Now that's what I call terrorism

January 10, 2014 9:29 PM

A thermal image of a fart... is it science? Is it art? The TSA will do its part, to document each airport fart.
posted by flapjax at midnite (60 comments total)

I may be taking this too seriously.. but shouldn't it be bright white, at least as white as the hands? Black would be very cold.
posted by estuardo at 9:35 PM on January 10, 2014 [9 favorites]

I like that he(?) obviously tried to cut it off then after a second seemed to decide "fuck it" and just OPENED FIRE.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 9:35 PM on January 10, 2014 [14 favorites]

Here we stand with a downward glance,
Thought we farted,
But we've shit our pants.
posted by isopraxis at 9:36 PM on January 10, 2014 [4 favorites]

I laughed and laughed.
posted by Catchfire at 9:37 PM on January 10, 2014

There is literally no way this is real. Unfortunately, that involves admitting that I've spent a lot of time visualizing what my farts look like.
posted by phaedon at 9:38 PM on January 10, 2014 [13 favorites]

Honestly a little concerned for this person's gastrointestinal health if this is real.
posted by dogwalker at 9:40 PM on January 10, 2014 [3 favorites]

I'm guessing someone is hiding a can of compressed air.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 9:42 PM on January 10, 2014 [3 favorites]

i believe this is the canonical fart gif of our times
posted by elizardbits at 9:42 PM on January 10, 2014 [16 favorites]

please change my name to "canonical fart gif"
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 9:44 PM on January 10, 2014 [6 favorites]

Isn't this the end/beginning of 12 Monkeys?
posted by mazola at 9:54 PM on January 10, 2014 [4 favorites]

To be fair if I could project a video of myself into the heads of the TSA, blurrily nude and farting black smoke, I would do so in an instant.

So hey thanks for getting me to the halfway point I guess.
posted by griphus at 9:54 PM on January 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

Clearly covert smoke signals to an inside man in the TSA.
posted by jason_steakums at 10:01 PM on January 10, 2014

I may be taking this too seriously... but shouldn't it be bright white, at least as white as the hands? Black would be very cold.

Shadow of a Doubt?
posted by Pudhoho at 10:03 PM on January 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

i believe this is the canonical fart gif of our times

Run! Get to the choppah!
posted by phaedon at 10:05 PM on January 10, 2014 [5 favorites]

Wow, my inner child is somehow simultaneously deeply affronted by how fake this looks and jealous that her farts did not turn her butt into a smoke breathing dragon.
posted by These Birds of a Feather at 10:14 PM on January 10, 2014 [2 favorites]

oh my god elizardbits i am dyyyyyyyyyyyyying

someone needs to set that gif to music
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:19 PM on January 10, 2014

If people saw in this spectrum, we'd all have octopus-like getaway clouds!
posted by jason_steakums at 10:20 PM on January 10, 2014 [2 favorites]

I so want this to be real. I would love to fly over to USA just to fart in their thermal cameras.
posted by greenhornet at 10:20 PM on January 10, 2014 [2 favorites]

This is totally how you get away from the Predator, by the way. Ninja smoke!
posted by jason_steakums at 10:21 PM on January 10, 2014

I wish to formally protest being excluded from discussion of this important issue: All I get from the link is a static screenshot with a button to "Download App" for Windows, Android or iOS.

Linux users have gastrointestinal tracts too!
posted by Dr Dracator at 10:23 PM on January 10, 2014 [3 favorites]

Everyone watch out, this person has a butt bomb!
posted by oceanjesse at 10:32 PM on January 10, 2014

It sounded like it said a name! Julian. Juuulian."
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 10:56 PM on January 10, 2014 [4 favorites]

I laughed for ten straight minutes when i saw this earlier today. That's a helluva crop dustin'.


I wish someone had put a thermal security camera in our hotel elevator the week before last because we had to ride to the 24th floor with those noxious fumes and it was grooooooooossssss.
posted by louche mustachio at 11:02 PM on January 10, 2014

> I wish someone had put a thermal security camera in our hotel elevator the week before last because we had to ride to the 24th floor with those noxious fumes

I think machine vision has advanced to the point where such a fart could be automatically detected and the perpetrator bathed in a red spotlight of shame. It's too bad the cameras themselves have to be so expensive, but grinding high quality optical lenses out of visually opaque germanium is apparently no easy task, so for the time being ubiquitous infrared fart detection systems will remain limited to entities with nation-state level resources.
posted by contraption at 11:19 PM on January 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

I think machine vision has advanced to the point where such a fart could be automatically detected and the perpetrator bathed in a red spotlight of shame.

Red Spot of SHAME? That's the mood lighting for a straight up Burlesque performance. Le Petomane Revue, coming soon to a tightly packed security line near you.
posted by FatherDagon at 12:09 AM on January 11, 2014 [7 favorites]

so for the time being ubiquitous infrared fart detection systems will remain limited to entities with nation-state level resources.

It's the latest fetish trend for the billionaire jet-set.

Google Ass Glass.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 12:29 AM on January 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

Obviously the TSA is increasingly worried about attempts to smuggle cheesecutters onto airplanes.
posted by chavenet at 12:42 AM on January 11, 2014 [4 favorites]

Now that I've recovered from laughing at the gif elizardbits posted...

That one's real I think but the one in the FPP seems fake. The blur of the, uh, fart cloud against the pants at the point of, um, expulsion is less than the blur of the edge of the pants. The level of blur should match and align if this wasn't a comp.
posted by Hairy Lobster at 12:44 AM on January 11, 2014

Also, there seems to be quite a draft for an indoor location...
posted by Hairy Lobster at 12:45 AM on January 11, 2014

I know that there's certain kimchi combinations that give me gas of that quantity. The absolute worst is farting in your wetsuit while you're surfing, which gives you a temporary Igor hunchback identifying you to the lineup as a person to flee from, before it finally exits your collar, blowing your hair up in the air whilst simultaneously nearly blinding you.

I look forward to sharing this with the TSA in the near future. Oh my yes.
posted by Purposeful Grimace at 1:03 AM on January 11, 2014 [9 favorites]

At least the TGA would be doing something more useful if they started documenting farts.

Cost-Benefit Analysis On Why We Should Just Do Away With The TSA Completely
posted by jeffburdges at 3:16 AM on January 11, 2014

This is a bit unusual. Typically it's bean burritos at noon that will give me farts, this time it was flapjax at midnite.
posted by HuronBob at 3:44 AM on January 11, 2014 [6 favorites]

Dogwalker: Honestly a little concerned for this person's gastrointestinal health if this is real.

Casual. Both of my parents could fart more than this without breaking a sweat. I'm not quite as flatulently endowed as either of them, but on a good day this would practically be the symphony warming up.

I've eliminated all manner of foods as tests, eat very little dairy(which isn't a trigger anyways), and have tried any number of other things. Some reduce it, but none reduce it to the hypothetical "normal" level. My family just farts a lot. Everyone gets a little different mix of bacteria, and i guess i just drew the short straw.

It kinda sucks sometimes, but yea, there might not actually be any health problem going on here.
posted by emptythought at 4:07 AM on January 11, 2014 [3 favorites]

I believe the posted image is real - but it's from an infra-red camera, and has nothing to do with the TSA.
posted by kcds at 4:07 AM on January 11, 2014

elizardbits: i believe this is the canonical fart gif of our times

I immediately imagined this sound.

Could not stop laughing.
posted by emptythought at 4:11 AM on January 11, 2014

Also, there seems to be quite a draft for an indoor location...

The answer my friend
is breaking in the wind
The answer is breaking in the wind
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:24 AM on January 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

I sense a MeFi music challenge coming on.
posted by sweet mister at 5:46 AM on January 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

How many years can a fart exist
Before it's blown to the sea?
How many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to fart?
How many times can a man turn his head
Pretending he just doesn't fart?

The answer my friend is breakin' in the wind
The answer is breakin' in the wind.

"Breakin' in the Wind" by Bob Dylan, 1962
posted by 0 answers at 6:07 AM on January 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

I would like to nominate jamaro for some kind of award. That is awesome, sir! A breakfast burrito will be erected in your honor.
posted by The Vice Admiral of the Narrow Seas at 6:10 AM on January 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

Now I can see the main selling point of the flir one “personal thermal imaging device”: ‘Dude, did you just flir one?’
posted by scruss at 6:34 AM on January 11, 2014

Am I the only one here who's ever been a regular user of a FLIR camera? When that thing started to make the rounds, I pegged it as fake right away—the curling effluence of flatus would not be dark because that's not how black and white IR works. In fact, the fact that it's dark means it's something canned, cooled by expansion of the propellant.

Sheesh, y'all.
posted by sonascope at 6:58 AM on January 11, 2014 [3 favorites]

The absolute worst is farting in your wetsuit while you're surfing, which gives you a temporary Igor hunchback... before it finally exits your collar, blowing your hair up in the air whilst simultaneously nearly blinding you.

posted by Purposeful Grimace

A few years ago Andy Goldfine, the founder of Aerostich and an innovator in Gore-Tex motorcycle apparel, wrote an editorial in Motorcycle Consumer News detailing the unexpected ability of his riding suits to work as "flavor savers," transporting farts many miles down the road.
posted by workerant at 7:04 AM on January 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

Broccoli and cabbage also contain oligosaccharides, which your body lacks the enzyme to digest. The result is that these undigested oligosaccharides proceed to your large intestine where bacteria make use of them and produce gas and bloating.
posted by bukvich at 7:25 AM on January 11, 2014

Is the title a limerick?
posted by sfts2 at 7:46 AM on January 11, 2014

All or nearly all flatulence is produced by bacterial fermentation in your gut. And the fermentation is of sugars that you don't, for various reason, digest. Maybe because there's too much, or maybe because they're of a type that you cannot.

BTW, elizarbits's gif was from the SNL sketch.

Not only is the thermal color wrong in the linked video (colder than ambient, rather than warmer than ambient), but that's not remotely what the gas discharge and dispersal would look like. Both examples are of gas moving more quickly than it would, and in a narrower and singular initial stream, quite like something from a compressed canister through a narrow tube and quite unlike something from the lower bowel through the anus and the buttocks.

Which is too bad because a real imaging of a fart and its dissipation would be very interesting.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 8:24 AM on January 11, 2014 [3 favorites]

Party pooper.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:26 AM on January 11, 2014 [4 favorites]

Adding to the party pooping, gas doesn't really show on IR. If it did you wouldn't be able to see anything else through it.
posted by ftm at 8:28 AM on January 11, 2014

Yeah, thaaaat's not true.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 8:32 AM on January 11, 2014

by which I mean 'no, that's not true'
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 8:33 AM on January 11, 2014

Wouldn't there be more interference from the pants? I mean, there's got to be at least two layers of buffering to the jet, right?
posted by Sys Rq at 9:27 AM on January 11, 2014

Hi I'm from MetaFilter and I could overthink the outcome of a plate of beans
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:58 AM on January 11, 2014 [13 favorites]

"Wouldn't there be more interference from the pants? I mean, there's got to be at least two layers of buffering to the jet, right?"

Four, plus the lozenges, you mean?

what?
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 10:15 AM on January 11, 2014

That's some pretty voluminous fartin there, Jim.
posted by Spatch at 11:59 AM on January 11, 2014

I'd like to thank everyone on this thread for entertaining my kids so thoroughly.

I can't believe I'm about to join this debate, but: not surprising to me that intestinal gas would rapidly cool below body temp (presumably to room temp) immediately upon release.

PV=nRT, you know? Actually the most frightening part in thinking THAT through is that if P doesn't change too much from the gut to the outside world, that means external volume is actually smaller than internal...

Yes, I went to chemistry grad school. Thankyew, thankyew.
posted by Sublimity at 2:06 PM on January 11, 2014

Wouldn't there be more interference from the pants?

"Interference from the Pants"
(as performed by Al Jolson at the 2nd Ave Theater, 1922)

There'd be more interference from the pants!
oh yes and mister that's no song and dance!
the pants would do their part,
in holding back that fart!
There'd be more interference from the pants!

Oh yes there'd be more interference from the paaaaaaaaaaaaa-ants!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:41 PM on January 11, 2014 [5 favorites]

Is the title a limerick?

No, it's long meter. You can sing it to such venerable long-meter hymn tunes as "Oh Come, Oh Come, Emmanuel" and "Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow."

In fact, I highly recommend that you do.
posted by this is a thing at 5:56 PM on January 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

You forgot "Hernando's Hideaway."
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 6:28 PM on January 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

Is the title a limerick?

No, but I got one for ya:

here friends, is a post of a poot
it's neither too subtle nor cute
t'was a passing of gas
it was really quite crass
still the mods didn't give it the boot!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 11:06 PM on January 11, 2014

I remember reading a post a long time ago, perhaps on somethingawful about someone out on a train platform in the middle of winter and the people farting and it looking like cloudy chipmunk tails. I'm a bit shocked that noone went outside during the coldageddon this last week to pop off a couple of air biscuits in the name of science. This is the only thing I managed to dig up, and it doesn't even look like it's that cold out there. I mean the super soakers and that one friend from college with the pressure cooker full of steam in the -40 was cute and all but someone missed an opportunity to become emporer of the internet for a day right there.
posted by mcrandello at 3:39 AM on January 12, 2014

I like that he(?) obviously tried to cut it off then after a second seemed to decide "fuck it" and just OPENED FIRE.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 12:35 AM on January 11

The corker maneuver. The old folks down here all say never trust a fart.
posted by mcrandello at 3:43 AM on January 12, 2014