Most pointless yet awesome machine ever!

[JDMSJR]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qybUFnY7Y8w

Words fail me

[golentan]

I'm most intrigued by the implication they've done it a large number of times before...

[Dallas-Dakota]

I think a bit ago there already was a thread for this in FB.....

[Pronounceable]

I'd say this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z86V_ICUCD4) is more thread appropriate.

Not that This Too Shall Pass isn't awesome.

[Starscream]

Words fail me. That was awesome.

[Jahkaivah]

I'd say this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z86V_ICUCD4) is more thread appropriate.

I'll buy twenty.

[SolkaTruesilver]

Forget the useless machines... I want this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5erjj6aS5Ws&feature=related)

Is there a range limit?

[factotum]

Willing to bet they didn't ever have that machine running as a single seamless motion--the band members were moving around a bit fast for them to have all been shot in the same motion, too!

[Raiki]

GAH! :smalleek: I just lost an hour of my life to youtube!

But on the upside, I can now make a laser, a telekinetic pen, a magic light bulb, a lamp made out of a scanner light, a magnet to let my small car get green-lights faster, and a contraption that lets me steal electricity from my phone jack.

I have no life. :smallfrown:

~R~

[Soras Teva Gee]

Looks fake to me, some of the steps can really be followed leading me to believe they were done in separate takes on essentially separate machines. Which undermines the whole point to me. Not bad but its more a music video then a cool machine.

Not a bad song though.

[Erts]

That is AWESOME.

Can't think of anything else to say. Thanks for posting this.

[WalkingTarget]

Looks fake to me, some of the steps can really be followed leading me to believe they were done in separate takes on essentially separate machines. Which undermines the whole point to me. Not bad but its more a music video then a cool machine.

Not a bad song though.

The song's wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Too_Shall_Pass_%28song%29) gives enough detail about the filming process that I don't doubt that it was a "legitimate" Rube Goldberg device. Not saying that it's proof, but its enough to satisfy my skepticism on something as trivial as a music video.

[Tirian]

I'd say this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z86V_ICUCD4) is more thread appropriate.

ISTR a Japanese engineering contest for this purpose, the winner one year being a solar-powered flashlight (without a storage capacitor, natch). But this is definitely more adorable.

[Soras Teva Gee]

The song's wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Too_Shall_Pass_%28song%29) gives enough detail about the filming process that I don't doubt that it was a "legitimate" Rube Goldberg device. Not saying that it's proof, but its enough to satisfy my skepticism on something as trivial as a music video.

I've no doubt the thing would work but there's a few cases of pullery-on-ceiling which kinda undermine it since you can't really follow the thing. Not so much that it wouldn't work but that the continuous flow might be an example of multiple takes edited make one perfect take. Its still fun and all its just I get to thinking about this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ve4M4UsJQo) commercial that I can follow a lot better.

[factotum]

That's a good commercial to point out, because it took them 600 attempts to get the final scene--and even then they didn't manage to get a single take where the entire thing worked flawlessly; the final video is stitched together from two separate takes.

[Mathis]

This has been made in two shots as evidenced at the part where the curtains in what you can call "part 2" of the video, pull apart. Watch the clip and start it at 2 minutes and 22 seconds into the trip. Watch the curtains closely, but especially what you can only barely see through them. These curtains are fairly thin so you can watch the lamp in the ceiling behind them. If you watch it closely, you can see the lamp skip slightly to the right when the curtains pull apart. Keep your eyes with you gentlemen, it might save you one day.

Even if it isn't one single take, but infact two it's still amazingly fun to watch and I'm going to do so again and again until I tire of that song :smallsmile:

[Flickerdart]

Forget the useless machines... I want this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5erjj6aS5Ws&feature=related)

Is there a range limit?
No. Lasers go on forever. I don't think there's anything significant in our atmosphere that absorbs or scatters blue wavelengths, so you can set things on fire from a distance provided you can keep it stable.

[Ravens_cry]

No. Lasers go on forever. I don't think there's anything significant in our atmosphere that absorbs or scatters blue wavelengths, so you can set things on fire from a distance provided you can keep it stable.
No gods, no. Ever heard of the inverse square law? Pretty soon you have the difference between a burning glass and a sunny day. Pretty soon you don't even have that.
Same energy, just spread out more.

[Optimystik]

I'd say this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z86V_ICUCD4) is more thread appropriate.

They're both awesome :smallbiggrin:

[golentan]

No gods, no. Ever heard of the inverse square law? Pretty soon you have the difference between a burning glass and a sunny day. Pretty soon you don't even have that.
Same energy, just spread out more.

That would be true if it weren't a coherent beam, which is kinda required for lasers. It's still a problem for lasers, but only on cosmic scales. The problem is that the air scatters blue light, which is the reason that the sky is blue when the sun is visible.

So, no. Very limited range. The toughest cutting laser I've seen in years lost potency at about 13 inches, I'd be surprised if this puppy made it further. Still put you eye out, but just by blinding, not setting it on fire.

[Mewtarthio]

Either way, using it to light a cigarette seems ill-advised at best. :smallamused:

[Vaynor]

This thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=144012) was already posted earlier this week.

This thing is really cool though. I love Rube Goldberg machines.

[Flickerdart]

That would be true if it weren't a coherent beam, which is kinda required for lasers. It's still a problem for lasers, but only on cosmic scales. The problem is that the air scatters blue light, which is the reason that the sky is blue when the sun is visible.

So, no. Very limited range. The toughest cutting laser I've seen in years lost potency at about 13 inches, I'd be surprised if this puppy made it further. Still put you eye out, but just by blinding, not setting it on fire.
Oh, is it the air? I thought it was something exclusive to the upper layers. Hm.

[golentan]

Oh, is it the air? I thought it was something exclusive to the upper layers. Hm.

Nope. Largely it's oxygen: You can see why if you've ever played with liquid oxygen (it's pale blue: I.E. it reflects/scatters blue light).

Regardless, air on the surface is dirty, dirty stuff. Laser beams really aren't line of sight unless you massively crank up the power. That's why energy weapons aren't very efficient. Though I saw one hypothetical design for a Solid State canister laser, basically burns through single shot canisters in order to act as a laser cannon with a range of a few miles. Needed a massive cooling system and power supply though.

[DraPrime]

Either way, using it to light a cigarette seems ill-advised at best. :smallamused:

On the other hand, its totally friggin awesome.

[hamishspence]

It's not just air though- a laser in Earth orbit, fired at the moon, will spread out enough to have a noticably weaker effect- it doesn't have to be "cosmic scales" but can be at the planetary level.

[SolkaTruesilver]

Nope. Largely it's oxygen: You can see why if you've ever played with liquid oxygen (it's pale blue: I.E. it reflects/scatters blue light).

Regardless, air on the surface is dirty, dirty stuff. Laser beams really aren't line of sight unless you massively crank up the power. That's why energy weapons aren't very efficient. Though I saw one hypothetical design for a Solid State canister laser, basically burns through single shot canisters in order to act as a laser cannon with a range of a few miles. Needed a massive cooling system and power supply though.

So.. it make sense that they plan to use laser beams mounted on satellites to intercept missiles and other satellites in the higher scales of the atmosphere?

..

Hey, I read it in George Friedman's projection of the next century! :smallredface:

[golentan]

So.. it make sense that they plan to use laser beams mounted on satellites to intercept missiles and other satellites in the higher scales of the atmosphere?

..

Hey, I read it in George Friedman's projection of the next century! :smallredface:

But there it's entirely to short out delicate electronics, largely outside atmosphere (ICBMS are basically in an unsustainable low orbit), generally using bomb pumped lasers (which are massively more powerful, but not really employable from a ground or air based platform. The science is sound, if you can get the targeting accurate. But you're not going to get laser based killsats any time soon.

[SolkaTruesilver]

But there it's entirely to short out delicate electronics, largely outside atmosphere (ICBMS are basically in an unsustainable low orbit), generally using bomb pumped lasers (which are massively more powerful, but not really employable from a ground or air based platform. The science is sound, if you can get the targeting accurate. But you're not going to get laser based killsats any time soon.

Well, it depends on what you hope to destroy with your killsats. The way I understood it, the stats are initially going to be used as main communication and spy tools to locate ennemies and pilot hypersonic Predator-like drones toward their targets. The country with the best com system will have the edge.

But these com and spy sats are going to be protected, so there will be defensive sats around them to intercept any incoming bandit or destroy ennemy sats. Just like a Carrier is nothing if not within a whole Carrier Fleet, there are going to be Satellite Groups in the sky, with many of them dedicated to defense/offense of the strategic ones.

But with as many sats in the sky that are primordial to national security, there is a good chance that it's going to be more economical to repair damaged sats than launch new ones, so the first manned economically viable space stations will be launched, with the mission to find and repair critical satellites.