Showing posts with label Explosion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Explosion. Show all posts

January 5, 2022

Anyone Missing A Leg?

That's some museum exhibit!

Wonder if the owner of the leg is on the other side of that wall? 

What was this artist thinking?  

Hopefully just to sensitize us to people's health, disabilities, and plights, so we can be more compassionate and caring people!  ;-)

(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)


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June 20, 2021

@Torpedo Factory



Some old but awesome torpedos 

You wouldn't want one of these big salamis hitting you in the head! 

Man oh man, these will do some serious damage.

Imagine what we got now-a-days for fun with our enemies.  ;-)

(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)


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May 23, 2017

The Nails Exploded!

So it continues to be amazingly sad how there can be a large terror attack in the UK yesterday, but still many of our weak politicians and fake news media can’t readily admit the simple truth about the war with radical Islamic terrorism.

A nail bomb goes off at a concert in one of the largest arenas in Europe killing at least 22 and wounding 59 mainly teenagers attending a rock concert, and the headline is:

“Suspected Terror Attack”

Uh, who would’ve suspected that?

Perhaps it could have just been a large pile of nails lying around exploding at the box office and killing people?

Stupid, stupid, stupid…

Shameful, shameful, shameful

We live amidst brazen lies to the people, grotesque political correctness, and unbelievable media spin.

And yes, that’s how we might end up losing a big one someday. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

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August 31, 2016

Driving Your Organization Off A Cliff

So life is generally supposed to be a series a peaks and valleys. 

There are highs, but also lows.  

No one and nothing can perform at peak all the time. 

Like the commandment to keep the Shabbat, everyone needs a rest. 

And studies have shown that getting a healthy dose of sleep, pause, and rest in life is healthy.

When we force ourselves or others to perform past their "designed" limits, then we risk a breakdown. 

Machines break and people can break. 

The risks are either explosion or implosion: some people can frighteningly "go postal" and others end up on psychiatric medication or even sick and in the hospital. 

What is key to remember is that you can push the limits of performance so far, but then no further without a healthy, recuperative rest period and down time. 

If you want to raise the bar on yourself, others, or your organization, you need to do it strategically so there is a surge forward and then a normative recovery and energy buildup again. 

As we all know, life is a marathon and not a sprint, and the journey is as important as the destination. ;-)

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Alan Levine)
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June 18, 2015

Ready To Explode

So have you ever had to deal with someone at work and they are NOT exactly acting the consummate professional?

They may be volatile, angry, raising their voice, intransigent, threatening, acting the a*s, maybe even a little meshuga.

Yeah, unfortunately it happens (although it absolutely shouldn't)!  

People have crap going on in the office, at home, and sometimes they come in and they just can't cope.  

G-d forbid, they should never really "go postal" as in real violence--but you never really know what you are going to be dealing with. 

One colleague said some people are just "hypervolic"--a new word for someone who is excessive, over the top, and emotionally volcanic!

Yikes--scary enough. 

Another colleague I know who is excellent with people and has decades of experience dealing with a cast of characters told me, "I just look at everyone as a bomb ready to go off."

Ugh, not exactly how I would want to perceive people around me, but the point is well taken--you never know (and you can almost hear the ticking now). 

With some people we sort of know from dealing with them that they have some marbles loose, and while others may appear calm, cool, and collected on the outside, on the inside they may be a volcano ready to blow. 

Heck, you can't read everyone right and even if you do, you can try to calm them down, listen to them, work with them, talk sense to them, suggest some counseling or other outside assistance, but even then they may go off the deep end. 

Lots of personalities out there, lots of people with problems and stresses, and sometimes we in our best intentions may make mistakes or unknowingly say the wrong thing and it only inflames the situation.

Of course hopefully, calmer heads will prevail, professionalism will take front seat, and people will get some perspective and do the right thing...chill man!

But also keep in mind what my colleagues said, some people may  just be ready to go explode--like a volcano--and we need to be ready for that too. 

How do you prepare for this?

Yeah, I don't remember them covering that subject in leadership training--maybe with the exception of listen, show empathy, and if worst comes to worst you can either head for the exits to get away or shelter in place before the human stress bomb goes big boom! ;-)

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Camilo Rueda Lopez)
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October 20, 2013

Going For Gravity

A good friend told me to go see the movie Gravity.

He said, "You'll definitely like it, and make sure you see it in IMAX!"

G-d, I don't recall the last time that I went to an IMAX showing. 

So keeping in the mind the saying, "try it and you'll like it," we went for the $19.00 IMAX 3D experience. 

(OMG, I still remember when movies in NYC were $1!) 

I was hesitant about this movie having heard that there were only 2 characters, and that 1 was Sandra Bullock!

Also, that she was the only one left for the second half of the movie--and I thought how interesting is this going to be?

Okay, I told myself, I'll get excited by the action and destruction in the first half with Clooney and sleep through the second half with Bullock. 

But it was so much better than I anticipated--one of the best movie experiences for me ever!

The IMAX 3D was absolutely amazing...only thing better would've been a massive in-your-face hologram of the whole movie--and I bet this comes one day soon.

The space walks, hurling space debris, exploding space stations and daring escapes was right there and up close in this movie.

I found myself at times reaching my hands out to practically touch the characters--since they seemed that close. 

And Bullocks tears floating in space--were very moving and cool at the same time. 

Bullock is going to win a ton of awards for her performance in Gravity. 

Oh, and one more funny experience was when a lady told this guy in the theatre to hush, and when he didn't listen, she kicked his chair.

But that wasn't the end of it...

After she kicked it a few times, he turned around grabbed her shoe right off of her foot and then threw it at her. 

She ran out of the theatre to get security. 

Security told them both to cut it out, and then I heard the guards outside laughing about these two quarreling theatre-goers. 

Anyway, I didn't sleep a wink in this movie, and enjoyed the whole experience. ;-)

(Source Photo: Rebecca Blumenthal)
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February 16, 2013

Chicken Big And The Asteroids


The story of Chicken Little running around yelling that "The sky is falling" has become the epitome of those who "cry wolf" about the world ending--falsely worrying about and predicting catastrophic events.

However, the reverse can be true as well--where people say, "The sky is not falling," when it really is. This is a "Chicken Big" event--where people are afraid "big time" of admitting the truth and so they hide themselves and others from it. Sort of like saying "What I don't know can't hurt me!"

Yesterday was just such as Chicken Big--hide your head in the sand--moment.


Asteroid DA14 passed just 17,000 miles from the Earth--less than the distance from New York to Sydney! It was 140 foot long and 143,000 tons, and possessed the destructive power 700 times that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. According to the Wall Street Journal (13 Feb. 2013) it was able to devastate a region the size of the San Francisco Bay area.


While, thank G-d, this dangerous asteroid missed us, just a few hours earlier, a meteor about 55 feet long and 10,000 tons exploded over the Ural Mountains in Russia, with the destructive power of 33 Hiroshima-size atomic bombs injuring 1,000 people and damaging 4,000 buildings.  


Of course, it is a frightening reminder of what could've happened had asteroid DA14 hit as well. 


The Guardian reported that according to The European Space Agency "No link between the events is thought possible," and the Wall Street Journal (15 Feb. 2013) declared that it "was just a coincidence".


Interestingly, the Journal itself states that a meteor event such as that which exploded over Russia yesterday happens "every 100 years," and even more, the chances of the asteroid that passed very close overhead actually hitting Earth occurs "once every 200 to 1,000 years," with the next close pass over earth not expected again until 2046. Thus, these types of events don't happen exactly every day, do they?  


So what are the chances of these 2 events (one exploding overhead and the other a near miss) occurring simultaneously yesterday--just hours apart!


People need to know--deserve to know the truth about the dangers we face--not to cry wolf--but rather to help us as a society and civilization recognize the genuine dangers we face, so we can adequately take precautions and prepare ourselves. 


Interestingly enough, the WSJ states, "We have the technology to deflect these asteroids" with spacecraft to impact into them and "gravity tractors" to change their trajectory--the one thing we need is "years of advance warning."


Let's acknowledge the meteor explosion yesterday in Russia and be grateful that it wasn't over a heavily populated major urban area, where the effect could've been much worse, and of course the same with the near flyby of the asteroid--and resolve to invest in the monitoring, tracking, and defensive technologies to keep us safe from a future catastrophe where the sky really is falling.


Calling the two cosmic events yesterday a "coincidence" is a Chicken Big event--buck, buck, buck. ;-)


 (Source Photo: here with attribution to Sascha Grant)



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February 11, 2012

Asteroid Killer--That's A Relief!


For those of you who have seen any of the numerous movies about asteroids hitting Earth--such as Armageddon, Deep Impact, and Asteroid to name a few--you know that in most cases this is considered an Extinction-Level Event (ELE).

In other words, what the impact of the asteroid and the resulting tsunamis do not destroy, the dust and debris causing a deep freeze over the earth will. This would be like the Ice Age, although this time, we would be the dinosaurs!

However, a new supercomputer at Los Alamos National Lab running 32,000 processors has been able to demonstrate our ability to explode a 1 megaton nuke near the asteroid on a trajectory with Earth and literally blow it to smithereens. 

The shock wave from blast would smash the composite rocks of the asteroid against each other, and this would shatter them, and disrupt the pending destruction here on Earth. 

All this talk about destroying Asteroids makes me remember back to when I was a kid and used to play this Atari game called Missile Command, where we would shoot down thermonuclear missiles--they could've been asteroids for all we knew--before they hit us.

However, in the game, you eventually missed--and your base stations and ability to shoot were destroyed after being overcome by the number of incoming missiles--that was certainly a bummer, even though the game was fun especially with friends. 

I am relieved to see the new simulations and projections that indicate that given enough warning, we have the ability to take down an incoming asteroid.

Life imitating art--I certainly hope Los Alamos's new calculations are right and that if and when the time comes, we can get a very good shot at it!

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