Don -- Minneapolis road bridge collapse

It is not a very realistic scenario (a lot easier to shoot up a movie theater or some such).

If I did not have a weapon with me, assuming that I could not move the truck, I would just get out and run away, they would not be very likely to hit me.

Yes, and you can "relieve" that artifact by simply allowing space in front of you and smothing out the impulse - ie: drive a slow steady speed that doesn't force you to stop behind the guy in front of you.

I'm kinda under impressed with this one.

So they built a scale model - how did they model the resonance reactions???

Don't even need guns to cause mayhem.

Chuck a couple handfulls of roofing nails or other puncture bait out onto the interchange, and see how many hours it takes to clear the mess.

Take a look at any of the many commuter tunnels or bridges, and figure out what an economic hit that could be if traffic came to an even longer standstill than normal. Done at the correct points, traffic, grinds to a halt for hours to days.

I have spent as much as four hours in creeping traffic as a result of a single car breakdown (Montreal area-took me 20 minutes to drive the reverse route, and Toronto- the car that had the flat tire was long gone by the time we passed the site, as announced on the radio, two full hours later).

Doesn't take a lot to get everyone in charge into a terminal superspin.

There was an incident a few years back, where some disgruntled (or just mayhem minded) person taped an empty lunch box to a propane tank at a downtown gas station. The safety minded had the entire area evacuated while the bomb squad dealt with it. Lots of folk freaked out and worried, yet the actual threat, and the cost of creating it, were both minimal.

Terrorism by human engineering.

I often think that the news reporting on such incidents causes even more stresses in the audience that the event itself, as it plants the seeds of doubt and worry into the audience. Not helpful.

Cheers Trevor Jones

I can't argue against that, Trevor.

But many people seem to be addicted to it now...

Dennis Miller was right.

As to Islamic terrorist coming over here again? A word of warning, guys.

If the citizens get you before the feds do?

there will be pork involved.

LOTS of it...

Richard

Easy - pop a tanker at the top of the hill... S*it rolls down hill, you know? So does gas!

I have found it to have had the reverse effect on me.

There is so little of the news that is actual news, that I find myself turning the TV off a few minutes into the top of the hour. Even most of the "teaser" lines that they drop to craete a little interest in the "news" are generally the most interesting part of the story.

Other times, it's just fun to channel surf to see the different spins put on the same story. I can watch CNN for eight solid hours of "up to the minute" coverage with all sorts of interviews and experts, or I can see it on the BBC World Service, where the total story is"A bridge has collapsed in Minneapolis Minnisota. So far XX people are either confirmed dead or reported as missing. Authorities do not know the cause at this time"

I prefer to hear the latter. Fewer agendas being pushed in the wake of a human tragedy.

So many channels, so little content!

Cheers Trevor Jones

Or evil forces like corrosion, fatigue, wear, settling, etc. Stuff like bridges should have some SERIOUS redundancy in them, especially with all the recent problems of major structural members cracking due to fatigue. But, a number of these major civil structures lately seem to have VERY limited redundancy.

Our local paper reported today that the local bridge with the highest structural rating was built in 1874! (St. Louis' Eads bridge.) They tested it by parking the train deck full of locomotives from river bank to river bank. Now, that's a proof load!

Jon

That reminds me that I have been told in the past of orders applying to UK soldiers that they break stride when crossing bridges to present problems with resonance in the structure which might result in bringing a bridge down.

One car and thoughtful driver is merely a particle in the flow, can't affect things much short of crashing or catching fire.

I agree that trying to maintain a steady rate at or slightly below avg flow speed, with variable headspace as traffic will permit, is safer and less stressful both on driver and vehicle.

When there is significant truck traffic, I try to join the trucks and travel at their speed. They're pros, keep rollin' steadily down the road, and they're big enough that hotdogs tend not to try to bluff them.

I have completely disconnected from commercial television. No cable. No alien satellite dish. Not even a pair of rabbit ears.

It took my girlfriend a while to detox but she made it. Life is peaceful without commercial TV.

I have over 500 movies! And collecting more all the time. So it's not like we do without entertainment. We just learned to live without commercials. Or commercial news...

In act, I'm so much at peace and happy, I can't help wonder if it's legal???

Richard

I would ask the Loizeaux Brothers (Controlled Demolition Inc.) to rate the structure. If they say it'll take multiple charges properly placed and sequenced to drop it, then it's 'safe' under that light.

But that Minneapolis bridge? I'd need the drawings and someone with demolitions experience, but I'll betcha one simple little brick of plastique in the right place (or two simple linear shaped charges and a few rubber bands) and you get the same effect.

And I'll bet they did the calculations that the bridge would sag six inches with that load - and it went down two.

Some engineers took pride in making their work bulletproof, easy to maintain, and yet not too expensive. Now it's cheap, period.

-->--

Now that the cable tv police know about you they'll be out there soon to reprogram you. Soon you'll laughing at sitcoms in time with the laugh track. Karl

On Sat, 04 Aug 2007 10:51:48 -0000, with neither quill nor qualm, " snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com" quickly quoth:

Time to send the old girl in for ReGrooving.

I've been without DISH for a couple months now. I spent $30 (less than half a month's programming costs) on 44 books through eBay and have read only a dozen of them so far. That's 8x more cost effective for a much better form of entertainment with no noise or commercials. Works for me.

As I detoxed, I ran back through my collection of VHS tapes and DVDs and borrowed a dozen and a half from a friend, but I find that I don't miss couch potatoing nearly as much as I thought I might. I'm also getting lots of my unfinished projects (how many notebooks full?) done. Hell, I might even weld up a stand and get that mill off the back of my truck this year.

-- All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit. --Thomas Paine

On Thu, 02 Aug 2007 14:37:59 -0700, with neither quill nor qualm, Gunner quickly quoth:

Awareness is excellent, a Good Thing(tm). Paranoia is neither.

P.S: The dead in the WTC don't listen very well.

-- All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit. --Thomas Paine

I rode for many years too. Anywhere from 120 to 40 miles per week year round. I haven't been riding since last Nov, it has been my longest break from the saddle in over 20 years. Not so much scared of traffic as getting bored with it. I increased my walking/running distances until I get the bug again or knees/feet give out.

Worry about the road-rage drivers, pissed off that they have to "pass" a bicyclist. I always hug the edge too, usually within 6 inches, only taking more of the roadway when the roadbed is unfit/safe to ride over. Those were the closest calls I ever had, other than the dump truck pulling a backhoe meeting a semi on a corner all while trying to pass me. The trucks won, I ate dirt and can still tell the story (shrug). Most of the time the truckers cut you more slack than the four wheelers.

When I was taking a vacation in the UP ever year I used to always make a pit-stop at the roadside park just north of Fife Lake on US131. I'm a terrible coffee drinker and my eyeballs were usually floating at that point :) That is a nice area up there, but then the grass always looks greener on...

My neighbor has a cabin just east of Boyne Falls, a stones throw off of C-48. Small world eh?

After a Computer crash and the demise of civilization, it was learned cavelamb himself wrote on Fri, 03 Aug

A friend was over in Iraq for a while, he was involved in spreading the knowledge that the last phase of Becoming a Martyr, after the explosion, is dog poop. Yeah, Iraq isn't to big on the cleaning up the human remains (other priorities) so the local dogs scavenge the bits and pieces. You blow yourself up The dog eat your remains They poop you out on a road some where.

tschus pyotr

-- pyotr filipivich "Quemadmoeum gladuis neminem occidit, occidentis telum est. " Lucius Annaeus Seneca, circa 45 AD (A sword is never a killer, it is a tool in the killer's hands.)