Errors de càlcul

Un altre servei que ens brinda internet és el de trobar tota la informació que volguem. Un exemple, fa temps (uns deu o quinze anys) vaig veure la crònica de com uns americans s'encarregaven de treure una balena morta varada a la platja. Tenia ganes de recuperar-lo o si més no tornar-lo a veure. Avui el meu desig s'ha fet realitat.
Per a tots vosaltres: The infamous exploding whale.

(PAUL LINMAN) It had to be said,
the Oregon State Highway Division
not only had a Whale of a problem
on its hands, it had a stinking
whale of a problem: what to do
with a one 45 foot 8 ton whale
dead ????? on a beach near Florence.
It had been so long since a whale had
washed in the beach on ?????? that
nobody could remember how to get rid
of one. In selecting his battl plan,
the Highway division decided the
carcass couldn't be buried because
it might soon be uncovered, it
couldn't be cut up and then buried
because nobody wanted to cut it up
and it couldn't be burnt so
dinamite it was with 20 cases or
half a ton of it. The hope was
that the long ???? pacific gray
whale would be almost disintegrated
by the blast and any small pieces
still around after the explosion
would be taken care of by seagulls
and other scavengers. Indeed the
seagulls had been standing nearby
all day.
As everything was being made ready
we asked GEORGE THORTON (?) -the
Highway engineer in charge of
the project- for his final
observations.
(GEORGE THORTON) Well, I'm
confident that it'll work the only
thing is we are not sure just exactly
how much explosive it will take to
disintegrate this thing so the
scavengers and seagulls and ??????
??? ??? clean it up.
(PAUL) Is there any change that
it might more than a one day job?
(GEORGE) Aaah, if there's any
large chunks left and... ah, we
may need to do another clean-up,
maybe set another charge.
(PAUL) The dinamite was buried
primarily on the ???? side of
the big mammal so as most of the
remains would be blown towards the
sea.
About 75 by-standers, most of them
residents who had first found the
whale to be an object of curiosity
before they tired of its smell,
were moved back a quarter of a mile
away. The sand-dunes were covered on
spectators and land-lover newsmen,
shortly to become land-blober
newsmen. For the blast blasted
blober beyond all believable bounds.
8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1...
KaBoom
Wee! Yeah! Oooooh! Ha hah...
¿OMG?¿WTF?
(PAUL) Our camera stopped rolling
immediatelly after the blast. The
humour of the entire situation
suddenly gave away to a run for
survival as huge chunks of whale
blober fell everywhere. Pieces of
meat passed tight over our heads
while others were falling at our
feet. The dunes where rapidly
evacuated as spectators escaped
both of falling debris and the
the overwhelming smell.
A parked car about a quarter of
a mile from the blast site was
the target of a one large chunk,
the passenger compartment
literally smashed. Fortunatelly
no human was hit as badly as
the car, however everyone on
the scene was covered with small
particles of dead whale.
As for the success of the effort,
the seagulls who were supposed
to ????? things up were nowhere
in sight either scared away by
the explosion or kept away by
the smell. That didn't really
matter, the remaining chunks were
of such a size that no respectable
seagull would have ???? ??? anyway.
As darkness began to set in, the
Highway crew were back on the
beach burying the remains
including a large piece of the carcass
which never left the blast site.
It might be concluded that should
a whale ever wash in shore in
????? again, those in charge will
not only remember what to do, they'll
certainly remember what not to do.

I també podeu veure el video de l'explosió de la balena.