What do these giant wooden balls do?

Ólafur Waage, Carson Woody and Kip Heath discuss a question about supersized spheres.

GUESTS:

HOST: Tom Scott.
QUESTION PRODUCER: David Bodycombe.

EDITED BY: Julie Hassett at The Podcast Studios, Dublin.
GRAPHICS: Chris Hanel at Support Class. Assistant: Dillon Pentz.
FORMAT: Pad 26 Limited/Labyrinth Games Ltd.
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: David Bodycombe and Tom Scott.

[BearJoyner]

The internet has broken my brain so much that I read the title and thought "to store large amounts of wood pee"

[morboed]

My first instinct was: 'Probably because it's their job, duh'

[MyRegardsToTheDodo]

I thought they were just playing a giant game of pétanque.

[triggthediscovery]

Listening to this while playing Katamari Damacy was a trip

[TheMJEC]

I knew this right away, they still ‘flush’ the Paris sewers in a similar way but in the very early morning, if you’re up at that time you can see water come up out of the drains flushing the gutters as it goes past too.

[Swingingbells]

I was thinking of those giant balls they used to roll around the USA as publicity for presidential election campaigns. Origin of the phrase "let's get the ball rolling".

[ecchikitty]

I was thinking was to *make* sewers, or at least paths for water. Long strip of wet cement, roll your ball along, let it dry, good path for water.

[arenadi]

I love listening to the podcasts but it's so nice to be able to see the video behind it 💗💗

[tonypang]

I wonder how many more generations will pass before no-one has any idea what the save file icon actually represents? 😂

[paradoxica]

My joke answer for this question: The wood in question is Cedar, and the French are trying to ward off Mothra who for some reason has decided to invade Paris

[Yupppi]

It's just great to bump into a clip where there's Olafur Waage, you know it's gonna have some silly stuff.

[AngryKittens]

There were totally Indiana Jones sewer rats running away from that ball.

[Jack]

I clicked so fast when I saw Ólafur in the thumbnail, I love his videos

[VonOzbourne]

And here my first thought was that 19th century French folk were running some Sisyphean marathon in a combination of art and suffering

[Telliria]

From the question alone, I thought they had a giant bowl where they ground mustard. 😅

[nanardeurlambda]

0:15 well, one thing I know about Paris in 1870 is that they got asieged for months by Prussia, then a few more months by the french government (which was a monarchist-controled republic ) before a bloody repression in 1871. So hopefully, this is not the answer

[peterfireflylund]

Ólafur, Københavns Bymuseum has one. I saw it 20-30 years ago while it was still in Skydeselskabet’s old house on Vesterbro.

[AFNacapella]

I'd love to see an episode with tv quiz hosts
maybe one Tom has been hosted by himself before?

[thirteenthnile]

They continued to be used occasionally until at least fairly recently. I've seen footage of modern workers using one.

[nicojar]

These balls originally were meant for the mind goblin.