how many drop-down hangings fail?

[weaksauce]

I commented to a friend that the movie "infernio", with van dame, is unreal because the fall his friend made when he got hanged would atleast have broken his neck if not decapitated him.
But then he said you could actually make it and that hangings often fail. I say no, the fall was at least 2meters and afaik hangning is a very reliable method in execution. But how is it really?

He said many people say that and another thing he says that other people say is that the most torturuous torture, being strapped down and getting drops of water on your head, would end up breaking or exploading your head. I like, no wtf, you just freak out as hell and starve or something. But then he says that if the drops come like 3 seconds apart at the exact same location on your forehead, your head will explode. I ask why, he says water is the hardest materia and that it can carve stones and so on, I say yeah but that takes ages you would die before it leaves a mark on your face. "Well many people say that..."

And speaking of water and other people saying, he says 100% pure water will kill you?

 

[Skrying]

Lmao! Your friend is teh funny.

First off: The goal of a hanging is to break your neck. If not then you often die from not being able to breath. Its a gruesome site it that happens, as blood will start coming out of every hole in your head. Nasty nasty, hanging is a terrible way to go.

As far as the chinese water torture. It wouldnt make your head explode (but the thought was funny). It'll simply drive you mad and bonkers and you die from either killing yourself (if you're able to) or strave/dehydration.

As for the 100% pure water, a myth I believe.

 

[Powderkeg]

As for the 100% pure water, a myth I believe.

Depends on the amount of water you drink. The fact that it's pure water makes no difference, but drinking too much water can cause your brain to swell. The condition is called hyponatremia, and yes, it can kill you.

 

[Skrying]

Depends on the amount of water you drink. The fact that it's pure water makes no difference, but drinking too much water can cause your brain to swell. The condition is called hyponatremia, and yes, it can kill you.

Of course, to much of anything can kill you, that's why the say "to much." But that's not what the OP was talking about, nor his friend.

 

[CI]

Wiki is useful:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanging
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_water_torture

As for the water torture, the variation I heard was not dropping water onto the head, but to isolate all other noise and use the constant sound of dripping water which drives the subject crazy.

 

[Xentropy]

"The fact that it's pure water makes no difference,"

Well, depends on the type of "pure" water it is. We use de-ionized water at work (semiconductor fab), and that will react with the air to form Carbonic acid which is fairly acidic. If you argue that de-ionized water is the purest form of water, then that form of water might be dangerous for you to drink.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deionized_water

 

[Xentropy]

Oh, and I guess some people will claim that de-mineralized water will leech the minerals out of your body. Not sure I believe that one, but I've seen it said in places on the web (usually by someone trying to sell you their "natural spring water").

 

[SugarCoat]

Oh, and I guess some people will claim that de-mineralized water will leech the minerals out of your body. Not sure I believe that one, but I've seen it said in places on the web (usually by someone trying to sell you their "natural spring water").

There is actually a bit of truth to it. Like many things the body uses to survive and thrive, natural (i use this term loosely) and tap do infact contain things that technically the body needs like calcium and magnesium. We're talking about things that are in water naturally usually from soil, and believe me there are alot and though the amounts are small, they are very important. If someone were to drink only demineralized water as their only fluid, they will get very ill.

See here for legitimacy:
http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/nutdemineralized.pdf

Fun fact, you can super heat demineralized water in a microwave. Tap will boil due to its impurities, however demineralized water will not; and once you put an object (spoon) into the super heated demineralized water, it will erupt out of the container.




As far as hanging, 6 foot drops have been known to decapitate people. Especially nooses that didnt use the Hangman's Knot which was devised as a way to put an extreme force onto the neck in order to break it immediatly. If you want even more fun topics, take a look at what was used to get people to confess to witchcraft in the Salem Witch Trials. Putting someone between 2 boards and piling hundreds of pounds of rocks on them until their rib cages collapsed or weighing someone down and dropping them in a deep river or pond to see if they "float like a witch" were a couple common ones along with hanging and burnings. Alot of horrific devices were created during the spanish inquisition as well incase people didnt confess to their crimes! Oh and there was a bronze pressure cooker for a person created by the Romans, that one was interesting. I could go on

 

[Guden Oden]

If someone were to drink only demineralized water as their only fluid, they will get very ill.

I don't think that's true at all. Water dissolves an extremely small amount of minerals (particulary in the amounts we drink water in, it's not as if we're talking oceans worth of the stuff ), I find it very likely there is quite enough essential minerals in the food we eat.

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

You mean like large fries and burgers?

I don't think that's true at all. Water dissolves an extremely small amount of minerals (particulary in the amounts we drink water in, it's not as if we're talking oceans worth of the stuff ), I find it very likely there is quite enough essential minerals in the food we eat.

 

[arjan de lumens]

"The fact that it's pure water makes no difference,"

Well, depends on the type of "pure" water it is. We use de-ionized water at work (semiconductor fab), and that will react with the air to form Carbonic acid which is fairly acidic. If you argue that de-ionized water is the purest form of water, then that form of water might be dangerous for you to drink.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deionized_water

I wouldn't worry too much about CO2/Carbonic acid acidity - a container of deionized water that is left to leech CO2 from the atmosphere will eventually stabilize at a pH of about 5.6, making it about 1/1000 as acidic as ordinary bottled Coca Cola (which has a pH of about 2.5 and also contains several thousand times more carbonic acid than the deionised water will ever be able to leech).

 

[KimB]

Fun fact, you can super heat demineralized water in a microwave. Tap will boil due to its impurities, however demineralized water will not; and once you put an object (spoon) into the super heated demineralized water, it will erupt out of the container.

The container also has to be very smooth. Any microscopic crack can be a location where the water can start to boil. You might notice, for example, that when boiling water in fairly smooth glass container that the bubbles will come from just a few places around the container.