MetaFilter posts tagged with explosions

Paging sharksmatter...?

Decimask — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 17:53:25 -0800

You are a shark. You swim off the coast of Florida. You dive in and out of the water to smash boats, and you can pull jumbo jets out of the sky WITH YOUR TEETH. You are Miami Shark. Via Rockpapershotgun. Yes, it is as awesome as it sounds.

If you found a dead whale, how would you dispose of the body?

Salamandrous — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 14:56:42 -0800

When whales die: Yesterday, a 20-30 foot whale washed up a shore in New Jersey. Officials are going to deal with it by cutting it up into small parts and burying it. In previous incidents, officials tried to explode it into bits that were meant to fall in the ocean and get eaten by seagulls, but that didn't work out [YT] so well, especially for nearby spectators. Even if you want to let it decompose naturally, you have to be careful for spontaneous explosions due to gassy buildup. Especially when transporting it in busy city streets. Oops. When whales die in the ocean, on the other hand, their bodies eventually fall to the sea floor and can start mini ecosystems, where female pink glowstick-like sea worms that harbor the male pink glowstick sea worms inside their bodies live, eat whale bones, and propagate. (Previously on Metafilter: Taiwan explosion)

Best. Babysitter. Ever.

1f2frfbf — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 11:40:37 -0800

Andrew W.K. (yt): Musician (yt), Motivational speaker (nyt) and now, kids show host (auto-playing video). via

This site has everything!

boo_radley — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 15:37:40 -0800

Explosions and boobs. (NSWF)

Wait... No Pirate Vs. Ninja?!

Bageena — Tue, 05 May 2009 03:09:13 -0800

Haven't you always secretly wondered what would happen if a ninja accidentally stumbled into, say, Bill and Ted's time traveling Phone Booth and ended up somewhere around 7th century BC, only to come face-to-face with a feisty Spartan? Have you not pondered what would happen if you locked up an Apache with a Gladiator inside some sort of 21st century battle dome? Are you frustrated because you feel like there's nobody doing proper scientific studies to see what would happen when you pit two historically violent warriors that could have never actually met in real life? Worry no more people - I present to you Spike TV's newest offering - Deadliest Warrior! The show basically goes like this; you take two crazy fighters who, previous to the show, have only been pitted against one another in heated debates between young men in line for the midnight showing of the newest X-Men movie (or really awesome drunk people). The show's 'Host, Simulation Consultant, and Blogger', Max Geiger brings in experts representing each warrior. The experts bring in weapons that are historically accurate which are then tested on a variety of dummies that are stuffed with SCIENCE! The data from said SCIENCE! all goes into a computer simulation based on an unreleased commercial game engine by these guys. Not just the SCIENCE!, which is actually pretty cool (ballistics gel, pig carcasses, high speed photography), but also, as Max aptly put it: "The simulation's inputs include real world scientific data gathered by one of my co-hosts, Geoff Desmoulin, who is getting his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering. Our number crunching is balanced out by Dr. Armand Dorian, an ER doctor who keeps our work firmly grounded in the actual trauma our tests cause." The reviews are in! Variety seems to feel it might be possibly the stupidest show ever, appealing only to the lowest common denominator! Newsarama was a little nicer, pointing out that there are some people on the show trying to make it as scientific as it can possibly be, while also having a great time. Either way, do you care? Don't you want to watch a Viking fight a Samurai? Or a Pirate against a Knight? You can apparently only watch the latest episode on the website, here. Also, looking forward on the Wikipedia, it does look like the show might slip-slide from whatever tenuous grasp they have on ideas for fights as they start doing shows about William Wallace versus Shaka Zulu or finally, the IRA versus the Taliban. I have only one thought. How could they have NOT had a Pirate versus Ninja episode? FAIL!

Atomic explosions causing evolutionary changes? I'm in.

schyler523 — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 06:25:26 -0800

Can't wait till Friday Flash Fun: Atomic Kaos 2 Orbits is a puzzle-ish game where you are trying to remove all the atoms from the playing field through a chain of explosions.

Events That Touched Our Ancestors' Lives

netbros — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 07:36:19 -0800

GenDisasters is a genealogy site, compiling information on the historic disasters, events, and tragic accidents of Canada and the U.S. that our ancestors endured, as well as, information about their life and death. Search is quite extensive and navigation is broken down by disaster type, including earthquakes, hurricanes, mining explosions, and dozens of other categories. You can also choose by state within the USA, for example Arizona, or province within Canada, i.e. New Brunswick. Finally, you may also browse a timeline that begins as early as 1755 and includes information as current as the Swan's Island fire in July of this year. Members are encouraged to report and add information to the ever-growing database.

Boom!

BrotherCaine — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 02:12:15 -0800

Friday Flash Fun — Boombot.

Tunnel boring machines

Wolfdog — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 11:08:39 -0800

Tunnel boring machines, underground nuclear tests, and all manner of things below the surface.

I Told You Not To Kill That Albatross!

jonson — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 15:30:40 -0800

Disaster at Sea!! A collection of dozens & dozens of photographs of misfortune striking those GIGANTIC shipping vessels, the kind that bring goods from China to Wal Mart. Every kind of affliction imaginable, from shipboard fire to heavy weather to grounding amidst crushing waves to capsizing from ill balanced loads to random explosive cargo to terrorist attack to so much more. Descriptions of the vessels and what brought them down are included in the first link.

Great Balls of fire

alms — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 19:41:52 -0800

Maybe it's not really news because no one was killed, but you'd think that more people would notice when a massive explosion in suburban Boston totals 60 buildings, knocks out windows for a half mile around, knocks people out of bed in the middle of the night, and registers on the Richter scale 30 miles away.

"It shook the house pretty good."

ZenMasterThis — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 06:44:08 -0800

Broadband is exploding!

More casualties of war

Tablecrumbs — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 19:09:24 -0800

Explosion at Iowa Army Ammunition Plant Interesting to note, this plant which is just a few miles from my hometown remained relatively dormant after the cold war ended.

I love the smell of alkali metals in the morning...

ozomatli — Tue, 30 May 2006 08:22:41 -0800

The dog's nuts of the periodic table.

Explosion in SF Financial District

echolalia67 — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 10:42:31 -0800

Explosion & Fire in Downtown San Francisco Just happened. Could be a gas line - at this point, no one knows.

Evacuations in response to "credible intelligence" received

tomcosgrave — Sat, 09 Jul 2005 15:07:32 -0800

Police evacuate Birmingham centre
West Midlands police have evacuated the second largest city in England tonight as a precautionary measure. Sky News are reporting that a series of controlled explosions (I heard on Sky News TV that one of these was on a bus, but this may be innacurate) have been carried out in the Broad Street area. I hope that any and all UK MeFi-ites in Birmingham are keeping sane through out all this.

"Major Incident" in London reported

Cobbler — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 02:17:05 -0800

Major Incident on London Underground reported. Anyone have any further information?

mudpuppie — Fri, 18 Mar 2005 15:03:16 -0800

"On March 18 [1937] students prepared for the next day's Inter-scholastic Meet in Henderson. At the gymnasium, the PTA met. At 3:05 P.M. Lemmie R. Butler, instructor of manual training, turned on a sanding machine in an area which, unknown to him, was filled with a mixture of gas and air. The switch ignited the mixture and carried the flame into a nearly closed space beneath the building, 253 feet long and fifty-six feet wide. Immediately the building seemed to lift in the air and then smashed to the ground. Walls collapsed. The roof fell in and buried its victims in a mass of brick, steel, and concrete debris. The explosion was heard four miles away, and it hurled a two-ton concrete slab 200 feet away, where it crushed a 1936 Chevrolet. Of the 500 students and forty teachers in the building, approximately 298 died. Some rescuers, students, and teachers needed psychiatric attention, and only about 130 students escaped serious injury. -- From the Handbook of Texas Online. (Other accounts, personal recollections, and photos .)

It was one of the worst disasters in Texas history. With Texans' love of superlatives, why is this a story no one tells? [more...]

bonehead — Mon, 09 Aug 2004 06:52:59 -0800

Men In Black

CNN, Aug 4: Clashes between police and insurgents in the northern city of Mosul left 12 Iraqis dead and 26 wounded, hospital and police sources said Wednesday. Rifle and rocket-propelled grenade fire as well as explosions were heard in the streets of the city.

A first-hand view of events.

The Little Exploding Mermaid

alms — Wed, 17 Sep 2003 06:44:58 -0800

The Little Mermaid Explodes. This is only the latest in a long series of indignities suffered by Denmark's national symbol. Why are people so into this sort of thing?

KABOOM!

crunchland — Sun, 03 Aug 2003 20:07:37 -0800

Whatever you do, don't touch anything, especially the walls! [note: flash]

and the band played on

serafinapekkala — Thu, 31 Jul 2003 10:24:44 -0800

"The morning started again with a series of four mortar shells exploding with a muffled thump in the ocean behind our hospital..." Reports from Monrovia, Liberia by Dr. Andrew Schechtman, a volunteer with Medecins Sans Frontieres -- graphic but compelling.

He's making the first whirababy fishamagig. It'll be even better than the Badger Blaster!

XQUZYPHYR — Tue, 10 Dec 2002 10:46:08 -0800

Attention D.C. residents- remain going about your business and please ignore the continuous explosions coming from Dick Cheney's house. [more]

semmi — Sun, 28 Apr 2002 15:04:36 -0800

The good news is that there is no religious war, the bad news is that a time bomb blast killed 7 in a Russian market; 14 Christians were killed in Indonesia; a 5 year old killed and three other under 15 injured in Israel. All in one day.

kliuless — Mon, 05 Nov 2001 16:31:56 -0800

Short Clips of Historical Nuclear Weapons Test Films from the DOE OpenNet Database.