Slashdot Log In
MythBusters - The Lost Experiments
Posted by
samzenpus
on Wed Jan 18, 2006 08:58 PM
from the they-should-battle-mr.wizard dept.
from the they-should-battle-mr.wizard dept.
theLorax writes "From Discovery: "If you like the MythBusters here are some videos they just posted of some of the out takes and things that didn't appear on the show. Cola bits (cleaning things with cola), water torture, otter ping pong, live power lines, cement build up and plywood flight."
Here is the interview we did with these guys in December.
Related Stories
[+]
Hardware: The Mythbusters Construct a Kit Bot 148 comments
A reader wrote in to mention a writeup of a really great Mythbusters project. Hyneman, Savage, and Imahara went out and purchased a 'Vex' robot kit from RadioShack, and constructed the bot to see what it was like. They were pleasantly surprised. From the article: "Jamie Hyneman: I must admit I was expecting to turn up my nose at a do-it yourself robotics kit from Radio Shack. But guess what? The VEX System kicks butt. In a total of about 12 person-hours, Adam Savage and Grant Imahara (my cohosts on MythBusters) and I were able to build a functional, if somewhat basic, prototype equivalent of an iRobot's PackBot."
[+]
The Mismatched 'MythBusters' 473 comments
biohack writes "Most fans of the MythBusters would agree that the two hosts of the show, Adam and Jamie, are 'diametrically opposed in every aspect of their lives'. The Christian Science Monitor story about the MythBusters explores the connection between the backgrounds of the hosts (who knew that Jamie had a degree in Russian literature?) and their creative differences on and off camera." From the article: "It took Hyneman a of couple years to feel comfortable talking in front of a camera, let alone to strangers on the street. 'You have to remember that I'm a guy who is happiest in a dark room just thinking,' he says. 'I'm not a sociable person. I don't like to talk.' Savage, on the other hand, is outgoing. They're clearly the Oscar and Felix of myth busting ... 'Jamie is all about total, complete, and utter control. Thinking first and then acting. Adam is about acting first and then thinking.'"
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
a step removed (Score:4, Funny)
Re:a step removed (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:a step removed (Score:3, Funny)
Hello world!
real 0m0.284s
user 0m0.236s
sys 0m0.020s
And that is in Java 1.4, newer JVM versions have faster startup.
Myth busted!
Re:a step removed (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:a step removed (Score:3, Insightful)
The same day they deal with the myth that C++ is as productive as Java.
Re:a step removed (Score:3, Funny)
Ahh, no better way to start the day than insulting all major programming languages (and one operating system with built-in text edit
Re:a step removed (Score:3, Funny)
Re:a step removed (Score:4, Funny)
Well, maybe Adam...but probably not for the show.
-Eric
Parent
Coke (Score:3, Funny)
I could've had that bottle...
Re:Coke (Score:3, Funny)
You're bitching about a bottle of coke?!?
Reason (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong, I love watching them, I just prefer to keep that squishy feeling in my heart that they really love us, and the interview they did here helped that along, with this pushing it further.
Re:Reason (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
What has happened to the Discovery Channel? (Score:5, Insightful)
However, what I've been hearing now is that the Discovery Channel is moving away from their specialty programming, more towards content that will appeal to a wider range of people. This change does being a decrease in quality, according to my cousins.
I think I know what they mean. Shows like American Chopper and American HotRod, which I have watched over here in the UK, are more like soap operas than educational, enlightening shows. The two or three minutes of engineering in each episode is overshadowed by 57 minutes of workplace drama and commercials.
While a show like Mythbusters isn't as bad, it still lacks the quality that previous shows on the Discovery Channel had. None of the hosts have much engineering or scientific experience, and it shows. Even watching just one episode, one will hear numerous factually incorrect statements (especially when it comes to chemistry or physics). Perhaps it is entertaining, but educational it is not.
Re:What has happened to the Discovery Channel? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Mythbusters is Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Mythbusters is Good (Score:4, Interesting)
However I'm a huge fan of the show because its bloody entertaining.
Parent
Re:What has happened to the Discovery Channel? (Score:4, Insightful)
With the proliferation of cable / sat TV networks it is increasingly difficult to draw in the ratings needed to pay the bills. 10 years ago Discovery channel didn't have much competition in its niche market. Now on digial cable or satellite service you might have 4 or 5 networks that devote at least part of their programming to somethign appealing to Discovery's core audiance. So The Discovery Channel has to go off and bring in more viewers, and that means shows with broader appeal: ie Mythbusters. It's still science, and still informative (somewhat), but it's mostly about people blowing things up and hurting themselves.
Parent
Re:What has happened to the Discovery Channel? (Score:3, Interesting)
Amen. The worst example to my mind is the Americanizing of Scrapheap Challenge. First, change it to Junkyard WARS, because WARS are MUCH COOLER. Less tinkering and technology (that is boring), more arguing and soap style "talking in pri
Re:What has happened to the Discovery Channel? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:What has happened to the Discovery Channel? (Score:5, Insightful)
discovery channel can only show whats being produced. if shit is being produced then shit is all they have to air. people seem to think they know exactly what is available for discovery channel to purchase for broadcast. keep in mind that junkyard wars, the program discovery channel fanatics always bring up as an example, (aka scrapheap challenge) was a purely accidental find.
if you know specific programs discovery channel should be airing, tell them.
Parent
Re:What has happened to the Discovery Channel? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What has happened to the Discovery Channel? (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think you need to worry. The History Channel will be showing "The Last Days of Hilter" from now until the end of time.
Re:What has happened to the Discovery Channel? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're arguing that Mythbusters isn't educational, you haven't watched enough episodes. Yes, they make mistakes. So do over half of all peer-reviewed scientists' papers, last I read. But it's still a very educational show, and more importantly, one that gets the watcher thinking instead of passively being entertained.
Even if the show contains a greater proportion of entertainment to education than some might like, I think it educates more than some of the old dry shows, because more people watch them. Just to use some silly math, if a show is 90% educational and is watched by 100K people, let's say it has provided 90K education-people worth of education to the world. If a show is 60% educational and watched by 1M people, it's provided 600K education-people worth of education! How's that for a Mythbusters-style estimate?
Parent
Re:What has happened to the Discovery Channel? (Score:4, Insightful)
These shows are amazing in that its real world aplications of a lot of the "boring shit" and concepts that they are learning in the classroom. Would you just sit them down to watch it without teaching around it? Hell no. BUT it can become a very informitive AND highly entertaining tool to keep people interested in science, applications of technology, problem solving, list goes on.
And you have obviously not watched many of the episodes, as you would find in most of the later season 1, 2 and now 3 ones they consult experts in their fields a lot these days.
Parent
Re:What has happened to the Discovery Channel? (Score:3, Insightful)
Would you want someone to sue you because they built a cannon out of a tree, then blew it up and killed/injured themselves? It's there to prevent things like that. Also, IIRC, they have had a few shows with a safe experiment where they said they would like people to t
Re:What has happened to the Discovery Channel? (Score:4, Informative)
enough said. Even Experts pass along myths. Show me an IEEE paper on the subject then you may have proof. But my "uncle/brother/mother/father/friend" had a "uncle/mother/father/brother/sister/dog" that... is not proof.
I have seen a microphone wire going into a notebook computer pick up an AM signal which is totally logical but the fillings is still unproven.
Parent
Re:What has happened to the Discovery Channel? (Score:3, Insightful)
I find out all sorts of interesting factoids from it, and I am not having my intelligence insulted while I watch it either (lik
Re:What has happened to the Discovery Channel? (Score:5, Insightful)
These folks never pretended to be Great Scientists. They can and do, however, come up with clever ways to perform experiments that would otherwise be expensive or dangerous.
They sometimes do the dangerous stuff anyway.
I think it's a superb show. I like the way they often go back and revisit things that people say they got wrong. You know, kinda like scientists are supposed to.
I have an extensive science and engineering background, and I think they do a terrific job. Do they get everything right? No. Who cares?
Parent
Re:What has happened to the shows like... (Score:4, Interesting)
Yet I have a Myspace profile. I'm a pretty active user, in fact. And I was raised on shows like Friends and Seinfeld. Nowadays I love catching Project Runway on Bravo--shit, I'll even watch Blind Date if I'm bored. And while I don't watch American Chopper or Mythbusters, I do think it's cool that programs like these are getting people interested in engineering and science at all. Dismissing them because they're "pop" is like lambasting Christopher Pike for not having written Ulysses: surely the point is that kids are reading. The Shakespeare can come later.
I guess I just wanted to point out that this attitude of superiority comes off a little sour. Thumbing your nose at popular culture doesn't make you better than everyone else. Not to single you out--I see this all over Slashdot.
Parent
Cement Truck go BOOM! (Score:5, Funny)
If you've never seen it - dont miss it! - It's at the very end of the video
Re:Cement Truck go BOOM! (Score:4, Interesting)
For sheer magnitude, that's gotta be one of the coolest ever.
For sheer carnage, my vote still goes to the exploding whale [perp.com] video from the interweb. Nothing like seeing whale blubber rain down
Parent
They WERE shown on TV (Score:5, Interesting)
Otter Ping-Pong? (Score:5, Funny)
Yes. (Score:3, Informative)
And before you ask, yes, I have seen it done.
Still lost.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Now we know what happened to Christine. (Score:4, Funny)
Coincidence that she's no longer seen on the show? I think not!
Screw Mr. Wizard (Score:4, Insightful)
Mr. Wizard always bugged me, because it was targeted toward children as actual scientific experiments, but it was really obvious even when I was young that they just took existing facts then had these kids do rigged and generally flawed experiments to demonstrate them.
There was one that I still remember from when I was young where he had a kid test whether vision or hearing was more sensitive. They had the kid match a tone using a generator that had 1000 different tones, and was off by one. Then they had her match a shade of blue out of a range of a hundred cards. Again, she was off by one. Since 1/1000 is more exact than 1/100, obviously hearing was more sensitive.
I got really upset about that one and went huffing off to tell my mother how they didn't use an equivalent sample set or use the same gradation of sound/light frequency between the two experiments (not in so many words, of course). The way Mr Wizard told the kid that the results demonstrated her hearing was more sensitive than her vision really irked me and turned me off the show completely.
At least with the Mythbusters there's that general sense of "Huh, well this seemed to work," and they're open to retesting a theory if people call them on it. Personally I think incorrect conclusions and an open, experimental mindset are better science than established facts and weighted demonstrations. For kids these days, it's easy to look up information, but the inquisitiveness and cleverness in experimentation they demonstrate is a lot more compelling to young minds.
Re:What do these experiments entail? (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:What do these experiments entail? (Score:5, Informative)
Water Torture - Chineese water torture myth. Basically the idea that if you restrain someone to a chair and constantly drip water at a slow rate (1-2 drops per second or so) it'll cause them to crack. It's an elegant torture in that all it requires is time, it's easy to set up, and you don't need an interrogator to administer it, and it's insidious in that nobody would expect that a little harmless dripping would cause to to break. They did show that the torture was effective against the myth crew in about an hour or 2, though you have to wonder how a hardened navy seal might react differently.
Otter Ping Pong - They were testing the myth that you could raise a sunken ship by pumping thousands of ping pong balls into the hull. During the myth, an otter swam down to the hull and stole a ping pong ball and started playing with it, which caused everyone to worry that it might choke on it if it tried to swallow it. The myth was eventually proved successful.
Cement Build Up - They tested the myth that the inside of a cement mixer could be cleaned of all the dried cement build up that accumulates on the inside of the drum during normal use by exploding a stick of dynamite in the drum, a much more efficient method than the usual method of having to chissel the surface by hand. The clip in the video showed a snafu that occured with the first truck when they accidentally filled it up with cement rather than just having enough for a thin coat. It lead up to a spectacular event where they blew up the enture truck with 850 pounds of TNT.
Parent
Re:What do these experiments entail? (Score:5, Insightful)
The cement truck was the most disappointing one in a long time. Everyone who has ever even seen explosives in action knows that you drill a hole in the material (the cemet block in this case) and drop the TNT down the hole before detonating it. They just hung a stick of dynamite above the cemet, and gave up when it didn't do anything.
Before Mythbusters, I've never wanted to reach through my TV and smack people for being so stupid. With Mythbusters, it's a regular occurance. It almost seems like they go out of their way to make their tests complete nonsense.
Parent
Re:What do these experiments entail? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What do these experiments entail? (Score:5, Interesting)
They used turned dry wood for the arrow shafts which has grain that is never perfectly parallel to the shaft. Back in the day of Robin Hood they would split straight green wood along the grain to produce the rough shafts and dress them afterwards, resulting in shafts with perfectly parallel wood grain. It can be done (and has been done -- ask at any archery club), just not with the items they used.
Look at the "make fire without matches" episode. Had they not known that millions of Boy Scouts had achieved it already, they would have concluded that making fire by rubbing sticks together is "busted" because they failed at every attempt even when using a power drill to drive the active stick!
Parent
Re:What do these experiments entail? (Score:3, Informative)
For example, they talk about lighting a fire with a gun. It would've been much easier if they used a shotgun without any buckshot in the cartridge. You are guarranteed to get not only a very large flame out the barrel, but a good chunk of burning wad as well.
The B team also spends about 5 minutes on each myth.
Re:What do these experiments entail? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Video summaries. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Video summaries. (Score:5, Insightful)
They tested it on Kari... since there's no physical torture (other than being restrained), and they were obviously going to let her go when she had enough, it's not much of an issue showing it on TV.
Parent
Re:Video summaries. (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Lost Experiments? (Score:5, Funny)
Shit, son. This sounds like a job for the MythBusters! They could test the validity of the myth that these videos have been seen on TV before.
Parent
Science (Score:5, Insightful)
The mythbusters discuss the theory of the myth & then generate a hypothesis weather it is plausible or not, then conduct an experiment to find out weather their hypothesis is correct.
What is not science about that???
It may be basic science, but its still science.
From what I have seen it is getting a lot of people interested in science so that has to be good doesn't it.
Parent
Re:An "Entertainment" disclaimer? (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, a lot of the time they call in experts. I think that's a pretty good lesson to be teaching people, about both science and life.
Parent