How the Explosive and Weapons Forum changed your life?

[OXI]

So how the forum changed your daily life?

Edit by The_Duke: Perhaps you would first like to start by sharing with the rest of us how the forum has affected your life?

[Shalashaska]

Well, this seems like something what should have been in the old Water Cooler, but I guess I'll bite.

It certainly changed my life when my girlfriend got mad at me every time I mentioned any chemical formulas or anything involving explosives while I was around her. This was around when I first made AP, and thought I was hot shit because of it. After a while, I realized I had been making an ass out of myself trying to impress the mates. Still good fun, though, with those .50 cal shells and all.

[Unsunghero]

Well, it's taught me a lot about synthing explosives, I came here for RDX synth and I tell you I'm here to stay. I've read so many influencial posts especially NBK's rent rant..really got me thinking.

PS: Here to stay as long as I don't get myself banned : / I'm used to talking to people who though extremely intellegent..replace letters with numbers..you know what the type :D.

[anonymous411]

Well, I guess you might say it made me infinitely more likely to wonder whether or not "innocuous" open-ended questions by newcomers are a ham-handed attempt at entrapment.

[Alexires]

*grin* If I mention the word "forum" in any sentence, my girlfriend gives me the "I'm not listening" uh huh. Quite annoying actually.

But besides that, it has changed the way I think about things. The knowledge that I have picked up here has benefited me during my schooling, but also the ideas and knowledge that come with being around here has affected me.

The 48 LoP, RTPB and NBK's Rent Rant has certainly made me angry and spurred me on towards me goals and dreams that were in danger of being crushed under societies insistence that I become "normal" and a "sheeple". Now when someone tries the "why can't you just be like everyone else and be happy to get a mortgage/house/job/etc" it annoys me to no end.

Thank you Mega and NBK, as well as the rest of the forumites.

[festergrump]

I'm probably not the only one here who has found The Forum to be the better reason to have an internet connection. Plus, I truly think this place keeps the "SHIFT" key from becoming extinct. :rolleyes: (sad, but true ;) ).

RS is the place for higher learning for minds that can read between the lines and make things happen because they want to and need to, for themselves, and at minimal cost even if it is the hard way... because we also see that one day that may just be the ONLY way. :mad:

Long live RS!

[Shalashaska]

If I mention the word "forum" in any sentence, my girlfriend gives me the "I'm not listening" uh huh.

Trust me man, you're not alone. I know EXACTLY how that goes.

[TreverSlyFox]

Hehehe, I guess I'm one of the lucky ones. The wife is the one with collage chemistry in the family and my chem questions have brought us closer together. She even keeps her eyes open for likely sources of OTC chemicals most times she's shopping. So I guess I have to credit RS for adding another thing that we now have in common, even after being together for over 30 years.

I'll never be a chemistry whiz, but because of RS I at least now know to be very, very careful because I know I don't know all the ins and outs. My one saving grace is I can follow instructions to the letter.

The other nice thing about RS is that it has given me a BS detector in some ways. I've caught several posts on explosives on other sites that would have gone over my head before RS, now I can recognize some very simple mistakes people make with ANFO and a few other explosives.

I'm no expert, but I could play one on TV now!

[Rbick]

Where to begin? Well ever since I started my summer job, which has me sitting at a computer 7 - 8 hours a day, I come here to take my mind off things for a bit. Hence my large number of posts over the last couple months. So RS definatley keeps me sane over the work day. Luckily I'm only doing this until school starts in 2 weeks...

I noticed a lot of you mentioned girlfriends/wives being upset about discussions involving explosives and chemistry. My fiance loves it. She even video tapes for me when I go to my test site :). We're both kind of crazy though, so it works out, which is why I'm spending the rest of my life with her. I'm definatley with Trever on this one.

I have also learned so much from RS. How to synthesize tons of different explosives, the chemistry involved, and pretty much anything you can think of in the realm of energetic materials. Explosives have always been an interest of mine. I recall when I was about 10 years old I made my first "bomb" out of those little snaps (about 100 of them) you buy at firework stores or firework stands on the 4th. It fell off my dresser and put a hole in my carpet. Parents weren't too happy about that :D. But RS has expanded my knowledge to a great degree and has motivated me to read more literature on chemistry and energetic materials on my free time. It has also greatly expanded the saftey precautions I take while using chemicals and explosives. The military wasn't too good about teaching this...

The chemistry I have learned here will also help me greatly in my upcoming classes at school. Various levels of Chemistry and Biology are two focuses of my major. So that pretty much wraps it up. RS is a wonderful place to be :cool:

[Charles Owlen Picket]

attempt at entrapment.

Hmmm.....the thought never occurred to me...:D

The forum is a nice interesting place for theoretical discussions. It is a nice thing to fantasize about all these things. My life is pretty tame so I like to imagine that I could do some of the adventures discussed herein.

[megalomania]

For me, The Forum has cost me tons of money and much of my free time, but I have been enriched by the depth and breadth of knowledge available here. I have had the good fortune to communicate with many interesting individual over the years. I only regret that I have a finite time on the earth to build The Forum. I have all of you to thank for making The Forum the great website it is.

[c.Tech]

Where to start...

The forum has changed me in many ways for the better.

After adopting the views here I'm no longer a mindless sheep but more of an independent thinker.

The influence of the forum gave me better spelling and grammar skills, more of an imagination, taught me a lot, I’m more motivated that I ever was, at least 10 times as safety cautious around chems and E&W related stuff and most of all I’ve matured a lot after being around here for quite some time.

Although I've changed a lot through the forum I still have a long way to go.

Thank you everybody, especially NBK and Mega, for everything.

[Keserian]

How has the forum changed my life. That is a very interesting question. Well, it's reminded me that I'm not hot stuff, no pun intended, for being able to produce a thermite reaction. Seriously though, the forum has re-sparked my love for chemistry. The stuff that they taught in high-school and even college was incredibly boring. A lot of theoretical work that, while providing the basis for effective and safe chemistry, made me want to drink sulfuric acid to bring about a faster death.

I wasn't quite ideologically in line with the rest of y'all. I really didn't believe that the United States is going to turn into an Orwellian state, at least not in my lifetime, but, I had decided that I would rather be safe than sorry. So if I want to be safe, I wanted to have a store-house of knowledge ready, in case the bad guys suddenly wore black and had FBI printed on them.

Over time, I have seen what you guys are talking about, and while I don't think that the United States is going to become a totalitarian regime tomorrow, it is possible. Therefore, I have this forum to thank for a sudden urge to work out, and no longer be a couch potato. By the way, my Springfield M1903 thanks you for motivating me to dig it out and start practicing my marksmanship.

[Emil]

Interesting topic. Well for starters, despite only being here for a short period of time, I have learnt there is a lot more to learn from listening than speaking all the time. In my opinion, there is always someone who knows more, so paying attention at the right time can get you a lot further in life.

It has also made me strive harder to increase the level of my grammar.

It's a great place to get your mind working with so many different topics to take part in. Rather than constantly asking to be spoon-fed like some individuals do, it's great to give some of your ideas and thoughts on issues.

Not that this part has changed my life, but it's amazing to see the work that the moderators put in, especially NBK and Mega. The work they put in to keep the forum clean of "kewls" and mindless ramble is awesome. So thank you to them. And of course thanks to the members here. Good admin staff is one thing, but without a bright set of members there is no forum. Thanks all.

[Charles Owlen Picket]

I really can't imagine the TIME and MONEY this thing must have cost. I have come to think of it like the morning news paper but entertaining (I read the OP-ED section mostly in the local paper) in that odd sense that others may not understand - let alone appreciate. I have an odd sense of humor and find certain things really entertaining.

I suppose what I'm saying is that I appreciate it. I often wondered why the guys who really have done the work here (I guess there are two or three of you all) haven't done a blog with it or expanded it. But I was told by a few fellows that this thing is quite OLD and originally had a variety of sections.

I personally wonder how _it's_ CHANGED over the years.....(?) I'll never really know that as I have no way of comparing it to it's original format, etc, etc. I do know that the ages of contributers have a vast variance; as well as the educational level. Originally; I wonder if it had basically younger folks (undergrad and younger) or if it always had a mix.

[nbk2000]

Somewhere on the FTP is a PDF rip I made of the HE section back in '99.

It's quite humorous to see just how MUCH we've changed since then. :)

[LibertyOrDeath]

This forum rules for a number of reasons, but one general reason in particular sticks out in my mind.

Governments all over the world have in their service plenty of bright engineers and scientists who are willing to contribute to research that increases government power and lessens freedom. There's an untold number of people doing research on new weapons, body armor, and other so-called "defense" equipment that will go straight in the hands of the pigs and the military, probably to be used for unworthy or even despicable purposes. Little of this technology will ever be available to the average citizen.

How many intelligent people are doing research on weapons that can be made and used by those who aren't affiliated with a government? Far, far fewer, obviously. Something is needed to shift the balance of power back a little.

In my humble opinion, that's the most valuable aspect of this board. I think of the topics here as much more than hobby-type stuff, even though I understand if others only care to think of them that way. Here we have a means to discuss ideas that can increase the power of the citizen in the face of an increasingly unfree and oppressive world. Not all knowledge is really power, but the knowledge discussed on this board IS power, and much of it cannot be learned in school.

My hat goes off to the board admins, mods, and the many highly knowledgeable posters here for providing such a valuable repository of information.

[megalomania]

Those who know how create a website, those who do not start a blog. A blog is, in my opinion, a crutch to enable the vast hordes to voice their news and opinions. Blogs are good in that it removes a barrier to getting your information out there, that barrier being the time and effort to creating your own website.

HOWEVER, I absolutely loathe and despise blogs because the barrier served the very important purpose of keeping casual idiots from voicing their opinions about whatever. To build a website you have to have drive, ambition, determination, and know-how. To actually keep a website alive and grow it, nurture it, and make it work you have to have dedication. Bloggers do not need any of the attributes of website building, all they need to start a blog is a whim. They sign up at some blog hole, a template gets spit out, and they type a few paragraphs on what they had for breakfast. Maybe a few months go by where they post more menues mixed with thoughts and feelings, but then they get bored and never bother with it because no one reads it.

Then I try to use the net for scientific research. Boom, google spits back hundreds of thousands of results and I troll through link after link. Blogs. They look good in the brief description, but they say nothing. They contribute nothing. They are a worthless waste of my time because they are nothing but the uninformed opinions of morons and idiots.

Not all blogs are bad. I like the principle, but when you give EVERYONE an equal voice the stupidity drowns out the genius because there are more idiots than not out there. NBK often says "you can have all the free speech you can choke on." That is exactly how I feel when reading a blog. Blogs are too easy to start, too easy to run, it gives those with little ambition, little training, little education, and little intellect a voice.

I like to read newspapers and magazines because the articles are written by professional journalists who know how to write, and what they write about is (supposed to be) factual, balanced, and informative. This is why we have professional journalists. Blogs bypass the professional requirement and elevate amateurs, and worse retards, to an equal level. This is why I can read 20 different blogs "entries" that only talk about someone else's accomplishments.

I call blogs info chaff. Chaff being the stuff they drop from bombs to confuse and disrupt. Noise. There are very VERY few blogs I actually read, and the ones I do read are well done. Call me an info bigot, but I don't really want to read what some 12 year old kid has to say about anything. That fact that his blog entries rank high on google reinforces my perception of blogs as info chaff. Blogs just get in the way of what I want to read on the net.

Blogs are not new, they are just a different form of websites, newsgroups, and bulletin boards. Blogs just make it too easy for newbs to screw things up.

[Killian]

It has filled me with a WEALTH of knowledge of various kinds through various forms over the past several years and past aliases(none banned!). It has provided me with a sort of intangible companionship. Not only does this place teach of weapons & explosives and it's especially relevant safeties, but it also consist of a slight philosophical sense which typically coincides with much of my own.

If I could personally thank megalomania and nbk2000 I sincerely would.


After adopting the views here I'm no longer a mindless sheep but more of an independent thinker.


That has to be the greatest contradictory I've seen in quite sometime. I had to point it out. Am I the only one that looked at that? My apologies if my perspective is askew. :p

[nbk2000]

I'd say blogs are good for information that has a limited lifespan of relevance and interest, like what's the weather going to be, or who won the park little league championship.

Websites are for more permanent information presentation, like procedures of synthesis and manufacturing.

I tried the blog thing. It was an interesting experiment, but without feedback I was shouting into the void.

[chemdude1999]

I tried the blog thing. It was an interesting experiment, but without feedback I was shouting into the void.

Not at all. I have the archive of your blog that you released. I read it with great interest. I do understand were you are coming from, though.

On the general topic: RS has provided me with an eye-opener to the fringe DIY scene so to speak. I've become more self-sufficient in the past year.

I originally found the site back in 2000. I joined, but honestly can't remember my user name. Hopefully something cooler than the one I have now. I remember the hentai-inspired layout. And I remember the absolute ass-kicking that was summoned on k3wls.

When I moved to a new job, I found the site again and joined up again. It has matured wonderfully. I absolutely love the no-holds-barred topics. We discuss killing, implementation of said killing, and avoiding getting caught for the killings. Althought, I doubt few if any members will ever do that sort of thing, it is refreshing that it is allowed.

I love the personalities, too. Mega initially comes across as an evil genius with a bit of a pompous attitude. That impression quickly changes though (not the genius part). That he has been doing this for a decade is amazing. What is even cooler, is that he still has fresh ideas.

Of course, nbk2000 has been in the game for a long time. Although, I always read the banned thread with zeal, I'm glad he has toned-down (just a teeny bit). He has brilliant ideas (especially for mass-murder and genocide) and is insanely diabolical. I wonder if the people he works with have any idea.

There are a precious few other old-timers on here as well. And I'm excited to see very promising new faces too. I won't mention names for fear of insulting those I forget, but it is safe to say they are fairly regular.

Oh and don't let me forget tmp. He's a fucking saint for putting the ftp up. And I love those posts of his that are filled with rage. Bad day at work? Read a tmp post and you'll find a comrade. I always find myself saying, "Fucking A right!"

Basically, RS.org is one of a kind and has given a great deal. I've tried to give a bit back (mostly in the rapidshare thread) but the debt can never be repaid.

(forgive any spelling errors and/or punctuational errors (fucking commas))

[Hexanitro]

Well I remember a long time ago when I was searching for a webpage that had good information on explosives, the only thing that I found was some crappy sites that have little information and a lot of lies. When I found the E&W forum I learned so much information, there is no place on the internet like this forum. Thanks for all your hard work.

[Red Beret]

What an interesting topic!

Well, I first came here back in early 2000, after finding the makeshift arsenal. The makeshift arsenal, although basic, blew me away. Mainly because it was the first manual I read with colour photos, and because it was written by an aussie.

After a while, I looked at "the forum". Fucking couldn't beleive it!

Since joining, it's changed me in the respect that, I'm now more of a free thinker, beleive no matter what the gestapo do, nothing is ever impossible to obtain, it's just a matter of how bad you want or need it.

Learning how to make high quality BP, PETN, ANNM, being trained in demolitions and all the other gems here have provided me with many hours of fun and enjoyment. Not to mention everything else we've discussed over the years, such as; stun guns, battlefield chemistry, crimes of great magnitude...the list goes on!

Many a joyous hour has been spent at the old forum, reading and learning and discussing things with my bretheren. It's a second home for me. Always there to provide whatever I need.

Looking back over the years, I've had the pleasure of talking with some great individuals, uberchlor, maddoc, and so many others. NBK, Mega, and many others are real stand outs.

I've seen alot of people come and (sadly) go over the years, but I'll always be here. I haven't been around much lately, due in great part to a fairly severe drug problem, following a marriage break up. Let it be known that I drew the line, bitch crossed it and I left, never to return. But I'm back in force now, more time for synthing, testing and I've even got some mates who like to tag along, and be my assistants.

All in all, roguesci is THE site for E&W. It's trained me up like a ww2 sabotuer, only better! It has EMPOWERED me, mentally and physically. I am now able to train enthusiastic people in E&W, thus spreading the fantastic feeling of having a free mind.

[Kamelon]

The forum definitely changed my life by making me think more about spelling and proof reading before saying anything. Also has made me look more into pursuing a degree in chemistry over biology. Tons of information and I try to learn more each day.

[Hinckleyforpresident]

The Forum has made me think a lot more about what I say before I say it. Also, it has taught me things I never thought I was allowed to learn.

I found the Forum at some point in the early 2000's when I was still in my k3wlish phase. I would read a little and then try stuff. Once I got a little bit older, and thought I could handle Forum membership I made an account, which I think was an excellent decision .