fire

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.

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.)

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.