Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

When Oregon blew up a whale with 20 cases of dynamite (2024)

katu.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 71 posts

Re: When Oregon blew up a whale with 20 cases of dynamite (2024)

#21

Post by quanto »

potato3732842 wrote: post #14
kylehotchkiss wrote: post #7

I love the list of half considered excuses considered before landing on dynamite. They just wanted to use dynamite.

In the early 70s it was common to use dynamite for all manner of stuff like this. I'm not gonna say it would have been routine at a small county highway department but in some lines of work it absolutely would have been. It wasn't cheap but it was cheap enough that a typical rural land owner would rather just dynamite stumps or boulders rather than tackle them with any machine small enough that you'd have to dig out…

Your last quip fascinates me. Do you price options such? How is the pricing different under different methods?

Re: When Oregon blew up a whale with 20 cases of dynamite (2024)

#23

Post by noneeeed »

cjs_ac wrote: post #20

> "So I'm all excited, and I went over to my dad: 'They're going to blow it up, 20 cases of dynamite,' and my father proceeded to say, 'I think you misheard them. I think he said 20 sticks,"' Umenhofer recalled in 2015. "And I said, 'No he said 20 cases.'" > It was indeed 20 cases of dynamite. Reminiscent of this letter by Evelyn Waugh to his wife during the Second World War: > Darling... > So No. 3 Cmdo were very an…

That reads like the script from a sitcom. Amazing.

Re: When Oregon blew up a whale with 20 cases of dynamite (2024)

#24

Post by mschuster91 »

kylehotchkiss wrote: post #7

I love the list of half considered excuses considered before landing on dynamite. They just wanted to use dynamite.

> They just wanted to use dynamite.

It's not uncommon to break up large cadavers so they can be eaten by scavenger animals before the rot causes olfactory issues or poses actual health risk.

In Austria for example, cattle which died on the alpine pastures (about 20 a year) was usually blown up to allow scavenger animals to quickly dispose of the remains as that was way cheaper than hauling the carcasses off with helicopters [1], but after some outrage in 2001, eventually the government decided in 2004 that the practice would now be banned, in exchange the government took over the helicopter transport bills.

[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprengung_verendeter_Rinder

Re: When Oregon blew up a whale with 20 cases of dynamite (2024)

#25

Post by jounker »

jlmorton wrote: post #5

The blown up whale in Oregon is sort of like the SR-71 speed readout story. Reposted endlessly, but you just kind of accept it.

There’s film of the whale being blown up. The best part is the sound of whale meat falling from the sky.

Re: When Oregon blew up a whale with 20 cases of dynamite (2024)

#26

Post by solardev »

Reminds me of when one exploded on a busy street in Taiwan, scattering blood and guts everywhere and leaving a horrendous odor for days/weeks: https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna4096586

> The 56-foot-long whale had been on a truck headed for a necropsy by researchers, when gases from internal decay caused its entrails to explode in the southern city of Tainan.

> Residents and shop owners wore masks while trying to clean up the spilt blood and entrails.

> "What a stinking mess. This blood and other stuff that blew out on the road is disgusting, and the smell is really awful," a BBC News report quoted one Tainan resident as saying.

Re: When Oregon blew up a whale with 20 cases of dynamite (2024)

#27

Post by pfdietz »

gp2000 wrote: post #10

I first heard of this in humorist Dave Barry's column. His description is worth a read. https://www.theexplodingwhale.com/evidence/resources/dave-ba...

"I am probably not guilty of understatement when I say that what follows, on the videotape, is the most wonderful event in the history of the universe."

Re: When Oregon blew up a whale with 20 cases of dynamite (2024)

#29

Post by rsynnott »

noneeeed wrote: post #23
cjs_ac wrote: post #20

> "So I'm all excited, and I went over to my dad: 'They're going to blow it up, 20 cases of dynamite,' and my father proceeded to say, 'I think you misheard them. I think he said 20 sticks,"' Umenhofer recalled in 2015. "And I said, 'No he said 20 cases.'" > It was indeed 20 cases of dynamite. Reminiscent of this letter by Evelyn Waugh to his wife during the Second World War: > Darling... > So No. 3 Cmdo were very an…

That reads like the script from a sitcom. Amazing.

I mean, Waugh was a comic writer; if he was still around he probably _would_ be writing sitcoms. I don’t entirely buy his claims of truth here.
Post reply on HN