That reminds me. Another thing to be afraid of. River rocks and camp fires.
For those that don’t know, there is a small amount of water in River rocks. When they are heated sufficiently, the internal water turns to gas. And they explode.
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Campers need something to make it exciting, don’t they?
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Ever tell you about the time I was stalked by bears, and it wasn’t in SF?
(Camping/SF dad joke, I apologise 
. I was stalked by three black bears near the rogue River)
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Always saved the aerosol spray cans so that we could toss them into the burning barrel one at a time to maximize the booms. Perhaps there is something to this idea of getting rid of the EPA…
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Most rocks usually have some water in them. If you put stones in a kiln, they can blow and make a mess of a kiln. You have to heat them really slowly to desiccate and it’s hard to get right. I’m also slightly afraid of my wife’s glass kiln, since it hits >1500 F inside. Also after you’ve let it anneal and you start to let it really cool, a 400 degree F piece of glass looks basically the same as a 70 degree F one.
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This made the rounds yesterday on twitter…
seriously, movies better step up and start feathering their dinosaurs!
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I’m afraid I’m off for March Mammal Madness. Tonight it’s Neanderthal Hunting Party vs. Giraffe and Sphinx vs. Sabertooth Cat, and more.
edit: wait, it’s not for 30 minutes…
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Duct tape around nozzles.
…
I think you, me, and @nemomen know too much. But we would all be super useful in a dystopian future. You know, for civil engineering.
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When the dark times comes in the dystopian future, we will not be afraid - they will.
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Who am I kidding, I’ll be terrified.
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My “dystopian future fear” involves having to go around harvesting thyroids in order to keep my wife going… I guess that I should start sharpening the edge of some ice cream scoops and melon-ballers.
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I’m familiar with this phenomenon from my forays into scientific glass-blowing.
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I fear that I will be compelled to seek out that damned thing, SCP-794-02, someday.
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Do you want to know what looks really cool under water?
Military Parachute Flares. Sorta like in this video - except you shoot them into the pond out on your training territory.
You want to know what isn’t cool? When you shoot them at too shallow of an angle and they skip off the water and hit the field of dry grass across the pond.
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What could Hitchcock have been afraid of?
“… a life-long fear of the police. Rationally enough, his phobia stemmed from a childhood trauma, when he was sent by his father to the local station with a hand-written note asking the duty officer to lock him away for five minutes as punishment.”
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You have to do the same process to prep river rock for a sweat lodge. Bury them under a bonfire for hours, then dig 'em out and put 'em straight in the fire until they glow. The no-good ones with too much water will explode at some point, leaving you with the ones that theoretically (at least) will not frag you in once in the tent.
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Try a swan. A pair of swans built a nest in a juniper bush at the end of the dock where I keep my boat. Approaching one of them was like approaching a dragon. Fortunately there was an alternate way around, which everyone took until the swans left. A swan can beat a chicken any day.
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