Nothing is as fascinating as an unexplained accident...
Indeed, every picture here is an unopened book of driver's angst, remorse and often complete confusion. Here is the fresh installment in our on-going "Accidents Big and Small" series, full of mystifying and bizarre accidents, mostly suffered by vehicles on the ground (which is slightly more reassuring than accidents in the air, see our "Airplane Oops!" page.
Aaah! these pesky Google Maps markers!... not again -
This does not look good: UPDATE: this seems to be a kind of "glue trap" being tested for stopping cars -
Car rolled down the hill and... took a dive into a pool (while the house owners were vacationing in Florida). The car was going at least 40mph when it hit the water. Read the whole story here
Next picture you've probably seen already, so we're only going to link to it. Besides, it's a pretty sad story: one person was killed and 14 injured when this car collided with a group of cyclists in Northern Mexico.
In another bit of a news, "Mister Bean crashes £650,000 McLaren F1 sports car"! Don't believe it? Read it here.
Police car calamities (in the U.S., Canada and Russia)
Driving class calamities: Brian Baer from "The Sacramento Bee" took this shot of a Mazda RX7 that flew through air off westbound I-80, cleared a fence and flew 15 feet into the computer classroom, injuring many of the students listening to a lecture. This happened back in 2003 -
"Daniel Lentipo (pictured) and researcher George Wittemyer hunkered inside this truck while a bull named Rommel thrashed it, expressing some displaced aggression after a humbling face-off with another male."
...and by a Russian (unexploded) bomb:
(Photo by Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)
"A Georgian Port Authority employee passes in front of a Russian rocket on August 11, 2008 in Poti, Georgia. The rocket landed on the Georgian Military Police car..."
Seeing how many photos of crazy accidents came from Russia, is it any wonder that the test dummies are refusing to cooperate for the LADA car promotion?
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Parking properly is like a rocket science to some people
From the good old days, here is a creative approach to creating parking spaces, sort of like a PEZ dispenser - a car lift from 1931:
Modern version of the same thing... no, actually a sculpture:
(original unknown)
Speaking of car sculptures, heres the one featuring Land Rover SUVs - apparently a promotion to show that they can go... um, climb.... anywhere: (the work of acclaimed artist Gerry Judah)
When leaving the car parked for long time, make sure to make allowance for local climate:
Before moving your car, check for cats! -
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Trucks, buses (and a heavy machinery) in various trouble
The bus was trying to go around a corner, when the driver stepped out to see if he could make the corner, but forgot to put it on the handbrake. Result: bus drove slowly forward into the water... This page has a video and pictures of lifting this bus out of the river.
The blue Mercedes 230G that hagns on the building was an attempt by the bulgarian Radomir Pepelov to lift the jeep on top of his block. He bet with another guy for 10 000$ that he can do it and possibly get in Guiness book of records. Here are somer more photos: http://www.chambersz.com/index.php/content/view/10852/136/ http://www.chambersz.com/index.php/content/view/10853/112/
Re: The cop car shots... both the shot of the cop car half in the house & the one with the two OPP cars crashed together are actually Canadian cops... first is Toronto police & the OPP cars are Ontario Provincial Police :)
The cop car shots ... both the shot of the cop car half in the house & the one with the two opp cars crashed together are actually Canadian cops...first is Toronto police & the OPP cars are Ontario Provincial Police.
'Imagining the Tenth Dimension', both the book and animation, are considered to be something he made up as he went along by serious physicists. Before buying the book check out the comments from people with a science background at Amazon.com. It looks pretty but it's not real science!
I second Eric's recommendation, and likewise Anon's word of caution. It is important to note that there are different *theories* of how higher dimensions are composed and related. Considering time as the 4th dimension is one theory, while spatial-symmetry relationships (right/left, normal/mirrored) form another approach. Rudy Rucker's book on the 4th dimension is a good intro to this.
When it rained, the female operators of Colossus would strip to their underwear and hang their clothes do dry beside the hot machine. The building became a popular destination for the military's teenage messenger boys. Possibly the first association of computers with p*rn.
Oh, not this again. Grace Hopper didn't invent the term "bug", as you can pretty clearly tell if you look up the scans of the relevant log page (with preserved bug!) that are available online, and imagine why a person might write "First known case of an actual bug!" next to it.
What happened was, of course, that "bug" was a well-established term at the time (as any sufficiently detailed dictionary should confirm), but this was the first time it had been an actual bug rather than just a metaphor -- and Ms. Hopper, being a computer geek, found this funny enough to actually tape the bug into the official logbook.
It wouldn't have been nearly that funny if it were just a bug in the relay, without being the physically-realized pun. It would have just been, eww, smushed bug. And she couldn't have known that "the first bug" would be worth recording.
Nicely written article. However, in your introduction, when you "paraphrase" Asimov's "The Last Question", you should have cited Fredric Brown's one-page story, "Answer" (Is there a God?/Yes, now there is a god), which had been written five years before Asimov's story.
How can one mention Asimov’s Multivac in reference to the ultimate in fictional Supercomputer and not in the train of thought bring up Douglas’ Deep Thought…. I mean seriously Deep Thought was the size of a planet, had its own gravity, and only took 10 million years to determine that the answer to Life the Universe and everything was 42. Multivac on the other had does get props for consuming all the energy in the universe on the whim of two drunken sysops.
The MareNostrum is the best. I believe the spanish must be proud of their exotic yet powerful supercomputer. Talking about powerful, I'm not even have used my small laptop to its maximum capacity.
Those from "Sabena" are Belgian, the air way company Sabena went bankrupt a few years ago and went through some name changing. I think they're now called "Brussels Airlines".
I was wrhite on mi blog an history about an old suitcase full of hotel labels. I found it beside a garbage container at Valencia (Spain). It´s really lovely. I less you the link of suitcase fotography. I hope did you like it. http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4937/3620/1600/maleta2.3.jpg
Actually, the crop picking procedure shown is used almost everywhere in Europe, including industrialized nations such as Germany, France, the Netherlands, etc... It's quite a productive method and it avoids back problems due to the fact that the produce pickers are lying down.
No, the chin strap (and "turban" headband) is specifically marketed as a beauty product. It contains several supposedly helpful "ingredients" (platinum, geranium, lava powder, yellow ochre) and claims to provide an "easy lift" to the face, even while sleeping. It might well work for sleep apnea, but that's not what it's for.
The 'boost in power?' on the bus actually is a wood carburetor, which actually is some sort of stove, where wood is heated slightly below its flashpoint. As a result wood gas leaks from the wood and can be used as a substitute for fuel. 3kgs of wood can substitute ~1 litre of fuel. For example, wood gas was used after the WW2, when fuel was heavily rationed in germany. Read more on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_gas
To see great steam powered plows in Ontario, Canada, there is an annual International Plowing Match which can be found on this site: http://www.ipm2008.ca/
Those are nice indeed, but I think there's one big steam topic missing, and that's the steam powered car! Jay Leno owns quite a nice collection of them!
Anyone calling these machines obnoxious or loud has obviously never been around steam tractors. They are notoriously QUIET. I've stepped backwards into the path of one of these at a thresher show because I couldn't hear it.
Do not be mislead by "horsepower" comparisons. The important thing is torque. A race car may have hundreds of PS and could not pull the smallest plough. And steam engines are especially good at delivering more torque you might ever need, even better than modern diesel engines.
When I was a young man, about forty years ago, my farmer grandfather took me to see an old threshing machine driven by the PTO on a steam traction engine in operation. He told me I'd probably never get to see one of those in operation again. So far he's been right.
Tractor pull competitions don't allow steam traction engines to compete, though they do sometimes put on exhibitions. Combine huge amounts of torque (and steam engines max out at start, not at high RPM) with massive weight, and the sled is hardly noticed.
As one of your UK subscribers something looked odd about almost all the traction engines in you article. Its the wheels. Most have very thin spokes, probably steel round bar where as in the UK the spokes tend to be flat steel plate
I agree with Jim, steam tractors are quite compared to gas tractors, let alone diesels. The old steamers are seldom allowed to run at their original boiler pressure as they are so old. One I saw was only allowed 20 psi instead of the original 120 psi. That's one reason they don't put them in tractor pulls.
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9 Comments:
The blue Mercedes 230G that hagns on the building was an attempt by the bulgarian Radomir Pepelov to lift the jeep on top of his block. He bet with another guy for 10 000$ that he can do it and possibly get in Guiness book of records.
Here are somer more photos:
http://www.chambersz.com/index.php/content/view/10852/136/
http://www.chambersz.com/index.php/content/view/10853/112/
Here's some more on the car sticking in a roof near the top of this post:
Spiegel article with 8 photos
video of the rescue operations
The "This does not look good" pic is a shot of a kind of "glue trap" being tested for stopping cars.
Re: The cop car shots... both the shot of the cop car half in the house & the one with the two OPP cars crashed together are actually Canadian cops... first is Toronto police & the OPP cars are Ontario Provincial Police :)
A couple of those accidemts looked likely fatal, whihc is more horrible than funny.
Thank you guys, page updated with new info.
The cop car shots ... both the shot of the cop car half in the house & the one with the two opp cars crashed together are actually Canadian cops...first is Toronto police & the OPP cars are Ontario Provincial Police.
I completely forgot that my info is in bulgarian... :)
The car transporter accident near the top of the page was probably the result of hitting a low bridge and ramming the hapless car through the deck.
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