But it’s better PR for the phase when you get on the talk show circuit and start selling T-shirts and mugs.
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Uhhh, my misspent youth disagrees. I used to quite fond of flaming shots of rum, which is 80 proof (40% alcohol.) It burns quite nicely.
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Are you thinking of 151 rum? That’s over 70% alcohol and that’s what bartenders used in my day. (It actually comes with a mesh cover.)
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I’ve never gotten 80 proof anything to burn ever. I think there might be a labeling problem if something claiming to be 80 proof is catching on fire. Or maybe you were heating it enough to get some pure ethanol vapor?
Nope. Regular Bacardi Gold. 80 proof. I can provide photographic evidence when I get home.
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Assuming that’s true, then if the person throwing the windshield cleaner happened to know that, I’ll be mightily impressed. My guess is that she just acted impulsively to make her so-called “point”.
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No need, I believe you. I just didn’t know 80 proof burned. Most places don’t allow flaming beverages anymore (insurance), which is kind of sad.
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Well… I mean, all the wiper fluid I buy is normal summer-grade stuff that’s premixed down to 1:10 ratio of cleaning solution to water. If it’s winter grade you may get mostly ethanol/isopropyl/methanol, which is flammable. But general-use stuff isn’t going to catch on fire. Although you wouldn’t want to get it in your eyes.
Tunkhannock. Wyoming County. Are these locale names designed to perfectly match the look on her face?
One of my favorite episodes of My Name Is Earl was the one entitled “Our ‘COPS’ Is On!” in which the characters gather ‘round the TV to watch a rerun episode of COPS in which they all played a part. It was so good that the next season they made a two-parter: “Our Other ‘COPS’ Is On!” I love them ol’ rednecks on that show.
My Name Is Earl, that is. I don’t love COPS.
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The scary issue is the fumes which ignite easily (but inconsistently) and there’s no way to tell if our smoking friend has a properly sealed gas tank, if she has the nozzle in tightly enough, how thick the fumes are, how the air currents are saturating things, the impact of humidity, etc.
It’s unlikely, but it’s also very unpredictable and you can’t identify the risk just by looking. That’s why they have all those warning signs.
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I’m going to adhere to rule #137 in my “Important things to remember” playbook, which reads:
“Never question the opinions of someone about something related to chemistry when their online icon is that of a chemical compound.*”
“*Even when that chemical compound looks suspiciously phallic.”
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Aaaannnnd…now I can’t unsee.
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#138: Online icons can lie about the profession of the user.
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But I want to believe that someone out there can be an award-winning chemist by day and a porn star by night. Heck, Buckaroo Banzai carried it off well enough. Let me have my heroes.
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Not all heroes wear capes!
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I once, fueling up, noticed that the gentleman at the pump behind me had left his car running while he pumped his gas. I stepped back, placed my hand gently on the hood of the car to ascertain it was still buzzing, lifted my hand again, and said to him, “Hey, your car’s still running.” “Yeah, so?” Me: “Oh, I didn’t know you could do that.” “Mind your own fucking business, you fuck.”
Well then.
He might’ve added another “fuuuuuck!” at the end; my memory’s a bit hazy on that.
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Yeah, it isn’t recommend, but I think that is mainly so the car doesn’t move if say you didn’t put it in park, or a kid moves the shifter. It won’t cause a fire unless you lifted the hood and douse it with gas, then maybe… I have seen more people keep it running in really cold areas.
It was like 100 degrees out and I had my wife and her parents in the car and the AC was struggling to keep up. I suggested we leave the car running while refueling. You would have thought I suggested strapping dynamite to the car based on their reactions.
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Smoking woman sprays gasoline on customer
This headline would have been so much more tempting if “smoking” had meant “hot sexy”.
I don’t know what standards cars are held to; but I would (perhaps naively) assume that gas pumps are considered to be electrical equipment in an NEC Class 1, division 1 or similar location, which would require that the equipment in the pump be designed with appropriate barriers or intrinsic safety designs.
The other possibility is that the cellphone warning arises from the desire to warn users of risks that aren’t intuitive(‘my internal combustion engine vehicle might be an ignition source’ is the kind of thing that you might well expect without prompting, “my solid state electronic widget might be an ignition source” is markedly less obvious).
Yeah, I’m by no means a chemist. I’m an helpdesk technician. But I like to be aware of the chemicals around me that I use every day, and the structural diagram in my avatar is for the drug Modafinil, which I take every day so my brain can work.
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