What
luck, I drew the Christmas Eve straw.
I
hope you are each enjoying quality time with family – or a bottle
of Old Crow – and not too much online. In light of that I will be
brief.
Christmas
is a chimera, an aggregation of traditions. While the name & the
holiday it represents are explicitly Christian, it was placed both
intentionally and inevitably atop a set of other practices and
accrued more as time went by – or perhaps not. There is an amount
of disagreement about what happened when, and the variations in
calendars & branches of Christianity don't provide clarity. If
you want to learn more about the muddled history of Christmas please
refer to the Infogalactic page
(https://infogalactic.com/info/Christmas#History)
on the subject. I enjoyed the deep dive, you may as well.
One of the prominent aspects of Christmas today is the giving of gifts.
Gift Giving
Gift-giving
is a common aspect of holidays across time and cultures. Perhaps
cultures that don't possess a gifting impulse tend to succumb to
those that do.
At
any rate the gift-giving aspect of Christmas, though bastardized by
plastic commercialism, holds value that deserves to be recognized.
Expectation of Reciprocation
It
is more blessed to give than to receive but receiving still matters.
The trick of having a single day of gifting is that we can't just go
out and purchase a gift to reciprocate when we receive one, so we
have to plan ahead of time. Who do we give gifts to? Who will give
us a gift and expect reciprocation? This forces us to evaluate our
networks.
Reinforcement of Social Networks
Giving
gifts also reinforces social networks by providing explicit
recognition of relationships. Giving the right gift indicates
understanding of other people and their preferences, and at a cost;
this strengthens and improves social and familial bonds.
Designated People Time
Annual
gift-giving provides a designated time to think of other people's
needs and wants. We might still gift and spend time together
otherwise but having a designated time prevents us from stretching
things out until they mean less or nothing at all.
My Gift to You
When
I think of the men at this site I can think of no better gift than a
recipe for home-made napalm.
Military
napalm is an expensive, dangerous, and difficult thing to make.
Fortunately the DIYers have stepped in with their own variations.
The
most common recipe for home-made napalm involves dissolving Styrofoam
into gasoline until it achieves the desired consistency – thick and
sticky.
The
following is lifted helpfully from
https://www.thoughtco.com/how-to-make-homemade-napalm-603677
:
Materials
- 35 g (1.2 oz) polystyrene (e.g., Styrofoam or other polystyrene foam, used for insulated cups and packing peanuts)
- 100 ml (3.4 oz) gasoline
- matches or a lighter
Procedure
- Break the polystyrene into small chunks. Sometimes you can find polystyrene foam beads, which will work fine without any additional processing.
- Pour 100 ml of gasoline into a glass container, such as a 250 ml (8.5 oz) beaker. Any similar-size glass container is fine.
- Stir in the polystyrene, a little at a time. The polystyrene foam will fizz and seem to dissolve, although this really is the formation of the gelled sol.
- When all of the polystyrene has been added, there should be no remaining liquid gasoline. The glass container will contain a semi-rigid sol.
Observations and Experimentation With Napalm and the Gelled Sol
- In an outdoor location, away from heat or flame, invert the container of gelled sol. Notice that it will resist flowing out of the container. Although the sol is a liquid, it behaves like a solid in that it maintains its form.
- If the sol does not fall out of the glass container, gently tap it to dislodge it. Note the characteristics of Napalm B that make it a gelled sol.
- On a fire-safe surface, ignite the napalm. If you like, compare the combustion of napalm with the combustion of 100 ml of gasoline.
Safety
This
project is best performed outdoors since gasoline vapors are volatile
and toxic. Wear protective
goggles and
gloves to protect yourself from the splashing of the liquid. Use care
when igniting the napalm. It's also advisable to have a
fire extinguisher handy.
A
video of the process may be found on Youtube. Warning: the music is
annoying so turn it down, you don't need it anyway.
Further
information on napalm variants may be found at the AR15.com Forum
(https://www.ar15.com/forums/general/Question_on_homemade_Napalm__soap_method_/5-896731/
). One commenter states that napalm in an enclosed container is
considered a destructive device, so I guess you should keep your
napalm in open buckets when you're not using it. Your call.
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