Burning a NeXTCube (1993)
simson.net
simson.net
Me and engineers I knew were humans who liked fun (and especially had curiosity), too. As long as proper safety precautions are taken, why not? Seems like it wasn't very different here, either:
> "I need to have an MDS --- a Material Date Safety Shet --- on the paint before I can let you burn it," he said.
In more serious cases (if things like hydrofluoric acid, liquid sodium, or uranium are needed), then sure there would need to be a risk assessment, the health and safety people would need to get involved, and visitors could not be present. But otherwise there is pretty much no problem. In general, the decision would be taken with no involvement of any manager beyond the team level (~20 people). And that would be following the rules in place.
We brought a machine up there one day and the guy at the window breaks the thing down right there on the spot so young-me at the time could get an explainer of what he was doing. To little me that was the future, and this person taking their time to explain it to me was like an elder passing on their history. My little record button was firmly pressed.
So yes, that does happen. And that was a lot more substantial than some help burning up a computer case. Also, this www thingy, that's someone's side project.
As a former journalist, it truly is amazing the amount of free information that comes out of America's government, and the vast number of truly helpful people who work there.
I can't count the number of times I didn't understand something I read in a federal document, and was able to pick up the phone and within 15 minutes or so be in touch either with the person who wrote it, or someone who knew the topic intimately. Very often, they would follow-up with stacks of documentation by mail.
And I'm not talking about conversing with public relations people or media people or others who are paid to talk to the media. But regular federal staffers who really just wanted to make sure I understood things.
The Congressional Budget Office, and the General Services Administration stick in my memory as being especially helpful.
Sadly, it's the bad bureaucrats who get all the notoriety, and state/local offices have become markedly worse over recent years, as budgets have been cut and the Freedom of Information Act backfired, turning everything into a firewalled process. But there are still plenty of people out there who remember that every... single... thing... the federal government produces is the property of the people, which is why it's illegal for a federal agency to assert copyright over anything it created with tax dollars.
Again, state and local governments routinely put © notices on everything, as if they weren't paid for with public money for the good of the public.
Obviously in politics news it's usually used for evil - like the NYTimes or local TV stations are both famous for quoting a man on the street who's just a concerned citizen, and then you look their name up and they're a lobbyist or something.
But in science news you often see expert X releasing a paper and then someone from university Y, who wasn't involved and wasn't a reviewer, quoted reacting to it. Where does the journalist find them?
The technicians are there anyway and we don’t need to justify each litre of fuel we use, so there is pretty much no expense. We do all kinds of experiments for visitors somewhat regularly.
Heh. Was this in SF? I think I know who that was.
This (1993) was on the tail end of that phenomenon.
I vividly remembered all these demonstrations of burning magnesium strips in school, and sometimes wondered whether the case of my laptop would react the same. Of course, I liked that thing, so it always remained a question.
[1] Current pictures found on the Internet don't do it justice at all, since the paint and materials seem to have degraded to something very ugly by now.
You'll end up with a lot more capacity than the original if you use top of the line new cells.
As a former NeXT developer, I can confirm this as spot-on foreshadowing.
Anyway, had I been in the position of the author, I would have gotten a thin strip of magnesium (easy to get going) and put that on top of the case, lit the strip, and let that ignite the case.
So 30 years later, I had one of these things in my backpack (along with a waterproof container of cotton) and I decided to get over my ADD and try the intended method with magnesium flakes. It eventually worked, but it was so much effort compared to just lighting something made of cellulose that it was hardly worth it. I think these were originally made as survival tools for pilots, so maybe having it be water-agnostic was a factor in the design, though.
[1] https://www.cheaperthandirt.com/magnesium-fire-starter-u.s.-...
the cube itself seemed a bit more resilient.
there were reports of the mag alloy airframes of lancaster bombers burning in the raf offensive on germany in ww2, but i can't find any confirmation of this.
The result was horrific.
for those interested. the article seems to say it was mg skinned, which would make it even more combustible, as the skin would be thin
magnesium is far from being easily machinable, so a chassis/airframe/cube made out of the pure metal is unlikely
It's quite ok to machine, though it tears easily so you have to be careful on your final pass not to accidentally remove much more material than you intend to.
And if it is pure magnesium you'll want to be pretty careful about your cutting speeds and coolant ;)
That crash looks horrific by the way. Whoever thought that combination was a good idea didn't have their head screwed on properly. That really was quite predictable.
They built a car so flammable their driver refused to drive it. The driver they used in his place was then incinerated on the 2nd lap. So they built another equally flammable car and asked the first driver if maybe he'd now be up for driving it?
I'd love to have heard that conversation.
Oh, and medical facilities and staff weren't required until 1980.
It was an era when drivers were considered completely expendable, and being concerned with safety was cowardice.
I particularly chuckled at the line "We have problems like this all of the time".
Burning a Magnesium NextCube (1993) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28326169 - Aug 2021 (23 comments)
Burning a NeXT Cube - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=926992 - Nov 2009 (14 comments)
(link fixed now too)
[1] https://www.reviewgeek.com/102979/lenovo-thinkpad-x1-carbon-...
Edit: oh good dang did that while I was typing
Submitters: "Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
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