Pedantry

[bladespark]

I"m a little pedantic sometimes. I can't help it! When I see bad grammar or flaws in logic, I have to point them out!

Today, for example, I was reading a list of "things we learned at the movies." It's one of those lists of things like "the more people shooting at you, the less chance they have of hitting you" and so on. Most of them made me chuckle, but one of them made me go "Argh, you idiot."

"An electric fence, powerful enough to kill a dinosaur, will cause no lasting damage to an eight year old child."

You all probably recognize the movie that's from. If you don't, it's Jurassic Park. And whoever wrote this list didn't spare ten seconds to actually think about the electrocution scene. Because I don't know about you, but if I had a park full of dinosaurs that I wanted to open to the public, a park that was going to make me oodles of money, a park that had already cost me oodles of money, filled with dinosaurs that had been produced with a great deal of expense and effort, I wouldn't be setting up a containment system that instantly killed my very expensive critters the first time they brushed up against it.

Or in other words; DUH, it's not powerful enough to kill a dinosaur, it's just powerful enough to make one uncomfortable.

The scene where the kid gets blown off the fence is completely plausible! Honestly! What kind of idiot is going to look at that electric fence and think it's meant to kill the dinosuars? I suppose, given that most city-bred types have never encountered a real electric fence,* they don't know what they're talking about, but man... think a little! Who wants to kill escaping livestock? You might as well just let 'em escape, if the fence is going to keep them in by killing them!

*Our next-door neighbor when I lived in Toquerville had a cow, which they kept fenced in with a single wire. The wire was electrified, and we were always daring each other to touch it. You got a mild but slightly painful shock, similar to the effect of a low-end personal taser, from touching it. Scale that up to dinosaurs, and there's still no way something that's intended to deter them is going to kill a human, really. It'd be more like a real police taser. So I suppose the scene is a bit unrealistic in that the kid was hurt more than he really should have been, rather than being unrealistic in his surviving!

Comments

[beetlecat.livejournal.com]

http://www.slipups.com/items/3893.html


As an aside, we had one of those portable electric fences for the sheep - so it could be moved and set up for them to eat grass in the yard. It's not as powerful as a cow fence but I recall that the dog only peed on it once! (and yes, that was terribly funny!)

Interestingly, the sheep would lean and back into it all the time - their wool protected them and they'd only get a shock if they touched it with their nose. After a while, we could get set up fences of twine of of the electric wire with the power off.

Any bit of grass or twigs on the ground would short it out. And it was time-consuming making sure everything stayed clear.

[thalass.livejournal.com]

Also, the kid flew off and sailed through the air, which would have helped. I'm not sure if that is 100% accurate, I think in some cases being electrocuted forces your hands /closed/, so you have a death grip on the thing that's killing you. But I think that's DC, and iirc electric fences are generally AC, so it's not implausible.

and: Whee Dinosaurs!

[thetommydodd.livejournal.com]

Effect on muscles:-
ISTR that DC causes one convulsive KICK of all muscles affected, and throws you clear, wheras AC with it's rapid oscillations holds you in place long enough for bad things to happen. Also, from first aid and OHL safety training I remember that electricity rarely kills outright instantly- prompt first aid such as CPR can often save the situation.
Agricultural Electric Fences:-
I could be wrong, but ISTR that some posher models progressively ramp up the juice with prolonged contact, thus eventually being fierce enough to "persuade" even the biggest and dumbest of critters.
Calls of nature:- I remember meeting a guy who'd worked on the 3rd rail lines around Bury in the 50s- (1200v DC) and in a moment of weakness taken a leak over the edge of the platform. He was found, dazed, 20' away. The shock (or resulting convulsion) had thrown him, but the high-resistance current flow had heated and evaporated the liquid part of the "circuit" before any permanent damage could be done. I haven't tested this for myself, though, and don't intend to!

[silveradept]

Zot. Definitely not intended to kill, at least, not immediately. Although, with the variance between human physiology and dinosaur physiology, would something that would just deter a dinosaur be enough to overload a human, even if it were of the direct current that would throw them away on contact?

[aoanla.livejournal.com]

That depends on a lot of factors that we just Don't Know for dinosaur physiology. Cows, for example, are much more sensitive to electric shocks than humans are, despite being bigger.

[silveradept]

Fair enough. So when someone recreates the dinosaurs, we'll have an idea. If anyone actually wants to recreate the dinosaurs.