Ouch- eletrocution

[Toby]

Wow, some really shocking images on there weren't there!

[PCPaul]

I'm with you, *but* in the China case AIUI it was more of a protest than a genuine suicide attempt. And he did push him off safely into a waiting airbag, which the 'jumper' could have avoided if he jumped off under his own steam...

[PCPaul]

..and even if they do manage to fight, what makes you think they'll be fighting to get food for *you*?

Various events such as drinking water contamination have convinced me that 'we're only four meals away from anatchy' is as true now as it ever was.

Last time I saw it you could drive 15 minutes to get as much fresh water as you liked, but there were still punchups in the supermarkets and grown men pulling water bottles off old ladies...

[Fredxx]

Anatchy sounds a serious tummy bug!

[PCPaul]

Damn keybroad.

[geoff]

In message , ARWadsworth writes

Just had an idea for a business opportunity

Set one of these up by the river in Varanasi and, hey presto - DIY cremations. Get the angle right and they just tip into the Ganges

[Martin Bonner]

I know you are wrong (in at least one case).

The mother of a friend of mine committed suicide by jumping in front of a train (in her seventies). She was one of the least self-centred people I knew, and in normal circumstances she wouldn't have /dreamed/ of inconveniencing the large number of people that were affected by the line closure. She was severely depressed by the death of her husband the previous year.

Absolutely!

[Adam Aglionby]

US used to have a policy in the 50`s and early 60`s of showing teenagers graphic footage of fatal car accidents. Forgetting of course that teenagers like gore and being teenagers are immortal and can disconnect from the imagery as not applicable to them.

Public executions used to pull a good crowd.

Deliberately rode into a horse? not one Evel Kneivel had thought of thats for sure. Been quite a series, 6 in one month, of car-deer collisions on A1 between Edinburgh and Berwick

perhaps should show the deer some videos...

Used to know the guys at Leadburn Garage, they had contract for towing wrecks from the Peebles road, by nature a very high speed road. He told me he learned pretty quickly to let the ambulances from Edinburgh arrive on scene first.

Ayrshire used to leave wrecks where they landed in the field beside accident blackspots, pretty effective reminder and somewhere to tie the flowers nowadays.

Keep smiling

Adam

[David Hansen]

On Mon, 8 Jun 2009 14:57:32 -0700 (PDT) someone who may be Adam Aglionby wrote this:-

They did, but I didn't suggest them.

I didn't claim he did.

I am in favour of that.

[David Hansen]

On Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:09:27 +0100 someone who may be John Rumm wrote this:-

The abuse of staff and students by Nottingham University is an example of the persecution of people for the "crime" of having something on their computers which can be downloaded from the US State Department website.

[The Medway Handyman]

Every year before Xmas our local plod place a totally wrecked car on every local rondabout with a big sign warning about drinking & driving. Dunno if it works or not.

[tony sayer]

Nature of the condition..

And if you know anyone in that state then for Christ sakes don't just tell them to "cheer up" or "pull yourself together" don't you just think thats when they desperately -want- to do .. but simply cannot do?.

Depression is a very difficult subject for most anyone to comprehend let alone deal with, just make sure that they are seeing a doctor or are or are being treated for it..

And just hope you don't suffer from what is the most awful of mental afflictions;(...

And strictly one illness where its highly advised not to do DIY treatments;!..

Other than that ;-)..

[Bob Mannix]

AFAICR I don't think anyone suggested otherwise...

Ditto

Ditto

Well indeed - suicide is clearly one treatment and clearly DIY but ill-advised (at least from the outsider's perspective).

The tragedy is that the only "cure" is often a change of circumstances, the circumstances that have led to the depresssion. This is often impossible (in the case of bereavement) or impractical and medical treatment essentially papers over the cracks until there is a change or time does its stuff (or worse happens). Not ideal but the best current society can offer.

Depressing (in the general sense) thread this is!

[Dave Liquorice]

Track earth but I take the point and starts to think...

One assumes the feed points connect to the track and the overhead wire (or

3rd rail). To try and make the lowest resistance return path through the rails and not the real ground. Were there not problems with lead covered cables and return currents from trams at one time?

If you don't get back from the track what you are sending down the feed it must be going elsewhere, and possibly not where you want it to go...

What current you deem as a "unsafe" level of leakage could still be quite high but less than that deemed an overload. And at 25kV with soaking wet insulators in fog there could be significant natural leakage.

I agree, and films where people get back up and are running around as fit as a fiddle moments after being whacked with a baseball bat don't help.

A year or so ago they put up a noticeboard at Hartside Cafe (a very popular bikers meeting point on a very popular bike route) with photos of mangled bikes taken within a few miles of said cafe. There were less accidents and fatalities that year...

[Clive George]

Much as I'd like to hope it helped, I think it was probably the weather causing that - the wet summer put a lot of the bikers off.

[Jules]

One word starting with A, another with C? I recall when reading a copy of that was almost a rite of passage for any student doing any kind of sciences degree... funny how times change.

[Jules]

It's common to see wrecked cars along with a warning sign in the US still as 'publicity' exercises (similarly drug-related ads with before and after mugshots). I'm surprised that any of this stuff has any effect - it's probably more of a way that the powers-that-be can claim that they're Doing Something.

Very common here (more deer than people in this state); seems like at least once a month I bump into someone who has a vehicle in for repair following a deer collision.

I heard of one the other day - copper of all people was driving at 120 and hit a deer. He survived, surprisingly, but the car was demolished and the deer got thrown 80 feet down the road. Doesn't seem to stop people from driving too fast or not keeping their wits about them on roads where there's not much visibility to either side, though.

I have a photo somewhere I took (50' or so) off the side of the A1 a few years ago - the car appeared to have either rolled end over end.

In a "no sh*t, Sherlock" moment, some local council oik had decided to affix a notice to it saying that they were of the opinion it was undriveable and should be removed - the whole chassis was banana-shaped, and the only way it was going to be going anywhere was via crane / flat-bed...

cheers

Jules

[David Hansen]

On Tue, 09 Jun 2009 10:26:48 +0100 (BST) someone who may be "Dave Liquorice" wrote this:-

In the UK specifically, but the same principles apply elsewhere.

The feeder stations are connected to the contact wire and the return conductor. The former is the one the pantograph runs under. The latter is the one which may be seen on small insulators, generally attached to the side of the structures [1].

At intervals a booster transformer is inserted in the return wire (these can be seen attached to the side of structures). This acts to encourage traction current out of the rail which is being used for traction return [2] and into the return wire [3].

That is the "traditional" system with booster transformers. Other systems are available and used in places.

Feeder points are much closer together in this system. Both rails are used for traction return.

There were alleged to be problems. There were also alleged to be problems with metal water and gas pipes too. That was a long time ago though and the engineering is better understood now.

One may download a generic description of the AC system in the late

1980s from

One way of understanding the energy contained in these systems is to remember that they power trains weighing 450 tonnes at 200km/h. The slightly different system used between London and the Channel Tunnel powers trains weighing 750 tonnes at 300km/h. Note that in both cases more than one train may be in a section. That amount of energy is sitting in the contact wire just waiting to get out.

[1]

is not 25kV and not in the UK, but one can see the return wire on the right and the contact wire (and catenary wire) above the track.

[2] in AC systems one rail is used for traction return and one is used for signalling. [3] I know that the current is reversing direction 100 times a second, this is a simplified version.

[John Rumm]

I was thinking of the "big boys book of..." - but there are plenty similar.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Mike Tomlinson saying something like:

The damn thing froze on that frame as I was viewing it and his whole body surface was a sheet of fizzing flame for an instant. Looked as if it was fairly real and not just an artefact. Impressive though, and if he'd known just what effect he was going to have I bet he wishes he wasn't dead.