i was in a lab at college when an EE major friend of mine accidentally shorted 36v from three very very large high capacity 12v electric car batteries (this was in the late 90s, they weighed about 50lbs each) to the frame of a ground rover robot. It instantly welded the vice grips to the frame and then after about 3 seconds both ends of the vice grips blew off breaking the circuit. i hate dealing with electricity.
‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)
301–310 of 474 posts
Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)
#302Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess in the scheme of "things that happen in a college town," being invited to another party from a public bar with people you just met there doesn't seem like a particularly unusual thing to take part in either. It being a college town, and stemming from a bar, does seem like it may have aided in the inappropriate response from the police, unfortunately. I wonder how many college kids end up in a similar situatio…
That's the other side - when describing the situation to the incredulous officers my take was (essentially) "The beginning of this scenario likely happens multiple times every single day in this city and it's not about drugs or other criminality". It's a fairly standard situation by college town standards, not some fantastical story or some other scenario that screams "a bad guy ripped off another bad guy". At one po…
Ouch, in a national chain, potential video, potential payment trail... it's too bad that (in my admittedly limited experience), these sorts of things are almost never pursued, because to your point - there's no disincentive to the perpetrators to stop.
Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)
#303A lot of folks don't appreciate how quickly normal can turn into dangerous in the wilderness. Because most of the time, it's all so tame. With our specialized gear and tech, there's not much threat ... most of the time. I've been on mountain peaks on nice summer days when storms appear as out of nowhere (not the typical afternoon rains), and there's lightning, high winds, and 50ºF temperature swings. In that kind of…
Just read this article and I love how they called the Grand Canyon, the inverted mountain. I hiked down into it a few years ago. I feel like I'm a well-prepared person. On less than a day mountain hikes, I always bring about 1500 calories worth of bars, 2.5L of water, a flashlight, multitool, and something warm if it's cold. It adds a bit of weight but I feel at ease with some backup tools. I made my way down to the…
Wow, I already have kind of a habit of bringing some of my water in a hard-sided bottle, but I think it'll be a policy now.
Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)
#304One time, I was driving at night in the Sierra after a storm - roads were covered in snow. It's a drive I've made close to 100 times without incident. Going around a bend, I saw a car in the ditch on the outside of the curve. I stopped the car, put on the hazards, and went to see if there was anyone in the car. As I was about to cross the highway a car come sliding around the bend more or less sideways. I stopped and…
One thing I learned from reading some stuff on an electician forum years ago is that the actual ground is really not that attractive to household electricity, mostly just to lightning. I recall them mentioning a video of, IIRC, someone connecting a 15A circuit to a metal stake driven several feet into the ground without the circuit breaking. This is also why things like stray voltage shocking cows can happen. I'm gue…
> the actual ground is really not that attractive to household electricity, mostly just to lightning
I assume that's because it doesn't form a complete circuit with the electrical substation your power is coming from -- though some power is delivered, perhaps does due to capacitance between the ground and the distribution lines.
Note it would be completely different if your power service used single-wire earth return (SWER)[0].
Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)
#305A lot of folks don't appreciate how quickly normal can turn into dangerous in the wilderness. Because most of the time, it's all so tame. With our specialized gear and tech, there's not much threat ... most of the time. I've been on mountain peaks on nice summer days when storms appear as out of nowhere (not the typical afternoon rains), and there's lightning, high winds, and 50ºF temperature swings. In that kind of…
Just read this article and I love how they called the Grand Canyon, the inverted mountain. I hiked down into it a few years ago. I feel like I'm a well-prepared person. On less than a day mountain hikes, I always bring about 1500 calories worth of bars, 2.5L of water, a flashlight, multitool, and something warm if it's cold. It adds a bit of weight but I feel at ease with some backup tools. I made my way down to the…
I did the rim-to-rim hike in 2018, from the North Rim to the South. The Grand Canyon is set up to kill the overconfident. On a normal "mountain" hike, the hard part is at the beginning. If you have any problems you just turn around, and it becomes all downhill. Once you get to the top, all the hard stuff is done. If you screwed up your water/food intake, it doesn't matter too much.
At the Grand Canyon, the first half is the easy one. It lulls you into thinking you are doing great. It's nice and cool and downhill. Once you get to the bottom, the real work begins. It's 100 degrees with no shade, and any slight problem on the way down it going to be heavily magnified on the way up. If you didn't hydrate or eat on the way down because it felt so easy, you're in trouble once you hit the bottom.
Back to the original subject - there were signs telling people to look out for someone who had fallen off a boat tour in the Colorado River a few days prior. There was also a pair of hikers who had either taken a wrong turn, or had taken a scenic route near the bottom. All three died.
Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
They were employees of the park, not random visitors.
How many do you think there were? And what do you think is a chance for a single park employee to die during a given summer? To me, this still doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
Maybe the ranger was talking about all the workers at the park? Looking at the NPS site, the park seems to have 9 hotels most with restaurants. So I'd guess there's probably maybe 1000 seasonal service workers in the park. 1 death out of 1000 seems plausible.
Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)
#307One time, I was driving at night in the Sierra after a storm - roads were covered in snow. It's a drive I've made close to 100 times without incident. Going around a bend, I saw a car in the ditch on the outside of the curve. I stopped the car, put on the hazards, and went to see if there was anyone in the car. As I was about to cross the highway a car come sliding around the bend more or less sideways. I stopped and…
I touched something with a live current in it once as a child. I was like "huh, that feels kinda weird" and then let go after a second. Only later did I realize how lucky I was that it wasn't lethal! It was in a 220v country even (not that I understand how much that actually affects the chances of causing harm, but still).
Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)
#308Some tips on where to begin to learn more about nature and survive in the wild? Maybe an REI class? I'm a little embarrassed to admit that should I ever venture out into the wilderness, I would definitely not survive. I lack basic survival skills and nature would eat me alive. That being said, I always admired folks who could go camping for days (or weeks), who could cook up a warm (and edible) meal over a campfire.
A lot is just experience, and others have given great advice on getting started. I want to add a few rules, in no particular order, that I find valuable. Some of the rules are slightly overkill for basic drive-in camping, but they're worth following anyway. - If you go hiking, take a small backpack. It should have an extra layer of clothing, some snacks, and water, at minimum. - Never eat anything unless you are 100%…
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Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)
#309Earlier quoted context omitted.
Acquaintance did some suburban kayaking and didn't see a 3ft drop (some kind of dam or culvert under a bridge) until too late. The fluid mechanics of that drop are such that there is a vortex at the base that makes it difficult to get out. He was able to stand but just barely - scary to think how close a call that was in a pretty innocuous looking setting.
I almost drowned on a beach without surveillance, jumping into the surf waist high, for fun, until suddenly the receding water pulled me just a few meters further away and now I couldn't touch the floor anymore, and was slowly being pulled further and further away from the beach. My girlfriend of the time was on the beach far enough away that she couldn't hear or grasp that I was struggling. By luck and after perhaps…
I used to live on a popular surfing beach in Australia. Every day people would see the surfers and think it was a good place to swim and get into trouble (In general, if you see surfers then it's a bad place to swim). Always swim near the lifeguard's tower and pay attention to the flags
Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)
#310Earlier quoted context omitted.
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I guess you are mocking my near death experience? You must be a wonderful person. Allow me to even further your disbelief. Nearly the same thing happened to me again years later. Except the second time was a motorcycle. I narrowly sidestepped a motorcycle on a mountain road that had taken the turn too fast while I was looking over a marked "scenic viewpoint". The driver in this case though I do not know if they lived…
Although I think you're right that they're mocking the OP, something similar saved my friend from serious injury/death.
He saw a car barreling towards him as he was walking on the street, instinctually jumped up, rolled over the windshield and roof and landed safely, albeit not on his feet.