Runners beware! (Caltrops in Australia)

[Very Tired]

Sending them into Jupiter would be just as effective and would only require about half as much energy.

Not a space expert here but wouldn't it all basically be the same amount of energy? Just point the ship in the right direction and get it up to speed. Since you don't really slow down in space the only thing that should differ is the travel time.

[Masark]

Not a space expert here but wouldn't it all basically be the same amount of energy? Just point the ship in the right direction and get it up to speed. Since you don't really slow down in space the only thing that should differ is the travel time.

That only works if you have sufficiently powerful engines, which we don't currently have. As it stands, we have to deal with gravity and stuff.

https://i.imgur.com/SqdzxzF.png

[shadowmouse]

What the fuck did you step on?

A bear trap?

Putting things together afterwards, it seems likely that it was a drop of plastic, melted off the handle of a pan, and probably dropped into my shoe by my fiancee's poodle. :P tl;dr at bottom of post

The injury itself was minor, just a small puncture wound. I cleaned it, put antibiotic ointment on it, kept it cleaned, dressed and inspected, and that should have been the end of it. Instead, it seems the wound was deeper than I knew, an infection started in the deep tissue, and for extra joy it turned out to be a particularly nasty, antibiotic resistant version of a fairly common bacterium. Two toes came off because of the damage, and they chopped the heck out of my foot. Two more toes came off because they weren't getting enough blood after all the other damage, and they still couldn't get the infection under control. I ended up in a specialized burn unit because burn units have to be able to get infections under control, and even they had a rough time with it. Apparently, somewhere I'm now a case study on tissue regeneration therapy (burn units are into that). [As a follow up, they've got me walking without even a cane, wearing normal shoes, and I'm able to handle a mild jog for short distances.]

That's why looking at the dirty nails in the picture really set me off. Even if some jackass thought this was just going to be a nuisance injury and they were just a prankster, if something went wrong as my injury did, the person could easily end up with astronomical medical bills and maybe lose a foot or leg.

tl;dr To make my answer a bit less bloggy, as a side note -- I hope nobody here will need to know this, but as amazing as modern prosthetics are, work is also being done on regrowing tissue. Losing toes was unsettling, but chunks of my foot were skinned down to the bone and today I doubt one would guess how extensive the damage was because they've gotten new tissue to grow that matches the undamaged tissue. I got lucky in a sense, but the implications for burn patients are huge.

[Rustedsaint]

And this is why I always wear puncture resistant shoes.
I remember that weaponized strawberry story, shoulda made that old bag eat those fruits

[zenkai]

What in the hell is wrong with people?
.

I say this everyday, some people are just worthless POS and contribute nothing to society, all they do is rob of us oxygen.

[Themius]

I say this everyday, some people are just worthless POS and contribute nothing to society, all they do is rob of us oxygen.

We are not On a spaceship.

[zenkai]

We are not On a spaceship.

No shit, not sure what your point was.

[Themius]

No shit, not sure what your point was.

Your oxygen concern. I thought that was obvious.

[zenkai]

Your oxygen concern. I thought that was obvious.

Ah so you don't understand how insults work. It's a common thing said, that some people are a waste of oxygen.

[Mormolyce]

I have no idea why anyone would make something like this, might be bogan shithead teenagers.

Is the sun really deadlier than Australia though?

It's about the same temperature at the moment.

[Flarelaine]

Putting things together afterwards, it seems likely that it was a drop of plastic, melted off the handle of a pan, and probably dropped into my shoe by my fiancee's poodle.

And I thought I had it bad when I stepped on a hornet exploring my shoe.

[shadowmouse]

@Flarelaine I'll just say that it wasn't fun. At all. Glad you didn't have an allergic reaction though.

[Daedius]

The sadistic cunt that did it deserves an absolute trashing before being sentenced to a number of years behind bars.

[Gaaz]

Not a space expert here but wouldn't it all basically be the same amount of energy? Just point the ship in the right direction and get it up to speed. Since you don't really slow down in space the only thing that should differ is the travel time.

Actually, getting to the Sun is much more difficult than to get to Jupiter. To get to the Sun you need to compensate Earth's orbital velocity around it. Which is about 67000 miles per hour. Otherwise you would be orbiting it, just like Earth does. Getting to Jupiter requires about the same amount of energy as going into Earth's orbit. I do not have the mathematics at hand, but if I remember correctly, getting to the Sun is about 55 times more energy intensive than getting to Mars. And the difference in getting to Mars vs getting to Jupiter is relatively marginal.

[ParanoiD84]

Low life idiots leaving them there for animals to step on, well people to of course.

[Daedius]

Low life idiots leaving them there for animals to step on, well people to of course.

It was on a trek road, they wanted someone to step on it... not animals.

[ParanoiD84]

It was on a trek road, they wanted someone to step on it... not animals.

I know that but it's likely some animals could step on it too. Care more about them anyways especially after the fires that claimed millions if not billions of life's.

Important thing here is that people can be absolute scumbags.

[Thekri]

Not a space expert here but wouldn't it all basically be the same amount of energy? Just point the ship in the right direction and get it up to speed. Since you don't really slow down in space the only thing that should differ is the travel time.

Well no actually. That works until you start calculating the effects of gravity. To actually crash something into the sun, you need to create a decaying orbit, which means it will crash into the sun somewhere between 5 minutes and 350 million years from when you establish the orbit, depending on how severe the decaying trajectory is.

Generally, the faster you want it to slam into the sun, the more energy you have to spend, because you need to fight against gravities natural urge to spin it around the sun indefinitely. Everything in the solar system is always falling into the sun, but most of it has enough lateral velocity to avoid actually hitting it (Like the earth, which is constantly falling toward the sun, but also going sideways so fast that it is constantly missing).

So yeah, it takes a LOT of energy to slam into the sun quickly. If you aren't too worried about timelines, it wouldn't take that much energy to have them crash into the sun a few million years from now.

- - - Updated - - -

Low life idiots leaving them there for animals to step on, well people to of course.

Most animals will be fine. Wild animals typically don't stomp down their feet like humans do, and only rather large animals will really exert enough pressure to hurt themselves. So in this context, they might hurt Kangaroos, but 95% of the time it is going to be a human getting hurt, not an animal.

[Poopymonster]

And I thought I had it bad when I stepped on a hornet exploring my shoe.

Honestly, I was expecting an infected hangnail and the US insurance industry.

[XangXu]

Another sign that mental illness is running rampant yet nobody does anything.