The lamp contains either an incandescent bulb or halogen lamp which heats a tall (often tapered) glass bottle containing water (often with glycerol derived additive) and a transparent, translucent or opaque mix of wax and carbon tetrachloride (although other combinations may be used).[1] The wax is slightly denser than water at room temperature but is less dense under warmer conditions.[2] This occurs because wax expands more than water when both are heated.[3] When heated, wax becomes fluid, its specific gravity decreases, and blobs of wax ascend to the top of the device[4] where they cool and then descend. A metallic wire coil in the base of the bottle acts as a surface tension breaker to recombine the cooled blobs of wax after they descend.
The bulb is normally about 25 to 40 Watts. It may take 30 to 60 minutes for the wax to warm up enough to freely form rising blobs (depending on the original temperature).
Once the wax is molten the lamp should not be shaken or knocked over or the two fluids may emulsify and the wax/blobs will remain cloudy rather than clear.
Blender magazine senior editor Tyler Gray says that these often-obscure celebrity demands are also a power play.
"They're pushing it to see how far they can go," he said. "It's a control issue. They've reached a certain point in their careers where they expect respect. And they want a physical manifestation of it. Typically, the more D-list the celebrity, the bigger the demands. A Screech-type will gripe and complain, but a J.Lo type is not even dealing with it. You meet her demands or she simply goes home."
"They definitely are a window into a celebrity's quirks, phobias, mental illnesses," gray said. "Like Aretha Franklin's fear of flying or Jennifer Lopez's fetish for white. But these contract riders also demonstrate how desperate these celebs are for some semblance of home on the road."
What do you think?The song's reign at number one in the United Kingdom and Ireland occurred as the regions were hit by extreme rainfall and flooding, which led The Sun to suggest the two events were related, with the media referring to it as the "Rihanna Curse". The UK-based publication adjudged the single brought bad luck to their country, and mentioned the date of the single's video shot which was Friday the 13th, adding further coincidence of the curse.[55] Before the single's release in May 14, weather temperature in the United Kingdom, London, Athens was relatively high, of which the latter's have reportedly reached to 20 °C. However, just a day after the release, "severe weather warnings hit the headlines".[55] In an article run by The Sun, it urged readers to join the campaign in knocking the songs off the chart's top spot, suggesting the readers with several songs to download instead.[55] Coincidentally, the precise day the song was dethroned in the chart, the weather seemed to improve.
A similar situation occurred in New Zealand, where the song hit number one in the early winter of 2007 as the country was experiencing some of the worst storms in its history.[56] During the weather conditions, Taranaki, Tauranga, and Auckland had experienced tornadoes and flooding in the Far North of the country. Once the single was replaced on the top spot, weather condition almost in the entire New Zealand pacified, although Hawke's Bay was still stormed.[56]
Now that's creepy.