Will It Shake? Winerack edition

Today is the introduction of a new show from the Totally Unprepared team called “Will It Shake?”  (named after one of our favorite Internet video series, “Will It Blend?”

In “Will It Shake?” we talk to Californians about the things in their home that may or may not be secured, and then we actually put a copy of their stuff on a earthquake simulator table at the Jacobs School of Engineering at the University of California in San Diego.  Our own Susan Jekarl is the hostess.

This week we asked famous cyberlawyer Fred von Lohmann (also here) to talk to us about his wine collection. Fred’s an avid wine aficionado, known for his regular wine tasting parties.  He has his wine collection in the winerack pictured in his video. It’s secured to the wall. Will It Shake? We find out.

For media: Will It Shake show – wine rack fact sheet

Looking for the Will It Shake? fishtank episode?

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Questions and Answers about “Will It Shake?”

Can I get on “Will It Shake?” 

Yes!  Here are instructions for submitting your own video to Will It Shake? (and Totally Unprepared).

Was Fred’s winerack secured or unsecured?

Fred actually had his winerack secured to the wall where he keeps it, but none of the bottles are secured. In our experiments on the shake table, we found that unsecured bottles in an unsecured winerack didn’t fall out. They stayed in place….right until the winerack fell over.

And while we secured some of our bottles with museum putty just to see how it worked, you might not want to do this yourself. Once you putty the bottle down, you will have some difficulty turning the bottles regularly, as you’re supposed to do with long-term wine storage.

In your video, you run the experiment simulating different magnitude earthquakes by changing the ground acceleration. Is that actually a good simulation of an earthquake?

Not as good as we would like, but that’s the best we could do with equipment we had access to and the length of the show. First of all, the UCSD indoor shake table only moves in one direction. A real earthquake can move in more than one direction.  We asked Mark Benthien from the Southern California Earthquake Center about other differences, and he told us this:

So take that to heart. In our small simulation of an earthquake, we shook it for a few seconds and it caused a lot of damage. You’ve got to live through a full minute of this. Trust us, you need to secure your winerack to the wall like Fred did.

Do you really have your own brand of wine?

No, we had to make our own wine-like substance for the shoot for reasons that our producer will reveal in her own blog post in a few days.

Seriously, can I submit a video to get on “Will It Shake?”

Yes, directions are here!