Destruction Therapy

Is wacking away violently at used cars and broken home appliances a therapy against stress? Well it is in Spain.

Three Spanish entrepreneurs came up with the idea back in 2003 and it has evolved into a profitable business. Basically people pay to smash cars, washing machines, refrigerators, television-sets with jackhammers, thus relieving stress. It’s called Destruction Therapy or Destructotherapy and the latest session took place this Saturday in Castejon, northern Spain. Participants got to pick from different tools and use their rage to pulverize different objects.

One more interesting fact about this Destruction Therapy is that 40% of the participants are women. It’s not certain that Destruction Therapy (Destructotherapy) really has a therapeutic effect, but it’s definitely fun.

The photos are taken at the event that tok place this year in Castijon and the video was shot back in 2005.

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World’s largest earthquake damper

You might just see a huge steel ball, but this tuned mass damper is so much more.

This 728 tons steel pendulum is installed in one of the world’s tallest buildings, the taipei 101 in Taiwan. It helps stabilize the building in case of strong winds and earthquakes, through simple mechanics, when the building moves in a direction it swings in the opposite direction reducing movement by 40%. You can understand how it works by looking at the small GIF image.

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It cost #4 million to install the huge damper in the skyscraper but architects and engineers said it had to be done. It spans across 4 of the building’s stories and it was assembled on site because it couldn’t be lifted by a crane, due to its enormous weight.

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Here’s a video of the damper in action, on May 12th, when a horrific earthquake hit one of China’s provinces and the tremors reached as gar as Taipei. As the building started to shake, people ran towards the center to see the damper in action, it did it’s job.

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