[Amps] Decline of homebrewing?

[Manfred Mornhinweg]

Bill,

> Today those of us look back at what we did and would not want our own
>  children do the  same.

And I think that this is a mistake. Teh current generation of children,
in many parts of the world, is growing up excessively sheltered. So they
live a far more boring childhood than we did. With far less risk of
suffering injuries, of course, but deprived of many experiences we had.

It is my opinion that it's better to live a full life, trying and doing
everything, even when that entails some added risks, and that this
principle should even be applied to children. Of course adequate
guidance and instruction is desirable, but locking up our kids in a
golden cage so that they can't injure themselves doesn't do them any good.

For the same reason I oppose things like "No user serviceable parts
inside" printed on almost every device you can buy; special screw heads
intended to make it impossible to remove those screws; mandatory use of
swim wests; mandatory presence of life guards at every beach; schools
avoiding practical activities in chemistry labs, physics labs,
workshops, etc, to prevent accidents; children being driven right to the
school door even when they could walk or bike or take a bus; And of
course I fully support young people getting into hands-on electronics,
even when that involves high voltage.

> I also built my own rocket engines which was common back then.

So did I.

> Sugar and potassium nitrate was the only ingredients but the process
 > was a bit risky.

I started making black powder and slowing it down with sawdust, but then 
progressed to making colloidal nitrocellulose. Much better, and cleaner. 
Also made some nitroglycerine, in tiny amounts; not for rockets, but for 
pranks. I never had any accident in all those experiments, and never 
caused any significant damage, except for small craters in the ground, 
disintegrated logs of firewood, and so on. And several rockets that blew 
up instead of flying, but they were homemade and cheap. I was a good 
kid, not a destructive one. Even the pranks were funny, not damaging.

 > Nothing keeps a kid from doing the same.

Exactly. There is a strong drive to do such things. Repressing it can 
bring the kids to worse actions.

 > So where do we draw the line?

That's up to the parents, so a kid's mileage will vary, according to 
what his parents think. I think that the golden rule is to bring the 
kids to a point where they are able to decide themselves what's safe 
enough, and what's not, and which calculated risks to take. The sooner 
that happens, the better.

Manfred

========================
Visit my hobby homepage!
http://ludens.cl
========================