I love both Stephen and Sandi as hosts. They both give off the same vibe as a primary school teacher but Stephen teaches 3rd/4th grades and Sandi teaches 5th/6th
I’ve never heard someone use both primary school and grades. Usually it’s primary school and years or elementary school and grades. Also, they feel like high school teachers to me. I feel like they would get way too frustrated with a classroom of 30 ten year olds. Actually, I can’t imagine Stephen would do well in any classroom. I can’t imagine him yelling trying to get the attention of 30 kids.
I once got retweeted by him, was basically the highlight of my life. Along with getting a hug from Dolly Parton and David Attenborough, and lunch with Billy Connolly.
@@shirosenshiesq Dolly Parton AND David Attenborough? At the same time? 'Cause I'm really struggling to overlap the Parton & Attenborough circles for that venn diagram........
That unknitting machine represents exactly the sort of thinking that is sorely needed today, and should be valued a lot more. Taking a used product, especially one which there is already an abundance of, and returning it to its constituent parts in an easy and fairly quick way. Whether it's reducing a scarf to a ball of yarn, or let's say returning plastic (which is a big problem unlike woollen clothing) back into oil, we need more people, especially students, thinking along those lines. So while the unknitting machine may have just been a project in an undergraduate program and not an attempt to solve a big a real-world problem, it does exemplify the sort of problem-solving abilities that are needed in a world that is awash with unrecyclable waste.
I mean, I agree with you that we need to be more careful with our materials, but it's not hard to unravel a handknitted item that's not been seamed or something. You have to find the end, cut or undo the knot, and pull. The mechanism here is just a like an umbrella skeinwinder. And she probably used a ballwinder to make those centre-pull balls. Both of which already exist commercially. Historically a skeinwinder was a kid with their arms stretched out, you can wind it on to them.
Yeah, it's not a product per se so much as a new technology that uses objects most folk could get their hands on fairly easily (old Bike / Kettle etc) Great stuff! 👍
At first I didn't see the glass wall facing the audience that would keep the fish from falling off the edge. I had a my heart in my throat every time it was close to the edge of the table!
I love it so much when he's on the show! My favourite QI lineup would be him, Phil Jupitus and Victoria Coren-Mitchell. Or maybe I would watch just a series of videos of Pr. Brian Cox and Ross Noble discussing planets, cuz the shattering of Ewoks in a lake of farts is still one of the golden QI moments.
@@kisbie - Well spotted! I did not understand what he said. I'm not sure it's a pun, per se, but it is a callback to what the reporter cried out as the Hindenburg crashed.
The un-knitting machine was far simpler in design and function that I thought it would be. The value of it comes more from the novelty of the idea rather than the engineering put into it.
Any knitter will tell you it's completely pointless and definitely not a novel idea. The practice is called 'frogging' and knitters have been doing it for years & years, probably since knitted was invented. No need to put the yarn back into a skein, it can very easily be wound directly into a ball - ball winders have been available for years. But even a ball winder is not strictly necessary as you can wind a ball of wool around your fingers. Mum grew up during the war, when re-knitting was promoted through 'make do and mend', and her response to that 'invention' was "How did she get a degree for that nonsense?!"
Nonsense. Value in engineering isn't measured by complexity but by how efficiently a machine gets the job done. Just because a machine is incredibly simple doesn't mean the engineering isn't brilliant - in fact, it's usually MORE brilliant the simpler it is.
Serai3 You’re absolutely right re: simplicity in engineering generally but this particular device actually complicates the process extraordinarily. If you look, you’ll see that the final product is spun into a ball using an old and common tool called a ball winder. Literally nothing but the human that is between the garment and the ball winder is necessary - you can even get electric ball winders you can set to speed and you just make sure the yarn from the garment doesn’t stick. Some of the electric ones even have a yardage metre to tell you how much yarn has gone through. Of course, the commercial machines which also unravel are larger but the basic principle is the same and has been mechanised for decades.
Speaking of cows and emissions, I read JCU did a study and found seaweed fed in the diet of cattle would reduce the levels of methane from cows, there's even a company producing feed supplements to do this. It reduced the methane by over 90% with positive trends for feed conversion and productivity
I appreciate that they have a proper tank for the fish and make sure the audience knows that. A lot of shows would of just bought a fish and not really cared about it’s tank situation. People tend to forget that fish are living things too.
This can't be a standard farming technique? Even for the most heartless capitalist farmer, I imagine the medical costs and risk of infection wouldn't make it worth it.
Whichever way you look at it, it's still exploitation of an innocent being. Would we be okay if this was done to a dog or a cat? A chimpanzee? A human? There really is no need to do this sort of research, anyway. It's patently clear that billions of herbivorous animals will pump out billions of litres of methane. Computer modelling has advanced so much that we can do detailed analysis of any situation without physically including animals or humans in the process. If we stop breeding animals and instead feed people plants, excess methane will cease to be a problem. The main obstacle to that end is trying to convince people to change their diet/lifestyle. Most people will resist changing their ways without even considering that the alternative may be better. We should be teaching compassion in schools first and then other subjects. To enjoy a good life, we do not need to make other beings suffer.
@@weirdunclebob blah blah blah. These are cows at a european university vet facility whose purpose is to provide healthy rumen bacteria to sick cattle elsewhere. To save their lives. And the biggest producers of methane are termites.
What do you call a fish driving a tank? Vaguely impressive but utterly, in all aspects of the word, in every single way conceivable, totally pointless.
Not really. Just because there is no point *right now* doesn't mean that it won't lead to bigger, more useful thing in the future or perhaps if used with another species.
The one that got a first with honours made a machine that instead of unknitting the scarf Back to a ball of wool, fed the end back into a knitting machine. They got extra credit because they did this with two colours, and changed a red and white striped scarf into a white and red striped one. The possibilities are endless!
@@jaymercer4692 they already are victims, I think that was his point. We are shocked by this, but our "normal" treatment of animals is just as horrific.
@@rooty Yeah I think you're right. I've come to realise recently that humans are very hypocritical in our morals. I'm not sure if that's necessarily a bad thing but it is a strange realisation.
Michigan State University had a project running in the mid 80's where they were trying to introduce different enzymes into the cows dietary system in order to aid digestion. They were adding enzymes from Yaks, Bison, Goats, and pretty much any ruminant that could digest the courser grains that standard cattle cannot. They used plugs just like that, it was pretty cool.
3:34 ... he's just got his next project in mind, you can tell from that coy smile. I'm expecting Sandi to be presenting a flipping dolphin tank any season now
8:47 Back in the 50's, my elementary class went on a field trip to the agricultural school at Michigan State University. Where we were introduced to a glass bottomed cow. The cow had been fitted with one of those access ports shown. Instead of a cap, it had been closed with a clear plastic cover, and we could see inside the cow's stomach.
@@rachelcookie321 Well, if memory serves, MSU began life as an agricultural school. How cows digest seems to be important to what the best feed would be and how farmers might mitigate methane production.
I stuck my arm in one of those cows on a field trip as a kid. It was weird. The best part of it, however, was that another kid cut in line three people ahead of me and, when he stuck his arm in the cow, it coughed and he got splattered with cud. Instant karma.
There's something about Colin Lane that really irritates me. I've been struggling to put my finger on it for a while, but that tank clip really clarified it. "Did you build it over two days to attract girls". Christ what a tepid and uninteresting joke - what a total failure to engage with the spirit of the show. It's certainly not the most obnoxious version of that (that would be some of Jo Brand's earlier appearances - she's gotten much better), but good lord I've never seen him contribute anything of value to any panel he's ever been on.
Yes, as I commented (after you, as I didn’t see your comment at first), this is just old 'jokes' from the 80s. He’s more of a boomer than anyone there, even though he’s technically gen x.
Literally sitting here unravelling an old jumper with holes in it to re-use the wool, as thoroughly inimpressed with the unknitting machine a I was when first I saw it.
The beginning and the ending of these videos are really loud, but the content is quiet. My neighbors hear the beginning and end, but I can hardly hear what they're saying during the show.
I laughed over the unknitting machine. When he asked it , my first thought was My Grandmother, and then he comes out with a woman that created one. It has uses. Back in the 30's a knitted sweater would be un ravelled if it was outgrown or had an unpatchable hole, and then knitted into something else. She was in her teens then and used to do it up into her 70's with knitted sweaters. We did not just throw things out but reused. Something people are thinking of more and more now.
I worked on an experimental farm in the 1970s and we used two types of cow fistulas. One was in the throat (oesophagus) of cattle living off the veldt with a bag attached round the neck to catch some of the food they eat for scientist to study what they eat, and proportions, at various times of the year. The stomach fistula was to study their digestion and the rate of digestion of the various foods they eat. In part this helped determine what supplements cattle in the area needed to their diets
here is your brother, no its my sister.. they gave you first with honour's?! THEY DIDNT! i nearly died laughing!! pretty, funny and clever! just hope she learns to project herself :--)
On a slightly more serious note, Methane is a fuel. If it could collect and store it, then harvest it at the same time as they harvest the milk, someone could make a shed load of money from it!
I don't know why you need a machine to "go back in time" to turn a scarf into a ball of wool, I unravel a lot of knitting every time I try to knit. You often unravel a bit when you make a mistake. At least I do !
