Who knew FedEx and UPS planes crashed so often? (Blame the intronetz for making this too easy to discover.)

• UPS plane catches on fire, lands in Philadelphia (2006). Apparently the source of the fire remains a mystery, as with a few other UPS fires.
• FedEx planes have crashed and burned in Tallahassee (2002) and Memphis (2006). In 1994 a fired FedEx pilot attempted to murder flight crew with hammer and hijack the plane. Amazingly, they landed safely.
• A DHL plane struck a passenger plane in mid-air. Both planes were lost in the tragedy, though some think the passenger liner was shot down. Investigators blamed the air traffic controller, a Russian man killed the controller and is now in prison for the act.
• Small planes are problematic too. Contract flyers have crashed into the sea, and onto houses. Some even carry vials of herpes and influenza virii for research, and some apparently get struck in mid air by UFOs.

This is what I get for not following Gizmodo faithfully: flaming industrial art.

They introduced it saying “Do you enjoy fire? Do you also enjoy very intricate Rube Goldberg machines? Of course you do.” Though a reader there exclaims:

It didn’t do anything. For it to be a true Rube Goldberg doesn’t it have to accomplish some task, like cracking an egg or pouring a glass of milk or something? Neat to watch, but make it do something!

Something, presumably, other than just fascinate the pyros. …Which is what brings us to the dump truck smashup video:

Not that the dump truck actually accomplishes anything either, just that it looks cool.

(Note: the real connection here is that Cliffy introduced that video with “Everyone loves the idea of smashing fast-moving things into hard objects,” but got quickly shot down by somebody saying only guys like crashes, flames, and explosions.)

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I described it to Jessamyn in an IM last night:

lights flickering here,
sirened vehicles passing frequently,
smell of smoke hangs in air outside

The Globe reported it this way:

WARREN, N.H. — A sawmill went up in flames during the night in Warren (New Hampshire).

Fire officials say they may never know what started the flames at the K.E. Whitcher mill around ten o’clock last night. The three-alarm fire quickly engulfed the building.

No one was hurt as firefighters from 13 communities battled the flames, but the mill is a total loss and the fire chief says there is so much burned rubble, they may never figure out how the fire started.

He said it’s not considered suspicious. [link added]

burn, burned, fire, mill, sawmill, warren, Whitcher

A comment from TroublePup alerted me that the Principality of Sealand burned Friday.

The Evening Star explained:

Witnesses watched in amazement as a huge plume of smoke started to rise from one of the legs of Sealand — and boats raced to the scene.

Seafront worker Bruce Harrison said: “It was quite spectacular. The amount of smoke was huge and people kept saying there must have been an explosion.

Flickr user amarkfell caught the scene on camera, while Evening Star Felixstowe editor Richard Cornwell watched the events unfold from the clifftops in Hamilton Gardens:

”At first there was not much smoke at all, but it quickly grew into a huge thick black plume which then drifted northwards for several miles.“

”…it was definitely Sealand [...we] could see flames shooting out of the left-hand pillar of the fort.“

An update to the story from late Saturday night included an official response from Sealand’s Royal Family. Michael Bates, son of Sealand’s Prince and Princess Roy and June Bates, ”pledged to rebuild its ‘country’ — and to repair all the damage caused by the fire which devastated half of the independent kingdom.“

The fire apparently started in the generator room in one of the former gun platform’s 70-foot legs. One resident, a crewman for (what remains of) HavenCo, suffered injuries due to smoke inhalation.

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Who wouldn’t like to play with The Crucible’s “fire truck”?

What’s “The Crucible”?

[it's] an arts education center that fosters a collaboration of arts, industry and community. Through training in the fine and industrial arts, The Crucible promotes creative expression, reuse of materials and innovative design while serving as an accessible arts venue for the public.

You can see the truck at the Make Magazine Maker Faire later this month, and in July at the Crubible’s Fire Arts Festival.

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A friend of mine jokes that every conversation in Warren revolves around heat. But, it wouldn’t be funny if it wasn’t at least a little bit true. As it turns out, most of the rest of the country is talking about heat too.

Pellet stoves have been all the rage this fall. I feel lucky to have gotten one before the rush, but I’m also a little dismayed about the selection. Why (as usual) do Europeans get good looking pellet stoves like this, but no American manufacturer can do anything that looks like it was designed in the past two centuries.

But I shouldn’t complain. At least I got the pellet fuel I need, others may not be so lucky. New York state’s Consumer Protection Board issued a press release asking retailers to ration supplies to three tons per household., but an AP report quotes a retailer saying “there is not a shortage of pellets, there is a shortage of pellets getting to us in a timely fashion.”

And all of that makes for good conversation in Warren.

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