.vad//hakara🧭"In the late 1960s, Wham-O made a giant Super Ball roughly the size of a bowling ball as a promotional stunt. It fell from the 23rd story window (some reports say the roof) of an Australian hotel and destroyed a parked convertible car on the second bounce."
Karl Auerbach@vadhakara We used to drop things from the roof of the UCLA Engineering building (Boelter Hall) to see what would happen. It was a drop of nine floors into the area used to hold the cars after the crash tests.
We dropped many things - ranging from empty lead radiation containers to ... well, we considered ARPAnet IMP#1 - it does have hoisting points on the top - but prudence, fortunately, visited.
We dropped many a super ball. We were kinda disappointed with their weak bounces or their frequent disintegration.
We had access to liquid nitrogen - so we, of course, froze some super balls and dropped 'em.
As expected, they shattered.
@karlauerbach Modern super balls are considerably superior in longevity and performance, and you can get them in sizes which match standard pipe schedule sizes as well. They were one of my favorite potato gun loads.
@vadhakara I wonder: would these new super-dooper superballs do any better after lounging for an hour in a bath of liquid nitrogen?
By-the-way why don't you want to be President of Utah? That's like me wanting to be Emperor of the Universe (which I do), except for the Andromeda galaxy.
@karlauerbach Under my administration Utah will be abolished to make room for the new capitol building and affiliated facilities along with a generously sized surrounding security zone.
As for liquid nitrogen, I haven't had the pleasure, but I have seen a bunch of youtube videos where they crumble under the mighty hammer blows of people who probably shouldn't be allowed to buy liquid nitrogen. You can watch 10 videos and see only 2 pairs of safety goggles the whole time.
@vadhakara When you take over Utah can I have the Green River?
@karlauerbach Certainly. I doubt you will find it a particularly hospitable locale though, not after The Seeding of the Cores. You see, the US Government is currently in possession of thousands and thousands of subcritical plutonium weapon pits, all just sitting around doing nothing in a bunker in Texas. Part of the Capitol security system will see those items repurposed as devices I like to call "Flash Clappers". We'll be hiring a lot of machinists to make beryllium hemispheres.
@vadhakara Oh, fun! Don't forget the paraffin.
But please don't mess up the dinosaur bones.
Every time I cross the Green River I stop and play Sherman Holmes singing that tune. (I knew that barefoot girl.)
It's been a long time since I was at Site 300 of the Livermore Labs. (At the labs I mostly worked with fusion, not fission.)
Sherman Holmes w/ The Legendary Ingramettes - Green River
@karlauerbach You're too accomplished of a human being for me to keep larping at you hahaha (but please do vote for me if you ever see my name on a ballot)
Those are some talented musicians, thank you for sharing that.