• http://boingboing.net/ Rob Beschizza

    The plane takes off.

    • awjt

       Yeah, good times.  Sometimes I wish for the old days back, but mostly, nah.

    • Daneel

      Can it go downwind faster than the wind, though?

    • Halloween_Jack

      No.

    • Antinous / Moderator

      Or else it gets the hose again.

  • http://www.facebook.com/tom.suggitt Tom Suggitt

    3.4 mph for 58 minutes and it traveled over 5 miles?????

    • Stooge

      There’s a slight margin of error…

    • xzzy

      He claims at the end of the video that he let it run for some period before turning on the camera.

      • theophrastvs

         ah The Directors Cut (cometh)

    • toobigtofail

       Forgot to account for the Lorentz contraction.

    • Dv Revolutionary

      and it’s a nickel not a dime.

      • http://daruiburns.tumblr.com/ Dlo Burns

        double nickels on the dime

    • Paul Renault

       Nautical miles?

      Yes, still not quite enough, but closer.  Data mile – closer still?

    • Gerald Mander

       Rounding for inflation.

  • Dave Mankoff

    What causes it to accelerate? You can see it rolling both backwards and forwards (left and right – I assume right is forwards). Why would it slowly decelerate (to the left) and then suddenly accelerate (to the right). You can see it do this several times.

    • awjt

      If you scrub back and forth over the video, (just mouseover, you don’t need to click and hold the indicator thingy) you can see it oscillate forward and back the entire time of the video.  I bet it’s subtle power issues – either with the power to the motor from the power supply, or the house wiring or the power grid.

      • Dave Mankoff

        Indeed. I wonder if this is the reason it stayed rolling at all. In practice, there would be a small (possibly very small) amount of friction. If the treadmill holds a truly stead pace, you would expect the coin to slowly lose speed and fall of the end. If the treadmill speeds up occasionally, that could be just what it needs to make up the loss.

        • xzzy

          It wouldn’t roll at all without friction. Assuming you dial the speed of the treadmill in perfectly, the coin will remain stationary until some other force acts on it.

          Speed oscillations and left/right drifting of the coin were probably the main “external forces” that caused it to move around.

  • awjt

    It’s not a dime.  It’s a nickel.  He even calls it a dime.  But the thing he holds up to the lens is a Jefferson nickel.

    • str1cken

      WHERE ARE THE JOURNALISTIC STANDARDS

    • dmatos

       Even worse, he rolled the nickel around a parking lot a low speeds for almost an hour, clearly trying to run down the battery.

      • Gerald Mander

         Thank you. That was the funniest thing I’ve read all day.

    • Antinous / Moderator

      I can’t imagine that a dime would roll so well on those ridged edges.

      • http://profile.yahoo.com/65CSAR3QATRNKJW4NYNB2BESZE JohnQPublic

        thus, dimes are more appropriate for muddy and icy off-road terrains.

    • Jellodyne

      There is a minute and 23 seconds between when the coin rolls out of frame and it is presented to us again. A lot can happen in almost a minute and a half. The coin could have been altered or even swapped. He shows you a nickel, then refers to it as a dime. Why would he call what is clearly a nickel a dime, unless something suspicious is up. The truth will out. I’m telling you, this is some sort of plot to distract our attention for an hour. What happened during the hour when you watched that video? I don’t know — I WAS WATCHING THE VIDEO.

      • awjt

        I’ve been watching it continuously since it was posted and I’m telling you, I am still stumped.  I will keep watching and check back in if I find out anything.

  • MrMonkey

    Well there’s an hour of my life I’ll never get back.  It was almost hypnotic.

    • welcomeabored

      Well, don’t bogart that joint, my friend – pass it to the right, please.

      • http://www.youtube.com/user/Freethinkersanon Christopher

        And don’t crush that dwarf. Hand me the pliers.

        • Ripcord2

          She’s no fun, she…fell right over.

    • http://twitter.com/fewsursam fss

       There’s 14 hours of my life I’ll never get back.

      Why oh why did I watch that 14 times?!

  • welcomeabored

    I was gonna be impressed given the thinness of a dime’s edge and the ridges… until I saw it was a nickel.  Ahem.

    I have a twenty year old treadmill, so I was much more impressed with the quiet smooth running of the deck, belt and motor.

    EDIT: Analysis? – you jest. I’d bet a crispy Jefferson he was high.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Flugfrei-Jones/1403604860 Flugfrei Jones

      no way any reasonable person would bet against you. that guy is high.

  • bobcorrigan

    Years from now when the barbarians are cracking our femurs open to gnaw on the marrow, they will point to this video as the beginning of the end.

  • orwell

    watch as this fresh paint dries in under an hour…   you can almost “see,” it drying!

    • Halloween_Jack

      Watching Corn Grow: The Growening

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Flugfrei-Jones/1403604860 Flugfrei Jones

    the head enters the frame at 38:51… 21 seconds of my life.. gone!

    • Antinous / Moderator

      Yeah, total rip-off.

  • Preston Sturges

    I used to roll pennies over 100 yards in a building with a terrazzo floor aiming at a sheet metal water fountain at the other end, which would go “clang” when the penny hit it. 

    • Donald Petersen

      “Used to”?  I don’t believe I could ever bear leaving that job.

      • Preston Sturges

        Once I got my PhD they threw me out. 

    • Antinous / Moderator

      How many onions did you win if you hit it?

      • http://profile.yahoo.com/65CSAR3QATRNKJW4NYNB2BESZE JohnQPublic

         you could trade in a bushel of them for one chiken.

        • Antinous / Moderator

          I’m old enough that we actually used to buy food in bushel baskets when I was a child.  Hmm.  After a little searching, it appears that clams and apples still come that way.  Maybe I’m not that old after all.

          • Preston Sturges

            Of course, that’s where clamapple juice comes from. 

      • Preston Sturges

        “…….We can’t bust heads like we used to, but we have our ways. One trick is to tell ‘em stories that don’t go anywhere – like the time I caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, so, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on ‘em. Give me five bees for a quarter, you’d say.

        Now where were we? Oh yeah: the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn’t have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones…..”

        • jimh

          There’s an interesting story about that. Well, it’s not so much interesting as it is long…

  • jaybar

    It’s a shame there’s no way to fast-forward these videos. That took an hour to watch.

  • http://deansli.st/ Dean Putney

    All factual errors intentional.

    • Donald Petersen

      Oh sure, you say that now…

  • anansi133

    “It traveled a little over five miles in that time”…   I know what you’re trying to say there, but it’s not accurate to say that the coin traveled at all. It looks like the coin moved less than a meter in all that time.

    Maybe say instead that the coin spun the equivalent of five miles, that would satisfy the pedants in this crowd I think.

  • BarBarSeven
  • Gerald Mander

    Best. Boing Boing. Comment. Thread. Ever.

  • http://twitter.com/mrmallon Mr Mallon

    I bet his Mother is proud of him.