This is a completely sober conversation I had over IM tonight. I had stepped outside for a smoke, and came up with this idea. Please, enjoy my... insanity?
[00:57] Me: here's an odd question, is liquid hydrogen flamable?
[00:58] Scooter: Uh... I think it needs to be aerosolized to ignite, so no. Diesel fuel can't really catch fire that well...
[00:58] Me: dammit
[00:59] Scooter: Liquid hydrogen is the best way to TRANSPORT it, and I am sure you could make a liquid hydrogen BOMB, but I don't think you could have a pool of flaming liquid hydrogen.
[00:59] Me: how would one go about liquifying hydrogen?
[01:00] Scooter: I believe hydrogen needs to be very cold for it to condense, like oxygen or nitrogen. I might be wrong. But I think it involves cooling it and compressing it.
[01:01] Me: hrmm.
[01:02] Me: man, i wish you could be more definative on the liquid hydrogen being flammable or not.
[01:05] Scooter: I mean, it IS rocket fuel. It needs to be mixed with oxygen to burn. A pool of liquid hydrogen would warm up after a while, and assuming there was the correct air/fuel mixture, BANG.
[01:06] Me: i was just outside thinking how cool it would be to have a flamethrower to melt the snow instead of shovel. then i thought, fuck that, gas is too expensive. BUT THEN i thought, hey, it's snow. which is basically water. if i had a collection bin outside to collect the snow when it fell, then melt into water, then seperate it into water and hydrogen i could make flames with that, but in order to get it to really do the job, the hydrogen would need to be liquid so i could spread it, and it would stick and burn through the snow. then i would have an environmentally friendly snow removing flamethrower. ahh using the snow against itself.
[01:07] Scooter: ... the amount of electricity needed to start that process would power like, several city blocks for hours.
[01:08] Scooter: The gasoline is much cheaper, and considering how much coal would be burned to make the electricity, cleaner.
[01:09] Me: well, the heating process could be attained by using geothermal heating. so, that's not too bad. bury some pipes in the ground, pump water through, and up to the and around and back down would be my melting process.
[01:10] Me: so, the cost of an electric pump would be that big cost.
[01:11] Me: even if i just collected rain water throughout the year, save on the melting process.
[01:11] Me: it could be a gradual process all year. collect, seperate, store.
[01:12] Me: then, as the weather turns cold i could pack the tank in dry ice, and work on condensing and cooling it.
[01:12] Scooter: Uh... you would have to store it as compressed hydrogen, not liquid hydrogen. Liquid hydrogen boils off at about 1% of volume a day.
[01:13] Me: well, yeah, i'd store as a gass and compress only when needed.
[01:14] Me: of course, i could just use my geothermal idea and pull off the driveway, lay pipes at the surface, and lay the concrete over it, you know, to have a heated driveway.
[01:15] Scooter: That actually is a feature of some houses. Not nearly as cool as a hydrogen flame thrower, though.
[01:15] Me: I KNOW! seriously.
[01:15] Me: how awesome of a selling point would that be?
[01:16] Me: [homebuyer]uhh, ma'am what are those tanks behind the garage?
[realtor]well, the previous owner hated shoveling snow, so he created a year round water collection system that condenses hyrdrogen and oxygen and cools the hydrogen into a liquid in those tanks.
[homebuyer]uhh, what does that have to do with shoveling?
[realtor]well, when you hook the hoses and the gun up to this outlet here and click the little grill igniter here, you have a liquid hydrogen flamethrower.
[homebuyer] SOLD!
[homebuyers wife] uhh... but honey don't you think the kids...
[homebuyer aka man of the house] shut up woman, we're buying the house with the bult in flamethrower and that's final!
[01:20] Scooter: Yeah... I would probably invest in an iron fence, though... nothing ruins a snow removal session like your neighbor's house catching fire.
[01:20] Scooter: I think it actually could work.
[01:22] Me: well, i figure the hydrogen will burn up quickly, and at my house there's no real threat of burning anything else. you'd have to be one malicious motherfucker to burn down another house from my driveway. now, my own house... that would suck.
[01:22] Me: this is why smoking is good for you. you step outside, and reflect on shit, and come up with cooky ass ideas like this.
[01:23] Scooter: If I took up smoking, I would probably start a religion. I come up with enough crazy ideas already.
[01:23] Me: lol
[01:24] Scooter: Yeah, so... is it me, or do all seventeen of the assholes running for President suck like a Hoover?
[01:25] Me: i can't wait till i'm eligible to run.
[01:26] Me: or, maybe not a hoover, but a filmore?
[01:26] Me: rimshot
[01:27] Scooter: Ba dum, ching. I would vote for you, man. I am so sick of it all, you would at least be fun.
[01:27] Me: hahahahahahaha. yeah, no shit. "mr, dorton is it true..."
[01:28] Me: lemme cut you off there "ms. so and so", yes. it's probably true.
[01:28] Me: most of what you have heard about my past is most likely true, or has an element of truth to it.
[01:29] Me: now, can we proceed to the discovery process? and by that i mean, i need to discover if there are any hot ladies out there that are into fat guys. i'm talkin oval office sex ladies!
[01:31] Scooter: Wow. I think I should be the Vice President, though. You could visit Japan, like, monthly, Rev could be our first Secretary of state in clown makeup....
[01:32] Me: hahahahahahahahaha
[01:32] Scooter: I mean, what says "best presidency ever" like debauchery on the streets of Tokyo?
[01:33] Me: what a ticket that would be: staunch pro business conservative slash social liberal for president, and staunch anti business pro blah blah hippies blah for vice president.
[01:33] Me: oh, and the latter is the religious one.
[01:34] Scooter: Uh... I am not so much anti business as I am against immortal corporations.... Not so much in to the hippie dippie stuff either. I'd be spending most of my time explaining exactly what I am...
[01:35] Me: lol. true.
[01:35] Me: which would take a lot of the focus off my philandering.
[01:37] Scooter: Right, I could spend all my time boring the reporters to tears about the need to finance XYZ project with funds obtained in the flagenslouten act of 2023, while you are drilling Monica Lewinsky's successor into the carpet...
[01:38] Scooter: "Don't mind the moans, we have mice".
[01:39] Me: i bet we'd be the only single duo to ever run the white house and oeob.
[01:41] Scooter: Indeed. Ok, I need to be off to bed... you should try to design that rig of yours, eh? Patent that sucker.
[01:42] Me: no shit.
[01:43] Me: i bet getting UL approval would suck.
[01:44] Scooter: Indeed... flaming things generally are frowned upon at the UL...
yeah, so, a 47 minute long conversation about flamethrowers and running the country like a bachelor pad. now that the writers are on strike and all, hollywood just needs to sequester scooter and I. give me cigarettes and withhold the booze, and give scooter... no sleep, and we'll churn out ideas like it's our job. cuz it will be. of course once the writers strike ends, the ensuing drinking bender i would gon on would be one of legend. annals of history kind of epic. make "leaving las vegas" look like "the parent trap" kind of debauchery. where do i sign?
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crazy shit and drunk ramblings
12 comments:
You almost make me want snow. And a flamethrower. And four years of insanity.
I can see Chud stepping onto his driveway, in his robe, with a smoke dangling from his mouth, and flamethrowing the shit out of his driveway, while whistling Let It Snow.
Flamethrowers? Shootin' shit? Gasoline explosions?
This blog truly has it all.
I want me some of that enviro-friendly hydrogen flame throwing action. That shit would totally rock, with the added bonus of being able to piss my neighbours off some more!
Maybe I'm just not smoking heavily enough but I swear I don't come up with the goods like that, or maybe it's the whole winter thing. Australian summers just aren't conducive to creative thought processing
I would check the "Exclusions" section of your Homeowner's Policy before actually executing this idea.
A flamethrower might be considered an "Act of War."
Of course, you're not exactly Kim Jong Il, and it IS your own house...
I WAS going to say, "Pay a little neighbor kid $5 to shovel your snow," but if it were for Luddites like me, we wouldn't have an Internet to waste our lives on....or cellular phones, for my boss to call me on...any...time...the...whim.....strikes...him...
What if you hooked up mirrors in a clever way on either side of your driveway to cleverly direct the rays of the sun? Or a giant magnifying glass suspended on poles over the driveway itself, instead of some pussy awning? Wouldn't that be cheaper and totally easy to hook up yourself at three am after a night of drinking?
kristin, i have that effect. affect?
dr. ken, you are correct sir. plus, you know once i go public with the idea you're getting model number 000001. i mean, come on.
well So... it doesn't, there are no explicit depictions of random hook ups. damn dry spell.
kezza, that's the selling point: enviro friendly. seriously, i mean a flame thrower to melt your snow is cool, but one which uses only earth friendly fuels and has no carbon footprint... GOLD. i think it's the ozzie winters. not snowy enough. though, judging by "the man from snowy river" you should have a lot of snow. in the mountains.
zen, that's exactly it. it WOULD be an act of war, open war on snow. snow knows no country nor fights under any flag, therefore it is not protected under the conventions. huzzah! i can be brutal to snow!
stepho, using an archimedes style death ray and or magnifying lens would prove impossible, and or waaay too expensive. for the both, the amount of mirrors needed coupled with the structural bracing to support them would be costly enough. the fact that during northern hemisphere winter the sun is actually hottest 26 degrees south of the equator makes getting a good supply of sun pretty darn hard. see, that's why it's cold... the suns rays aren't very hot to us right now cuz of the tilt of our axis. so... in the summer it would be a bitchin' idea... if we had snow.
I need to stay up late more often.
hello Chud!!
;->...
Well, if I had to postulate, I would guess that a flamethrower would melt the snow.
The issue, as we have already noted, is the collateral damage.
What the writer Frederick Forsythe called, The Dogs of War.
Only in your case, it might LITERALLY be a dog, if he's in your house and you burn it down.
I still recommend you pursue an alliance--a coalition of the willing, if you will--even a PAID alliance, if need be--with Little Johnny, the neighbor kid.
Snow is an enemy that travels under no sovereign flag. You can't negotiate with snow. You can't wait for sanctions to work. The only thing snow understands is Shovel Counterterrorism. Or "Shock & Awe" of a snow blower.
In other words, I get back to paying a neighbor kid $5 to shovel the snow.
Or whatever little kids charge to do $H!t like that nowadays.
It was $5 in my day--and we were damned greatful to get it! Yes, that we were...(Wait--when did I become a tightwad geezer??)
scoots, yes you do. yes indeed you do.
gledwood... hello yourself. i read some of your posts and... hey, who am i to judge?
zen, you became a geezer tightwad around 1998. just letting you know. as for the rest, i think the flamethrower would take care of any problems i had. you know, with geezers and the like.
i could have used your homemade flamethrower the other morning when i slipped and almost broke my ass on the driveway that none of the more capable members of my family shoveled. in front of my across-the-street neighbor who was having his morning smoke and probably coming up with something equally genius and diabolical.
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