Linus busted by Thunderf00t

[Uttamattamakin]

Ok so maybe not Linus himself but he does quote an LTT video in a way that is a bit out of context.  

 

 

[thrasher_565]

22 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

Ok so maybe not Linus himself but he does quote an LTT video in a way that is a bit out of context.  

 

 

whats the question?  everyone is open to there opinion.

[Uttamattamakin]

5 minutes ago, thrasher_565 said:

whats the question?  everyone is open to there opinion.

The question the idea that we could store energy efficiently using a system of weights and cranes.  As Thunderfoot correctly points out a far simpler way to do this would be to use water.  Similar to what we do with hydroelectric dams.    

Where Linus comes in is he said a supportive thing about Elon musk wanting to put people on Mars so far back ... so far back the 1080 Ti was a year or two away.   A crack about how the debunkers are all maybe not so smart.  Thunderf00t was proven right.  Musk was full of it on Mars and this "Power Vault" idea is full of it too. 

[thrasher_565]

2 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

The question the idea that we could store energy efficiently using a system of weights and cranes.  As Thunderfoot correctly points out a far simpler way to do this would be to use water.  Similar to what we do with hydroelectric dams.    

Where Linus comes in is he said a supportive thing about Elon musk wanting to put people on Mars so far back ... so far back the 1080 Ti was a year or two away.   A crack about how the debunkers are all maybe not so smart.  Thunderf00t was proven right.  Musk was full of it on Mars and this "Power Vault" idea is full of it too. 

so...the point is hes a "debunker" and proving linus wrong...???

 

alot of people say things with out having research. everyone dose it. and even if you do research it you never know the the sources are honest. he read off other sites and gives what he thinks in that moment. sue him i guess... i dont no.

[Quackers101]

clickbait?

anyways, always debunk the debunker as debunked when debunked, by the debunker. Who got the master bunker? but besides that, thunderf00t has some great content around the science community on youtube, when it's not ranting about the same thing or pointing fingers.

 

But man, elon musk and the businesses run around there... can get a lot of money to some god awful projects or waste of time, nearly like money laundry schemes.

[thrasher_565]

3 minutes ago, Quackers101 said:

clickbait?

anyways, always debunk the debunker as debunked when debunked, by the debunker. Who got the master bunker? but besides that, thunderf00t has some great content around the science community on youtube, when it's not ranting about the same thing or pointing fingers.

 

But man, elon musk and the businesses run around there... can get a lot of money to some god awful projects or waste of time, nearly like money laundry schemes.

millionaire dont spend there moeny they spend other peoples moeny... its no different form making a go fund me on a video game and get nothing in the end. same idea its a scam.

[wanderingfool2]

To be honest, I stopped watching ThunderF00t a long time ago.  For all he claims about "science" and how he knows better than people, he is highly biased and wears rose colored glasses in regards to data...I mean anything aside from chemistry/radioactivity he just injects his biases and comes off as a "know it all" who just does it to insult people.

 

Actually, it would be interesting to see what @LinusTech take is on his video clip being used in a way that is out of context and pretty much making fun of his opinion and implying a stance that might not be correct.

 

It also bothers me how he just blatantly does copyright infringement and claim's it's always fair use.  I really hope one day someone really nails him with that.  He has openly said he doesn't include clips over 15 seconds long because he thinks YouTube's algo. doesn't detect that and because he seems to think 15 seconds isn't really copyright infringement.

 

Overall, I have ThunderF00t as a bully mentality.  He's the type who can "never be wrong" and when he clearly is wrong he turns his community on them and openly harasses people (he literally stole someones work, they contacted him asking for him to credit her work, and he created a video calling her an "entitled princess").

 

Not saying that he isn't correct about this technology not going anywhere, as even I thought it sounded impractical before I ever watched ThunderF00t, but I don't really think he ever bothers thinking for 2 seconds about commercial aspects.  Examples being, in areas where pumped batteries aren't feasible (deserts, flatter areas, or mountain areas that would be prohibitively expensive building dams to hold back the water).  Concrete can also be made about 3x heavier than water...so yea I doubt it's practical...but could potentially be used for quick electrical needs (i.e. the potentially 30 minutes it takes for a power plant to get to capacity).  The fact test facilities don't have to be in an area that makes sense, but just an area that can show a proof of concept and more importantly is likely easier to build it in/get permits.

 

After all, this is the guy who even after Falcon 9 had launched like 30+ times claimed it wasn't cost effective to land a rocket (and used bogus numbers)

[Arika]

People take anything Thunderf00t says seriously?

 

He has less credibility than those he "busts"

[wanderingfool2]

4 hours ago, Arika S said:

He has less credibility than those he "busts"

I know agree so much on this point, on anything where he "busts" he ends up trying to use guessed numbers as a means to show he is correct (like in the Falcon 9 re-usability he created a graph showing how they had to launch it something like 10 times before becoming "neutral"...except he chose the worst number possible saying "they don't matter" and if you used the correct stats for Falcon 9 the answer was like 2.5 launches before it was at the break even).

 

I still think the sky crane energy isn't feasible but lets check his debunking numbers still for potential accuracy.

His calculations on how much energy this thing could generate.  He estimates the height of the block and, the weight of the block...so let's check his napkin math.

- Assumes block size is ~4 meters stacked 3 high...proceeds to round down to 10 m height (ignores that a final version would undoubtedly be higher than 10 meters).  Drop height is apparently 75m according to press information.

- Assumes weight is 20,000 kg...but looking at the press releases it's 35t so he's off from the get go of a factor of 1.75

- Says 2,000 kJ is only enough to boil 1 kg of water.  I tried boiling water 1L (1kg) in my kettle.  It took 5 minutes, at 1500W of power (0.125kwh)...that's 450kJ [So off by 4.4X]...and that seems to match with what other people are saying in terms of energy required to boil room temp water.

 

So with that a block at height contains 25,751,250 J [12.5X more energy than what his analysis was].  That equates to ~7.153kWh of energy per brick...enough to run an electric kettle for 4.76 hours...or you know...boil 57 kg of water per brick...or 47km range on a Tesla (since he liked to point out it was only 6km).  Sure it's napkin math, and I could still be wrong...but from what I can see his ballparks are orders of magnitude off.

 

So as much as ThunderF00t effectively pokes fun of Linus' comment, my grade 11 physics napkin math seems to be better than his napkin math.  I get the feeling he always cherry picks data only to support his data while leaving any information that might debunk him as a "guess" which.

 

Do I think it's practical...no, but for other reasons (mainly just the pure financials part of it). ThunderF00t considers himself an educational kind of channel so his stupidly in choosing numbers that contradict the proposed figures

 

[LogicalDrm]

12 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Actually, it would be interesting to see what @LinusTech take is on his video clip being used in a way that is out of context and pretty much making fun of his opinion and implying a stance that might not be correct.

If I were him, probably couldn't care less. Unless it was made to  use something said to be very discriminatory or offensive towards person or group. In that, it would go from fair use to defamation.

 

Otherwise, more he acknowledges every small channel trying to bait and troll him, more of them will come and try to squeezy out every small mistake made, everything they can to try and get acknowledgement and some validation.

 

Seriously, first rule of dealing with troll, just ignore them. If they need to twist something someone big says in order to get views, its their loss, not ours.

[LinusTech]

Meh

[Joppsta]

9 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

I know agree so much on this point, on anything where he "busts" he ends up trying to use guessed numbers as a means to show he is correct (like in the Falcon 9 re-usability he created a graph showing how they had to launch it something like 10 times before becoming "neutral"...except he chose the worst number possible saying "they don't matter" and if you used the correct stats for Falcon 9 the answer was like 2.5 launches before it was at the break even).

 

I still think the sky crane energy isn't feasible but lets check his debunking numbers still for potential accuracy.

His calculations on how much energy this thing could generate.  He estimates the height of the block and, the weight of the block...so let's check his napkin math.

- Assumes block size is ~4 meters stacked 3 high...proceeds to round down to 10 m height (ignores that a final version would undoubtedly be higher than 10 meters).  Drop height is apparently 75m according to press information.

The fact that the press release claims it's going to be this and it's going to be that is pretty irrelevant when we're talking about a system that is so unbelievably stupid that it should never have gotten to this point in the first place. Plus napkin math to illustrate his point means there will be rounding numbers down, mainly for YouTube related reasons. Monkey brain understands factors of 10 better than factors of 12.

- Assumes weight is 20,000 kg...but looking at the press releases it's 35t so he's off from the get go of a factor of 1.75

Assuming because he's lazy and doesn't bother to go and look up the data, hardly a crime of the century.

- Says 2,000 kJ is only enough to boil 1 kg of water.  I tried boiling water 1L (1kg) in my kettle.  It took 5 minutes, at 1500W of power (0.125kwh)...that's 450kJ [So off by 4.4X]...and that seems to match with what other people are saying in terms of energy required to boil room temp water.

This one got me thinking, as I was planning to full on call you out on this as well. I can explain the 2MJ number though, it's the energy required to VAPORISE 1kg of water. I think this is definitely an error on Tf00t's part as a kettle doesn't vaporise 1kg, it boils it. Some vaporisation does occur but in order to achieve 100C you only need 334.88kJ according to the math. So this is consistent (with losses accounted for) with your 450kJ number. If you were to vaporise the entire mass one would assume it would take 20-25 minutes of the kettle being constantly left on in your case.

Replies in bold. Got me thinking which I appreciate.

 

[poochyena]

wow that is really dishonest to use such an old clip and with little context. Like, I do disagree with what Linus said if I understand the context right. Its not they they don't know the physics, they do know it, they are just (assuming what they are saying is wrong) lying about it. But I wouldn't hold linus accountable for saying that today based on him saying that many years ago.

 

But yes.. I did used to enjoy thunderfoot ~10 years ago, before he became creepily obsessed with anita sarkeesian. I wanted science videos, not gamer culture wars. Luckily it looks like he has moved on from that now.

[wanderingfool2]

2 hours ago, poochyena said:

But yes.. I did used to enjoy thunderfoot ~10 years ago, before he became creepily obsessed with anita sarkeesian. I wanted science videos, not gamer culture wars. Luckily it looks like he has moved on from that now.

He's moved onto being creepily obsessed with Elon Musk now.  Judging by the thumbnails and titles the last 7 out of 20 videos have been directly target SpaceX/Elon Musk...and another additional one using Elon in the thumbnail (I just hovered over the thumbnails to see.  Safe to say that he has an obsession with Musk now.  Just looking at the last half a year of videos, only the Veritasium one seems to be grounded in what he actually has knowledge of (instead of waving guesswork)

 

Actually, it looks like Linus makes an appearance in the Spinlaunch: BUSTED! video, with a bit of a clip from in a SpaceX tube.

 

All you need to know about how bad his content has gotten is by looking at all the [they're suing me] videos; where he spouts out fair use -incorrectly I might add- and even on things like the Lomi one claims they are trying to claim a copyright they don't have the rights to (without even realizing he's linking the wrong source).  The whole thing is him taking everything they say out of context (or not understanding what they are saying) and then saying he's pretty not guilty of anything.  *Full disclosure, I didn't really watch much of his videos...I just clicked on this one to see if he's as arrogant as I remember...turns out he is*

 

The sad thing is that I know enough people who repeat some of the stuff he says as though fact (and it's rather annoying having to go through a few things)  [Like the perpetuation that charging a vehicle from a gas powerplant is just as bad as driving with gas vehicles]

[Heliian]

9 hours ago, Caroline said:

Who?

He's a YouTuber who knocks on elon musk most of the time.  Quite entertaining.  Seems to be doing well these days with all the new scam technology and vaporware being peddled.  

He's a shit disturber, but it gets clicks.  Just like anything on yt, take with a grain of salt. 

 

[Mark Kaine]

On 3/28/2022 at 6:24 AM, Uttamattamakin said:

Thunderf00t was proven right

i mean a broken clock is right twice a day too… the guy is completely clueless / conspiracy theorist… "because this is like that, that means the other thing works like that… *proof*" … 

 

ot: he isnt debunking anything because it is not known as of yet which method is "better"… or if this is even a viable idea… again, hes just making up stuff as he goes.

[Needfuldoer]

On 3/28/2022 at 1:36 AM, wanderingfool2 said:

Actually, it would be interesting to see what @LinusTech take is on his video clip being used in a way that is out of context and pretty much making fun of his opinion and implying a stance that might not be correct.

What?! Come on, that never happens.

 

/s, just in case

[RejZoR]

On 3/28/2022 at 1:16 PM, Arika S said:

People take anything Thunderf00t says seriously?

 

He has less credibility than those he "busts"

Only if you absolutely have no clue about any tech or science. Besides, it doesn't require a PhD to debunk things like Hyperloop or that thing that creates water out of thin air. Or aircrafts the size of 787 powered with li-ion cells. You need not knowledge in engineering, but just some experience in engineering to know that shit just doesn't fly. I have yet to watch this one, but Thunderf00t has a point in pretty much every debunking he makes. His main issue is presentation as he often makes too long videos repeating same thing. But he's one guy rambling online, he doens't have 10 ppl writing script for him...

[Quackers101]

2 hours ago, RejZoR said:

His main issue is presentation as he often makes too long videos repeating same thing. But he's one guy rambling online, he doens't have 10 ppl writing script for him...

and only focus on "one part" of a thing, when something else might work or rather to be explored/tested, not as the main product/solution.

But the issue with having the main channel for this rambling and wanting some to be "educational", doesn't quite work and then to discredit others in the community as in the use of clips etc... At least he does have some good science videos, but someone like NileRed is wayy more educational, even if he does some for fun and fool around.

[wanderingfool2]

1 hour ago, RejZoR said:

Only if you absolutely have no clue about any tech or science

Thunderf00t is dangerous because he comes across as "educational" and "knowledgeable" while pedling false information mixed in with real information while at the same time he has absolutely zero business sense  sometimes or lacks the ability to think of what a certain project is meant for.  e.g. below

 

1 hour ago, RejZoR said:

that thing that creates water out of thin air

See, it's easy to jump on things like creating water out of thin air...but he goes on about the economics of such...in the US.  Failing the realize that there are places in the world where you can't just order a truck full of water...or that it's not practical.  The perfect example being that this product while sold to American's, it's overall I think headed towards places like Africa where clean drinking water is not a given; and having a consistent supply of water is vital.  Plus it operates after the aid group is gone (not just a, let's deliver a few thousand dollars worth of bottled water and say goodbye).  I'm not saying that it's not worth sort of debunking, but at a certain point debunking something with using his own flawed business logic doesn't make sense. [Can we take a second to acknowledge he says it would cost only $350 to buy and have shipped 10 metric tons of water 1000 miles...I think anyone with any logistical sense would realize it's going to cost a whole lot more]

 

One can say that it doesn't require a PhD to debunk, but he has a PhD and his arguments/lies is as well thought out as a third grader in that video.

1 hour ago, RejZoR said:

His main issue is presentation as he often makes too long videos repeating same thing

His main issue isn't that.  The main issue is that he literally makes up numbers, or intentionally chooses the wrong numbers when it's convenient to him...and then goes on tangents that have absolutely nothing to do with what he's arguing except to try to mock the people he is talking about (or mocking SpaceX/Musk in a video that doesn't have anything to do with them)

 

The video that made me completely stop watching (as no longer wished to support him in anyway) was the SpaceX: Busted video.  At the 16:07 mark he says "The numbers aren't actually exact or that critical" [effectively to prove his point].  Proceeds to use number of 50% payload to orbit after a few seconds earlier in the video saying that the actual number was close to 70%...but why you might ask?  Because using 70% changes sort of proves that SpaceX's numbers were correct.  Like even during the segment he admits he mentions it was 70%, but then claims that the relaunch cost is 40%...so he changes the relaunch cost to 40% without changing the 70%...because again it works against his narrative.  In his rebuttable video he did some hand-waving and never corrected that this key stat was wrong (instead went for the low hanging fruit).  Then there is also all the garbage where he always assumes client based pricing actually represents the cost [like honestly he has zero business sense]

 

At a certain point, having him constantly lie or misinform while trying to come across as like an educational channel and knowledgeable about the subject is just bad.

[Joppsta]

With regards to "targeting" Elon Musk ... it's pretty difficult not to when the man is a gigantic snake oil salesman and that's one of the core principles of your channel, calling this nonsense out.

[RejZoR]

Erm, no. He does make sense. People who defend dehumidifiers as source of magical water in some desert are entirely disconnected from reality. That is just a fact. Not only they need relatively high power intake, if you can't order a truck of water, but you can somehow supply it constant 450W of power, how does that make any kind of sense? And I'm using a 20L/24h dehumidifier that consumes 450W at its absolute theoretical peak gathers 20L of water in 1 day as an example. I don't know all the math, but I know practical application and this just doesn't work. Not only dry regions where there is shortage of water have dry air to begin with which means there is NO possible way to even remotely reach those theoretical 20L of water because you almost never reach that even when running the unit in 100% humidity. Let alone almost half a kilowatt of power to run it. And we haven't even talked about mold and fungi growth that often happens in these units. Sorry, but it's just bs and can't possibly work. It's not practical even if you throw a western technology for big money and apply it somewhere in Africa because drinking that water would be straight up health hazard.

 

Another is Hyperloop. Zero drag motion because of lack of air sounds great and magical, but doing practical application is just total nonsense. Not only creating vacuum or even just lower pressure in hundreds of kilometers long metal tubes is just entirely impractical, because decompressing such massive volume would take literally forever even with high performance pumps. Then there is maintenance and danger of bulkheads at stations failing or trains colliding due to other failure resulting in collision and rapid decompression. And we haven't even come to metal deformation of tubes. Do you know why trains are doing "tick tick tick tick" as they drive on tracks? It's because of gaps between rail segments that are in place to compensate metal expansion. Of tracks expand beyond those gaps they'll entirely deform and train will derail (you can find photos of deformed rail tracks that already had gaps included and still failed. But they want to put a train going at 800km/h in vacuum or low pressure in a rigid uninterrupted tube because it needs to hold vacuum/low pressure. Or how evergreen genius Elon Musk was babbling about "hockey puck air skates" as wheels. Inside these VACUUM tubes. There is just so much nonsense where you don't need to be a genius to realize it just wouldn't work and is a bad idea even with most optimistic approach.

 

The same way these "energy vaults" just make absolutely NO sense. It's like trying to achieve perpetuum mobile. It's actually one of dumbest ideas I've heard in a while. Why go through all this effort when building another hydro dam is WAAAAAAAAAAY more efficient. Stacking concrete blocks around, you're inputting same amount of power as you get out of it dropping it (minus extra losses). Where hydro dam literally gives you just positive power balance after it's built because water gets returned into it by itself via atmospheric evaporation and condensation (raining and glaciers melting in higher mountains). Besides, we already have a power storage using molten salt. Basically solar farms superheat the salt which retains heat through periods of no sun or during night and is used to generate power. Again, all the input is effort free and consumes no energy for as long as there is sun and solar arrays are clean enough to reflect sun into the collector.

 

People may be too young around here to remember wall clocks with weights, but I do because my grandma had one. I also know how ridiculously efficient clock mechanisms are. Reason why that works is because clock mechanism requires so little power that pulling the weight up gives it enough power to operate for days. And it requires next to no effort for a human to move that 500g weight up. Moving 20 ton blocks is another, because you need to have extra machine to achieve that, it's not a 5 second pull with hand as you walk by. The efficiency balance is totally out of whack here.

 

So, yeah, Thunderf00t may ramble a bit, but he has a point. All of this shit is lalaland fairytale nonsense that has zero real world application. These are multimillion projects that are more worthless than Mythbusters just blowing up a cement truck for science. That was at least super fun and entertaining.

[Thaldor]

Wasn't Thunderf00t the guy who at some point debunked flat-earthers from left and right and sounded just as lunatic asshole as those he was debunking but made it into an hour long video about how stupid someone can be with like 5 minutes of actual facts?

[LogicalDrm]

7 hours ago, Heliian said:

He's a YouTuber who knocks on elon musk most of the time.  Quite entertaining.  Seems to be doing well these days with all the new scam technology and vaporware being peddled.  

He's a shit disturber, but it gets clicks.  Just like anything on yt, take with a grain of salt.

Looking at hes SocialBlade, big uptick during first COVID spring, and another now. Otherwise they are medicore in both views and new subs. Hitting it with clickbait titles and thumbnails more likely than actual content. Or someone like OP linking their content everytime they see someone with much more subs and trying to get reaction.

[wanderingfool2]

18 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

-snip-

You are missing the most important point.  He literally tells lies in his videos or makes comparisons out of context that should never be trusted as fact.  It doesn't matter whether or not I agree that something is snake-oil, but it's outright facetious to present information regarding the busted product that is outright wrong and using it as the justification to say that the execs are stupid or making fun of them for putting out the product.  That is exactly what he does.

 

It doesn't matter if you make one or two good points if you tell lies on three or four points.

 

18 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

The same way these "energy vaults" just make absolutely NO sense. It's like trying to achieve perpetuum mobile. It's actually one of dumbest ideas I've heard in a while. Why go through all this effort when building another hydro dam is WAAAAAAAAAAY more efficient.

Go ahead and build a hydro plant in the desert.  Go on, it's way more efficient you say.  imo, the trend will be towards megapack/similar type of electrical storage, and like I said I don't think the energy vault will ultimately work...but again, it's idiotic of ThunderF00t to intentionally use wrong figures in his argument against it.  It's why at best he is a reckless content creator who is trying to be an educational channel.  Again, if you think he makes valid points good on you but having watched a few of his videos and run fact-checking on his numbers he is complete garbage when it comes to his guesses.  [Again in the energy vault video, I estimate his numbers were off by a factor of 57 times when it came to his boiling water calculation]

 

34 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

People who defend dehumidifiers as source of magical water in some desert are entirely disconnected from reality

Your solution for disadvantaged people in areas without drinking water, without readily accessible access to electricity?  Having a self-contained unit can produce drinking water is a big difference maker.  A bit more numbers oriented below.

 

45 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

Not only they need relatively high power intake, if you can't order a truck of water, but you can somehow supply it constant 450W of power, how does that make any kind of sense?

Well given that you can find people who own panels and it is generating water it makes more sense than saying it's impossible to happen.  It also assumes that there aren't trade-offs between size/portability/noise and efficiency.  Decided to look it up online.  Looks like industrial dehumidifiers large vs compact can increase power consumption by a factor of 2x per watt/liter measurement...with some managing about 10wh/litre.  So 5 litres per day would require the solar panel on it to generate about 50W...but that's an optimistic approach.

 

A better thing would be to actually look at some of the technical specs that they list on average water recovery per average sunlight hitting the panel. (which this one can't be a lied about claim, otherwise they would be in serious legal trouble).

A desert has 21% RH value.  I checked and a large chunk of Africa has it well over 5.5...so that would put it at ~3 Litres a day...although with the areas that recieve the least rainfall, it appears to be around 8...so off the chart.  From what I can see though, a more realistic RH would be 30% for the cities.  That puts the water generation at around 4 litres.

 

It's not foolhardy to think that there could be a possibility.  Even 10-15 years ago solar/material tech hadn't really progressed enough to make any feasible sense but we sit here now that economies of scale and advancement in technology does make some things more capable than they really are.

 

Do I think that it's just a pipe-dream for that...sort of sort of not.  There are justifications/use cases where it makes sense...but again ThunderF00t went out of his way to provide numbers and details that don't really jive; in order to thrash a company for a busted video.

 

Overall, I would like to say this the amount of false information ThunderF00t provides is to the point that his points should not be trusted as truths.  That is the key takeaway.  Spreading false information about a bad product is almost as bad as the bad product itself.

 

Do I think hyperloop is sane, absolutely not, do I think ThunderF00t's argument that you can't create a metal track that long due to thermal expansion is right, absolutely not.

 

Let me poise this question to you; and keep in mind that I don't think the energy vault makes sense in it's feasibility.

Given he spent a decent portion of the video on calculating the energy stored; is it not disingenuous to use a weight that 1.75X smaller than the actual weight of the brick.  Is it not disingenuous to use a height that is like 7.5X shorter...making the total energy about 12X smaller than he claimed.  Is it not disingenuous to say it can only boil a litre of water when even using his calculated kJ, it could have boiled over 4 litres.

And the question being, how can information he provides be trusted if he is so willing to create a narrative surrounded around misinformation/incorrect guesses.