Re-light my fire

April 30, 2024 8:20 AM

A discovery about how a circular trough filled with lighter fluid can create looping mini-flames leads to a fascinating set of experiments and an explanation of excitable media.

"It's like knocking down a loop of dominoes except where you've got some sort of mechanism running behind putting them back up again."

posted by Stark (15 comments total)

Big love for Steve Mould, and these are some of the most endearing mechanisms that explain a phenomenon that he's ever made, which is saying something.
posted by ambrosen at 8:35 AM on April 30

Is it just me or is YouTube getting really bad about ads these past few months. Like I can't get on there for anything without a couple of unskippable pre-rolls and interstitials, and I just will not do it.
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:39 AM on April 30 [3 favorites]

We used to use hair mousse for the same effect, leading to evenings where we exhaustively searched the mousse brands in the supermarket for the highest alcohol content.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:55 AM on April 30 [2 favorites]

(the mousse version)
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:00 AM on April 30 [8 favorites]

Do these tracks have to be round or could they have square-ish corners? I am getting very strong IRL platformer diorama vibes.
posted by grumpybear69 at 9:04 AM on April 30

That was really neat!
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:10 AM on April 30

we exhaustively searched the mousse brands in the supermarket for the highest alcohol content.
We've all had nights like that.
posted by pracowity at 9:49 AM on April 30 [5 favorites]

Is it just me or is YouTube getting really bad about ads these past few months. Like I can't get on there for anything without a couple of unskippable pre-rolls and interstitials, and I just will not do it.

uBlock Origin still blocks all the YouTube ads for me.
posted by straight at 11:24 AM on April 30 [3 favorites]

Oh hell yeah. I knew there was a good reason I bought a 3D printer!
posted by slogger at 11:45 AM on April 30

A Rotating Detonation Engine that was 3-D printed had a successful test fire recently.
posted by whuppy at 4:58 PM on April 30 [2 favorites]

Is it just me or is YouTube getting really bad about ads these past few months. Like I can't get on there for anything without a couple of unskippable pre-rolls and interstitials, and I just will not do it.

aaaaaargh

Other options include Piped and Invidious. On Android there's Grayjay.

If you've locked yourself into Apple's walled garden, keeping an eye on Orion will probably be worth your time.
posted by flabdablet at 10:24 PM on April 30

Just coming from the media-literacy post about spotting AI content, and the discussion of (journalist whose name I can’t remember) leaving The Intercept: so charmed to see the first few seconds! I opened up the video details, and it’s sponsored by… Jane Street? Whoa. Was not expecting that.

(It sounds like lots of people love this guy, and I’m delighted that he’s delighting people with science. But - why would Jane Street be sponsoring this kind of content? It gives me a little bit of the heebie-jeebies.)
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 12:11 AM on May 1

Jane Street would advertise for recruitment. I think they mostly discuss OCaML on their own youtube channel, but recruitment would be much broader.

As I understand it, PBS sponsorships predict indictments pretty well. Jane Street maybe clean themselves, and youtuber's come way cheaper, but right now Jane Street gets mentioned as a previous employer of Sam Bankman-Fried and Caroline Ellison, so sponsorships might help dilute that.
posted by jeffburdges at 4:51 AM on May 2

Also the YouTubers don’t choose their advertiser, they select unwanted topics and then it’s up to YouTube.
posted by ellieBOA at 6:57 AM on May 2

It's a sponsorship which buys them promotio in one segment in the video, not a youtube ad, hence why rrrrrrrrrt mentioned it. Ain't important imho, but yields another moment of FTX giggles.
posted by jeffburdges at 12:27 PM on May 2