Wikipedia's list of explosions seems to omit Philadelphia's 1956 flour mill explosion that injured 100 and killed 3. Classes were cancelled at nearby Drexel University where 25 students were injured when the windows blew out.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1956/03/30/94288456.html?pageNumber=9
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
Helen also told me the following refinery story which I have not verified: The refinery had dug out some big caverns in the limestone underneath, for hydrocarbon storage. Limestone is porous, but pressure from the surrounding water table meant that nothing would flow out of the caverns; rather water would infiltrate and the refinery would pump it out every so often.
Except one day someone let one of the caverns get too full. The outpressure from the stored hydrocarbons exceeded the inpressure from the water, and the hydrocarbons migrated through the porous rock into the water table.
Then some hapless soul in South Philadelphia turned on their gas range and blew up their house and four others.
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
"One of the people I talked to" in that previous post was Helen Anderson, who told me hair-raising stories of having worked at the Sun Oil refinery in South Philadelphia. Once she was inspecting a gasometer, which is a pillbox-shaped storage bunker for hydrocarbons, the size of a large building. As she came up over the top of the curved roof, what did she see on the other side of the roof but a refinery worker SMOKING A CIGARETTE.
Smoking anywhere on the refinery grounds (never mind on top of the fucking gasometer) was cause for instant dismissal. When the guy saw Helen appear on the roof, he tried to save his job by swallowing the cigarette.
It didn't work.
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
Oddly, one way in which Philadelphia is different from most other big cities is that it has not ever had a really big fire. New York, for example, had catastrophic fires in 1776, 1835, and 1845.
I've heard this attributed to Philadelphia having had good urban design and fire codes in the early days. Attached houses in Philadelphia always have thick stone or brick walls in between that prevent fires from spreading as quickly.
Also the Philadelphia fire department was established earlier than most other U.S. cities'. It was started in 1736, by a smart, civic-minded young fellow named (checks notes) Franklin.
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
When I first interviewed for a job at Penn in 1990, one of the people I talked to asked me if I was sure I wanted to move to Philadelphia. "Philadelphia," they said, "is a city with big problems."
"I'm from New York," I said. "I don't think Philadelphia has any problems that New York doesn't also have." I was thinking of poverty, crime, racism, pollution, all the problems that big cities have. But I hadn't heard about MOVE, which really was one-of-a-kind.
"Hmmmm," they said.
(I would have come here even if I had known.)
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
I think the MOVE disaster is very unusual in that it doesn't fit well into any of these categories.
In 1985 Philadelphia police bombed a dwelling inhabited by the MOVE group. A gas tank on the roof caught fire. The police let the fire burn so that they could drop tear gas through the destroyed roof int the upper floors. Firefighters were then unable to control the fire. Six adults and five children died in the fire, although some accounts say that some of them were shot by police while trying to flee the building. 61 other nearby dwellings burned down.
Wikipedia has it on the "List of town and city fires" but I feel that doesn't really do justice to the sequence of events. Some town fires are caused by a cow kicking over a lantern or whatever.
Maybe there should be a separate entry for "List of giant fucking clusterfucks where malice, incompetence, and insanity made everyone else as miserable as possible." Maybe they could put the first World War on that list.
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
“Trump’s greatest talent is getting his enemies to shout themselves hoarse about some outrageous Scandal Of The Week while he pushes his real agenda through, which both diffuses effort and exhausts people. Constant outrage didn’t work in 2016 and it’s not going to work now with even fewer resources. We must concentrate our limited energy on the things that matter most and leave the rest for later.”
https://www.bannedinyourstate.com/p/dunkirk
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
Here's something that makes me happy. In Elizabeth, NJ, near exit 13A on the NJ Turnpike is a mall with an IKEA. The name of the mall is "Elizabeth Center". The sign styles this as
El13Abeth Center
Someone was having fun and it's the same kind of fun I like to have.
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
“This is not a story of the kind of resistance that groundswells and overthrows the tyrants. The Medici stayed in power until the family died out, they were never overthrown. But they were kept in check. A line the conqueror doesn’t dare cross is a powerful line, that protects much behind it.… Partial victory is powerful.”
https://wandering.shop/@adapalmer/113862590047862952
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
Today I learned that Nivek Ogre, supposedly influenced in his early work by The Archies, recorded a song called "Fascist Jock Itch". Now I would like very much to hear the original Archies version.
The song title is pretty good, but does not quite approach the standard set by John Zorn's "Perfume of a Critic's Burning Flesh".
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
For an interesting converse example, consider Mike Tyson, whose pigeon-fancying is well-documented. So you really do have to check up on this stuff, the world is an odd and complicated place.
Interviewer: You mentioned ... your first fight was with a bigger kid over his mistreatment of one of your birds.
Mike Tyson: Gary Flowers. Got one of my birds and [Wrings his hands and yanks]. Asshole.
http://www.details.com/culture-trends/news-and-politics/201008/interview-boxing-mike-tyson
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1834670/
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
I originally wrote "Sir Brian Eno" in that post but it appears that Eno has not yet been knighted! He is not even Brian Eno MBE! How is this possible?
Get on the stick, Charlie!
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
The apparent vandalism was that "His subsequent musical stylings were informed by the likes of [[The Archies]]". "His" here refers to Nivek Ogre, known for his work with Skinny Puppy, Revolting Cocks, and Pigface.
Sometimes these things turn out to be strange-but-true. Rod Stewart really is super into model trains! But a while back I deleted WIkipedia's claim that Brian Eno was a "pigeon fancier".
I wish I had been able to verify that Nivek Ogre had been influenced by the Archies, but it wasn't in the cited source.
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
I corrected what appeared to be unverifiable vandalism on a Wikipedia article, then checked out the contributions of the user who had added it, to find out if this was something they might have done more of.
I saw this and said "Oh no, what did I just step in?"
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
(The podcast itself can be visited at https://hpafter2020.com/ , should you be interested in such things.)
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
Wife: Can you take Ms. 16 to her appointment on Monday?
Me: I guess, but I took her last time. Why can't you do it?
Wife: In our podcast [discussing every chapter of every Harry Potter book in order, one per episode] we have just gotten up to the chapter at the end of "Goblet of Fire" in which Voldemort is reborn again into his new body, and we would really like to record that episode on January 20.
Me: Say no more.
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
Today I learned:
“The Babylonian astronomical diaries are a collection of Babylonian cuneiform texts that contain systematic records of astronomical observations and political events, predictions based on astronomical observations, weather reports, and commodity prices, kept for about 600 years.”
Holy cow, what a treasure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_astronomical_diaries
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
I got real excited about this until I realized it didn't say 196560.
[#]leechLattice
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
"Pianist André Tchaikowsky donated his skull to the Royal Shakespeare Company for use in theatrical productions, hoping that it would be used as the skull of Yorick."
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
=> This profile with reblog | Go to mjd@mathstodon.xyz account This content has been proxied by September (ba2dc).Proxy Information
text/gemini
