Burning a Magnesium NextCube (1993) | Hacker News Reader

Burning a Magnesium NextCube (1993)

simson.net

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What a read. A rabbit hole which peaks at

- "Sally," I said after a few seconds, "let's throw in the backup."

- "I was just thinking that," she said.

- Eric smiled.

And then

- "You know, we could make it flare up by throwing some water on it," one of the Livermore engineers suggested.

First you get hit with the wall of bureaucracy with all its rules and regulations, but behind it you find highly engaged people willing to do whatever they can to get this thing going.

Sometimes someone just want to see the world burn

Incredibly detailed write up! But I do wish the photos were linked somewhere. The photo at the top is clearly not a magnesium flame. Does anyone know if they ran with the cover in the end or not?

Archive.org’s search seems broken on mobile right now but I think the actual magnesium fire pictures are all here: http://macenstein.com/default/2008/06/oh-the-humanity-nextcu...

Edit: Archive.org is back online. The link has only a few low-res pictures, but it’s something: https://web.archive.org/web/20210217094141/http://macenstein...

There a video of someone burning one on YouTube

https://youtu.be/pkvQ-BJD2rU

But using thermite as the igniter ....

Agreed - great write up. Reminds me greatly of the older days of the internet when most content you stumbled across was like this.

I miss that internet dearly. I haven’t personally adjusted to the change and find myself still trying to produce long-form content that just gets drowned out by all the tweet-to-single-paragraph noise that pervades the web today.

I don't think length matters.... I'm totally fine digesting a tweet or paragraph long message. What I dislike is long form that has to spend 4 intro paragraphs giving some irrelevant childhood or growing up message before they get into why their opinions matter. Or writeups that have some stupid headline such as "XYZ is dead." "Top 10 things every app developer must start doing now." etc etc.

There's a link to all their photo's at the top of the page.

Oh, you’re right! I missed that completely.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nitroba/albums/721575944354804...

I know this isn't the effect they were hoping for, but I find this pic really good :

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nitroba/331447363/in/album-721...

VW engine blocks used to be made from magnesium. They burn great: https://bangshift.com/bangshift1320/magnesium-vw-engine-bloc...

Also rims:

http://www.machall.com/view.php?date=2003-06-10

Also, whole race cars…

"When the rest of Levegh's car landed on the embankment, the rear-mounted fuel tank exploded. The fuel fire raised the temperature of the remaining Elektron bodywork past its ignition temperature, which was lower than that of other metal alloys due to its high magnesium content. The alloy burst into white-hot flames, showering the track and crowd with magnesium embers, made worse by rescue workers unfamiliar with magnesium fires who poured water onto the inferno, greatly intensifying the fire. As a result, the car burned for several hours."

The 1955 LeMans Disaster.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1955_Le_Mans_disaster

The retrocomputing enthusiast in me dies a little every time I am reminded this video exists.

Q: I want to burn my computer case

A: That's impossible!

Q: We want to make a film shoot where Tom Cruise crashes his car which then bursts into flames.

A: Okay, sounds great! We will take care of all the necessary safety precautions!

When did Tom Cruise appear in a Michael Bay production?

I have burned the magnesium chasis of older thinkpads. It makes a really bright light.

> (I am told that Apple also uses magnesium for the inside case of its Duo computers, but I haven't been able to verify this fact.)

Can confirm. I'm not 100% sure it was a Macintosh Duo (but around that same time) and indeed the frame when you removed the bottom of the laptop was cast magnesium.

A Simson Garfinkel classic. He's a privacy expert these days and works at US Census. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simson_Garfinkel

Weren’t magnesium frames widely used in laptops recently?

This is why it's always easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.

Seriously who doesn't know this!?

This is such a fun article! Are there any books collecting stories about computing like this?

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