I once went to a yard where they were refurbishing steel drums. They steamed them out and then filled them with water. A device was attached to the filler hole with some kind of explosive charge. After it was detonated (not a very big explosion) the drum was perfectly round again.
Consider the Beatles song Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.
It’s written by Paul, sung by Paul, it features that plinky-planky music-hall style piano that Paul adores. Everything about the song oozes Paul McCartney. Plus, he’s the piano player for the group.
But, that’s not Sir Paul on the piano.
It’s a trick, right? “Macca had a bizarre gardening accident the day of recording so George Martin filled-in” ???
Nope. It’s John Lennon on the keys. Blew my mind, especially considering how much Lennon hated it when McCartney would go all happy-old-timey in his songs.
Interesting. So why wasn’t it Paul?
I should have offered more info. I am busy so can’t find link at the moment.
Apparently after Paul had strummed out the basic idea on guitar, John made fun of how “music-hall” smarmy he thought it was and pounded it out on a piano at a faster tempo as something of a mockery.
Welp, they ended up going with it. I’m a little surprised Paul didn’t end up tracking it but maybe a rehearsal was just boffo and they ran with it.
Now I just read this yesterday or the day before and although I was kinda amazed by it I did no “due diligence” to verify it, and then I might not have even remembered that correctly so… big balls of salt here.
ETA: from Wiki:
In the recollection of Geoff Emerick, the band’s recording engineer, Lennon “openly and vocally detested” the song, calling it “more of Paul’s ‘granny music shit’”, although at times he appeared enthusiastic, “acting the fool and doing his fake Jamaican patois”.[31] Having left the studio at one point, Lennon then returned under the influence of marijuana.[10] Out of frustration at being made to continually work on the song,[30] he went straight to the piano and played the opening chords louder and faster than before, in what MacDonald describes as a “mock music-hall” style.[10] Lennon claimed that this was how the song should be played, and it became the version that the Beatles ended up using
Welds done properly should be at least as strong as the host material, so I guess this is actually like a rather dramatic version of quality control - if it splits when you blow it up, it wasn’t fit for sale.
Eddie Gaedel was the 3’7" baseball player that the St. Louis Browns had in the lineup on August 19, 1951 (he walked on four pitches, since it was next to impossible for a pitcher to hit his strike zone, and Gaedel had been instructed not to swing). He was then replaced by a pinch-runner and never played again. Some interesting facts about Gaedel:
- He had worked as a riveter during WW2, since he could crawl inside airplane wings and other such tight spaces…
- He wore a uniform with the number “1/8”, which belonged to the 9-year old bat boy. That bat boy is now part owner of the St. Louis Cardinals.
- Gaedel’s autograph sells for more than that of Babe Ruth.
- Gaedel’s grand-nephew was drafted by the San Diego Padres in 2011. (he played as high as the AA level).
And Paul played drums on The Ballad of John and Yoko!
Reminds me of a scene from a WWII-era Bugs Bunny cartoon. He’s working on an assembly line where a conveyor belt is passing artillery shells standing upright on end past his station. They’re bigger than he is.
As each shell goes by he winces then whacks it on the pointy end with a large wooden mallet then chalks “DUD” on the side. Lather rinse repeat for just a couple shells before the big explosion then he reappears from the dissipating smoke cloud disheveled and totally blackened. Cut to next skit.
For a more serious response to all, see here:
This is pretty standard stuff that can apply force in a remarkably repeatable and symmetrical manner. So you can build stuff that would be really hard to fabricate via any other means.
I think that’s what I like so much about it - it’s obviously very efficient and effective, to the extent of being done almost in a casual fashion, and yet to an industry outsider, it looks really weird and improbable.
Just read this (in this book) there were actually two popes John 23rd. Pope John 23rd the 1st was one of the competing 15th century popes during the papal schism. He was a pretty dodgy chap (even by the standards of medieval popes) so was declared anti-pope and prosecuted, hence officially there was no Pope John 23rd for the next 500 years or so, until in 1958 a pope took the name again becoming the Pope John 23rd the second.
I don’t know if any cardinals were tempted to declare him anti-pope too purely so they could have a Pope John 23rd the 3rd 
The freaky one is explosive welding:
As the article mentions, it’s commonly used to bond two plates of metal to each other. I’ve seen videos of this: two sheets of metal are stacked, with spacers at regular intervals to maintain a small air gap (a critical part of the process). High explosive, in powder form, is distributed on top of the stack and then detonated to slam the two sheets together, violently bonding their entire mating surface.
In the 1972 Fischer-Spassky match, Spassky’s team came up with a wonderful refutation to Fischer’s pet Sozin Attack. It was only Fischer’s brilliance that enabled him to salvage a draw. I always assumed that refutation was final, and that the Sozin Attack was a thing of the past. Recently, I discovered I was wrong after reading a 1917 posting on the issue. The jury is still out.
It’s well-known that even the positive roles for actors of Asian descent in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s were almost invariably taken by Caucasian actors, especially the detectives. Charlie Chan was famously played by warner Oland and Sidney Toler, Mr. Moto was played by Peter Lorre, and Mr. Wong was played by Boris Karloff (who also played Fu Manchu, once). There were a few films in the 1930s where Charlie Chan was played by a Japanese or Chinese actor, but in those films (as in the first Charlie Chan novel), the detective Chan was pretty much a background character, not the star. as soon as Charlie Chan became the star and focus of the picture, he was played by the Swedish-born Warner Oland.
Chinese-born actor Keye Luke at least got to play Charlie Chan’s “Number One Son” (and also played the same character opposite Peter Lorre’s Mr. Moto in one movie).
But…
Keye Luke actually played the titlular detective himself for one movie in 1940. Boris Karloff retired from the role of Mr. Wong, and so Keye Luke himself headlined as Mr. Wong in the 1940 film Phantom of Chinatown. as far as I know, it was the only time an actor of Asian descent actually played the lead detective of Asian Descent in a Hollywood film of that era.
Luke was actually signed to a four-picture deal, but the exhibitors reportedly lost interest in the series when Karloff left, apparently because the lead wasn’t played by a big-league Hollywood actor (although that is what Luke was by that time).
Luke sort of got his revenge by having a long career, and going on to play Master Po on the series Kung Fu and to finally himself play Charlie Chan 9or at least to voice him) in the animated series The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan in the 1970s
When ships pass through Point Nemo in the southern Pacific Ocean, they are 2,700 km from the nearest land. That means, at the right time of day, the closest humans are in the International Space Station, 416 km up.
Another fun fabrication technique is
Not as dramatic to watch, but still a pretty amazing bit of materials engineering. Fundamentally the same idea, get the metals to mix & mingle without getting them liquified or injecting much heat into the surrounding areas.
A simple version of this can join two shafts in alignment. The machine looks similar to a lathe or drill press. Counter rotating shafts meet and begin to melt from friction. The machine needs to be able to rapidly stop the rotation so the joint will cool and solidify rapidly.
So are you configurin a Delorean for time travel, or what?
If you are referring to rotary friction welding, like this:
As shown in the video, only one of the pieces needs to be rotating. No melting occurs during the process (solid state welding), but a large axial force is needed at the end of the cycle to “forge weld” the pieces together and push impurities into the flash (called “ram’s horns”). The machine shown in the video is known as an “Inertia Welder” in that, once up to speed, the chuck is not powered and it’s inertia is turned into heat through friction. It stops once the inertia is spent, which signals the machine to apply the axial load.
According to the local animal welfare office, foxes can smell remarkably like skunks and what we were thinking was skunk odor was likely coming from the foxes which have been hanging around the woods nearby.
That’s an awesome story! I’d never heard of it and I know a lot of Beatles trivia. Thanks for sharing!