This universe is just a game. During the game, you can't remember anything about the real universe, or your real life. Then when you die, you log off and receive a score for the game. "Ok... You lived 106 years... You were a moderator at SFN... Got a Nobel prize... Twelve offspring... 163040 points."

Ooh, nice to see that someone else likes nuclear weapons. Mortal Kombat's not too bad either. :> Have fun!

bud, can you guide me to a page where it's explained the basics of what happens in reactions? Like "Ok, that has a and b so they form a compound if temp. over 500 C". I have some basic info about it (like thermite reactions and such), but not too much. :|

Perhaps the bomb I talked about is more of an outdoor activity than a lab experiment. "actually i think we hv limited resources n apparatus, just those commonly found in the lab(not a very professional one of coz" Hmm... Could you perhaps give a rough list of the chemicals/tools available?

Uranium glass-things are ace. Especially marbles are nice, just make sure you don't lose them! Being a glassblower is truly a marvellous profession. Who wouldn't like a blowjob? *Warning! Excess amount of stupid jokes in one post... Emergency shutdown...*

*sorry for the following gypsy joke, got to make fun of SOME group of people * Three gypsies are at the Pearly Gates. Gypsies: Can we get in? St. Peter: No, go to hell! St. Peter then walks away and informs God about this. God is mad at Peter and says "How rude of you! Gypsies are welcome in Heaven, go and apologize!". Peter leaves. Soon, he comes back shouting. St. Peter: They're gone, they're gone! God: The gypsies? St. Peter: No, the Pearly Gates!

Me too, quite odd.

No problem Spike. :> Glass always reminds me (because of its funny structure) of black opals. Little silicon dioxide balls that have a few water molecules in them.

It's an alloy of aluminum. Can't remember what sort exactly...

Yipes! Nice pets you have there, I'd like to have some sort of a nice lizard too. Wouldn't mind growing carnivorous plants either (I had one but I think I overfed it and it died :< ). Have fun, post lots!