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An entire apartment building exploded in Harlem from a gas leak no more than 2 months ago or so. It happened about 5 minutes after my train passed the building, which was adjacent to the tracks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_East_Harlem_apartment_buildings_explosion
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Jul 16, 2014 17:45
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Turfahurf posted:Yeah for real, I was at my buddie's place like a year and a half ago (live there now) and we just thought the smell was coming from the garbage or something until someone who knew what gas smelled like came over What does gas smell like in the US? The aroma compound they add to it here has a really peculiar smell that's hard to mistake for anything else. A bit like gasoline I'd say? Not even remotely organic.
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Jul 16, 2014 20:18
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Rotten eggs or something else sulfury.
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Jul 16, 2014 20:29
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stefania_r posted:What does gas smell like in the US? Well, it's hard to describe a smell but it just smells like "gas". Nothing else really smells like it. Gas that comes into the home smells different than gas you put in your car so I'm assuming it's two different additives but in the end the gas smell is pretty unique. It's interesting. I never thought that the odor they add to gas might be different in different countries. I wonder if it was ever standardized. VVV Fair enough. RoyKeen has a new favorite as of 20:39 on Jul 16, 2014 |
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Jul 16, 2014 20:29
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The Ape of Naples posted:Well, it's hard to describe a smell but it just smells like "gas". Nothing else really smells like it. Gas that comes into the home smells different than gas you put in your car so I'm assuming it's two different additives but in the end the gas smell is pretty unique. It's interesting. I never thought that the odor they add to gas might be different in different countries. I wonder if it was ever standardized. Natrual gas is not Gasoline.
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Jul 16, 2014 20:37
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20 or so years ago National Geographic put out a special "scratch n sniff" issue with 10 scents and a reader poll, one of the more notable conclusions from the later poll results article was that many people didn't find the oniony smell of the mercaptans in gas to be unpleasant, and for some reason a lot of elderly people marked it as pleasant. When the gas is burnt the chemical is destroyed, so there's no reason why they couldn't make it smell like rear end or death or something universally unpleasant. My assumption is that if gas was made to smell really vile, gas companies would be overwhelmed by calls to repair the minor leaks that people usually just ignore, all gas appliances would have to be built to better mechanical tolerance, and society in general would learn to hate and mock it due to poor/working class peoples houses smelling like farts due to old water heaters, pilot lights going out, landlord installing appliances shittily etc. I'm sure many millions of dollars has been spent on figuring out the exact balance of "smells bad enough to be safe" and "doesn't smell so bad that people avoid it". ps. Oh man now I have to go look for the section in Ignition by John Clark where he describes the research that went into using thiols and amines as rocket fuels. It's only tangentally on topic but it's pretty priceless... when a research chemist says something smells bad, you know it smells bad.
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Jul 16, 2014 21:10
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Could also be that back when they started scenting gas, the marking agents were easily available and cheap. Now that the smell is commonly associated in the public consciousness as "GAS!", changing it would be difficult.
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Jul 16, 2014 21:32
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They should just make everything smell like fresh baked chocolate chip cookies. Danger be damned.
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Jul 16, 2014 21:44
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They should make gas smell like tiger piss, I think if a tiger was pissing on you you'd run away so it makes sense from an instinctive point of view.
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Jul 16, 2014 21:46
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On the use of butyl mercaptan as a rocket fuel:Ignition! posted:Well, it had two virtues, or maybe three. It was hypergolic with mixed acid, and it had a rather high density for a fuel. And it wasn't corrosive. But its performance was below that of a straight hydrocarbon, and its odor!!! Well, its odor was something to consider. Intense, pervasive and penetrating, and resembling the stink of an enraged skunk, but surpassing, by far, the best efforts of the most vigorous specimen of Mephitis mephitis. It also clings to the clothes and the skin. But rocketeers are a hardy breed, and the stuff was duly and successfully fired, although it is rumored that certain rocket mechanics were excluded from their car pools and had to run behind. Ten years after it was fired at the Naval Air Rocket Test Station - NARTS - the odor was still noticeable around the test areas.
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Jul 16, 2014 21:52
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stefania_r posted:What does gas smell like in the US? It smells like durian fruit. Seriously, find an Asian market in your area and see if they have durian fruit. If you're really manly, see if they have durian candy, and buy some. Pop it in your mouth, and it'll taste like a gas leak in your mouth. And if you're badass enough to keep the candy in until it dissolves, it'll taste like a gas leak when your burp. And that smell really lingers for a while. Don't actually buy durian candy, though. It's gross.
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Jul 17, 2014 04:02
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I've never smelt a durian, so the closest equivalent I could give would be onions that are starting to rot. Which sounds a lot like how I've seen people describe durian, so durians probably a good description. stefania_r posted:What does gas smell like in the US? ObWiki: this is the disaster that got us to start adding smell to gas.
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Jul 17, 2014 05:02
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It's always interesting to me to hear about how other people perceive the durian smell, because I grew up eating them as a kid and no matter how many comparisons people make to toilets or rotten onions, its always smelled strongly sweet to me.
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Jul 17, 2014 06:42
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The reason they use what they do to odor gas is because it has an extremely low detection threshold and is more distinctive and less toxic than other low detection compounds like hydrogen sulfide. Plus, now there's an association. I mean, I guess you could wake up and wonder why someone has chosen to cook up some durian, onion, and cabbage soup in the middle of the night and doing a real poo poo job of it, but even then you'd probably get up to investigate unless that's a regular dish round your place.
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Jul 17, 2014 10:10
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I'm going to go ahead and guess that most Americans don't even know what a durian is.
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Jul 17, 2014 11:56
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Sure we do. It's one of those weird fruits in the part of the supermarket with all those weird fruits nobody ever buys.
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Jul 17, 2014 12:13
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Durian is like if all of the other fruits on the planet took a poo poo, and that poo poo was a durian.
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Jul 17, 2014 14:31
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You can get durians in every Asian market ever, so I would assume only really rural Americans who also never watch food or travel shows wouldn't know what one is. Not knowing what they smell/taste like I can see, but durians are certainly recognizable to at least a decent chunk of the population.
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Jul 17, 2014 16:35
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ColHannibal posted:Seriously, it's not something to just be mindful of, put something like one of these in your kitchen and anywhere you have gas appliances like a water heater or furnace. Probably a good idea, as I have kids now. Don't want them being at risk because mum's deficient AND an idiot. And all this discussion of scents is really fascinating to me as I just have no frame of reference for it. Closest I can understand it would be likening it to describing flavours, but I've often been told the way something "tastes" to me is vastly different from what it actually tastes or smells like.
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Jul 18, 2014 05:34
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So is it just me or is everyone ignoring the fact that regardless of how natural gas smells in your part of the world, after 30-90 seconds it will induce a raging headache?
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Jul 18, 2014 14:36
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nucleicmaxid posted:You can get durians in every Asian market ever, so I would assume only really rural Americans who also never watch food or travel shows wouldn't know what one is. No they really aren't. dpack_1 posted:So is it just me or is everyone ignoring the fact that regardless of how natural gas smells in your part of the world, after 30-90 seconds it will induce a raging headache? Problem is a lot of things can cause raging headaches and the first thought in your mind might not be "Oh there's a gas leak."
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Jul 18, 2014 14:59
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nucleicmaxid posted:You can get durians in every Asian market ever, so I would assume only really rural Americans who also never watch food or travel shows wouldn't know what one is. Kimmalah posted:No they really aren't. Trap sprung. I also have no idea what a durian is, am not rural, and visit Asian markets a few times a year.
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Jul 18, 2014 15:07
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dpack_1 posted:So is it just me or is everyone ignoring the fact that regardless of how natural gas smells in your part of the world, after 30-90 seconds it will induce a raging headache? That's actually a crappy way to identify natural gas. I suffer from migraines so it's entirely possible I'd just assume I had one coming on and go lay down for a while. Which is, of course, part of why stuff like that is crammed full of a very distinct smell. Other indicators may not be obvious, different people are affected by that stuff in different ways, and might not place the cause properly. But if you give it a specific smell and several people all go "hey do you smell gas? I smell gas" suddenly everybody starts looking for a gas leak.
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Jul 18, 2014 15:28
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ToxicSlurpee posted:That's actually a crappy way to identify natural gas. I suffer from migraines so it's entirely possible I'd just assume I had one coming on and go lay down for a while. Which is, of course, part of why stuff like that is crammed full of a very distinct smell. Other indicators may not be obvious, different people are affected by that stuff in different ways, and might not place the cause properly. But if you give it a specific smell and several people all go "hey do you smell gas? I smell gas" suddenly everybody starts looking for a gas leak. Oh i get that it shouldnt be the sole identifier. But if i smelled rotten eggs / durians / cabbage / etc etc AND 2 mins late had eye strain / headache / nausea I would put the two things together and realise it was gas. Even without the additive smells natural gas causes headaches in most people within a minute or two. I was just wondering why nobody mentioned that regardless of how your natural gas smelled in your part of the world you 'could' also associate it with that sudden headache as an extra identifier. EDIT: PYF: Scary or unnerving article: We get it, Gas smells bad dpack_1 has a new favorite as of 16:00 on Jul 18, 2014 |
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Jul 18, 2014 15:57
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dpack_1 posted:Oh i get that it shouldnt be the sole identifier. But if i smelled rotten eggs / durians / cabbage / etc etc AND 2 mins late had eye strain / headache / nausea I would put the two things together and realise it was gas. Even without the additive smells natural gas causes headaches in most people within a minute or two. The whole genesis of the topic was somebody without a sense of smell.
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Jul 18, 2014 15:59
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dpack_1 posted:Oh i get that it shouldnt be the sole identifier. But if i smelled rotten eggs / durians / cabbage / etc etc AND 2 mins late had eye strain / headache / nausea I would put the two things together and realise it was gas. Even without the additive smells natural gas causes headaches in most people within a minute or two. Generally speaking it's a good idea to notice the gas leak and deal with it long before you start getting a headache. It might also not be concentrated enough to give you a headache but concentrated enough to smell bad. Gas is extremely flammable so you kind of want to deal with it fast as you can.
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Jul 18, 2014 16:00
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Hello Sailor posted:I also have no idea what a durian is, am not rural, and visit Asian markets a few times a year. It looks like something that should dangle from a chain being swung by the Chief Nazgul. Just GIS "Durian".
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Jul 18, 2014 18:58
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Generally speaking it's a good idea to notice the gas leak and deal with it long before you start getting a headache. It might also not be concentrated enough to give you a headache but concentrated enough to smell bad. Gas is extremely flammable so you kind of want to deal with it fast as you can. Yea pretty sure the LEL is below the point where it displaces enough oxygen to give you a headache.
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Jul 18, 2014 20:04
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Extreme religious mania is always a box of  . For instance, the Convulsionnaires, an eighteenth-century French sect which believed in extreme chastisements of the body as a way to become spiritually closer to God.quote:While the first recorded case of convulsions at the tomb of Pâris occurred in July 1731, one of the best recorded early cases is that of l'abbé de Bescherand, who made two daily pilgrimages to the cemetery: During these visits, Strayer writes, "his body was wracked by convulsions that lifted him into the air, his face was contorted by grimaces, and foaming at the mouth, he yelled and screamed for hours on end." A number of other pilgrims began to exhibit similar convulsions, and the convulsion phenomenon began to rival and eclipse the miracle phenomenon. The cemetery's atmosphere became busy and noisy as people variously prayed, sang and convulsed. Rumours spread through Paris that people were speaking in tongues, stomping on Bibles, barking like dogs, swallowing glass or hot coals, or dancing until they collapsed. The practice of secours culminated in the early nineteenth centry with a young girl named Margaretta Peter. quote:Margaretta Peter, born into a large Swiss farming family in the late eighteenth century, was a preaching prodigy. In 1800, when Margaretta was just six years old, she enthralled relatives and other residents of a tiny hamlet near Schaffhausen (either Wildisbuch or Wildispuch) with her impromptu sermons, seeming to have a better grasp of the Bible than any minister five times her age.
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Jul 19, 2014 17:55
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gently caress, man... That's some poo poo. The worst part is her staying conscious while being crucified, coaxing them on. Scary.
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Jul 19, 2014 22:44
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The article on Marshall Applewhite, leader of the Heaven's Gate cult, is unusually detailed and quite an interesting read.
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Jul 19, 2014 23:24
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"Whipping Tom" was the nickname given to a pair of serial spankers in 1700s era England. quote:The Whipping Tom of 1681 was active in the warren of small courtyards between Fleet Street, Strand and Holborn. He would wait in the narrow and dimly lit alleys and courtyards. On seeing an unaccompanied woman, he would grab her, lift her dress, and slap her buttocks repeatedly before fleeing. He would sometimes accompany his attacks by shouting "Spanko!".
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Jul 22, 2014 03:53
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Dangerous times.
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Jul 22, 2014 05:22
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RevSyd posted:"Whipping Tom" was the nickname given to a pair of serial spankers in 1700s era England. The Demon Spanker of Fleet Street
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Jul 22, 2014 05:34
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RevSyd posted:"Whipping Tom" was the nickname given to a pair of serial spankers in 1700s era England. Still being discussed 333 years later. I'd say he's the most successful attention seeking weirdo this side of Herostratus.
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Jul 22, 2014 05:44
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quote:Women would carry "penknives, sharp bodkins, scissors and the like",[10] and male vigilantes would dress in women's clothing and patrol the areas he was known to operate. Random spankings and guys walking around all night in drag. 1700s London was a pretty kinky town.
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Jul 22, 2014 11:03
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Wasn't there also a guy running around London a little bit later slashing women's butts with a razor?
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Jul 22, 2014 21:02
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muscles like this? posted:Wasn't there also a guy running around London a little bit later slashing women's butts with a razor? There was a guy doing that near DC just a year or two ago. He got arrested and sentenced within the last year.
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Jul 22, 2014 21:05
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bamhand posted:There was a guy doing that near DC just a year or two ago. He got arrested and sentenced within the last year. The classics never get old I guess.
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Jul 23, 2014 04:03
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SPANKO!  At least the dude had a sense of humor.
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Jul 23, 2014 13:30
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