Taxidermy in the Space on Thursday

[Akki]

Hi all,

Following a course I took a fortnight ago, I've decided to practice some anthropomorphic mouse taxidermy.
I've had a lot of interest from people who want to watch so I'm posting to warn/inform. Shouldn't be too messy, though.
I'll be in the space on Thursday evening in the quiet room, hopefully out of the way of anyone who might be offended. I'll be sure to give everything a cursory wipe down with one of the tea towels from the kitchen afterwards.

~Akki

[Morris]

yuck, do you really need to so this at the hackspace?

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[Morris]

*tries again*

do you really need to do* this at the hackspace?

[Akki]

People were interested. Why not? I'm not forcing anyone to watch.

[Adrian Godwin]

It's no different from cooking.

[Morris]

yuckkkkkk

[Clare Greenhalgh]

If I can make it I am interested - can I just ask one thing? Did the mouse have a happy life?

[Akki]

It's a big mouse and it's not being eaten by a snake so I guess so?  They're frozen snake food and they look peacefully asleep.

[Nick Johnson]

I call troll. "I'll be sure to give everything a cursory wipe down with one of the tea towels from the kitchen afterwards". Really?

-Nick

[Adrian Godwin]

I think it's very thoughtful to scrape some of the dirt off the tea
towels, though I'm not sure the tables are the best place to do that.

[Matt Peperell]

This sounds interesting. I'd love to watch.

On 8 October 2012 20:56, Akki <beloved...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Akki]

Well done, you found the one trolly statement in the whole thing. It'll actually be mostly done on a paper plate and there will be so much borax, the table will be cleaner and disinfected than before i start.
Have a gold star!

~Akki

[Morris]

ahh so thats what the borax is for, i had no idea. i saw an instructable on it the other day and wondered but didn't bother looking that up.

[AndHab]

Are your mice organic?

[Martin Klang]

no they are mineral mice.

/m

On 8 Oct 2012, at 22:24, AndHab wrote:

> Are your mice organic?
>

[phil jones]

On 8 October 2012 23:56, Martin Klang <ma...@pingdynasty.com> wrote:
>
> no they are mineral mice.

Great potential band-name : mineral mice

[Filthy hipster scum]

Im in for that

[tom]

are we fucking off Arkham then? I'd like to mess with mice too

On Tuesday, October 9, 2012 5:04:19 PM UTC+1, Filthy hipster scum wrote:

Im in for that

[Akki]

I'd like to clarify this.

This is NOT a workshop, it's merely a demonstration.

I do not have enough tools to allow everyone to have a go unfortunately. If there's enough interest, I may consider running a proper workshop in the near future (maybe just before christmas with lots of cute santa hats/outfits etc).

I'm going to be practicing at home all tomorrow because now I'm scared by the sheer numbers who will be watching me :P
Approximate amount of time will be around 3-4hours, I'll probably start around 7pm in the Quiet Room if there's no objects? (er, should I make a more clear post on this not in this thread?)

~Akki

[Akki]

uh i mean "If there's no objections" to using the Quiet Room from 7-10pm ish on this Thursday. *blushes at typos*

~Akki

[SamLR]

There are many objects aren't there? the servers :p </trollllll>

also taxidermy christmas gifts: mmm nightmare fuel!

[CorpoWombat]

Hate to be a spoilsport, and I'm so new to the space, so please don't shout me down, but... are you sure it's a good idea? The space is small, a lot of people go around, it is probably NOT an ideal space to play around with what could contain enough animal pathogens, some airborne, for all of us to go around. Sorry, but to me this sounds less a messy and more a daft idea.

But if you do end up doing it, please do the wipe-down with something proper. I'll bring you some sanicloths or whatever you need.

-CW, professional germophobe

On Monday, October 8, 2012 8:56:21 PM UTC+1, Akki wrote:

[Charles Yarnold]

If your worried about this, don't go look in the bio lab...

[Akki]

Anything frozen for 2 weeks will kill anything. I've been informed this by a licensed taxidermist. It'll kill everything from mites to hanta virus.

And yes, if you think this is bad, i think you may need to bring sanicloths with you to the Space as the desks tend to be covered in all sorts of horrible gunk.

~Akki

[Russ Garrett]

On 11 October 2012 00:15, Akki <beloved...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Anything frozen for 2 weeks will kill anything. I've been informed this by a
> licensed taxidermist. It'll kill everything from mites to hanta virus.

This is, unfortunately, false (and fairly dangerous advice). Freezing
(to below -15C) will halt all pathogenic activity, but it doesn't kill
pathogens. Once you warm them up, they'll spring back into life.

That said, taxidermy is no worse than someone failing to effectively
wash their hands after they've gone to the loo. It's certainly nothing
to worry about.

--
Russ Garrett
ru...@garrett.co.uk

[Clare Greenhalgh]

I am sad as I am not going to be able to be there - I have to leave for Heathrow at about 4am tomorrow and as I am only going to be in Frankfurt for the day need to get as much sleep as possible today!

Hopefully there will be another taxidermy session again soon!

Noko

On 10 October 2012 19:27, CorpoWombat <ch...@scribbleratlaw.com> wrote:

[Akki]

Okay it seems to be regularly given out false advice then as I found this last night which merely suggests freezing until solid:
http://nrs.ucop.edu/host/curricula/roadkill.html Admitedly I've been taught to start work on nearly-still-frozen specimens, adding borax as you work along the way which may limit the warming up/danger zone of bacteria.

Point still stands that these are mice raised for food for snakes/reptiles so they are suppose to be disease-free and extremely unlikely to be carrying anything anyway. We're _not_ working with roadkill, nor any of Master Splinter's offspring which may or may not still be roaming the space after her capture a few months ago :P

There's very little risk of airborne aerosol/spray (none as far as I can tell), there's more risk of a stray crystal of borax being mistaken by someone as salt on the table but even then the risks of eating borax is fairly low as even the packaging says you have to consume large amounts to have any problems.

Do I need to submit a risk assessment for tonight now?

~Akki

[David Schneider]

It's the "supposed to be disease-free" bit that worries me a little. Freezing as a decontamination method sounds a little odd to me given that's the usual method for storing pathogens, isn't it? I'm no kind of biologist though.

[Clare Greenhalgh]

I think people are getting the whole thing a little out of proportion....

Have they ever looked at the kitchen in the Space before one of us gives it a good clean? That is far more likely to cause problems...

This is something that is not just going to get left out on the side but will be properly tidied and disinfected before and afterwards. I think that area of the space will be the cleanest!

I am sure it should go ahead...

Noko

[David Murphy]

the other day I saw someone disecting part of a chicken! in the kitchen! and worst of all they then ate it! think of all the animal pathogens!

it's not really much worse than someone taking the gibblets out of a chicken.

Though second the good cleaning.

[CorpoWombat]

Nope. It just reduces activity. Also, http://vir.sgmjournals.org/content/87/12/3737.full on prions surviving in horrid environments for ages.

That said, Russ is right. I'll just stop fretting (and avoid the quiet room). :)

RIP Mouse,

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-CW