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The Ridiculous Engineering Of The World's Most Important Machine

theprestige said:
It sure is amazing.

So why call it ridiculous? Why call it insane?
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I agree with you in spirit and the same question has occurred to me.

The simple answer appears to be that more people will watch the video when it contains certain words in the title. It's unfortunate, but what would you have them do? Simply accept that fewer people will watch a video that a lot of work went into the production of?

There's another YouTube channel that I sometimes watch which does something similar, but the videos themselves are quite well done, imo. Each video is about a different kind of animal or lifeform, like dragonflies, for example. And the way they title their videos follows a formula: It's always "The Insane Biology of _________". Example:

That's one that I haven't actually watched, but it has 4 million views, so apparently a lot of people have watched it. 4 million views is pretty good for a YouTube video. Apparently the biology of every kind of animal is "insane" (haha). Of course, if that were actually true, it would probably go extinct. The biology actually makes perfect sense for whatever ecological niche the animal occupies.

Now, if they just titled the video "The Biology of _________" or even "The Amazing Biology of _________", would 4 million people have watched it? I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that they have A/B tested the question and arrived at the answer that maximizes clicks.

It may even be that a few people refuse to watch it because they don't like clickbait titles. Grumpy old skeptic types maybe. Nevertheless, more people overall watch. I'm not a fan clickbait titles myself, but I'm willing to overlook the issue if the channel puts out quality content. In the end it's just capitalism doing its thing. We get clickbait titles because collectively that's what consumers of content seem to prefer. It's a revealed preference. What people claim to like, and what they actually consume don't always match.
 
Skeptical Greg said:
@smartcooky 's text offered a clue or two.


You really should watch it, being the sciency type person you are..

You are safe with Veritasium.
Look for their bit about Protein folding. Or just click on my link. ( I promise, no Rick Roll ..)

AlphaFold - The Most Useful Thing AI Has Ever Done​

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The ridiculousness on the title is based on the ridicule the whole idea received from the start. Watch the video, smartcooky. Being laughed at conferences makes 'ridiculousness' just part of the development history.

Heck, started showing it to Moebob's son, his first reaction (as a welder and deep sea welder) was, well, ridicule. 'Not possible' ' Can't do that with tungsten, it will vaporize'. Vaporize? ◊◊◊◊, plasmolyzed is the goal. Took him a while to get out of the welding mentality to the just mind bending science and engineering of it.

When I left work the other day (in a chip FAB cleanroom), walking by the banks of what were, decades ago, state of the art litho machines. Someone remarked that 'EUV litho is what they should put in'. By happenstance, about that time, this thread started and after watching the video, not a chance. Just the laser would take a whole other building and the FAB ceilings are too low for just even the exposure apparatus itself.

Needs dedicated facilities, and when I told Moebob's son it was in production. It took a bit for him to understand it was not just that the tool itself that was in production but was currently producing product at customer FABs.
 
The Man said:
The ridiculousness on the title is based on the ridicule the whole idea received from the start. Watch the video, smartcooky. Being laughed at conferences makes 'ridiculousness' just part of the development history.

Heck, started showing it to Moebob's son, his first reaction (as a welder and deep sea welder) was, well, ridicule. 'Not possible' ' Can't do that with tungsten, it will vaporize'. Vaporize? ◊◊◊◊, plasmolyzed is the goal. Took him a while to get out of the welding mentality to the just mind bending science and engineering of it.

When I left work the other day (in a chip FAB cleanroom), walking by the banks of what were, decades ago, state of the art litho machines. Someone remarked that 'EUV litho is what they should put in'. By happenstance, about that time, this thread started and after watching the video, not a chance. Just the laser would take a whole other building and the FAB ceilings are too low for just even the exposure apparatus itself.

Needs dedicated facilities, and when I told Moebob's son it was in production. It took a bit for him to understand it was not just that the tool itself that was in production but was currently producing product at customer FABs.
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Yup. Last year I had a cleanroom tour of the IMEC fabs in Leuven and the advanced CMOS research facilities in Fab 4 had such a stepper and it was absolutely huge compared to the significantly older ones I had been more familiar with. Face it, part of the reason is probably simple inertia to reduce movement. It's several stories high.
 
The Man said:
The ridiculousness on the title is based on the ridicule the whole idea received from the start. Watch the video, smartcooky. Being laughed at conferences makes 'ridiculousness' just part of the development history.
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Yeah, I watched it.... I posted it!!

Are you sure you're answering me?
 
Puppycow said:
I agree with you in spirit and the same question has occurred to me.

The simple answer appears to be that more people will watch the video when it contains certain words in the title. It's unfortunate, but what would you have them do? Simply accept that fewer people will watch a video that a lot of work went into the production of?

There's another YouTube channel that I sometimes watch which does something similar, but the videos themselves are quite well done, imo. Each video is about a different kind of animal or lifeform, like dragonflies, for example. And the way they title their videos follows a formula: It's always "The Insane Biology of _________". Example:

That's one that I haven't actually watched, but it has 4 million views, so apparently a lot of people have watched it. 4 million views is pretty good for a YouTube video. Apparently the biology of every kind of animal is "insane" (haha). Of course, if that were actually true, it would probably go extinct. The biology actually makes perfect sense for whatever ecological niche the animal occupies.

Now, if they just titled the video "The Biology of _________" or even "The Amazing Biology of _________", would 4 million people have watched it? I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that they have A/B tested the question and arrived at the answer that maximizes clicks.

It may even be that a few people refuse to watch it because they don't like clickbait titles. Grumpy old skeptic types maybe. Nevertheless, more people overall watch. I'm not a fan clickbait titles myself, but I'm willing to overlook the issue if the channel puts out quality content. In the end it's just capitalism doing its thing. We get clickbait titles because collectively that's what consumers of content seem to prefer. It's a revealed preference. What people claim to like, and what they actually consume don't always match.
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For me, titles like these are a complete turn off.
It is clear that these are merely click baits, but that also means that the actual content is something other than what the title proclaims. And I don't really like being lied to.
Although They should be awarded some points for being upfront of this.

If channels that we we regularly watch turn into using click bait titles, I might be willing to put up with that, based on past content they made, but if they keep it up, off the subscription list they go.
Now. I have no illusions that our one subscription, of maybe 60 or 100 thousand will in any way be felt by them. But I have also cancelled Patreon subscriptions for reasons like this. And there, I'm certainly not one of the 100 thousand subscriptions.

All the power to the makers, if they feel that this will earn them more money. Their livelyhood and they need to put food on the table and such. But it is not something that I'd want on out YT timeline.
 
Darat said:
There is also language drift, the word ridiculous is in the middle of a meaning shift, akin to how terrific changed its meaning in the 20th century.
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Yes that's true but even knowing the intended use, for me the use of "insane" to mean very impressive is jarring and sounds juvenile. It makes me expect the content to be dumbed-down and superficial.

About the same level of seriousness as a Bill & Ted style "woah, dude". The video might be visually spectacular but the chances are I'll just hate myself for being drawn in.
 
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For more in-depth information on the various subsystems in their EUV equipment, may I suggest a YT channel called Asianometry. Clear and concise videos on this and many other tech subjects.

Example:
 
I watched the Veritasium video before seeing this thread. I subscribe to the site.

Ridiculous is a fine word, along with brilliant and awesome. It is science at its best.
 
As noted by Darat above,, the meaning of words have evolved over time.

An AI take on ridiculous.

Modern Slang Evolution
In the mid-20th century, "ridiculous" began to take on contemporary slang meanings, largely as an intensifier:
  • Outrageous/Scandalous: By 1839, and reinforced in the late 1960s, it developed a slang sense of being "outrageous" or "unbelievable".
  • Positive Intensifier: By 1959, particularly in jazz slang, the word was used to mean "outstanding" or "excellent". In this context, saying "His technique was ridiculous!" is a compliment.
  • Neutral Intensifier: Today, it can be used informally as an all-purpose intensifier for anything unbelievably good or bad, e.g., "That concert was ridiculous!".
Thus, the word has undergone a significant semantic broadening, moving from a specific type of laughter to a general term for absurdity and eventually a flexible slang intensifier that can mean the opposite of its traditional definition.
 
Jack by the hedge said:
Yes that's true but even knowing the intended use, for me the use of "insane" to mean very impressive is jarring and sounds juvenile. It makes me expect the content to be dumbed-down and superficial.

About the same level of seriousness as a Bill & Ted style "woah, dude". The video might be visually spectacular but the chances are I'll just hate myself for being drawn in.
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That sounds to me like you're judging a book by its cover.
 
One takeaway for me from the video was that when they spoke of the $400m machine, I thought it was a one-off. It was only later on that I realised that ASML was making and selling many machines to all serious chip makers. An incredible company.
 
Jack by the hedge said:
Yep. That's exactly what I'm doing. After all, what else is the "cover" on a YouTube video for?

(Of course when that idiom arose it was warning against judging a book's content by the quality of its binding, not by blurb printed on the dust jacket.)
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Well, if your entire judgement, and therefore refusal to watch, is going rest on your dislike for the use of a couple of commonly used idiomatic words such as "ridiculous" and "nuts" then you are going to deny yourself some fascinating content.

Your loss I guess 🤷
 
smartcooky said:
Well, if your entire judgement, and therefore refusal to watch, is going rest on your dislike for the use of a couple of commonly used idiomatic words such as "ridiculous" and "nuts" then you are going to deny yourself some fascinating content.
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If. Just so. If my entire judgement, my sole criterion, for watching or not watching YouTube videos was the hyperbolic style of their title screens then I would indeed watch much, much less there than I do.
 
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