Little Eye On The Crazy World Of Foreigners

[Kim]

https://twitter.com/TokyoFashion/status/1233403354908246017

Given how much your thighs would be hurting if you had to ride standing up all the way home or to the LBS, that's actually quite evil.

Hanging's too good for him.

For some reason I originally misread it as him stealing them from a warehouse.  Always alarming when this sort of behaviour *isn't* plausibly a fetish thing.

[Kim]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-51680049

Ignoring the obvious question of what they thought would happen when you dump 25kg of dry ice into a swimming pool, there's something quintessentially Russian about being able to obtain industrial quantities of the stuff on a "this pool's a bit warm" whim.

[Kim]

Meanwhile, in Australia: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-australia-51688609/snake-eats-towel-a-vet-explains-her-strangest-day-at-work

[hellymedic]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-51680049

Ignoring the obvious question of what they though would happen when you dump 25kg of dry ice into a swimming pool, there's something quintessentially Russian about being able to obtain industrial quantities of the stuff on a "this pool's a bit warm" whim.

See also Darwin Award post.

[orienteer]

More from planet Japan:

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20200228/p2a/00m/0et/011000c

[ian]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-51680049

Ignoring the obvious question of what they thought would happen when you dump 25kg of dry ice into a swimming pool, there's something quintessentially Russian about being able to obtain industrial quantities of the stuff on a "this pool's a bit warm" whim.

I read somewhere it was to make for that sort of cool smoke effect to appeal on social media pictures rather than cool things down, hence the industrial quantity of dry ice. I'm a bit worried that a 'qualified pharmacist' wouldn't know what high concentrations of a toxic, denser than air gas, would do in an unventilated space.

Carbon dioxide outgassing from volcanic lakes is a significant danger for those who like nearby (Lake Nyos in Cameroon once killed 1,800 overnight).

[Kim]

I've worked with dry ice for cool smoke effects.  Dry ice fog generation is more about surface area and being able to keep the water warm^[1] than the amount of dry ice you use - the process tends to self-limit as water ice forms around the CO2.  Regardless, it's considered extremely bad form to asphyxiate the musos when using one, and you'd think anyone familiar with such things would see a swimming pool as a larger, less wingey orchestra pit.


_{[1] A purpose-built fogger is basically a massive kettle with a chip-pan arrangement to control the dunking of the dry ice.  Big ones are electron-hungry.}

[ian]

Indeed, generally, it will self-limit, and in a well-ventilated space, will sink and disperse. The smoke isn't carbon dioxide, it's mostly condensing water, which will freeze on the surface of the dry ice. Chucking it in a large volume of warm water though will prevent this and the dry ice will likely be entirely converted to gaseous carbon dioxide. Pool complexes are not renowned for their ventilation, no one wants a cold draft when they're in their speedos.

Back in my science days, we used to have a fair quantity of the stuff, it was standard to extract and purify nucleotide metabolites in a freon-113/percholorate/tri-n-octylamine phase on dry ice. I miss having fun with chemicals.

[Jurek]

Indeed, generally, it will self-limit, and in a well-ventilated space, will sink and disperse. The smoke isn't carbon dioxide, it's mostly condensing water, which will freeze on the surface of the dry ice. Chucking it in a large volume of warm water though will prevent this and the dry ice will likely be entirely converted to gaseous carbon dioxide. Pool complexes are not renowned for their ventilation, no one wants a cold draft when they're in their speedos.

Back in my science days, we used to have a fair quantity of the stuff, it was standard to extract and purify nucleotide metabolites in a freon-113/percholorate/tri-n-octylamine phase on dry ice. I miss having fun with chemicals.

You've a grown-up tidy-haired job now, so just come to grips with it.

[ian]

Also if you put a small amount of dry ice in a sealed Eppendorf tube and then dropped it in someone's lab coat pocket, about 30 seconds later it would make a loud pop as it exploded. Endless fun.

The best part of the freon/perchlorate extraction was that it would fume like a witch's cauldron and frankly is precisely what science should look like. It would also instil an appropriate level of fear in the work-slave students we used to deploy to clean up radioactivity spills and organic solvents.

[Jurek]

Also if you put a small amount of dry ice in a sealed Eppendorf tube and then dropped it in someone's lab coat pocket, about 30 seconds later it would make a loud pop as it exploded. Endless fun.

The best part of the freon/perchlorate extraction was that it would fume like a witch's cauldron and frankly is precisely what science should look like. It would also instil an appropriate level of fear in the work-slave students we used to deploy to clean up radioactivity spills and organic solvents.

We need more people like you to propogate the fun aspects of the real world.

[ian]

We had a beer keg in the cold room and ate the genetically engineering plants (arabidopsis works well as a garnish in sandwiches). For reason mostly involving a failure to duck quickly enough, I was the department's radiation safety officer.

That said, a few years previous, my PhD supervisor held a similar role, and he irradiated an entire lab to the point that everything including the paint from the walls had to be removed. I never did that. I did once kick a nuclear reactor containment vessel* and the next day they had to shut down the reactor for 'safety reasons.'

*the tour guide told me to do it, to show it was that safe.

[mattc]

A colleague of mine broke his back* falling off a nuclear reactor. (it was in a sub, so was probably in Foreigner's waters, hence qualifying for this thread).

And my college lurrrrve went to A&E for uranium burns. (purely heat-based - no radioactivty was involved, but it makes a cool story).


*all healed up now, so Happy Story 

[Kim]

The inevitable wiksand has lead me to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoli_Bugorski

(Soviet particle accelerator accidents are almost by definition on-topic.)

[spesh]

The inevitable wiksand has lead me to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoli_Bugorski

(Soviet particle accelerator accidents are almost by definition on-topic.)

Исправлено это для вас.

He was able to function well, excepting occasional complex partial seizures and rare tonic-clonic seizures.

"Tis but a scratch... I've had worse."

[Greenbank]

The inevitable wiksand has lead me to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoli_Bugorski

(Soviet particle accelerator accidents are almost by definition on-topic.)

Исправлено это для вас.

В Советской России ошибки исправляют вас.

(Google translate, I've long forgotten what little Russian I did once know.)

[spesh]

The inevitable wiksand has lead me to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoli_Bugorski

(Soviet particle accelerator accidents are almost by definition on-topic.)

Исправлено это для вас.

В Советской России ошибки исправляют вас.

An extra potato for you, comrade.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Soviet joke: An American robot is sent on to the roof of the burning Chernobyl reactor building. It functions for 6 minutes before failing. So a better robot, a German one, is sent up. It manages 12 minutes before the radiation fries its circuitry. Then a Japanese robot is sent up, which lasts 15 minutes but it too fails. So the decision is taken to use the top secret Soviet military robot, even though the world's press is observing. After two hours, it is still going strong! So the platoon commander gives the order: "Okay Ivan Alekseievich, you can come down now for a break and a cigarette."

[andrewc]

Soviet joke: An American robot is sent on to the roof of the burning Chernobyl reactor building. It functions for 6 minutes before failing. So a better robot, a German one, is sent up. It manages 12 minutes before the radiation fries its circuitry. Then a Japanese robot is sent up, which lasts 15 minutes but it too fails. So the decision is taken to use the top secret Soviet military robot, even though the world's press is observing. After two hours, it is still going strong! So the platoon commander gives the order: "Okay Ivan Alekseievich, you can come down now for a break and a cigarette."

Ouch. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_liquidators

[spesh]

...  the most highly radioactive materials were shoveled by Chernobyl liquidators from the military wearing heavy protective gear (dubbed "bio-robots" by the military); these soldiers could only spend a maximum of 40–90 seconds working on the rooftops of the surrounding buildings because of the extremely high doses of radiation given off by the blocks of graphite and other debris. Though the soldiers were only supposed to perform the role of the "bio-robot" a maximum of once, some soldiers reported having done this task five or six times. Only 10% of the debris cleared from the roof was performed by robots with the other 90% removed by approximately 5,000 men who absorbed, on average, an estimated dose of 25 rem (250 mSv) of radiation each.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#Debris_removal

[andrewc]

I'm reminded of an old Heinlein story, where a ships fatally radioactive Torch Drive needs repair & the engineering officers JFDI, to get the other crew & passengers to safety.      Also Niven's "Lucifer's Hammer", where an engineer walks into a cloud of live steam to save a reactor.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Soviet joke: An American robot is sent on to the roof of the burning Chernobyl reactor building. It functions for 6 minutes before failing. So a better robot, a German one, is sent up. It manages 12 minutes before the radiation fries its circuitry. Then a Japanese robot is sent up, which lasts 15 minutes but it too fails. So the decision is taken to use the top secret Soviet military robot, even though the world's press is observing. After two hours, it is still going strong! So the platoon commander gives the order: "Okay Ivan Alekseievich, you can come down now for a break and a cigarette."

Ouch. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_liquidators

Like many Soviet jokes, it is a recounting of actual events.

[Greenbank]

I'm reminded of an old Heinlein story, where a ships fatally radioactive Torch Drive needs repair & the engineering officers JFDI, to get the other crew & passengers to safety.      Also Niven's "Lucifer's Hammer", where an engineer walks into a cloud of live steam to save a reactor.

Similar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_submarine_K-19

[PeteB99]

There's always a hero.

In the last hours of the battleship Bismark one of the ships divers volunteered to go into the wrecked steering compartment (full of jagged metal and open to the sea in a gale) to make an almost certainly futile attempt to free the rudders. The engineer officer told him to forget it, they'd carry on circling slowly and wait for the british to arrive.

[Cudzoziemiec]

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/coronavirus-challenge-moron-who-licked-21749466

Seems more likely he's got some generic bacterial infection but whatever he's got, what a fucking dumb idiot.