• From how magnets work to who the first person on Earth was, we answer 10 of your
most burning questions about life • Hey there, my name is Melissa, I'll be
reading out the questions and answers • I'm Danger Dolan and I'm here to blow
your mind with truth 10 – CMac asks, Why do people drive on the
left side of the road in some countries?
, • What?
Wait, wait, wait...
Does that mean people drive on the right side of the road where you live?
Ha ha, where's that?
Backwardsville?
Upsidedown Town?
Reverse World?
How about you learn to drive properly, ya clown?
• This comes from when mounted swordsmen would ride down the road, wanting to keep
their sword arm ready.
But in the 1700s, farmers hauling their goods found it easier to sit on the left to watch
the wagon wheels of other passing carts, so they rode on the right!
• Ha ha, right side drivers!
Ha ha...
what?
W-Why are you looking at me like that?
9 – Reva Trihadi asks, How long did it take to build the Great Wall of China?
, • A day.
You know that old saying about how Rome wasn’t built in a day?
That’s because they don’t have the Chinese work ethic.
Also China have giant worker robots, so that helps too.
• There were actually several different walls built in different time periods, but
the Ming Wall is often what people mean when they talk about the Great Wall.
It was constructed by the Ming Dynasty and they spent around 200 years to build 6k km
(3.7k miles) of wall!
8 – Baronmcawesome asks, How do magnets work?
, • Christ man, I don’t know.
Look at this… how do you explain THIS?
Even Einstein took one look at this nonsense and just NOPE’d just outta there – nobody
has time to deal with this, my brain just hurts being NEAR them
• Generally speaking, magnets have one end that is positively charged, the north pole,
and one end that is negatively charged, the south pole.
The magnetic field it makes wants to flow from positive to negative, so when one end
gets near another magnet, they line up and attract one another, pulling the two magnets
together!
• Well, if you can figure that out, can you help us with this, Melissa?
• Just take the stickers off and put all the colours on the same side
• Uh… wow - Albert, would you mind passing her your Nobel prize?
7 – Megan Lanham asks, How does fire form?
, • There exist light-switches that turn fire
on and off, only a few people know about these though and the rest of the population believe
rubbing sticks together produces fire.
Sticks!
• Fire is a chemical reaction between oxygen and some kind of fuel, all it takes is some
heat to get things going.
Some wood sitting out in the sunlight won't burst into flames, but if you were to intensify
the light with a magnifying glass, eventually the wood would catch fire!
• Fwip!
• Hey!
What in the world?
• Fwip!
Fwip!
Hehehehe...
6 – Raver Rio asks, How was Wi-Fi made?
, • Gabe Newell invented this when he couldn’t
be bothered plugging an Ethernet cable into his computer to go on the internet – so
he created a box filled with magnetic waves that use radiation to make the internet fly
through the air so you can use it on your laptop without cables – the only downside
are the inoperable tumours we get, but that’s what hats are for
• Wireless Local Area Network, more commonly called Wi-Fi, was originally developed by
Norman Abramson at the University of Hawaii.
The network, ALOHAnet, was up and running by 1971 using low-cost ham radios and included
seven computers on four islands.
• Melissa, the internet’s not working – can you fill the modem with magnets again?
• Dolan, I’ve already explained this to you, this is just a box with the word internet
on it, it doesn’t actually work • But I haven’t checked Reddit in 2 hours…
Melissaaaaaa…
make the internet work 5 – jamie Carroll asks, What's a baseball
made of?
, • Flesh – it’s made from the flesh and
bone of that kid you knew when you were younger that never turned up to school one day and
mysteriously vanished but nobody knew why…
it’s because he was captured by an evil manufacturing overseer who forced him to ball
up strips of leather and bone and bind it together with a type of glue called PHLESSH
• Shoes did play a part in the old days, but not the way you're suggesting.
Early baseballs were made of the rubber from melted shoes and wrapped in yarn and leather.
Today, the core of official baseballs is made of cork since it can outlast the old rubber
cores. 4 – Samuel Bennett (Derpz) asks, Why is
radiation so complex and interesting?
, • People misjudge radiation all the time,
they think it’s a harmful wave of energy designed to melt your face, but you just don’t
understand its raw intellect & angst – maybe if you got to know it better, you’d see
through its poisonous haze and discover the beating heart within – radiation lives matter
• People are exposed to radiation from many things: cellphones, bananas, and even other
people!
Most of these are so low-level that you're not harmed by it, but larger doses, like from
medical x-rays and even over-exposure from the sun can be extremely harmful!
• YOU JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND IT – IT’S BEYOND YOU, IT THINKS, IT FEELS ON A WHOLE
DIFFERENT LEVEL, that’s right radiation, come to me, join with me— *chokes*
3 – Why are coffin lids nailed down?
, • The truth is that zombies have been real
all this time, but people realised about a hundred years ago that if you nail down the
coffin lids, that keeps them locked up.
For a while anyway.
• The most common answer is to help prevent theft of the personal belongings of the dead.
Looters would steal not only the jewellery or clothes of the dead, but even steal the
bodies for doctors or other nefarious reasons.
Sealing the coffin is also to keep the body from decaying too much, though that's not
always what happens.
2 – Neon Synergy asks, How does time work?
, • There's an old man who lives in Switzerland
that people call “Father Time.”
He usually just fixes clocks, but there's one very special grandfather clock in his
living room that he has to wind once every single week.
If it stops, so does time.
HELLBENT.
Noooo.
Nooooooooo.
NO.
• Time is simply a “period or interval,” so by its very definition it's not something
that “works” but is just a measurement, like a litre or a mile.
The way people see time is a progression of cycles, one day to the next.
If you were to go to Mars, for example, time would seem to be a bit slower.
1 – Victoria's Shadow asks, Who was the first person on Earth?
• I was!
When the denizens of Planet Dolan figured out space travel, we left in peaceful exploration
of the galaxy and eventually found primitive Earth where life had only just begun to form.
There was a huge debate over who got to get out of the ship first, but I, of course, was
chosen to be the first to step onto the alien soil.
• There are many cave paintings of hands and animals, but we can't put a name to those.
The first name in recorded history was, in fact, an accountant.
Written on a 5k year old tablet found in modern-day Iraq was a receipt for a business transaction,
signed by a man called “Kushim.”
• What was that?
• I think it was a butterfly or something.
I'm sure nothing bad will happen because of that though.
… Uh.
Uh.
Uh…..