PSA: The Big Ben tour (not Parliament) includes a climb to the clock room, and all the way up to the bells. Take the 11 a.m. slot and you’ll catch all 12 bongs at noon.
The story of how it was designed and built is full of engineering mischief and process hacking. Very much in the HN spirit. Highly recommended.
Technically, Big Ben is the bell, not the clock, from the article as well:
> A common misconception is referring to the entire tower as Big Ben, when in fact, that's just the name of the bell. Andrew clarified: "So it's The Great Clock inside the Elizabeth Tower that rings Big Ben."
> Technically, Big Ben is the bell, not the clock, from the article as well:
Technically I guess yeah. The tower that used to be called the "Clock Tower", is now called "Elizabeth Tower" yet it's also true that the de facto nickname for the entire tower is "Big Ben", even though technically that is the name of the bell, not the tower itself.
Probably because it’s unclear what this pedantry about synecdoche contributes to the discussion. Many people (including journalists at the state broadcaster) happily refer to the whole tower as Big Ben, so that is functionally one of its names.
Is the fact that the name originates from a bell, and that the official name for the tower is different, interesting? Maybe. Is it worth “correcting”? No, for the same reason it’s not worth policing people’s use of “Google” to mean “Alphabet”.
While I'd typically agree that pedantry is normally rather boring, the pedantry in this case is actually interesting in that the individual properties of the object have their own name and are addressable uniquely. It sounds like they are public as well.
I also reject your premise this is anything similar to referring to Google/Alphabet as interchangeable.
Stupid me, I assumed there was a tiny clock driving the mechanism that was just geared up to trigger the bigger machinery. That instead looked like a regular clock scaled up to Big Ben size.
Also - those guys are insane. The "safety harness" was a wooden plank chair with some ropes dangling you over the abyss.
The first thought that popped into my mind when reading this article was whether Andrew Strangeway was the Elder who maintained The Internet on Big Ben, because the sitcom "The IT Crowd" has ruined me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDbyYGrswtg
His name is Strangeway, he's sporting this preposterous mustache, and he looks after Big Ben. The guy is basically a living meme lol. He must be fun at parties; at least for like 2 minutes haha.
The story of how it was designed and built is full of engineering mischief and process hacking. Very much in the HN spirit. Highly recommended.
https://social.panic.com/@playdate/113749875959498684
> A common misconception is referring to the entire tower as Big Ben, when in fact, that's just the name of the bell. Andrew clarified: "So it's The Great Clock inside the Elizabeth Tower that rings Big Ben."
Technically I guess yeah. The tower that used to be called the "Clock Tower", is now called "Elizabeth Tower" yet it's also true that the de facto nickname for the entire tower is "Big Ben", even though technically that is the name of the bell, not the tower itself.
Big Ben is the bell not the clock.
Is the fact that the name originates from a bell, and that the official name for the tower is different, interesting? Maybe. Is it worth “correcting”? No, for the same reason it’s not worth policing people’s use of “Google” to mean “Alphabet”.
I also reject your premise this is anything similar to referring to Google/Alphabet as interchangeable.
Certainly scary enough for Hallowe'en.
https://youtu.be/ID5cViSga68?si=egKkbNrHw-_UOrmj
Also - those guys are insane. The "safety harness" was a wooden plank chair with some ropes dangling you over the abyss.