Humor Random Comments Thread

[ex-orbinaut]

Random thought:

Someone posted Nena's 99 Luftballoons in the runaway blimp thread, and it made me think of good 1980s nuclear/cold war songs...

Distant Early Warning - Rush
2 Minutes to Midnight - Iron Maiden
Stand or Fall - The Fixx

Just off the top of my head. I know there are tons more. While the Maiden tune is awesome, the number of New Wave tunes (and that album was as close as Rush ever got to new wave) with really dark themes is interesting.

LOL! I had that same moment about a year ago. I've been out of action for a while, so catching up, and I'll take this subject to the music thread.

 

[TMac3000]

I had my first honest to God hard drive crash last night

So my friend brought me a Dell Optiplex GX620 in trade for my HP Pavilion netbook. I installed OpenSuse 13.2 and everything was great for couple days--then Sunday night I was sitting there, playing Harpoon and minding my own business, when the machine completely locked up. I figured it was just being retarded, so I rebooted...and got a black-screen-of-death.

Swaped in my old 500 GiB SATA and reinstalled everything. Latest casualties include about 2-3 days of routine activity, and a few very nervous hours of IT-ing. Thank God that's all:shifty:

 

[Matias Saibene]

More good news for nuclear fusion: Germany has finished building the experimental reactor W7-X, and the latest revisions of nuclear energy agencies in the country are expected to begin experiments.
W7-X is a Stellarator type reactor, as explains the article, allows confining the plasma from inside and outside the toroid, avoiding the electron leakage damaging reactor (ELM).
If all goes well, it is rumored that he might change the design of the experimental reactor ITER, changing a tokamak for stellarator.

More details, comparisons, and explanations in the article:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/350/6259/369.full

 

[steph]

So, a fire broke out a few days ago at a metal concert (the ceiling caught fire and proceeded to rain down on the crowd) and the depictions are extremely graphic. As in ...people rushing out while still on fire, ambulances unable to leave because their path was blocked by people who literally had their flesh melt away (but were still conscious) and so on. I realize stuff like this happens sometimes, but I just didn't realize it could get THAT graphic. And all those on site say that the screams were unforgettable.

Makes me wonder the horror show that would ensue in case of an airburst over populated areas that is intense enough to set things on fire. I don't even really want to imagine.

The bad part is that a lot of nasty stuff that can happen to the human body doesn't straight-out kill you, but instead you get seconds, minutes or more of excruciating agony and realization that you're probably finished, all the while being conscious.

And it doesn't get more ironic than this .....the song during which the fire started was called "The day we die", and the first lyrics were "Let go and beg for freedom/ Another row jumping into the flame" :facepalm:

 

[Urwumpe]

And it doesn't get more ironic than this .....the song during which the fire started was called "The day we die", and the first lyrics were "Let go and beg for freedom/ Another row jumping into the flame" :facepalm:

When you call them, they will come....

Also, fire is always horrible fate but still, it depends on the kind of fire... you don't want to experience a chunk of white phospor burning itself inside you. That it does not always kill you is pretty much the worst aspect of it.

Happens in Eastern Germany from time to time, when unlucky people searching for amber at the Baltic Sea put the nice large chunk of "amber" right into their pants pocket. 168 people already died this way.

Not amber:

 

[n122vu]

Meanwhile, my tour of Italy continues:

Annnd now I want Olive Garden.
http://www.olivegarden.com/menu/tour-of-italy/prod80009

---------- Post added at 02:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:50 PM ----------

For my first flight in the Dash 8, it didn't go too horribly.

I thought about getting the Majestic Dash 8 once, and also the FlyJSim Dash 8 for X-Plane, but the reason I haven't is, to be bluntly honest, I think the Dash 8 is ugly. I don't know why, but its whole look is just awkward to me.

 

[Fabri91]

In a slightly related topic, anyone up for a bit of a group flight some time in the near future?

Sure! On what? FSX, DCS?

 

[mojoey]

I thought about getting the Majestic Dash 8 once, and also the FlyJSim Dash 8 for X-Plane, but the reason I haven't is, to be bluntly honest, I think the Dash 8 is ugly. I don't know why, but its whole look is just awkward to me.

Get the Majestic Dash. It's fantastic, runs smooth even on my Ti-82, and is the best regional transport out there for FSX right now. The aircraft it represents, on the other hand...it's just as awkward and weird on the inside as it is on the outside, and if you have any experience with Boeing/Airbus, it's a whole different ballgame.

Sure! On what? FSX, DCS?

I was thinking FSX, but if we use something like VATSIM or IVAO (I don't have an account with the latter, but that can be rectified), platform shouldn't matter.

 

[Andy44]

So, a fire broke out a few days ago at a metal concert (the ceiling caught fire and proceeded to rain down on the crowd) and the depictions are extremely graphic. As in ...people rushing out while still on fire, ambulances unable to leave because their path was blocked by people who literally had their flesh melt away (but were still conscious) and so on. I realize stuff like this happens sometimes, but I just didn't realize it could get THAT graphic. And all those on site say that the screams were unforgettable.

Makes me wonder the horror show that would ensue in case of an airburst over populated areas that is intense enough to set things on fire. I don't even really want to imagine.

The bad part is that a lot of nasty stuff that can happen to the human body doesn't straight-out kill you, but instead you get seconds, minutes or more of excruciating agony and realization that you're probably finished, all the while being conscious.

And it doesn't get more ironic than this .....the song during which the fire started was called "The day we die", and the first lyrics were "Let go and beg for freedom/ Another row jumping into the flame" :facepalm:

Pyrotechnics and low-ceiling night clubs can be a very bad mix, as 80s hair band Great White found out back in 2003: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/the-great-white-nightclub-fire-ten-years-later-20130715

Sounds like pretty much the same kind of situation as the one you describe. The dirtbag club owners had some of the fire doors chained shut, which is blatantly illegal for this very reason, and the bouncers initially wouldn't let anyone out through the stage door.

There is video out there on Live Leak if you dare to search for it. It's horrible.

 

[PeterRoss]

So, a fire broke out a few days ago at a metal concert (the ceiling caught fire and proceeded to rain down on the crowd) ...

We've had the same exact situation in 2009 in one of Perm's nightclubs. 156 people died.

 

[Frilock]

Its really hard to imagine something like this happening these days. Then again I've said the same thing about Costa Concordia.

 

[steph]

We've had the same exact situation in 2009 in one of Perm's nightclubs. 156 people died.

So we got off easy, "only" 31 dead and over a hundred injured. It really was like the Station fire. Stage pirotechnics (I think it was the exact same spark-shower kind) ignited the flammable insulation, and from there on , stuff happened really fast. As in, within minutes, the fire was already just a smoldering mass because it consumed all the oxygen. Severeal people died because they hid in the bathroom and got asphyxiated. (I'd probably do the same thing myself, especially if slightly hammered. Bathrooms seem fireproof).

And of course, there was only one exit (the emergency one was shut, they had to bust through the door). Further complicating it , apparently the fire looked so metal in the first few seconds that many people thought it was part of the show. And, as the liveleak video of the Stationfire shows, things go downhill literally in less than a minute. The band had no stage exit, so they were among the last ones to come out. Both guitarists died. Some of the other victims were people who went back in to help others escape.

Nasty stuff, anyways....

 

[Urwumpe]

Smoke on the water... fire in the sky...

 

[n122vu]

Movie Idea

Ok, so we start with our hero stranded on another planet (I’m going to strongly suggest to the Casting department we try to get Matt Damon).

A team of scientists, soldiers, and astronauts is sent up to rescue him. Here’s the proposed supporting cast that should make up this team:

Val Kilmer
Gary Sinise
Sam Neill
Gene Hackman
Bruce Willis
Will Smith
Steve Buscemi
Robert Duvall
Tom Hanks
Kurt Russell
Richard Dean Anderson
and of course Jeff Goldblum (for when the ship/rover/lander MUST go faster)

If Matt Damon is unavailable, Tom Cruise would be the only other obvious choice. He could make this star-studded cast an effective team…

 

[APDAF]

Needs Michael Dorn... for pure badassery

 

[Frilock]

No Ed Harris?

 

[n122vu]

I forgot Owen Wilson as well (easy to do since he’s on my least-favorite-actors list).

His purpose? See something awesome and say, “Wooowwwww!” perhaps just before getting fatally struck by a meteorite or something.

Great suggestions! Here's the revised list:

Val Kilmer
Gary Sinise
Michael Dorn
Ed Harris (Failure to include him is not an option!)
Owen Wilson (Wowwwww!)
Sam Neill
Gene Hackman
Bruce Willis
Will Smith
Steve Buscemi
Robert Duvall
Tom Hanks
Kurt Russell
Richard Dean Anderson
and of course Jeff Goldblum (for when the ship/rover/lander MUST go faster)

 

[Urwumpe]

And Ed Harris for mission control?

 

[indy91]

With that lineup the movie can only be called: The Indispensables :lol:

 

[Frilock]

Should probably throw some Michael Biehn in there too.