In a spot of dry humor, El Reg has a story up on how the Government of Ridgefield, CT, attempted to remedy a damp baseball field in preparation for a high school game by lighting it on fire with gasoline.
In what could be understatement of the week, a Connecticut town has admitted that "a poor decision was made" when 24 gallons (109 litres) of petrol were poured on a baseball field and set on fire.
According to the town's Facebook page:
Town of Ridgefield, CT
on SaturdayThere as been an incident in town that we want [to] make citizens aware of. A RHS baseball game at Governor Park was delayed due to weather conditions on the field this morning. A poor decision was made (and being looked into by the RPD) to “dry the field quicker” and 24 gallons of gasoline was poured and set on fire. Thanks to the RFD, Peter Hill the Director of Public Works, DEEP, the RPD, and our Certified Spill Response Team for their incredible help. No one was injured and no one is in danger. The plan is to excavate the infield, place dirt in a safe container, and add fresh, clean soil to the field. We will update you as we know more.
Sadly for the players, it turns out that fire and grass did not work together as was apparently hoped and the game had to be held elsewhere. A later update on the town's page indicates
Town of Ridgefield, CT
on SaturdayAn update to the field fire situation. The field may be closed for the week due to the need for testing to be completed.
Comments on the page are everything you might expect and deserve your attention, for example one individual pointed out that he "would have added the use of a leaf blower to give the fire more oxygen."
Science!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:02PM (15 children)
What kind of testing? Testing of the decision makers' IQ?
According to this [wikipedia.org], . . .
Connecticut ranked third in the nation for educational performance, according to Education Week’s Quality Counts 2018 report. It earned an overall score of 83.5 out of 100 points. On average, the country received a score of 75.2. Connecticut posted a B-plus in the Chance-for-Success category, ranking fourth on factors that contribute to a person’s success both within and outside the K-12 education system.
Q. How much did Santa's sled cost?
A. Nothing. It was on the house.
(Score: 4, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:53PM (7 children)
Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons, Method
8015 modified gasoline range organics
(GRO); and BTEX Method 8020
You are required to keep removing soil until they come back negative.
(Score: 4, Funny) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday April 09 2019, @09:44PM (6 children)
Why remove soil, why not burn them off?
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @10:05PM (5 children)
Most of it will have soaked into the soil. Below the top few mm, there's no air (or other oxidizer) to sustain a fire. There's a reason sand buckets work.
(Score: 3, Funny) by coolgopher on Wednesday April 10 2019, @04:13AM (4 children)
So they need to loosen up the dirt a bit first to aerate it. I say we get some dynamite into that field! :D
(Score: 3, Funny) by pTamok on Wednesday April 10 2019, @06:41AM (1 child)
Before loosening it, I suggest saturating it with liquid oxygen, which will provide the oxidiser for the unburnt gasoline to burn with. What could possibly go wrong?
If you can't do that, then harrowing in a significant load of ammonium nitrate fertiliser would help. Then dynamite.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday April 10 2019, @01:38PM
LOx is preferable, no harmful residual - gasses off when it warms to room temp.
Ever see a demonstration of LOx + asphalt? 1 gram of asphalt makes an impressive BOOM when soaked in LOx and hammered.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday April 10 2019, @07:35AM
Naah, this is how you loosen up dirt to aerate it [youtu.be].
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday April 10 2019, @01:35PM
Works for dead whale carcasses - should be extra effective on baseball fields.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Tuesday April 09 2019, @09:30PM (1 child)
You only need two idiots to start something like this. One idiot if he's popular enough.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @02:50AM
So you're saying I need to find a friend to do this with?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Tuesday April 09 2019, @09:32PM (3 children)
You can't fix stupid... but you can select for it, elect it, and hand power over to it.
Sad, but true.
--
Always stop and look both ways at a train crossing.
You can't trust a train.
They have loco motives.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Bot on Wednesday April 10 2019, @11:22AM
Luckily, Trump was elected instead.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday April 10 2019, @01:40PM (1 child)
I think a lot of how we "fix stupid" in the modern world is by not giving stupid access to (lots of) money. This seems clearly to be the case of stupid on a beer run thinking: what the hell, it's not even $100 worth of gas, let's get this party started!
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Wednesday April 10 2019, @02:59PM
(Score: 2) by Acabatag on Wednesday April 10 2019, @02:53AM
This is sports we are talking about. It's special.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:05PM (1 child)
The home of Yale, says it all.
(Score: 3, Funny) by RS3 on Tuesday April 09 2019, @09:23PM
Also, it's about 15 miles from where they tape the Jerry Springer show.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:13PM (4 children)
Government of Ridgefield puts dog in microwave after bath to speed drying.
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:21PM (3 children)
You mean to speed dying.
Q. How much did Santa's sled cost?
A. Nothing. It was on the house.
(Score: 3, Funny) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday April 10 2019, @01:27AM (2 children)
Yeah, that treatment sounds kinda ruff.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @03:47AM
Paging RS3! Paging RS3! Fun police come in please! We have a fun emergency!!
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday April 10 2019, @01:43PM
The question is: which one was barking mad? Probably both the dog washer and the dog, at least until the dog was dry.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Snow on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:16PM (17 children)
Either way... That's ALOT of gas. I wonder how they transported and spread the fuel on the baseball field. Did they use a liquid fertilizer spreading trolley? Buckets? Fuel truck? Watering Cans? Just pump it directly out of a slip tank?
(Score: 3, Funny) by bob_super on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:23PM
I want to know whether they tried a turbopump and LOX, since it would have certainly helped the fire dry the field even faster.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:27PM (4 children)
> 109 Litres? (TFA Says 90L)
The metric to metric conversion of Litres to L seems consistent with the decision to spray it on the grass and light it.
The only alternative use might have been for Boofers -- a word I could only have learned from the dignity of a Trump Supreme Court Nominee.
Q. How much did Santa's sled cost?
A. Nothing. It was on the house.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Gaaark on Tuesday April 09 2019, @11:04PM (1 child)
You have to convert the Imperial to Metric, than account for the acreage that is converted to toxic waste...THEN convert the whole thing to French Imperial Metric (measured against the Latinum bars kept in the Cathedral of Ferengi, Paris)
As Barbie says, "Math is hard".
XD
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 2) by Acabatag on Wednesday April 10 2019, @02:31AM
Acreage? Be careful, the revolutionaries carry torches and they're excellent at sussing out indiscretions like the one you just committed.
(Score: 4, Informative) by deimtee on Wednesday April 10 2019, @04:06AM (1 child)
Two different conversions :
24 gallons (US) = 90 litres
24 gallons (imp) = 109 litres.
It is also one of the reasons US miles per gallon figures seem so shit sometimes.
200 million years is actually quite a long time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @10:23AM
Ridiculous units FTW. We need more, I propose at least
24 gallons (USA) = 120 litres
24 gallons (Trump) = 2 litres
24 gallons (Mickey mouse) = 21.1 litres
24 gallons (Imperialistic US) = 22.2 litres
(Score: 4, Funny) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:27PM
I would not be surprised if had they siphoned it out of the gas tanks from the spectators cars.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:31PM (3 children)
That's about 5-6 plastic gas jugs from Walmart. Not nothing, but not all that much either.
I'm pretty sure the phrase "This way's more fun!" probably was involved in the discussion of correct methods for solving the problem.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 3, Funny) by fustakrakich on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:49PM (1 child)
The phrase you're looking for is, "Hey, hold my beer.".
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday April 09 2019, @09:51PM
Ran outta beer, that's when they decided to pick up some extra gas on their booze run.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:57PM
I doubt it. If it had been, there would have been more flamethrowers involved...
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:34PM (3 children)
That's only a bit under 29 gallons (pretty much what a large pick up truck or large SUV holds in it's tank). Spread out over a baseball field, I'm surprised they could spray it out fast enough to cover the area and get it ignited before most of it evaporated.
The Musk/Trump interview appears to have been hacked, but not a DDOS hack...more like A Distributed Denial of Reality.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:49PM (2 children)
Totally off topic, but just realized that the time stamp on our posts seems to be based on International Date Line (180 degrees) instead of UTC (GMT or ZULU). If it was based on UTC, the time stamp on my last post would be 8:34 PM (or 20:34 UTC).
The Musk/Trump interview appears to have been hacked, but not a DDOS hack...more like A Distributed Denial of Reality.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @01:50AM
Is what I'm seeing. Do you have your timezone set weird?
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Wednesday April 10 2019, @04:12AM
is what I see here in eastern OZ. The time is straight HTML supplied by the server, system clock should have nothing to do with it, though timezone in Soylent prefs might.
200 million years is actually quite a long time.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday April 09 2019, @09:00PM
That isn't really all that much gas. It's at most two car tanks full of gas if you have a tiny car, for most larger cars it's just somewhat more then one tank of gas.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday April 10 2019, @09:38AM
They did it like this [youtube.com].
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:28PM (12 children)
This is 'murikka!
It's 29 gallons. You furriners and "science" (and we know that's a bunch of bullshit!) people can take your "liters" and shove them up your ass!
We use gallons here, motherfuckers!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:29PM
Gallons and gallons of butter.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @09:07PM (9 children)
And not even proper imperial gallons, but little wee Merkin gallons.
1 Merkin gallon = 3.79 L
1 imperial gallon = 4.55 L
(This is why visitors to the US feel justifiably ripped off when they order a pint (568 mL) of beer and get something noticeably smaller (473 mL).)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @09:14PM (7 children)
It's the job of tourists to get ripped off. That's why they exist.
And when I'm a tourist, I embrace that. Perhaps you should too!
In pursuit of that, I suggest having more than a few "pints" and then you won't care so much.
(Score: 4, Funny) by fyngyrz on Tuesday April 09 2019, @09:36PM (6 children)
The reason you get more beer in Europe is because your beer is so incredibly bad. Looks and tastes like sewage. Warm sewage.
--
After my girl turned vegan, it was
like I'd never seen herbivore.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MostCynical on Wednesday April 10 2019, @01:34AM (1 child)
If it has to be served so cold you can't actually taste it, the is something wrong.
European beer has flavour.
It can be a shock, after a lifetime of drinking something called "beer" to discover the word has a different meaning in different countries.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @06:55AM
We have beer in the US. Take this one [ratebeer.com] for example. That's beer. Well, actually it's an ale, but you get the idea.
There's plenty of good beer in the US. Sadly, many people drink pisswater instead.
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Wednesday April 10 2019, @06:50AM (2 children)
The reason you get more beer in Europe is because your beer is so incredibly bad. Looks and tastes like sewage. Warm sewage.
It's certainly a contrast to the carbonated cold piss that I'm told is served in beer glasses in the USA.
[sfx:Badoom-tish] [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday April 10 2019, @06:58AM
Well, many people do drink that crap. I'm not much of a beer drinker myself (I prefer tequila). But there are lots of places you can get good craft beers, and where I live, there are many places which have Guinness and/or other stouts on tap and know how to pour it.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @10:44AM
- What's does sex in a canoe and american beer have in common?
- It's fuckin' close to water.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday April 10 2019, @08:51AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday April 10 2019, @09:41AM
It's not the quantity they're pissed off about, it's the piss pretending to be beer.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Gaaark on Tuesday April 09 2019, @11:06PM
Hey, no! This is Canada, eh!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:35PM (3 children)
They're having big problems in Connecticut. Because they're getting their Gasoline in Liters. Not Gallons. It's called the Metric System. It's part of Socialism and it's destroyed many countries. Look at British Empire. Formerly known as Great Britain. It's not Great anymore. And, they don't call it Empire anymore. Because of Socialism. Because of Metric System. Look what happened at Trump International Golf Links, Scotland. Used to be known as the greatest golf course in the World. Terrific property. As you know, we only have the best. It's not the best anymore. They put in a horrible Wind Farm and we're fighting that one very hard. Because it's been ruining our business. Guys come for a nice round of golf, sorry, it's not so nice. You're out on the green, you're putting. And you're getting these weird growths. Your most precious body parts falling off and everything -- Cancer. If you have a windmill anywhere near your house, congratulations! Your house just went down 75% in value. And they say the noise causes Cancer. You tell me that one, O.K.? And of course, it’s like a graveyard for birds. If you love birds, you’d never want to walk under a windmill.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:49PM
Why do you hate America?
(Score: 3, Disagree) by captain normal on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:53PM (1 child)
Naw, the problem is there are too many Trump supporters employed in Public Works there.
The Musk/Trump interview appears to have been hacked, but not a DDOS hack...more like A Distributed Denial of Reality.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @03:50AM
They're not proper employed, just acting employees.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:40PM (9 children)
Ted Turner once famously hired helicopters to dry the outfield before a game. Of course he was facing big enough fines for not having the field ready that it was almost worth it.
But by the time you add up the costs of testing and remediation, these guys might have gotten off cheaper with the helicopters and as a bonus, they could have actually played the game.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Snow on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:54PM (8 children)
More importantly: Who fucking cares about high school baseball?
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:58PM
Ummm...High school baseball players maybe? Possibly even some of those players' parents?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @09:10PM (4 children)
Americans are very... enthusiastic, let's call it... about their various forms of sportsball.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @09:29PM
Yup. It's the place where 'LGM' doesn't just mean "Little [someecards.com] Green [wordpress.com] Men [youtube.com]."
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday April 09 2019, @10:01PM (2 children)
So are Europeans, it's just a different sport.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by tibman on Wednesday April 10 2019, @04:13AM (1 child)
As a kid we played soccer if it was raining, snowing, wet, foggy, dry, or anything. Hell, a lot of fields weren't even flat and could slope quite a bit. This was 1990's. Football and baseball players looked down on us from their perfectly managed fields.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday April 10 2019, @05:00AM
Sure, as kids. Much like kids play baseball with whatever ball they have using chalk, rags, or rocks for bases on dirt, sand, grass, or pavement if necessary. Home plate is called a plate because it used to commonly actually be an old dinner plate turned upside down.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @10:00PM
More than those who care about STEM?
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday April 09 2019, @11:10PM
I'd rather watch that than "professional baseball whining little overpaid bitches".
Little league baseball is HILARIOUS!
High school girls baseball can be, errrr... interesting.....but i don't look, of course. 8*
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 3, Interesting) by iWantToKeepAnon on Tuesday April 09 2019, @09:41PM (3 children)
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday April 09 2019, @09:53PM (2 children)
Nope, exploding a whale - with dynamite - as a public works project, very tough to beat.
Any idiot can light a field on fire with gasoline, I'm sure it has happened before and will happen again.
------
So say we all.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @02:58AM
It has. In fact just two days before [si.com] the event in TFA.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @03:56AM
I doubt these are all real but it was the best my attention span could find http://www.chilloutpoint.com/funny/top-40-funniest-construction-mistakes.html [chilloutpoint.com]
(Score: 3, Funny) by Gaaark on Tuesday April 09 2019, @11:14PM (3 children)
I heard that even in Conneticut...Conecticun...Connetitcut...Collecthecum...errr...even in THAT place you can hire people to blow things for you (maybe heard it from MDC, Dog bless him).
Blow jobs, i hear it's called.
I wonder how much the job of blowing pays?
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @11:50PM (2 children)
Ask the experts [escortdirectory.com].
(Score: 3, Funny) by RandomFactor on Wednesday April 10 2019, @12:23AM (1 child)
RIP browser history.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @01:31AM
Hello bookmarks!
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Wednesday April 10 2019, @12:27AM (1 child)
We need to be able to add a "Funny" mod to the article itself
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @10:30AM
It would be nice. Also propose categories. I often remember we've had an older article about some subject here and would like to link it but finding those suckers is hard. These would be nice added value.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @12:46AM
connecticut: hold muh beer
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @06:14AM
I remember a story how a local politician got a rescue helicopter to blow dry a soccer field once.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Wednesday April 10 2019, @07:06AM (1 child)
It seems pretty obvious to us that gasoline is a bad idea. Either it soaks in and doesn't burn and just contaminates things, or it does burn and kills the grass *and* contaminates things.
So what *would* be a good way to dry a field quickly? It's tempting to say "chorus line of idiots with blow-torches" (what could possibly go wrong), but the byproducts of combustion are actually quite wet so that probably just kills the grass long before it dries it.
What we need is a lot of moderately dry heat, so political speeches won't help either.
I'm thinking something like this might do the job. [zoro.com] It appears to have a stack that separates the combustion products from the airflow, so it should produce a reasonably dry heat; but the site doesn't say anything about that.
It does say that it has 174900 BTUs and can heat 8800 square feet. If you've got the time to do the field piecemeal or only care about the infield, that might be enough.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @10:36PM
Obvious solution is obvious: you only need to tilt the field so the water runs off the sides.