1

I've got a Geiger counter and a dosimeter. Doesn't everyone?

2 LOL, I'm sure everyone will disagree but that set was safe as long as you did not break open the sealed sources and eat them (or burn them and inhale the smoke).

BTW, you can still buy sealed sources in small amounts.

3 Now I hate my parents for never getting me one.

4 WANT.

5 Well, Amedinajahd has been ordering uranium without a coupon.

6 Well, I guess that means we now know what Al Qaeda wants for Christmas.

7

I've got an alpha source, too (doesn't everybody?)

Now that they sell dry ice locally I've gotta get of my dead ass someday and build a cloud chamber.

8
Wow America was a great country back then.

And Dagwood was one lucky bastard,Blondie was smokin hot

9 Jeez and I got an erector set instead.

10 I WANT!

11 I'll bet the Mothersbaugh brothers had one of these.  It would explain a lot.

12 Jeez and I got an erector set instead.

that's Hot.

13 The Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab is possibly the oddest coolest Christmas gift Santa has ever brought down the chimney

14

(Explosive lenses sold separately.)

--------------------------------------------------------

Web site about radioactive consumer products:

http://tinyurl.com/24tyq

My personal favorite is the Fiesta Ware dinner plate set with red uranium glaze. You cant still buy them on E-bay.

The uranium-containing porcelain dentures are also pretty cool (uranium was added for its appearance-enhancing blue fluorescence).

 

15 Pretty neat -- we were into Estes rockets...the shit we did with those things!

16 This looks like something straight out of Fallout 3.

17 A cloud chamber! That so completely ROCKS! They had a nice big cloud chamber at the Griffith Observatory (The museum seen in "Rebel Without a Cause" and "Transformers"). Recently, they tore the place apart (repairs and maint.) and added lots of stuff. They also removed the cloud chamber exhibit. Bastards! What's a cloud chamber? An enclosed space filled with air and vapor (I think alcohol is commonly used). Super-saturated. So much so that if ANYTHING gets in it forms a condensation point for the super-saturated vapor and makes a little... cloud. The point is that you can SEE cosmic rays passing through by the trails they leave behind! Works for other things too like alpha particles - maybe beta particles too. Chances are a tiny little cloud chamber like the one in the kit is unlikely to have a cosmic ray zip through it while you're watching so they give you a radiation source so you can see the trails left. VERY NEAT.

18
Its too bad they haven't come out with a Small Hadron Collider set. A black hole popping up in the middle of your living room and swallowing your Christmas tree and mother in law would be epic.

19

Back when science was science and not libtard social scientist fuckheads counting tree rings and lying about it.

I had a Gilbert microscope and it was sorta awesome, for a piece of crap.

My Gilbert rock and mineral kit, however, was more wonderful, and I fell in love with geology.

20 Polonium 210... just might be a 'little' dangerous.... unless you need to dispose of some Russian dissidents

21 You could make a decent bong with that thing from the looks of it.

22
This isn't as cool as Lawn Darts.

23 I used mine to build the Elludium PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator so I could destroy the Earth.

I claim this blog in the name of Mars.

24
uh oh

We need a new Timmy!

25 Don't laugh at this sort of thing... the entire PC revolution came from MITS which started out as a company that made add-ons for model rockets and later produced the Altair 8800 - the first PC. Bill Gates made the Altair's BASIC software, and that started Microsoft.

26 And the ever popular "Let's Play Thermonuclear War."

27
True or False?

Holiday Inn > White Christmas

28

Man, that thing is sweet! But 50 clams was a lot of money in '51.

These days most toys are so damn pussified it makes me sick. It's part of the left wing nanny state's pussification of America agenda.

29

 I would make a small mushroom cloud with nitrate fertilizer, diesel, propane in a bag, a broken light bulb, wires and a battery. The old man was impressed and got me doing stumps and huge rocks. Fun on the farm.

 Yes, i became a sapping officer. All in good fun, except for the UN manure force feeding.

30 I loved my chemistry set -- how was I to know not to put a stopper in the test tube when heating a solution of cobalt chloride?  It exploded all over the ceiling and whenever it rained out, all of the dots changed from blue to pink.

Then there were all of the Remco science kits in the cardboard tubes. No lemon in the house was safe from being made into a battery.

31
Anybody hear that Obama gave Interpol free reign to operate within our borders without impugnity?

32 Alas, that you can't buy a real Gilbert chemistry set anymore... not one that has real Fun Chemicals.  Or isotopes.

Kids are such pussies these days.  They can't play with liquid mercury like we did... or dissolve pennies in concentrated nitric acid.  Maybe they can see if vinegar will turn their litmus paper red... that's about it.

In the 'fifties and 'sixties, we played with real chemicals.  We launched real rockets.  If you fucked up, you got hurt.  There's a life lesson in there somewhere.

Now, excuse me.  I feel the need to set fire to something.

33

These days the whole sissy state of California runs into the ocean like lemmings because someone told them Alar on their apples might stiffin their kids wrists.

Can't have that.

34 I've got a Geiger counter and a dosimeter. Doesn't everyone?

If they don't, they oughta have 'em.

I got a nice Thermo Electron Electra (orange NE) in the cabinet not three feet from me as I type.  Oh, and a *really* big laser down the hall.

35 28
True or False?

Holiday Inn > White Christmas

TRUE.  Regrettably, they seem to play White Christmas much more frequently on the tube, probably because it's in color. 

Best Doris Day movie:  Calamity Jane.  I'm a girl, but she was hawt in those tan slacks at the end.  Great songs. 

36 Just in case..

Kryptonite can be synthesized.
Ingredients:
15% plutonium; 18% tantalum; 24% promethium; 28% xenon; 11% dialium; and 4% mercury.

37 HEY! I just got that as a gift from Charles Johnson!

Re-gifting bastard!

38

You can still buy lots of interesting stuff from United Nuclear.

39

Anybody hear that Obama gave Interpol free rein to operate within our borders with impunity?
Yes.

40 We've all got radiation sources in our smoke detectors.

Hide the children!!!

41 32. Anybody hear that Obama gave Interpol free reign to operate within our borders without impugnity?

Yep  - Think they found his BC?  or his passport?

42 @39

Thanks for the link.

43
Blazer

Yeah saw that today.Seems like it gives the green light to a foreign police force to arrest CIA agents and perhaps even Dick Cheney on U.S. soil.

44 Anybody hear that Obama gave Interpol free reign to operate within our borders without impugnity?

Yes.  In a different politically related thread.

Stay on topic... stay on topic...

45 This is how I became an expert in SCIENCE!!! Now do you still doubt me?

I'm still waiting for that bicycle I wanted. Please hit the tip jar

46

Best Doris Day movie:  Calamity Jane.  

Maybe musical.  Best movie, The Man Who Knew Too Much.  Que Sera, Sera. 

47 > 33 ... Kids are such pussies these days. They can't play with liquid mercury like we did... or dissolve pennies in concentrated nitric acid. Maybe they can see if vinegar will turn their litmus paper red... that's about it. ... Posted by: Elisson When I went to the kid's dentist (early 1960s) they would give me drops of mercury to roll around in my bare hand while I was hanging out in the waiting room. They didn't even tell me not to eat it! (probably because if I ate it, it would just pass through my system. Now if I had BOILED it and inhaled the vapors... But that's not gonna happen in a dentist waiting room)

48 At the NM state fair in 1965 or so, there was a booth set up that would give you radioactive rocks and let you hold them up to a geiger counter to hear the clicks.  Then you stuck them in your pockets and carried them around until your mother washed your pants and threw the rocks away.

49 "In the 'fifties and 'sixties, we played with real chemicals.  We launched real rockets.  If you fucked up, you got hurt.  There's a life lesson in there somewhere."

Lawn darts,  CO2 pellet guns, wood burning sets, bow and arrows, firecrackers and cherry bombs, pipe bombs made out of match heads, all sorts of knives that could be honed into something nasty.

It was great growing up as boy.

50
Best Doris Day movie: With Six You Get Chlamydia

51 @51

Blasphemy! 

Thou shall not diss teh Doris. 

52
Mr.Peabody

Cox model airplanes

53

My Gilbert rock and mineral kit, however, was more wonderful, and I fell in love with geology.

Posted by: TexasJew at December 23, 2009 05:25 PM (vuhso)

TJ -- HA!!!...great; recovering Geologist here.  Still can't walk ANYWHERE without staring at the ground; picking up shit and carrying it home.  I remember moving (college) and having to lug around all my fossils and other shit...###'s of it.  Great times -- I blame it on a rock tumbling kit I got in the late 60's!

54 Begone, sockpuppet!

55

Best Doris Day movie: With Six You Get Chlamydia

With Brian Dennehy?

56 Mr. Peabody -- Wristrockets (slingshots for those unaware)!...we used Taconite Ore pellets for ammo!

57 TexasJew and billygoat,
You do know that Monk made fun of kids with rock polishing kits, don't you?!?  ;^)

58

I think it was the second day after we got our lawn darts that we were throwing them over the house, back and forth between the front to the back yards. Four kids, two in each yard.

59 49 At the NM state fair in 1965 or so, there was a booth set up that would give you radioactive rocks and let you hold them up to a geiger counter to hear the clicks.  Then you stuck them in your pockets and carried them around until your mother washed your pants and threw the rocks away.

Posted by: huerfano at December 23, 2009 05:58 PM (cSlAY)

Speaking of NM, at United Nuclear, you can still buy Trinitite from the first atomic blast down at the Trinity site. I picked some out there years ago when they would still go out there in buses to tour the site.

60 58 TexasJew and billygoat,
You do know that Monk made fun of kids with rock polishing kits, don't you?!?  ;^)

Posted by: Y-not at December 23, 2009 06:05 PM (sey23)

What kind of a man doesn't like to have his rock polished?

61 Personally I like White Christmas because it has Rosemary Clooney.

62 I want one.

63 There was so much great stuff out then.  It was a great time to be a budding young engineer.  50 in 1 electronic kits, Heathkits, Dynaco's --I guess talking over a light beam is pretty lame compared to an XBox. 

64 I plugged the bathroom sink and mixed everything in the cabinet beneath and emerged seeing stars.  I may have synthesized phosgene gas.

Remember the tinfoil matchhead rockets, with the paperclip launchers?  And the pump-up rockets propelled by water?  There was also one you attached to a garden hose.

65

TJ -- HA!!!...great; recovering Geologist here.  Still can't walk ANYWHERE without staring at the ground; picking up shit and carrying it home.  I remember moving (college) and having to lug around all my fossils and other shit...###'s of it.  Great times -- I blame it on a rock tumbling kit I got in the late 60's!

Posted by: billygoat at December 23, 2009 06:03 PM (6DDE+)

I'm still that way, even though I am a geologist. I carry around a couple of Estwing hammers and a hardrock mallet and no outcrop is safe from me.

I always have about two hundred pounds of assorted rocks in the bed of my Hummer after I take a trip.

66 Good point, TexasJew. 

Speaking of radiation, Mr. Y-not spent a summer doing radiation surveys in the Four Corners region.  The mine tailings, which I gather are a very fine dust, were popular as packing material... you know, around water lines and the like.  By far the worst application they found was a brand new, air tight bank vault. 

67

Bill Gates made the Altair's BASIC software, and that started Microsoft.

Okay, I'm not even going to look it up - just going on memory here, but:

1. I didn't think the Altair had a BASIC language.

2. Microsoft did the PC-DOS for the original IBM PC, and IBM let tem keep the rights, thus MS-DOS.

Corrections humbly accepted.

ps. I had a Gilbert Chemistry Set, which also included some radioactive ores IIRC, but no cloud chamber.

68 When I was about six, I announced to my Dad (who was a North American aerospace guy working on the initial Apollo program) that I planned to build a three stage rocket out of our garbage cans.  My design never quite measured up to those Chesley Bonestell paintings though.

69 Radioactive Chemistry set? You'll burn your eye out!

70 There was so much great stuff out then.  It was a great time to be a budding young engineer.  50 in 1 electronic kits, Heathkits,....

Ah the good ole days. My first stereo was from a pair of monaural Knight Kit amplifiers (original Allied Radio) and a turntable rtobbed from a broken unit.

Hell the tubes for those things now cost more than the entire kit did then.

71 But can Dagwood split atoms WITH HIS MIND?

72 That's a cool Christmas gift! 

73 I've never been a geologist, but my boyfriend brought a whole bucket of fossils and minerals home from New York for me. 

I have fossils from every state I've lived in except Wisconsin.

74

Posted by: sherlock at December 23, 2009 06:16 PM (ZrS0c)

In January, 1975, Popular Electonics had an front cover article on the Altair 8800. Bill Gates was at Harvard, and he and Paul Allen realized that there was no software available for the machine. They went to MIT's headquarters in Albuquerque with a long strip of software called Altair BASIC that Gates wrote (ie, ripped off) and they put it onto a strip reader and Ed Roberts of MITS allowed them to market this software. It was the start of Microsoft, which thus started in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and not Seattle, Gates' home town.

I was a part owner of the first Altair 8800 in Austin. I ponied up $500 and got 25%. It was a box of junk that you had to solder together and had a total memory of 256 bytes. Not Kill0-, Mega- or Giga-, but just 256 BYTES.

It had toggle switches and did basic machine language stuff, with little red LEDs, but hell - it was the first PC! Add-ons like more memory, card readers and other stuff had to be ordered and welded onto the funky motherboard.

 

75 I still have an old "Effects of Nuclear Weapons" USAF printing from the 60's.  Had summaries and pictures of all the major nuke tests and descriptions of most of the weapons.  Yeah, that probably should have been classified and I probably shouldn't admit to owning it.  Oh I remember my dog chewed it up a couple years ago. One of those things that I think I found in some back country army-navy surplus store in New Mexico, a lot of stuff like that used to float around there. 

76 Bill Gates made the Altair's BASIC software, and that started Microsoft.

Yes, Bill always had a thing for Basic didn't he? And if it wasn't for Java he would still be flogging that dead horse and torturing programmers with all those fake class objects, phony polymorphism and goto statements.

But the real brilliant move for Gates, the one that really put Microsoft on the map, was first licensing Seattle Computer Product's QDOS to IBM on SCP's behalf, then purchasing QDOS outright before the first IBM PC was released. That was a move.

77 I have fossils from every state I've lived in except Wisconsin.

Posted by: HeatherRadish at December 23, 2009 06:25 PM (6USny)

Me too!

I used to do field work for UT/Austin when I was down there and got to dig up some bones of some large Sauropods (huge Brontosaur-like dinos called the Alamosaurus) out in the Big Bend country. It was heaven. I worked with Doug Lawson, the guy who found the Quetzalcoatylus out there - the largest wingspan of any animal ever discovered. We worked on that same stream bed for weeks and found some amazing stuff.

78 I've gotta get me one of those!!!

79 It was a box of junk that you had to solder together...

Altair 8800. I want one.

80 A few of these kits seemed to have turned up in Iran recently.

81 Cox model airplanes

Posted by: bulwark at December 23, 2009 06:03 PM

Remember what they burned for fuel? Freakin' nitro-methane! Tiny little nitro fueled 2-stroke buzzsaws that you flew around your head...on purpose.

82 raydeoh aktivitee is teh BOMB!

83 Actually, the most amazing thing about that nuclear play set is the ol' American reaction to the Manhatten Project and nuclear energy. Secret government project in 1939. World war-winning bomb, 1945. Coming soon to your city to power your house, 1949. YOur kid can have fun with U235 and grow up to be Homer Simpson, 1951! Only in America, people!

84 U-238 Atomic Energy Lab

Hey guys, I was wondering what to give Achmedinijad for a gift when we meet for talks. Thanks for the tip

85

I demoed the ultimate spud gun to my roughnecks( oil patch workers). Got a joint of drillpipe and leaned it on a piperack. Built a breach with sand bags, a hockey stick handle and a purple k canister as a the projectile. The canister fit almost perfectly. Very little blow by. The breech length was about 4 feet. Gasoline was pressurized in a spray can. The sand bags were solid. Sprayed atomized gas for about 2 minutes. Stood back and tossed in a lit piece of manilla rope. Canister flew at least 300 yards. The guys from Schlumberger loved the spectacle.

 Got the idea from our twins( gremlins from hell) who used to launch cornered skunks from culverts.The county couldn't figure out how their culverts were being lifted out of their roads.

86 Think of it.  Atomic energy labs.  Electric powered erector sets. Chemistry sets.  Microscopes.  Crystal radios.  The Edmond Science Catalog.  To paraphrase the indefatigable Q, "That...was the explorations that awaited us. Not mapping stars and studying nebula, but charting the unknown possibilities of existence."

All gone now, all gone.  Now its just zhu zhu pets and Guitar Hero and High School Musical mp3 players.  Once, our parents raised us to trod the Earth as heroes, in our PF Flyer shod feet and with Tang on our baited breath.  Now kids can't figure out how what a belt is for or count to five without the help of a felt-toothed sock puppet. And waiting in the wings, Obamacare.

We deserve oblivion.

87 Alpha and Beta particles can be stopped by paper, Gamma rays are what kill you.

88 A creative kid could probably still bust up some old smoke detectors and scavenge the Americium out of them.

89 I went to the Edmunds site.  The featured chemistry set is "make your own hot sauce"   (all ingredients come in little plastic bags)

I feel like I'm trapped in an episode of "Jay Walking" with Jay Leno asking college students simple questions about geography.

90 I once saw a demonstration of electrolysis - separating hydrogen and oxygen from water with two wires and and an electrical source.

No one ever told me, 110 AC wouldn't work.

That nearly ended my experimentation days.

91 I like that the kid is glowing. He must be wearing a wig.

92

Well, on the girl side of wierd Christmas presents-was it Nancy Nurse or Chatty Cathy where you put an actual record in a big slit  in the back of the doll to make her talk?    I had em both but can't recall.

I like White Christmas over Holiday Inn because it's interesting to guess how anorexic Vera Ellen really was.   50 lbs maybe in that movie.    But seriously the thing with the old general always makes me cry since I have a vet dad. 

93 I had one of these when I was a kid.

94 42 Word is McCain's offered a free McCain campaign visor to any Dem congressman who switches sides.

Posted by: Cicero at December 23, 2009 06:41 PM (QKKT0)

I tried something like that in a blooey line on an air rig years ago. We were drilling through a gas sand, and, during the connection, we dissassembled the line, stuck in a small pig (a rubber ball used to clean out paraffin), made a fuse and set it off when the gas came back. The pig shot out like a bullet through the 60' flare,  and smashed into the trash trailer parked about 200 yards away.

95 42 Word is McCain's offered a free McCain campaign visor to any Dem congressman who switches sides.

Posted by: Cicero at December 23, 2009 06:41 PM (QKKT0)

Oops - I cut and pasted the wrong post. Correction....

96 The fuck? Polonium?

97 Posted by: chicocano at December 23, 2009 07:13 PM (2n5cq) Three's the charm...

98 Alpha and Beta particles can be stopped by paper, Gamma rays are what kill you.

Nonsense.

99

#99-k last one.

 Uncle Ralph and i bought about a hundred yearling pigs. He was like an older brother, 4 years older and watched over me like a hawk. I played senior hockey with him and he showed me tons on being a shifty hockey player. He was awesome because hockey scouts were all after him.

 We got 2 shanties and were putting them together for a piggery. Plywood, 2 by 4's etc. We were patching the holes,window holes, doorways, etc. The pigs were in there. The gremlins were outside. Ralph had a 4 by 8 plywood ready to attach to a doorframe. The gremlins lit off a string of firecrackers that they stole from my stash. Always got a ton of fireworks from the Minot or North Dakota State Fair.

 The yearlings hit Ralph's plywood. He fell backward and the whole herd went over that plywood. I went over and lifted the plywood.It looked like a snow angel in pig shit. The gremlins were hightailing towards the house. I nearly died laughing.

100 I'm surprised my brother didn't have one. He was 1 or 2 at the time--the perfect age for nuclear experiments. Much more fun than the carbide cannon.

101

66 -- I'm still that way, even though I am a geologist. I carry around a couple of Estwing hammers and a hardrock mallet and no outcrop is safe from me.

I always have about two hundred pounds of assorted rocks in the bed of my Hummer after I take a trip.

Posted by: TexasJew at December 23, 2009 06:14 PM (vuhso)

TJ -- Sorry I missed your post; company showed up and I just gave them the boot!  Hope to meet you at Moronapalooza...it would be fun to chat; always great to talk with someone who's stayed in the field of Geology...yes, that is envy in this post!  Interesting tidbit that probably also helped get me involved in Geology -- my Mum's from the Haliburton Highlands area of Ontario...specifically, a little town called Bancroft; I'm betting you know the area!  We had a lot of fun there as kids -- spelunking and going through some of the old Uranium mines...some of the coolest Sodalite specimens, evah!

102 I could use a new supply of unobtainium myself.

103 Last I heard INTERPOL doesn't have agents. It's more of a global database to keep track of arrest warrants for international criminals and fugitives.

104 Polonium!  Sweet.  I wonder if there was enough for a lethal dose (about 750 mcg)?

I'd love to try to get something like that past the CPSC nannies today.

Pansies.  So junior loses a little hair and some bone density, he's learning science.

105 Talk about the pussification of America's kids:  I saw an ad for a toddler's wooden train set that *brace yourselves*  helps to put the damned train on the wooden track for the kid in case he has trouble. 

Dear sweet jeebus.  This country is doomed.

106 True or False?

Holiday Inn > White Christmas

Posted by: Posted by at December 23, 2009 05:34 PM (xkQFU)

True.

The Atomic Energy Lab is a great idea. Hey kids, let's have fun with uranium!! But why is it named after a U-Boat?

107 Those balsa wood gliders that you had to slip the wing through the slot were fun.
Unless of course you broke it putting it together.
And don't forget the bag of 100 Army Men. The little green guys got blown up more times with fire crackers.
Man the dirt bomb fights we used to have..lol. It's a wonder we had any sight left.

108

I think Ace is attempting reentry.

109 I unplugged a table lamp, unscrewed the light blub and stuffed some aluminum foil in the base of the socket. Then I plugged it in and turned it on. 3 fireballs shot out! Extremely cool. Never tried anything that stupid again. More stupid? Probably...

110 > 108 True or False? The Atomic Energy Lab is a great idea. Hey kids, let's have fun with uranium!! But why is it named after a U-Boat? Posted by: TheQuietMan I don't know. http://uboat.net/boats/u238.htm ---------------- U-238 Type VIIC Launched - 7 Jan 1943 Career 3 patrols Successes 4 ships sunk for a total of 23,048 GRT 1 ship damaged for a total of 7,176 GRT Fate Sunk 9 Feb, 1944 in the North Atlantic south-west of Ireland, in position 49.45N, 16.07W, by depth charges from the British sloops HMS Kite, HMS Magpie and HMS Starling. 50 dead (all hands lost). -------------- I love the smell of internet in the morning. It smells like... trivia!

111

I,ll bet this bothers the liberal pansies who are always showing up at the dept stores this time of year urging parents not to buy war toys for their kids or urging them to exchange war toys for dumb pink monkeys and ROBIN WILLIAMS stupid movie TOYS

112 Hmmmm.

Fuck Lincoln Logs!

113 That is so cool. It reminds me of the chemistry set that I got one Christmas.

114 I think the glow in the dark radium glue envelopes in the stationary I was given for Christmas as a child was the best gift evuh!
I used to turn in all my trigonometry homework in those envelopes - the taste of the glue in a word;
Magnifique.

115 Surprised The Goracle missed the opportunity to add the Gore Global Warming Kit to empire.

116 Thanks once again for taking one for the team ace. You couldn't provide enough hookers and blow to get me to watch him.