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Hearing it was mechanical in nature made me call bullshit before I even saw the video.

A gyroscope flywheel is mechanical, yet would serve such a purpose. Mechanical gyros are used in spacecraft and aircraft.
http://www.pilotfriend.com/training/flight_training/fxd_wing/gyro.htm

(deploying the boots early can result in the ice simply forming around the shape of the inflated boots, rather than their deflated shape, rendering the boots ineffective.)

I really hope that no pilots are getting their flying advice from slashdot (just like no lawyers are getting legal advice here), but just in case: the latest research indicates that ice bridging is a myth, and you should use the boots as soon as you detect any icing, rather than waiting for build-up.

http://www.aopa.org/pilot/features/inflight9910.ht ml, http://www.elliottaviation.com/wavelink/1999q1/wav art21.asp and http://www.faa.gov/library/manuals/examiners_inspe ctors/8400/fsat/media/fsat9818.doc are good references.

http://www.pilotfriend.com/safe/safety/icing_condi tions.htm is a great article about all sorts of aircraft de-icing and anti-icing methods.

The sopwith camel used an engine that was roughly similar to a
radial engine, the differences being that the whole engine turned,
and the crankshaft was held fixed. That engine being called a
rotary. Different from the Wankel rotary engine.

A link
is worth a thousand words.

Apologies if you already knew this, but I cant
infer this from your post.

...I don't think there are any cases of planes crashing or otherwise coming to harm because of cigarettes.

I think (not totally sure) that the cause of the lavatory fire in Air Canada 797 on June 2, 1983, could have been a cigarette.

I couldn't find a good linkable reference, but I think the 25 fatalities on an Ilyushin 18B at Guangzhou-Baiyun airport in 1982 was also caused by a fire started by a cigarette.

Another example (July 11th, 1973) can be found here.

And the most important thing to remember about the Hindenburg:

Despite a highly flammable skin around highly flammable hydrogen, and despite exploding mid-air, more than half the people on board survived:
"Of the ninety-seven aboard, thirty-six died, including thirteen "civilian" (paying) passengers, the first passengers of this kind killed in a dirigible accident. "

Compare the survival rate with your average airline accident...

From here

Hydrogen burns like... well hydrogen but in case of an airship you don't have a hydrogen oxygen mixture that will explode but pure hydrogen which slowly mixes with the surrounding air and burns down (the same reason why cars don't explode like in Hollywood movies but burn). Due to the sheer size of an airship, its seperated tanks and the lucky fact that the fire on the Hindenburg started at the back and during the landing the ship came down rather softly

Just to further show what an embarassing idea that is, it's worth pointing out that flying wing-type designs have been around for over 60 years.