Readers' Comments

Reader Comments on Aardvark Daily 5 November 2002
Note: the comments below are the unabridged submissions of readers and do
not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher.
From: Chris
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Incendiary devices

It's good to see the age old masculine tradition of making things go
'bang' is alive and well accross the generations. Obviously things can
sometimes be taken too far. (
http://www.nature.com/nsu/021028/021028-10.html ) On the whole though,
humans have been making exploding devices for a few millenia, and in spite
of a massive head start over the western world, the Chinese population
doesn't seem to have suffered too terribly as a result of their early
access to explosives. Interestingly, when I was at school, one of the set
books we were given to read in English, had a detailed account in the
preface about the composition of black powder. It wasn't any real
revelation to me by then as I'd already been making the stuff for years.
At university, some classmates were fairly heavily into rocketry
experimentation, and they prepared their rocket fuel by boiling it up on
the stove of their student flat. They also experimented with
nitroglycerin. Personally I thought they were crazy, but somehow they
seemed to survive intact. In my whole experience with pyrotechnical
devices, both commercially supplied, and home made, the only time I ever
injured myself, was with a sparkler, one of those nice 'safe' little
devices that parents often let their kids run around with. It wasn't a bad
burn, but it hurt enough, and vigourously reinforced my long held view
that holding any form of incendiary device is not a good idea. Because
I've made my own 'explosive' devices (black powder actually isn't
particularly explosive), I wonder whether I'll soon be under 24 hour
surveilance, or be incarcerated without trial as a possible terrorist? In
actual fact, I've also manufactured my own ammonia gas in large enough
quantities to evacuate a house when I had some 'uncooperative' flatmates.
I found out later that was actually a far more risky thing to do than to
make stuff that might go 'boom'. Still, explosives seem to capture
bureaucrats and media imagination, so while the ingredients for making
toxic gas are far cheaper, and far more readily available than those to
make a mild explosive, this whole area goes virtually ignored. There
obviously isn't the same appeal in making clouds of toxic gas, as watching
something go up in a blaze of glory, and there's far more risk of harming
yourself, but start banning access to information that's been around for
centuries, and people will inevitably find other, potentially more harmful
things to experiment with. In the end, you'd need to ban virtually every
science text book, along with quite a few novels, safety manuals, and
quite a bit of other literature. As the Soviets found when they tried to
suppress religion, making something illegal, only builds a strong
underground movement. Here in NZ where there is freedom of religious
practice certainly hasn't created a mass movement of militant
fundamentalism, and allowing open discussion, and perhaps supervised use
of pyrotechnic devices, might actually provide a safer society than trying
to keep anything with the remotest possibility of risk to life or property
under lock and key. There's no way anyone in their right mind would ban
cars, and yet they cause plenty of death and mutilation. This year I
didn't buy any pre-packaged pyrotechnics, as they are so expensive for
such a brief display. Instead I bought some flower bulbs, and some
fertiliser, something that will provide a display that will last days
rather than seconds. Of course some of the fertiliser might just find its
way into some 'alternative' uses on Tuesday night...




From: Charlie
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Fireworks

As always there's a certain amount of BOOO! factor when fun
things are legislated off the shelves, but in the case of
skyrockets there's actually a very good reason.  As a
member of a volunteer fire brigade I have personally seen a
significant drop in the number of fire calls on and around
5 November.  Ultimately life and property are at risk, and
19 calls in one night for our truck alone meant that we
were not available for more serious incidents than a small
section of scrub set on fire by a wayward skyrocket.
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