counterfeit titanium in Boeing and Airbus jets

[magic]

I mean, some of those chemicals are very common. Maybe not random dude in a suburb apartment randomly need it kind of common but common enough that a farmer or small business may need it.
For example H₂SO₄ is battery acid and surely no one aren't going to distribute that entirely in diluted form. NaOCl is bleach, (NH₄)NO₃ is fertilizer etc. etc.

It doesn't need to make sense. Speaking of H₂SO₄, the maximum concentration that can be legally sold to consumers in the EUSSR is 15%, but lead acid batteries are perfectly available with 30% inside. Some battery dealers haven't got the memo either and still sell 30% electrolyte in bottles.

The whole thing is kinda moot, because this acid can be trivially concentrated to >90%. It just ends up being more expensive than buying concentrated right away.

[wraper]

I bought titanium tweezers like these https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006215978926.html from China and they're so much better than recently bought Wiha tweezers https://lv.farnell.com/wiha/32349/tweezer-set-esd-precision-ss-4pc/dp/3003281 which are frankly disappointing and with shitty manufacturing quality.

[paulca]

I mean, some of those chemicals are very common. Maybe not random dude in a suburb apartment randomly need it kind of common but common enough that a farmer or small business may need it.
For example H₂SO₄ is battery acid and surely no one aren't going to distribute that entirely in diluted form. NaOCl is bleach, (NH₄)NO₃ is fertilizer etc. etc.

It doesn't need to make sense. Speaking of H₂SO₄, the maximum concentration that can be legally sold to consumers in the EUSSR is 15%, but lead acid batteries are perfectly available with 30% inside. Some battery dealers haven't got the memo either and still sell 30% electrolyte in bottles.

The whole thing is kinda moot, because this acid can be trivially concentrated to >90%. It just ends up being more expensive than buying concentrated right away.

I only scan read it.  To me it (the link) looks like a UK based ROHS effort.  The same way you can't buy leaded solder without a business/profressional account.  Although it states that selling to a profressional requires the store take ID and documentation for records.

Supermarket bleach is 6%, but you can usually buy 12% stuff on Amazon etc.

I believe their primary target is removing as much for legal UK sale as possible and then try and police the rest with threats of terrorism charges.

There are a few on the list which I think I have in small quantities for fertilizer salts and stuff.  Not bothered.  I do use "Phosphoric acid" sanitizer at 20-40%.  So I assume that will be nerfed to useless soon to 15-20%.

[themadhippy]

Theirs a £40 licence that lets you buy the good stuff.

[David Hess]

The various acids can be purified and concentrated.  Conversion is also feasible for an amateur.  The cost is time, basic required equipment, and yield, so if available it is always cheaper to purchase what you want to start with.

I expect they will further restrict laboratory equipment and speech describing the various processes.

The UK did not need as many engineers anyway.

[themadhippy]

I expect they will further restrict laboratory equipment and speech describing the various processes.

They already have,  a copy of the anarchist Cookbook can get you a couple of years inside.

[jpanhalt]

That booklet has been around for quite awhile and was available in the US.  I don't know about today.  What amazes me is the hoops a legitimate user needs to go through while illicit users are not even prosecuted in many areas of the US.

More than 20 years ago, I bought a "Scout" brand digital scale that measured to 10mg and used it mainly for mixing 2-part adhesives in small quantities.  Even though I was well known to the seller through my day job, I had to fill out paperwork, give a DEA license number, and beg for it.

Making RDX (my previous post) would be quite easy for anyone with a little chemistry background.  How in the free world can ammonia be restricted and controlled?

[David Hess]

How in the free world can ammonia be restricted and controlled?

I guess one of the methamphetamine recipes uses anhydrous ammonia?  It was being stolen from farmers who use it as a cheap albeit inconvenient fertilizer.

Over the years I have been collecting the information on how to purify and convert acids, and synthesize various things from readily available materials as availability becomes restricted.  US protections of speech have so far kept the information available, but maybe it is time to archive various videos off of YouTube since they are bound by nothing.

[SeanB]

Which is why your 2:3:2 fertiliser is deliberately contaminated, so that it is harder to make it burn, mostly because of the Oklahoma bombing, and the first WTC attack. Plus you need to produce ID to buy more than 2 bags at a time, and have a registered smallholding as well.

[themadhippy]

you can legislate all you like,if your determine enough youll find a way around it.One that makes me chuckle is the liquid ban on flights,but once your air side you can buy multiple pressurised aerosol cans full of flammable material

[jpanhalt]

In my area of rural Ohio, ammonia is still used.  It's a specialized service, but cost effective.

@David Hess
Here's an anecdote from way back (1960's).  I was in grad school and a "1-step synthesis for THC" was presented at the ACS meeting.  Needless to say, there was an overflow crowd.  Within days, the starting material became unavailable.  Thankfully, we have free speech.  Perhaps with good reason, commerce does not enjoy the same freedoms.  Congress can regulate it as much as it wants to.

[coppercone2]

they really should not threaten our food supply like that. food is probobly the cause for the collapse of a country. nothing makes people riot like expensive food

farmers are SO important to a nations well being. the real problem will begin when food prices get too high because of a shortage,  that would be a blood bath. At that point its not just criminals being criminals, everyone turns into a desperate animal.

[David Hess]

Arab Spring in various nations was preceded by rising food prices.

I know someone who could teach anybody to be a farmer.

“It’s a process.  You dig a hole, you put a seed in, you put dirt on top, you add water, up comes the corn.” - Michael Bloomberg (Oxford Union in 2016)

[coppercone2]

yeah but you need fertilizer and stuff to be available or you get bad harvests and no one wants to do it because its a bad investment. the other problem is being able to manage surplus properly instead of letting food rot (this takes education and possibly government stimulus into equipment like freeze dryers and other expensive equipment that can make... somewhat nutritious food that is reasonably popular and stores well).

because terrorism is bad, but its nothing to what can happen during a prolonged famine. Like seriously nothing. A civilization can disappear because of a famine.

Farming is seen as a risky profession that is fairly low pay for the labor involved, so it should be as easy as possible for the people doing it. Then you get more farmers and lower prices plus more stability because there will be experianced people around if you need to switch crops because of a rot/plague.

AS shown with a arab spring, I think the root cause of many civil war is food prices and availability. Nothing mobilizes people like the thought that they can get food. And there is just SO MANY PEOPLE.

In america, the soldiers are out numbered 300:1 by the population if they stop getting food, and realistically the government services would totally fall apart once there is a severe problem.

Any institution will be replaced by something that can get food more efficiently once there is a big shortage, literally by 100% unified vote.


Also, water is even more important. The phosphate fertilizers have been destroying water pretty good. There is a big danger to over banning farming chemicals, its really not a joke (damages fish ecosystem, probobly involved in global warming, and possibly future health problems from having abnormal amounts of algee making whatever they make around).

and I am not an expert on the statistics but to me, it looks like they just out source the criminal activity, with nearly no loss of supply, while we pay for higher food prices, have a unstable food market and have environmental problems (algal bloom). Seriously USA food prices WTF?!!! And we just end up paying more for border security and its probobly not doing much save for some popcorn headlines once in a while.

[jpanhalt]

@Davis Hess

Bloomberg and I were almost classmates in college.  He oversimplifies, or that was said tongue-in-cheek.  While 3rd generation farmers in my area (i.e., near my age) might never have gone to college, the 4th generation are often college graduates.  A local husband and wife team, about 1-1/2 mile away, run a wonderfully successful farming/nursery business, and they are both Ohio State graduates.  They have more than tripled in size in the past 12 years.  Farming today is quite technical to be successful..

[CatalinaWOW]

Bloomberg could probably teach anyone to make electronics.  Buy a piece of fiberglass.  Drill some holes in, stuff in some parts and apply power.

Oversimplification is an understatement.

[paulca]

"Gator-aide.   It's got electrolytes, its what plants crave."

If you want to feel worse.... go and watch some of the public stop and ask interviews on farming with the younger generation.  They are presently brain washed into this "climate emergency" ending the world in a decade or two that they honestly believe farmers and farming is their enemy and they want it STOPPED.

Honestly you couldn't make it up!

[coppice]

"Gator-aide.   It's got electrolytes, its what plants crave."

If you want to feel worse.... go and watch some of the public stop and ask interviews on farming with the younger generation.  They are presently brain washed into this "climate emergency" ending the world in a decade or two that they honestly believe farmers and farming is their enemy and they want it STOPPED.

Honestly you couldn't make it up!

Its not just the youth. The policies of many European governments, largely run by the middle aged, are to shut down farms, even though most of those countries are not self sufficient in food even now.

[tggzzz]

Its not just the youth.

Correct. There is an increasing tendency to "blame Them, not Us" in the air.

It bodes badly for the future.

[David Hess]

Bloomberg and I were almost classmates in college.  He oversimplifies, or that was said tongue-in-cheek.  While 3rd generation farmers in my area (i.e., near my age) might never have gone to college, the 4th generation are often college graduates.  A local husband and wife team, about 1-1/2 mile away, run a wonderfully successful farming/nursery business, and they are both Ohio State graduates.  They have more than tripled in size in the past 12 years.  Farming today is quite technical to be successful..

I took Bloomberg's statement to be along the lines of Hillary's and Obama's bitter clingers statements or Hillary's basket of deplorable statement.  Reading it all again for context, I still take it that way.  He was saying farmers are stupid, which as you and others point out, is not the case.  Farming is even very data driven now.

[coppice]

Bloomberg and I were almost classmates in college.  He oversimplifies, or that was said tongue-in-cheek.  While 3rd generation farmers in my area (i.e., near my age) might never have gone to college, the 4th generation are often college graduates.  A local husband and wife team, about 1-1/2 mile away, run a wonderfully successful farming/nursery business, and they are both Ohio State graduates.  They have more than tripled in size in the past 12 years.  Farming today is quite technical to be successful..

I took Bloomberg's statement to be along the lines of Hillary's and Obama's bitter clingers statements or Hillary's basket of deplorable statement.  Reading it all again for context, I still take it that way.  He was saying farmers are stupid, which as you and others point out, is not the case.  Farming is even very data driven now.

Yes, farming is very data driven. Modern harvesters map the yield across each field, to find the parts that need more fertilizer than others. Then during the following planting they apply fertilizer according to the yield map made during harvesting, and analyses of the varying soil moisture levels across the same fields, all GPS controlled. Irrigation planning is also controlled in similar ways. Farming is as high tech as most industries these days.

[G7PSK]

My experience with purchasing acids and poisons is if you want small quantities here in the UK it is next to impossible to obtain but if you buy it in 200 L drums it is easy.

[coppercone2]

Bloomberg and I were almost classmates in college.  He oversimplifies, or that was said tongue-in-cheek.  While 3rd generation farmers in my area (i.e., near my age) might never have gone to college, the 4th generation are often college graduates.  A local husband and wife team, about 1-1/2 mile away, run a wonderfully successful farming/nursery business, and they are both Ohio State graduates.  They have more than tripled in size in the past 12 years.  Farming today is quite technical to be successful..

I took Bloomberg's statement to be along the lines of Hillary's and Obama's bitter clingers statements or Hillary's basket of deplorable statement.  Reading it all again for context, I still take it that way.  He was saying farmers are stupid, which as you and others point out, is not the case.  Farming is even very data driven now.

Yes, farming is very data driven. Modern harvesters map the yield across each field, to find the parts that need more fertilizer than others. Then during the following planting they apply fertilizer according to the yield map made during harvesting, and analyses of the varying soil moisture levels across the same fields, all GPS controlled. Irrigation planning is also controlled in similar ways. Farming is as high tech as most industries these days.

this totally depends where and how rich the farm owner is. A great deal of economical food is produced by basically 1960 techniques with some cheap add ins if they are easy enough. The production cost for old methods can be exceedingly cheap. Smarter farmers might find cheap consultants essentially to run some tests if there is trouble but I don't think its anywhere near standard procedure to spend money on this kinda stuff unless your like a industrial level farm that basically has assurances that it will get paid.

Usually the smaller farmers that have been in the game for a long time without getting knocked out are exceedingly frugal.  Because in many places, its not the yield, its the market, that screws your farm. Speculating on which crops will sell profitable is HUGE and its easy to have a very successful harvest that gets basically recycled into dirt if there was a demand shift. I have seen fields of perfectly edible and picturesque food go to waste because the market basically ensured that you won't make a dime of profit even if it was picked and grown for free because transpiration cost to demand areas will slaughter the profits. It seems that farmers have occasional run ins with Zimbabwe style produce super inflation. You can work against this by varying your portfolio but just like anything else, this might just get you by with the absolute minimum profit that allows you to live at a near poverty level after your operation is paid off. Farmers that have invested alot into their operation are the ones up in arms whenever the government does something because instead of being disappointed after a season like cheap farmers, they get kicked in the balls. Kind of like the car mechanic that has 250k on loan from snap-on tools.

[David Hess]

Yes, farming is very data driven. Modern harvesters map the yield across each field, to find the parts that need more fertilizer than others. Then during the following planting they apply fertilizer according to the yield map made during harvesting, and analyses of the varying soil moisture levels across the same fields, all GPS controlled. Irrigation planning is also controlled in similar ways. Farming is as high tech as most industries these days.

The farmers I am aware of spend considerable time, especially when work in the fields is not needed, performing maintenance on their equipment, which is no easy task when so much farm equipment has considerable electronics.  They also prepare ahead of time to perform emergency maintenance as needed because when they are working in the fields, delays can cause considerable loss.

[coppercone2]

its rich farmer vs poor farmer.

There is the guy with 4 specialized tractors with GPS, salaried ensured employees, and service contracts with john deere. And a aircraft hanger grade barn that makes you think your in space. Might even have a HR.


then there is the guy with 1 old ass tractor, jury rigged attachments and hires farm hands at the bar as needed. I feel like there is ALOT of this guy. Less now, but still. They work out of a prehistoric barn

Both are important.

But england is KNOWN for its luxury farming. Infact, there is like organized crime there that is entirely focused on stealing and chopping/reselling expenisve english farm equipment. They don't have land there, not alot... so the efficiency of a plot is maximized as much as possible, leading to very high tech being considered necessary.


But I don't think you could call england a bread basket. Its not like the outskirts of germany and beyond. But you get your cheap produce and wheat from those guys. And I hear the US has plenty of older style smaller farmers, because its damn big and land is cheaper, so you don't need to maximize it.


It has benefits too, there is less over farming of land. I doubt the english have soil totally figured out. And its more susceptible to blights.


I imagine there is MUCH LESS spread of disease. Its like people, there is super spreading events (international + concert venue, party rooms) and isolated small stuff with regulars.

A super dense high speed machine could contaminate alot of plants very quickly with plant diseases. And mass food processing centers are known to contaminate large amounts of food that can hurt alot of people with bacteria. It all has its benefits and downsides...


I feel like I read about some world threatening plant disease fairly regularly. They seem to deal with it but I think its better to have a good amount of back up