Winter is here

[nbk2000]

Well, for us Northern Hemisphere's anyways.

So now that the snow and ice is going to start falling, how do we deal with it, as regards our "hobbies"?

Do you pack it up for the winter and move to warmer climes? Do you hibernate inside till the spring thaw? Or do you build snowmen with a kilo of APAN strapped to their chests before "they" blow themselves up to go to Paradise where 70 virgin ice blocks await them? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

Me, I'm a hibernator. I don't really like the cold, but I especially hate the glare of the sun off of all that fucking glittery snow. :(

This topic is also dual purpose. The other purpose being of mobility during snow and ice. If you can move freely while others are slipping and sliding, then you can easily outrun them if they try chasing you for killing a snowman. :)

To start with, this will the first time in more than 15 years that I'm somewhere where it snows, having spent all that time in sunny california. But I've lived in cold states like White Idaho and White Montana (never saw ONE nigger there! :D ), so it's not something new to me.

I've found some interesting things to increase ones advantage during extremely cold weather.

For instance, at <a href="http://www.allenslaw.com/polarwrap.html" target="_blank">http://www.allenslaw.com/polarwrap.html</a> , they sell this nifty product called "Polarwrap". I saw it in Popular Science or such years ago and remembered it recently. It's a device that you wear over your face that absorbs the heat of your exhaled breath, and uses that to warm up the frigid air you're inhaling.

This works to keep you much warmer that you otherwise would be after giving up your heat to the sub-zero air.

<img src="http://www.allenslaw.com/polarwrap/FHC-BLK.gif" alt=" - " />

And it's "dual use" as you'll notice. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica"> After getting cold in a freezer facility at -30 degrees. "Thirty seconds after donning the device ... I started warming. Thirty seconds more, I was able to tolerate the immense chill wearing only jeans, golf shirt and light denim jacket." </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">If this is true, then you could be lightly dressed for a "job" while the piggies who'd be trying to stop you are wearing heavy parkas, snow boots, mittens, and all that other dexterity and speed killing crap. While you, being lightly clad, have a +2 mobility and +4 dexterity (in RPG parlance).

Their numb fingers are fumbling with safeties, while you're pulling out your piece with lightning speed and full dexterity. If the Alaska State Troopers use it, there must be a reason, right?

Other things of concern would be getting around in the snow without leaving footprints which are easily trackable. There's this product that looks like snow, but it's actually some kind of polyester matting, that is used as a christmas tree decoration. It comes in rolls 2'x30', weighs nothing, and costs like $3/roll. Seems like something that could be layed down over your path (preferably while it's snowing) to make it much more difficult for someone to spot your footprints.

If the snow is only a couple of inches thick, I've had the idea of making "shoes" out of bocks of wood with nails driven through them, and them then strapped on your feet.

There's only a few nails, spaced out to provide balance. The nails, being very thin, go through the snow the to concrete (assuming street/parking lot) below, making only a few very small holes which would be easily destroyed by a little snow flurry or sunlight.

Because it's very easy to spot a footprint is even just a slight dusting of snow, it's neccessary to go to such extremes to avoid leaving them.

You could easily sprinkle deicing salt to melt the prints, but that still leaves the trail.

[A-BOMB]

Well for me I do the detonations in the summer, put during the winter I do more! ever seen a 1lbs ANMN go off under the 6 inches ice thats covers a pond. :D And getting out my remote control flame thrower tank and driving it around burning those damn snowmen to hell.

[zeocrash]

snow?? whats that. in england we only have one type of weather, rain. its warm rain in the summer and cold rain in the winter :p

[Mr Cool]

Not just one type of weather, we get that slushy rain in Winter (the kind that's almost snow, but was too lazy to completely freeze so it gave up half way), and normal rain the rest of the time.

I don't actually think a change in climate affects my hobby one way or the other much. Although I probably do more testing in the Winter because there's more darkness.

[Anthony]

Like MrCool said, we don't get much proper snowfall here. It's still pretty much Tshirt weather here (not quite below freezing yet :D ).

I like winter for experimenting because all the stupid dog walkers stay wrapped up in doors. Not so good after the rare decent snowfall though, as every bastard is out in it :rolleyes:

Another great thing about winter is that the ground is frozen solid, it's one of the few time of year you can walk offroad without getting plastered in mud.

[knowledgehungry]

Well for the winter I plan on making lots of Nitric Acid out in the snow. Nothing warms you up like being able to distill Nitric without having to keep pouring ice on the receiving flask :D . Also snow tends to muffle sound so no worries about pesky people hearing the detonations.

NBK- I wanna move to Montana now :D

[mr.evil]

it's now -6 degrees celsius here in Amsterdam, i went out in the woods today on my bike to chop a willow tree om for fun, i hate doing nothing in the weekends...

I have some pieces of willow wood now again, it's now drying on a newspaper so next week i can burn it in a pan :) i've never made blackpowder with willow charcoal, so i'm curious what the results will be... Though, my blackpowder made with other charcoal from the shops burns quiet fast, 0,75 second per meter or something (in granulated form).

anyway, i like the cold weather, in the summer i sweat my balls off.. i hate it. Now it's nice cold, and white.. and offcourse, set off explosives in snowmans made my little children :D see them cry HAHA!
To bad i can't do underground detonations in the winter, as the ground is hard as stone... Maybe i should try an under-ice det.. i guess the whole ice on the pont will crackle or something.

anyway, it's not long anymore until new years eve, new years eve is like the 4th of july here, LOTS of fireworks.(no novelties, real stuff)

i guess there will be some spelling mistakes in the text above, sorry! :rolleyes:

<small>[ December 08, 2002, 02:52 PM: Message edited by: mr.evil ]</small>

[kingspaz]

mr evil, why not dig a hole into the hard ground using a shaped charge? not a cone liner one just a concave charge that'll use the munroe effect to focus the blast more onto the ground. then place a larger charge inside the hole :)

you need one of these in winter:
<img src="http://www.ishop.co.uk/ishop/images/800/0427.jpg" alt=" - " />

<small>[ December 08, 2002, 04:28 PM: Message edited by: kingspaz ]</small>

[MrSamosa]

Ahh, here on the East Coast we've just gotten a lovely bit of snow :) . I like the snow and I enjoy winter. This is partially because my whole wardrobe is designed around winter (don't have many T-shirts or Summer clothes, just sweaters), but also is good for me in relation to my hobby.

With the weather below freezing much of the time, my garage/work-area is basically a refrigerator. It's great for storing Sodas and what-not. This is good for me in relation to my hobby. The temperature, which tends to be below freezing, is lower than the boiling point of many of the chemicals that I have. As such, I won't have to worry about many fumes, which tend to give me headaches :( . Yes, I'm very sensitive to such things.

However, I am recently becoming more interested in energetic materials (especially since I've found some AN, Hexamine, and a source of 30% H2O2 :D ). I don't imagine temperature control would be as difficult when it is 30-45 degrees F in my garage. As such, I may spend my winter catching up with you all in terms of energetic materials. It will give me something more pleasing to the senses than the various "insecticides" I have. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" /> . Hopefully I will not lose any fingers or hearing or vision.

And also, come on: you know you like to have snowball fights, build snowmen, have days off from work, and drink hot chocolate <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" /> . NBK- you sound like a boring guy in real life (although on the Forum, you always have fresh and sinister ideas). Go play in the snow with some neighborhood kids eh?

As far as blowing up snowmen go, I may have to try that... revenge for all the times the kiddies run through the fresh, unmolested snow in my yard leaving their damned footprints and snowangels! :mad:

<small>[ December 08, 2002, 07:29 PM: Message edited by: MrSamosa ]</small>

[knowledgehungry]

Yes we did have some lovely snow it was great for making HMTD and AP, snow works much better than ice for an icebath <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" /> . And, since i am still in the loathful State indoctrination facilities i got a day off from school. I love snow :D

[spydamonkee]

over here in normal land we get beautifull sunner weather during christmas and new years, so that means trips to the beach to perve @ pussy, get a tan & blow sand hills to kingdom come! :D :p

[Fukineh]

As a canadian I personally love the winter. Besides winter sports, I find that traveling effectivly in the winter and having rock and ice climbing skills gives you a great advantage over any advisaries who wish to persue you in sports cars wearing dress shoes and sweater vests.

By the way, my friend and I will probably post an article on urban building scaling and tree climbing using both minimalist ways and proper climbing gear on our web site when it is all done.

[nbk2000]

Yes, I'm boring in person. That's because "excitment" tended to cost years of my life behind bars. So I try to avoid being "exciting" as much as possible. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

Though if you're willing to finance something, I could arrange enough excitement to make you wet yourself in fear. :)

Speaking of wet, I've noticed how even just a slope of a couple of inches in 10 feet, when covered in smooth ice, is very dangerous to walk on.

(I know this is elementry for you dwellers of the frozen north, but is something new to this sunny californian transplant.)

Naturally wet ice is much more slippery than dry ice. But how does one keep the wetness from freezing solid too?

I'm thinking that if a person used an anti-freeze such as polypropylene glycol, it would remain liquid on top of the ice. The water, being frozen into ice, wouldn't dilute or really react with the glycol, so the glycol would remain pure and liquid to almost -100. :)

Added to a very slight incline, this'd make for a virtually impossible surface to walk on...or drive on. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

Also, I'm thinking that, if one had a liquid that froze into an ice-like substance at a temperature above that of water ice, than you could possibly have the same effect at a time when people wouldn't be expecting it because it's "above freezing". Naturally it'd have to be cheap to be bought in bulk.

Also, I wonder what kind of frostbite injuries one could inflict with a liquid cooled to sub-freezing, and then sprayed/splashed on someone? Frostbite is the same as a heat burn, so it could be pretty nasty.

[NoltaiR]

Here in southtexas we have one type of weather.. dry. In the 'summer' (which lasts approximately 48-49 weeks out of the year) we have hot and dry. In the 'fall' (which takes up the the final 3-4 weeks) we have dry and cold except for the rare rainfall caused when a wondering hurricane makes it to a nearby coast.. and that is a rare occurence. So basically over here we don't need special clothing for subzero temperatures unless we plan on playing a game of 'hide-and-seek' in the chest freezer. In fact (and some of you may find this even more absurd than myself) there are places around where I live (especially the local zoo) that once a year actually BUY snow from nothern United States and have it shipped down here and pour it all over the ground on a day when the temp actually drops below 50*F. Then you pay a fee of $10 to go play in this half-melted snow for a few hours until it all melts and turns the ground into mud.

The pathetic thing is that they actually have enough visitors to make profit even after paying the cost to load and ship tons of snow in freezer trucks a thousand+ miles!

[Harry]

NBK, your icy ideas may be cool in Kansas, but they'd be redundant in MinneSiberia. A dusting of snow turns transplants into highway crash generators. Even with front wheel, 4 wheel, or all-wheel drive, they just can't seem to drive with any form of water on the road. Studded tires will get you a ticket or your car impounded, but studded shoes, well...let's just say that a pair of carbide cleat soles can be had for under $10--and mostly old folks buy them. So, if you were to glaze the back alleys during a dry spell, escape would be easy with a set of cleats. The politzei sure won't be wearing them!

Of course, we natives learn to walk on ice the first winter after learning to run. Play broomball (think hockey with no pads, heavy broomstick, and soccer ball--running shoes--no skates), body checks more dangerous when you can't stop! (other guy ducks or jumps the boards)

You might try the glycol stunt in private before using for effect. As it mixes with melted ice, it lowers the freezing temp of the water. Read the label on the antifreeze bottle, it says to mix 50-50 with H2O.

Black ice is our winter Grail around here. They can't prepare for it if they can't see it.

A few years back, couple of iceholes got the idea that they could run a meth lab in an icehouce (shack or tent erected on frozen lake for shelter while fishing. Don't knock until you try it!) Got busted when a warden noticed all the empty propane bottles. Most guys use a bulk cylinder to heat the shack. Still, the court just ruled that "reasonable cause" is necessary to search boat or icehouse, so if a fellow keeps it clean and quiet...

Harry

[Anthony]

Ok, I relent, it is offically winter now, as I wore a coat for the first time today. Took a walk to my favourite lake at my test-site, expecting it to be frozen over and armed with 150gm ANNM. There were not one, but two people bloody fishing on MY lake in MY favourite spots! Damn them!

Anyway, when it gets colder I intend to detonate a 1-2kg charge underneath the ice and try to capture it with a camera equipped with a fast motor drive :)

[knowledgehungry]

NBK if yo want something which gives instant frost bite just use compressed air(for cleaning keyboards) shake it up and spray it upside down. The liquid CO2 turning into a gas absorbs a tremendous amount of heat.

[NERV]

My winters are spent mostly indoors. I hate snow, ice, and cold, unless it cancels school (in that case snow rocks). I usually use the wintertime to catch up on my chem. studies. Of course someone like me can’t stay cramped up for long periods of time without some explosions. So every so often I sneak out and blow up some annoying little fucks snowman. I hope to take a snowman out this weekend with some AN/MEKP, that should suffice me for a few weeks(days :p ).

[BoB-]

I'm pretty sure the "compressed air" in those cleaner dealies is some ethane, its not compressed air.

[Deceiver]

yea they changed it after little jimmy froze his eyes shut and mommy sued the company. it used to be liquid Nitrogen anyways not CO2.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I've deleted the rest of this lames crappy post to spare the rest of the membership the displeasure of soiling their eyes with such painful stupidity.

Suffice it to say that the little fecal sample I left at the top indicates the level on which this person was operating on. :rolleyes:

Anyways, this turd's been wiped. :D

<small>[ December 26, 2002, 05:10 PM: Message edited by: nbk2000 ]</small>

[knowledgehungry]

I'm sorry it is not CO2, it is tetraflouroethane(i think that is how it is spelled im sorry but i forget) 100% it says.

<small>[ December 31, 2002, 05:35 PM: Message edited by: knowledgehungry ]</small>

[simply RED]

A very good cooling mix that reaches -90 degrees C is made by mixing dry ice(solid CO2) and acetone
<a href="http://129.59.92.139/srdesign/2000/group4_00/Cryoembedding.htm" target="_blank">http://129.59.92.139/srdesign/2000/group4_00/Cryoembedding.htm</a>
Applying it on someone will almost instantly kill him.
Another good idea is to use some mixtures containing water and salt (for example CaCl2) they can also reach very low temperatures and keep them if it is solid "ice" in the mix.
I was unable to find info on the temperatures that the mixtures of salts and water reach. (but there were mixtures that reach -22 and more (less :) ).
COOOOOOOOOOOL!!!

[Mr Cool]

There's a freezing mixture in a book I've got somewhere that gets below -50*C. The only trouble is it uses 100% HNO3, which has better uses <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" /> .
But even using water, ice and common salts (things like ammonium nitrate, ammonium chloride, calcium chloride etc) you can get almost to liquid ammonia temperatures I think. Although I haven't seen one that could actually liquefy ammonia.

[Sarevok]

Posted by simply RED:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">Another good idea is to use some mixtures containing water and salt (for example CaCl2) they can also reach very low temperatures and keep them if it is solid "ice" in the mix.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">40g of CaCl₂ diluted in 100g of H₂O warms the water from 20°C to 90°C.

It's an Exothermic Reaction (liberates heat, not a Endothermic Reaction, which absorbs heat):

CaCl₂ + H₂O -&gt; Ca²⁺_(aq) + 2Cl^-_(aq) + 82,2 kJ (liberated heat)

Good links for you:

<a href="http://www.gnofn.org/~lusher/chem.html" target="_blank">Chemistry Demonstrations: Exothermic and Endothermic Reactions</a>
<a href="http://spallation.physics.sc.edu/~blanpied/physics787/s_bailey/EndothermicExothermi.doc" target="_blank">Endothermic vs. Exothermic</a>

[We've just covered that in the "Freezing at Low Temps" thread which at the moment is right below this one on the index, it gets either hot or cold depending on whether you use anhydrous CaCl2 or the hydrate.] (Machiavelli)

Thanks, Machiavelli. Sorry about my wrong information.

<small>[ February 18, 2003, 03:08 AM: Message edited by: Sarevok ]</small>