Did you know...........

[Mandelon]

Post your semi-useful information here:
Here's my contribution..
Did you know that in a head-on crash where you're going 35 mph, a one-pound can of beans in the back seat continues at that speed until it strikes someone or something with 100 pounds of force? That's more than enough to fracture your skull. A can of beans going 35 mph has the same impact as if it were dropped from 41 feet high, or roughly a 4-story building.
Y'all watch out for them flying beans! eek!
[ February 22, 2003, 11:52 PM: Message edited by: Mandelon ]

[JetBoatRich]

What would a bottle of beer do to you?

[Mandelon]

I could think of some bad things.......

[Laveyman]

Newton's 1st Law of Motion
Objects in motion tend to stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside source.
What Mandelon says is true. I'm a traffic collision reconstructionist, and have seen some seriously crazy & bizzare chit at crashes. Here's something to ponder for ya:
Seatbelts 101
In every collision there are actually at least THREE collisions that take place. Say you're crusing along at 50 MPH with your head up your a$$. You drift off the road and run smack into a solid concrete wall. (Collision #1 - Car vs. solid object)
Cuz you're not wearing your seatbelt, you get thrown forward into the steering wheel and dash. (Collision #2 - Body vs. car) Keeping in mind Mr. Newton's 1st Law of Motion, how fast is your body travelling when you hit the dashboard??? Yep...50 MPH. Believe it or not, this is not what kills you though!
Okay, at this point your skin and bones have come to an abrupt stop, but your internal organs are still moving along at...YEP, 50 MPH!!! So they all keep moving forward at 50 MPH until they are stopped by your skeletal structure. (Collision #3 - You're guts and brain vs. your bones) This is the one that does ya in. It's like throwing a ripe tomato at a brick wall, the end result being a big ol' SPLAT!!!
What does all of this physics crap have to do with wearing a seatbelt??? Seatbelts are designed to stretch as your body is thrown forward. This stretching gradually slows down your body and organs instead of the sudden stop and resulting SPLAT.
Airbags do basically the same thing as seatbelts. For this reason, many people say they don't wear their seatbelt because they have an airbag to do the same thing. In theory this is true, BUT...This is only true in a straight-on collision. If you do not hit something exactly straight head on, your body will travel to the left or right, missing the airbag all together. (See SPLAT above) The seatbelt will keep you from flying from side to side, missing the airbag.
This ends our class for today. There will be a test on this material next week! :D
Sista Mary Elephant

[JetBoatRich]

Thanks Sister (Sat.Night Live) and the lesson here is to always wear your seat belt :D

[Mandelon]

A CHP cop told me this story about a plumber who had some 1/2" pipe inside his van. He stopped suddenly after coming up on some traffic. The pipe slid forward, I guess he had it stored in a rack behind his head........Punched a nickel sized hole in the back of his head! eek!

[1Bahnerjet]

Isn't it Newtons 1st law of Motion what makes Jet Drive Work? :cool:
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Drive what you own and like what you Drive

[beyondhelpin]

Must be a boring day.

[Mandelon]

Wouldn't that be Berkeley's Law of Squirtiness??

[Moomawnster]

It has always bothered me that automobile drivers don't wear helmets ...... If you want to be "safe" , wear a 5 pt harness and a helmet in a roll cage ,anything else is a half assed compromise designed to placate lawyers and insurance companys, NOT protect the driver ...
...... but God forbid somebody messes up their hair ! eek!

[1Bahnerjet]

Hey your on to something, Helmets would be a good place to hide cell phones, no one would know your yaking on the phone instead of watching the road ahead of you! :rolleyes: eek! :rolleyes: eek!
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Drive what you own and like what you Drive

[DEEZ NUTTS]

Useful, maybe-
Stock up on those single packets of soy sauce from wherever. When your target sets his fountain drink down and walks away grab it. Cut the corner of soy pack off so the opening will be a tight fit on the straw. Squeeze the straw to taper and stick it in. Submerge packet with straw back in drink and put lid on. This works awesome, some will even puke.
Other condiments work too, but nothing to thick or chunky.

[Jordy]

That's a useful tip... :confused:

[DEEZ NUTTS]

Jordan, you just never know when info like that can come in handy.

[Jordy]

I'll definately keep it in mind. :D

[Jbb]

JUST A QUESTION OF STANDARDS
Does the statement, "We've always done it that way" ring any bells...? Did you know that a major design feature of the Space Shuttle was determined by the width of a horse over 2,000 years ago!!!!! The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used?
Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the US Railroads. Why did the English build them like that?
Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used. Why did "they" use that gauge then?
Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing. Okay! Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing?
Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.
So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England) for their legions. The roads have been used ever since. And the ruts in the roads?
Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.
The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. And bureaucracies live forever.
So the next time you are handed a spec and told we have always done it that way and wonder what horse's ass came up with that, you may be exactly right, because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses.
Now the twist to the story...
When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.
So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a Horse's ass.
And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important??

[Jbb]

Mechanics Dictionary...
HAMMER
Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate expensive parts not far from the object we are trying to hit.
MECHANIC'S KNIFE
Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on boxes containing seats and motorcycle jackets.
ELECTRIC HAND DRILL
Normally used for spinning steel Pop rivets in their holes until you die of old age, but it also works great for drilling mounting holes in mudguards just above the brake line that goes to the rear wheel.
PLIERS
Used to round off bolt heads.
HACKSAW
One of a family of cutting tools built on the original sin principle. It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.
VISE-GRIPS
Used to round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.
OXYACETYLENE TORCH
Used almost entirely for setting various flammable objects in your garage on fire. Also handy for igniting the grease inside a brake drum you're trying to get the bearing race out of.
WHITWORTH SOCKETS
Once used for working on older British cars and motorcycles, they are now used mainly for impersonating that metric socket you've been searching for the last 15 minutes.
DRILL PRESS
A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your coffee across the room, splattering it against that freshly painted part you were drying.
WIRE WHEEL
Cleans rust off old bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprint whorls and hard-earned guitar calluses in about the time it takes you to say, "Ouc...."
HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK
Used for lowering a motorcycle to the ground after you have installed your new front disk brake setup, trapping the jack handle firmly under the front mudguard.
EIGHT-FOOT LONG DOUGLAS FIR 2X4
Used for levering a motorcycle upward off a hydraulic jack.
TWEEZERS
A tool for removing wood splinters.
PHONE
Tool for calling your neighbour to see if he has another hydraulic floor jack.
SNAP-ON GASKET SCRAPER
Theoretically useful as a sandwich tool for spreading mayonnaise; used mainly for getting dog-doo off your boot.
E-Z OUT BOLT AND STUD EXTRACTOR
A tool that snaps off in bolt holes and is ten times harder than any known drill bit.
TIMING LIGHT
A stroboscopic instrument for illuminating grease build-up.
TWO-TON HYDRAULIC ENGINE HOIST
A handy tool for testing the tensile strength of ground straps and brake lines you may have forgotten to disconnect.
CRAFTSMAN ½ x 16-INCH SCREWDRIVER
A large motor mount prying tool that inexplicably has an accurately machined screwdriver tip on the end without the handle.
BATTERY ELECTROLYTE TESTER
A handy tool for transferring sulphuric acid from a car battery to the inside of your toolbox after determining that your battery is dead as a doornail, just as you thought.
AVIATION METAL SNIPS
See hacksaw.
TROUBLE LIGHT
The mechanic's own tanning booth. Sometimes called a drop light, it is a good source of vitamin D, "the sunshine vitamin," which is not otherwise found under motorcycles at night. Health benefits aside, it's main purpose is to consume 40-watt light bulbs at about the same rate that 105-mm howitzer shells might be used during, say, the first few hours of the Battle of the Bulge. More often dark than light, its name is somewhat misleading.
PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER
Normally used to stab the lids of old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splash oil on your shirt; can also be used, as the name implies, to round off Phillips screw heads.
AIR COMPRESSOR
A machine that takes energy produced in a coal-burning power plant 200 miles away and transforms it into compressed air that travels by hose to a Chicago Pneumatic impact wrench that grips rusty bolts last tightened 40 years ago by someone in Sindelfingen, and rounds them off.
PRY BAR
A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or bracket you needed to remove in order to replace a 50 cent part.
HOSE CUTTER
A tool used to cut hoses ½ inch too short.

[MANIC MECHANIC]

Here's something truly useless. Say you were in a space ship outside the earth's gravitational field. There is air in the ship, the only thing missing is gravity. If you light a candle, will it continue to burn? No. The reason being that in the presence of gravity,because hot air is less dense (lighter)than cool air, a flame travels upwards carrying the carbon dioxide away from the flame and drawing in fresh oxygen. In the absence of gravity this doesn't happen, instead the flame travels out in all directions like a bubble, smothering itself in its own-self created pocket of carbon dioxide. Tim smile_sp

[JetBoatRich]

M.M. I did not know that :rolleyes:

[Jordy]

Guess I won't be lighting any candles next time I'm in space... dammit, there goes the ambiance. :D