Odd Lots
- Today’s Odd Lots is a rare (nay, to this date unique) all-video edition. I dislike TV sufficiently so that that’s a contrarian act all by itself.
- To begin: We used to make five-stick “popsicle bombs” on the fourth-grade playground, and compete to see whose bombs would toss sticks the farthest. (I actually devised a 4-stick bomb, but nobody seemed impressed. The technology has clearly advanced since 1961.) Anyway: Here’s a linearly detonating, 2,250-stick popsicle bomb, and it is indeed a thing of beauty.
- While we’re blowing things up, consider this unfortunate attempt to demolish what appears to be an apartment building molded of solid concrete. They should feel fortunate that the building had not been erected on even a mild slope, or it would simply have rolled down the hill until it struck something bigger and denser than it was. (Thanks to Pete Albrecht for the link.)
- I guess if you’re going to blow a demolition, do it this way. Then you either buy more dynamite, or advertise it as a tourist attraction.
- And this may be the most amazing video clip I’ve seen in years: An Atlas booster breaking the sound barrier at just about the altitude where ice crystals responsible for sundogs form. Watch what happens to the sundog! (Thanks to Mary Lynn Johnson for the link.)
- Admittedly this is a hybrid, but don’t miss the video if you’re a train freak. That double-stacked consist is 18,000 feet long, propelled by what is essentially a local-area network of nine computer-controlled diesel-electric locomotives distributed evenly among the cars and operated by one guy in the cab of the lead engine. (Thanks to Bruce Baker for the link.)
Posted in: Odd Lots.
Tagged: Memoir · science · trains
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