[geeks] FREE STUFF in Austin, TX

[Kurt Huhn]

> These were used to hurl cow carcassesat one point in time, and one was
also
> used to hurl an upright piano in the TV show Northern Exposure...
>

This reminds me of a show I recently saw on TLC or Discovery.  I don't know
the name of the show (one time deal) - but they built a full sized catapult
and a full sized trebuche.  The official goal was historic reconstruction,
and to examine the effectiveness of lobbing missles at the side of a castle.
I think I can speak for geeks everywhere that the actual goal "just to see
if we can do it".

They built a small section of castle (20 or so feet long) wall, and two
*full sized* lobbers.  Did I mention the catapult and trebuche were *full
size*?

When the two machines were built, they tossed enormous round rocks a the
castle wall to see what would happen.  I gotta, there are *not* many things
more impressive than seeing a boulder, that took several men to _roll_ to
the trebuche, lifted off the ground and tossed the length of a couple
football fields.  A couple of those boulders buried themselves so deep in
the mud upon landing that they couldn't be recovered without heavy
equipment.  The ones that hit the wall did *major* damage.  It was easy to
see why these were so important in medieval wars.

Kurt