Bucking the trend...

Well, a few posts back, I promised I would try to fight the ongoing trend in our culture of creeping stupidity, by praising and striving for intellect.  Here you go:

• http://thelibertarianrepublic.com/watch-a-man-shoot-an-ak-47-underwater/
  

  Destin over at Smarter Every Day has a new video out showing the slow motion physics of firing an AK-47 under water. His Youtube channel is dedicated to exploring the realm of science through exciting videos educating people about things like how cats flip to their feet and how to identify and handle a brown recluse spider. In this video, he uses slow motion photography to demonstrate to viewers the blast radius of the rifle in his own backyard pool. Enjoy!

  A couple of interesting things here.  First, he had previously tried just plopping an AK-47 into an aquarium, with some — ahem — unfortunate results for the aquarium. So he steps up his game this time: he builds a half-underwater periscope so that the high-speed camera can sit on the pool's deck while he shoots the gun underwater.  Next we're treated to some amazing shots of cavitation, gas flows, details of how an AK-47 works, and finally some interesting explanation as to why the gas cloud's volume oscillates several times before completely collapsing.
  
  Another awesome aspect to this video: Dustin makes these videos in Alabama. The common stereotype for people from Alabama does not match what you see in this video, nor what I am familiar with from having lived there myself.  Just a little something to consider the next time you're about to make a joke about people in the deep south being their own uncles.
  
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBTy5CNWIHA
  
  Jamie Mantzel is a crazy guy who lives on a mountain and in his spare time has been building a giant robot for no reason other than that he believes the world will be more awesome with it than without. He's also incredibly smart and his videos are oddly fun to watch. In this installment, he and his friends install a ram pump at his mountain home, and then explain how ram pumps work. He says he gets about a gallon of water per hour delivered to his house, approximately 75 feet above the pump, with no energy source other than a roughly 5 foot drop from his water source.
  
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vroaQjGCkc
  
  I only learned of this guy the other day - he's got a series of homesteading videos including some interesting bits about grafting apple trees. In this one, he explains how to charge your vehicle's battery by hooking up a chainsaw to the alternator.  Not the most likely of scenarios, but still kinda neat.