I'll huff and I'll puff and ...
August 2, 2009 10:02 PM   Subscribe

Vortex Cannon : SLYT "Jem Stansfield builds a vortex cannon to pick up where the big bad wolf failed to blow over a house of brick." More details at the BBC.
posted by bwg (42 comments total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
 
Saw this a few days ago, definitely fun to watch. The brick house appeared to lack mortar of any sort, but it's really fun to watch the ring shoot out. It looks so surreal to me, kind of like those old ads for the Ratchet and Clank videogame.
posted by lazaruslong at 10:16 PM on August 2, 2009 [2 favorites]


What else is there to say, other than Yeaaaaaaaaah Boiiiiiiiiise
posted by mhjb at 10:16 PM on August 2, 2009


The brick house appeared to lack mortar of any sort

Or walls and a roof. Man, even a pig wouldn't live there.
posted by allen.spaulding at 10:28 PM on August 2, 2009 [6 favorites]


What else is there to say, other than Yeaaaaaaaaah Boiiiiiiiiise

Not sure what the capital of Idaho has to do with anything...
posted by mrnutty at 10:39 PM on August 2, 2009


From the BBC show: How do you cook an egg with a piece of newspaper?


My answer would have been: I'd slice the newspaper finely and saute it in olive oil with some crushed garlic, and then fold the beaten egg through it.
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:41 PM on August 2, 2009


Grown men should not get that excited about knocking shit over.
posted by regicide is good for you at 10:54 PM on August 2, 2009 [4 favorites]


The guy's a born dolphin.
posted by pracowity at 10:56 PM on August 2, 2009


mrnutty.
posted by dhartung at 11:09 PM on August 2, 2009


It's not really a house, or even an enclosed structure, and he doesn't really even knock it down, just the top half.
posted by delmoi at 11:23 PM on August 2, 2009


My educational television watching doesn't really move beyond explosions, so this gets my approval.
posted by America at 11:26 PM on August 2, 2009


It's not really a house, or even an enclosed structure, and he doesn't really even knock it down, just the top half.

MYTHBUSTED
posted by Hoopo at 11:44 PM on August 2, 2009 [1 favorite]


That is one impressive "knock a pile of shit over" gun.
posted by benzenedream at 11:53 PM on August 2, 2009 [1 favorite]


Or walls and a roof. Man, even a pig wouldn't live there.

On the show after that one they took that "house" sold it to property developers and then split it into two flats that they then got real estate agent estimates on for £200K each.

Then at the very end during the credits a subtitle said "2007 prices"
posted by srboisvert at 12:22 AM on August 3, 2009 [3 favorites]


I would have to question the structural integrity of the house. Give me a water heater any day.
posted by fistynuts at 2:34 AM on August 3, 2009


It looks so surreal to me, kind of like those old ads for the Ratchet and Clank videogame.

Those Ratchet and Clank ads were pretty genius. Far more entertaining than this guy.
posted by zardoz at 3:50 AM on August 3, 2009


What would that gun do to a man? Or if you shot it directly into, say, a mob of attacking Saracens?
posted by Faze at 4:00 AM on August 3, 2009


I wonder whether a massive prick fired from a cannon would demolish a house? Definitely something Jem Stansfield should investigate.
posted by cillit bang at 4:03 AM on August 3, 2009


The guy who inspected my house used a Vortex Cannon. He didn't say anything about there needing to be four walls and a roof. My new hardwood floors are all warped now.
posted by orme at 4:25 AM on August 3, 2009 [1 favorite]


I hope there's more to this show than the information-free clips they've released so far. (Also, Jem really needs a less excitable co-host. Imagine Mythbusters with just a coked-up version of Adam.)
posted by DU at 4:28 AM on August 3, 2009


I hope there's more to this show than the information-free clips they've released so far. (Also, Jem really needs a less excitable co-host. Imagine Mythbusters with just a coked-up version of Adam.)

The show has four presenters. They're not all on sugar highs.
posted by kaemaril at 5:06 AM on August 3, 2009


I call consipracy - that house was obviously destroyed from the inside by explosives. Open your eyes, people!
posted by Salvor Hardin at 5:08 AM on August 3, 2009 [4 favorites]


I hope there's more to this show than the information-free clips they've released so far.

You have high hopes for a show that confuses science with engineering and doesn't know what an experiment is.
posted by srboisvert at 5:41 AM on August 3, 2009 [2 favorites]


I think "please tell us a little bit about what's going on" is actually a lower hope than "please give me the correlation factor of your control group".
posted by DU at 5:51 AM on August 3, 2009


(I watched the paper egg frying one. There actually is a tiny nugget of information there. One I already knew and was surprised that nobody in the crowd knew, but a nugget nonetheless.)
posted by DU at 6:03 AM on August 3, 2009


Given that they built the flimsiest possible constructions with each of the three materials, I'd say their biggest problem was firing their cannon before a stiff breeze came along and knocked the target down.

Here's the handgun version.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 6:09 AM on August 3, 2009 [2 favorites]


He needs to get that thing into David Letterman's hands.
posted by zzazazz at 6:14 AM on August 3, 2009


looks like a souped up wham-o air blaster (or airzooka, viz.) -- NLW as kids toy: "I've blown over a house of cards at 50-feet under ideal conditions."
posted by kliuless at 6:14 AM on August 3, 2009 [1 favorite]


Old curmudgeon here: Um, great, man, you built a thing that's really good at knocking down structures; how long until they (military/industrialists, police, terrorists) build one capable of bringing down people?

Why do I think Teller and Oppenheimer did the same little geeked-out happy dance right after Trinity?
posted by John of Michigan at 6:17 AM on August 3, 2009


What else is there to say, other than Yeaaaaaaaaah Boiiiiiiiiise

SCIENCE, BITCHES!!!
posted by djrock3k at 6:34 AM on August 3, 2009


Um, great, man, you built a thing that's really good at knocking down structures; how long until they (military/industrialists, police, terrorists) build one capable of bringing down people?

I actually checked your comment history to see if you had a history of trolling because seriously. "I have perfected a wedgie of UNIMAGINABLE DISTRUCTIVE POWER!"
posted by DU at 6:37 AM on August 3, 2009 [1 favorite]


All this post link needs is a little spotted dog putting his ear up to the vortex cannon firing hole to make it complete.
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 7:07 AM on August 3, 2009


Metafilter Word Association: When this post's title comes right after "Everything's better with Butter" in my RSS reader, it registers: "I'll hurf and I'll durf and..."
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 7:36 AM on August 3, 2009 [2 favorites]


Does anyone else have the urge to don some large headphones, perhaps a helmet and safety glasses, and then have someone shoot a vortex cannon at them, from some distance? I could put some padding down.
posted by adipocere at 9:40 AM on August 3, 2009


'Little pig, little pig, let me come in.'

'No, no, by the hair of my chiny chin chin.'

'Then I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blow your house in.'

Well, he huffed, and he puffed, and he huffed and he puffed, and he puffed and huffed; but he could not get the house down. When he found that he could not, with all his huffing and puffing, blow the house down, he said:


"Screw this; look you little fucker, I've got this vortex cannon here and I'm about to wreck your shit up. So get out here and make with the bacon. Oh, and if that doesn't work, I've got some C-4 and a wrecking ball; basically what I'm saying is you're about to get ate, piggy."

Unfortunately for the wolf, what he didn't realize was that the pig was former Spetsnaz and kind of pissed off about the two-dead-brothers thing. The story becomes pretty un-child friendly at this point.

There is a whole section on jumper cables and branding irons, so it's probably better to just fade to black here...
posted by quin at 10:07 AM on August 3, 2009


Grown men should not get that excited about knocking shit over.

What am I supposed to get excited about then?
posted by Pantengliopoli at 10:13 AM on August 3, 2009


Why do I think Teller and Oppenheimer did the same little geeked-out happy dance right after Trinity?

Nonsense. It happened like this:

Oppenheimer: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds. Yeaaaaaaaaah Boiiiiiiiiise!"

Teller: *right arm attempts to raise leather-gloved hand in Seig Heil, uses other arm to wrestle it down*
posted by benzenedream at 10:20 AM on August 3, 2009 [1 favorite]


Anyone know why the "houses" were set up so far from the cannon? I'd have thought that halving that distance would more than double the destructive force--which would have made for more spectacular footage (and might even have allowed them to build a brick structure that look a bit less failure-prone to start with).
posted by yoink at 10:29 AM on August 3, 2009


"More details at the BBC[link]."

SLYT FAIL.
posted by Eideteker at 1:30 PM on August 3, 2009


SLYT FAIL.

Yeah, so I forgot to remove that after adding the BBC link. Pedant. ;-)
posted by bwg at 4:50 PM on August 3, 2009


"I'd have thought that halving that distance would more than double the destructive force-"

The effect isn't being radiated so I don't think a power law would apply. Having messed with a vortex generator before the vortex sustains itself pretty well.
posted by Mitheral at 7:15 AM on August 4, 2009


The effect isn't being radiated so I don't think a power law would apply. Having messed with a vortex generator before the vortex sustains itself pretty well.

Thanks. So the answer is that they set it up that far away because the only really impressive thing they had going for them was effect-at-a-distance (plus the cool smoke-ring effect).
posted by yoink at 7:44 AM on August 4, 2009




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