Prince Rupert's Drop vs Molten Glass [video] • Hacker News Board

Re: Prince Rupert's Drop vs Molten Glass [video]

#41

Post by 998244353 » Mon, Apr 17, 2023, 12:38 PM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #17

shagie wrote: post #6

Some asides... --- The purple glasses they wear are didymium. Photographers use a less intense version of that material as a "red enhancer filter." The spectra of the glasses ( https://www.colby.edu/chemistry/CH332/laboratory/didym-spec.... ) have a very low transmission from 572 nm to 585 nm. That's a yellowish color. The sodium vapor lights (those yellow street lights) are 589 nm. For photography, if you block the…

As a further aside, that phoenixmag.com link appears to be a (deliberately?) misconfigured server. I send "Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate" and it responds with "Content-Encoding: br", resulting in a page of complete rubbish.

Why would it be deliberately misconfigured?

Re: Prince Rupert's Drop vs Molten Glass [video]

#42

Post by hnbad » Mon, Apr 17, 2023, 1:33 PM UTC

ramraj07 wrote: post #3

carterschonwald wrote: post #2

Dustin’s high speed videos are an incredible treasure trove of science and engineering to learn from.

Does it all have to be 30 minutes though? Not just him to be sure but I’m not a fan of YouTube’s crusade to incentivize long form content which just seems to have made everyone pad out every topic as much as they can. Very rare have I seen 30 minute videos that truly deserve that time commitment.

I have literally watched a 5 hour plus video essay (NOT just a stream VOD, an actual video essay without much filler) recently but I concur that a lot of times a shorter video would suffice to get the point across.

I guess there's room for a happy middle ground between traditional TikTok and modern long-form YouTube.

Re: Prince Rupert's Drop vs Molten Glass [video]

#43

Post by userbinator » Mon, Apr 17, 2023, 1:42 PM UTC

998244353 wrote: post #41

userbinator wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a further aside, that phoenixmag.com link appears to be a (deliberately?) misconfigured server. I send "Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate" and it responds with "Content-Encoding: br", resulting in a page of complete rubbish.

Why would it be deliberately misconfigured?

Misconfigured to send only content encoded in a proprietary format sanctioned by the company that wants to control the Internet? That doesn't seem like an accident to me.

Re: Prince Rupert's Drop vs Molten Glass [video]

#44

Post by aequitas » Mon, Apr 17, 2023, 1:51 PM UTC

throwawaylinux wrote: post #7

ramraj07 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it all have to be 30 minutes though? Not just him to be sure but I’m not a fan of YouTube’s crusade to incentivize long form content which just seems to have made everyone pad out every topic as much as they can. Very rare have I seen 30 minute videos that truly deserve that time commitment.

It's entertainment. People don't want to just look at the results for 10 seconds. What would they do with the next 29 minutes 50 seconds? They want to watch people and hear them talk, make jokes, work on setting up the experiment, etc. Same reason Mythbusters isn't 30 seconds per myth. You could just read scientific papers if you're looking to condense knowledge transfer per time.

However, 30 seconds and 30 minutes are at far ends of a spectrum with a sweet spot in between. Of course there is a market for 30 minutes of content and not everything should be optimised to fit as much content in every second of video. But I definitely do not get entertained by hollow filler and senseless suspense building. Even Mythbusters did this with constant flash forwards/backwards and recaps (which especially stood out to me because TV commercials where I'm from are about once per hour and not every 5 minutes), but back then it was the only format we got.

Re: Prince Rupert's Drop vs Molten Glass [video]

#45

Post by MengerSponge » Mon, Apr 17, 2023, 2:08 PM UTC

aaron695 wrote: post #14

I grabbed some form Aliexpress https://www.aliexpress.com/w/wholesale-prince-Ruperts-Drop.h... Ebay Etsy Amazon also have stores with them. But kinda stuck what to do with them / check they are real. I feel like they are too dangerous as presents for young kids to keep. Hit the tail and get glass in the eye. It'd be cool if they came in a cage for kids. But not sure what to do other then explode them? Everyone shoots…

Eye and lung protection are absolutely critical when you're playing with glass (or pottery). Silicosis is incurable, so I highly recommend that you play with them indoors only if you have a great ventilation/filtration system. Otherwise, go outside and wear safety goggles.

You can look at them under crossed polarizers.

Re: Prince Rupert's Drop vs Molten Glass [video]

#46

Post by capableweb » Mon, Apr 17, 2023, 2:17 PM UTC

> So it would be interesting to see what price he chooses.

https://orbixhotglass.com/product-category/prince-ruperts-dr...

Least expensive: 500 USD

Most expensive: 100,000 USD

Most of them are below 3,500 USD, but damn, pretty high prices for something like that, although I guess it makes sense considering how long time they probably spent on making them and coming up with the process.

Re: Prince Rupert's Drop vs Molten Glass [video]

#47

Post by elaus » Mon, Apr 17, 2023, 2:20 PM UTC

capableweb wrote: post #46

> So it would be interesting to see what price he chooses. https://orbixhotglass.com/product-category/prince-ruperts-dr... Least expensive: 500 USD Most expensive: 100,000 USD Most of them are below 3,500 USD, but damn, pretty high prices for something like that, although I guess it makes sense considering how long time they probably spent on making them and coming up with the process.

For those who didn't watch the full video: the 100,000 USD are an intentionally high price because the creator does not want to sell that specific glass block ("priced not to sell").

Re: Prince Rupert's Drop vs Molten Glass [video]

#48

Post by alanfalcon » Mon, Apr 17, 2023, 2:42 PM UTC

esperent wrote: post #20

Magi604 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now it's at $100k!!!!!

At that price you could put someone through a glass blowing course and then have them work for a few months making thousands of these for you.

But if you wanted some of what makes this particular piece special you would also have to hire a camera crew to capture the backstory and provenance and an influencer to show it to most of a million people and care about it. The best art isn't just the end result!

Re: Prince Rupert's Drop vs Molten Glass [video]

#49

Post by shagie » Mon, Apr 17, 2023, 3:16 PM UTC

freetime2 wrote: post #25

Destin has a knack for taking relatively mundane topics and making them interesting. I’ve had low expectations going into his videos on coast guard search patterns, center-pivot irrigators, and a film factory tour, but ended up enjoying them because of his emphasis on the little optimizations that are inherent in all human endeavors, and the people who carry them out. It’s like Dirty Jobs (which I also liked) but for…

In the "yet another PRD video" ... though one of the earlier ones...

The Mythbusters did a pair of videos for Corning eight years ago (and yes, they have the feel of infomercials - it isn't subtle at all... they're still neat):

The Glass Age, Part 1: Flexible, Bendable Glass - https://youtu.be/12OSBJwogFc

The Glass Age, Part 2: Strong, Durable Glass - https://youtu.be/13B5K_lAabw

Re: Prince Rupert's Drop vs Molten Glass [video]

#50

Post by shagie » Mon, Apr 17, 2023, 3:27 PM UTC

raverbashing wrote: post #36

pdpi wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They always use shear-thickening fluids because they're so counterintuitive, but shear-thinning fluids are a fun example of a mixed blessing — the same property that keeps paint from dripping off a brush/roller until you apply it is also what makes it so hard to pour the right amount of ketchup.

Yeah, true. The ketchup one I don't think it's "on purpose" (hence why it's annoying)

There was a chemistry professor trying to get an idea of some testing of this property and set up an experiment for dropping a weight through ketchup and timing it followed by another one shortly after. The second one will fall through the ketchup faster.

How do you measure this? How much ketchup do you need?

The initial approach was a large cylinder holding the ketchup with the bottom clear - and then a mirror set up under that. It also was initially done with a human with a stop watch and they needed enough ketchup so that the difference would be noticeable and within the error of human reactions.

It takes a lot of ketchup to fill up a 2 meter by 20 cm cylinder. Can't make it too narrow because the edges change it.

The grad students bought all the ketchup at the local big grocery store and raised a few eyebrows at the checkout.

After proving that it worked they were able to make a clear polymer fluid that had the same properties (though was more expensive than ketchup) so that they were able to see it from the side and provide better timings... and not have to worry about spoilage... still, the grad students with 16 gallons of ketchup was something to remember.

They did a bratwurst cookout with the unused leftovers.