SwiftOnSecurityFeels like there used to be a lot more fiction storylines about old explosives that degraded and would detonate if you jostled them
Alerta! Alerta!@SwiftOnSecurity They aren't fiction any more...
Kevin Karhan 
@SwiftOnSecurity yeah because modern explosives are safer to store and handle than ever before...
Simon ZerafaMany modern high explosives are very insensitive, thankfully!
They make the implosion system of atomic weapons from such, so they don't explode inappropriatly when exposed to fire or impact.
This was not always the case and the number of times it very nearly went catastrophically wrong is too many 🫨
@simonzerafa @SwiftOnSecurity yes.
In fact all modern explosives these days need a primary charge to detonate to the point that C4 melts and burns like wax, which is good in terms of removing UXO…
Even in WWII stream extraction of unexploded bombs explosive content was a technique to render them safe 🙂
@simonzerafa @SwiftOnSecurity still being done to this day by Bomb Disposal Units in Germany...
- Cuz we have no shortage of UXOs here...
- To the point that any Earthworks company claims that you ain't digging out a cellar in Cologne if you don't stumble upon WW2 UXO, spent casings, bomb fragments and/or Roman coins...
There are many discovered in the UK thanks to the 1939 to 1945 slight disagreement.
One of the many reasons I dislike fascists is there previous attempts to murder my father's family in the 1940's by exploding HE in close proximity to their civilian dwelling places.
Thankfully they survived even when said dwellings didn't. Twice. 😕
jonathankoren™@SwiftOnSecurity those stories all got sucked down by the old stories about quicksand, neither to be seen again
.vad//hakara🧭
Paul C.@SwiftOnSecurity Inspired by pre-dynamite risk profiles, no doubt.
Steven Hugg@SwiftOnSecurity I've seen the MacGyver ep, the Sorcerer movie, and have "The Wages of Fear" on my to-see list. There have gotta be more.
Sander
Pepijn Bruienne
Jordy 
Toby Bryans
brewpubus@SwiftOnSecurity Still a common non-fiction trope though
@SwiftOnSecurity that scene from Lost comes to mind.
Ted Aronson@SwiftOnSecurity I certainly feel like I've had to deal with nitroglycerine a lot less than the media had me believing.
Keith Judge@ted @SwiftOnSecurity Same with quicksand
Analog AI@KeefJudge @ted @SwiftOnSecurity
I did find a (small) bit of quick sand once: at a beach, a spot about 20cm in diameter where underground water was flowing up. Just big enough to put my foot in and out.
And now that I'm grown, I have to wonder what kind of water that was. Certainly a bigger risk than sinking over my head.
Enema Cowboy
John Deters
Passwordsarehard4@ted @SwiftOnSecurity I’ve had to “stop, drop, and roll” way less then I anticipated as well. I assumed people were all either flammable or inflammable.
DarkShadow
Contact Explosive - Detonating Nitrogen Triiodide
Nick Taylor
Garrett Wollman@SwiftOnSecurity OSHA's long tail: there used to be a lot of fairly common chemicals that might be found in homes and classrooms that were inherently explosive or would crystallize to a shock-sensitive state. Hazard reduction means that many of these are no longer legal for sale or transportation, and the stock of old garages/high-school chemistry labs with these materials quietly settling in a back corner of a cupboard to be discovered decades later had dwindled greatly.
@SwiftOnSecurity The canonical example of this is picric acid, a close chemical relative of TNT, which was at the same time commonly used as an explosive and as an antiseptic/burn treatment.
Gordon Fawks@SwiftOnSecurity Im fairness the days when you could buy dynamite at the hardware store are long gone enough that there is less and less of that around.