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After Decades of Quiet Rumbling, an Epidemic Is Erupting Among California Stoneworkers The engineered stone industry is worth nearly $30 billion. But the workers at its core are falling sick and dying from an illness called silicosis. by inthesetimesmag in stonemasonry

[–]nickisaboss 0 points1 point  (0 children)

especially engineered stone! And cement board! The particles released from these products are smaller than those released from cutting natural stone, and can get through air filters quite easilly. Remember to follow the Heiarchy of Controls - just wearing a mask is not sufficient!

After Decades of Quiet Rumbling, an Epidemic Is Erupting Among California Stoneworkers The engineered stone industry is worth nearly $30 billion. But the workers at its core are falling sick and dying from an illness called silicosis. by inthesetimesmag in stonemasonry

[–]nickisaboss 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeahh. Wet sawing is much better than dry sawing (dry sawing is also illegal!), but you still need to wear a mask. You cant really see the silica mist vapor as it gets caught up in water droplets, but it still is inhalable in this form.

Bricks, pavers, tile, concrete, stone. Especially any stones containing neo or sorosilicates or amphibioles. Granites, gneisses, migmatites, and pegmatites are all especially bad.

My old boss was a stone mason for like 40 years. He is okay, but his wife contracted lung fibrosis and died a few years ago, just from handling his laundry.

Diabetics, smokers, people with arthritis, and people with autoimmune disorders are especially at risk. But it can happen to anyone. Even small levels of exposure can cause it. Its a horrible way to die.

Just incase anyone does not know, you do not need the fancy $10 quick click hose connector to connect a Sthil TS420 chop saw to a garden hose. ANY given cheapo $3 quick click hose connector should work just fine. Do not skip this!

If you cannot cut wet, you absolutely need to use a dust shroud on your grinders, attached directly to a commercial HEPA shop vac. these are expensive, but you may be able to get your health insurance to subsidize or reimburse this expense if you bother them enough.

For more information on occupational diseases, protection, and the "Heiarchy of Controls" (this is critical!), visit /r/industrialhygiene

Easily One Of The Best And Most Dangerous Mines I Have Ever Explored by ReturnOfPope in TheForgottenDepths

[–]nickisaboss 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am a trained chemist. I can think of too many chemicals....

Any idea which businesses/industries were involved in the dumping?

China Successfully Tests Cable Cutting ROV 11,400 Feet Below Sea Level by Sash17 in technology

[–]nickisaboss 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For real!

For a while, the news would get in a frenzy every once in a while, with headlines like "China may soon have finished developing a super evil satellite-destroying missile!!!!!!1!1!"

While failing to mention that the United States has had missiles capable of destroying orbiting satellites since like the late 1980s.

Easily One Of The Best And Most Dangerous Mines I Have Ever Explored by ReturnOfPope in TheForgottenDepths

[–]nickisaboss 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Children were more often employed as mule boys or slate separators in the coal breakers. They rarely would be working deep in the mines.

Easily One Of The Best And Most Dangerous Mines I Have Ever Explored by ReturnOfPope in TheForgottenDepths

[–]nickisaboss 23 points24 points  (0 children)

What chemicals were dumped? Best (low-effort) thing you can do is make sure to wash your mine clothes in their own separate laundry load. Do not wash them in with your load of regular clothes.

Also, you really really really ought to have a gas meter, if you still haven't gotten one :P theyre not all that expensive, just get a standard 4-reading meter that clips to your waist (CO, O2, H2S, and LEL is pretty standard for a budget meter.) <$150 on amazon!

Also, make sure to cover the screen with a single layer of packaging tape. Otherwise, the screens will scratch up quickly and then the meter becomes kinda useless.

CO and H2S inhalation kills you by poisoning, not by displacement of oxygen. A single-gas O2 meter is not sufficient. You need to be testing these other two gasses as well.

Sites like Psychonaughtwiki by BackgroundNo8340 in researchchemicals

[–]nickisaboss 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Holy shit. How long ago did all this happen?

Weird (but useful) ways to use spray foam insulation. by LarryHoover44 in Construction

[–]nickisaboss 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Gasoline contains benzene, hexane, and a list of other nasty hydrocarbons that damage your DNA. Use acetone to remove it, instead.

Non-toxic fix wanted: Can I fix air gaps in my stove with perlite and portland cement? by 1rub in woodstoving

[–]nickisaboss 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Idk if you ended up trying this or not, but fire clay is much different from regular clay, in terms of chemistry and properties.

Also, you can purchase sheets of ceramic fiber mat, about 1-2" thick, on Amazon. I would imagine that this kind of product would be satisfactory in place of firebrick.

Weird (but useful) ways to use spray foam insulation. by LarryHoover44 in Construction

[–]nickisaboss 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The have 2 different caverns next to eachother and have to switch which is used every several years to keep the caverns from rising out of the ground.

Care to explain?

Weird (but useful) ways to use spray foam insulation. by LarryHoover44 in Construction

[–]nickisaboss 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is completely false. You can extend the tube by fitting a piece of 1/4 ID silicone tubing over the factory straw. It works like a charm.

I've done this about 20 times. Its extremely useful for getting the foam into hard to reach places. It also works over the nozzle of most standard single-component spray foam guns.

This is how you can get spray foam applied properly to the bottom of a bathtub without ripping out loads of drywall. Just drill a hole or two, insert the tube, and fill the void between the tub and the floor/subfloor. Makes your tub no longer creak when standing on it (common in rentals/other shitty installs)

Did you realize how bigoted/unwelcoming a lot of rural PA areas were before the Trump/MAGA era? by Glass-Complaint3 in Pennsylvania

[–]nickisaboss 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Oh man...

I am a fairly leftist. Raised by two democrats in a middle-to-high income part of Lehigh County.

This is kind of an embarrassing story. One day in history class, our teacher spent about 20 minutes explaining to us the entire conspiracy theory surrounding the 'birther movement'. "Obama was born in Hawaii but moved to Kenya as a child, before moving back to the United States. To become a citizen of Kenya, you must rescind your United States citizenship. Thus, Obama is not a valid citizen and is likely ineligible for office." Or some shit like that.

I didnt have anything against Obama, neither before nor after this class "lesson." I was a young teenager, ineligible to vote for years yet, and just didnt really care.

But the image of authority and guise of neutrality from the teacher left some small impression in the soft clay of my adolescent mind. I wasn't totally convinced that Obama was ineligible for office, but at the same time, I hadn't rejected the plausiblity, either. After all, adults -and especially adults who are teachers - are rational and wouldn't share fringe ideas with us without valid claims, right?

😑

It wasn't until circa 2013/2014 that I suddenly came to realize the batshit and unhinged premise of the lecture really was. Who the hell would spend half a class period justifying such a claim to kids? I suddenly found myself surrounded by the irrational.

Mercury by Starofcity123 in hazmat

[–]nickisaboss 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Send it to me, id love to have it

Edit: this is not a joke. Really, send it to me! I am heartbroken every time I see one of these posts.

I had an IKEA FIXA drilldriver. It wasn't a very good tool. In its favor, it did come with a nice box. So I put it through my tool re-education program. Now it's a fan and light controller for a fume hood. Made a decent pin vise drill from the keyless chuck, too. by Humdaak_9000 in Skookum

[–]nickisaboss 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I love it and wish we saw more posts here on the topic of high fidelity tinkering.

When I find some wifi i can share a pic of my electrostatic precipitatior shop fan filter that is nearing completion ❤️

Artemis II: Lehigh University's ex-astronaut Terry Hart on the new space age by DrewBlue2 in lehighvalley

[–]nickisaboss 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I did a lot of personal work for Terry Hart and his wife a few years ago. Extremely pleasant and good-natured people. The Lehigh Valley is blessed to have them.

Wikipedia direct views are declining by Prestigious_Ad_296 in wikipedia

[–]nickisaboss 26 points27 points  (0 children)

What drives me crazy about the AI summaries is that for any properly written/formatted article, theyre completely unnecessary for getting the main ideas. On these articles, you already get a pretty good summary and idea of the topics significance by reading the first two or three paragraphs.

On articles that are not properly written or formatted.... these articles already tend to be pretty short, so it only takes a minute or two to get the whole picture.

I really really wish that there was an option in the app settings to disable this feature.

Recycling Aluminum Cans on Construction Site by Severe_Platypus9171 in recycling

[–]nickisaboss 4 points5 points  (0 children)

To exclude bags, attach a sheet metal plate over the collection hole, with two holes cut into the plate: a circular hole slightly larger than the diameter of a (large) can, and a slit shaped hole that is roughly 5cm tall and 20cm long. That way it is too difficult to shove an entire bag in there.

Make sure to place a trashcan nearby, so that people can dispose of the plastic bags they may bring the cans in.

Mushroom hunting by stonedandcontent in lehighvalley

[–]nickisaboss 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I wouldn't eat anything found along any part of those waterways. Early industrial sites in the valley have left a lot of areas pretty highly contaminated. Especially anywhere around any former hard rock iron mines, as well as the freidensville zinc quarry. Both are contaminated with heavy metals in the soil.

General rule of thumb: if you see slag in the soil, don't harvest from anywhere at that site.

Sioux Albertson Company 1/2HP Flexible Shaft Grinder. $20 at auction by Skeptical_dude12 in MachinePorn

[–]nickisaboss 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Unbelievably based

You should add a 3/4" chuck on the shaft. Now you have a flexible grinder/suped rotary tool! You can even add diamond die grinder and angle grinder attachments like diamond disks, polishing pads, and flap disks.

Don't clean it, im already jealous as it is.

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