4 ms·

Ah yes...adolescent "bombs" and BBS's...what nerds back in the day didn't enjoy these both? My favorite bomb cocktail was brake fluid, pool chlorine, and PVC.

by cubano 12y ago

Ah yes...adolescent "bombs" and BBS's...what nerds back in the day didn't enjoy these both? My favorite bomb cocktail was brake fluid, pool chlorine, and PVC. We lived in Florida on a river and we used to see how many fish we could "catch" with one of our homebrew contraptions. I guess that would make me a "terrorist" by today's standards? I'm not sure anymore...

api 12y ago
Ahh, bombs and hacking, the glories of childhood. I remember when I learned about water electrolysis. I built an electrolysis cell with a high voltage rectifier diode and a two liter coke bottle and proceeded to fill giant punching bag balloons with a perfect stoichiometric mixture of hydrogen and oxygen gas. (Was smart enough to use a long cord and stay away while the power was on.) Then I tied them up with firework fuse. WOW were those ever loud! Also got in trouble for hacking (black hat sense) when I was fifteen. I wasn't stealing or wrecking things though, just doing "catch and release" stuff because I was bored and had a modem.
- cubano 12y ago
  Nice! Goodness...you certainly played with a much more dangerous and combustible "recipe" then I, and it's good to hear you didn't hurt yourself in the process. Isn't it amazing how our inquisitive youth shields us from realizing how dangerous what we are doing really is?
- girvo 12y ago
  I was banned from computers at school for the last two years of high school, as I kept defeating every single defence they had in place. My impetus to do so? I wanted to run compilers and interpreters so I could keep learning programming.
- icelancer 12y ago
  I also got in trouble for wardialing large lists on my parents secondary phone line. Sad to think a lot of that stuff could be prosecuted under very serious laws these days.
- RunningWild 12y ago
  I installed Doom on my high school computers and carefully hid it so the technology department (who were clueless) couldn't find it (by putting it in a renamed subdir in the Windows dir and renaming the .exe and .wad file and handling running via a .bat). Tech class became "Let's go play Doom" class.

by cubano 12y ago

api 12y ago

Ahh, bombs and hacking, the glories of childhood. I remember when I learned about water electrolysis. I built an electrolysis cell with a high voltage rectifier diode and a two liter coke bottle and proceeded to fill giant punching bag balloons with a perfect stoichiometric mixture of hydrogen and oxygen gas. (Was smart enough to use a long cord and stay away while the power was on.) Then I tied them up with firework fuse. WOW were those ever loud! Also got in trouble for hacking (black hat sense) when I was fifteen. I wasn't stealing or wrecking things though, just doing "catch and release" stuff because I was bored and had a modem.

cubano 12y ago
Nice! Goodness...you certainly played with a much more dangerous and combustible "recipe" then I, and it's good to hear you didn't hurt yourself in the process. Isn't it amazing how our inquisitive youth shields us from realizing how dangerous what we are doing really is?
girvo 12y ago
I was banned from computers at school for the last two years of high school, as I kept defeating every single defence they had in place. My impetus to do so? I wanted to run compilers and interpreters so I could keep learning programming.
icelancer 12y ago
I also got in trouble for wardialing large lists on my parents secondary phone line. Sad to think a lot of that stuff could be prosecuted under very serious laws these days.
RunningWild 12y ago
I installed Doom on my high school computers and carefully hid it so the technology department (who were clueless) couldn't find it (by putting it in a renamed subdir in the Windows dir and renaming the .exe and .wad file and handling running via a .bat). Tech class became "Let's go play Doom" class.