I debated whether I should put this here or in MPSIMS, but since I assume these questions have definitive answers I chose here. If you feel I am in error, go ahead and move it.
These are questions that have been bugging me for some time, but I don’t view them as gripping enough for their own threads.
Why do children rub their eyes when they’re tired? Is there some sort of physiological reason? I don’t do it but I’m usually wearing makeup that I don’t want to smear, so may have conditioned myself out of it. Can it be as simple as eye strain? What about visually impaired people?
Are there Albino cats? I had a cat that was soild white, yet her eyes were the same gold as her mother’s. Would she have been considered an albino?
How does Big Bird’s beak move? There’s obviously a person in there making the arms/legs/head move, but the beak?! I can’t figure it out. (Yes, I watch too much PBS)
How can the universe be continuously expanding? Can someone explain it to me in layman’s terms…I’m an idiot.
How is it that when you open a container of sour cream or yogurt it seems almost solid, yet when you stir it, it becomes creamy and NEVER goes back to it’s original semi-solid state? And it never seems to leech juice (whey?) after it’s been stirred! What’s up with that?
Sue -
Cecil has filled several books with questions just like these. I don’t think anyone would think they don’t merit their own threads.
I’d kinda like to know the answer to the Big Bird question.
I don’t know the big bird answer, but there are albino tigers. A domestic cat would have to have pink (red) eyes to be considered an albino. I’ve never seen one, but I assume they are born occasionally as a genetic mutation like other mammals.
You know, I actually remember seeing a schematic of how Big Bird worked some time ago.
Because I can’t find a good link, and feel like a knob looking up Big Bird sites on a Friday night, I’m only going to relate to you what I remember seeing. It was a while ago and somewhat sketchy, so take it for what it’s worth- fuzzy memories.
Big Bird, when seen walking around and talking, was indeed operated by one guy. One BIG guy, but one nonetheless.
From what I recall, the head of the muppeteer came up to about the neck of Big Bird. The guy was able to look out and around from behind strategically placed feathers on BB’s neck. With his left arm, he operated the left arm/hand of BB. Since this left BB’s right arm ‘lame’, BB was typically shot with emphasis made to the left arm, ‘blocking’ the right arm out of the shot (Kind of like Radar O’Reilly’s left hand in MAS*H).
With his right hand up and over his head, going through BB’s neck, he was able to control the head movements and the beak by himself. From what I remember, the guy didn’t look too comfortable doing BB, but these guys are really motivated.
When it came time to have BB get real animated and ‘talk’ with his arms, he was invariably sitting down or otherwise hidden so as to allow another muppeteer to help him with the movements.
Yoghurt is what’s known as a non-newtonian fluid; in other words, the yoghurt’s apparent viscosity (thickness) is dependent on temperature, shear rate (velocity of flow) and time. Yoghurt exhibits the specific property of thixtropy, IOW, it appears to become less viscous under flow; this in turn is related to the molecular bonds in the compounds that make up the yoghurt.
Water, OTOH, is a newtonian fluid; the apparent viscosity does not change appreciably with changes in flow.
For a bit more (I hope not too much) about these properties, see the link below:
Thanks Cnote, in the two episodes of Sesame Street my daughter watches each morning, I always try to see if he’s only moving one hand in close-ups, but I’ve never caught it.
Rocket, are you a rocket scientist? Thanks for the info!
richman, not quite the answer I was looking for as virtually every child I know rubs their eyes in an indication of BEING tired, but thank for the reply just the same.
No, but I used to work in the oil industry and the property of shear thinning is handy when one wants to carry drill cuttings up from the bottom of a wellbore (we didn’t use yoghurt though; would break down under high temps).
When I was running training courses, I used to illustrate pressure changes with depth by pointing out how the bubbles in beer increase in size as they rise to suface. And then consume the training aid, yum.
Thanks Cnote, in the two episodes of Sesame Street my daughter watches each morning, I always try to see if he’s only moving one hand in close-ups, but I’ve never caught it.
Keep in mind I was remembering something from a while back. It’s probably progressed alot farther than that by now.
As I started looking around different sites to corroborate what I had written, I ran into a couple of interesting sites on the subject. Yeah, I know, pretty pathetic trudging through Big Bird sites… but I digress.
In one they were wondering how Elmo was able to keep talking and moving his arms while at the same time being picked up by another Muppet character. The answer had to do with wireless remote controls, servos, batteries, and the like. They made a point of talking about how far this technology has come, and the level of sophistication they hope to attain. Pretty amazing stuff.
I also found some corroboration on how Muppets work, ie, the one arm controlling the Muppet arm, the other controlling the mouth and head. But no BB to be found. Interestingly, they said the reason that most puppeteer’s use the puppets left hand to gesture is that there right-handed- they need the right hand to do the mouth and head movements of the puppet. The only exception to that (Muppet show era TV shows only), was the cook Muppet. He needed two puppeteers because of the use of both hands.
I’ll be looking for that the next time I watch Sesame Street. My God, what has this board done to me.
Each of those questions really does merit its own thread, and I’m afraid that this thread would get horribly muddled by all of the overlapping answers. I’m closing this; if there’s anything left in here that you’d like more information on, please start up threads for them. It keeps everything more organized that way.
