'Der Viener Schlinger': The meat cannon that launched 20k hot dogs | Hacker News Reader

'Der Viener Schlinger': The meat cannon that launched 20k hot dogs

flatwaterfreepress.org

105 pointsNaOH65 comments

Some years back, I helped build a Twinkie cannon, which was mounted in the front of a Twinkie-decorated car, built on a dune buggy chassis. We had to remove the roll cage to fit the fluffy cake body (made of airbrushed yellow fiberglass insulation), so we made sure to drive it quite slowly, but it was a beast underneath if you wanted it to be. (I once drag-raced a pizza driver, and only afterward noticed the cop on the next streetcorner. Luckily it's hard to write a ticket while doubled-over laughing.)

The CO2-powered cannon was capable of way more power than cellophane-wrapped Twinkies can handle. Dial the regulator up past halfway, and they'd just shred on exiting the barrel, splattering anyone near the front of the car with sticky creamy filling and cake crumbs. That was both messy, and disappointing to folks down-range who'd been hoping to catch a snack. (And it immediately summoned a cleanup crew of seagulls, who then wanted more...)

So we learned to keep it modest, and developed a decent sense of pressure vs range. The car geometry allowed only limited variation of the barrel angle, so it wasn't a full-on GORILLA.BAS experience, but it was pretty close.

Culinary ballistics keeps you young. I highly encourage it.

Safety wise there is also the Maude Flanders t shirt cannon example from The Simpsons (more of an indirect cause).

It's also true of paintball guns - it's very easy to dial them up strong enough that they just shred the paintballs.

Is it?

Never ran into that with any I owned unless the paint was questionable or the barrel was a bad fit for the paint, even when I accidentally had a very 'hot' shooting automag due to co2 and a scorcher of a big game day.

Definitely possible. Based on the automag and CO2 reference, you may not have experienced some of the more recent equipment which could easily turn less pressure into more feet per second beyond the usual 300 fps even if not intentionally. I love classics like the automag though so I’m glad to see it mentioned here!

( Thats why you freeze the paintballs )

Neat! May i ask how you got such a unique fabrication and engineering gig?

"Gig" implies paid. Nah. Just for laughs. Because hackerspace.

Cool :)

Frankly HN can be a bit of a sausage fest, but this takes the cake!

I found this very filling, to be frank.-

> In German, “der” means “the.” “Wiener” means “of Vienna (Austria).” Although the English “to sling” probably traces back to Old Norse’s “slynja,” meaning “to hurl,” the German verb “shlingen” means “to wolf or scarf down,” as in food.

Yes, as a German, I was appropriately confused and expected some horrific contraption to get better in hot-dog eating contests or something like that.

But that's nice too.

> In Japan, if you use a word wrong, someone will quietly teach you the correct one. In Texas, I thanked a mechanic by saying "you are a good man of the trucks." He did not correct me. He put it on his voicemail. "You've reached Ray. Good man of the trucks."

But there is no german verb called "shlingen".

Does the person who wrote this, speak german?

I assume "schlingen" was meant, but this sounds more like "etwas herunterschlingen" aka eating quickly; that was mentioned via "scarf down, as in food", but to me it sounds more like a description of the object that is held here, like a sling.

But why would that be associated with Vienna, anyway? Nothing like that exists in Vienna really. Also I am not sure about that explanation; to sling makes more sense with hurling something in this context. And the thing looks like a huge slinger. Nobody is opening the mouth to eat everything coming out of that thing right?

Well, they didn't mean "schlingen" obviously, so I guess they made up a new word :)

Vienna is probably because of Wiener Würstchen, i.e. the hot dog sausages.

funnily enough the article uses brat, wiener and frankfurter to describe the sausages. i mean you could argue that wiener and frankfurter are the same, but a brat(wurst) clearly is a different type of dog.

In my experience the difference isnt as noticeable in the US or rather the terms are used more “liberally”

+1 for frankfurter and wiener, because those are regional synonyms for basically the same type of sausage. of course it might have some local adjustments, but you know what to expect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_sausage

but brat? a Bratwurst is a very different kind of sausage. thicker, different meat, different taste, different preparation, different taste. frankfurter / wienerli, are commonly boiled in water, bratwurst go on a grill. (Brat = braten = roast).

i got a western-european POV. maybe USians use these words differently. which means they're wrong. or wronger than europeans are when arguing what stuff should be called. doughnut / berliner / krapfen / [insert name you use], just to trigger some people.

In Germany Frankfurter are pork only and Wiener are pork and beef

oh well there you go, that's something i wasn't aware of. to me, all of them are 'Wienerli', no matter the type of meat. i even call the vegetarian ones 'Wienerli'.

Bratwurst and wieners are indeed different sausages in the US, but funnily enough you would never boil a wiener here, they are always grilled or microwaved in a pinch. Whereas brats are somewhat commonly boiled (often in beer) to cook the inside, then finished on the grill to brown the outside. Though I personally cook them entirely on the grill, as I think the boiling method is somewhat cheating.

> commonly boiled (often in beer)

woah, i'm intrigued...does the taste of the beer infuse into the sausage? wonder what the difference is between boiling it in a light lager versus a guinness.

as a by-product you then get sausage-flavored beer, but that doesn't sound nearly as yummy as beer-flavored sausage.

> as a by-product you then get sausage-flavored beer, but that doesn't sound nearly as yummy as beer-flavored sausage.

Boiled beer is not appetizing, no matter the flavor

It's different, but evidently it's still schlingable.

For further explanation Wiener means Wiener sausage and is a kind of Frankfurter sausage.

In Austria a Wiener is a different kind of sausage and the German Wiener is called Frankfurter

> expected some horrific contraption to get better in hot-dog eating contests or something like that.

KSAAS - Kobayashi Shake As A Service (TM)

I wouldn't overthink it. It's "parody German": a hot dog slinger but "Germanized", if you will, to be funny

> When he was a standup comic in Los Angeles, Omapod host Tony Bock used to do a bit about the name. “Just saying ‘Der Viener Schlinger’ on a comedy stage gets a laugh, whether you’re in Nebraska or not,” he told me. “There’s something quintessentially Nebraskan about mustering the courage to solve the problem we faced before the advent of this invention: the inability to ‘schling’ the wieners.”

I know, just found it funny :)

In German spelling, "v" at the start of a word is pronounced "f"[1], so the title is really bizarre if you know the slightest amount of German. "Schlinger" has been covered by other comments.

[1]: Excepting words borrowed from other languages like "Vase".

I'm a German descended US-ian, speak both languages , and enjoy a good German language joke. This one could have been done better in written form. shrugs

Hmm, would any of these lead to more immediate understanding and laughter?

Der Wurstsetzwerfer

Das Fleischgeschützer

Der Wurstbeschleuniger

I dunno, I found the obvious, over-the-top faux-German of the original pretty hilarious, but maybe that's just me. Especially since it made the thing sound more concerning for German speakers than I imagine for English speakers. ("Schlinger" is the kind of word you'd expect in the name of a fantasy monster or WWII "Wunderwaffe"). Has some Spaceballs/Iron Sky energy to it.

But from your suggestions, "Wurstbeschleuniger" is very clever, "Wurstsatzwerfer" sounds a bit technical, "Fleischgeschütz" is um... how a german redditor might call his best piece.

Thanks. I worried that Fleisch one might be just what you said..

Does Wurstsatzwerfer sound to you like a pun on Ersatz + Werfer? I guess that might not work, and also isn't as funny in German. In English, the borrowed word "ersatz" brings a connotation of cheapness or fakeness.

Hah, wasn't aware of the English connotation of "ersatz". Thanks as well!

Both -satz (in the sense of set, kit or bank) and -werfer are technical terms often used for modern military equipment, so the word sounded a bit too "real" for me.

But that might just be different tastes.

"Wurstbeschleuniger" would work well, if you're ok with going scientific instead of military.

>"Since 2018, a Gatling gun version mounted on a prop grill has been shooting out brats at Milwaukee Bucks’ home games at the rate of 24 per 10 seconds; each is enclosed in a foam noodle, which allows condiment packets to accompany the dog."

America.

Well yeah some stuff across the pond just gets few eyebrows raised and ...but why? questions asked. Lets agree there are some differences on what is perceived cool

UK's Health and Safety probably would shudder quite a bit at this and say verboten.

Their loss..

But hey, no expensive lawsuits.

That reserves some crazy points for cheese rolling, which is utterly mental.

i was fully expecting to see black and white pictures of some german soldiers testing a newly built weapon, was surprised to see a football player carrying a hotdog-shaped cannon.

the broken/fake german did make me suspicious, so i should've seen it coming.

EDIT: imagine a Schwerer Gustav[0] shooting a huge sausage, that's where my brain was going.

EDIT2: according to wiki Gustav can shoot 14 rounds per day, so we could deliver 14 of these sausages[1] daily. why? not sure, combating food scarcity without having to actually go there. Sausage as a Service, directly to your front door.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwerer_Gustav [1]https://i0.wp.com/billypenn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/v...

That name is super-strange.

"Der Viener Schlinger".

So ... "Der" is german, we can translate this into "The".

"Schlinger" is a strange word; there is Schlinge in german, which could be translated as loop, snare or, better, a sling. You can see how similar sling is to Schling or vice versa here. To sling ... may also be herumschlingen, a snake may have a similar movement like that; curvy movement aka not linear or so. Makes sense for a sling that throws stuff about, see the slingshot channel or Tod's Workshop. So far this is a bit strange, but not totally strange.

But next comes ... "Viener". This is VERY strange. Where does this word originate? My first impression was it was from Vienna, a city; the german name for the city is "Wien", and if you replace the V here with a W, then it would be "Wiener" (which in english would be viennese, but in local wording). So when I first read the three words, I thought this originated from Vienna ... but that makes no sense. It's from the USA. So Viener must mean something else. But then why it is "Schlinger" rather than "slinger" or sling"? And why the name "Der"? I mean that only makes sense for a german word. Now I am very confused.

I also don't recall any meat cannon as a tradition in central Europe either, so that makes no sense either. Who coined that word here, anyway?

It's just "The Wiener Slinger" in psuedo-German. The article mentions its origins.

It's weird to people familiar with real German, since 'V' in German is pronounced like 'F' in English.

It's like they took a word already from German ("wiener" as in hot dog) and then broke it while trying to make it more German, or something.

Yeah, it's jokey pseudo-German, like the old 1950s hacker meme about Der Blinkenlights [0].

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinkenlights

bad bot.

HN never lets me down when it comes to pedantic critiques of obvious humor!

Learning German beginner here (I'm somewhere above A2 but probably not B1 yet).

I had exactly the same concerns as you. My brain was very confused by this name and I was wondering if I got something wrong.

Turns out it's just an American making fake-German. Huh. So this is what it feels like....

It's a better job than a lot of fake German words by Americans. But it's still not quite right to me.

It's not that strange to me. Wiener Schnitzel, a lovely breaded and fried veal dish of Viennese origin, is a commonly used "funny German word" in English. Der Viener Schlinger is apparently just about as funny, and easily enough "translated" into English.

> But next comes ... "Viener". This is VERY strange. Where does this word originate? My first impression was it was from Vienna, a city; the german name for the city is "Wien"

Ok, so there is a company in Chicago named Vienna Beef, started by immigrants from Wien in the 1800s who made sausages using recipes they brought with them. In the 1900s they started making hot dogs as well, but high quality ones. You see, the hot dog in America has a reputation as being a pretty low quality meat product. There are now a number of companies that make quality products, Vienna Beef being one.

In a stroke of genius, Vienna Beef also sells neon signs of their logo to the roadside shops that will sell you a ready to eat hot dog, especially ones that do it “Chicago style”. It’s very Americana, and you generally see it in the middle of America, including Nebraska. So a lot of Americans have a word association with Vienna and a good hot dog. That’s really the only connection :)

Who coined Der Viener Schlinger? The same cultural appropriators that celebrate krampus, cinco de mayo, almond boneless chicken, Polish paczki day on Tuesday instead of Thursday, and many other phenomena. Good thing they got St. Patrick's day right.

With a name like J.J. Harder he was destined to schlinger der viener

*den

This kind of journalism is refreshing and awesome.

Don't let any news outlet convince you the story of humanity is exclusively one of war, pestilence, exploitation, and ignorance when we also find time to engineer meat cannons and give them silly names

Why they misspelled "Wiener" is beyond me. The city of Wien is dubbed by the exonym Vienna with a "v" in English, true enough, but the sausage is "wiener", not "viener"! We took the spelling of the "Wiener" adjective from German intact, just like with Frankfurter and Hamburger.

They should have checked the verb that they invented; it does land on a German word that doesn't have the meaning they think, and something can be found that works and still sounds okay in English, like "schleuder".

Furthermore, words like "schleuder" evidently tend to be feminine: so we want "Die Wiener Schleuder":

E.g. see this movie title:

https://www.imdb.com/de/title/tt0107349/

One small step along the path to making the Alameda-Weehawken Burrito Tunnel a reality.

My alma mater. I do love that improving it was an engineering project

Mine also. I've caught a 'Schlinger' launched hot dog. It was extra smushed, but still tasty.

I built something like this using compressed air for the UChicago Scavenger Hunt, launched one dog clear over my four story dorm lol.

Approaching middle age, I'm grateful that there still seems to be a supply in the world of such wondrous creations as this, previously unknown to me.

However, I was disappointed that the article conspicuously omitted the story of the original invention.

Anyway, here's the patent ("Process for propelling foodstuffs or the like into a crowd"): https://patents.google.com/patent/US5996568A/en

Are you really telling me that the Hot Dog Cannon from Tyrian actually exists? o_O

time to move on to 2026 and hook it up to an automated roller grill, or some other fantastic fashion of heating up and assembling the hot dog.

This is such a great article.

Viener, really?

> I have a lot of German background

If you didn't read the rest of the article, that's how you always know they're american

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