How it's Made

My own feelings are ambivalent. Most people are unaware of the gaffes; and they dont care until someone points the errors out, and then usually only as a point of passing interest. Its the same as technical errors in Sci Fi movies, written to support the plot more than anything else.

I doubt many people would find the program less informative knowing the gaffes when they saw them. Try to sit back and enjoy the show; maybe get some interesting fact in the meantime.

IMHO I could care less. Each to their own lol.

I, too, watch the program and there are indeed a lot of "errors" in the presentations. You have to take everything with a little grain of salt, as the commentators and script writers generally have no knowledge whatsoever of what is actually being done, in the correct technical terms that is. I am sure that they try their best, but I can bet that a lot is lost in the "translation" they do from the person(s) that are actually describing the processes.

Still, for those who have never seen the processes before, it is still somewhat educational, so sit back, watch and know that you probably have a better insight into what "technically" is taking place.

My experience, is some of these manufacturers, does not disclose intellectual properties...... or they mask it..........

Don't blame them one bit......... they just leave it to filming things like firing off hot dogs like a machine gun....... its good for ratings......

It's really interesting when my son (also an Engineer) is home and we challenge each other to spot the inaccuracies and count them. This really makes us focus on the content.

In the end we usually agree it's an equal match.

I suppose if you're expert enough to see the faults, then you already understand that part of the process, but there may still be more to learn elsewhere in the shows.

I spot faults everywhere, but I never considered myself an expert of anything; maybe just a bit more observant.

For engineers like us, trained to be as accurate as possible, it is really frustrating to listen and accept some inaccuracies you just mentioned.. Most of the times, although not consciously being done on our part, possibly due to the technical training we received, there always exist a tendency for us to nit pick or be critical on the proper technical descriptions...

Having said that, bear in mind that those shows most of the time are geared mostly to the least technical viewers and the narrators used on such shows are almost always not technical people..

Never mind the mistakes, I can forgive those. It's the puns used in the links & introductions that make me cringe.

Well, they're trying to make manufacturing 'fun,' 'hip,' and 'interesting' to the jaded kids? And what better way to get kids interested than with a 'clever' pun at the start and end of the segment? If it were any hipper, it'd have to be Pizza-eating, robot-fighting turtles that learned ninjitsu in the sewers, 'Cowabunga Dude!'

For those of you not up on the pop culture trends, the version of the Turtles I described were from the 80's and are now considered 'childishly lame' by modern kids, adding to the irony of modern shows thinking puns are kid viewer magnets.

And for those of you old enough to remember the original Peabody and Sherman cartoons, every adventure ended with a lame pun from the dog, followed by the sound of a tympani drum, for the kids too young to understand that 'this is where you groan (or laugh if you're you're enough to consider puns funny). So it's not a recent trend to use puns to attract kids.

For a little light humor, watch this one. It's much funnier in reverse!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJyGoGPXTj4

Agreeing with many of the above - the show is targeted to the non-technical to give them a very basic "understanding" of how things are made. The technical part of the audience is probably less that 2-3% that sit back and yell at the TV!!!

Bottom line, it is just poetic license on a technical scale. My hope is that a kid will see this, get excited about the technical aspect and look into the world of engineering! To expand their knowledge/understanding of the mechanics. While I worry about them (three of my own) I never discount the next generation! Sometimes they surprise us.

Especially when they get old enough to realize the parents are NOT so stupid!!!!! ;->

You're right, it's candy coated science, but if it gets kids interested, it might be a good thing.

Makes me groan all the time Ron.

It's not just engineering gaffs that bother me.

Some documentaries are just plain old fairy tales with loads of spin to make it exciting and relabelled as "reality".

This one is serious bollocks.

You Tube????

Are you kidding?

You watch this stuff?

Hell yeh!

Youtube is a handy video library.

The video i linked to was a part of a Discovery Ch program called Game of Stones....supposedly about intrepid gem hunters...NOT.

That episode cannot be viewed in its entirety here....most likely because of the total BS and blatant criminal behaviour that was celebrated in it.

There is a lot of good stuff on U-tube. As an amateur machinist, I can pull up videos of machining techniques. Also there is some good videos of musical performances, like Stephan Crappelli, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly (Singing-in-the-rain), Gene Austin, Temperance 7 and many old time musicians you can't find anywhere.

Agreed......very annoying!

But meeeeh.....engineers..... first world problem.

There are a lot of inaccuracies on these shows... but (besides a 3% of the viewers) who cares? What really makes me mad is that they divide the show in 10 blocks with advertising in between. At the start of every block 50% of the previous block is re-capped, so they put a documentary together lasting 15 to 18 min that can be stretched up to 60 min by means of the "re-caps" and advertising. The worst is that (at least in my country) most of the advertising they air is from their other tv shows...

It's because that's what they billed the customer for...hydraulic upgrades.

If they knew that the mfr. were still using the old manual stuff, they'd be busted!

What I take away from it is that all the skillful work is done by "robots". And then the operator removes the piece from this machine and places it on that machine. Then the operator removes the piece and removes the burrs (what in olden times, the flunky apprentice would be doing.) It's a wonder the machines still keep us around.

Shh, don't mention the 'flunky apprentices,' that might give the robots the idea to use the 'weaker, slower' robots to do the deburring, then there won't be any humans working on the plant floor, which means the shift supervisor will be replaced with an OPC server, and the plant manager get's replaced with a flickering fluorescent lamp.

Then the robots will realize that they ca build a new wing all by themselves, or even prefabricate a whole new factory, then the robots will truly win over us all.

It would seem to me that the commentators on the show would be working from a script supplied or at least edited by the facility being featured. Although inaccuracies will fly past 90% of the viewers, they are still inaccuracies none-the-less. Accepting this does not do service to the process of learning and absorption of knowledge. I certainly can't speak for anyone else as to what one should know. The human brain is capable of storing vast amounts of knowledge, whether we use it or not. As the saying goes: "A brain is a terrible thing to waste".