YouTube removes criticism of dangerous fractal wood burning, but leaves up tips • Hacker News Board

Re: YouTube removes criticism of dangerous fractal wood burning, but leaves up tips

#481

Post by kragen » Fri, Jul 01, 2022, 5:17 PM UTC

philistine wrote: post #94

throwaway9870 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It probably should have been more than 3 hours given that you likely mean "voltage" not "amps". Before everyone jumps on me, "it is the amps that kill you, not voltage", I understand electricity quite well and in this context, saying something like "handling high amps in a university" is almost certainly not what was taught.

Also, it's not electronic safety, its straight up electrical safety. There are no electronics in a magnetron.

A magnetron is a vacuum tube which works by swirling space charge around. Vacuum tubes are "electronics"; the word "electronics" was originally invented to distinguish vacuum tubes (where it matters that the charges are being carried by electrons) from previous electrical devices such as relays, resistors, condensers, motors, generators, and inductors, where you can pretty much ignore the nature of the charge carriers.

Re: YouTube removes criticism of dangerous fractal wood burning, but leaves up tips

#482

Post by corrral » Fri, Jul 01, 2022, 5:19 PM UTC

drewzero1 wrote: post #469

corrral wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering their two-slice toaster I just looked up is $300, it better have repair parts available for the next, IDK, 50 years at least, not to be a complete rip-off. I expect I'll go through a half-dozen toasters in my life, and probably won't spend that much total (inflation adjusted).

That was the same conclusion I came to. I replaced my $20 toaster from 2015 with nearly-identical $30 toaster in 2020. I had looked into a lot of options to avoid the unified toaster box mechanism, including building my own, and eventually decided that the value proposition just wasn't there (especially considering how infrequently I make toast).

Right, I'm sure it's worth it for someone who's really into toast, and I get the whole buy-it-for-life thing, but I try to be a little selective about what I go that hardcore with, and a toaster doesn't pass that test for me. Shit, that's almost a quarter of what I recently paid for an entire stove, or about half the price of the cheapest stove that store had.

Re: YouTube removes criticism of dangerous fractal wood burning, but leaves up tips

#483

Post by t_mann » Fri, Jul 01, 2022, 5:20 PM UTC

logifail wrote: post #468

t_mann wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tom Cruise is a really bad example, because he actually does have a pilot license since 1994 and is allowed to fly some jets. [0] I'm not looking for advice on how to make a good movie (or how to fly a plane, for that matter), but on some perspective how (un)-realistic those movies are. I think overall that sort of scrutiny does some good in terms of making movies less unrealistic (compare 80's action movies like Ram…

> Tom Cruise is a really bad example, because he actually does have a pilot license since 1994 and is allowed to fly some jets Some jet ... but not the jets in the movie! So what's the point in getting a Navy pilot to watch him "flying" them? Apart from - of course - being able to make clickbaity videos showing their "reactions". > perspective how (un)-realistic those movies are Erm, why? Movies are movies. There's l…

> So what's the point in getting a Navy pilot to watch him "flying" them?

They don't comment on his flying but on other aspects, like the training scenes, mission tactics, and also on the flying (by professionals) that is depicted.

> Erm, why? Movies are movies.

You might feel that way, but even then you'll have to admit that a lot of people don't make that distinction to that extent (especially kids) - so they'll end up imagining they have an idea what it would be like to be in certain situations.

> Far more interesting and, well, real.

How would I know what's realistic and what's not (in areas so far outside of what I do) if I didn't rely on people with this knowledge?

Re: YouTube removes criticism of dangerous fractal wood burning, but leaves up tips

#484

Post by Tabular-Iceberg » Fri, Jul 01, 2022, 5:20 PM UTC

JPLeRouzic wrote: post #451

Tabular-Iceberg wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why was the cancer attributed to the microwave incident? After all, it's not ionizing radiation.

Ultraviolet light causes skin cancer, yet it is not ionizing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-ionizing_radiation#Lower_f...

Near UV isn't, but the photons still carry considerable energy to push chemical reactions over the edge. Whereas microwaves are far, far below the visible spectrum, and none of that causes cancer.

A microwave injury is serious stuff, but it seems like a huge stretch to attribute a later cancer to that exact incident.

Re: YouTube removes criticism of dangerous fractal wood burning, but leaves up tips

#485

Post by kragen » Fri, Jul 01, 2022, 5:20 PM UTC

throwaway9870 wrote: post #150

raldi wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than admonishing everyone for wondering the obvious question, why not just explain your reasoning?

Current flowing through your body is what kills you. But it doesn't flow through you just because it is a high-current supply (think car battery for example). It flows through you because the source voltage divided by your impedance is what controls how much current flows through you. Impedance is the general concept for resistance and basically indicates how current and voltage are related. The higher the impedance,…

Relevantly in the case of microwave oven transformers, your impedance depends on the voltage because a high enough voltage can and will arc right through your skin into your soft, low-impedance innards. You can do this safely with a commonplace Tesla-coil-driven consumer plasma globe by putting just enough aluminum foil on top of it to arc through your skin, leaving cute little black charred spots, but in short enough bursts that it won't stop your heart.

Re: YouTube removes criticism of dangerous fractal wood burning, but leaves up tips

#486

Post by kragen » Fri, Jul 01, 2022, 5:26 PM UTC

xxs wrote: post #389

tarsinge wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the corollary is high voltage with low amps do nothing to you too, neither amps nor voltage kill you alone.

The issue is that low voltage is guaranteed not to shock, can burn of course. High voltage is inherently dangerous.

High voltage is not inherently dangerous. In a dry climate you can easily develop ten thousand volts by lying down in a bed without bedsprings with a long acrylic blanket and pulling the blanket over your head hair with your feet. You can get multiple-centimeter-long branching sparks of static electricity from your finger. The only danger of the activity (to you) is that you might produce enough ozone to irritate your lungs. But the energy of those sparks is limited by your body's capacitance to the blanket.

If you do this in a vacuum you could get X-rays, and if you do it near your cellphone or laptop you can kill them. But it's not dangerous to your body.

However, high voltage with enough power behind it to burn a Lichtenberg figure through your body can kill you pretty darn quick.

Re: YouTube removes criticism of dangerous fractal wood burning, but leaves up tips

#487

Post by robonerd » Fri, Jul 01, 2022, 5:27 PM UTC

philistine wrote: post #94

throwaway9870 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It probably should have been more than 3 hours given that you likely mean "voltage" not "amps". Before everyone jumps on me, "it is the amps that kill you, not voltage", I understand electricity quite well and in this context, saying something like "handling high amps in a university" is almost certainly not what was taught.

Also, it's not electronic safety, its straight up electrical safety. There are no electronics in a magnetron.

Surely the magnetron itself is an electronic device.

Re: YouTube removes criticism of dangerous fractal wood burning, but leaves up tips

#488

Post by Ancapistani » Fri, Jul 01, 2022, 5:29 PM UTC

deelowe wrote: post #252

guggleet wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dunno, I have used both since I was like 13. Also, we used to weld and do all sorts of things (acetylene torching, lathe, casting, grinding, sawing, milling) mostly unsupervised with very little instruction in middle/high school metal shop. I don't remember any accidents.

Aren't lathes extremely dangerous?

Yes, but lots of things are dangerous. This is mitigated through awareness and mitigation of risk.

Re: YouTube removes criticism of dangerous fractal wood burning, but leaves up tips

#489

Post by kragen » Fri, Jul 01, 2022, 5:29 PM UTC

cuteboy19 wrote: post #476

xxs wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EV is DC, and DC sparks are a thing of beauty as they lack self-extinguishing properties unlike AC sparks.

why is that? I couldn't find any info about this

50Hz AC drops to zero volts 100 times a second, which makes the arc easier to extinguish. "Self-extinguishing" is a deadly exaggeration, though, as you know if you've ever seen a high-tension line being connected or disconnected. Arcs are only self-extinguishing when they deplete their energy source or destroy what they're arcing to.

Re: YouTube removes criticism of dangerous fractal wood burning, but leaves up tips

#490

Post by SoftTalker » Fri, Jul 01, 2022, 5:31 PM UTC

rcxdude wrote: post #361

foobarian wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's disappointing how most of the articles and videos criticizing the dangerous content don't explain why exactly something is dangerous. They just scream "omg high voltage" "one mistake you're dead" and so on. I honestly think they are worse than the source; it reminds me of the medieval experimenters and alchemists being oppressed by the conformist public.

It's not hard to figure out: microwave oven transformers are generally considered one of the most dangerous things you can find in a household appliance when misused because they put out enough voltage to reliably punch through even dry skin (which is usually a fairly good insulator which mitigates a lot of the severity of most mains voltage shocks), while still able to generate enough current that when it does form…

"Only one mistake needed to kill you" applies to other things we do every day such as crossing the street or driving a car.

I don't understand why the warning videos were banned, and don't know what potentially dangerous practices that the "fractal woood burning" videos show, or what safety practices they omit, but working with electricity at mains voltages or higher obviously requires due care and attention.