Guns don't kill people. But engineers aren't real people.

[xiphmont]

At some point my knee jerk reaction to these sorts of things will become a cliche, but I really don't know what else to do.

Angry yet humorous reaction, now on sale. And no, I'm not making any money from it; that would be crass. Well, crass in a bad way.

Closeup of text on front:

Closeup of text on back:

Comments

[pwaa.livejournal.com]

That's brilliant.

A series of comments, unrelated. Both in agreement and not.

[http://users.livejournal.com/deviant_/]

If it said "fucking" instead of "f*cking", I'd buy one in a second. (I don't believe in that kind of equivocation.) I still might get one.

Plenty of things ratshack sells are engineered poorly enough to randomly explode... (mostly just batteries, though.)

An ANSI 1604 ("9 volt" or "PP3") battery, even a really nice 1200mAh 1604LC one, does not supply its current with enough potential to power the sort of blasting cap you need for any easily acquirable plastic explosive. The standard blasting cap for the sort of explosives Play-Doh could be mistaken for provides 500 to 1000 Amps at 5 kilovolts.. That requires some hardware that takes more than a couple of cubic millimeters.

Play-Doh is flammable. It's also made from flour, which is explosive. In the right circumstances it may actually be explosive. I should find out sometime ;)

China basically invented explosives. That probably isn't relevant, but it's fun to point out.

Re: A series of comments, unrelated. Both in agreement and not.

[xiphmont.livejournal.com]

As I was writing it, I knew that the real engineers and geeks would nitpick. In fact, there was almost an hour of chemistry debate on white-magic about what formally defined an explosion (I maintain the exothermic energy must come from the device itself, putting lots of energy in doesn't count... so, eg, putting 1kV across an LED and watching it pop is not an explosion. Ie, "I made a quarter explode by blowing it up with a bomb, so a quarter must be a bomb too!" is a fallacy.

But here's my short answer to the [admittedly lighthearted] nitpicking: My shirt is more factually accurate than the AP article about Star's arrest.

I used an asterisk not as self censorship, but as a way to cause more trouble. People who make careers of being offended at life tend not to complain about what's actually bothering them, but latch onto the detail they think they can get you in trouble with. It's not a swear officer, it ain't spelled the same. Yes Sir, I'll see you all in court.

You want a full-frontal version? Your wish shall be granted.

Play-Doh is not flammable. Too much water. Flour is not explosive. Flour dust atomized in a specific fuel/air ratio is explosive. I'm from the midwest. This was the subject of one of my childhood science projects.

Re: A series of comments, unrelated. Both in agreement and not.

[darlene-ford.livejournal.com]

The common sense definition of an explosion might be "one that will cause more damage than I can with my bare hands". According to Wikipedia, a 9V battery contains 625 milliamp-hours. That's total energy discharge of 20 kiloJoules = 4800 (thermal) calories = 4.8 nutritional calories. If that much stored energy is dangerous, McDonalds restaurants and average, overweight Americans would spontaneously explode. Come to think of it, we probably shouldn't allow people on planes, given that there are anecdotal reports of spontaneous combustion.

Re: A series of comments, unrelated. Both in agreement and not.

[http://users.livejournal.com/deviant_/]

Well, presumably they thought the Play-Doh was where the badness was.

This makes me wonder, of course, since the Play-Doh was not actualy connected the circuitry: is it actually illegal to have all the parts for a "fake bomb", unassembled?

[rjpb.livejournal.com]

Just to be safe, I think you need a line about "T-shirts that have the word 'Terrorist' on them are not explosive." Because you know that trigger-happy cops will not read the word "not".

[darlene-ford.livejournal.com]

Hilariously funny. Until someone's dumb enough to try to fly in it. Which would be a great first amendment case, but not something I want to happen to me.

I want one. But, I'm not sure people up here in NH would get the joke.

[http://users.livejournal.com/deviant_/]

Obviously we need to send one to John Gilmore.

flashmob?

[(Anonymous)]

above T-Shirt + sufficient ticketed passengers + airport + internet = flashmob

love to see the TSA reaction when hundreds of people with this TShirt try (validy) to board their planes...

:->