Bleach

You may have heard of the word 'bleach' in a variety of contexts, but the one that I'm here today to inform you about is the chemical. As a chemical, bleach whitens or removes the colour from an object, usually through the process of oxidation. Usually, chlorine is the most basic compound of bleach. There are many types of "bleach". The most common, just referred to as bleach is sodium hypochlorite. Calcium hypochlorite is the most basic compound in bleaching power. Those that are not based on chlorine are generally based on peroxides. Bleaches are commonly used in a household setting to whiten clothes, remove stains, and disenfect things. However thye are also used in swimming pools, industrial process, removing mildew, and killing weeds. At first bleaching was accomplished by spreading an object in the sun where it would be naturally whitened. Modern bleach is traced back to 18th century scientists like Carl Wilhelm Scheele (discoverer of chlorine), Claude Berthollet, and Antoine Germain Labarraque. So there you go. There's enough information to start you out. Feel free to do any further research; I promise I won't stop you. The more you know.

Googly Eyes

I'm going to begin this article/entry creature by assuming that everyone knows what googly eyes are. We are thinking of the same thing if the thing you are thinking of is a plastic craft item that looks like an eye, with a pupil that sloshes about within the rest of the eye. These eyes can come in a variety of sizes, from the most miniscule to the most enormous they are always rather amusing if used in the correctly incorrect situation. Googly eyes work well for pranking purposes and for art projects. In addition, these eyes come in a variety of colours. The pupil is generally the only part of the eye, without the colour present in a normal eye surrounding it. However, the pupils can very in colour from light blue to bright yellow to a noncommital pink. And as far as I can tell, that's just about all you need to know about googly eyes. Your welcome.

Fire Hydrants

My blog has been named The Cultured Fire Hydrant for a reason. I was discussing blogging with a friend, and suggesting she make hers about fire hydrants. Then, this idea struck me and I decided to use my own idea and use this topic for my first post. You probably know what a fire hydrant is. In fact, you've probably seen many of them. If I daresay, you probably see them everyday, assuming that you go outside on a daily basis. For those of you who don't, this is a fire hydrant. Just kidding. I'm far too technologically challenged to figure out how to do that. Basically, they are short stumps protruding from the ground and covered in many knobs of various functions. They are most commonly seen in a bright red colour, though they are often yellow. On a few occasions, I myself have seen bright blue ones. As you can see, the colour varies often, and has no effect on the purpose of the hydrant itself. These hydrants are connected to a city's municipal water supply and exist for firefighter's, who can glean water through them by attaching a hose. Fire hydrants started as fire plugs in the 1600's. Firefighters would dig hasty holes into central pluming systems and use the resources for the time as water to extinguish a fire. When this was done, the hole would be plugged with a slab of wood, generally that of a redwood tree. Fire plugs involved into fire hydrants in 1666 after The Great London Fires. After this scare, holes were drilled at different intervals to allow for quick and easy access. The modern hydrant was invented around 1801, generally credited to Frederick Graff Sr. However, the exact inventor remains unknown, as the patent was burned in a fire in D.C. No, I'm not joking. That's just irony working a role in real life. To use, the valve on the hydrant must be opened carefully (if opened too quickly or slowly, it may damage nearby water pipes) and attach a hose to the pipe. Water will then come out of the hose at very high pressures to aid in extinguishing the fire. The exact pressure varies depending on the hydrant. The hose may then be hooked up to a fire truck for added pressure, or even to break the stream of water off into several different streams. In general, special tools are required to open a fire hydrant's valves to prevent misuse of the water within. Casual use can result in wasting city water. Fire hydrants are usually inspected annually to make sure that they maintain their function and are as safe as possible. If you want to know more about fire hydrants than is provided here, I recommend looking it up on Wikipedia, as I did. Thanks for reading!

So... Hopefully This Doesn't Suck

So, I suppose there's a bit of a story behind this blog. Let's just say I've created many blogs before, and while they all seemed dazzlingly brilliant at the time, in retrospect I realized that I was a complete idiot and deleted them as soon as I remember how to. In time, this blog will probably be reminiscient of those in my mind, but until then I can blog away happily. This blog has a purpose unique from the others; to educate people. Are there obscure subjects that you've always wanted to know more about, but for some reason don't? Maybe you share a computer and are afraid of judgment. Maybe you can only read on websites with a certain colour scheme. Whatever the reason is, I will strive to provide you with accurate (well... pretty accurate) information on the widest array of topics imaginable. Fingers crossed for interestinng posts to come.