Things you always wanted to know the answer to [Vol. 5]

[Nimby]

chemistry said:

How do steel pans (steel drums) work?

I don’t understand how hitting different parts of the same thing produces different notes.

Imagine several different tuning forks welded together at the handle end.

[98elise]

Mr Penguin said:

Fastchas said:

In Top Gear’s ‘challenges’ where Clarkson drives the Bugatti or Mustang across Europe and the other two take public transport, you always see the LR Discovery camera car in front of Clarkson.
Do they use several camera cars or is the Disco always in front of the Bugatti etc therefore doing the journey just as quickly?

They do the interior shots with Clarkson going out, then go back to do the outside shots later with one of the production crew driving.

Most cars will be just as fast as a Bugatti on those trips because going much faster than the speed limit will attract attention from the police.

Same with all the roadside shots. They don't have a bunch of crews on the route to hoping to get a decent shot real time, they film it later with one crew and a bunch of takes.

[StevieBee]

98elise said:

Mr Penguin said:

Fastchas said:

In Top Gear’s ‘challenges’ where Clarkson drives the Bugatti or Mustang across Europe and the other two take public transport, you always see the LR Discovery camera car in front of Clarkson.
Do they use several camera cars or is the Disco always in front of the Bugatti etc therefore doing the journey just as quickly?

They do the interior shots with Clarkson going out, then go back to do the outside shots later with one of the production crew driving.

Most cars will be just as fast as a Bugatti on those trips because going much faster than the speed limit will attract attention from the police.

Same with all the roadside shots. They don't have a bunch of crews on the route to hoping to get a decent shot real time, they film it later with one crew and a bunch of takes.

On the issue of the speed of the camera cars.....

Some years back when Lotus were still in F1 (as in the Grosjean era), they were doing a filming day at Brands Hatch and I happened to be nearby so dropped in for a look.

They had a Merc' GLE AMG with a boom arm and a £50k RED camera dangling from the end. Whoever was driving it, Lotus would have done well to have signed the guy (or girl) up. Seriously, seriously quick even with all the gubbins on the top and dangling - proper tyres trying to pop off the rims stuff. I doubt the F1 car got out of 2nd but the speed was still mightily impressive.

[RizzoTheRat]

98elise said:

Same with all the roadside shots. They don't have a bunch of crews on the route to hoping to get a decent shot real time, they film it later with one crew and a bunch of takes.

We watched the filming of episode of Mock The Week some time back, the bit where they go across to the other side of the studio to do the standup bits is filmed twice as they don't have separate cameras there, so film them getting up and walking across, and then move the cameras and do it again to show them arriving

[Granadier]

98elise said:

Mr Penguin said:

Fastchas said:

In Top Gear’s ‘challenges’ where Clarkson drives the Bugatti or Mustang across Europe and the other two take public transport, you always see the LR Discovery camera car in front of Clarkson.
Do they use several camera cars or is the Disco always in front of the Bugatti etc therefore doing the journey just as quickly?

They do the interior shots with Clarkson going out, then go back to do the outside shots later with one of the production crew driving.

Most cars will be just as fast as a Bugatti on those trips because going much faster than the speed limit will attract attention from the police.

Same with all the roadside shots. They don't have a bunch of crews on the route to hoping to get a decent shot real time, they film it later with one crew and a bunch of takes.

One example of 'driving' fakery for TV that sticks in my mind is when Fred Dibnah presented several series visiting industrial museums and steam preservation sites around the country. The programmes clearly gave the impression that Dibnah was driving between these places on his steam traction engine, unlikely though that seemed.

After Fred's death, the producer of those shows wrote a book about their work together. It revealed that in most cases Fred was driven between venues by car, while the traction engine went on the back of a low-loader and was unloaded to film a minute or two of Fred driving past a particular landmark or in through a museum gate. (Though as steam engines take hours to get up to working temperature, this was still probably very time-consuming.)

[shirt]

Doofus said:

Why, on a motorcycle, is neutral between first and second rather than above first?

surely you mean 'sometimes' between 1st & 2nd. on my ducati i'm sure it moves about the box

[popeyewhite]

shirt said:

Doofus said:

Why, on a motorcycle, is neutral between first and second rather than above first?

surely you mean 'sometimes' between 1st & 2nd. on my ducati i'm sure it moves about the box

It's between first and second on a manual car as well.

[Frimley111R]

If the Egyptians can make pyramids that have lasted centuries/thousands of years, why are they all that's left? Surely they went on to build much big/better things?

[SpeckledJim]

Frimley111R said:

If the Egyptians can make pyramids that have lasted centuries/thousands of years, why are they all that's left? Surely they went on to build much big/better things?

If they had, then they'd have survived.

Ancient cities get sacked by invaders, or built over.

[Upinflames]

Frimley111R said:

If the Egyptians can make pyramids that have lasted centuries/thousands of years, why are they all that's left? Surely they went on to build much big/better things?

Nope they went on to make worse things. The pyramids the egyptians made were far inferior to the ones they found from a much earlier time

[Upinflames]

Why does stuff on tiktok go anticlockwise to tighten and vice versa? Internet doesn't seem to know.

[StevieBee]

SpeckledJim said:

Frimley111R said:

If the Egyptians can make pyramids that have lasted centuries/thousands of years, why are they all that's left? Surely they went on to build much big/better things?

If they had, then they'd have survived.

Ancient cities get sacked by invaders, or built over.

Yeah - that's what happened. The primary skill back then was the extraction and forming of rocks into blocks for building, rather than the art of building (if you wanted to build something really, really big, a pyramid was your only option). So whilst other building were built, being smaller, they got ransacked for the materials to build other things else where. The Pyramids survived by virtue of their sheer scale but even then, the marble and lime render that was originally applied all got nicked for other things.

[popeyewhite]

SpeckledJim said:

Frimley111R said:

If the Egyptians can make pyramids that have lasted centuries/thousands of years, why are they all that's left? Surely they went on to build much big/better things?

If they had, then they'd have survived.

Ancient cities get sacked by invaders, or built over.

Or simply become deserted as the environment changes.

[RizzoTheRat]

SpeckledJim said:

Frimley111R said:

If the Egyptians can make pyramids that have lasted centuries/thousands of years, why are they all that's left? Surely they went on to build much big/better things?

If they had, then they'd have survived.

Ancient cities get sacked by invaders, or built over.

They have survived. Cairo's something like 1500 years old but plenty of other cities that are several thousand years old. But as you say they get built over so have evolved and modernised over the years.

They've also built other impressive things since the pyramids, like the Aswan Dam and the Suez Canal

[popeyewhite]

Upinflames said:

Frimley111R said:

If the Egyptians can make pyramids that have lasted centuries/thousands of years, why are they all that's left? Surely they went on to build much big/better things?

Nope they went on to make worse things. The pyramids the egyptians made were far inferior to the ones they found from a much earlier time

This.
Incidentally the largest pyramid on Earth is in Mexico, covered by rainforest/grass IIRC. The Egyptian pyramids ( Sudan has c.2000 more pyramids), survive better because of the more dry environment.

[Doofus]

Do you know why the pyramids are in Egypt?

Because they wouldn't fit in The British Museum.

[Frimley111R]

popeyewhite said:

Upinflames said:

Frimley111R said:

If the Egyptians can make pyramids that have lasted centuries/thousands of years, why are they all that's left? Surely they went on to build much big/better things?

Nope they went on to make worse things. The pyramids the egyptians made were far inferior to the ones they found from a much earlier time

This.
Incidentally the largest pyramid on Earth is in Mexico, covered by rainforest/grass IIRC. The Egyptian pyramids ( Sudan has c.2000 more pyramids), survive better because of the more dry environment.

2000 pyramids in Sudan?!

[Granadier]

Upinflames said:

Why does stuff on tiktok go anticlockwise to tighten and vice versa? Internet doesn't seem to know.

Is it tiktokkers filming on a phone's front camera which reverses the picture?

[popeyewhite]

Frimley111R said:

2000 pyramids in Sudan?!

The old Kuste Kingdom
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nubian_pyramids

[Clockwork Cupcake]

Frimley111R said:

2000 pyramids in Sudan?!

On one episode of QI a question was "What country has the most number of pyramids" and a klaxon answer was obviously "Egypt"