"DO NOT MAKE THIS EXPLOSIVE!"

How Could I Resist?

Conrad is unsure exactly how he got to this particular internet rabbit-hole on Youtube, yet he did.  Possibly the feeds detect an interest in Things Exploding?  Regardless of how, there I was, looking at a cautionary advisory.  Art!

     For your information, 'TATP' stands for Tri-Acetone Tri-Peroxide, and the Youtube channel in question is the frankly bonkers 'Ordnance Lab', which features a couple of chaps who are not just obsessed with blowing things up, they want to entertain and educate we the public as they do so.  From a passing comment about "Officer Armour School" I suspect one of them has been in the South Canadian military.

     They may be - what's the word for a person morbidly obsessed with explosions? - aha!  'Ekrixphiliacs', but they DO emphasise safety in their pursuit of chemically-composed destruction.  Note this extract from their Youtube channel's 'About' page:

"WARNING: Ordnance Lab LLC is an ATF licensed Destructive Device & Explosives manufacturer, and is registered as a manufacturer of Defense Articles with the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). Ordnance Lab LLC does not sell firearms or explosives. Do not attempt to do anything we feature in our videos, as it may result in your death, serious injury, or arrest."

     True to form, they deliberately avoided explaining how to make TATP but I'm sure you can find a perfectly trustworthy and reliable recipe on the Dark Web.  Art!

     The thing about TATP is that the precursor chemicals are fairly easily obtained, which is why the bottomhole above was trying to create a bomb in order to murder cheerleaders (I kid you not).  He did not treat his TATP with the tender loving care it so very much needs, and consequently is minus both a hand and his liberty, as he will be inside a prison cell for the next seven years.  Art!

TATP is also known in Arabic as "The Mother Of Satan"

     This is the makeshift grave of those terrorists in Barcelona, who scored an own goal thanks to, again, mis-treating TATP.

     What makes it so dangerous?  Sensitivity across a number of physical criteria is why.  Art!

     Basically, this stuff is looking for a way to explode every second of it's existence, and the OL chaps prove this, first using a lighter - Art!

Note 1) Protective glove and 2) Small sample size

     You get a slightly less dramatic result if it's hit with a hammer, or scraped on a rough surface.  

     Danger demonstration done, the OL chaps decided to illustrate how effective TATP is as an explosive, by taping a small bottle onto a metal oil filter.  No doubt they attached the bottle verrrrrrrrry slowly.  Art!

     The chaps confirmed that this was merely TATP in a bottle, which gives a lower brisance (explosive forced measured in metres per second), probably half that of a similar but compressed amount.  The thing is, compressing TATP is really, really dangerous; it does not play well with force being applied to it.  Art!

Blast off

     I notice that he's holding the now-battered stout metal filter with all his fingers and both hands, so this safety thing must have benefits.

     Right!  I am off to see what the difference is between 'Deflagrate" and "Detonate".

Ooops

Conrad bestirred himself tonight and made a load of pizza dough, pizza sauce, sliced chorizo and grated cheese.  I've not made a pizza for years and wasn't even sure the yeast would froth as it's 'Best By' date was <coughcough> January 2023.

     But it did work and I was trying to flip the pizza to get it onto a backing tray and  -

     I dropped it.  Art!

     This is the somewhat mis-shapen mass that resulted.  Most of the topping has gone and the dough where it's all bulged up didn't cook properly, but it wasn't that bad.  Next time I'll wrap it around the rolling pin in order to move it.
     One lives and learns.

"The War Illustrated"

Don't forget that, for the Allies, the campaign in Italy is the only ground war they are able to wage in Europe.  The Sinisters were always whining and complaining about this, except they didn't lift a finger to fight the Japanese in the Far East, the pikers.  Art!

     Here you see the egregious idiot Mountbatten (in the peaked cap), who had an ego indeed as big as a mountain, and who was responsible for the disastrous Allied landings at Dieppe.  Here he appears in the Far East, where he was probably shunted to keep him from committing havoc in Europe.  Piker.

     Ah yes.  The landings at Anzio.  As you can see from the map, the idea was to land a large amphibious force well behind the Axis lines and take them by surprise, cutting their lines of communication and marching on Rome, taking the Axis forces in the rear and by surprise.

  Yes, that was the plan.  Enter South Canadian Major General John Lucas .....

"City In The Sky"

From the allusions Conrad has detected, it seems the author has posited that the theocracy of Iran has long since gone, replaced by a military dictatorship, who evince just as much dislike of Israel as their predecessors.  Or they wouldn't have launched a nuclear missile attack on them.

     Normally, the sensitive detection systems of the sphere would have picked up a terrestrial launch from almost the whole of Earth visible from orbit, then plotted an increasingly accurate track of the missile’s trajectory as more observation refined the data.  This time, there was no correlating missile track after the launch warning.  Davy felt flustered – the detection systems couldn’t be making false-positive warnings, could they?

     ‘I have the Iranian missiles inbound on a sub-orbital track, moving east-west over Iraq,’ read off Natalie.  ‘No trace of the Israeli missile.  I wonder – could it be stealthed?  Radar-invisible?’

     ‘No,’ said a voice with a heavy accent and a determined tone.  Summoned by an Emergency call on his Tab, Dovid Weitzman had arrived in the Comm Suite.  His loose plastic coverall didn’t disguise his stocky build, nor the tense expectation in his posture.  Dovid’s official Arcology qualifications were horticulture, botany and fertilisation, even if he knew far too much about rocketry, ballistics and nuclear weapons for a humble biologist.  ‘You should get Kouroush in here.’

     ‘He’s coming,’ said Constanz.  Kouroush’s qualification applied to nuclear physics; like Dovid, he had an uncanny and in-depth knowledge of rocketry and ballistics.

     ‘You were saying about the Israeli launch?’ prompted a Deputy.

     Corks, things are looking bad for Hom. Sap!  It's at times like this that you need the services of a travelling monster-slayer and problem solver, doncha think?

You What?

Conrad suspects that his flirtation over several blogs with table saws, carpentry accidents and generall chopping wood has caused a few algorithms to pay attention, because that's the only explanation I can think of for this item cropping up on a webpage.  Art!

     For one thing, 'Festool' sounds vaguely unclean, and Your Humble Scribe is having a hard time imagining what he'd use a reciprocating saw for.  Frozen bread?  Nor am I that au fait with what a reciprocating saw is; presumably a power tool where the saw blade moves back and forth at many times per second, making it potentially useful against the walking dead, as long as you can muffle the noise?