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Comment by piyh | Hacker News Reader

Cody's Lab did a video series on making yellow cake uranium that got him a visit from g men. Most everything Colin Furze does has mortal danger. Styropyro is probably also on a watchlist. Williams project was dangerous, but I don't see a reason why he should be a pariah.

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You can add: photonicinduction. Everybody looks crazy until they're next to this dude. The dimensions involved scare me, and his "goes to 11 is not enough" attitude makes it even worse.

There is no pearl clutching in science.

Photonicinduction's videos fulfill the wild mad electrical engineering fantasies I never had the guts to try as an undergrad.

I honestly have no idea how he can do that in his own house legally.

I'm pretty sure he's passed that boundary long ago. I'm surprised the power company hasn't tried to stop service yet.

Well, they’d probably need to make a law banning it - and who seriously believes anyone is going to do that anyway enough to pass a law about it? (Lol)

Also, even relatively nanny state UK probably figures if he’s only going to take himself out, why bother trying to stop him.

Well most of the politicians don't have a clue that any of that stuff is possible either.

I also quite enjoy Edwin Sarkissian's "shoot at large/heavy/explosive stuff with very high caliber out in the desert" videos, although it's quite a bit safer than the stuff already mentioned upthread due to his simply being sufficiently far away from the impact/explosion.

Fascinating in the same way as the classic/famous Hydraulic Press Channel.

Colin Furze's videos are much worse in the way he shows not using safety gear. At least an X-Ray tube is hard to come by, hard to use and people generally know it's dangerous.

Colin Furze is basically a first world mining operation compared to the "look at how they do <insert thing here> in <insert equatorial country here>" type videos that nobody takes any issue with.

There's a double standard in there somewhere.

Of Course we should set a good example when it comes to working with dangerous things in our youtube videos. We should use PPE at all times and give clear warnings about the risks throughout the video…

… But Maybe if you’re too stupid to realise that a safety tie isn’t actually protective, then maybe your upcoming appointment with evolution is overdue.

Alternate option - stemming from the OP comment - if we want to get children involved in engineering and science fields, and this kind of cool shit science is how we can easily do it, they absolutely have to assume a portion of their audience won't know what is real and what isn't.

In other words, not everyone is you. Always remember that.

Wiley Coyote and the roadrunner rarely wear appropriate PPE. ;) Kids don’t watch any cartoons, do they?

Kids can get their hands on a circular saw, they can't get their hands on a giant mallet the size of a car.

They imitate what they see on roadrunner as best they can.

He has a safety tie

Even that seems not to be featured anymore in his latest videos

> an X-Ray tube is hard to come by

I don’t know what energies you need for medical imaging, but a keV linear electron accelerator is commonly called “a CRT”, and it’s already powerful enough to screw you up if you really try.

(Of course, the power supply, the flyback converter, and all the other stuff you get at immediately upon opening the case are plenty dangerous even without all the effort it takes to get ionizing radiation out of the tube.)

Colin was arrested in 2010:

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/plumber-arrested-on-fi...

(I was going to find a "better" source, but the Mirror's version is a bit more entertaining).

After Osmans video all cheap x-ray tubes ware just gone on ebay for weeks.

This often happens.

The video also did not really emphazise the dangers involved.

https://youtu.be/ldYXQxmDP_0?t=1032

I believe (though my memory is foggy, so don't quote me on this) Styropyro was approached by some military/DARPA projects with an employment offer, but he reportedly turned it down.

From memory I believe the reason he got the visit was because he made a joke about creating a fusion reactor - something like "until I get my fusion reactor running I'll need to use the sun"

That would be surprising. Building small fusion reactors is neither illegal nor unheard of as a hobby: https://fusor.net/

Unsurprisingly, doing so is hazardous. The process involves high voltage, and if successful, emits X-rays and neutrons.

In contrast, I appreciate that ElectroBOOM carefully scripts every seemingly accidental fire or spark to ensure he's safe. He has had only one instant where he screwed up and survived through luck.

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