sweeks

Well, since the seatpost thing seems to have run its course, I'll just add this regarding magnesium burning...
When I was a kid, my parents got me a subscription to something called Things of Science, which came once a month and had stuff that was interesting to science nerd types. One of these kits had a strip of magnesium metal in it. I don't remember the topic of this particular kit, but I do remember it involved setting the magnesium on fire. The strip was about 2mm x 0.25mm and a couple inches long. It took a while to get the Mg to ignite, but once going, holy spotlight, Batman! It was such an intense white light you couldn't look at it. I got several burns out of it; my friends were impressed. I always wondered how safe it was for aircraft to have magnesium parts in their landing gear.