Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!think!eplunix!raoul
From: raoul@eplunix.UUCP (Otero)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: 9-volt / rocket launcher?
Summary: nitrogen tri-iodide
Message-ID: <683@eplunix.UUCP>
Date: 6 Jan 89 17:31:54 GMT
References: <2557@ddsw1.MCS.COM> <2862@kitty.UUCP> <12974@cup.portal.com> <1433 <368@avsd.UUCP>
Organization: Eaton-Peabody Lab, Boston, MA
Lines: 25

In article <368@avsd.UUCP>, childers@avsd.UUCP (Richard Childers) writes:
> Interestingly enough, my brother tells me this is a very popular gag at
> MIT, except there they put it under toilet seats ...

NO! NO! NO! I've been at MIT around 8 years now: nobody but an 
uneducated freshman from Harvard would do something so silly and
dangerous. To get enough to produce an appreciable effect, you
have to put, say, an ounce of the precipitate under the seat.
The drying characteristics are very chancy: In a moist environment
like a toilet seat, it might never dry and become explosive. 
Or it might all go at once, spraying shrapnel all over some 
unsuspecting victim's groin. I'm all for good practical jokes,
but this one is potentially lethal (remember the number of major
blood vessels in the groin!)

Now, a popper-snap taped to the little pedestal under the seat is
another story....

Sorry if this seems inappropriate for this list. But I don't
want anyone blaming my peers for foolish they don't do.

-- 
			Nico Garcia, Engineer, CIRL 
			Mass. Eye and Ear Hospital
			raoul@eplunix