No problem is too complicated to make it more complicated

December 17, 2024 4:43 PM

For centuries, gyros, shawarma, and döner kebab have had two things in common: one is that their names all derive from words meaning "to turn," and the other is that they all turn around a single old-fashioned axis. With modern technology, we can do better than that. Behold: Gyroscopic Gyros.
posted by DoctorFedora (26 comments total)

How do you get your hand in there to slice a bit off?
posted by mittens at 4:54 PM on December 17, 2024 [1 favorite]

What a great website and — the gyros cooked! First try? Hot damn that’s an engineer.
posted by clew at 4:59 PM on December 17, 2024

I can talk with a human for hours about
the Gyroscopic Gyro and they will agree with
every claim I make. But at the end of the
conversation, they remark that they believe
in the nonvalue belief god and cannot
accept Gyroscopic Creation, regardless of all
the ineffable Truth and Wisdom it proves.
posted by Lemkin at 5:05 PM on December 17, 2024 [5 favorites]

Thank fucking god, it's about damn time someone closed this loop.
posted by aramaic at 5:12 PM on December 17, 2024 [2 favorites]

First in to say “meat tourbillion”
posted by Skrubly at 5:18 PM on December 17, 2024 [12 favorites]

Soundtrack:

I need a gyro
I'm holding out for a gryo till the end of the night
Sauce gotta be strong and meat must be spun fast
And it's gotta be fresh for the bite

DO DO DO DOOOOOOOO
posted by lalochezia at 5:22 PM on December 17, 2024 [11 favorites]

now do pudding
posted by HearHere at 5:34 PM on December 17, 2024 [1 favorite]

Perhaps the only problem for which “spherical cow” is a genuine solution rather than a simplifying assumption
posted by Jon Mitchell at 5:45 PM on December 17, 2024 [14 favorites]

This was an excellent read
posted by Wandering_Boots at 5:54 PM on December 17, 2024

Two thoughts.

First, I rode in one of these things back in 1983 Space Camp. That one was bigger and instead of meat there was a strap in and hold on seat with a control panel in front of you. Serious astronaut space stuff, it's meant to mimic the disorientation of zero gravity. Standard astronaut training device. You don't get dizzy because you keep flipping around and spinning in random directions too fast to get dizzy. It was strange and hard and fun. Worth a try if you ever get the chance.

Second, raise your hand if you now get confused about pronouncing gyroscope.

Thirdly, I'm now craving a gyro. Maybe tomorrow, there's a Greek place down the street with gyros.....
posted by zengargoyle at 6:10 PM on December 17, 2024 [6 favorites]

Oh, Fourthly, is it a gyroscope? A gyroscope is something with rotational inertia that is stable. This 'thing' as it were is the opposite of the center being fixed in orientation due to rotational inertia. Here the central axis as it were has zero rotational inertia and is therefore unstable. NOT A GYROSCOPE!!!!!
posted by zengargoyle at 6:14 PM on December 17, 2024 [4 favorites]

That’s why this one is pronounced differently
posted by clew at 8:29 PM on December 17, 2024 [10 favorites]

To me the attraction of gyros is the tasty crisp bits sliced off a spit-rotated meat.
The wonderful device Dane Koutron made makes slicing off crisp bits very tricky, or impossible.
posted by anadem at 8:40 PM on December 17, 2024

Are you suggesting that he should add a gyroscopic knife?
posted by evidenceofabsence at 9:08 PM on December 17, 2024 [2 favorites]

is it a gyroscope?

multi-dimensional mechanism? [wiki]
posted by HearHere at 10:01 PM on December 17, 2024 [1 favorite]

I immediately thought of the space-time travel gizmo in the film "Contact".

If we can teleport shawarma to hungry folks in the past and future, I'm all for it. Perhaps I should put in an order now...
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 12:40 AM on December 18, 2024 [2 favorites]

Turning and turning, the widening gyro
posted by chavenet at 1:22 AM on December 18, 2024 [5 favorites]

...the pita cannot hold (all of the toppings)
posted by lalochezia at 2:54 AM on December 18, 2024 [6 favorites]

this is batshit lovely, thanks for posting!
(hoping my partner doesn't see it, they are determined to include a doner rotisserie in the plans for the splendid outdoor cooking facilities...)
posted by winesong at 9:23 AM on December 18, 2024

Unfortunately, the fact that we are not currently eating future shawarma proves that time travel is impossible. It's a bleak reality.
posted by stet at 10:46 AM on December 18, 2024 [2 favorites]

Love a well documented project, the site made me nostalgic for that guy that used to make and post his elaborate halloween costumes. I cracked up at the prototype weight labeled "MEAT" and "FOOD SIMULANT".
posted by lucidium at 12:04 PM on December 18, 2024

Gearheads are the most enigmatic peoples I have ever encountered. It mystifies me what motivates them to even consider something like this. To me, this is just building another, more complicated and not any more efficient, mousetrap. Knock yourself out, I guess.
posted by hairless ape at 12:08 PM on December 18, 2024 [1 favorite]

sandwiches fall apart
posted by MengerSponge at 12:13 PM on December 18, 2024 [1 favorite]

I love the leap from "the first applications of innovations in rotary motion technology were all food-related" to "It plainly follows that the thing we all wonder when entering a Greek or Turkish restaurant is 'why isn't the meat rotating on more axes?'"
posted by nickmark at 12:21 PM on December 18, 2024 [2 favorites]

"No problem is too complicated to make it more complicated" - ah yes, the credo of Abelard Snazz, the personification of 'the gorillas simply freeze to death'.
posted by BiggerJ at 7:10 PM on December 18, 2024 [3 favorites]

Someone needs to make a Turkey sized version of this for those who need to do eXtreem T-Giving!!!!
posted by Karmakaze at 8:09 AM on December 20, 2024