The quasi Official Stupid Ideas that have actually been done thread
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That list is pretty short. Those guys should ask the State of California.
I built my son a sandbox this summer. When discussing it with one of my wife's hippy friends, she asked where I was going to get the sand from. Oh fuck, I know where this is heading.
"I was just planning on going to the quarry."
"Don't you know that sand has known carcinogens in it that are just as bad, if not worse, than asbestos according to the state of California!!"
"Yes, and I see it all as overblown bullshit when it comes to a kid's sandbox. The risk is of silicosis, which only becomes a hazard when it is airborne in extremely dry conditions. The sandbox is going to sit outside, get rained on, and the sand will be perpetually wet. He is pushing toy trucks around a sandbox, not sawing fucking concrete."
I am real popular with that particular friend.
Edit: And yes, there is apparently a market for "safe sand". $25 for 25lbs. I spent a little over $25 for a fucking pickup truck load.
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carcinogens
are what make bacon so crispy and tasty, aren't they?
Mmmmm, crispy tasty bacon...
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So basically... everything.
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Everything.
Especially if you're a rat genetically predisposed to get cancer, but that's too factual for the Fail…
Or if you're in California.
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Next up:
Astrologists discovered: Pisces have a significantly increased risk of cancer.
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How about Cancer cancer risks?
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I can't be bothered to find a cite, but newspaper this morning said a French former minister compared the attacks on Charlie Hebdo† to Sep-11th, saying they were worse because they were done by nationals, unlike the former who were done by foreigners.
†Which have seen been claimed by Al Qaeda or so I heard.
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a French former minister compared the attacks on Charlie Hebdo† to Sep-11th, saying they were worse because they were done
by nationalsto his country, unlike the former who were doneby foreignersto somone else's.FTFY
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For me the thing with cancer is that humans don't die of anything else. 100 years back people died of many things so cancer wasn't a big deal. But we did the same shit we do today or worst. Anyway, I read somewhere that the general acceptance between doctors and scientists is that cancer is some random shit. You can luck yourself by smoking and playing in sand, but that you reach 90 and die of boredom is pure chance.
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Yes, that was my reading too.
(the minister was a "her", btw)
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Meh, it doesn't matter.
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Meh, it doesn't matter.
Yeah. The only consolation is that it helps to prove that everyone else has dumbasses in politics as well.
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Not like that was ever in doubt.
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Oxygen … lung cancer.
Sudden surge of common sense? Oxygen is carcinogenic. That's been known, like, for decades. It is also acutely poisonous in partial pressures above around 100 kPa and it caused the first mass extinction in Earth history.
cancer is some random shit
Sure. You can't avoid oxygen (and live).
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Oxygen is carcinogenic.
hmmmmm strictly speaking it isn't. O2 isn't carcinogenic. what is carcinogenic is the free radical O+ occasionally produced when Oxygen interacts with hemoglobin. and since most of that initial, free radical producing, interaction happens in the lungs that is where the carcinogenic effects are the strongest.
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I don't think O+ exists. Radical is O..
Since they are created during the breathing process (necessarily; the oxygen atoms can't react with anything without breaking the O2 molecule apart), there is really no escape from them.
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Of course most other carcinogens also only cause the damage when they take part in some reaction in the body, so there is really no difference.
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I don't think O+ exists. Radical is O.
Actually O+ is a thing, i'm noting the charge. There's two ways oxygen can be split. the most common way is to split into two uncharged (also unstable, there's a reason O2 is a good oxidizer) atoms, or occasionally they'll split into O- and O+ which are also unstable, but O+ is really unstable and will tear other molecules apart like crazy to become stable
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since most of that initial, free radical producing, interaction happens in the lungs that is where the carcinogenic effects are the strongest.
So what you're saying is that lungs are carcinogenic?Lungs are also involved in the act of smoking. </conspiracy-theory>
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So what you're saying is that lungs are carcinogenic?
well no, but you're not far from the root of the conspiracy.
see the lungs are really just giant antennas in the body for the illuminati. i mean the surface of those things are like 70 square meters! that's bigger than my roof!
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Wow, programmers and oncologists and chemists around here... I'm amazed.
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On the Internet, everyone's an expert on everything.
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Yeah, I just knew you'd say that.
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Actually O+ is a thing, i'm noting the charge. There's two ways oxygen can be split. the most common way is to split into two uncharged (also unstable, there's a reason O2 is a good oxidizer) atoms, or occasionally they'll split into O<sup>-</sup> and O<sup>+</sup> which are also unstable, but O<sup>+</sup> is really unstable and will tear other molecules apart like crazy to become stable
Do you have a source for that? Would love to read up on that.
I'm a bit late to the "smoking is bad" party but one other hypothesis I've run across is that smoking is not only bad due to all those noxious compounds in the smoke, but that alpha-decay of Po-210 is also a major contributor.
The tobacco plant, for some reason, collects more Po210 than other plants. So, you're not only inhaling a heavy metal, it's also a radioactive heavy metal, radiating the absolute worst kind of radiation if you have it inside the body
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Do you have a source for that? Would love to read up on that.
O+ cations are insanely reactive super-high-strength electron acceptors. Very very strong reducing agents. No idea if they're present in any meaningful quantity in @accalia's scenario, but they're the chemical equivalent of a buzz-saw.
I'm a bit late to the "smoking is bad" party but one other hypothesis I've run across is that smoking is not only bad due to all those noxious compounds in the smoke, but that alpha-decay of Po-210 is also a major contributor.
The tobacco plant, for some reason, collects more Po210 than other plants. So, you're not only inhaling a heavy metal, it's also a radioactive heavy metal, radiating the absolute worst kind of radiation if you have it inside the body
Perhaps, but my bet is on the carbon monoxide and the tars being bigger factors. The CO will be stressing all sorts of systems, and the tars are just plain nasty. I could be wrong, but it's known that exposure to other types of smoke is also not good for you at all — death by smoke inhalation is an unfortunately common thing, being the main way in which people die in house fires for example — so it's really not a great leap to think that tobacco smoke isn't likely to be health-promoting. ;)
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You don't need to explain to me that they're insanely reactive, that's pretty much a given, considering oxygen's electronegativity.
What I wanted was some more details on how one obtains those critters in the first place and how one was able to measure details about them since they're most likely very short-lived.
Regarding the stressors: Yeah, CO isn't so nice but it's not exactly a cancerogen. But, yeah, the results from the low-temperature, low-oxygen burns will be not so nice either.
I recently tried to show my pupils how you could create wood spirit - essentially, you heat wood without providing external oxygen and then catch the fumes.
I did this under a fumehood, of course, used low amounts of wood and used other means to limit the exposure.It still resulted in the most spectacular headache I've had in a long time. Granted, the experiment worked, but I scratched that particular implementation. Not to mention that it took three days of airing the room to get rid of the stink. Good thing I do experiments at least once on my own before showing them to the pupils - the original script suggested that the pupils do this by themselves!
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Do you have a source for that? Would love to read up on that.
that's a deep rabbithole. i've got some sources, but one of the neater introductions to why oxygen does this is SciShow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnAhAX98HY4
and their references for that episode for deeper reading: http://dft.ba/-1qC6
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That one's talking about oxygen radicals, though and not the cation.
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simplified a bit. look at the sources.
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O+ cations
I read this as opluscations
:/
the tars are just plain nasty
I resemble this remark!
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It still resulted in the most spectacular headache I've had in a long time.
That sort of thing is why I stopped doing experimental chemistry. Almost all volatile solvents trigger that sort of headache for me (with the key exceptions of water and ethanol, thank goodness!) and that makes doing almost anything in an organic chemistry lab impossible.
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Looked at the sources. They either talk about radicals, are behind a paywall or yield a 404.
O2+ seems to be a thing, though.
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Yes, the first bit is quoting ancient posts.
Because Rule 34 Corolary #1
If none can be found it shall be made.
…@MottBott is involved with porn now?
@accalia said:i think this post itself probably counts for the first entry.
…I cannot think of a response…
@PJH said:>US researchers suggest way our bodies process oxygen is potentially carcinogenic
@tar said:I found not only one, but two lists of things that the Daily Fail says will give you cancer
Daily Fail Headline Generator:________ WILL GIVE YOU CANCER
Fill in the blank with anything you like: bread, fur, toothpaste, the avatars I make for @accalia, anything ;)
A group that insists that free speech be denied to a section of the newspaper industry claims to stand in solidarity with those who insist free speech not be stomped upon.
People are stupid
@tar said:crispy tasty bacon
Stop; I'm drooling…
@accalia said:see the lungs are really just giant antennas in the body for the illuminati
Are you secretly channelling Sticks the Badger?
Genuine quote, that
@dkf said:with the key exceptions of water and ethanol, thank goodness!
Good, you're normal ;)
I'm farmin' Hanzos today!
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O2+ seems to be a thing, though.
It'd be a lot more stable too. Studying O+ is more in the domain of physics than chemistry (as in, blast some oxygen in a particle accelerator and watch the bits move before they react with the walls of the experimental chamber…)
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O+ cations are insanely reactive super-high-strength electron acceptors. Very very strong reducing agents.
I was wondering whether such a thing was even possible until I realized that is the state in which the O must necessarily be in FOOF. That explains much.
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FOOF
I was imagining some revolting admixture of fluorine and oxygen, which probably turns your eyes into gas and your bones into the stuff your eyes are made of...
EDIT: Oh, this article is fun (emphasis mine)...
At seven hundred freaking degrees, fluorine starts to dissociate into monoatomic radicals, thereby losing its gentle and forgiving nature. But that's how you get it to react with oxygen to make a product that's worse in pretty much every way.
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The great majority of Streng's reactions have surely never been run again.
I was wondering how one would get published when anyone with sufficient expertise to review the paper would refuse to get within 100km of anyone trying to reproduce the results. But the answer is obvious when you think about it: grad students. Assign them to repeat the experiments, then quickly go on vacation. If they are successful, well and good. If not, they are cheap and easily replaced, and you are a safe distance away.
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Oh, this article is fun (emphasis mine)...
That guy has a whole series that are written in a similar style.In a comment to my post on putting out fires last week, one commenter mentioned the utility of the good old sand bucket, and wondered if there was anything that would go on to set the sand on fire. Thanks to a note from reader Robert L., I can report that there is indeed such a reagent: chlorine trifluoride.
There's also Things I'm Glad I Don't Do, which I'm less familiar with.
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There's also Things I'm Glad I Don't Do, which I'm less familiar with.
A rather shorter list than Things I Won't Work With, for which my (so far hypothetical) productivity today thanks you.
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grad students. Assign them to repeat the experiments, then quickly go on vacation. If they are successful, well and good. If not, they are cheap and easily replaced
Not only that, but if they don't survive, you've shrunk the glut. So you're actually helping the economy.
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Assign them to repeat the experiments, then quickly go
on vacationto a conference.FTFY (because you can get funding for that!)
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FTFY (because you can get funding for that!)
And if you do it right, you can even count it as a business trip, so no need to take time off!
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And if you do it right, you can even count it as a business trip, so no need to take time off!
Of course! Conferences are always business trips, even when they are fortuitously located in Las Vegas or on Waikiki Beach. :D
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This episode and this article:
It reads like The Onion. That should tell you enough.