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Elon Musk's Boring Company Delivers $600 Flamethrower (theverge.com)
Last December, Boring Company CEO Elon Musk promised to sell a Boring Company-branded flamethrower after selling 50,000 Boring Company hats. Well, sure enough, 50,000 hats were sold and Musk is delivering on his promise. The Verge reports: Mark this down as one of the promises Elon delivers on, apparently, because it looks like the Boring Company flamethrower is here. Redditors in a few SpaceX, Boring Company, and Musk-related subreddits noticed earlier this week that the URL "boringcompany.com/flamethrower" started redirecting to a page with a password box. And at least one user was able to guess the original password, too: "flame." (It's since been changed.) Behind that password was a shop page that looks just like the one for The Boring Company's hat. But instead of a $20 cap, they found a preorder prompt for a $600 flamethrower. "Prototype pictured above," the listing reads. "Final production flamethrower will be better."
Why "flame"? This doesn't exactly work with the push against the carbon industries. Perhaps something like a plasma thrower would be more appropriate. You could generate that with electricity.
Maybe you could ionize the flame and accelerate it with an electric field as a compromise?
>> Boring Company, the Flamethrower
If it's good enough for Spaceballs, it's good enough for Elon.
Remembered for the hat or the flamethrower?
I got my hat today. I feel like they waited for the flame thrower numbers before they sent out the hats. I'll probably invest in that and wear it around as I believe in the mission.
”And at least one user was able to guess the original password, too: "flame." (It's since been changed).”
That’s just the kind of attention to security best practices I’d expect from a Founder of PayPal.
#DeleteChrome
All in the heat of the moment
It's actually legal is most states
As it should be. A flamethrower consists of:
1. A fuel tank.
2. A compressed air tank.
3. A hose
4. An ignitor
Since these components are legal, it seems silly to make it illegal to connect them.
Flamethrowers have legitimate peaceful uses, such as brush clearing.
What we really needs is a compact flamethrower that can be mounted on a drone.
"Tesla fan" is going to take on new connotations if it becomes trendy for them to carry around flamethrowers as a sign of support for Musk's companies.
Maybe it'll end up that Tesla fans start getting hired to run security, in the way that Hell's Angels used to be. Then we'll end up waking up one day reading about how 7 people were charred to death during a ruckus at a Radiohead concert...
How come things that happen to stupid people keep happening to me?
They use them for roofing, road construction.
Website Just Down For Me? Find out
I think you confused legal and illegal. Legal in every state but California. https://www.online-paralegal-p... https://www.quora.com/Is-it-le...
Wikipedia seems to disagree with you. Maybe you know the citations necessary to go correct the article? They cited a Washington Post story which is weaker than a reference to a law might be.
In the United States, private ownership of a flamethrower is not restricted by federal law. Flamethrowers are legal in 48 states and restricted in California and Maryland.
.... this place needs purifying.
Hmmm, my reading of 27 CFR 447.21 puts them in the same category as howitzers and mortars. IANAL; maybe there's something I'm missing?
Your ad here. Ask me how!
He's so edgy, he's my hero. Bro he even read rocket science books.
A surface reading indicates this is about import/export. I suspect that is the key. There are many legal things that are controlled in import/export.
I'm pretty sure that mortars are legal unless it has changed... during my freshman year of college, my dorm roommate brought is civil war era mortar to school for homecoming. I'll never forget because he fired it in front of the dorm using a mixture of flour and gunpowder to create a bigger flash. He then put it in our room for the week following homecoming while we were all out of town for Thanksgiving break. When we got back, the whole dorm was looking for the source of the smell that had ruined virtually every article of clothing in the dorm. The result of flour+gunpowder is apparently a large amount of sulfur dioxide. It really, really stunk. We had to toss everything from our room, including the mattresses. :)
Interestingly, the Wikipedia article does indicate that the answer is very different for the UK... up to ten years in the clink.
Get to low earth Orbit :)
[($)]
Boring hats are already weeks beyond their originally quoted delivery dates, for a hat. I can imagine the safest way to keep your kid's hands off a flame thrower is to let them order one from Musk.
I expect he'll ultimately be remembered for taking generally-dismissed technologies, building PR campaigns styled after P.T. Barnum, and creating reasonably-successful companies using excitement to offset the extremely-high risk that led to the technologies being rejected the first time around.
Musk's PR stunts are exactly that. There is little scientific value (besides a dead-weight test) in launching a car into orbit... but by doing so, he can inspire another round of news stories and keep his name in front of the upcoming generation of engineers. Similarly, of course he's going to sell branded flamethrowers, because every reckless idiot (myself included) is going to think "Gee, I could probably spare $600 for that" and start clearing space in the living room next to the life-size Boba Fett statue. It'll be a great conversation piece, and a piece of history if/when the tunnels become successful.
I'm not going to opine on whether showmanship is a good or bad thing for investment purposes, but I am happy to see the public eye turning toward the real challenges to progress. Yes, the rockets blow up, the permits are a hassle, and building new manufacturing factories requires obscene amounts of money... but those problems are not insurmountable, with enough persistence (and funding). Don't worry about how hard your math homework seems, little Timmy... just give it another try, like your hero Elon Musk!
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
do you get a Founder's Series flamethrower?
I'll give you my flamethrower when you pry it from my scorched, dead hands.
The lunch box.
An affordable flame thrower for the masses! What could possibly go wrong?
Wrong. They are perfectly legal in almost every state, and most local jurisdictions. I've built a few for 4th of July parties. There are no federal laws against them.
Continue talking out your ass though.
'Flamebait' has a whole new meaning now.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Musk is doing this to drum up PR to get investors to keep buying stock in his companies which are unable to subsist on their own without the public dole.
As opposed to GM?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Sigh... and we had a serial arsonist here who started the fire that burned Lower Lake, CA. I bet he didn't use a flame thrower. You don't need one to start a wild fire. Faulty power lines throwing a few sparks is all you need. Gasoline and a match would do just fine. All this law does is probably send a few recreational users to Nevada.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Elon's end game is becoming clear.
TBC produces tunnel boring machines, flamethrowers, hats. Add an anvil and some rocket engines to the catalog and he can rename the company ACME. Contract SpaceX for the 'instant delivery' option.
As it should be. A flamethrower consists of:
1. A fuel tank.
2. A compressed air tank.
3. A hose
4. An ignitor
Since these components are legal, it seems silly to make it illegal to connect them.
That doesn't seen to stop legislators though. To quote the late great George Carlin, "Selling is legal. Fucking is legal. Why isn't selling fucking legal?"
of thay flamethrower?
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
A good guy with a flame thrower, obviously.
Launching a car into space as part of the Falcon Heavy test is certainly a P.T. Barnum sort of thing to do, but the Falcon Heavy test needs to launch some sort of mass simulator.
Space-X is alive only because of the money it got upfront from NASA for launches they may or may not deliver.
This is just not true. SpaceX has had a wide variety of non-NASA customers. Falcon 9 launched 18 times in 2017, which is 20% of all launches globally and about 2/3rds of all US launches , and the vast majority of those launches were not for NASA http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_chr/lau2017.htm. Moreover, SpaceX has delivered cargo launches to the ISS repeatedly for NASA, and with the exception of one launch in 2015, all of those have been successful.
ULA is alive only because of the money it got upfront from USAF for launches they may or may not deliver.
Fixed that for you. :-p
Ezekiel 23:20
I can understand what a hat might be good for. But what, exactly, might one want a flamethrower for? I suppose ISIS or the Taliban could find a use for a few gross of the product. But I suspect they could get a better price elsewhere.
(Indeed, Amazon offers a wide variety of devices from $300 down to a $11 "Culinary Torch - Auto Ignition Flamethrower Butane Burner Gas Torch for Camping Welding BBQ" A Culinary Torch for Welding BBQs? Yep. How have I gotten by all this time without one of those?)
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
Knotweed, perhaps. That sounds like a good application of a flamethrower.
That statute only applies to MILITARY flamethrowers, which this is not. It does not appear to spray burning sticky liquid, just flaming gas - which really makes it a "torch" rather than a "flamethrower" as it's used with regard to weapons. Moreover, that's an import restriction statute, not a prohibition on possession or domestic sale.
I am a geek attorney, but not your geek attorney unless you've already retained me. This is not legal advice.
I think the other (critical) poster has a small point. "mass simulator" is a lousy term. "test mass" or some such would be much better. It's got to be a real mass, not a simulation of a mass.
But, to me, launching his car seems a good move. The PR is probably worth more than the car, and he wouldn't want to launch some client's load on something that's so likely to blow up. Besides, it's a great excuse to buy a new car.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
So you follow http://www.the-whiteboard.com/... ? I did notice that today's episode was about flame throwers.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
A big torch is not the same as a flame thrower...
While I might agree with you that does bring up the question, what is the distinction between a big torch and a flamethrower? If we create a spectrum of things that produce flame, with step one being defined as "cigarette lighter" and step two as "plumber's torch", then how many steps would I have to go before getting to something defined as a "flamethrower"?
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
To quote B-grade sci-fi... that does not compute
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
what is the distinction between a big torch and a flamethrower?
A torch shoots out heat.
A flamethrower shoots out burning liquid fuel.
depending on location here in the USA from 15 to 85 percent of the time it's an enslaved or indentured servant woman's services being sold, which is not and should not be legal
A cigarette butt isn't a burning stick; but it's close.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I want to know.
P.S. Flamethrower on normal cars, to deter car thieves, won the 1999 Ig Nobel Peace Prize.
Your education system is designed to brainwash plebs, just like everywhere else - though it's "functional" from the standpoint that the British people are soulless nothings led by idiots who have grown complacent at their passivity. Your healthcare system consists of a bunch of office-drone-tier abominations waiting to check the box saying they can dispose of the corpse and clean the sheets. Your population is being replaced by Islamic terrorists. We'll keep the guns, now stay on your side of the internet and be grateful we let you on it at all.
I agree fully on both points.
Yes, the test needs mass. Other folks would be quite happy to use a block of concrete, or sandbags, or even a weighted mock-up of their intended load... but Musk uses a sports car, and gets more headlines and more front-page pictures. Those are what he'll be remembered for.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.