I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

  • http://vuzhmusic.com vuzh

    “Deadly”?  Do people die in this video?  

    • bo1n6bo1n6

      Just a couple of innocent trees.

      • Snig

        Innocent? They know what they did.

  • Preston Sturges

    It looked like they were shooting stuff with an air rifle.  No 12 gauge slugs there!

    • ldobe

      yeah.  I’m pretty much convinced the “bullet” that hit the coke bottle was a .177 air rifle round.  The holes are just too small and neat for a .22 bullet, which would have gouged a bigger hole in the bottle at the exit.

      • oasisob1

        It makes me wonder what action movies would be like if humans were carbonated.

      • gjbloom

        I wonder how many takes they got of that?  It was just too perfect.

  • jackbird

    The very last one was in a class by itself. The others were pretty much by-the-numbers destruction fantasy fulfillment, but rubber-banding a watermelon until it fails structurally would simply never occur to me. The dramatic tension of the people about to get showered with juice was nice too.

    As for dynamiting the trees; did that look rather uncomfortably close to those houses (and without guy ropes) to anyone else?

    • eldritch

      I was more troubled by all the flying shrapnel – like a gorram age-of-sail naval battle, there was so much wood in the air.

    • xzzy

      The slo-mo guys have done the watermelon stunt too, if you want to see more of that sort of thing (hint: you do)

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK8dsAeMmPk

      My favorite was the piggy bank on the lawn mower. Poor little piggy almost bounced away from the blades unharmed, but nope. Missed it by an inch or two!

  • http://twitter.com/james4765 Jim Nelson

    Man, a Phantom Flex is on my wish list, and has been for a long time. Total specialty camera, and from what I understand, kind of a pain to operate, but spending your life recording crap blowing up and getting destroyed at super slow speed sounds like fun to me…

  • http://twitter.com/writebastard Ian Wood

    Mayonnaise in a tube? Buncha freaks, man.

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

      Interestingly, their preparation H comes in a large jar with a wide mouth plastic screw top lid?

      • Mister Eppy

        Christ, what an asshole! 

  • mtdna

    Strangely erotic…

  • L_Mariachi

    Do lawnmowers not have safety cutoffs in case of being turned upside down, or did they disable it for the piggy bank?

    /me has never had a lawn

    • bcsizemo

      I don’t know about in Europe but in America they only have a safety cutoff when you let go of the handle, which can easily be defeated.  Twenty years ago they didn’t have any safety protection (maybe it was longer ago than that.)  At the same time they also lasted 15-20 years before falling apart compared to today’s five.

      edit:
      Of course the more I think about it I’m pretty sure it is electric. A gas version wouldn’t run very long flipped upside down.

      • David Harris

        It could have been a 2-stroke, those can run upside down more or less indefinitely.

  • gd23

    The camper one was fascinating; you could see the fire pushing out like a snake through the front window.

  • TacoChuck

    I am not sure which came first, but the “Slow Mo” guys on youtube also do the watermelon/rubber band stunt.

    I remember when I first happened upon their channel how much of a “why didn’t I think of that” moment I had.

    You can make a real living doing youtube videos, my understanding is that it is approximately $3000 per 1 million views you get for videos.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Chuck-Howell/100000044534643 Chuck Howell

    I thought the Papa Smurf ball was a nice touch on the water tank/golf club sequence…

  • fight4paece

    After seeing the watermelon I now have an interesting suggestion anytime someone asks if anyone want to play Jenga.