agreed
but don't try and tell me it was all over the news to validate it - its either funny/entertaining whatever or its not. pretending its been on news at 10 or on the front page of the sun doesn't improve the tale it just proves its a porkie
( spimf ™ is whoever you want him to be, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 6:37, 1 reply)

Not sure it's that far beyond the possible....
... Wikipedia reckons 1 stick of commercial dynamite liberates 2.1 MJ. In round numbers, that's enough to lift 10 metric tonnes 20 metres (60+ feet) into the air.

If a schoolboy could actually handle nitroglycerine and make 14 sticks which together had the force of a single commercial stick then it's close enough to be in the realms of the possible; 60 feet would look like 200 to me, if I was "11 and deaf and on fire"!

In any case, a damn fine tale.
( Ugi , it's a game of give and cake, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 19:16, closed)

From someone who has spent a LOT of time around
explosives, his words, whether or not they are true, are relatively accurate. As a geologist working in the mines as my first job out of college I learned firsthand about the concussion that explosives (dynamite) create and they are remarkably like what is described in this thread. I have also used a lot of explosives in geophysics (kim-packs that are equivalent to about 1/3 of a stick of dynamite) and it is amazing what they will lift into the air. Twelve or thirteen sticks of dynamite placed correctly could easily pick up 13 or 14 feet of old oak tree stump. I am less convinced about one half sending a fence post into the air but it certainly could happen.

All of that said, I am glad today was a holiday as I could not stop laughing out loud as I read this. It is fairly accurate and really FUNNY.
(MichaelS wasn't picked again, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 23:12, closed)