What I Learned October 31- November 4, 2010

-To defuse a German WWII bomb, carefully locate the fuse pocket then listen to the fuse to see if it has been disturbed in your discovery of it, resulting in the timer on the fuse starting to count down again. If it is, you have between 30 minutes and 74 hours to defuse it. Then get salt, water, scissors, plastic tubing(6mm), hand operated vacuum pump, small bicycle pump, putty, a hand drill, 4mm drill bit, self tapping needle (generally, you have to use one specifically made for the model of bomb you have found). Make a salt water solution to jam up the clockwork and attach some tubing to it. Take some putty and make a sausage shape and a pancake shape. Drill VERY CAREFULLY into the fuse between the locking ring and the fuse itself to create a hole into the fuse pocket (DO NOT USE AN ELECTRIC DRILL, THIS IS A VERY DELICATE PROCESS, YOU COULD END UP IN A BLOODY PULP IF YOU DON'T BE CAREFUL). Create a vacuum inside the pocket. Take the self tapping needle, screw it into the hole. Take the putty and put it around the fuse to create an air-tight seal. Take the tubing and attach it to the needle, then attach the salt water solution to the pump. Then pump until the vacuum is at 25 inches of mercury, then flip the switch and invert the solution bottle to send the salt water into the hole you drilled. Cut or pull off the tubing from the connection at the fuse and attach the bicycle pump and pump to push the water harder into the timer and stop it. Wait about 45 minutes and salt water crystals should form inside, stopping the clock and leaving the explosives inside completely inert. BUT! Many of these bombs have booby trap fuses to be detonated if the original fuse is removed. So, be careful and don't ever try this! For a demonstration, and more details on what tools you need, watch the first episode of James May's Man Lab.


-To throw police dogs off your trail, you can use urine and pepper. Pee in a trail for the dog to follow, then at the end leave a handful of hot chili pepper. The pepper will leave the dogs' noses useless for hours.

-Halloween in Hollywood means massive amounts of girls wearing less than what they wear at the beach, creeps trying to get the girls to sleep with them, delayed busses, self proclaimed "bootleggers" from South Central asking girls to come down to their house to watch their bootleg movies, girls that look 14 -but say they just got out of jail for attempted murder and manslaughter- complimenting my friend's costume, and random black women telling me I'm not white enough.

-Zen Buddhist monks sometimes sit around and say that there is no such thing as Buddha, enlightenment or anything even close to nirvana, just to try to trick each other into saying otherwise.

-Zen Buddhism is meant to be word-less. The Zen Buddhists believe that through questions like "What is Zen?" seekers are trying to fill the lack in their lives with words and concepts, rather than realizations about the world.

-The main concepts of (Indian) Buddhism stems from the Four Noble Truths, which are as follows:
1. Life is suffering. Every living thing suffers and nothing is an exception.
2. There is a 12-link-chain cause of suffering
(suffering-birth-existence-attatchment-desire-sensation-sense contact-6 sense organs- name and form- consciousness- karma- ignorance)
3. There is an end to suffering. Enlightenment/reaching nirvana. In nirvana, there is no pain, suffering, soul or reincarnation. But there is bliss.
4. There is a way to end suffering. Follow the Eightfold Path (right view, right intent, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right contemplation)

-During WWI, black workers from the south came to the north to take over factory jobs because the immigrants that normally had the jobs couldn't come over during wartime.

-In 1966, Stokley Carmichael replaced the leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and took on a more militant organization (later renamed the Black Panther Party for Self Defense). He declared that all the white people should be out of SNCC because white people don't know what it's like to be black in a racist country. They can't relate to slavery, the language, the culture, the food, etc. He added that blacks needed a strong racial identity and called for separation from white history, banks, schools, and political parties.

-The Black Panther Party (for Self Defense) acknowledged that white people helped their cause but they needed to achieve their goals by themselves.

-DENNIS DELETED HIS FACEBOOK! Oh the horror!

-At Skywalker Ranch, George Lucas has trees put in to block parking lots, buildings, and any sort of human activity from the view from his office. So when he looks out his window, all he sees is his beautiful land.

-Graphene, the thinest material on earth, is 1 atom thick