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General chat thread

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evildice said:
Pipes survive, organic clogs don't -- which is apparently the opposite of acids?
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You're not familiar with the pH scale?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PH

It's basically built around the chemical behavior of hydrogen ions. Which is abundant and will chemically react with almost everything.

The two are separated on the scale by whether they have a positive balance of ions, or a negative balance... and the more extreme the difference, the greater the energy potential for interactions. It's a little like static electricity in that way. Sock on carpet, or massive lightning storm, it's all about the buildup and eventual release of electricity.

The greater the extreme between the two buildups, the more powerful the reaction will be when they interact. A high and low pressure environment always equalizes more forcefully than two high or low pressure environments, and it doesn't really matter what form of pressure you're measuring. Toss hot metal into ice water, you might well crack the metal. Lightning is definitionally a massive buildup of energy.

Acids and bases are just another expression of that physical law.

Most organic substances are at least slightly acidic. Because, well, any situation in which carbon dioxide interacts with water produces a weak acid. Because carbon is abundant and will chemically react with almost everything.

Base+acid (almost) always interact in such a way that the acid and base neutralize one another (to use the static analogy above, this is the point of discharge), producing heat, water, free hydrogen, and some combination of salts. Powerful acids and alkali chemicals can do so explosively.

Not to say certain mixtures can't be dangerous when the do interact. Ammonia/bleach doesn't generate much by way of energy when mixed, but it does create chloramine. Which won't dissolve your flesh, but is still quite capable of killing you.


TheMidnightRook said:
"And this guy wonders why he's on a watchlist." -the FBI agent reading your post, probably. :V
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That isn't why I'm on a watchlist.

(EDIT: as a side note, that is one of those sentences which changes meaning when you choose a different word to emphasize).
 
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TanaNari said:
Really? Now I learned something.
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Heh.

So yeah, I am familiar with pH from the perspective of a scientist -- but I know very little about the interactions with various kinds of plumbing and know only urban legends about using coke to clean blood off streets.

That's the perspective I'm asking from. I'm interested in the practical interactions that people seem to have experience with, not the theory.
 
Hyp3rB14d3 said:
Haven't tested it there. I had a clogged sink, and had tried hot water mixed with dishwasher fluid, Drano, and a pipe snake, and nothing had been working.
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What was it clogged with?

Because that sounds more like you were dealing with mineral buildup. Which, yeah, Drano's about useless for.

With minerals, you want vinegar. More specialized products like CLR will also do the job, but I don't find they're any better than vinegar, and a whole lot more expensive.
 
TanaNari said:
What was it clogged with?

Because that sounds more like you were dealing with mineral buildup. Which, yeah, Drano's about useless for.

With minerals, you want vinegar. More specialized products like CLR will also do the job, but I don't find they're any better than vinegar, and a whole lot more expensive.
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I'm not actually sure what it was clogged with. It was a kitchen sink, but the clog was located beyond the trap. I put a 30 foot snake down the pipe several times, and while that would get a slight drain going, it would seal back up almost immediately. The snake itself would sometimes pull back bits of hair and food, but it didn't pull back any large obstructions.
 
Hyp3rB14d3 said:
The snake itself would sometimes pull back bits of hair and food, but it didn't pull back any large obstructions.
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Yeah, that sounds a lot like a mineral buildup. On the off chance you remember, what sort of water was it? Most cities filter out stuff like that (at least, in the developed world), but not always, and certainly not from well water.

Spoken from the experience of someone who has well water.

I go to the vinegar bottle first. Drano is for if that didn't work.
 
TanaNari said:
Yeah, that sounds a lot like a mineral buildup. On the off chance you remember, what sort of water was it? Most cities filter out stuff like that (at least, in the developed world), but not always, and certainly not from well water.

Spoken from the experience of someone who has well water.

I go to the vinegar bottle first. Drano is for if that didn't work.
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I live in a trailer park. They've screwed with our water so many times that I got a reverse osmosis filter in order to actually have drinkable water.

Edit: It's not well water, but they mess with the pipes every few months, frequently leaving us without water for multiple hours, and when it comes back dirty, they tell us to just run the water for 10 minutes or so to clear it out.
 
As educational as this is, if you want to get into nitty gritty details of alkalines and acids and drain cleaning, you are free to make a thread for it. (Though since this is the 'general' thread, we'd only care too much if it drowns out other conversations, hence no mod-color for this bit).

MadGreenSon said:
snip
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Try to keep politics out of your linked vids, even if it was only a brief bit.
 
298dbf49a8e3b154cdb59ba502e1dce345a06978.pnj

Happy public domain day!
 
Isn't it weird when you just suddenly realize how weird some family lore you always took for granted is?

My grandmother, as she told me yesterday, got her Masters degree when pregnant with her second child. Which means that she was 17 when she had her first, which she had nearly an year into her marriage. In other words, she must have been married at 16.

Jesus, no wonder she always scoffed when I complained about how hard college is. She did better when taking care of one kid and pregnant with another one. Good on her for never pointing that out.

I think I'll send her a gift this week, just for never rubbing it in.
 
I swear that all tvtropes pages for MCU films have been scrubbed clean, but there's no way I can prove it.
 
Rewatching the 1984 Dune, since it's on Max right now.

My God it's fucking amazing. Not a great adaptation per se, but it's a lot of fun. The internal narration bit is cheesy as fuck too.

Also, battle pug! The dog survives the whole movie. That pug has seen some shit.

image.png


 
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