When I was 8
I tried climbing a tree. Me and a friend had decided to try climbing this tree that was balancing over a pond and a barbed wire fence. I go first and I got fairly high up too until Wes decided to climb it at the same time. The tree was rotted through and the branch I was on snapped when Wes tried to climb up also. We both fell; Wes was lucky and only landed in the shallow pond. I wasn't, I landed neck first on the barbed wire fence with a lovely bit of barbed wire embedding itself about half an inch above my Adam's apple.
Me mum wasn't best happy to see me running in the house holding my chin screaming with blood pouring out from under it. I think the phrase that best described the moment she saw me was "she was baking a shit biscuit".
After a quick visit to A&E and 2 stitches I was informed that literally a centimeter more towards me Adam's apple and I would've bled to death. Possibly scare tactics to stop me climbing again....it didn't, but I made fecking sure the tree worked before trying it again.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Tue 29 Jul 2008, 9:01, Reply)

my chemistry teacher
was a legend and a half. Not much actual a level prep was done during our lessons with him, we would just build volcanoes and pour Hcl on jelly babies... you know the fun bits of chemistry.
Anywho one day we were actually doing something from the syllabus about the structure of alcohol or something, and he shared with us an experiment he undertook during his early days of teaching.

Being a very enthusiastic chemist, he took that as an excuse to brew his own booze. Not just his own beer, but spirits.
He used to create concoctions of various different strengths from about 2% to about 90% and everything in between.
So one day he decided to test how strong the alcohol percentage had to be before the alcohol over powered the taste of the spirit.
so he set up all his shots and began drinking.

Conclusion: Ha ahs no idea as he only remembers getting as far as 20% and then the rest is a foggy darkness until his woke up in hospital with acute alcohol poisoning.
(minsh, Tue 29 Jul 2008, 8:24, Reply)

Mosquitoes
How do you know so much about mosquitoes?
(chrisdalby, Tue 29 Jul 2008, 7:28, 2 replies)

Y11 Chemistry..
In Y11 our chemistry teacher decided to be "cool" and "fun" and decided to let us make alcohol, cider to be precise.

Three weeks later, one fateful Monday morn, there were one or two successes (which were taken to the prep room and never seen again, bloody drunkard teachers), a few flasks full of what can only be described as tar, and the rest mostly just warm liquid that smelt of bread and faintly of apples.

Ours was in the latter group, and one lad took it upon himself to drink this foul concoction of not just our group but another's too because "its cider innit? Can't let good cider waste"

He necked the lot and after about half an hour looked decidedly ill, and rushed out.

We didn't see him for the rest of the week.

The following Monday rolls around and it turns out he'd spent three days curled around the bog at home shitting his innards out and pretty much suffering from dehydration (and mockery when we found out) over the weekend :)
(Fleximus Rex briefly gave up lurking on, Tue 29 Jul 2008, 1:58, Reply)

Tramampoline
Being a collector of stamps (presents from family not by choice), I had numerous magnifying glasses at my disposal. I realised early on that stamps were boring - but burning things was ace.

So finding a trail of ants I set about testing how long an ant could take the magnified power of the sun. Not very long apparently.

The fact that I did this on the trampoline did not go well. Queue my brother and I jumping on a hole ridden piece of rubber. Queue my brother and I splitting said rubber and hitting the dirt pretty damn hard. Queue 3 twisted ankles.

Conclusion: Burning ants is fun and we have strong bones.
(Slatts If you cant remember it didnt happen, Tue 29 Jul 2008, 1:32, 1 reply)

I tried an experiment once
to see if I could laugh at the Fast Show.

I watched an entire episode. Everyone told me that this broke new bounds in comedy genius.

I didn't even smile. Not once. I detected no humour at all. Just people saying stuff.

"Do you like... Tina Turner Ted?"

So he has a gay crush on him. How is that funny? So he says Tina Turner instead of "Gay sex." or whatever. How is that funny? Competitive Dad is mean to his kids. It certainly could be funny. But is isn't. He wallops the cricket ball into the next county. Great. Hee-larious. How about some, you know, punchlines?

Conclusion: For humour to occur in the Axeman Jim household, it has to involve actual fucking JOKES, not just the same lines repeated so often that some fool decides that this is some kind of new wave in comedy when in fact it's lazy writing reliant on "in-jokes". Just because some character says something every week doesn't, in itself, make it funny. Little Britain, for example, has its catchphrases, but, by and large, they are part of the joke, not the so-called "joke" itself. Hell, even "Allo Allo" was more sophisticated.

Or was my experiment flawed?
(Axeman Jim, Tue 29 Jul 2008, 1:28, 16 replies)

Aged about six or so.... (slight pea)
Messing about the back yard with my cousin, I found a fairly hefty piece of slate, that looked remarkably like a dagger.

"COOL" thinks the five year old, weapon-mad boy that I was, "I wonder how sharp it is?"

And ignoring my mother, tested it the only way I could think of.

One trip to hospital and 15 stitches in my left arm later, I still bear the scar fifteen years later :)

I still claim it didn't hurt (it really didn't) but the look on mums face when I showed her.
(Fleximus Rex briefly gave up lurking on, Tue 29 Jul 2008, 1:25, 2 replies)

Afro test.
One of my friends (Emman) is Filipino in origin, but has lived in England the majority of his life and I grew up with him basically Now his hair naturally goes into a rather loose affro, which while looking hilarious and being fun to stroke also allowed us to conduct an experiment one bored day at school.

How many pencils can we fit in Emmans hair?

We started with a few coloured pencils we all had, half expecting them to just fall out.

Having ran out of those, we fetched more from the stock cupboard.

Having ran out of those we got some from some other rooms.

About half an hour later we had it, it was a coloured, curled masterpiece of childish construction and boredom.

86 coloured pencils sticking out from all angles of his hair!

Another lunch time well spent I felt.
(Guilt wants to get in your moist confines, Tue 29 Jul 2008, 1:07, 3 replies)

Mellow Yellow
Not sure if bindun yet?

Back in the hazy days of 1998 whilst I was still at secondary school, a rumour was going around that you could have a legal high with an oven and a certain type of fruit.

Smoking banana skins. Anyone remember it?

A bunch of mates and I duely bought some (well, enough to feed the monkey enclosure at London Zoo for a week) bananas, took them round to Gills house (the friend who ALWAYS had a free house as her parents worked away a lot as they were in the film industry), and started the experiment.

The idea was to put the banana-less skins in the oven, cook for 3-4 hours, scrape the black paste off, mix with tobacco and put in Rizlas to smoke.

It seemed to take an age for the banana skins to form the paste. That's because it did. It took so long that we whiled away the (6) hours by drinking alcohol.

When the paste had "set" (in reality turned to a black hard crust), we set about scraping it and making the cigarettes (the kicker being i don't even smoke!).
After about 4 of the home-made fags (smoked one after the other, passed between the 5 of us), and no effect whatsoever, we gave up.

Mellow Yellow, my arse. I'll be sticking to vodka in the future.


First post. Long, long time lurker.
Please be kind!
(Saire_B, Tue 29 Jul 2008, 0:32, 4 replies)

Weird experiement caused by sleep deprevation
Im an insomniac. Not the Hollywood movie "psychotic see people who arnt there" kind, just the "sometime I can't sleep much" kind. Thing is, though im not mental, not sleeping does send you a little weird. At least it makes you do weird things.

Weird experiment 1) Testing how much stuff I could plait into my hair. Including rolled up paper, wire and a shoe lace. When it took an hour to managed a pencil plait I decided to stop because it was foolish.

Weird experiment 2) Testing the curvature of my periphery vision by leaning my eye socket against various surfaces. A wall gets the best curve, but it must be a full socket flush to the wall (you can look out of your second eye).


I've also labelled everything in my room (including photographs, pens and individual books) with HOME MADE LABELS, and labelled myself. I got to writing "Boobies" across my chest before i noticed how rediculous this was. Thank god most housemates are asleep at 4 in the morning. Though these arnt really experiments.


... i'll just wait here for the men in white coats here shall I.
(peech, Mon 28 Jul 2008, 22:48, 4 replies)

Breathing
I once decided to not breathe - God knows why, but I just stopped mid breath.

It's funny how once you've not breathed for a while you almost forget how to start again.....

It wasn't nice....
(james_tiger_woods is going to start his killing spree on the, Mon 28 Jul 2008, 22:46, 2 replies)

Ski Jump on Carvers
Week of R&R after artic warfare exercises. We came across some Herdy-Gerdys preparing for a ski jump competition.

"I'll have ago at that". Got to the end of the ramp (slowly) and fell off the end, hard.

After getting strapped up in a bar by a lovely Nowegian lass over a few jars blagged a pair of "straight skis" off a 16 year old who had finished his runs and pelted up the top for the last run of the day.

Results: Beat Eddie "The Eagle" Edward's UK record by a mile. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xrn8mz7lovc

Sent Eddy a postcard saying that had beat his record with a broken collarbone wearing jeans and a berghaus on my day off. He didn't reply





*lie
( buffet_the_appetite_slayer ٩(●̮̃•)۶ jacked in to the ICE on, Mon 28 Jul 2008, 22:29, 2 replies)

I'm a chemistry student
Most labs I do are pointless, and follow this format:

Organic labs:
Demonstator: "So what have you made?"
Me: "A white powder"
Demonstrator: "Ok, can you name it?"
Me: *Flips through lab script* "Yes, it's hexaoctoacetylbromoketophenylaldehydeic acid"
Demonstrator: "And why is it important, what did you learn from making it?"
Me: "Lord knows, refluxing is incredibly boring?"

Inorganic labs:
Demonstrator: "What did you observe?"
Me: "It changed colour"
Demonstrator: "And why is that?"
Me: "I don't know, but it looked pretty"

Physical labs:
Demonstrator: "So what happens if you increase the temperature?"
Me: "I was supposed to be increasing the temperature?!"

All the learning is done in the write-up, honest :P

Length? 6 pages is usually enough to sound like you know what you're talking about :P
(Petite chien is going to do science to it, Mon 28 Jul 2008, 21:20, 5 replies)

Tonight's second experiment has revealed that...
... if you pick up the phone to hear your father speaking when you otherwise do not speak to him; this means he has cancer.

I have not yet validated this observation against other relatives.

Carry on.
(dxg, Mon 28 Jul 2008, 21:15, 6 replies)

Snail Graffitti
A B3ta newsletter post about a London artist who decorates snails with classical paintings reminded me of my misspent youth...

At the age of 9, I desperately wanted to be David Attenborough and I would conduct experiments upon the local wildlife and fill notebooks with "observations".

I decided to discover the migratory habits of snails by raiding my mothers multitude of brightly coloured nail varnishes, collecting a collective of snails, painting their shells with varnish and releasing them at specific colour-co-ordinated distances away.

Suprisingly, many of them came back or were found by my mother and our neighbors for several years afterwards. I still do not know those polka dotted shelly beasts survived predation...
(Janitor Sinister, Mon 28 Jul 2008, 20:54, 4 replies)

Mosquitoes in the Rain
Many years ago I walked into the backyard at night to enjoy a smoke. It began raining pretty hard but I didn't seek shelter. A few minutes later a mosquito bit me. I was amazed. How in the hell could a mosquito fly around in the rain? Surely falling raindrops would instantly ground a flying mosquito.

I pondered the problem and realized the truth might be surprising. I cut a foot square of light-colored cardboard and put it in the rain for ten seconds. Then I counted the rain drops that had hit the square. I realized even if the square was entirely covered with drops, that's only two-dimensions which is deceptive. It was invalid to imagine each raindrop as a column of water through which a mosquito couldn't fly. For the rain to hit a mosquito the drop and the mosquito would have to be in the same place at the same time, which is extremely unlikely. Imagine taking a 3D snapshot of a cubic foot of air space during a rain. How many drop-sized points are there in the space? Tens of thousands. How many of those spots would contain a drop of rain at any given moment? Not many. It looked like a mosquito being hit by a drop of rain would be the exception rather than the rule.

Then I had another realization. Each drop pushes the air in front of it out of its path as it falls. A flying mosquito is likely to be pushed aside by the air in front of a falling rain drop rather than be hit, even if a drop would have hit it. Similarly a butterfly is often pushed aside from your windshield as you drive rather than being hit.

I convinced myself that in general mosquitoes can fly through the rain unhindered.
(animals, Mon 28 Jul 2008, 20:18, 6 replies)

How to become a superhero by drinking cleaning products....
Have a delicious roasted pea, in the form of something I wrote on LJ four years ago:

Investigation into the effectiveness of Mr Muscle with The Power of Oranges^tm in battling cosmic villains.

New Mr Muscle has The Power of Oranges^tm.
I set out to discover what this means.

Firstly, we must learn more about oranges. A thorough web-search has revealed the average diameter of an orange - 7.5cm.
From this we are able to calculate the volume of said average orange using the formula v=4/3*pi*r^3
so v=1.33*3.14*3.75^3
therefore v=220.781249cm3
which we will round to 220.8 for the purposes of simplification in the subsequent calculations.

This allows us to estimate the weight of an average orange. As we know, 1 litre of water weighs 1kg. 1 litre is 1000cm3. An orange is largely water, so a 220.8cm3 orange will weigh roughly 220.8g. Again for simplification and because I'm not sure of the exact makeup of an orange, not to mention the fact that oranges are more ovoid than spherical, we will round this figure to 250g.

Now, The Power of Oranges^tm. What is it? I have racked my brain thinking of what this might be, and the most likely conclusion is that the colour orange has some intrinsic power. The best-known manifestation of this power is The Power of Ten Tigers^tm as used by Phantom off of Defenders of the Earth.
(Whether or not Phantom ever actually used the power of ten tigers, as we never saw more than seven superimposed over him while he summoned his power, is a question to be investigated at a later date.)

Another web-search tells me that the average weight of an adult male Bengal tiger is 220kg.
A tiger is only half orange however, so for this calculation we will use the figure 110kg, or 110,000g. We will assume that half of the power of a tiger is also derived from the black bits.
To find out how many oranges are equivalent to the orange half of the tiger we simply divide 110,000g (mass of orange half of tiger) by 250g (mass of average orange).
110,000/250=440
However as half of the power of a tiger is assumed to be derived from the black bits, to equal the power of an entire tiger we need to double this figure, and therefore 880 oranges are equivalent to one whole tiger.
Multiply this figure by ten to get the power of ten tigers:
880*10=8800
or 8800 oranges=1 Phantom.
so 1 orange=1.136*10^-4 Phantoms
=0.0001136Phantoms
=113.6microPhantoms

Next we investigate the price of Mr Muscle The Power of Oranges^tm cleaning products, and find that a 750ml bottle costs £1.57. I will calculate the power of this bottle financially rather volumetrically, to give the greatest possible power value.
In Safeway on my lunch break I discovered that the price of a single orange is 19p. Assuming that there is no profit margin whatsoever and that Mr Muscle has some method of extracting and concentrating The Power of Oranges(tm), each bottle may therefore contain up to (157/19) 8.263 oranges, giving a total power of (113.6*8.263) 938.6768microPhantoms, or (to 2sf) 0.94milliPhantoms.

Thus we are able to conclude that:
a) A cleaning product made from Phantoms at the same ratio would be 8800x(4sf) more effective than Mr Muscle with The Power of Oranges.
b) Eating 8800 oranges in a single sitting would allow you to absorb enough power to kick the shit out of Ming the Merciless.
c) It should be possible to achieve a similar effect through ingesting 1065 (8800/8.263 to 4sf) 750ml bottles of Mr Muscle with The Power of Oranges^tm cleaning solution, but this can not be endorsed by the author.
(wellgroomedwookiee is a filthy-minded hobgoblin, Mon 28 Jul 2008, 19:40, 6 replies)

When I was in the special forces...
we were once dropped off a plane into the African Savannah with a few explosive materials, bows and arrows and told to survive for a week. So there we were, about ten of us, all greener than a spinach-fueled poo, all alone in the great outdoors. In a typical male display of bravado, we decided to pool our resources and kill the largest animal we possibly could. Elephants, rhinos and hippos were obviously out of the question, because they are too difficult to kill, and we couldn't find any giraffes.

So we decided that we'd try to kill a buffalo. The problem is, buffaloes are generally quite wary and almost impossible to get in a trap. So Jim, the troop's explosives expert, came up with a plan that involved putting a small amount of explosive on an arrow-head strapped to a long stick and hurling it like a javelin at a buffalo.

On drawing straws to decide who would be the unlucky sod who got to throw our jury-rigged explosive spear, yours truly drew the shortest one. So, having snuck up to a herd of buffalo quietly grazing, I threw the spear. Surprisingly, it flew unerringly and, on hitting the buffalo, promptly exploded.

The rest of the herd having scattered, we went in and retrieved what was left of the spear. The arrow-head had disappeared to fuck-knows-where, and what we were left with on removing the shaft was pointless-ex-speary-mince.

*POP*, please be gentle
(Bel Shamharoth has eight of everything, Mon 28 Jul 2008, 19:07, 3 replies)

So far this evening I have discovered that...
... if you buy a new house that the builder installed an alarm that you didn't want, don't assume you don't have to bother with the maintenance contract, because:

a) If you press the Panic button to see what happens *

b) all hell breaks loose

c) you discover you do not have the code you need to turn the damm thing off

d) your fancy electronic tag doofer thing also doesn't work no matter how many ways you wave it around in front of the panel

e) you cannot find the instructions

f) when you call the number on the control panel - you can't make out what they're saying on the phone beause it's too damm loud

g) it eventually (after 30 long, long minutes) stops

h) the control panel starts flashing weird messages that you don't know how to turn off

i) you're placed in a state of paranoia as to when / if it will start up again

j) you can't hear anything even after the alarms (one front, one rear, one upstairs) have stopped because you've now got tinitus

k) due to (j) you still can't hear what they're saying on the phone when you try to cancel the engineer call-out

l) you decide to call them tomorrow to take up the contract after all and get someone out to show you how the damm thing is supposed to work.


In short - don't press the big red "I'm being robbed" button by the front door because things very quickly get very noisy and very expensive.

:(

What?? I really can't hear anything!


* hey, I was dusting and it. was. just. there.
(dxg, Mon 28 Jul 2008, 18:29, 7 replies)

This is ongoing, so please feel free to make suggestions...
.
I work for a large organisation. It pains me to admit it, but there you are. My employers suffer from the corporate disease known as "The Presentation".

I have the attention span of a goldfish when it comes to corporate-speak and my brain switches off with the first buzz-word. I have, over the years, perfected some methods of avoiding the brain-atrophy that accompanies attendance at any kind of "Presentation". It also serves to keep me awake (yes, I have nodded off in the past at these things).

First, select your victim. Ideally, this will be the person giving the presentation, but can also be what I call the "vultures" - the ones who sit facing the audience, waiting for a chance to pounce on any member of staff not paying attention.

Then, make eye-contact at least once, without doing anything else. Having established that you are paying attention, the victim will generally make repeat eye-contact on a regular basis.

When subsequent eye-contact occurs, immediately fix your gaze on a random spot on the wall behind them. Lower your brows slightly. If you can manage to look mildly perturbed, so much the better. Glance back to ensure that your victim is now wondering what you're looking at, then return your gaze to your random spot. Lower brows slightly more. This will generally ensure that the victim will feel compelled to check out what you're staring at. If they do, you score a point.

This can be repeated if required, but I prefer to move on to the second stage. Again, wait for eye-contact. Then cross your eyes, without changing your expression in any other way. Only for a second or so, just long enough to make them wonder if you really did cross your eyes. If they look puzzled in any way, you score another point. If not, repeat as required.

The third stage is difficult to perfect. This involves looking absolutely astonished when they state something you know to be a: solid fact and b: common knowledge. The astonished look should only last a couple of seconds, and will, ideally, cause them to double check what they just said. Score another point.

The fourth stage should only be attempted if your job is secure. Under UK employment law, you can't be sacked for any of this, but you can damage your career potential if you push it too far.

This is best carried out when the presentation is winding up. Assume your best "I'm bored out of my skull and not even listening any more" expression. Meanwhile, concentrate fiercely on what's being said, and come up with a really good question or suggestion. By now, the "victim" should be glancing at you frequently, and should notice the bored expression, then proceed to assume the worst. When the final "any questions" stage is reached, make a point of checking your watch at least once, then hit them with your question/suggestion. If they look taken aback or surprised in any way, score a final point.

So far, my points record is a measly five. Any additional stages, or suggestions for improving this experiment in "playing with the boss's head" are welcome.
(TheWeeWitch hasn't been here much recently .., Mon 28 Jul 2008, 18:16, 7 replies)

Bangers
Remember those little paper bangers you used to be able (maybe you still can, I'm not sure) to buy at markets? The ones you threw to the ground, where they would make a small bang, and you realised that you had probably been ripped off?

Well, the cunts at school banned them, as they could apparently cause burns if you slipped and fell and they went off in your pocket.

Upon hearing this, I knew they were lying - and trying to rob us of our innocent, childish fun, as most adults do - as the bangers came in small plastic bags full of sawdust to prevent them accidentally going off. But at the same time, my 13-year-old mind had to know if the bangers could actually do that.

The only problem was that with being an only child, was that there was only one person I could test the bangers on... (You can see where this is going, can't you?) ...myself.

I placed a handful of bangers on the back of my hand, reached for the T.V. remote (I didn't wan to risk my other hand), and brought it down swiftly on my hand...

...there was no burns, and the only pain came came from twatting my self on the back of my hand with a Sky remote.

I now know it's impossible to burn yourself with bangers, as I went through about 4 boxes of them that day.

Although if you put a banger between your thumb and first two fingers and wear sunglasses you can do an excellent Bono impression i.e. 'Every three seconds, someone dies due to poverty' [Click fingers, popping the banger].
(peterlynch, Mon 28 Jul 2008, 17:32, 2 replies)

Nan does spice
I recently went to Nandos with an lady friend of mine catching up on old times. This was where we went for our first date, and we liked the cheap and cheerful nature of the place. She also loved the hot saucy goodness although I am not good at eating the spicy stuff as I used to be. We noted that Nandos had undergone some changes and had expanded their hot sauce line to amongst other things, mayonnaise and some sweets.

We ordered and had our meal, and afterwards she asked if I wanted something to freshen my breath. She proffered the candy she had bought with her dinner, but I explained that as I had only had chips and some corn that it wasn’t necessary for me to have something to freshen my breath.

She looked hurt and it was only then that I realised that I had rejected my pointless ex’s peri mint.


Tenuous.
(powervator and NONE SHALL PASS, Mon 28 Jul 2008, 17:16, Reply)

Yum yum
Many years a ago, when poo still fascinated me and spinning round in circles was deemed an entertaining afternoon activity, I officially realised that I was never going to be interested in scat. I was about 8yrs old at the time and had gone for a poo and for some or other reason decided to inspect it before flushing it away. I noticed a particularly juicy raison in my poo and without so much as a thought for all the myriad of reason why I shouldn't eat it - I did.

The revolting taste enveloped my mouth instantly and I felt rather sick. In retrospect it was an ill conceived plan with little contingency if things went wrong, but they just had.

Probably the biggest mistake of all of this was telling my brother and sister about it as they have since brought it up in conversation at the least opportune moments. It's amazing how many times the conversation drifts off into eating raisons from ones bottom when I make a brief trip to the loo.

I ate a raison and almost died so God only knows how those woman in the 2 girls 1 cup felt.
(The Archduke of South London I'm in your Girlfriend eating her organs, Mon 28 Jul 2008, 16:51, 5 replies)

Electro POP
I decided to assess whether or not a magnet (a big round one with a rubber handle) would be able to pull a steel shirt pin from one of the lower 2 holes in a plug socket.

My answer is no. There are 3 obervations i can now make.

1. Pins cannot handle 240v@50Hz. They melt and only leave a burn mark. I suspect - as no matter can be created or lost in such transformations - that they became (2)
2. Many sparks of bright light - akin to welding - flew off in all directions. These little starlets of light were actually molten burning steel.
3. The magnet had a big melted groove and blackened spot where contact was made. The plug socket had similar burns on it - rendering it useless.

It was during the Grand Prix, and the loss of power made my dad proper angry.
My excuse didn't work - "The pin fell into the socket and i was just trying to get it out"

I was reminded of this tale on the occasion i screwed through a power cable that shouldn't have been there (cheers builders you corner cutting chimps).
( bazza van der trance , ooh baby baby, baby baby. Get up on this., Mon 28 Jul 2008, 16:34, Reply)

Remote Control Car Fuel and Scaletrix
When I was 14 my generous father bought me and my brother remote control cars. These ran on a light oil and petrol mix (glowplug fuel).

For convenience we kept the fuel in a bicycle drinking bottle, the plastic kind that had a flip open top.

Now for some reason my father let me keep this in my bedroom, and this is where it all goes wrong. You see I like fire, and at 14 I loved fire, so experiments with the fuel were inevitable.

In our room we also had a 12v Scaletrix transformer, now I discovered if you attach 1 strand of a copper wire between the two main wires and turn it on, the wire glows very hot and if put on paper will scorch it.

So thus a great experiment was born, what happens if you put the wire over the top of the bottle and then turn the transformer on, you get a large column of flame out the top and a really big 'whooop' noise.

After 3-4 times and a general agreement that this was an ace new way to play with fire, we decided to take it one more step.

Lets put the wire into the bottle and close the lid.

Now, with my gained knowledge and my general understanding of how engines work, I probably would have stood back a bit more than I did, basically I was hold of the bottle when we flicked the switch.

What happened was the "glow plug" ignited the fuel in the container, this caused a huge expansion of gases in the bottle, causing the lid to open and expel most of the (thankfully) half full bottle (ignited) over my carpet, the bed next to me and my legs.

What happened next can only be explained as blind panic. First I took off my melting tracksuit bottoms, we then turned both the beds over on top of the flames, next we opened the wardrobes and starting heaping clothes over the rest of the flames.

Somehow this worked, we were sat on-top of a huge heap of clothes and stuff, but all of the fire was out. But we noticed that a small flame was creeping up the curtains, so we both stood-up to beat that out, and by doing this wafted round the heated up gases that were coming off the now extinguished fuel.
So the now large cloud of petrol gas hit the small flame on the curtains - this caused one huge flash of fire that, as well as taking all my arm/leg/eyebrow hair also stole all the remaining oxygen.

So that was it the fire was out, two minutes later I raised the balls to call downstairs to my dad, who came up and gave us a bollocking.

The main punishment was having no decent clothes for 12 months, or no bedding, curtains also no carpet in that room ever again (we moved 2 years later).

Somehow I survived my youth.
(Sp4mM0nkey I can go Anywhere!, Mon 28 Jul 2008, 16:10, 2 replies)

QED
Experiment Date: Yesterday

Problem: Garden umbrella stuck in position

Desired Outcome: Unstuck garden umbrella

Required Equipment: Garden Umbrella, Wife, Penknife, Sterile Bandages, Car, Superglue

Test Notes: The garden umbrella comes in two parts, which pull apart. One part is stuck inside the other: this experiment will assess the different methods of removing one part from the other so that they become unstuck.

Test 1: Hold one part in each hand and pull.

Outcome: Zero effect.

Test 2: Hold one part whilst wife holds other part, and pull in a straight line.

Outcome: Zero effect.

Test 3: Hold one part whilst wife holds other part, and pull whilst twisting parts in opposite directions.

Outcome: Zero effect.

Test 4: Insert something thin and flat between two parts, and attempt to prise apart.

Outcome: A penknife was used for this test. As it was vigorously manipulated, the tester's hand slipped, slicing the tester's thumb vertically in two from front to back, straight through the nail: estimated length of severance - one half-inch. Sterile bandages were required to staunch the surprisingly copious flow of blood. The car was utilised to transfer the tester to hospital, where, after a duration, superglue was used to join the two parts together again. The umbrella remained in one part, unlike the tester's thumb.

Test 4: Burn the garden umbrella and buy a new one...


Conclusions: A penknife is not an ideal implement for trying to separate two poles that are stuck together.

Secondary Conclusion: My thumb hurts.
(Steve The Monkey, Mon 28 Jul 2008, 16:05, 4 replies)

The IT Room Electricity Chain Test
Question:

Is it possible to pick up enough static electricity from all of the computer screens in the IT room of a school to send a charge from one end to the other?

Also, is it possible to organise this in such a way as to prevent the final person in the chain from noticing what's happening (and thus not lift his feet, ensuring he remains grounded)?

Methodology:

Simply encourage each person in front of a monitor to simultaneously lift their feet from the floor and touch both their screen and the arm of the person next to them so that the electricity builds as it passes round the room, imparting a mild shock on the unsuspecting subject. It seemed an important question to answer at the time.

Conclusion:

The ability to test whether the charge is sufficient to achieve a notable effect on the end recipient is severely compromised if said recipient receives a sharp clout about the back of the head at precisely the same time as the charge is applied to their cheek.

Don't try to conduct serious scientific studies if not everyone present is willing to take part in the same experiment.
( Moey, Mon 28 Jul 2008, 15:49, Reply)

Big Brother, I ain't watching you....
I know a lot of people like this, but I really cannot see the point of it anymore. What started as a vaguely interesting social experiment in seeing how a random bunch of strangers locked up with one another for a long period would react to one another; has now degenerated into an exercise in ego promotion, nastiness, bullying and the pursuit of fame, however fleeting, at all costs. Not to mention a competition between the female inhabitants as to who can get their norks out first in Zoo or Nuts. I’m glad to say that I haven’t seen any of this series, but have heard that the latest brainless oaf to be evicted didn’t know how many weeks in a year there are and had a predilection for getting her baps out at the slightest opportunity. I also believe that this person works with nursery children – God help them!

It seems that as each series has progressed, the nastiness between housemates has increased massively. Despite the time it is shown, a hell of a lot of young children seem to watch it as well, which really saddens me.

I hope the fact that the series is already being scrapped in Australia is sign of things to come in the UK… Three series were enough. The rot seemed to set in a few years ago after the housemates were labelled as ‘boring’ – it seemed that Channel Four were going out of their way to get the most extreme characters possible to provoke confrontation. It’s run its course, let it die an undignified death. And take Davina and that God-awful faux-Geordie Marcus Bentley with it.

Please?
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Mon 28 Jul 2008, 15:34, 13 replies)

Me and my brother had many rounds of an experiment called
'How many pegs can you attach to your body'

this then developed into

'How many pegs can you attach to your body and for how long'

and finally

'I'm going to cover your face in pegs, how long can you survive the agony'

He still holds the record, which is in excess of 2 minutes.
( WormuIus, Mon 28 Jul 2008, 15:31, Reply)