July 08, 2005

• Only the Welsh...
• Charles Berlitz is going to be pissed about this.
• Why is it a triangle and not say, a rhomboid?
• Apparently this 'methane ice', also known as clathrates, looks like ice but will burn quite nicely in air if you put a match to it. Worldwide deposits are believed to hold about 10,000 gigatons of carbon - far more than in all reserves of fossil fuels put together. And they are looking into the possibility of extracting it as fuel. Has anyone told them about global warming?
• Geneticists have produced new strains of bacteria that are so large they can kill people by acts of violence. This only happens at a certain place on the earth we call The Scary Bad Place. This is a pure coincidence. The Scary Bad Place also produces bacteria that can kill a man by kneeing him in the head.
• Everyone knows that Elvis is the cause of the Bermuda Triangle. I mean, bacteria?!?
• I think I've been there - unless that was Luton.
• The theory I've heard with methyl clathrate bubbles (as they're also called), is not so much an explosion risk as a bouyancy hazard. The thinking goes like this: when a big bubble of methane hits the surface, the density of water drops immensely. Ships are too heavy to float. One end drops down and the ship sinks like a torpedo. It's like the ocean suddenly gives way and the ship sails off a cliff. It would be very quick---a ship would go down in a matter of seconds. Planes are the same thing: a rising bubble hits the plane and suddenly the wing surfaces can no longer support the plane. The airframe adopts a nose-down configuration, and, in the words of transporation accident review boards everywhere, commences a powered decent into terrain. Since the methane will not support the plane in the air, the pilot has little chance to recover. Splat. In fact, the bubbles diplace so much oxygen that it's most likely that they extinguish the planes engines, making recovery that much more difficult.
• This is the stupidest fucking thing I ever heard in my life. I would rather believe in Godzilla than this phony ass methane poot. It's more likely that these people crashed in the Bermuda Triangle because they were morons.
• There was an excellent documentary that explored this subject - with regards to the search for Flight 19. I believe it was on the Discovery Channel. Although, the theory does have its skeptics.
• Just how likely this is, I wouldn't even hazard a guess, but considering the fact that it's plausible, I guess that's some sort of progress.
• Plausible my ass. There was never anything to the bermuda thingy anyway, it was all a myth. Just bad storms and shit.
• Monkeyfilter: not so much an explosion risk as a bouyancy hazard.
• It's more likely that these people crashed in the Bermuda Triangle because they were morons. Possible, but it's just a theory at this point.
• So how come you never hear about the Canadian Triangle?
• I myself prefer the Giant Ocean Fart theory to the How Do I Steer This Thing theory.
• LOL!
• Hello, I'm Leonard Nimoy. Join me as we go In Search Of [spooky chord]: The Moron Triangle. [more spooky theme music]
• So how come you never hear about the Canadian Triangle? *inserts joke about poutine lard mountain*
• The Moron Triangle I've definitely been there.
• I cackled my arse off loudly at the last bunch o' comments. I'm sure I will be evicted soon.
• The Moron Triangle Somewhere near Milton Keynes, from memory.
• A lot of the "bermuda triangle" stuff never happened in the actual geographic area of that triangle anyway. People have attributed events that actually happened everywhere from New England to South America to the Bermuda Triangle.
• The Mormom triangle takes in Utah, parts of Arizona and Nevada. I'm waiting for them to merge with the Scientologists and take over the world.
• I thought a Mormon Triangle was what you called a wedding in Utah.
• *inserts joke about poutine lard mountain* THE POUTINE LARD MOUNTAIN NO JOKE! YOU LAUGH? WHEN IT DROOP ON YOU HOUSE YOU HIDE BUT NO LUCK. WHEN THE AMBULANC COME, THEY SEE YOU ONE BIG POUTINE. NOT THE HUMAN. NO FUN THAT TRUE. THEN YOU STUCK TILL THE BIG ONES COME OUT.
• At the Kokanee springs Where Celine Dion sings On the Big Lard Poutine Mountain
• goetter wins, eh.
• Wow, methane hydrates and poutine. Two of the most interesting/dangerous susbstances I know, and I learned about them both in the same thread. I knew I'd get something done at work today.
• Somewhere near Milton Keynes, from memory. Oi! /lives somewhere near Milton Keynes
• Lying lost and lonely on The island sand, When a lovely stranger says Hello and takes my hand And soon she's sitting on my blanket And then we're going for a swim When I say, "what about your boyfriend?" She turns and waves goodbye to him! it's all about promiscuity this triangle, i tells thee! arrr
• John Milton Keynes was no moron!
• I think you're confusing him with Maynard Friedman, aren't you?
• The whole thing stinks. MonkeyFilter: Plausible my ass.
• *wipes screen* It's a lot of clean-up, reading this.
• My theory on the Bermuda Triangle: lager shits. This is in.con.tro.verti.bubble. Thick, immenseley expensive hardcover book to follow aimed at the tinfoil hatter demographic.
• You mean Maynard Feynmann right?
• That would be Maynard Friedrich von Freiburg. Surely not Feynman.
• Can you all really not see this is the revenge of the Sea Monkeys?
• Right not Feynman. Friedrich von Hayek of Freiburg, discoverer of the famous comet.
• Surely you jest. Clearly you allude to Fearless Freep, indomitable high diver and noble conquerer of bacterial flatulence.
• Fearless Fosdick, yes, that's what I've been saying all along.
• And early (very very early) rock-n-roller, under the name "Willi Hayek und die Kometen." I think.
• Sorry to drag this thread back to the FPP, but weren't all the people in some African village killed when a landslide disturbed the bottom of a nearby lake, causing large amounts of carbon monoxide to bubble up, then float down the valley and suffocate them? It were on telly.
• can you guide me to a link, muteboy? sounds interesting
• And early (very very early) rock-n-roller, under the name "Willi Hayek und die Kometen." I think. That's right! Willi Hayek, comet-discoverer, was the one who convinced Newton to publish his Principia. Hayek's "rock and roll" was formalized as Newton's First Law of Motion. Tragically, his fatal dispute with Leibniz prevented its completion. In the fatal altercation of 1726, Newton was felled by a right hooke. The Principia was later completed by Bertrand Russell.
• Ooops sorry, got it wrong, the Principia was later completed by Bertrand Wooster.
• Thought that was the Agathia?
• > Principia was later completed by Bertrand Wooster. i thought it was malaclypse the younger
• Agathia My goodness. Perhaps you're thinking of the similar work done by Bertie's rival, HRH the "Fresh Prince" Henry, Duke of Gloucester. Dejected by Bertie's triumph in the marketplace of ideas, Henry abandoned mathematics in favor of mystery-writing and fine-art collecting. A tragedy, really.

• Sorry to drag this thread back to the FPP, but weren't all the people in some African village killed when a landslide disturbed the bottom of a nearby lake, causing large amounts of carbon monoxide to bubble up, then float down the valley and suffocate them? It were on telly.

  yes, this happened at lake nyos in cameroon. i think the gas was co2. not everyone in the village and surrounding area was killed, but many people and animals died. the transcript of a bbc horizon program on this and another lake; a site on the degassing project that's aiming to prevent a recurrence of this tragedy.
• Spot on FishT old chap. The Agathia was an earlier do, a rum commentary on moths in springtime or some such. Not surprising given the poor blighter's preoccupation with the birds and the b. HRH Henry's work was the "Agnus Christie", a weighty treatise tying together the pathology of the murder mystery genre, the mystique of the fine art auction, and a litre of liturgy.
• And a worthy sequel to his previous Angus Christos, in which seventy-two head of cattle were swathed in gauzy orange fabric, a poignant evocation of Hindoo myth. Or perhaps that wasn't HRH Henri. Me so confused now.
• Getting into deep waters here it's true. I don't remember Angus Christos but it sounds like a beefy read to me. If HRH Henri wasn't responsible, maybe it was JRR Henri Tolkien, that notorious French mordorer who was the last to be guillotined in the Reign of Terror alongside Antoine Lavoisier, chemist and bottle cleaner.
• We will resolve this burning issue, I am sure. Lagrange? Laplace? Latoya? Or was it some member of the priestley caste? Think, Hammurabi... *scratches head* No! 'Twas no man of science, nor any exiled calotin — a crimson herring having thrown me off the scent. Lay the blame before the pen of one Emma Magdalena Rosalia Margarita Montezuma Urukhaia Orczy, purveyor of potboilers and promoter of pumpernickel. Personally, I consider the works of the Baroness flatulent, suitable only for combustion.
• Aye, poor Emma Magdalena, She was driven insane during the Pumpernickel famine of 1846 when she roamed the streets, shouting "They seek it here, they seek it there, they're sold out of pumpernickel everywhere". Notable among her flatulent works: The Air on the G-string, part of the Emma Magdalena Notebooks. She was married twice and divorced three times, all to the famed numerical wizard Johann Sebastian Goldbach, who was in his prime at the time.
• And composer of the "Goldbach Variations," an intriguing setting (in 5/7 time!) of the first eleven lines of a Poe short story. For this, he was denounced as "dancing mad" -- perhaps for the difficulty of dancing to such a meter. Goldbach's remaining works (including the draft of his autobiography, "Memoirs of a G-String") disappeared when Captain Kidd plundered the very ship that was taking Goldbach to the New World. Kidd's booty remains to this day hidden somewhere in the Carribbean.
• In an bizarre twist Poe's short dancing story "The Gold Jitterbug" was shown to contain subtle musical hints as to the whereabouts of Kidd's treasure. Using a reverse transcription algorithm, and the so-called Da Vinci coda, the text unmistakably locates the lost gold as "17 miles south of the Dominican 7th Chord (Lost)" not to be confused with the Majorcan 7th. Attempts to find this chord using sensitive acoustic equipment have failed to this date, the most famous one being that made by Amelia Earhart.
• Back on topic: I understand that methane ices exist in many spots on the ocean floor, including in the Arctic. Why is this only a danger in the Bermuda Triangle?
• BlueHorse, here's that link you asked for 2 years ago. Carbon dioxide, and a slightly different process ("Limnic Eruption"), but still.
• For me? Thank you. *Gramma blushes That's some persistent searching. The whole thing is very strange. First, the silent killer, then some guy with an idea to burp the lake. Then they get funding and figure two years till it's safe. at the end of approximately three years Lake Nyos should be able to be considered as definitively harmless. I would think the people would want to move their villages onto a higher elevation, just to, you know, MAKE SURE this theory works. And they could bottle Limnic Lemonade, the refreshing all natural soda pop! I'm curious if there were local stories about people dying and how often they think this has happened in the past. Such a beautiful area to be stalked by an unknown silent killer. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
• MonkeyFilter: here's that link you asked for 2 years ago.