Naw, the 800 lbs is the counterweight. It pulls the "arm" up and over, which is what does the flinging....

If/when you fling 800#s, do you attempt to recover it, so it can be flung again?

I don't have the formulas handy, but the 800lbs is the weight at the end of the arm that provides the force. I'm not sure what weight of missile you could throw most effectively with 800 lbs.

I think a flung toilet can stay where it's flung. There's a guy in Scotland who flings grand pianos and dead cars. Considering his sheep live in the target field, I'm sure he cleans up regularly. The sheep, however, have been observed to run like hell when a cloud's shadow passes over them.

Heh. Original weapons of mass destruction crosspost.

The sheep, however, have been observed to run like hell when a cloud's shadow passes over them.

Heh heh.

But on a serious side:

Recently there have been attemtps by people in England to hurl people using a large trebuchet. Several people were badly hurt- one person ruptured his liver and another person broke her pelvis.

Sadly, and most recently, a student was killed when he missed the landing zone and hit the ground. People were arrested and there is a criminal case pending. Worst of all, someone died.

If you endeavor to repeat a similar stunt, YOU COULD BE SERIOUSLY HURT OR KILLED! DON'T DO IT.

This warning, of course, is from people who have done it. [link]

Oh, yeah, the folks doing the flinging into the water. Damn, the g-forces alone would be hell on an unsecured person. I'm amazed it wasn't a snapped neck.

Still . . . It'd be the kind of thing you'd think of doing if your doctor said, "You've got six months to live, go, have fun."

Thinking of Chris' piano fling. Only vaguely on topic, but a very happy television memory that pops in my head at weird times.

When I had mono, the docter told me that I could have been carrying it for a while and only got sick because I was under a lot of stress at the time.

The virus that causes infectious mononucleosis is Epstein-Barr, and by the time you get to your 30s, nearly everyone (in the United States, at least) has been exposed to it at least once and is therefore a carrier.

In young children, active illness resembles any other minor viral illness; it's "self-limiting," meaning it goes away on its own like the common cold.

If a person avoids exposure to EBV as a child and only becomes exposed during adolescence or young adulthood, roughly half will still be asymptomatic and/or very mildly ill, but the other half will get the swollen glands and paralyzing fatigue that everyone thinks of when they hear mono. It's not wildly common to get to adolescence without being exposed to EBV, so most people go through life without ever getting really sick from it.

It'd be the kind of thing you'd think of doing if your doctor said, "You've got six months to live, go, have fun."

And don't mind spending the last five in a hospital bed, with something breathing for you.

::shuddering at the thought of BEING flung::

Chris who?