YouTube commenters quickly identified it as a lock for a bookmakers/runners betting slip clock bag. It was used for bets on horse races to prevent any bets from being placed after the race had started. From the complexity of the mechanism it would seem that bookmakers are even more paranoid than banks. Guess I can't blame them.
I have seen several of the videos from the Lock Picking Lawyer and usually he demonstrates how easy it is pick a mechanical lock using basic lock picking tools, but on this occasion he uses brute force, in this case a couple of kilowatts of electricity.
Then I came across this cartoon from 1900 the purports to show just how dangerous this new fangled electricity thing can be.
Last night we are watching Black Money Love (a Turkish soap opera) and the detectives are sitting around the dinner table, an electrical problem gets mentioned and one cop says to another 'you don't even know how to change a light bulb'. Not too long I wouldn't have been able to conceive of such a thing, but I have come to realize that people's skills very widely and there certainly are people who are completely baffled by something as simple as changing a light bulb. Some people just don't do well with things.
The Disappearing Spoon, The Rooster and the Bearded Russian
This video showed up in inbox and being as I was in receptive state, I watched it. I liked hearing about the history of the periodic table.
[593] Gallium vs. Titalium - Abus Padlock Meets a Gruesome End
Then this video pops up. I've seen other lock picking videos before, possibly even by this same lock-picking lawyer, but they've never involved chemistry. Gallium is a very strange metal.
Gallium Vs Glass
So what else does YouTube have about Gallium? A whole bunch of stuff, but I thought this one was worth including.
Okay, the second video was made by a lawyer, and since all lawyers are rich, if he want's to spend a zillion dollars destroying a lock, he can. Turns out you can buy a small quantity (20 grams) from Amazon for not much money ($20), which works out to be a dollar a gram, so a pound of the stuff would set you back $454.
I've heard about these properties of Gallium, but watching the videos makes these strange properties much more real.
