Featured Hoarder or storer?

Fig, thanks for the link. I guess I am a creaature of habit and call all my bulbs incandescent,here are the other bulbs I buy for my lamps and porch light. I still like the halogens too, better than those awful ill fitting CFL's

 

Mercury was often used in mass produced electronics (for soldering, circuitry, etc

I cannot think of any circuitry or soldering application that would use mercury. The most common applications would be mercury rectifiers (which tend to be huge), and micro-switches which have a tilting mercury tube to make or break contact. Now obsolete, there were also mercury button cell batteries.

We used to play with mercury at school, and scavenge it where possible to sell as scrap. I think a pound of mercury would fetch me about a pound in money.

I have one one occasion had to 'firegild' a clock case when the mercury filled compensating pendulum had a broken tube that had leaked mercury all over the inside of the gilt brass case. The only way to get rid of it was to bake it off, leaving the gilding behind, but I made sure the vapour, the dangerous part,(along with the few organo-mercury compounds, see Minimata disease) was vented well downwind.

My point was that they label things as mercury free when no one with a smidgen of science would expect any mercury anyway.

 

What a rip off on the eBay prices of bulbs.

I paid 5 bucks for a 4 pack and this seller wants 9.99?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sylvania-60...3389068?pt=US_Light_Bulbs&hash=item4181f8040c

 

I had a small bottle of mercury that weighed a pound that was used for gold extraction. I was amazed how heavy it really was.

 

I have a bottle of clean mercury downstairs for filling barometer tubes, and another of slightly dirty mercury from old tubes awaiting cleaning. It does feel unbelievably heavy for so little.

The trouble is that with all safety warnings, people go way over the top. There are many things where a lot of it is dangerous, but small amounts not really. Like nuclear radiation and fat.

 

I worked in a circuit board factory for a short time. They flagrantly ignored regulations and the place was caustic. They were shut down shortly after I quit. Anyway, they used mercury somewhere in the process which was one of many health concerns that employees were concerned about. As I remember someone told me it was the tabs (at the end that "plug in" used to make the electric connection), because the mercury process was a way to create the type of conduction they wanted. I am unsure how much of the mercury was still in the product after it went through the acid baths.

Also, lest anyone forget, they used to use mercury in the amalgams used in dental work for teeth filling.

My point is that it is naive to believe mercury at any level doesn't pose a threat and that it is equally skeptical and a bit nutty to suspect, that because a product is labeled mercury free, that it is somehow a marketing ploy.

I would also like to point out the fabled Ancient Roman citizen who was laughed out of the Forum for suggesting that the lead water pipes were making people sick.

 

Yes mercury in teeth fillings, I was a victim of the amalgams in the 1950's.

My 1st DH used mercury in the gold panned finds to seperate the gold dust from the iron. The mercury bonds with the gold,you heat the mercury into a vapor and the vapor carries the gold through a tube .

 

it was the tabs (at the end that "plug in" used to make the electric connection), because the mercury process was a way to create the type of conduction they wanted. I am unsure how much of the mercury was still in the product after it went through the acid baths.

This sounds like they were using an amalgam gilding process to coat/plate the contacts. All mercury would be driven off in the process but I agree this would not have been good for the local atmosphere if they just vented the fumes. No residual hazard, from the circuit boards, though.

Virtually all British homes from the advent of piped water have had lead pipes as standard. It becomes coated with insoluable lead carbonate inside and is harmless. The biggest source of envionmental lead was tetra-ethyl lead in petrol, used for decades but now eliminated in both UK and USA. The biggest health hazard from metallic lead is small, rapidly moving chunks of it.

Admittedly, the British Empire also crumbled, but there were more significant causes than lead poisoning.

Most people don't have the time, inclination or often the ability to get a comprehensive understanding of a subject; often the extent of that understanding is "x is bad". Therefore it is a good marketing ploy to say that your item is "x free", since it implies the product is 'good' by suggesting that it is 'not bad' using 'not' in a boolean sense there.

Popular science is popular because it is easy, it's easier because a lot gets left out, which is OK as far as it goes but all such information should come with a health warning, "May contain Omissions".

 

Hi,
I as a child used to play with mercury. I had a two pound bottle. I would even melt lead and mix with the mercury to cast very shiny "silver dollars". Used old jar lids as molds. When we played cowboys we needed money to gamble with. Played for years with the stuff. Ate off Fiesta my entire life. Removed so many layers of lead paint off the houses I reno'd. Chewed on window sills and ate paint chips as a tot. Never used a respirator when stripping furniture. Danced in the "fog" as the mosquito truck sprayed the nieghborhood. My whole generation did the same stuff
I guess we are all idiots and glowing in the dark. Well, perhaps I should not say that since according to the greenies I am brain dead. Oh well, I will climb off my soap box since I can't jump anymore, perhaps they are right.
greg

 

Well, when you get old enough pretty well any predictions of doom come true. Luckily, by the time something carries you off, you don't really care much which one it was, if any.

Smoking makes you wrinkly, look at him, smoking for 60 years and there are loads of wrinkles. Yes, but he's 8o years old.

 

Other peoples chaos can be inspiring as well as comforting. Do post the pictures

I have actually done a little sorting out since I started this, inspired by the thought that it's not just me.

 

Here's a room I might just turn out today, it's been pretty neglected for some time.






It's not beyond hope if I can just clear the layer of luggage and clothes. Possibly by packing the clothes IN the luggage. They are not my clothes so if they don't surface again for a few years they may be back in style. Or fit.

 

Yes, there are many ways in which individuals are allowed to slowly kill themselves. Some of those ways harm others so they are regulated, some are insidious and motivated by profit.

But the fact remains, our generation has the highest cancer rates ever known, along with a myriad of diseases and ailments that were rare just a century ago. This spike has been attributed to the millions of chemicals introduced to modern man. And like The Incredible Shrinking Woman, many believe it is no single safe-at-this-level chemical that is the culprit but the incalculable mixture of toxins we willingly (as you pointed out) introduce into our daily lives.

Every generation has felt that they are wiser than the previous, smarter than the previous and creating a better environment than previously known, (while ironically waxing nostalgic about the past), that collective ego was the same for the ancient Romans as it is for us now.

Most people don't have the time, inclination or often the ability to get a comprehensive understanding of their own ego motivated mantras; often to the extent of mimicking what their parents bellyached about and their parents before them bellyached about.

 

Hi,
May I ask what generation you are talking about? I am 78 and I doubt that you are part of my generation, I would like to say if you are talking about my generation then it is safe to say that we are living longer so more things are found such as higher rates of cancer and heart disease. I have extreme understanding of my body,
spending 35 years of diagnosing and treating patients in the ER. I have been tested for many things such as mercury, other heavy metals such as lead, amts of radiation antibodies and such. My results have been normal for enviromental factors. I do not have hypertension or other organ diseases except for Diabetes due to my being overweight from a severe trauma and many years of steroids treating what was diagnosed as Sarcoidosis as a child. I am not glibe about what is being taught today as gospel truth. I have been through the stages of eggs and butter are good for you, then they are deadly and then finding out the butter subs were even worse for you to butter and eggs are now safe for you. It is perfectly fine for people to worry about things but please do not preach and condemn wanting everybody else to worry about what is worrying you. Ban all autos and lawns and the world would be a better place but who would want to give them up?
greg

 

I had a dig into the latest room I showed and it's a lot clearer. Trouble is that there's now stuff piled in the corridor.

I did find some camera stuff I had totally forgotten about including a Contax with a Zeiss Planar f1.7 lens, and what looks like an early Leica but is really a Russian Fed from the 1950s. With some other stuff it made a reasonable haul and a good excuse to stop sorting and do a bit of research.

 

I read years ago that uranium 238 half life is lead...but don't fret as the lead in pencils are graphite I loved studying the periodic table as a teen...and cinnabar is where mercury comes from Ok,lots of folks hundreds of years ago died as a result of extracting the shiney stuff from the red

I agree with Greg, we ARE living longer thanks to modern medicine.

I am so sick of this generation, too much hype and too much brouhaha...........I see more autisium, more food alergies and other almost unheard of afflictions in our kids. Snotty noses,pasty skin as they sit at the video games and get obese.

In my generation we played outdoors,made mud pies,skated,climbed trees and skinned our knees...I always re skinned my healing knees But...we survived the staph that is so prevelant today. Could it be the fact that we obtained our antibodies from the great out doors?

We ate candy,cookies,waited for the ice cream man to pull up and we had so much energy from bicycles,hiking,etc. that we were healthy and fit...and we survived the lead paint and all the other terrors of childhood

PS

and I have smoked since I was 14.....I am now 66 and fit except for arthritis.ARRRRRRR!

 

Lil.also our beef was not full of antibiotics, our food was not GMO.....other meat animals were not crammed in cages and the cruelty that befell them. Its the almighty dollar and the huge population explosion that makes for the want of food growth.

Also my kids were raised in real cotton diapers, glass baby bottles,etc. The NEW AGE I believe is the cause to the rise of cancer and other disorders.

 

Some folks lack even a smidgen of science (many tea baggers for instance). For them, shopping for light bulbs shouldn't have to be a science test, no matter how simple.

Fluorescent light bulbs are filled with a gas containing low-pressure mercury vapor. (I just looked that up) Many people don't know the difference between incandescent, halogen or fluorescent, but they may have read where one of them often contains mercury. It is prudent of Slyvania to remind the science ignorant consumer who is looking for a "mercury free" (non fluorescent) bulb, that halogen bulbs are the "mercury free" ones.