This video from 1960 explaining Frames of Reference is amazing.
1937 film explains how a car differential works
121–130 of 148 posts
Re: 1937 film explains how a car differential works
#122The ending on lowering the differential never explained why they didn't just use front wheel drive. Can anyone fill me in?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front-wheel_drive#History
The idea was around, it just wasn't very practical at the time due to various constraints on engine size and component layout. It was simpler to keep the driving and steering wheels separate. The stereotypical American car with a huge V8 filling the engine compartment and an equally massive transmission wouldn't leave much space to route the driveshafts[1].
Also, FWD requires a differential too.
[1] They later tried to make a big engine and FWD fit, and ended up with this design: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldsmobile_Toronado
Re: 1937 film explains how a car differential works
#123Ahah, I knew exactly what this was going to be from the post title. My flatmate made a song in 2018-19 and cut together clips from this to make the music video. Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGU2pfEdJ_o
Re: 1937 film explains how a car differential works
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's mostly American television. I cannot watch American documentaries because everything is being hyped as largest, heaviest, most expensive, deadliest, etc. and is being narrated in the same sensationalist tone. I cannot convey the tone by text but you certainly know what I mean. The interesting details always get lost because the hype must be there to keep people watching after the next ad break. European docume…
Not sure if I agree. European YouTube channels are doing the same. It’s a general trend, not specific to American productions. The real reason is the incentives that content producers are subjected to. Notice how YouTube algorithms have promoted thumbnails to include faces. TV, documentaries and the likes are subjected to viewership and engagement metrics. Things have gotten worse over the years. There are still a lo…
I think the opposite is true. There are so many interesting YouTube channels today, it's "quality documentaries" that were unthinkable in my childhood in the 90s.
Technology Connections, Numberphile, 3blue1brown, NativLang, Ben Eater, VSauce, Tom Scott etc.
As a teenager I could watch NatGeo and perhaps another similar channel with 2 hour dragged out documentaries with talking heads edited and narrated by people who don't love the topic the way these YouTubers do.
I think the Internet is still great if you curate what you watch and read, it's better than ever. But perhaps it's worse on the average. The junk is more potent and the intellectual poison is dosed higher than even the worst reality shows used to be on TV.
Both of these can be true at the same time.
Also, you're watching this 1937 docu on YouTube, not on Discovery Channel on TV.
Re: 1937 film explains how a car differential works
#125The lack of background music and pace is really interesting to me. Compared to a typical "how it's made" video [1] (which I feel has a similar level of detail), this video feels significantly more digestible. Those moments of silence feel totally alien and out of place in today's style, but I think contributes positively to my ability to understand and process the information. [1] https://youtu.be/8gno0_emzo8
That's exactly why this three-hour ‘Intro to synthesis’ series is one of my favorite explanations on musicmaking: https://youtu.be/atvtBE6t48M
Instead of running through all the parameters in ten minutes and one second, the dude keeps twiddling the knobs and lets you hear what they do. He spends ten minutes on dialing just one sound.
As a bonus, since the vid is from the early eighties, you can occupy yourself by guessing exactly how high the man is.
Re: 1937 film explains how a car differential works
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure if I agree. European YouTube channels are doing the same. It’s a general trend, not specific to American productions. The real reason is the incentives that content producers are subjected to. Notice how YouTube algorithms have promoted thumbnails to include faces. TV, documentaries and the likes are subjected to viewership and engagement metrics. Things have gotten worse over the years. There are still a lo…
I think the opposite is true. There are so many interesting YouTube channels today, it's "quality documentaries" that were unthinkable in my childhood in the 90s. Technology Connections, Numberphile, 3blue1brown, NativLang, Ben Eater, VSauce, Tom Scott etc. As a teenager I could watch NatGeo and perhaps another similar channel with 2 hour dragged out documentaries with talking heads edited and narrated by people who…
> I think the opposite is true.
Not sure if there is any disagreement, you're resonating with what I said. Both are true - there is some shitty stuff and there are some great channels. Cherry picking examples doesn't actually drive my point so let me try again - It's not so much about specific channels/documentaries, but whether nationality has anything to do with it. I just don't think Americans produce content that's any different than Europeans. That was the point I was trying to convey.
Re: 1937 film explains how a car differential works
#127I work as a diesel engine technician for a small midwestern chain and I whip this video out in the breakroom whenever the apprentice gets an idler/pitman or diff rebuild on a large truck. So many of the guys i work with know about LSD (Limited Slip Differentials) and locking differentials/hubs, but dont entirely understand why they are needed or how they work once the wheels are back on the ground. if you really want…
I watched those two other videos, the second one twice, but I still don't really understand them. The 1937 video clicked perfectly on the first viewing.
The first video explains differential locks. Basically with an open differential all power would be routed to a wheel that’s getting no traction (for instance if it’s on ice). A differential lock closes it, so it’s as if there were no differential, so both wheels on the axle will turn at the same speed. This is bad if you’re on a normal road (obviously, since that’s why differential were invented) but great in low traction environments like mud or ice.
Most off road vehicles have locking differentials.
Re: 1937 film explains how a car differential works
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the opposite is true. There are so many interesting YouTube channels today, it's "quality documentaries" that were unthinkable in my childhood in the 90s. Technology Connections, Numberphile, 3blue1brown, NativLang, Ben Eater, VSauce, Tom Scott etc. As a teenager I could watch NatGeo and perhaps another similar channel with 2 hour dragged out documentaries with talking heads edited and narrated by people who…
> I think the opposite is true. Not sure if there is any disagreement, you're resonating with what I said. Both are true - there is some shitty stuff and there are some great channels. Cherry picking examples doesn't actually drive my point so let me try again - It's not so much about specific channels/documentaries, but whether nationality has anything to do with it. I just don't think Americans produce content that…
I think the over-the-top style and "dumbing down" is an American influence. Many European countries have or used to have many tax paid productions on public channels, where they didn't have a business mindset at all. Especially before ~2000 in my post-communist country, documentaries were not optimized for engagement, partially because the people making it were not skilled in marketing and just didn't think that way.
Those productions are often actually really boring though. For all the bad stuff we say about History Channel and alien documentaries, it was torture to watch some boring history docus in school history class about some medieval battles with a dry voice detailing the dates and the names etc.
Sure there's a space in between, I just mean that the very commercial-focused documentaries are more an American thing and arrived along with American style cable TV to Europe.
Re: 1937 film explains how a car differential works
#129The lack of background music and pace is really interesting to me. Compared to a typical "how it's made" video [1] (which I feel has a similar level of detail), this video feels significantly more digestible. Those moments of silence feel totally alien and out of place in today's style, but I think contributes positively to my ability to understand and process the information. [1] https://youtu.be/8gno0_emzo8
That's mostly American television. I cannot watch American documentaries because everything is being hyped as largest, heaviest, most expensive, deadliest, etc. and is being narrated in the same sensationalist tone. I cannot convey the tone by text but you certainly know what I mean. The interesting details always get lost because the hype must be there to keep people watching after the next ad break. European docume…
BBC documentaries (especially the nature ones) do a lot of obnoxious foley work.
Re: 1937 film explains how a car differential works
#130The lack of background music and pace is really interesting to me. Compared to a typical "how it's made" video [1] (which I feel has a similar level of detail), this video feels significantly more digestible. Those moments of silence feel totally alien and out of place in today's style, but I think contributes positively to my ability to understand and process the information. [1] https://youtu.be/8gno0_emzo8
That's mostly American television. I cannot watch American documentaries because everything is being hyped as largest, heaviest, most expensive, deadliest, etc. and is being narrated in the same sensationalist tone. I cannot convey the tone by text but you certainly know what I mean. The interesting details always get lost because the hype must be there to keep people watching after the next ad break. European docume…
I've been watching the Free Documentary (I think that's their name) channel on Youtube. They're all European documentaries. They over hype stuff and design around commercial breaks too.