|
Post by mrfatso on Aug 18, 2014 5:35:33 GMT
My route was quite varied, from the new 1970s built estates on the edge of town, to the older village houses and the farms. Like Cyber it took about 1 hr, as UK regulations for child working meant that for Paper deliveries that the minimum age was 13 years old, and deliveries had to start after 7.00 am before school.
Even in my day I do not think the Sunday Times could be rolled as small as a quarter, now its even larger, but the weight averages out, for every Times there was a Mirror or People.
|
|
|
Post by silverdragon on Aug 18, 2014 11:22:47 GMT
When I was young, "Evening News" round, 60 odd papers and a 20 min walk if I hadnt been delivering, total of 1hr doing papers start to finish. Soprting papers, no need, just count out 60, bag 'em, no tags, just one through each house on the round, easy?... Well, remembering all the houses and which were on holiday.... not exactly rocket science...
Ok, so, some of that was houses with no front garden, terrace blocks, you walk past the front door anyway, but then the gardens took longer, you pre-folded the paper on the way from one house to the next, it wasnt that hard.... 60 papers, bloody heavy, but the first street was 20 of them, so after 10 mins it was a LOT easier.
Doing it by bike, impossible, I tried, you spent more time getting on and off the bike going trough gates than you would walking. Plus you cant hop low walls on a bike.... Well in those days, pre- me inventing "BMX", and I was part of the group who invented that style of bike, kids who wanted something a bit more rugged, it took off... well pre BMX days, you couldnt hop walls without taking the mud guards off?...
One of my tribe does papers now, he also cant physically use a bike on his round, as he has a long row of houses with low garden walls you just run along the paths and put papers in without going back to the street... even the Posties do that there.
Talking of which, we now have TNT post in our area. Its a good plan... this is the competition to Royal Mail, who aint any more, as they got sold, so it aint English Owned, so cant be "Royal" anythng?... TNT post arrives. Well they are on a winner from the start there?... It also arrives at 9am to 10 am every morning. So its also reliable.... It also arrives only a day after its posted. Win Win Win....
Reason I need to add them here, they use Bikes. The TNT postmen are let out on Bikes to do deliveries, the bikes are chained to a post at the top of each street so they can do the deliveries, but they use the bike to get from one street to the next.... Even they cant do the actual "Rounds" on a bike, they just use that bike to get around?... I hope that makes sense?.
So, in UK, Bikes for delivery rounds are dependant. On high density rounds, not much use. But on longer distance rounds, hell yeah, better than walking is you have more than a short walk between houses?....
Morning papers, I hated those rounds, 40 to 60 papers, all different, and then you had those that had more than one, and those that had the most papers had the smallest ever post box. I had one Sunday round with one house where you had to split the Observer down and post the supplements separate, then onto the Times, and supplements, then... I dont remember all, but I think you could spend up to 10 mins posting paper at that house.....
I also remember the Dogs. One house, the dog shredded the paper. Every day. The owners put a cage on the back of the door... It lasted a day. The dog ripped it off, and shredded the paper.
Then there was Oscar. Huge St Bernard, used to sit on the front porch, and look at you... The look said it all, he was friendly, mild as anything, but if you touch his bone, he is having your leg off.....
|
|
|
Post by ironhold on Aug 18, 2014 14:52:06 GMT
My delivery route is about 32 miles long, including instances in which I have to double back for one reason or another. I've squeezed the most efficiency I can out of it, but the way the local streets are arranged I can't do much more than I've already done.
|
|
|
Post by silverdragon on Aug 19, 2014 8:19:25 GMT
Having a 32 mile delivery route, I hope your customers pay for transport costs?....
Saying that, my last regular route was over 300 mile a day most days, maybe a dozen or so drops each day, but that was back in the day when I thought that was good.... (Last century) Now I do 300 mile for ONE drop, one complete load. Much easier.
|
|
|
Post by mrfatso on Aug 19, 2014 16:53:18 GMT
The length of that delivery route would take me into the centre of London, I guess it shows the difference in how we in the UK and someone like Ironhold think of as local.
|
|
|
Post by Cybermortis on Aug 19, 2014 18:31:50 GMT
I think we are getting to caught up in talking about things that are not really relevant in this context - throwing papers from a car? Seriously how many 10-12 year olds in the US do deliveries that way?...and people wonder why kids are getting fatter....
As I said, this is an idea for a show in which a couple of kids can be brought in and made an active part of the episode by allowing them to work alongside the cast AS members of the cast. This would involve tests the kids can do - and by kids figure an age range of 10-12. Or if you like kids who will not be driving around in a car doing a paper round, but either on foot or on a bike.
Sure, you could have them throwing papers from a car. But a bike is more 'kiddy' and gives more options for tests the kids themselves could actually do on camera.
Any more ideas? Think of 'traditional' MB fodder that kids could be closely involved in.
|
|
|
Post by ironhold on Aug 19, 2014 20:26:25 GMT
After running the route last night -
I've got customers with three different heights of chain-link fencing around their properties.
Most customers who have fencing have it around 4 - 5 feet high, which is just enough to keep door-to-door salesmen out and small dogs in. A kid could hypothetically just walk up and drop the paper over the top, which is what I do anyway.
A few customers have standard-sized chain link, which I estimate as being about six feet high. A kid could simply push a paper through the linkage, presuming of course that they could get the paper to bend or fold tightly enough to go through.
One customer has "high security" fencing, which I estimate as being 8 - 10 feet tall. A kid could again attempt to stick a paper through the link, but really you're stuck trying to throw it over. I have no problems using a tightly-rolled paper and a good under-hand toss (which, of course, means I'm out of my car), but I honestly don't know how a flat paper would fare.
Additionally, there's one road where I literally have customers opposite each other. The road is about three or four cars wide, and with both a good underhand and a tightly-rolled paper I can easily clear three cars' width if I'm on foot; I haven't yet tried to throw curb-to-curb. Again, I wonder how a folded paper would fare.
Bear in mind, however, that I'm about six feet tall, over 300 pounds, and I've received a de facto ban for life from the church indoor volleyball league due to how freakishly powerful my underhand serve is and how much property damage I was doing.
|
|
|
Post by ironhold on Aug 19, 2014 20:30:57 GMT
Having a 32 mile delivery route, I hope your customers pay for transport costs?.... The section of town I serve folds in on itself like an intestinal tract. Due to the design of the roads and the location of my customers, I sometimes have to run the same stretch two or three times because of all of the u-turns I've had to make. This is a large part of the reason why I do things like "throw papers across the street" (like I mentioned previously), as past a certain point the local cops start getting curious as to why the same vehicle has gone past so many times; I need to minimize the number of times I go down the same length of road.
|
|
|
Post by OziRiS on Aug 19, 2014 23:20:03 GMT
Here's something I've heard dozens of moms say over the years:
"Your room looks like a hurricane/cyclone/tornado came through!"
I'm guessing there's been more than one kid in the world who's wondered if the mess they can make in their room is really as bad as mom says. What would it look like if a hurricane/cyclone/tornado actually came through the room (without destroying the house) and can the average kid really make THAT big a mess just by playing and not cleaning up after themselves?
Question is, how do you contain wind like that in one room without messing up the walls, doors and windows?
|
|
|
Post by OziRiS on Aug 20, 2014 0:24:15 GMT
Some other famous mom saying that may or may not be testable:
- "You can't judge a book by its cover" - If that's true, then what are the pictures on the front and the teasers on the back for? Is it really impossible to know (at least in broad terms) what a book is about and whether you'll like it or not just by looking at the cover?
- "If you keep making that face/crossing your eyes it/they will freeze like that" - We adults know it/they won't, but what do the kids think? And at what age do they realize it's not true?
- "If you wear other people's glasses you'll ruin your eyes" - Is there anything to this at all?
- "I can always tell when you're lying" - As a stepdad I can say with 100% certainty that telling with 100% accuracy whether or not the kid is lying can be tough. Some lies are obvious and others aren't, but moms have a reputation for just knowing EVERY TIME. Do they? Do moms really know their kids so well that they can tell ALL the time?
- "Don't run with that lollipop in your mouth!" - We've probably all heard this and wondered: What's the worst that could realistically happen?
- "Only stupid people get bored" - I once took the application test for Mensa just for fun and passed, so I must not be stupid, but I can certainly get bored. Is boredom linked to intelligence at all?
- "Beds are not made for jumping on/beds aren't bouncy castles" - My friends and I have broken a few beds by jumping on them, so I know there's a reason moms say this, but if you just HAD to jump on the bed, which type is less likely to break?
- "Don't sit too close to the TV. It'll ruin your eyes." - I've brought this one up before and most of us have heard this about the old tube TV's. Question is, could a tube TV ruin your eyes if you sat too close for extended peiods of time and how do the new LCD and LED screens compare?
- "Pick that up before someone trips on it and breaks their neck" - How unfortunate a dive would you have to take to actually break your neck just by tripping over something like a toy? How easily does a neck break anyway?
|
|
|
Post by Cybermortis on Aug 20, 2014 10:37:55 GMT
That is probably better as a more generic 'Battle of the Sexes' myth; That women are better at detecting lies (or maybe telling lies) than men.
In that context I rather like it as an idea. I guess they *could* test this to see if women are naturally better at detecting lies by bringing in kids as well as adults for any tests run. But I don't think that it would be suitable for a 'kids only' show.
You trip, fall and get it jammed at the back of your throat and choke to death.
The risk isn't in breaking the bed (which is of course possible), it is in bouncing off the bed and landing on something like a side table or hitting the wall and injuring yourself.
I guess that could be tested...*musing* figure out a test that shows what could happen if you bounce off a bed into a wall or table. And therefore why parents tell their kids not to do it - although the main reason is probably the noise.
|
|
|
Post by silverdragon on Aug 20, 2014 11:33:17 GMT
[Edit... below are my own angles on the quoted questions, not to be taken as final?...]
Busted. Every time I go to a Hospital and have to sit for hours on end, I take a book. Otherwise, I get bored.... On the one or two occasions I had to sit and wait for a doctor in A&E, did ya think I said "Oh, Wait, Cant take you to hospital right now, I aint fond a good book to read?..."..what, tell the ambulance to stop off at the library?...
In Context, at the end of the day, 200 channels of [censored] on the tv to choose from (P.Floyd lyrics} I am Tired, I want something to settle down before I sleep, I am bored. Does that make me stupid then?....
Confirmed. By an optician friend of mine, he knows someone who will insist on wearing his Wifes glasses to read, he is slowly degenerating his eyesight, as his eyes are now "Used" to trying to focus through the wrong glasses....
Not only for the annoying habit of other people "Can I try your glasses on", like why?... do they ask to play with peoples prosthetic legs?... my glasses are tailored for a specific job, to help me focus up at short range, they give me a headache is I try to focus on things further than three foot away, I can wear them and walk at the same time, so why would anyone think they will help THEM to read a poster 20 ft away?...
I know its an exaggeration, but I have tripped over a kids toy and fallen... it hurts... therefore breaking your neck in a fall is plausible, I just dont want to see that tried?... I have by kids action fallen down the stairs. Not nice.. For me it was a slide down on my painful parts after one left his books on the top step.... Otherwise, You are a Parent, rule one, SLIPPERS!.... finding Lego with bare feet is never going to be anything else but bloody painful. Rule two, LIGHTS, kids leave stuff where it falls, and if that is in your way, its not their problem.... We kept a gate on the stairs, and quickly discovered they kids threw stuff over the gate. On Purpose. Never EVER walk around in the dark.... you dont know who or what you are going to trip over.
It turns your tongue blue. If the kid then refuses to show you inside his mouth, its a sure sign they are lying....
So what?.., its a simple trick, but before kids learn that YOU can lie too, they believe you, and try to hide the fact they are lying.... by either covering their mouth or refusing to show you a "Blue" tongue...
My kids learn not to lie. The simple facts are if you are in trouble for something, and tell the truth straight up, you get a days "Grounded", if you lie, you get grounded twice as long. If I find out you lied to get out of being grounded, its a week.
The punishment for lying is always twice as much, once for getting in trouble, and once for lying about it.
Blaming it on someone else?.. dont go there... you get to apologise to them, and then they get to decide your punishment.....
Difficult to explain in one. If its a dictionary?... well it better be a book of words or I want my money back?... ANY Reference book better be what it says on the cover.
The latest book by your favourite author?... it had better be what you have been waiting for.
An Unknown book by an unknown author be it fact fiction sci-fy or whatever, you take a chance.
In all books, you have to read them to know if they are what you wanted though. There are good dictionaries, there are bad ones, there is good reference, and there is plain lies, like any book by creationists, who believe the world is flat or something, but never older than a couple of thousand years?... I will judge that book by its cover, its lies damn lies and falsehoods, and the author is being a [Adam Hills knows what]
There is good fiction, there is bad, I dont read spy stories westerns, war books, or romance, there is enough time to be wasted on better things. But each to their own?... I dont expect others to have my book taste.
But in Sci-Fy, Sci-Fantasy, Comedy Sci-Fy, there are a lot of good ones, and some where I dont just want a refund for the pile of waste paper but also a refund for the hour it took for me to read and decide it was not that good.
[Side myth.. you cant return a book....] Has anyone here actually tried returning a Book for a refund because its that badly written?.... I have actually done this. It was given as a present, I had the receipt, as "Mother" wasn't sure if I would like it, I didnt, I returned it as "Factually incorrect" and got a refund. (It was a non-fiction category book...) It was in perfect condition, I had read part of it in a library before my Mother decided I "wanted" it, and I knew I would never buy it myself, as it was truly dreadful. So how hard can it be?... Yet I know a good many people who believe once you choose a book and pay for it, its yours until the end of time... people actually believe its your own fault and you are stuck with the book, unless you sell it "Second Hand".....
I wont be actually revealing the book I returned, as it got slated in book reviews, and I believe it has been withdrawn from sale now.
For the above reasons, I research a book before I buy it, when I buy books I have a hit list of those I already know I want to read.... So why waste time on unknowns?...
|
|
|
Post by OziRiS on Aug 20, 2014 12:00:36 GMT
That is probably better as a more generic 'Battle of the Sexes' myth; That women are better at detecting lies (or maybe telling lies) than men. In that context I rather like it as an idea. I guess they *could* test this to see if women are naturally better at detecting lies by bringing in kids as well as adults for any tests run. But I don't think that it would be suitable for a 'kids only' show. And I disagree for the simple reason that the myth isn't whether women in general are better at detecting lies than men in general, but whether mothers - as in parents who know their kids better than anyone else in the world - can always tell if their own child is lying. You need both the kids and their moms for this test and the way to make this fun for the kids as well as the viewers is to let the kids spend the day with the crew testing other things, possibly doing some stuff that isn't really dangerous but that they'd know (or at least think) Mommy wouldn't approve of. Then, at the end of the day, have Mommy "interrogate" them. If you have the crew talk to the kids throughout the day to find out which things their moms probably wouldn't be all that happy they were doing, you can then come up with a list for each kid about what to be honest about and what to be "creative" about when Mommy asks. You trip, fall and get it jammed at the back of your throat and choke to death. And what I'm thinking here is that you test this with the kids, so they can see the worst case scenario for themselves. Remember, this is not only about the kids who are actually on the show getting something out of it. It's also about the kids at home watching. If you could show that there's a good reason their moms say this, maybe they won't ever have to say it again... The risk isn't in breaking the bed (which is of course possible), it is in bouncing off the bed and landing on something like a side table or hitting the wall and injuring yourself. I guess that could be tested...*musing* figure out a test that shows what could happen if you bounce off a bed into a wall or table. And therefore why parents tell their kids not to do it - although the main reason is probably the noise. I like that idea!
|
|
|
Post by silverdragon on Aug 20, 2014 12:14:29 GMT
You wanna see if people bouncing on beds will fall off?... Hey, there's u-t00b for that....
|
|
|
Post by ironhold on Aug 20, 2014 16:32:02 GMT
- "You can't judge a book by its cover" - If that's true, then what are the pictures on the front and the teasers on the back for? Is it really impossible to know (at least in broad terms) what a book is about and whether you'll like it or not just by looking at the cover? Confirmed. TV Tropes Wiki: Covers Always Lie (main page) (somewhat NSFW) TV Tropes Wiki: Covers Always Lie (literature page) (somewhat NSFW) There have been numerous instances in which people have produced covers for books, films, et cetra that have little, if anything, to do with the finished product. In some instances, the cover depicts minor characters or sequences as if they were major factors in the work. For example, the Battletech RPG novel D.R.T. features a cover depicting a warrior of some type watching while a guy in a Speedo is electrocuted. This sequence happens near the end of the work and, in fact, spoils it because the guy getting zapped is the enemy commander. Mecha pilots are repeatedly noted in the fiction as wearing as little as possible in the cockpits of their machines so that they can better deal with the heat build-up, hence both guys being stripped-down. In other instances, the cover may depict characters who aren't in the work or in outfits they didn't wear. For example, * This UK home release of a Transformers episode set depicts a version of Optimus Prime released three years after the episodes debuted. * This German Transformers DVD release features text and images from the 2007 live-action movie and a character from the 2002 - 2003 cartoon series "Transformers: Armada" ... for the original 1986 theatrical release. * This US / Canada episode set release also features characters not released until years after the episodes debuted; of the five people shown, only one actually appears. Then we have works in which the cover and/or blurb has nothing at all to do with the finished work in question. For example, the DVD packaging for the second series of the "Captain Scarlet" animated series gives the blurb for the cancelled episode "House Of Dolls" in place of the blurb for the episode "Grey Skulls". It's been hypothesized that "Grey Skulls" was a last-minute replacement for the cancelled episode, and so the confusion was due to confusion over the placement of each episode. A more likely scenario is that the person in question knows the other person just well enough to pick up on subtle cues that may appear if the person is being dishonest. Busted. There is just as likely to be an inverse relationship between boredom and intelligence. For example, a person assigned a task below their level of training may find themselves bored by the job. I'm guessing that the person who said it is thinking that "smart" people usually have something to do. You've got issues with eye strain (which can lead to long-term damage), astigmatism, and other conditions to consider. In addition, as the Pokemon franchise so clearly demonstrated, sitting too close to a television set, especially in poorly-lit rooms, can put a person at risk for seizures.
|
|
|
Post by OziRiS on Aug 20, 2014 18:15:37 GMT
You wanna see if people bouncing on beds will fall off?... Hey, there's u-t00b for that.... I don't doubt that it can happen, nor do I dispute it, but the episode we're discussing here is going to be "by kids, for kids" and needs to have themes that kids can relate to. What's more relatable to a kid than "stuff mom says that I think is silly"? Maybe testing some of those things will prove to at least some of these kids that mom isn't always as silly as they think.
|
|
|
Post by Cybermortis on Aug 20, 2014 19:31:03 GMT
Exactly.
The thing to avoid is to pick things that are too 'kiddy', by which I mean the sort of things that in some respects could be considered looking/talking down on the kids. Any myths should be serious, both in regards the idea itself and in the nature of the testing and planning for such tests.
Sure, the myths themselves can have a 'kiddy' slant but the testing and so forth should be taken and dealt with as seriously as anything else MB test. I suspect that the kids would rather enjoy this, as it isn't treating them as kids but as intelligent people as well as showing them a side of Mythbusters (and TV production) that outsiders don't usually get to see.
The major consideration as far as filming accepted myths is going to be time and complexity (which are related, since more complex means takes longer). Chances are that the kids might not be available for more than a week, so any tests have to be things that can be done fairly quickly and simply - which is why throwing newspapers is a perfect idea*. Jumping off the bed is a little more complex, since you are naturally not going to have kids throwing themselves off beds to see what could happen. So some sort of simplistic stand in rig for a jumping kid would need to be designed. Falling off a bike is, in comparison, fairly simple to do.
(*Its also perfect as they have the option of deciding what variables to test, such as throwing over fences, which allow them to extend testing as they see fit without loosing anything really important if they opt to just do the most straightforward and basic of tests.)
Unless the Kids happen to live in or near SF, chances are that they are only going to be available for a week at most. While testing myths takes two weeks*, one for builds one for filming/testing. If they do live in or near SF then they might be able to spend more time on the episode either by going in after school or going down at the weekend (depending on the schedule MB are working on). This would make 'by kids for kids' difficult, as at least half the work (and probably a lot more than that) would have to be done by the cast and crew alone.
(*Jamie was asked how long it took to film episodes at Com-Con 2014, and said two weeks split between filming and building. This, it should be noted, might not apply to M7 and the build team. In the past Tory has given a slightly lower figure than this, but it is unclear if he was talking about the filming on its own or both the filming and the build phase. Even if he was talking about both, it would seem logical to assume that the build team works somewhat faster than Adam and Jamie. Not only are there three people working on myths, but they are not Producers on the show which would logically imply that they have more time to spend in the shop.)
The main difficulties in working out how involved the kids could be are where they come from, how long they could legally work on the show per day/week* and how long they are going to be available. These are things that we don't know and can't predict. They might pick kids from the SF area, which would allow them to get involved over a longer period. Or they might go the route they chose for the Young Scientist Special and pick kids who win science awards on a national level.
(*This is another good reason for trying to pick kids who are 10-12 years old, rather than younger kids. The older the kid the more time they can spend in front of the camera)
|
|
|
Post by ironhold on Aug 20, 2014 20:35:37 GMT
So for the newspaper roll vs. fold:
*Time & effort spent in prepping paper - flat work surface, ample room
*Time & effort spent in prepping paper - "as you go" inside of a vehicle / on a bike
*Level shoulder throw alternating arms, seated, distance
*Level shoulder throw alternating arms, seated, accuracy / obstacle avoidance
*"Over-the-roof" throw same arm, seated, distance
*"Over-the-roof" throw same arm, seated, accuracy / obstacle avoidance
*On foot throw, choice of method / arm, clearing fences
*On foot throw, choice of method / arm, raw distance
I'll post more ideas as I can think of them.
|
|
|
Post by Cybermortis on Aug 20, 2014 20:51:02 GMT
I'd simplify things somewhat, keeping in mind that if they follow a standard format for the show they would have at least three myths, each of which would have on average some 12 minutes of air time (assuming equal amount of time for each myth, and taking into account recaps, explanations as to what is being tested and of course the titles. (Plus trying to keep possible limitations as to how long the kids would be allowed to 'work' on camera)
The most basic testing would be testing 'flat' and 'rolled' papers in terms of distance they can be thrown towards a door/porch without any obstacles in the way. Then another test where they are throwing over a fence or obstacle such as a car. They could then do the same tests with the kid on a bike (riding past if that is allowed, or stationary if not).
This basic testing could be added to depending on how long they need the segment to be, and how long the kids are available. Keep in mind that the kids would most likely to split between the two teams, with Adam and Jamie working with two kids and the Build team with three. So rather than have the tests done by just one of the kids they'd really want all the kids working on this to do the testing. So the four tests above could turn into at least 16 tests, and probably more since you'd need to run several identical tests to get usable data. That would require several hours of filming - remembering that they have to reset the camera equipment between tests.
|
|
|
Post by Lokifan on Aug 22, 2014 13:39:23 GMT
Probably untestable safely with kids, but I remember a myth when I was a kid:
Bee emotions.
Do bees get more or less agitated based on your emotions? Do they "smell fear"?
Running away vs. standing still?
|
|