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Delta flight hit by firework while landing at Midway Airport on Fourth of July

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Re: Delta flight hit by firework while landing at Midway Airport on Fourth of July

#31

Am I the only one who thinks the risks are worth the reward? People are celebrating, kids are having fun. Yes a few people blow their hands off, but are we going to remove everything, one by one, in the name of safety?

Come on, it’s not a choice between complete anarchy and complete restriction.

It is very, very fair for society to be like “hm I think X activity is easy to abuse in a way that hurts innocent bystanders,” and then limits the activity to people with licenses and training or things like that.

Like no, it’s totally not cool to give a free pass to people who are putting other people’s lives and homes at risk. How would you feel if your house burned down because your neighbor did something stupid?

I don’t care if it’s just your own life at risk. But you’re essentially saying that people should be free to play around with explosive devices in dense city neighborhoods. Fuck no, it’s fucking concerning to have an explosion rattle your windows. The people most likely to do this shit in the streets have no clue what they’re doing.

Re: Delta flight hit by firework while landing at Midway Airport on Fourth of July

#32

They really should be controlled a lot more - a nearby house was hit by some sort of Roman candle thing and completely burned down the other night. There was at least a lot less "illegal fireworks" when people had the drive two states away to buy them.

Yeah not sure why that changed, when I was a kid you could only get sparklers and small stuff that stayed on the ground. Today I could get everything for a near-professional show if I wanted to spend the money.

> Today I could get everything for a near-professional show if I wanted to spend the money.

Not unless you're purchasing on the black market or (illegally) manufacturing it yourself.† The professional stuff is substantially larger than anything sold on the consumer market.

† Which is surprisingly trivial to do BTW but please be extremely cautious and very thoroughly master the underlying theory if you decide to go that route.

Re: Delta flight hit by firework while landing at Midway Airport on Fourth of July

#33
post #22

Off topic but I went to a local town’s medium-sized professional fireworks show this weekend and there were none of those small flash really loud fireworks that shake you to the core. Not even in the grand finale. Oddly they are what I enjoy most. Have they gone out of fashion or do they mess too much with pets?

I miss those too. I remember as a kid one display that shot a bunch of really bright white flare-like fireworks that were blinding and hung in the sky followed by dozens of those small but loud ones and it was memorable.

Re: Delta flight hit by firework while landing at Midway Airport on Fourth of July

#34

Fun fact: “Midway” is also the name of an American manufacturer of video and pinball games, and a Pacific theater of war in World War II, the most important victory in US Naval history. (The airport took this name in July 1949, according to the English Wikipedia.) https://web.archive.org/web/20080414001228if_/http://www.fly... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Cup_Soccer_(pinball) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_…

Midway's most famous and controversial game is, without a doubt, Mortal Kombat.

Re: Delta flight hit by firework while landing at Midway Airport on Fourth of July

#35
post #3

I loved playing with fireworks as a kid, and surprisingly have all appendages and senses intact, I even considered pyro as a job - so I definitely get the appeal. I just think it's time that we left it to the professionals. Unless you are engaging in science or physics, I don't see the value in letting them off yourself. ~~It's also weird that America's birthday is celebrated using a Chinese invention.~~ Edit: bad po…

Fell free to leave it to the professionals then. That has always been your right.

Re: Delta flight hit by firework while landing at Midway Airport on Fourth of July

#36
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I concur, this would be good for developing cheap drone warfare capabilities. I mean, I love loud explosions and the sound of freedom because I'm not a wuss, but we need to get our drone game on China's level.

Get the drone show up and open it up to amateurs trying to shoot down the drone show for maximum adversarial drone warfare preparedness!

Re: Delta flight hit by firework while landing at Midway Airport on Fourth of July

#37
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s such a strange thing to say. Should we only use things invented in the last 300 years on the 4th of July?

Now I wonder who invented wheat, or sugar (used to make cake)? Also hotdogs are made with Wiener sausages, which are from...

Austria! nothing bad came from Austria

Re: Delta flight hit by firework while landing at Midway Airport on Fourth of July

#38

Am I the only one who thinks the risks are worth the reward? People are celebrating, kids are having fun. Yes a few people blow their hands off, but are we going to remove everything, one by one, in the name of safety?

You're not the only one. There are few things I hate more than safetyists.

Re: Delta flight hit by firework while landing at Midway Airport on Fourth of July

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah not sure why that changed, when I was a kid you could only get sparklers and small stuff that stayed on the ground. Today I could get everything for a near-professional show if I wanted to spend the money.

> Today I could get everything for a near-professional show if I wanted to spend the money. Not unless you're purchasing on the black market or (illegally) manufacturing it yourself.† The professional stuff is substantially larger than anything sold on the consumer market. † Which is surprisingly trivial to do BTW but please be extremely cautious and very thoroughly master the underlying theory if you decide to go th…

I'm not sure if being homemade was the reason, but I just heard about a medflight for somebody hit by a homemade firework.

I say this as somebody with a book on how to make them, but I've always been a bit too scared to try.

Re: Delta flight hit by firework while landing at Midway Airport on Fourth of July

#40

They really should be controlled a lot more - a nearby house was hit by some sort of Roman candle thing and completely burned down the other night. There was at least a lot less "illegal fireworks" when people had the drive two states away to buy them.

Yeah not sure why that changed, when I was a kid you could only get sparklers and small stuff that stayed on the ground. Today I could get everything for a near-professional show if I wanted to spend the money.

Did you move? There are huge differences between states in what’s available, all the way from “just sparklers and other tiny stuff that doesn’t fly” up to “anything that doesn’t require an explosives license”, and within states areas near cities often restrict fireworks sales.
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