To be honest when I first got the take down notices, about 6 of them in an hour or so (4 content inappropriate with no chance of appeal, and two privacy complaints) I thought,
‘another harassing and minor annoyance in running the channel. A quick email to YT should sort it out.’
I was then simply stunned when youtube claimed these videos had been reviewed by professional and impartial moderators and were removed for either hate speech or privacy violation. The more so as some of these videos constituted some of the milder things I’ve said about religion. The bottom line was, if this really was the new bar for hate speech, not only would it in an instant render the Thunderf00t channel unviable, it would render virtually every rationalist channel unviable. Youtubes actions were simply unintelligible. Indeed if someone had told me these were youtube actions, I simply wouldn’t have believed them. But there were the words on the screen in black and white.
I had no option but to make the video “Youtube starts banning ‘religiously offensive’ videos“. There were simply no other alternatives. A fairly high stakes game given that youtube could easily have said my action violated the terms of service and just killed the account. But then again, if the words I had in black and white on the screen were correct, then channel was already dead, and the only thing left to do was give a good accounting of itself before the inevitable banhammer.
By coincidence this happened about one week after the Hamza Kashgari incident.
Kashgari made about 3 vanilla tweets mildly critical of Islam only to find himself in fear for his life. He fled Saudi, only to be arrested in Malaysia. There he was deported back to Saudi with no due process to face a potential death sentence over three tweets. That’s fucked up beyond ALL recognition. But it really underscores the problem that religions find arbitrary things offensive. Given this simple observation, having a clause in the Terms of Service about not offending religions is simply incoherent.
If youtube really is willing to give religion this latitude of freedom, and to further scale what they consider ‘hate speech’ by how offended people are, then youtube would inevitably find itself in thrall to the Imams. Many of them find anything that is not Islam offensive beyond comprehension, as was demonstrated by the Imam crying over the three tweets of Kashgari calling them ‘the worst thing he’d ever read’.
So it was that I wrote potentially my last email to youtube asking them to apply whatever policy they had uniformly, which, taking ‘The Best emotional PORN‘ as the benchmark, would mean either about 7/10 of my videos would be hate speech, and they should delete them and ban my account, or reinstate the videos (which are vanilla compared to some of the videos on my channel).
The BEST emotional PORN, the new bar for ‘hate speech’, Really?
Thankfully, some 48 hrs later, with over 17000 thumbs up, well over a thousand mirrors and ~160k hits Youtube had a change of heart over what constituted hate speech.
Now I have mixed feelings about this. The Churchill quote about ‘The United States will always do the right thing…. once all other options have been exhausted’ kept coming to mind.
Sure Youtube had done the right thing, and had the humility and plasticity to correct their previous mistake (a fairly honorable and humble act), but only once all other options had been exhausted. You then look at what other options youtube had on the table (banhammer, ignore or stick to original judgment), and this is BY FAR the most dignified thing they could have done.
So all things considered, I think this is as happy an outcome as could have been hoped for. For the strong response of the community (and yes, it was the communal action that made this possible, for I as an individual had tried to take this to a sensible resolution and failed (I have the gut feeling it was not my email that swung the balance here)) ensured that free speech is maintained on this forum.
Many Thanks to all who made this outcome possible!
This time a decade ago, no one had even heard of youtube, nor did the bandwidth really exist for the project. The emergence of Youtube was unforeseen by, well lets be real, everyone. Microsoft was left standing, as was Google. The access of users to cheap video editing equipment, and further simultaneously given access to the vast array of various uploaded media clips led to an explosion of creativity.
However as time progressed, expectedly those who did well acquired a disproportionate amount of the traffic. Now, I don’t have the figures, but a comparative handful of users provide the significant lions share of the traffic. This has had two detrimental effects on youtube.
1) The forum has lost a significant portion of its vibrancy, in that it used to be that you could come back to youtube in a week or twos time and everything would be different. This is not true anymore. You come back in months time and it’s pretty much the exact same people doing exactly the same thing. It’s no longer really youtube, but the ‘same old-same old’tube.
2) The barriers to entry are now essentially prohibitively high. As a few get a large amount of the traffic, the barriers to entry are huge compared to what they were when youtube was relatively a flat and fair forum. Indeed almost the only way to now establish yourself on youtube is with the help of someone who is already established, or to have an existing audience for whom you start making videos, or to simply have a truck full of cash to throw at the problem.
So is there a solution to this? Is there a way that youtube can regain it’s vibrancy? Well that’s where many minds are better than one and I ask for your take on this.
The following is my suggestion: One way to do this which is arguably dead before it starts is by biasing the YT search algorithms against established players. Now YT will not want to do that on several levels. Firstly ‘established players’ are the ‘cash cows’, they are the ‘known commodities’ that people come to youtube for. Secondly of course, those partner would be pretty unhappy having put all that work into establishing a channel merely for YT to come along and decide ‘bad luck fellas, but YT needs more variety’. It would also send a lousy message about the relationship between media producers and youtube. Finally of course, who is likely to fill this gap? Lamentably imitation is easier than innovation and for every youtube ‘celebrity’ there are probably 10 wannabe clones. Even if youtube were to tweak its search engine, would it really help?
Maybe a more viable alternative is to create a second ‘pool’ of users. A ‘youtube hatchery’ so to speak that allows small channels to grow free of the competition of the bigger players (a different front page). Limit the hatchery to users with less than 10k subscribers or so, and have a separate front page for them. The environment would allow people to establish themselves on a smaller forum before competing in the full YT forum where currently they get almost no attention.
Other than that, it looks to me like youtube has matured and hardened into its adult form, never to see significant changes again, or if it does, it will be more akin to glacial speeds!
You gotta love Abraham. After all how much more can you show that you love ‘Gods Goodness’ than being willing to kill your own children! Well I know some smart ass will come up and say, ‘actually sexually abusing them, torturing them, then killing them would be an even bigger test of faith’ but God didn’t ask that did he now. He merely made voices in Abrahams head that said ‘KILL ISAAC! it’s the only way I can tell you believe in me. KILLL ISSSAACCC! Send him to the god he wished he could hear in his head!’
Now I know there will be a lot of ‘atheists’ out there who will simply say ‘well why does God need this pointless and sick loyalty test if he’s omnipotent?’. Well, that’s why you’re going to spend eternity burning in Hell, BECAUSE IT’S A TEST OF FAITH!
And thats why every year some of the followers of the Abrahams God celebrate his faith by the festival of Eid al-Adha.
Here at Eid al-Adha child-care, divinely inspired by Abrahams example, we will NEVER disobey God.
It’s the next best thing to trusting Abraham with your children!
many thx to Emily @ Emilyhasbooks on twitter/FB for making the piccie
Before next year (2012) is out, I plan to have taken you to the edge of the unknown, and give you vision beyond mere sight. To guide you up the more accessible foothills of the unknown on a voyage of discovery leading to an intellectual vantage point from which you will understand why, given nothing but natural processes, emergent self replicating life seems inevitable, rather than improbable.
-Damn straight! If you are going to do open n accessible science, make it interesting! Shining the magic light of knowledge on the hidden origin of life seems to be a pretty entertaining place to start
The first footstep on the journey of discovery
Further, now that many know my real name, I can openly link up with other high profile groups promoting science education (to be announced) to publish this work in the peer review literature. And sure, why not, let’s be bold and set a goal of getting this work published in one of the top research journals like Science or Nature.
How does this work start? Why with a good drink of bacardi of course!
And I can fully assure you that by this time next year, you will see SOO much more than an amber, highly volatile liquid that is well know for its intoxicating properties on many carbon based life forms!
DON'T PANIC, IT'S ONLY SCIENCE!
….and yeah, if anyone’s got a wizard name for this epic endeavor, I’d love to hear it it the comments section below
So it looks like Da-WAAHHHH-films has played all the cards in his hand. His devastating ‘Thunderf00t, Game Over’ play being about as effective as his prayer and as impotent as his Allah. Y’see he evidently hoped (against reality I might add) that this would be some devastating show stopper, but in reality it turns out that no one really cared what this one VERY whiney muslim with a victimhood complex was complaining about.
Delusional enough to believe in Islam? Why hold back? Why not claim to have won the game even while everything is proceeding exactly as it was before.
So I find myself at a lose end for a few minutes flicking through his comments on his video, just for chuckles (and believe me there are plenty of them!), and what do I find, but yeah, apparently Da-Waaaah-films actually enjoys taking part in lynch parties with his muslim friends!
Don't like someone, why bother with law and order when you can take part in and enjoy a good old fashioned Islamic lynching!.
Thats right, Da-wahhhh-films happily displaying the skills he’s learning at his muslim university which describes itself as ‘a garden of knowledge and virtue’. Of course why would you waste your time with law, order and a judicial process when you have yourself an Islamic education and a lynch mob!
Islamic gardens of knowledge and virtue, known by the fruits of the lynch parties 'liked' by their students :-p
Even more funny is the fact that Da-wahhhhh, the wannabe ‘Islamic scholar’ (similar to Toothpixie scholar) has found a new word to describe me and everyone who disagrees with him ‘sociopath’.
Losing the argument and shouting 'Bigot' not working? Try calling someone a sociopath, and hope no-one notices the projection!
Comically enough, wikipedia’s line one item for sociopathic behavior is:
‘failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest’ -wikis line one item on sociopathic behavior
Hmmm, now I wonder how I would describe someone who says he ‘likes’ being part of a lynch mob.
Yeah Da-wahhhhhhhh, I’ve got another word for you to look up, PRO-JECT-SHUUUNNNNNNN
However while I must admit it’s been great fun watching dawahfilms puff himself up like a ‘big man’ in the delusion that, given the public forum, youtube, and the legal arena all thought he was a whiney little pussy, that somehow an Ivy League University would come to an ENTIRELY different conclusion, I really should try to draw a line under this. Not so much because he doesn’t deserve it, as his actions have shown him to be a petty, spiteful and capricious man (probably from eating all that fruit from his Islamic ‘garden of knowledge and virtue’), but for pity.
But regrettably, while there are a billion or so muslims in the world, the number stupid enough to 1) believe in this non-sense (things like ‘Mohammad was a perfect man and that god wanted him to have sex with this 9 year old girl, so it was all okay then’, and YES Dawahfilms is stupid enough to actually believe, and try to justify this),
When the best excuse you can think of for sleeping with a 9 year old girl is that, 'Allah told me to do it', your ass is going to jail! Well unless you are living among v. dumb and v. gullible camel herders!
and 2) try to defend it on a public and open forum, is comically small. So yup, if Dawahfilms and Amenakin are dumb enough to try to promote such comically stupid ideas on a public forum, they can fully expect to get called on it, especially if they intend to profit of the institutional subjugation of women by islam, as is the case with Amenakin.
So 6 months ago, on May 21st 2011 a guy called Harold Camping kindly predicted the end of the world, universe and Draw Mohammad Day based on his decades of scholarly studying of the Bible. Oddly enough the world did not appear to end as Camping had predicted, and so he was forced to conclude that the world had ‘sort of ended’ and ‘God’, being a sporting fellow had elected to end the world in a way that no-one would notice for 6 months, then it would REALLY end on 21st Oct 2011. Now the great thing is, Camping engaged in some massive billboard campaign about the end of the world, and while touring the US in the summer of 2011 I actually came across one of his billboards boldly proclaiming that the Judgement day actually happened MONTHS ago! Guaranteed by the Bible no less!
Harold Campings 'End of the World MAY 21st 2011' photographed outside Rock Springs WY on Sept 26th 2011.
Sadly when I went through California, ‘Family Radio’ was still going strong, seemly un-phased and un-bothered by the world hadn’t ended their ministry had claimed ‘the Bible ‘Guaranteed’.
Y’know dawahfilms is an outstanding piece of work, rejoicing smug at dropping my name and other docs. Still I suppose ~40 mn hits without leaving a real world traceable footprint ain’t that bad.
Now for some unexplained reason Dawahfilms thinks that he has suffered some horrendous wrong (called getting his ass handed to him) and that ‘muslim justice’ is demanded. Now youtube ignored his victimhood antics, and despite me telling him EXACTLY HOW he would proceed with a defamation type action, he, for some unexplained reason doesn’t seem to be able to get subpoenas issued.
So yeah, after the public forum finds there’s nothing wrong here, and the legal forum thinks there is nothing illegal here. Dawahfilms still wants to get at me for the injustice only HE, The Lion of God (yes that’s his chosen Muslim name) is virtuous enough to see. Yes he is still vowing to hunt me down and try to get me fired!
The LION of Allah! Hobbies include: Justifying pedophilia for prophet, speculating who his religion give him a mandate to kill, threatening to sue people, contacting EVERYONE at your place of employment and claiming he is the victim of TRUE terrorism because you are all to ignorant and paranoid to understand his Lion of God arguments!
I just want you to know that when I get the chance, I’ll be contacting your next place of employment if its a university, so as to protect them from your bigotry. Or, by that time, I’ll have you in court for defamation. Depends on which one is more suitable. .-Dawahfilms
Now the sad thing is of course, that’s exactly how everyone sees this. Crazy, creepy muslim guy spitefully harassing people for calling him on the dumbass things he said. But Dawahfilms has a response for all you people think that writing to someones employer, and all your coworkers is NOT the righteous and just cause of a piously religious man.
Dawahfilms, aka The LION of Allah, being subjected to true terrorism by YOUR ignorance and paranoia!
YOU ARE ALL IGNORANT MASSES!, and HE is the victim (what a surprise), being terrorized by your true terrorism in that he has to be careful what he says because of your IGNORANT PARANOIA. Who could see writing to all the staff at your place of work sending them your name and work as anything other than the honorable path of a virtuous muslim man seeking retribution by ANY open path, only the ignorant and paranoid masses, that’s who!
To make things even more amusing, even dawahfilms sees having people know your true identity when it might affect your income as being wrong. Apparently someone was dropping Amenakins real name in one of my videos, and so he wrote to me saying how terrible it is that someones dropping her name.
Someone is actually dropping her real name in your comments section. Please delete these. I saw them dropped in your recent video. -Dawahfilms
Reply
yes i will delete it. Just supply a searchable term of how to find it, and the name of the video.
-not that you ever extended the courtesy to me.
Come now dawah, tell me you had no idea that people were dropping my docs in your comments section. No prized for guessing where they came from.
Ironic isn’t it dawah, that you are asking the ‘immoral man’ to take the path of virtue that not only you were too vitriolic and spiteful to walk yourself. But its far worse than that, you, the self proclaimed ‘virtuous man’ were actively seeking the vindictive actions that you now find so abhorrent when performed by the hands of others.
For some reason, holding people ‘accountable in real life’ for their bigoted opinions by targeting their income is only justifiable when applied against the critics of islam!
When I staggered out of the wilderness last night, in the dark, exhausted, without any food, or drinkable water and with a broken plane, I had only one thought. What a fantastic couple of days!
Panorama looking down on Jack Ass Pass near the Cirque of the Towers
The story starts with wanting to go see the ‘Cirque of the Towers’, one of the most beautiful places on Earth. However I wanted to get some video of it from the air! Now the story of my failure is long, and surprising short of predators, although, for some unexplained reason it has a llama in it!
Now getting into the Cirque is a bit of a chore in that you have to drive some 30 or so miles down dirt roads (which can require a LOT of attention if you are in a low clearance 2 wheel drive car). However once you get to the Big Sandy trailhead, it gets interesting! Getting to the Cirque is a hard days hike, but easier as a 2 day trip. Its about 8 miles in, and about 2-3000 feet of ascent. However I was packing in a plane and all the kit to go with it too! Not to mention a tent, enough to stop me freezing in the expected well below freezing temperatures, and enough emergency kit that I could make it back to the car in a tight pinch.
INTO THE CIRQUE!
The first thing I noticed was:- no mosquitoes! That was such a blessing. Previously when I’ve been here they make your life a torment in that whenever you stop, great clouds of them descend on you, and bug spray and nets or not you get peppered with bites. Same goes for when you pitch the tent, you basically have to throw up the tent and get in it asap just to escape from the bugs. This time, NOTHING, nada, not even a hint of a mosquito. That made the walk through the dry piney forests of Big Sandy incredible pleasant, but in the back of my mind I was fully aware that the reason there were no mosquitoes was that a hard frost had killed them all. It was likely to be cold that night.
I left the car at 2pm, not out of any great plan, I just knew that was plenty of time to set a ‘base camp’ of sorts. There are also significant wildcards about heading out this time of year. Thankfully it’s too late for nasty thunderstorms, but snow is more likely to be the real hazard. First sign of bad weather and I would have to abort. No way was I prepared for harsh weather, and even getting back to the car would only be half the battle. However the cirrus cloud which I wasn’t quite sure if it was a front coming in (in which case I would be screwed) or was just some weather created by the mountains, burned off, and the rest of the day was as beautiful, pleasantly ambiently warm as a man under a deep blue sky could hope for.
The place was near deserted (the crowds of summer gone!), and I only passed maybe 5 people heading up to Big Sandy lake. Then came the first choice, to head up to Temple or into the Cirque? (right or left at Big Sandy lake?) I opted for the Temple, a giant triangular looking granite monolith. Merely to sand under Temple is an intimidating experience. I pitched camp in the last trees under Haystack. In this case it primarily wasn’t for fear of lightning, but in the full knowledge that it would be several degrees warmer in the trees, and given that I really wasn’t sure how my sleeping bag (‘rated’ to below freezing) would actually perform. As it turns out it did just fine, however my pillow was a pair of boots with a pair of pant (trousers) and fleece thrown over the top, prove more troublesome in getting a good nights sleep. Also there is the latent fear of the night predators. I’d hoisted the food into a tree, but you know that you are ALONE. There is no help. That sort of exposure sharpens the mind, and gives on a very light sleep. Was up about sunrise, although no direct light filtered down into the valley.
The view of 'Haystack' from the tent in the morning
After a breakfast of ‘instant noodles’ I headed up towards the cirque of Temple, taking only the plane and some food. It was a pathless bushwhack, but not difficult. The sharp spike of Steeple rising steeply over the lake making for some excellent views before coming into the presence of Temple. And YES, I went to Temple on a Sunday!
View of Steeple over Clear lake
I was completely alone in this cirque.
The condition for flying were as good as one could hope for up in the mountains. Scarcely a breath of wind, with giant mountain shadows littering the landscape. Bummer was the voltage regulator had fallen off the transmitter side of things on the plane, and I assumed my wiring was regularly color coded. Well anyway, I plugged in the battery, and theres this futt sound and a smell of burning electronics. I’ll wager that’s smells not graced the presence of Temple before! So that was the end of the possibility of remote video, however, I could still just record with the camera on the plane. It’s SOOO much easier to fly without the Helmet of Magnetar! Sure you can’t fly out of line of sight, but you only have to worry about flying the plane. Flight was fantastic!.
Best flight EVER!
I then decided to head up onto the unnamed mountain in the middle of the cirque (the mountain of broken planes?). By the time I had gotten up there, there was a random wind blowing up to 15 mph, but the view was phenomenal!
Random un-named mountain (Plane Destroyer Mountain?) near the Cirque of the Towers
But a 15mph wind that’s tricky. The plane is already heavy (almost 1kg) which means it has to fly faster to maintain its lift. Further I was already at almost 11000 feet which means that in order to get stable flight you need to fly faster due to the thin air. Getting into the air proved trivial. Getting it to land, that was difficult. You see I probably only had 10ft or so of uneven granite to land on. I was ontop of the mountain, to overshoot means the plane falls off the cliff on the other side. To undershoot means flying into a granite block! In the end, after several aborted attempts where the plane, due to its slower speed and the irratic wind had almost been tipped over, pretty much out of desperation, I bought the plane in ‘hot’. Sure it was fairly stable, but on ‘landing’ the camera and motor broke off. In many ways it was a relief, in that there was now no way I could do aerial video of the Cirque of the Towers (meant I didn’t have to take all this kit up to the pass). I packed up and took the short way down. Risky to be sure as I had no surety that the path wouldn’t end in an impassible cliff. Thankfully it didn’t and I saved myself about a mile of bush-whackin’ down to Temple lake and back again. On the way down, of all the bizarre and unexpected things, I found a llama with no apparent owner. WTF?
Random Llama!
It took to its heels as I approached. Dropped down to base camp by about midday, packed up and cooked what food I had left (more raman noodles!). Then the trek down to Big Sandy lake. Got to the path up the Cirque of the Towers by about 2ish. Took basically all the water, wine and food I had left, and headed up towards the cirque. I was very tired by this point, and to make matters worse, lost the trail just before the first lake and ended up in a giant boulder field. There was many a hole you could have fallen into and never been seen or heard from again! I reached an overview of Jackass Pass (my target) by 4pm, but I was a spent force. I could go no further. It was a double blessing that the plane had crashed, for there was a steady 30 mph wind gusting higher near the cirque, all but impossible to fly in. I hung around on the pass till 4:30, full in the knowledge that I would be walking out in the full dark. Going down was fast, aided by the fact that I kept the path the whole way.
Defeat at the Cirque
Got back to my pack at 5:45pm and began the weary trudge out. I was all but out of food, all but out of drinkable water. Now its true that I had both water treatment and a water pump, but was reluctant to risk using them if I could avoid it. (theres a really nasty bug in the water around here called giardiasis). By 8pm it was near full dark and I was walking on a head lamp, so tired that I could only walk for 10 or so minutes at the time. Turns out the headlamp was fantastic, as not only did it free up both hands, but periodically you could sweep the local area looking for glowing eyes! However it could only penetrate the murk for 20 or so feet, and I was ever fearful of losing the path. I eventually managed to get onto the flats near the trail head, but was lost in what turned out to be the campground. It was both a delight and a nightmare to find those park benched. I knew I was REALLY close to ‘home’ but had no clear idea which way to go. I then found a road. Again, great, but which way to go when you can only see 20 feet? Turns out it was the one way loop around the campsite, and if I had known I was probably only a couple of hundred feet from my car. I guessed good and as I came over the gentle rise, what do I find on the other side, but my ‘little blue New Yorker’! Dumped everything asap, tanked up on water and chocolate before crashing for the night, having to run the engine periodically to stave off the cold of the night freeze.
Uranus is frequently overlooked and for many reasons. Firstly, lets just say its name hasn’t phonetically aged well. Secondly it’s small and faint, barely visible to the naked eye, and even the most powerful telescopes show little more than a tiny featureless grey-green disk.
Most powerful telescopes will show the five main moons of Uranus, Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania and Oberon. The innermost of these Miranda, has, if memory serves the highest cliffs in the solar system (due to being previously (presumably) smashed by an impact) and has an orbital period of about 1.5 days. That means you should be able to easily see its movement over the period of a night.
Now I had tried this previously, and had been surprised that the planets movement was comparable to the movement of its moons, but that night had been scuppered by a flat battery.
The stars in the background are fixed. The two picture of Uranus are taken a few hours apart, and while the moons (relatively close to the planet) don't move much, the planet conspicuously moves against the background stars!) (click to enlarge)
So it was that I set out with my scope on the evening of 22nd Aug 2011 to see what could be captured. I decided to head up to an observatory site that had previously seemed good up near the top of the somewhat active volcano, Lassen Peak. The site is high, almost 2 miles up, but the seeing was less than perfect (a very constant ~ 5mile an hour wind, which was probably a blessing in that it bought warmer air from somewhere, but was also a curse due to the wind chill- I was surrounded by snow fields!).
Nonetheless, at prime focus of the 11in CPC1100 with ~1000 iso and 4 second exposure on a canon 60D seemed to bring out easily at least 4 of the moons of Uranus.
After that, I just had to maintain the kit for 8 or so hour. A pain in the ass, as there were several pieces of kit that all need to work or the night would be ‘lost’. So you basically have to periodically check all the batteries on the various time lapse and tracking kit are working functionally. The bottom line is you can actually get quite a lot of sleep, but its horribly disjointed. The practical upshot of which was the next day I was wiped out to the point where I had actually planned to head up into Oregon to do something, but for the first time ever on a road trip I did something I’d never countenanced before. I stayed a night in a motel!! First time in 5 years! A motel 6 I should add! All I wanted was somewhere where I could get a shower, a bed for the night, and damn, just sit back for a moment, put my feet up, and have a glass of wine……ahhhhhh.
I was REALLY happy when I processed this, not really for what I had hoped to achieve, which was to get the motion of the moons, as while it was visible, it wasn’t that great. But what was great was the motion of the whole Uranus system against the background stars. I knew this MIGHT be visible, but I really didn’t expect it to looks as cool as it did! Now it should be said that most of the motion you see here is probably not due to the motion of Uranus, but due to the motion of the Earth. Nonetheless, its still really cool!
Thus far almost all the stuff I’ve done on the alkali metals has been on ~250 mg quantities.
Self preservation says, “Start Small!”, and with good reason, the reactions of alkali metals with water are known to scale in treacherous fashions.
In the first instance I went for 1.6 g of potassium and 3.5g of sodium.
Note here there is not the slightest hint of green gas with the potassium!
Now the potassiums the one I’m going to focus on for the moment, simply as when this is played back at about 1/100ths speed it becomes clear that the hydrogen burning plays essentially no part in the violence of this reaction.
Fascinatingly the explosion appears to go in two stages here!
So potassium, molecular weight ~40, so 1.6 g is 0.04moles. 2moles of potassium gives a mole of H2 , so this reaction will produce about half a liter of hydrogen. Just for scale the jug is about 3 liters. It’s also fascinating to see the ‘springiness’ around this generated gas.
