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Watch a hydraulic press crush another press inside yet another press

The Hydraulic Press Channel goes meta with "Pressception" as a beast of a machine crushes two smaller hydraulic presses.

Amanda Kooser
Freelance writer Amanda C. Kooser covers gadgets and tech news with a twist for CNET. When not wallowing in weird gear and iPad apps for cats, she can be found tinkering with her 1956 DeSoto.
Amanda Kooser

The Hydraulic Press Channel on YouTube was a quiet, sleepy place until social news networking site Reddit got ahold of it and rocketed it the stratosphere of video popularity. It's now racking up millions of views for footage of a huge press squishing everything from a hockey puck to a Lego car. Early on, fans asked for the press operator to film the ultimate press stunt: crushing another hydraulic press. And today he delivered.

The "Pressception" video brings to mind the brain-bending dreams-within-dreams movie "Inception." The press operator starts by loading a red hydraulic press into a bigger blue press and sets a mini model of yet another press in to ramp up the absurdity factor. But that's not all. Once the blue press flattens a bit of the red press, the whole shebang goes into a giant hydraulic press for a final dramatic crush-fest.

The Hydraulic Press Channel may be a modern Internet star, but flattening weird objects in a press dates back at least as far as an early David Letterman show. A Letterman clip shows him visiting a machine shop and smooshing a six-pack of beer, a lamp, some squash and a bowling ball with an 80-ton hydraulic press. Some things never go out of style.