East vs. West

[waider]

I watched "Scrapheap Challenge" last night. Start of a new season, and the first task was to build a flinging device for an ostrich egg which would send it the furthest distance without breaking. Much to my disappointment, noone built a trebuchet. One crew built a mediæval slingshot, the other built a Heath Robinson device involving a 45-degree chute, a cable, a flywheel, and a motorbike. In the end, the slingshot won out, but only because the kludgey guys flubbed their last shot, which went a startling 1.5 meters. Throughout, the presenters gave fun - and occasionally scathing - commentary on the goings on, and it was an altogether entertaining programme.

This evening, I caught an episode of "Junkyard Wars", which is what SC becomes when it crosses the pond to the left of Ireland. Strangely enough, it was another challenge involving ostrich eggs; these guys had to build a rocket to get the egg up as far as possible and land it intact. The show was, on the whole, far more irritating for me to watch. Very little entertainment from the presenters, and lots of self-congratulation all around before anything had actually been done to test the devices. It's basically that cliché of "there are no winners and losers, it's important just to be there" which is frankly nonsense in a show like this. Really. If you don't win, you SUCK MIGHTILY and you should be told that in no uncertain terms by the presenters.

It's how we do things here in the Polite Continent.

You guys really need that show where you get to build a flash car of some description given three days, a workshop, and some quantity of money, at the end of which the losers have their three days of work summarily trashed before their eyes. And I mean LITERALLY, not FIGURATIVELY. Now that's soul-destroying stuff.

Whew. That's quite enough of that. I'm just killing time while this up2date finishes.

Comments

[wisn.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen 'Junkyard Wars', but after seeing similar shows I've figured they're not even about how they make their things as the fact that they made 'em. "Team Wango built a ROBOT that can BOUNCE OFF WALLS without the use of AERONAUTIC ENGINEERING and EAST-ASIAN MANUFACTURE! Let's give 'em a hand!"

And for whatever it's worth, last time I was in a Discovery store (wholly-owned spinoff of the Discovery Channel) they were showing trailers on the 5' wide TV screen hanging from the ceiling for their new TV series in which teams of automotive customizers have 48 hours to turn some vehicle into some other vehicle - the trailer showed a bunch of heavily tattooed and pierced guys converting a stretch limo into a cherry red and pinstriped fire truck, with a water pumper turret on hydraulics that rises out of the roof. They didn't smash it up on camera, though.

[waider.livejournal.com]

To be fair, Junkyard Wars shows a lot of the build process, probably as much as Scrapheap Challenge does. The thing is, you'd look pretty daft if you came on the show and failed to even build a contending project. I've not yet seen one team - including the Russians that they brought in for the end-of-season threeway competition - fail to at least start the practical part of each challenge. This includes building hovercraft, swamp rats, monster trucks, drag racers ("we clocked a 15-second standing quarter mile - in reverse!"), fire tender barges, amphibious offroaders, steam engines, punkin chunkers (aka pumpkin cannon), tractors for a tractor pull, and so on. They're a fantastic example of the sort of can-do spirit that the likes of the Marines are supposed to be reknowned for; you know, the impossible we achieve at once, miracles take a little longer, and that sort of thing. But that's why they're in the competition. To suggest that the actual head-to-head at the end is of little or no importance in comparison misses the point, IMHO.

Also, while insomnia itself is not such a bad thing, insomnia in the face of a morning meeting is a horror.

[ikkyu2.livejournal.com]

So, is Heath Robinson what they call Rube Goldberg in Ireland?

[(Anonymous)]

"Full Metal Challenge" is a show hosted by Cathy Rogers and beefy angry singer/comedian Henry Rollins. It's on the Learning Channel (TLC). The losing team's vehicle goes into a furnace to be destroyed.

[Ferret]

[waider.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes. Cathy is also cohost of Junkyard Wars, I believe, and is far more bearable than the other excuse for a presenter. I'd heard of FMC but not seen it. I presume it'll get shown on Discovery over here at some point.

[waider.livejournal.com]

Actually, I don't think we have an equivalent of Rube Goldberg or Heath Robinson. Heath Robinson is a UK thing. However, my memes are interchangeable.