Where in the hell is my goddamned flying car? Seriously, I've been waiting for it pretty much my whole life, and it appears that I'll be dead before it ever happens.
Apparently Elon Musk grew up dreaming of an electric car instead of one that flew; I suspect his parents were commies or something. Still, he's got the spaceflight bug, and the car thing...I would have thought there might have been some crossover. Or maybe with him it's really just all about making money, not about making my childhood dreams come true. What a selfish bastard you are, Mr. Musk.
P.S. I'm looking for work, any chance I could get on at SpaceX?
@ChunkyBitz Me made something our science teacher called "Flubber" in elementary school. It did not enable me to jump to the rafters of the gym or build a flying car.
We were told that if you took Piccolo Pete fireworks (the ones that shrieked) and used a pair of pliers to crush the bottom half, they'd shriek and then explode. But they didn't. We named the actual result Firefarts.
I had a rock polisher. We couldn't get it far enough away from the bedrooms in the house to make the endless racket tolerable. Never got my polished rocks. :(
It never grew into the man-eating flytrap that I was promised. It wasn't even a fly-eating flytrap. Now that I think about it, it might have just been a fern wearing glasses. Hmmm.
@Kidsandliz Ooh, I dunno. I feel like we have a ways to go for that one. I'm not a big Trekkie, so I don't know what year those movies/shows take place.
For a science fair, I collected rain water (Lived in Oregon so there was plenty) once a week for a year in mason jars to show the increase in acidity in the rain. After a year, turns out there was no change. Shocking... Got no credit at the science fair since I'm sure the judges thought I just filled up jars with tap water the day before and put some food coloring into them.
I'm sure some kid who's father is an engineer and did everything won first price.
@medz Yeah man, I thought the point of the science fair was the experience of going through the process. Using the scientific method, conducting the experiment, etc. That's some bullshit.
@Bogie You should've been living in, like, Ohio or Upstate New York if you wanted acid rain. You were too far west of the heavy industry that releases the pollution that causes acid rain.
A friend and I tried to make our own firecrackers. I couldn't begin to tell you how many paper caps (from cap gun rolls) we cut open. The real problem was finding a suitable wick. Dental floss was as close as we could get. We did manage to finally get a small bang out of one firecracker. Irony - We did this for a grade school science class project. Wtf was that teacher thinking, letting us try this?
@Cinoclav I did something similar, but was trying to use a pill bottle. It was very disappointing when I finally lit it and it made a small pop and the cap just popped off... Why didn't I tape or glue it on?! What a waste of time.
@Cinoclav Your teacher probably knew what the result would be… either that or had no clue. My parents let my brother (well I am sure they were unaware that his goal was explosives) play with things that went bang and could set the house on fire (see the entry below yours)
My brother learned the hard way that an aluminum pie pan, when aluminum is the catalyst, is not a wise choice in which to mix chemicals… One big bang later and the furnace pilot light was blown out and the doctor spent several hours picking red phosphorus out of his eyes. Of course we had a bunch of fun blowing up sand castles at the beach using his chemistry skills. I am reasonably certain my parents had no idea what we were actually doing all those hours.
Dry ice tossed off a bridge into a shallow pond is rather fun too.
Oh wait this was supposed to be disappointing. OK it was disappointing that we never did learn what my brother was making before he blew it up- flash powder maybe? It was disappointing that sand castles do not blow sky high no matter how many home made cherry bombs you pack in the castle. OK now it qualifies.
@Kidsandliz Wait. If I am remembering correctly from another thread, you weren't allowed to sneak whipped cream from the fridge. But your brother was allowed to play with red phosphorus??
@Kleineleh Whipped cream is FOOD. Red Phosphorus is CHEMISTRY - thus is EDUCATIONAL (besides my parents were not helicopter parents and had no clue about chemistry - they were hoping it would get my brother interested in school and he did go on to work in a field that required chemistry).
Biting on aluminum foil with teeth that have fillings == HOLY FUCKING SHIT. There's some scientific explanation to it I'm sure. A chemical reaction, I'd guess, but damn does it feel weird.
@phatmass Forum decorum dictates no teasing. You have to share the rest now that you've started. (I'm using standard everything that rhymes is true protocol.)
@JonT Reminds me of the 1970's Saturday morning "educational" mini-cartoons: "Conjunction Junction, what's your function?" ::: sigh ::: Am I the only one old enough to remember those?
Learning that Pluto is no longer a planet. Not so much a childhood disappointment per se, but more of a "dear god, my childhood!" kind of disappointment. Like watching a Michael Bay movie.
Having my 6th grade teacher announce that women plucking their eyebrows would 'evolve' humans with no eyebrows, and the resulting trouble I got in for saying she was wrong, and that was Lamarkian rather than Darwinian evolutionary theory.
@JonT they're not naturally that way. The things we humans do to ourselves to make potential mates find us more attractive is messing up the whole "survival of the fittest" concept. Sure, maybe dudes like pencil thin eyebrows on a lady, but doing it artificially isn't allowing thick eyebrows to be bred-out naturally. Achieving the look artificially effectively removes true eyebrow thickness as a factor in finding a mate and reproducing. (same goes for medical procedures that correct problems and lengthen lifespan) Science is hosing the process of natural selection!
My bio homework was to bring something to class to look under the microscope. I just hit puberty so I thought it would be fun to look at my semen. Since looks are inherited, they should have little faces resembling me, right? Well no, they looked nothing like me (we hadn't learn about DNA yet). And due to an unfortunate slippage of the slide, I also learned that they taste pretty nasty. I guess Billy's porn tape was wrong. So I was disappointed twice that day.
@ceagee Brought it up to my face to make sure the coverslip was on tightly. Unlike dry specimens, man juice is slippery. While positioning the coverslip, it slipped off the slide and touched my lips. Believable? The lady in the porn tape made implied it tasted like frosting. It didn't. Nor did it taste like chicken (yes, I know there is an obvious phallic pun about a rooster).
@Thumperchick Er, not to get obscene, but I believe the cat is more synonmous for the female anatomy. At 13, I had no access to that yet so my specimen came from my own anatomy, which is better described by a rooster. :)
One Christmas I got a Sea Monkey kit and a Magic Rocks crystal growing kit. What a great idea to combine the two and make a magic kingdom for my sea monkeys! Nope ... no sea monkeys hatched and no crystals grew.
I had one of those grow-your-own-crystals sets and the crystals never grew.
I'm not sure I ever opened the set, but still.
baking soda volcano never blew up enough
Where in the hell is my goddamned flying car? Seriously, I've been waiting for it pretty much my whole life, and it appears that I'll be dead before it ever happens.
Apparently Elon Musk grew up dreaming of an electric car instead of one that flew; I suspect his parents were commies or something. Still, he's got the spaceflight bug, and the car thing...I would have thought there might have been some crossover. Or maybe with him it's really just all about making money, not about making my childhood dreams come true. What a selfish bastard you are, Mr. Musk.
P.S. I'm looking for work, any chance I could get on at SpaceX?
@ChunkyBitz Most people have trouble driving in just two dimensions, what makes you think it would be a good idea to add a third?
@Sabre99 We just need Google self-driving flying cars.
@JonT That's just silly; everyone knows that koalas can't fly.
@ChunkyBitz
@ChunkyBitz Me made something our science teacher called "Flubber" in elementary school. It did not enable me to jump to the rafters of the gym or build a flying car.
@jqubed *We not me, and I don't think I can blame auto-correct for that one.
I had sea monkeys once. Those things were bullshit.
@JonT Sea-Monkeys are brine shrimp. They probably were inert for too long or something.
We were told that if you took Piccolo Pete fireworks (the ones that shrieked) and used a pair of pliers to crush the bottom half, they'd shriek and then explode. But they didn't. We named the actual result Firefarts.
I had a rock polisher. We couldn't get it far enough away from the bedrooms in the house to make the endless racket tolerable. Never got my polished rocks. :(
X-ray specs did not have the powers I thought they would.
When I found out (scientifically) that I wasn't God. (whatta let-down).
It never grew into the man-eating flytrap that I was promised. It wasn't even a fly-eating flytrap. Now that I think about it, it might have just been a fern wearing glasses. Hmmm.
We still have a little over a year until the deadline for flying cars, self-drying clothes and hoverboards.
@jsh139 What is the deadline for a personal teletransporter?
@Kidsandliz Ooh, I dunno. I feel like we have a ways to go for that one. I'm not a big Trekkie, so I don't know what year those movies/shows take place.
For a science fair, I collected rain water (Lived in Oregon so there was plenty) once a week for a year in mason jars to show the increase in acidity in the rain. After a year, turns out there was no change. Shocking... Got no credit at the science fair since I'm sure the judges thought I just filled up jars with tap water the day before and put some food coloring into them.
I'm sure some kid who's father is an engineer and did everything won first price.
@Bogie That sucks. How do you not get credit at a science fair? Did you forget to have a pretty display board behind it?
@medz Yeah man, I thought the point of the science fair was the experience of going through the process. Using the scientific method, conducting the experiment, etc. That's some bullshit.
@Bogie You were robbed! Could no one appreciate that our environment didn't suck for a year?
@Bogie You should've been living in, like, Ohio or Upstate New York if you wanted acid rain. You were too far west of the heavy industry that releases the pollution that causes acid rain.
A friend and I tried to make our own firecrackers. I couldn't begin to tell you how many paper caps (from cap gun rolls) we cut open. The real problem was finding a suitable wick. Dental floss was as close as we could get. We did manage to finally get a small bang out of one firecracker. Irony - We did this for a grade school science class project. Wtf was that teacher thinking, letting us try this?
@Cinoclav I did something similar, but was trying to use a pill bottle. It was very disappointing when I finally lit it and it made a small pop and the cap just popped off... Why didn't I tape or glue it on?! What a waste of time.
@medz so really, you were trying to make a tiny pipe bomb?
@Cinoclav Your teacher probably knew what the result would be… either that or had no clue. My parents let my brother (well I am sure they were unaware that his goal was explosives) play with things that went bang and could set the house on fire (see the entry below yours)
My brother learned the hard way that an aluminum pie pan, when aluminum is the catalyst, is not a wise choice in which to mix chemicals… One big bang later and the furnace pilot light was blown out and the doctor spent several hours picking red phosphorus out of his eyes. Of course we had a bunch of fun blowing up sand castles at the beach using his chemistry skills. I am reasonably certain my parents had no idea what we were actually doing all those hours.
Dry ice tossed off a bridge into a shallow pond is rather fun too.
Oh wait this was supposed to be disappointing. OK it was disappointing that we never did learn what my brother was making before he blew it up- flash powder maybe? It was disappointing that sand castles do not blow sky high no matter how many home made cherry bombs you pack in the castle. OK now it qualifies.
@Kidsandliz Red phosphorus huh? Is this your brother?
@JonT Nope - no glasses, beard, mustache or weird headgear… after the big bang mom did make him wear safety goggles though...
@Kidsandliz Wait. If I am remembering correctly from another thread, you weren't allowed to sneak whipped cream from the fridge. But your brother was allowed to play with red phosphorus??
@Kleineleh Whipped cream is FOOD. Red Phosphorus is CHEMISTRY - thus is EDUCATIONAL (besides my parents were not helicopter parents and had no clue about chemistry - they were hoping it would get my brother interested in school and he did go on to work in a field that required chemistry).
@Kidsandliz Whipped cream is totally chemistry. Especially the kind in the can.
@Kidsandliz Ooh! I know: put the red phosphorus inside the aluminum whipped cream can and everybody wins! (Just kidding. Please nobody try that)
@Kleineleh well yes I would agree, but I will absolutely not eat red phosphorus or any product that was created using it
@Kidsandliz haha, probably a good call.
Biting on aluminum foil with teeth that have fillings == HOLY FUCKING SHIT. There's some scientific explanation to it I'm sure. A chemical reaction, I'd guess, but damn does it feel weird.
@jsh139 One of the world's best columns answered this back in the last millennium. http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/111/why-does-ketchup-dissolve-aluminum-foil
@editorkid ha! No way! That's cool. A battery in my mouth. Who'd a thunk it.
@jsh139 @editorkid @jsh139 Add wires then and maybe you won't need a speaker dock
@jsh139 I think this comes under stupid kid tricks, right up there with tongues on frozen signs and poles...
I won't go into details, but it involved lotion, a foam bike handle, and an egg crate mattress.
@phatmass Forum decorum dictates no teasing. You have to share the rest now that you've started. (I'm using standard everything that rhymes is true protocol.)
@bluedyn Forum Decorum, I like that. I think I have the name for my new musical project where I sing forum posts.
@JonT Looking forward to that replacing totally not rigged games of chance.
@bluedyn If TNRGOC dies, we riot.
@JonT Reminds me of the 1970's Saturday morning "educational" mini-cartoons: "Conjunction Junction, what's your function?" ::: sigh ::: Am I the only one old enough to remember those?
@bluedog Sigh, no. Thanks reminding me how old I am.
@bluedog Nope, those became standard educational fare in the 80s and especially 90s as classrooms got VHS machines and TVs.
@phatmass Who's this "we" you speak of?
@bluedog Schoolhouse Rock? Hell yes! "I'm just a bill. Yes, I'm only a bill. And I'm sittin' here on Capitol Hill. . . ."
@bluedyn Schoolhouse Rock! I couldn't remember what they were called. "We the People" was my favorite.
Learning that Pluto is no longer a planet. Not so much a childhood disappointment per se, but more of a "dear god, my childhood!" kind of disappointment. Like watching a Michael Bay movie.
Having my 6th grade teacher announce that women plucking their eyebrows would 'evolve' humans with no eyebrows, and the resulting trouble I got in for saying she was wrong, and that was Lamarkian rather than Darwinian evolutionary theory.
@Mavyn Obviously you're wrong, it's already happened
More
@JonT they're not naturally that way. The things we humans do to ourselves to make potential mates find us more attractive is messing up the whole "survival of the fittest" concept. Sure, maybe dudes like pencil thin eyebrows on a lady, but doing it artificially isn't allowing thick eyebrows to be bred-out naturally. Achieving the look artificially effectively removes true eyebrow thickness as a factor in finding a mate and reproducing. (same goes for medical procedures that correct problems and lengthen lifespan) Science is hosing the process of natural selection!
@JonT You're saying that's a reproductive advantage? You'd hit that?
@Mavyn
My bio homework was to bring something to class to look under the microscope. I just hit puberty so I thought it would be fun to look at my semen. Since looks are inherited, they should have little faces resembling me, right? Well no, they looked nothing like me (we hadn't learn about DNA yet). And due to an unfortunate slippage of the slide, I also learned that they taste pretty nasty. I guess Billy's porn tape was wrong. So I was disappointed twice that day.
@jockboy1986
@JonT Yup, that was my reaction whe the slide hit my tongue. Thought I might have impregnated myself orally. I lived a very sheltered childhood...
@jockboy1986
@jockboy1986 why did you have your tongue near a slide ? There's got to be a story there, even if it's a made up one.
@ceagee Brought it up to my face to make sure the coverslip was on tightly. Unlike dry specimens, man juice is slippery. While positioning the coverslip, it slipped off the slide and touched my lips. Believable? The lady in the porn tape made implied it tasted like frosting. It didn't. Nor did it taste like chicken (yes, I know there is an obvious phallic pun about a rooster).
@Thumperchick Er, not to get obscene, but I believe the cat is more synonmous for the female anatomy. At 13, I had no access to that yet so my specimen came from my own anatomy, which is better described by a rooster. :)
@jockboy1986 tl;dr You drank your own semen.
@jockboy1986 Also, I think this story also belongs in the "Are you dumber than me?" thread! :)
@jockboy1986 I was stating my skepticism at you being allowed to bring it in. Not about the mechanics of getting the sample.
@jockboy1986 It is now almost impossible to read your name without mentally replacing the first 'o' with an 'a'.
One Christmas I got a Sea Monkey kit and a Magic Rocks crystal growing kit. What a great idea to combine the two and make a magic kingdom for my sea monkeys! Nope ... no sea monkeys hatched and no crystals grew.
@sdc100
