back to article Flying giant octopus menaces New York

The New Statesman has pulled off a bit of a blinder by whipping out a giant octopus to helpfully explain to readers just how much a manhole cover weighs. The good burghers of Buffalo, New York, were recently menaced by a flying metal disk as the result of an underground explosion, apparently prompted by an electrical cable …

  1. Ole Juul

    Buffalo burghers

    Octopus may be to their taste, but it seems a tad inaccurate. I would suggest that it would be much more precise to liken the weight of the flying manhole cover to 50kg of calamari.

    1. Martin Budden Silver badge

      Re: Buffalo burghers

      Likening the weight of something to a measured weight of something else seems a bit redundant, no?

      1. Ole Juul

        Re: Buffalo burghers

        That's my point. Glad you got it. :) Besides, the octopus in question weighs 45kg so there is indeed an issue with the accuracy.

        Regarding measured weight, there's always the old question of "what weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of gold?"

        1. Khaptain Silver badge

          Re: Buffalo burghers

          If a pound of Gold comes crashing down on your head, your skull would definitely be under the impression that the gold is much heaver than the feathers.

          Think about it ....

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Buffalo burghers

            The correct answer, of course, is some pedantic dissertation on different kinds of ounce used for different materials, something like troy ounces for gold, but avoirdupois for feathers, but I can't be arsed to look it up. Let's hope the Register units don't get as fragmented as the imperial ones.

        2. Robert Helpmann??
          Boffin

          Re: Buffalo burghers

          "what weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of gold?"

          A pound of feathers. There are 12 troy ounces per troy pound.

      2. Old Handle
        Boffin

        Re: Buffalo burghers

        I've pretty sure I've seen things compared to the weight of a pound of butter more than once. Admittedly the average person probably has more experience with that than 50kg of calamari.

    2. TheOtherHobbes

      Re: Buffalo burghers

      >to 50kg of calamari.

      It's a trap!

  2. frank ly

    That fireman was LUCKY

    See title

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Can I just say...

    ...that was some hard-core man-hole action!

    (If I'd been standing nearby, I'd have come over all queer)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Can I just say...

      Who is queer, a friend or just a casual bystander ? and why does it excite you so much that it makes you do that ?

    2. Ralph B

      Re: Can I just say...

      Yes, and it would have been a bummer if it had come down on that fireman.

  4. Anonymous Blowhard

    I like the Giant Pacific Octopus analogy even more because Buffalo is 2500 KM from the Pacific; who said Americans are parochial?

    http://www.distance-cities.com/search?from=buffalo%2C+mo&to=San+Francisco%2C+CA%2C+United+States

    1. cray74

      "I like the Giant Pacific Octopus analogy even more because Buffalo is 2500 KM from the Pacific; who said Americans are parochial?"

      Buffalo, NY is also responsible for confusing a lot of people into thinking bison bison have a third pair of limbs, non-functional wings now best known for a dish that drives North American antacid sales. Like the Giant Pacific Octopus, the presence of the bovidae are not actually confirmed in the area, though they were known to be much closer to the city (shores of Lake Erie) than the octopus.

    2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Buffalo is 2500 KM from the Pacific

      It is? Buffalo to San Francisco (your example) is 2309 miles, according to the Great Circle Mapper. San Francisco isn't the closest point on the Pacific coast to Buffalo - glancing at a map suggests that's somewhere in Oregon, and indeed Coos Bay OR is a mere 2270 miles from Buffalo. Nearly 40 miles closer!

      But 2500 km from Buffalo will only get you to, what, Cody, Wyoming? Which I'm sure is very nice but not a Pacific beach resort as such.

      You can do Kansas City to San Francisco in under 2500 km. And Han Solo can do it in under three parsecs.1

      1About 7e-11 parsec, which is somewhat less than 3.

  5. imanidiot Silver badge

    The most important metric

    The cover was blown 0.4408 to 0.6613 brontosaurusses into the air.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The most important metric

      Or 142.86 (UK) Creme Eggs launched a distance of between 35.24 and 52.86 Paris Hiltons.

    2. x 7

      Re: The most important metric

      "The cover was blown 0.4408 to 0.6613 brontosaurusses..........."

      Get it right please - Apatosauruses. Or should that be Apatosauri?

      1. Vinyl-Junkie

        Brontosauruses

        Nope, Brontosaurus it is...

    3. Captain DaFt

      Re: The most important metric

      Pah, all these newfangled metrics. In my day we used Smoots, and liked it!

  6. John Robson Silver badge

    Obligatory....

    http://what-if.xkcd.com/35/

    1. smartypants

      Re: Obligatory....

      My mum had a hairdryer like that. The house was often full of the scent of scorched hair.

  7. Vulch

    DDBs?

    Shirley if you're measuring height with Double Decker Buses you'd stack them on top of each other rather than bumper to bumper making it 13.2 to 19.8 ddbs?

    Hmmm, Flanders and Swann seem to have omitted the height from the statistics in A Transport of Delight...

    1. Lester Haines (Written by Reg staff) Gold badge

      Re: DDBs?

      We always stack ours vertically bumper to bumper- it's more entertaining. And don't call me Shirley.

      1. Khaptain Silver badge

        Re: DDBs?

        If you stack them vertically are they still consider as Double Deckers ?

        1. ravenviz Silver badge
          Coat

          Re: DDBs?

          When will I get my frickin' double decker bus with a basement?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: DDBs?

            "frickin' double decker bus "

            What, one with a laser ? Do the laser equipped ones arrive on time, they can after all simply "remove" obstructions ?

    2. Vinyl-Junkie
      Happy

      Re: DDBs?

      Have an upvote for the Flanders and Swann reference!

    3. Jim 59

      Re: DDBs?

      You're waiting for one, and then 13.2 to 19.8 come along.

  8. Simon Williams 2

    what about the turnip

    if a giant octopus only weighs in at 45Kg how about feeding it 5 turnips prior to launching it the obligatory number of DDB's into the air.

    I'm sure there is some rule about not eating and then flying but since it's probably game over for the the octopus anyway it can probably be overlooked.

  9. Snow Hill Island
    Boffin

    For the bicycle nerds out there...

    50 kg is about the weight of a long wheelbase bakfiets.nl cargobike. (Note:- Not the electric assist version, and minus rider, passengers and the junk you keep forgetting to take out of the box...)

  10. Little Mouse
    Boffin

    10 limbs good - 8 limbs bad

    Still using Imperial units when the rest of the world has moved on to the metric Giant Squid?

    Get with the times, Grandad Uncle Sam.

    1. PNGuinn
      Joke

      Re: 10 limbs good - 8 limbs bad

      NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!

      What's with this fetish with decimal units??

      Units to base 8. Progress in Septicland at last.

      And, remember, WE NEED THE IT ANGLE!!!!!!!!

    2. DocJames
      IT Angle

      Re: 10 limbs good - 8 limbs bad

      Given the location of the current forum, one would expect that 2^3 would be an appropriate number of legs, whereas (2^3) + 2 not so good.

      Obvious icon is obvious

      Edit: dammit, PNGuinn beat me to it. And was funnier too. Bah.

    3. TitterYeNot
      Coat

      Re: 10 limbs good - 8 limbs bad

      "Still using Imperial units when the rest of the world has moved on to the metric Giant Squid?"

      I'm afraid the incorrectly named Imperial Giant Octopus (Dodecipus Magnus Imperialis) actually has 12 tentacles, not 8. It is revered in some remote parts of the world as the physical incarnation of the Great Noodly One's offspring, and so there have been many attempts to nail it to large bits of wood. Fortunately, it's too bloody fast...

    4. cray74

      Re: 10 limbs good - 8 limbs bad

      "Still using Imperial units when the rest of the world has moved on to the metric Giant Squid?"

      Weird thing: most science / engineering education in the US uses metric. From grade school to university, it was mostly metric (for me - I don't know if schools have regressed since then). If Imperial units were used it was because the professor wanted to catch you off guard and see if you remembered those obscure units. Then I started an engineering career in the late 1990s and...

      Them: "The Virginia's hull is aiming for a 100ksi yield strength."

      Me: "Ksi...whut? Is that like megapascals?"

      Them: "Is the glass transition temperature below -80F?"

      Me: "Hell if I know, my data's in Celsius."

      Them: "Spell out the inch-pounds for the fastener on the drawing."

      Me: "Stahp..."

      Them: "The alloy has a few percent Columbium."

      Me: "Oh, come on, they renamed that element decades ago!"

  11. TeeCee Gold badge
    WTF?

    Is there a prize?

    As it seems that there's some fairly serious competition between hacks to get the daftest measurement comparison printed in a newspaper, I'm forced to wonder if there's a prize on offer.

    1. Little Mouse

      Re: Is there a prize?

      That would require some kind of unit of measurement for daftness....

      1. imanidiot Silver badge

        Re: Is there a prize?

        A scale of 0 to 1 dubbed the Guardian? A score of 1 Guardian being complete and utter daftness?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Is there a prize?

          I'd call it the Assange™ - far more entertaining..

          /me tiptoes away :)

  12. Stevie

    Bah!

    Bravo New Statesman for making this tedious issue clearer, and Bravo The Register for correcting the vertical measurement blunder and defining a new era in clarity.

  13. Jonathan Richards 1

    Scientific estimates

    > The manhole cover was hurled an impressive "200-300 feet" into the air, ...

    Hmmm. I think those quote marks are entirely appropriate! New Statesman claims the ironwork hurl was 200-300 ft. Using g = 32 ft/s^2, and t = (2*s/g)^0.5, that would give a flight time between 7.06 and 8.66 seconds. Close, but since the bang occurs on the video at 0:05, and the cover lands again at 0:11 I think they've overestimated that height. The cover made it down again from apogee in 3 seconds, so peak height was

    s = 0.5 * 32 * 3^2 = 16 * 9 = 144 ft.

    It might just have touched 200 ft, given that YouTube timing can't be precise, but not close to 300 ft.

  14. Mark 85
    Flame

    A surreptitious SpaceX test maybe?

    It missed the barge... err... firetruck... completely.

  15. Vineslave

    El Reg and all of you commenters have made me smile in the midst of an ARGHH morning. Thank you.

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