Has Elon Musk Gone Crazy??

[Yazata]

He was just selling his Boring hats. Now he's selling Boring flamethrowers! (The Boring Company is supposed to tackle highway congestion. Giving drivers flamethrowers ought to work. Perfect for LA!)

https://www.boringcompany.com/flamethrower

Elon says, "When the zombie apocalypse happens, you'll be glad you bought a flamethrower!"

A lot of people think that this can't be for real. Just think of the lawsuits when somebody burns down their house. But whatever he's up to, he's got everyone talking about him... again. The internet is aflame and everyone's going crazy.

When somebody suggested that selling flamethrowers didn't seem exactly... legal, Elon replied, "ATF says any flamethrower with a flame shorter than 10 ft is A-ok. Our design is max fun for least danger. I'd be way more scared of a steak knife.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/01/28/e...alifornia/

http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/28/news/mus...index.html

https://www.cnet.com/news/elon-musks-fla...-just-500/

https://www.instagram.com/p/BeeYW0NA1HU/...y=elonmusk

[Magical Realist]

It's gotta be a joke. He's a sly one. He's up to something.

[Yazata]

It's gotta be a joke. He's a sly one. He's up to something.

I'm thinking that too.

But the newspapers are saying that his boring enterprise has already sold 7,000 of the 20,000 flamethrowers they manufactured. That's $3.5 million worth in one day. Even his jokes make him millions.

Another possibility is that his boring engineers picked some exotic fuel for this thing that burns at such a low temperature that it isn't tremendously dangerous. I wonder if you can stick your hand in the flame and not get burned.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_flame

Apparently cool flames are dim and hard to see. They can probably be brightened up pretty easily though, by including something in the mix that turns incandescent at the proper temperature. Wikipedia says that cool flames typically burn blue. And the Instragram video of Elon with his flamethrower in the OP indeed shows a blue flame.

The internet says that the lowest temperature exotic flames can be as cool as 80 degrees C. (I'm not sure that I believe that, but if it's on the internet then it has to be true.)

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-lowest...ame-can-be

It's a possibility though. That's my guess.

The terribly boring Boring Company says that their flamethrower will liven up any party.

That's true.

Beer and flamethrowers? What could possibly go wrong??

[C C]

Cool flame or not, legislators are making rumblings to ban the "guns". Musk may have to redesign them to output a completely ersatz fire. Something that emits a reflective, dirty particle vapor in combo with a double hue glowing light that gets chaotically scrambled in the immediate cloud of the aforementioned.

Or he just scraps the product outright. Since it already would have turned a profit anyway from what was originally a facetious "dare to myself" and marketing ploy promise to do so if the sale of the baseball caps met their target.

- - -

[Yazata]

Cool flame or not, legislators are making rumblings to ban the "guns".

That's California, where it's illegal to even think about guns.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/29/16948...l-santiago

Texas is probably preparing a law requiring all residents to buy a flamethrower.

I have to say that I'm not really comfortable with selling flamethrowers to all comers, unless these things are a lot safer than they look. That's what I think Musk's 'sly move' might be and it's why I was speculating about flames that look impressive but won't really burn you or catch most things on fire.

[Syne]

Or just make your own, from what looks like a pressure washer and several other readily available components.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/DSL5Gsoj4uw