Well There's Your Problem | Episode 137: Willow Island Cooling Tower Collapse

[@MJHT666]

UNESCO Troops would rock, just imagine a UNESCO AC-130 about to obliterate a Sparkling Winery for calling it Champagne

[@deatheragefarms]

Italian paratroopers straight war criming the Cheeseman's house for posting a vid.

[@SnausageKing]

Basically a make work program for French and Italian war criminals

[@merobo5066]

I for one like my perfectly functional bridge

[@freeaudiojungle4407]

if you want to know more about this concept just google "obama kunduz hospital"

[@thompkins6796]

Finishing La Sagrada Familia. By force.

[@whoever6458]

When poor people die, society doesn't care. When really poor people die, it's usually because society pushed them to their death. When I was homeless, some damn yuppie called the cops on me on two different occasions sitting in the shade trying to survive the summer heat. The cops came and forced me to move. On one such occasion, I moved and ended up losing consciousness due to heat stroke at another location. Presumably I don't have to tell you why no one called anyone when I was lying in the grass unconscious. Luckily, it was just starting to cool off when that happened and I woke up feeling extremely ill at like 1 am.

[@whoever6458]

All this calling the cops on me because I was homeless is because people don't want to see homeless people and we're not allowed to use the community areas even in the middle of the day. I imagine if I had been in a suit or fancy clothes, no one would have called the cops no matter where I sat or how long I sat there but, no, they could tell I was poor and so they called the cops.

[@Tomartyr]

@@whoever6458 Yup the mental dissonance is crazy. People say shit like "homelessness is a choice" (it's not) and that's somehow meant to justify banning them from public spaces.

[@alylu-to-esutej]

My dad complains about homeless people asking for money on the side of the road and I always explain to him how hostile America is to homeless people and how difficult it is to get a job once you become homeless

[@piccalillipit9211]

@@alylu-to-esutejIve been homeless but thank God it was in Europe [Bulgaria] so people helped me which meant it didnt last very long. Being poor in the US seems to be seen as a moral failing.

[@paulb.7998]

Re: The Popcorn story. The main reason why I didn't tell it is that it's not really a Safety Third story, just a "don't find out how the sausage is made" story. When I worked as a movie concessions guy, the way we cooked popcorn was to dump a large cup of uncooked kernels into the popper, along with about a third of a cup of oil each time (not sure about the amount, they just had a big and small cup you filled both and dumped them in). The popper was not cleaned between pops, because that could take awhile (taking the damn thing apart and washing the bits in the dinky sink they had provided concessions, then getting it back together) so there was no time with shows starting about every 15 minutes. You popped at bunch at open, and we would need to pop more popcorn every half hour or so from noon matinee till last show at 10. Pretty quickly the repeated dumps of oil had made a burned sludge all along the inside, and by 8 the popcorn would strongly taste of it. I was told by the old hands that when that started to happen to stir the new and old popcorn around so that the new stuff (hot but tasted of burned oil) and the old stale stuff was thoroughly mixed, then put as much fake butter on it to cover the flavor. At close whoever drew the short straw had to take a scour pad and food grade degreaser and scrub the pan in very hot water as we didn't have a basin large enough to soak it so it was pure elbow grease.

[@bobsmith2637]

Thanks! I'm not a fan of popcorn but hot dogs are one of my favourite foods, I just make sure to fully cook them and pretend to not know where they come from lol. I hope Devon sees this and pins it.

[@TalkingSoup]

oh damn i was certain that the popcorn story was gonna be about the presence of rats or cockroaches. this one's pretty damn bad too tho

[@MazHem]

honestly I'm less disgusted by the burnt popcorn sludge and more disgusted by the butter

[@Neuttah]

So, you're saying the oily gunk carbpuff snack machine even got cleaned daily? Honestly, I expected worse.

[@paulb.7998]

@@Neuttah I mean, we only had so much stale popcorn to mix it with before it just tasted 100 percent of biodiesel. We had to make what we mixed it with 12 hours beforehand or people would complain.

[@ungiebungie]

"I thought that bit would land a little better" Spoke straight to my soul

[@johnobrian566]

All of Justin's bits good in this one.

[@mrshlee]

"I thought that bit would land a little better" - Liam's Law.

[@_allegra]

"I though that bit would land a little better" - Boeing engineer

[@mrwaterplant]

idk if devon will see this, but if one of y'all could pass it to them that'd be much appreciated: DO NOT be sorry for being on holiday and the episode being late, absolutely take your vacation my liege

[@imsmolandangery4274]

Late means nothing on this podcast and Devons holiday beens the world

[@FreeEduardGrigoriann]

Cement is like glue. Hence, concrete is the particle board of rock.

[@seventeenpoint5]

Cement is to concrete what eggs are to cake Which I learned when I had insufficient eggs and baked a lovely bunch of crumbs 😂 My dad is an engineer and schooled me early and often about cement vs concrete to the point where I started correcting everyone around me. One day I started to correct my dad only to catch myself. If he said cement, he probably did mean cement 😝

[@lightwaves1859]

thus reinforced concrete is a fiber composite material. ABOLISH REBAR!

[@KurtisHord]

Almost. Portland cement is indeed, trash. It was invented by horrible capitalist. It took over craft practices by 1900. The rest of human history: we created “cement” by burning lime at 900 degrees for 4 hours, converting it to calcium oxide. It was then slaked with water and mixed HOT with poz agents and stuff to Create the “concrete”. It was never lost. Practiced in the lands of Talmud before Christ., and in France and Germany during the “dark” ages. It was never Roman.

[@devinfaux6987]

Ah, a classic "that's not supposed to be there" opening. Been a while since we got one of those.

[@ItCameFromTheSkyBeLo]

You love to see it.

[@jasmijnwellner6226]

"Keep the corpse on the plane, we're making it to Amsterdam" Classic Liam.

[@carinafreeman6432]

Yay Liam!

[@thomasgiles2876]

"Don't like your options? Ive got an egg sandwich of uncertain providence with your name on it"

[@grmpEqweer]

Well, you can't open the cargo doors and throw out corpses in flight. ...As darkly funny as the consequences of that could possibly be.

[@eleSDSU]

​@@grmpEqweer well not with that attitude.

[@grmpEqweer]

@@eleSDSU True, we can always try.

[@Shulwelld]

“They did that shit to Jesus” was one of the best jokes of the episode

[@Min-ke6zc]

Yeah that killed me instantly (unlike Jesus, whose death had a frankly excessive runtime)

[@tabula_rosa]

i worked at a power plant, those cooling towers sound like a tornado when they're running. it's unsettling too, because the structure it's coming from is so big & so far away you'd think any sound it makes would be very identifiable but it genuinely isn't, the sound sort of diffuses off of everything around it so you very quickly go from being far enough away you can't hear it to suddenly it sounding like whatever is making the noise is surrounding you or you're inside of it, even tho ur like hundreds of meters away from it

[@segarallychampionship702]

22:48 Speaking of people getting decapitated on a bus, in Czechoslovakia, a truck trailer's side panel opened while on the road and cut through a bus going in the opposite direction and decapitated 9 kids, that was maybe 40 years ago. /EDIT: It happened in Podolínec, (today) Slovakia. The accident itself killed 9 children, all on the side that was struck by the truck, the bus driver was the only person on that side who survived the impact. Oh, also (CW suicide): the trailer mentioned was defective, the brakes on it did not work, the driver of the truck knew it was broken, he was forced by the company's (it was like a construction equipment company) dispatcher because other drivers in the company refused to drive a truck with a defective trailer. That driver was blamed for the whole incident and commited suicide in jail.

[@xmlthegreat]

Jesus H. Christ that's horrific...

[@opalpersonal]

holy fucking shit

[@hayuseen6683]

When the boss’s shit hits the fan It’s the employees that get covered in it Never the guy in the nice suit

[@kimmatzen6504]

About 10 or 15 years ago in Copenhagen there was a bus driver driving a double decker tourist bus, that missed a sign showing the hight of the underpass he was driving into. Took off the top of the bus at about shoulder hight of the top compartment.

[@TSTypeR]

JESUS!!!

[@bobsmith2637]

As a Canadian I stand in solidarity with our Swedish moose freak brethren

[@danielled8665]

Though in awe anyone would dare. XD More extreme sport than saturation diving.

[@TwoWholeWorms]

Meese Freaks :p

[@toppersundquist]

The Moosen Twosome.

[@GoredonTheDestroyer]

Hear hear!

[@eleSDSU]

Surely the meese freaks don't need to be dragged down by the beaver junkies

[@XoxSkateLoverxoX]

Re: scotch on the plane: my dad once asked for a whiskey neat, and the kid running bar had no idea what they meant, and FILLED a tumbler to the brim with Jack

[@nekolalia3389]

wrong island iced tea

[@RedwingBB]

"It would be neat if you just gave me all the whiskey, thanks"

[@LifesNeverHumDrum]

That’s pretty neat

[@adams3627]

Good lad

[@kabobawsome]

To be fair, if there wasn't any ice, technically that is still a whiskey neat. Just a lot of it.

[@SericanGrind]

Used to deliver parts to this plant, always chilling to see the two mismatched colors of the cooling tower and know the story behind it.

[@bethl7602]

Even driving by on 7 is creepy, IMO.

[@ZGVideosChannel]

Late episode means another month until the "I'm November Caldwell-Kelly" and that was going to be a highlight of this ep for me.

[@Mickulty]

Timestamps: 0:00:00 Rocz's Novel Archival Plan 0:01:33 Intro 0:06:11 The GD News: Lawless Bus Hellhole 0:14:57 The GD News: Nothing Good Comes From Planes 0:23:50 Background: What Is Coal Power? 0:27:30 Background: What and Why Is Cooling Towers 0:37:40 Pleasants Power Station 1 0:38:45 Background: Concrete 0:42:40 Pleasants Power Station 2: Van Halen Forming 0:47:46 Time Pressure + Rocz Says A Date 0:53:07 Immediate Aftermath 0:56:12 Long-Term Aftermath 1:06:41 Safety Third: TA vs Unsanctioned Nitrogen Triiodide Thanks for the podcast y'all. My wife and I are no closer to finding a flat within an hour of her new job, because it's season 5% and also letting agents are apparently the only profession that actually runs as an anarchist commune while being the last one that should do. Add that to british trains and british weather, and I had to spend about 4 hours today dropping her off at a hotel by car through a fog-like cloud of spray. It was good to get back to this.

[@MK.5198]

good luck out there and ty for the timestamps

[@LordBloodpool]

Letting Agents are actually an Anarcho-Syndicalist Commune, I'll have you know.

[@TheThirdRider]

Devon, the secret fourth host, deserves vacation and unapologetic enjoyment thereof. 👍

[@VinceWhitacre]

Don't worry, Alice, Mia can't hear your insults from all the way up there.

[@sunyavadin]

Alice's death memorialised using a stack of copies of The Guardian in the shape of J.K. Rowling

[@capsjukebox]

Is Ben Shapiro the virgin we put in the middle of it while Morris dancing around it?

[@zyavoosvawleilte1308]

One of those eternal flame memorials that runs on Guardian articles

[@sparky_universe]

Having binged a rather terrifying number of episodes in the last week, I've been enjoying the fairly new addition of comments from Devon. I would, however, kindly request that text be left on the screen several seconds longer so that those of us who read slowly or who watch/listen at 2x speeds (or both) can appreciate their commentary without needing to pause the video. Thanks for all the many hours of hilariously disastrous entertainment!

[@kingofthend]

The giant bucket wheel excavators are cool. I think they should keep digging the hole just without burning the coal.

[@danielled8665]

Dig it up and make a big monument. 😅

[@paulschmidts5429]

One step ahead, the Sophienhöhe is the largest artificial hill in the world and was built next to the largest by volume Lignite mine in Germany (Tagebau Hambach), it’s about 200 meters taller then the sorounding flat terrain.

[@andrewcassidy1790]

That’s where we put all the extra sea water to mitigate sea level rise

[@piparalegal2019]

I absolutely love the picture of Milkshake. What an adorable cat. That broke me a little during Safety Third - just like it broke Justin. Cats are magical creatures who will break our human brains in ways beyond our comprehension. Our cats thoroughly approve of Milkshake's antics, especially our tabby who will try to "help" me work by laying on my shoulder while I'm trying to work.

[@EvilGrin]

Come gather 'round children, it's high time ye learn - About a hero named Homer and a devil named Burns We'll march till we drop, the girls and the fellas - We'll fight to the death or else fold like umbrellas So we'll march day and night by the big cooling towers - They have the plant, but we have the power

[@Tzilandi]

Literally rewatching the Ponte Morandi episode because of a bridge collapse in Greece when this dropped.

[@Fox-419]

this episode dropped like a collapsing bridge xD

[@goodluck5642]

Bridge dropped when this dropped

[@fauxpinkytoo]

I always feel a profound sense of joy (and relief) when another WTYP posts. It's been a rough few months employment-wise, self-esteem-wise, and despair is really setting in now. Also, I made the mistake of looking at the calendar today and realizing I know exactly where I was on this date (July 23) 50 years ago, how I felt, etc. To all of you young people, I can only say...make the most of the time available to you, it goes so damn fast. And...Yay, Liam.

[@eleSDSU]

Same, this parasocial space always gives me joy and hope. Life is both terrifyingly short to enjoy and terribly long to waste away. Take care Fauxpinkytoo 🫂

[@JoeyCarb]

Pseudo-archaeologists in the year 4023 will be convinced we were too dumb to build these and it could only have been aliens.

[@stanislavkostarnov2157]

4023... you are an optimist!!!!

[@Theonixco]

Psuedo-achaeologist AI, you mean.

[@MK.5198]

in a way, this just IS true. We ARE too dumb to just agree we should build them.

[@SubRosaFlorens]

Aliens in the year 4023 will be convinced we were too dumb to build these, and instead think it could only have been other aliens.

[@jakx2ob]

​@@Theonixcosounds like something from Rimworld that is trying to kill you

[@Monoprismatic]

Liam saying "Do not eat me!" and then describing how delicious his meat is. DAMN YOU, LIAM!

[@notnullnotvoid]

"I guide others to a treasure they cannot possess" - Liam

[@peterpanda5069]

Finally the truth behind Rocz’s @ is revealed

[@AnnDVine]

really letting the vore fans down :(

[@grmpEqweer]

We love him, but we know he's not as tasty as a billionaire.

[@choo-choo4922]

Being in engineering school sucks, but slowly understanding more and more of the little stem references Roz makes like the Carnot cycle bit makes me feel a little better.

[@alexritchie4586]

Alice, if you're ever on a train passing through East Midlands Parkway, you'll have a very good chance of pulling up and stopping less than 50m from the working cooling towers of Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station. It's never ending rain inside them. Waves of it lashing down constantly. A pretty interesting sight.

[@capsjukebox]

The idea of a post apocalypse society relearning how to be humane through object lessons on North Korean microfiche is somehow appealing sci-fi to me

[@UntoTheBreach24]

This is, to me, LANCER RPG

[@michaelsanger8327]

remembering these workers by a putting up a concrete memorial - that's like remembering John F. Kennedy by wearing a National Rifle Association pin. ( OTOH: we're remembering Jesus by wearing a cross, so ... there is that. )

[@midgetwthahacksaw]

Considering the fact it was done by a teenager because the COMPANY who forced the workers to die for the tower wouldn't even admit to any wrongdoing let alone a memorial, I think the kid did alright. He made it himself and yes, bought the benches from a garden center with his own money. He made it around the early 00's, about 20 years after the incident. He didn't have any connection to it other than being from the town and being angry that there still wasn't even a memorial.

[@ShadowMageAlpha]

For the viewing pleasure of others... I asked ChatGPT to write an intro for WTYP cause I needed to laugh after hearing after such tragedy: [Intro Music] Narrator: Welcome to "Well, There's Your Problem," the podcast where we delve into the fascinating world of engineering failures and disasters. I'm your host, [Your Name], and alongside me are the brilliant minds of Alice Caldwell-Kelly and Liam Anderson. Alice: Hey there, engineering enthusiasts! Liam: Greetings, disaster detectives! Narrator: Together, we'll be your guides on a journey through the past, exploring some of the most perplexing and catastrophic blunders in history. Alice: From towering bridge collapses to massive infrastructure mishaps, we'll be dissecting the engineering missteps that led to these unforgettable events. Liam: But fear not! It won't be all doom and gloom. We'll find humor in the absurdity and shed light on valuable lessons that can prevent future calamities. Narrator: Each episode, we'll dive headfirst into the intricate details behind these engineering marvels gone awry. We'll speak the language of bolts and beams, uncovering the hidden flaws and overlooked designs that brought them crashing down. Alice: And we're not just about engineering jargon! We'll explore the human aspect, too, examining the societal, political, and ethical factors that played a role in these disasters. Liam: So whether you're an engineering enthusiast, a history buff, or just someone curious about the world around you, this podcast is for you! Narrator: Join us as we unravel the stories behind the headlines, revealing how seemingly small oversights and big decisions can have earth-shattering consequences. Alice: So come on, folks! Grab your hard hats and get ready to explore the thrilling world of engineering failures with "Well, There's Your Problem!" [Outro Music] Thanks, GPT. I hate it. You've done a great job in making me appreciate the low bar the WTYP team gives us. (Kidding, hopefully obviously. As much as you guys joke about the quality of the podcast, it's perfectly adequate.)

[@philipmalcolm4550]

How does it keep up with the news like that?

[@chaseman113]

16:52 the awful passenger and Liam’s rage reminds me of the concept for the Fawlty Tower movie. Where the Fawlty Towers cast is on a plane and Basil Fawlty stops a hijacking attempt with his rage & saves the plane. Total hero moment and briefly Basil is the hero. The twist is the pilots want to turn around and go back. Basil just want to continue his vacation. So Basil pulls the hijacker’s gun on the pilots and forces them to continue to their destination. Upon landing, Basil is immediately arrested, spends his vacation in foreign jail while the rest of the cast enjoy their vacation.

[@DanCohoon]

Alice on smoking meth on the train: "It is really rude."

[@eleSDSU]

Idk if the meth factors in, just don't smoke in the train, that's why the good lord gave us snus.

[@ellew999]

tbf it was the glasgow subway i have seen worse things there

[@petterericson6230]

There actually seems to have been a very similar incident in China with an even higher bodycount, down to the cooling tower being intended for a coal power plant. Happened in Fengsheng and left 74 people dead, in 2016.

[@AlRoderick]

That milkshake treats our boy like a yard.

[@tequilawerewolf]

My theory on air travel incidents is this: It is surprisingly easy to talk to a doctor and get a temporary prescription for Xanax if you have any sort of anxiety around flying. Mix that with 1 or 2 drinks and you have a recipe for a terrible time.

[@hayuseen6683]

Alcohol in general seems to be problematic whenever you cram people together and then ship them places. Maybe they should require people to either not drink or drink enough they can’t coherently talk or move for the next 9 hours of the flight

[@AbsolXGuardian]

Another reason to legalize edibles on planes.

[@grmpEqweer]

​@@AbsolXGuardian Stoned people > Drunk people. I'm a guard.

[@AbsolXGuardian]

@@grmpEqweer Do you mean stoned people are more dangerous than drunk people, or that stoned people are easier to deal with?

[@sholem_bond]

@AbsolXGuardian hopefully the latter, because AFAIK when you take too much cannabis, you often can't move. When you drink too much, you get rowdy/horny/aggressive/lacking in boundaries.

[@cdf123x]

Not sure what the "official" popcorn story will be, but I can add one from my experience. Where I worked the popcorn was popped in a single popper, but we had 3 concession lanes for customers, so each lane had roughly 2 sections of cabinets hollowed out and lined with insulation and stainless steel with heat lamps overhead. At the end of the night, we would clean out one of the bins, emptying it into the other two. Then you would rotate which bin you clean out each night. Sounds good in theory, it's just dry popcorn, no salt or butter yet, we added that per customer. The problem came with the rodents. This is in MN, so a good portion of the year is cold if not freezing. As a rodent, your ideal home would be someplace worm with easy access to food. We tried putting out traps, but there's laws against using poisons in a food environment, and even quick kill traps are frowned upon. So we're limited to live traps, but you can't put them behind the line, as that's too close to the food, and the owner didn't want them in the lobby because customers would see them, and maybe "put 2 and 2 together" and figure out that maybe their snacks could have some unwanted garnishes courtesy of Mother Nature. So the stock room behind the counters got the bulk of the traps. I will admit that I ate enough popcorn working there to make me sick of it for life, but I always took mine directly from the popper, it's fresh, hot, and no chance of extra "seasonings".

[@mattwales2734]

I've done concrete testing for a storage silo in Colorado. I'm surprised they didn't use a pump truck and concrete hoses to get the concrete up there. Seems to me the crane and bucket method would be inefficient. I was told to stay the heck off the 'slip mold' because they're still dangerous. I watched them extend the scaffolding stairs one time, and a guy was trying to dislodge a bolt that was holding the scaffolding to the side of the silo. He hit something, and something snapped, and I watched him and four other guys start careening back and forth at the top of the scaffolding. Years later I was talking about what I saw that night to a guy at a different job site, and he laughed because he was the guy using the sledgehammer.

[@kimmatzen6504]

Hmm. Google says it wasn't until 57 that pumping was faster than buckets. So most likely the technology was propably sorta new when the cooling towers was build, or there was problems pumping it up far enough.

[@mattwales2734]

@@kimmatzen6504 You're probably right. 'The 70's are starting to be a long time ago.

[@bethl7602]

Technology is slow to get to the Mid-Ohio Valley. So 1957 pumping technology not being used in the ‘70s is legit.

[@angryowlet153]

I heard Red Star is a fork of Fedora and uses SELinux, which would be laughably ironic because that was developed with the NSA. There's a guy on here somewhere who got his hands on Red Star, put it in a VM, and did some de-spooking on it. That was really cool to watch (even if it was fake). I'd love to go digging into those binaries and see what shenanigans are hiding in there!

[@talicowart9577]

Good for you Devon, you shouldn't have to feel sorry about being on holiday

[@johnathanh2660]

For you Terry Pratchett fans... his first job was as a Press officer with the CEGB (UK's power grid/power stations) shortly before 3 mile island. He was inundated with questions every time there was an incident on the campus of a power station. As he put it - they're light industrial units. Anyway, as PTerry puts it - the different power stations are just different ways of boiling the kettle.

[@GaldirEonai]

I've got a guess about the popcorn one. Apparently a heavy cockroach infestation smells very similar to a movie theater popcorn machine. Knowing this suddenly gives that scent some VERY different implications...

[@eleSDSU]

Nope, they shared the story in the comments, it was about how the cinema workers weren't given time to clean the machine between batches of popcorn. Only biodiesel flavoured popcorn after 20.00hrs

[@blackmagemasher4031]

Thank you crew for another banger episode. Thank you Devon for editing this beast :-)

[@VegasLounge]

30:25 Last year I visited Morro Bay, California, which has a huge (now closed) power plant just off the shoreline. My kayak guide, a native of the city, said that when the plant shut down all the surfers were disappointed because the warm outflow meant that Morro Bay was one of the few Northern-Central California beaches you could surf without a wetsuit.

[@segarallychampionship702]

Waiting for the five part Cold War Superpower Vanity Projects episode

[@VeggieRice]

only if alice brings back the soviet anthem drop

[@SubRosaFlorens]

@@VeggieRice Does Lenin's ghost get paid a royalty every time the Soviet anthem is played?

[@SeanKDLA]

Liam as a Wurzel is the jumpscare we all need today.

[@jasonallman696]

Alice. Hang in there. I don't know what is going on in your life, but I hope things get better.

[@atn_holdings]

so funny that you were about to not tell Alice about UPS and let her think that a university was brewing and shipping cider to Liam

[@joshuagreen3185]

oh yeah, international business class is legit. you are not allowed to get mad about your travel experience if you're up there. (source: have flown international business class once, from Delhi to Munich to Frankfurt to New York on Lufthansa, primarily to check off the bucket list item of flying on the top deck of a 747)

[@joshuagreen3185]

incidentally, because the flight was near-ish to Christmas and German, I went with the roast goose, and it was delicious.

[@KurtisHord]

Romans did not invent. Craftspeople invented. Vitruvius provided recipe for “trass mortar” which is Roman concrete, with hot mixed quicklime reaction. It was NEVER LOST.

[@indyrevoly3060]

"I know the plural of 'moose' is 'moose' but I always say 'meese' because it's funny" A man truly after my own heart

[@Portablesounds]

Liam being a BSD guy makes a lot of sense. Shame it doesn't hibernate and barely has drivers for anything :P. (I'm saying this as a software engineer who works on a FreeBSD based OS everyday lol).

[@corvuscallosum5079]

I liked Liam's UNESCO army bit. How do I enlist?

[@loadeddice4696]

I would absolutely join the UNESCO army. Standing guard outside like a medieval library in Prague with an MP5

[@ClimateDude]

Dude ISIS wouldn't have been able to chip a stone out of Palmyra before being utterly annihilated by fanatical UNESCO troops 🫡

[@jacebeleren9290]

Couple of things I know about cooling towers having worked on a power plant for roughly 2 years off and on: while one is active, wind isn't necessarily your first pickup, but the "rain" is nigh upon deafening even from the outside. Second, as benign a construct as a cooling tower may be, the large pools found beneath are definitely unsafe for humans. Swimmable at a depth of merely 5 feet, although doing so is incredibly ill-advised as said pools are for some reason full of legionella, the bacteria responsible for legionairre's disease. Third, if legionairre's disease isn't your vibe, you can just die quicker by taking a boat out to the middle while the tower is in use. Assuming the water is cool enough at the base of the tower to not scald you to death, the rain is dense enough that you will just drown before you can go all the way across. NOTE: These factoids refer specifically to the cooling towers of Plant Bowen of north Georgia and Georgia Power/Southern Company and is not necessarily true of all cooling towers.

[@QuarrelsomeLocalOaf]

A podcast about Juche, with slides 🇰🇵

[@el1751]

welcome back dev! hope chicago was good, glad to be able to listen to this episode

[@Novers]

I hope you enjoyed your holiday Devon

[@joearnold6881]

Holy shit. I’ve never heard of this one. Imagine being the guy just to the side of where it started… You just watch this collapse travel *all* the way around and back to to you and you can’t do anything. I don’t want that long of a warning of unavoidable death. It’s like that skydiver who was jumping to film student jumpers who got distracted and grabbed his camera bag rather than the parachute and jumped out of the plane. You can see from his helmet cam, him filming the other jumpers and then realizing he doesn’t have a rip cord… the whole drop repeatedly grabbing for the cord he knows isn’t there like you check your pockets repeatedly for car keys you’ve lost… as he just swears and screams for the many seconds to the ground. (The clip I watched cuts off well before the end, thankfully. I don’t think I could handle seeing more of it)

[@DWOBoyleMusic]

Shoutouts to Milkshake creating a Safety Third during a Safety Third

[@laurencebois5119]

I was once on a British airways flight where we had two options for food that was just dumb. It was chicken & rice or squash curry, i was not surprised they ran out of the chicken option before they reached economy. They probably had to deep clean the entire aircraft after that. Coincidentally they had run out of customer survey forms too.

[@theryanbard]

My favourite juche podcast returns!

[@__-jt4tv]

"Support your local Medical Examiner - Die Strangely" This simultaneously sounds like a Welcome to Night Vale quote and urgently needs to be on a T-Shirt.

[@botbtquarrel4072]

My favourite part about the ScoMo coal stunt is, well, look at his hands and his suit. There's not a trace of dust anywhere on them. He had someone get him a lump of coal and then varnish that shit so he could do pissweak prop comedy

[@jacobrzeszewski6527]

Dang it! Your podcast is TOO COZY. I've fallen asleep twice trying to listen to it! Edit: four times now. And the fourth time Roz's cat invaded my dream. Very not satisfied.

[@pato5226]

23:51 can confirm, I, as an Australian, am triggered by seeing Scomo. Can’t believe you’d do this to us. I feel you owe us an Australian disaster episode at some point in order to mend diplomatic ties haha. Fr love what you do! Been addicted to the pod for the past couple months, almost listened to all of them now

[@peterpanda5069]

How many times can they do a bridge collapses ans construction site collapse before getting to the WGB? It just seems mean at this point.

[@shadowmaster1313]

The timing of it too. I had just gotten used to him not being a major part of the news and now this?

[@_allegra]

I instinctively hissed when he popped up

[@trottergraeme]

@alice to answer your question about 'what is it like standing next to a cooling tower'. You do feel a slight draft as the cool air is sucked in, and it sounds like a waterfall. But in general people aren't encouraged to get with 6 feet or so. Cooling towers are notorious for growing the Legionaires bacteria, and the little droplets of water that escape from the bottom can infect someone very easily. On a side note, I've got a picture of one completely frozen solid. Looked very cool, but the weight of the ice destroyed all the internals as they are not load bearing.

[@zoeygeorge2403]

it wouldn't have gone down like that if i was there. haven't listened yet but i can tell already

[@ProjectThunderclaw]

Podcast Juche, sure, but I think the real ideological victory in this episode happens at 3:47, where we can see Devon wholeheartedly embracing Liam Thought

[@tarasaurus98]

1:02:35 I have a hard time believing that Justin has not seen every single episode of Modern Marvels: Engineering Disasters from the history channel before. This disaster was featured! Along with a bunch of other similar poor construction disasters. I even have the DVD box set of the show, I can send it to y'all if you need some more research material.

[@apeacebone6499]

The fact that you are the sorts of people who say "stadia", "chira", etc is a balm to my former Classicist heart.

[@ayemessdee]

There's a competition in Australia (and I think internationally, but it may have a different name elsewhere) called Worldskills, where apprentices compete at various trade skills like bricklaying. So maybe cement pouring competitions do exist!

[@lukewest7216]

Calling concrete cement is like calling bread flour

[@capsjukebox]

It’s fundamentally misunderstanding the stages of construction: cement, concrete, rubble

[@Africa893]

CEMENT DAS CONK CRETE BAYBEE

[@michatarka2642]

Gustavus adolphus fought in germany. Guy who wanted to attack st petersburg was Charles XII (he never did) Swedes used primarily muskets and pikes at that time not halberds Last war against russia was a few years after 1800, they took Finland from sweden. That was a good two-three tsars after Peter the great. mr. killjoy signing out

[@stephanief5794]

oh my god. the philly bus terminal was hell on earth. literally the worst place i’ve ever been. but they didn’t have to get rid of it fuck me

[@Madhouse_Media]

Liam's "Slump Dog Millionaire" joke didn't get the reaction it deserved.

[@russianbear0027]

Thank you for bringing back proper subtitles

[@simongiavaras7787]

Related to "World Construction Games," I don't know about construction but in Transportation we definitely have rail rodeos, where we play with the trains in friendly competition

[@bethl7602]

Our department of transportation also has Roadeos that involve using their various road building and fixing equipment to do stunts.

[@Skylancer727]

The face on that cat is so funny. It's just looking at the camera like "human you know I need to do this"

[@Electrolux219]

New pod timing coming in clutch! got a long car ride today & this’ll be great to listen to. Thank you WTYP cast & crew!

[@thomasgiles2876]

"I'm Juche-Stan Roczniak"

[@Nlogax]

Fps hit marker followed up with The Wurzels. LOVE IT.

[@whoever6458]

If there was one of those cooling towers near me and if I had enough money for the paint, I'd totally sneak in and paint something cheery on them. lol

[@fragrantdeco3579]

Just when I’m about to travel a great ways. Thank y’all.

[@AbsolXGuardian]

16:04 As someone pretty close to having AFRID, that's a skill issuse. One should always travel with dry calorie dense food in their cary-on if they don't think they'd be able to stomach whatever the airline is serving

[@Quietkitsune]

All good Dev, hope you had a lovely time

[@mat_name_whatever]

You could make an episode about nuclear power and it's history, like why we use the reactor types we use now, storage etc.. because how the whole thing went down is a disaster in its own right. It's also a very uncontroversial topic.

[@poppyhaze6613]

My university had a natural gas cogen plant and one of these fan driven cooling things, that's easy to walk up to in one of the lesser used paths between dorms, it's like being by a waterfall and feeling a cold breeze that doesn't stop

[@civishamburgum1234]

I wonder how they made the clouds, before there where cooling towers.

[@AproposAndy]

Rich guy throwing wasteful temper tantrum on airline flight because he didn't tell them what dindin he wanted before hand really feels emblematic of the way more and more people in this country earn wealth without actually being active participants in its creation.

[@grmpEqweer]

"Earn." You spelled 'parasite' wrong.

[@Trendyflute]

@@grmpEqweer Glad I'm not the only one using this word.

[@mightbeafrog]

Shoutout to caption girl Anna! Also I hope Devon had a nice holiday :)

[@lightwaves1859]

the memorial thing reminds me of that old bill hicks bit about jesus where he's like "you think if jesus comes back he ever wants to see a fucking cross again?"

[@NavigatorBR]

For those wondering, the only reason there's a memorial was a 12 year old grandson of a worker killed in the disaster, Anthony Lauer, did a report on the disaster and that evolved into creating a memorial.

[@shmehfleh3115]

Speaking of spinning wheels to generate electricity, there's a really cool type of experimental fusion reactor that can generate electricity without boiling water to make steam. It uses magnets to both compress and rotate the plasma inside the reactor to induce an electromagnetic field just like a mechanical generator.

[@ElectricBuckeye]

This is down the river a ways from me. Many people still remember when it happened or know someone who was affected or killed.

[@bobsmith2637]

You should do the Windscale radioactive fire next, it's right up Alice's alley and strangely enough is an instance where a properly designed cooling tower and its filters prevented the damage from being a whole lot worse.

[@Johnsneglect]

Oh cool a disaster that I have more and scary info on. The same subcontractors also built the cooling towers at Big Sandy #1 and Mitchell 1 & 2. The company I was working for was contracted to analyze the concrete on both as all three are bowing out due to being constructed too fast (but not as fast as willow island) Big Sandy and Mitchell 1 are stable but Mitchell 2 has to have telemetry equipment on it because it is bulging out by 1cm a year and INCREASING. It can't be demolished due to it being next to the main transformer yard and a 765kV line being within 10 feet of it, which is real fun for the guy who has to climb up there and inspect it twice a year. You can tell the quality of the cooling towers increased after Willow Island as the newer towers hold up very well compared to the three I mentioned (which are also pockmarked with holes and spalled concrete.

[@forrest1979]

The captions are awesome

[@jamespuffer2889]

Devon is out of control and I am 100% here in support of that.

[@Corvid]

34:00 Having stood inside a disused cooling tower, trust me, the acoustics are genuinely as wierd and psychologically unsettling as the geometry