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Television Media

Survivor Meets Junkyard Wars for Scientists 168

Posted by chrisd from the all-they-need-is-coconuts dept.
MyNameIsFred writes "Stepping back to Gilligan's Island, PBS has a new "reality" show Rough Science where "five scientists are challenged to put their collective scientific knowledge to practical use. Transported to isolated locations, they are presented with a series of tasks, with two notable restrictions: they must complete their work within three days and, with the exception of a rudimentary tool kit, must use only indigenous materials." Could the Professor really build all of those things? We'll soon know." Check out the Episode guide.
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Survivor Meets Junkyard Wars for Scientists More

Survivor Meets Junkyard Wars for Scientists

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  • My prediction.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Cloud 9 ( 42467 ) on Saturday September 28, 2002 @10:31AM (#4350107) Homepage Journal
    They start voting on which one to eat first within a week. Scientists weren't designed to survive outside of a lab. =]
    • As long as they leave enough fat to make soap with on the 10th challenge.

    • Re:My prediction.... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by praedictus ( 61731 ) on Saturday September 28, 2002 @11:09AM (#4350223) Journal
      >>Scientists weren't designed to survive outside of a lab. =]

      Hrmff! Obviously someone who hasn't done any REAL (ie. non-theoretical) science. As part of my work I have:
      Slept in a snowbank (ambient temp -30C)

      Scaled ice covered rock faces with 30 kilos of equipment

      Faced bears and wolves unarmed. Mind you most predators only attack if you act like prey, and the wolves were mostly interested in having fun, like 50 kilo puppies with big teeth...

      Hiked alone in the Amazon rain forest.

      Not all scientists are wimps, some of us actually get out once and a while. When something breaks in bush camp, you fix it yourself, with what you have on hand. If you fsck up bad, you might die, so you learn to adapt.
      • I have a similar job -- if they had told us more about field work back in junior high, i bet a lot more people would have gotten excited about being scientists...
      • As part of my work I have:

        Slept in a snowbank (ambient temp -30C)

        Advanced course on thermodynamics.

        Scaled ice covered rock faces with 30 kilos of equipment

        Laboratory assignment on mechanics for post-graduate students.

        Faced bears and wolves unarmed.

        Armed with Occam's razor -- survival course for graduate students.

        Hiked alone in the Amazon rain forest.

        General relativity theory, and how amazons manage to procreate anyway.

      • Re:My prediction.... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Blkdeath ( 530393 ) on Saturday September 28, 2002 @11:42AM (#4350310) Homepage
        Slept in a snowbank (ambient temp -30C)
        As someone else who's slept in a snowbank (on purpose!), sorry, but no dice on that one. :)

        Snow is an excellent insulator. Consequently, if you burrow yourself a hole in which to sleep you can find yourself quite warm indeed. It's only when you contact the raw snow with your body, thus melting it and wetting your clothes that you get cold.

        The heat from even the smallest of fires can heat up the interior of a snow-dwelling to quite a comfortable temperature (just be sure to poke a smoke hole in the top).

        The best way to get a boy scout over his fear of snow is to hand him a portable (folding) shovel and tell him to make a home in it for a night or two.

      • I had to use HPUX in front of a client (research sponser) on a locked-down PA-RISC machine to fix bugs on-site. That was scary enough for me. ;-)

        -Paul Komarek
    • Well if they followed the Bristish example it would be eggs [ukgameshows.com]
      • Excuse me?! These *are* British scientists (with the occasional exception). This is a BBC show.

        The same country that made Robot Wars, Junkyard Wars (aka Scrapheap Challenge), and the Secret Life of Machines series. And of course, the late Great Egg Race - that ruled when I was a kid. Tim Hunkin and Heinz Wolff are gods...

        Grab.

  • Uh oh (Score:5, Funny)

    by Captain Nitpick ( 16515 ) on Saturday September 28, 2002 @10:31AM (#4350109)
    "five scientists are challenged to put their collective scientific knowledge to practical use."

    "scientists"?

    "practical use"!?

    They're doomed.

    • "In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is."

      Actually, I've seen several episodes, and they seemed to succeed more than you would expect; it's not a bad program IMO.

      • "In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is."
        That's one of my favorite quotes. At one point, i used it as my .sig . I hope you don't object if I decide to do so again... ;-)
    • Sounds to me like what they really need is a tam of engineers facing off against a team of scientists. The scientists will have elegant theories that are totally impractical, and they will die. The engineers will build crap just good enough to get the job done, in true junk yard wars fashion, and win handily.

      That's assuming the engineers are from a real school, instead of some prissy place like MIT or Stanford, where real engineers are harder to find than supermodels that have read Calvin's Institutes. (Now there's a perfect woman! :-)
  • ... first aired a couple of years ago. It was a great idea and made for some good viewing. Can't remember which station it was on though :o( Highlights for me included the making of photographic equipment and a compass.

  • Frontier House in the Desers? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by levik ( 52444 ) on Saturday September 28, 2002 @10:36AM (#4350123) Homepage
    This reminds me of the show they had last year called "Frontier House", where a family was put onto a 19th century homestead to see how they'd do. On hone hand that show proved very interesting, but on the other, the way it was made kind of emphasized scandal, and played down achievements of the more successfull family. I hope this doesn't happen with the new show, since PBS seems to be venturing into traditional network TV territory with these reality series, and I hope they don't sink to trash TV level while doing it.

  • Too bad... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Radish03 ( 248960 ) on Saturday September 28, 2002 @10:36AM (#4350127)
    Too bad Mary Ann won't be in it.

  • Don't get your hopes up. (Score:5, Informative)

    by sane? ( 179855 ) on Saturday September 28, 2002 @10:37AM (#4350129)
    This is a prog that was on the BBC a year or two ago. Its nothing like either Junkyard (nee Scrapheap) Wars or Survivor, just some marketing creep looking for an angle. There is certainly no real roughing it - think your science teacher trying to make lessons more interesting.

    That said, its still worth catching if you've nothing else to do.

  • I mean, everyone forgets stuff! :)

  • How about survive and escape? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bbuda ( 168824 ) on Saturday September 28, 2002 @10:57AM (#4350177)
    Why not take the 'Gilligan's Island' concept to it's logical conclusion: put the scientists on a remote island, not knowing their location or how much ocean surrounds them, with no supplies, and leave them there (with a camera crew of course). The scientists would have two challenges: survive off rudimentary supplies and the island's natural resources, and eventually escape to the mainland. The first scientific team to find their way to a major city wins. Of course, you could add in interesting challenges along the way such as those in this show or in Survivor, where the scientists could complete some useful task (dye a flag, as mentioned in the episode guide) in return for a tool or supply. THAT I would watch.

    • Re:How about survive and escape? (Score:5, Funny)

      by OhYeah! ( 445727 ) on Saturday September 28, 2002 @11:13AM (#4350234)
      What kind of scientists do you suggest?

      Psychologists - Starve to death, but leave excellent documentation of the experience.

      Organic Chemists - build homemade reactor to convert tree sap into TNT, cause large periodic explosions until they are rescued.

      Nuclear Physicists - Would cause even bigger explosions, but lack the proper infrastructure.

      Theoretical physicists - dismiss building a raft as trivial.

      Software Engineers - Useless without coffee. In fact, useless altogether on desert island.

      Evolutionary Biologists - Decide to stay and watch the ants.
      • A physicist, a chemist and an economist are stranded on an island, with nothing to eat. A can of soup washes ashore. The physicist says, "Lets smash the can open with a rock." The chemist says, "Lets build a fire and heat the can first." The economist says, "Lets assume that we have a can-opener..." Paul Samuelson

    • Re:How about survive and escape? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Blkdeath ( 530393 ) on Saturday September 28, 2002 @12:00PM (#4350382) Homepage
      Of course, you could add in interesting challenges along the way such as those in this show or in Survivor, where the scientists could complete some useful task (dye a flag, as mentioned in the episode guide) in return for a tool or supply. THAT I would watch.
      That's when I'd promptly change the channel and watch instead a mind-numbing sitcom. Atleast they're more honest than "Reality Television" about what they are.

      The idea of a realistic situation like the above is to remove external intervention from the picture altogether. If you're actually stranded on a desert island, you don't get the opportunity to win a hammer - you have to strap a rock to a stick. You're not able to win an 8" sheath knife, you have to scratch a rock into a jagged and/or sharp edge.

      I can't recall whom, or on what channel it was featured (I believe it was Discovery) a scientist (outdoor survivalist was, I believe, his actual trade) stranded himself in the bush - dropped his snowmobile (intentionally!) through thin ice out in the wild - miles from any civilization, and with only the most basic set of gear (the things a snowmobiler would typically carry with them, no fancy survival kits) and, of course, a camera (which, I believe, was dropped in advance, I forget how it was situated).

      He started out his adventure soaked to the skin, cold, and without food (except for some energy bars he'd brought with him for the trip. Five of them, I believe. "Trail Snacks"). Being early afternoon, he had only a short time to locate a suitable area, build a shelter, start a fire, dry himself off, and find a source of food in the process (being cold and wet come nightfall with two feet of snow on the ground and more coming is a very bad thing<tm>).

      He set up complicated camera shots by himself, for example; camera atop a mountain, run down mountain, walk across a field in camera's view, run back up mountain, stop camera (this brought an amusing anecdote where he set up the camera, ran down the mountain, looked up to see the camera tilting forward, forward, forward... thud!)

      He used, and tested several survival techniques that he teaches in an outdoor survival course, for example setting up four smoke-signal fires on the extremeties of a cross which he walked into the snow in a large open area. At the end, he determined that it was too much hassle to run back and forth between each of them to light and maintain all the fires. He decided instead to go with a walked-in cross (or X, depending on how you look at it) with pillars at each corner and a single (large) signal fire at one extremity.

      All in all, he was in the bush for a little over a week and managed to make himself a cozy living arrangement, including various meat and fish meals at dinner time. Some nights, of course, his fishing instrument didn't work so he didn't eat anything but berries.

      To make a long story even longer {smile} - that is what reality television, IMHO, should be. No challenges, no assistance, no winning tools or champagne, no medical crew standing by to assist as soon as the going gets tough - just (an) individual(s) and (his/their) smarts to get through the situation. Camera crew optional.

    • Then, one week a space capsule could land, next week Wrong-way Feldman. Send some cannibals their way another week. All they have to do is hope and pray for a hurricane to get them home.
    • There was a show similar to that on NBC about a year ago called Lost. They took teams of people somewhere in the world, gave them a couple hundred bucks and a camera guy. Whichever team made it back to the Statue of Liberty first won. IIRC, this show aired slightly before 9/11 and had made the unfortunate decision to start the teams off in Afganistan. For some reason, I never saw another episode after the first one (that fact that the people were idiots probably didn't help either).
    • Create weapons and turn on the film crew, using their tents, electrical equipment and food to effect their escape to the mainland.
  • The fact that PBS is sinking to the level of regular TV and airing 'Yet-Another-Reality-Series' or that it will probably work.

    Are the scientists going to get voted off? Will they make alliances with each other and scheme to get the other scientists? Will they have to cook rats over their Bunson Burners?

    Questions, questions.

  • The Professor (Score:4, Funny)

    by SuperJ ( 125753 ) on Saturday September 28, 2002 @10:58AM (#4350183) Homepage
    "Look guys! I made this helicopter entirely out of bamboo and coconuts!"

    (I don't understand why Gilligan's Island went so long, I mean the Professor came up with these brilliant inventions every episode. Why couldn't they just make a raft and have the Prof build a small nuclear reactor to power it?)

    • Re:The Professor (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      If you were stuck on an island with Mary Ann, and were smart enough to invent a way off, you'd obviously also be smart enough not to do so.

    • Re:The Professor (Score:3, Funny)

      by JohnG ( 93975 )
      Would you REALLY want gillgan near a homemade nuclear reactor?
    • This is the first VeggieTales quote I have ever seen on Slashdot.
      • Yup, VeggieTales rock. VeggieTales quotes probably aren't seen on Slashdot because there's a low percentage of Christians here (not to mention that to have seen VeggieTales, you have to either be a Christian and somewhat young, or a Christian with young kids), and usually showing signs that you're one gets you modded down. Unless you're Larry Wall. He rocks too. :-)
    • Veggie Tales quote :-)
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Just like college.... (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    7 scientists
    3 male - bio, phy, chem
    4 female - bio, bio, bot, phy

    You think they could have picked a few more women to represent the harder sciences. Everyone complains that not many women go into the sciences and those that do often wind up in a biology type of field (3/4 here).

    Being an engineering major, out of a 60 person class there are maybe 5 girls. I once took a microbiology class for the easy A and out of the 60 person class I was one of 5 guys.

    It's numbers like these that a college needs to advertise. My odds of getting laid in Micro are a lot higher than in any engineering course.
    • Define hard science ; The enigma of life on earth isnt exactly easy to comprehend. Compare that to grasping why a rock hits the ground when dropped. Which is the Harder thing to wrap your mind around ? Hard science has to be defined as any science where the subject matter is hard to reduce to equations and logic. I mean logics easy. Any pocket calculator can deal with logic. As usual you engineer types are full of yourselves.
      • Lighten up. The concept "hard science" is usually used for the natural sciences as opposed to "softer" social sciences.

        So, it's not 'hard' as in difficult, but hard as in tangible, matter-related sciences, as opposed to the human-related social sciences.

        We might be arrogant, but we're not THAT arrogant.
      • There are only two sciences: Physics and stamp collecting.
    • I knew there was a reason I went into biochemistry. Nothing like going to class and being outnumbered 2:1 by women.

      Well that.. and the fact that I hate engineers. But mainly the women thing ;)

      Oh, and there really isn't anything less hard-science about biology AC; if anything you're applying math and chemistry on top of all the extra stuff you have to learn in the bio field. If you think it isn't hard science, you've never studied it.

  • reality nitpick (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Em Emalb ( 452530 )
    there's nothing realistic about yanking scientists/engineers out of their normal habitats, putting them on an island somewhere, and having them build stuff.

    Please, almost as realistic as the real world, or survivor. Reality tv? That would be too boring. Call it what it is:

    What would happen TV TM

  • Junkyard wars? (Score:3, Funny)

    by MrEd ( 60684 ) <[tonedog] [at] [hailmail.net]> on Saturday September 28, 2002 @11:00AM (#4350189)
    I hope this show isn't as realistic as junkyard wars -


    "Gee whiz, profesor, it's a good thing this moderately sized aircraft crashed in this remote location with key components intact! Now we can build our submarine!"

  • Kate Humble may be a hottie, but there is a much better reality show coming your way: Bible Fear Factor [landoverbaptist.org]

    1. The First Challenge: Collect 200 Foreskins (1 Samuel 18:27)

    Each Bible Fear Factor contestant will have 8 hours to collect two hundred foreskins with nothing more than a toenail clipper, a roll of paper towels, a Mason Jar, and 3 bus tokens....

    "Wherefore David arose and went, he and his men, and slew of the Philistines two hundred men; and David brought their foreskins, and they gave them in full tale to the king, that he might be the king's son in law. And Saul gave him Michal his daughter to wife." (1Samuel 18:27)

  • The fools! (Score:5, Funny)

    by sam_handelman ( 519767 ) <samuel.handelmanNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Saturday September 28, 2002 @11:08AM (#4350220) Journal
    Dr. X: They mocked my research! But I'll show them, I'll show them all!

    Announcer: Fascinating. What scientific principle have you applied?

    Dr. X: Leverage.

    Announcer: I see, and how are you going to use your invention... what's it called?

    Dr. X: A big stick.

    Annonucer: Yes, your stick. Dr. Sullivan has succeeded in making charcoal a furnace. How does your invention compare to that?

    Dr. X: I will use it to leverage his cranium.

    Announcer: That science-speak is too much for me.

    Dr. X: Let me demonstrate. [Smashes announcer's head in.]
  • we've had this in the uk since last year (i think). it's really good for nerdy types :)
    one of the shows dumped the scientists in spain (they didn't know that), and they had to pinpoint out their location, iirc.
    some other tasks have been to make ice(withough electrics, refrigerator etc), take a photo(using only natural substances etc.

    enjoy!

  • If they could... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Frank of Earth ( 126705 ) <frank@fPOLLOCKperkins.com minus painter> on Saturday September 28, 2002 @11:19AM (#4350251) Homepage Journal
    .. start a fire or catch a fish, then they would have beaten every person that has been Survivor.

    Every season of Survivor is the same with the same cast of idiots starving because all they can find to eat are coconuts that practically fall out of the trees and hit them on the head and maybe some snails that crawled into their sleeping bags.

    Pick up the damn fishing pole and catch some fish!

    • Real surviving (Score:5, Interesting)

      by rjamestaylor ( 117847 ) <rjamestaylor@gmail.com> on Saturday September 28, 2002 @11:57AM (#4350377) Journal
      No kidding. Did you see the real-life survivor story [google.com] this week about the Long Beach, CA man sailing his small sailboat to Catalina Island (truly a "three hour tour") but a storm rose and rendered his ship uncontrollable? He drifted for 3 1/2 months living on sea turtles, birds and fish until a San Diego-based warship found him near the coast of Costa Rica. He was healthy, though thinner, and even knew where he was and what the date was. Oh, did I mention he's 62 years old?

      Sure, he's a moron for not filing a cruise plan (er, the boating equivalent of a flight plan...whatever it's called) with the Coast Guard (but then, who really wants to voluntarily tell the gov't their every move?), or telling friends where he was going and when he'd be back...but he was a true survivor.

      And,. although he was very happy to see the US warship, he wasn't looking for a free ride home: he asked them to repair his mast and he would sail home on his own. That's freakin' impressive.

      • (I may have munged some of te details of the story, but that's why I linked to news.google.com, an awsome resource, for you to follow and be cleansed of my gross inaccuracies.)
      • I did read about this. He spent alot more time seeing how much he could eat than getting his ass back to land. Catalina Island is only 25 miles out and he drifted 2500 miles to Costa Rica without getting back to land. If your going to blue water sail, you have to learn how to survive dismasting and by survive I don't mean drifting into the southern ocean.

        • I'm in Southern California and have read and heard a lot of comments from seasoned sailors regarding Van Pham's plight. Nothing I've heard criticized him for failing to control his vessel--only failing to coordinate with others his sailing plans. Yes, these sailors may just be deciding to politely avoid embarrassing the gentleman for spending "alot more time seeing how much he could eat than getting his ass back to land," but it is more likely that you're just being hypercritical. Or, perhaps, you have special insight into sailing with damaged vessels... In any regard, you come off a tad bit insulting and arrogant.
        • (* He spent alot more time seeing how much he could eat than getting his ass back to land. *)

          Not a whole you can do anyhow if you lost your sales, no?

          Might as well munch. Did he cook them? Raw fish sounds icky, but I guess if you are starving then it would fill the spot.
          • Yes he cooked them - on a stove by burning bits of his boat. When the Navy found him they had to scuttle the boat because it was too damaged to tow.

            Frankly, I'd love to know what the previous poster would do in the guy's situation - you're on a sailboat with no mast, no motor, and a dead radio. There are no ships in your vicinity for 3.5 months (yes, this is easily possible). Are you going to row back to shore? I don't think so.

            For the record - one other ship did pass within visual range, but he was unsuccessful in signaling them. The Navy ship was only the second one he saw.
      • He was out there for 3.5 months and he didn't get scurvy?
    • well, from what I've caught when it's run on the Beeb, they've come up with (amongst others), sunblock, clocks, radio/transmitter, a rudimentary freezer and other nifty stuff.


      I'm pretty sure they'd be okay if they actually did have to rustle up food.

    • start a fire or catch a fish, then they would have beaten every person that has been Survivor.

      Yeah, no kidding. I watched exactly one episode of Survivor, one where they had to try to make a fire. It was like pulling teeth to see how stupid they were. They finally made a bow and were spinning it and getting a little smoke, but their tinder was laying two feet away... ARGH..

      Anyway, I didn't attempt to watch much more after that.
    • Well most likely the reason they never did all that? The script. yeah, come on you didn't think Survivor wasn't actually scripted?

  • they wont be able to out-do the professor (Score:3, Informative)

    by jest3r ( 458429 ) on Saturday September 28, 2002 @11:21AM (#4350257)
    The professor has a pretty impressive list of scientific / engineering accomplishments - i doubt anyone can top him:

    - a bamboo lie detector (hooked up to the ship's horn and the radio's batteries)
    - a coconut shell battery recharger
    - a bamboo telescope
    - a Geiger counter
    - jet-pack fuel
    - a bamboo xylophone
    - keptibora-berry extract to remedy Gilligan's double vision
    - an assortment of tonics, antiseptics, poisons, "spider cider" (to kill off gargantuan morning spiders)
    - soap made from plant fats
    - shark repellent
    - a pedal-powered bamboo sewing machine
    - lead radiation suits and make-up (protection from a meteor's cosmic rays)
    - a helium balloon (rubber raincoats sewn together and sealed with tree sap)
    - a strychnine serum that temporarily paralyzes Gilligan
    - an electrode linked to to a pedal-powered generator
    - pedal powered washing machine
    - pedal powered water pump
    - pedal powered telegraph
    - Mr. Howell's roulette wheel and pool table
  • Swedish television aired the series this spring. It was really fun to watch. In one episode they distilled etherical oils from plants for pharmaceutical purposes. They built the still from scratch using scrap. In the same episode they also built a wind turbine without proper tools and of course the generator to go with it. Survivors swedish version "Expedition Robinson" has nothing on this show. These people actually compete for fun, not to become class three celebrities. (famous for a short while due to bad behavior in public) See it ! Its really good! And yes, I like exclamationpoints!
  • We're all familiar with describing someone as a 'smoothie'. A person with a certain amount of charm, or who at least thinks he has charisma. A related term is 'smooth operator'. Such people might typically be working in marketing or public relations, or perhaps as politicians or a certain type of PHB.

    It doesn't take much thought to realize that the word 'smooth' comes from an association with being clean-shaven. After all, it is applied only to men. If you want more evidence, how about the epithet 'smoothychops'.

    Now consider a theoretician or a Real Programmer. Surely the first image that comes to mind is the possibly-overweight and heavily bearded man in loosely-fitting clothes. In a typical technology company, these people are at the opposite end from the marketroids; but despite their strong technical knowledge they may not always be able to apply it practically (to the end of making money, at least).

    So we have at one end the clean-shaven, 'smooth' but superficial and essentially useless marketing half of a technology company. At the other, the -bearded but also somewhat unrealistic technical side. But in the programme 'Rough Science', competitors are expected to have theoretical knowledge and also to apply it successfully. The title refers to the several days' stubbly beard growth a typical male scientist will get after a few days stranded on the island. This 'rough', newly-grown beard is a blend of the two facial hair types.
  • Sounds like TLC's Junkyard War's spinoff Escape from Experiment Island [discovery.com].
  • I've always wanted to see a futuristic version of Survivor where they're placed in a postapocalyptic environment (think Mad Max, Waterworld, etc.) where they have to build the same sort of contraptions as Junkyard Wars, all the while battling for food and clean water, fending off pirates and thieves, and whoever doesn't make it off the island or outside the perimeter before their machines break down loses.
  • ...or does this sound like reality-MacGyver? Oh yes with this shoestring, hydrosulfid and my pocket knife(tm) I can solve this problem in a pseudoscientific way. Good luck, but I think I'll stick to the notsoreal version, at least there things "work".

    Kjella
  • Geez, folks, come on... so it's a bit stupid. So what. Give them credit at least for trying to expose the unwashed masses to something remotely resembling scientific thought.


    What did you expect? Nova? Talk about preaching to the choir.

  • Anybody else find it disturbing that the task of making soap only comes in at the last show?
    Stinky scientists...

    • You don't really need soap to be clean. I good thing of running water, mini waterfall, etc and a decent scrubbing will get you cleaner than if you just quickly latered some soap and splashed around a bit.

      Previous articles mention soap killing both good and bad bacteria, and often enough, helping make more disinfectant-resistant bacteria.

      However, one wonders at their solution to toilet paper? Weeds would be itchy and long grass might leave one with a green posterior?
      Our next project is... self-manufactured preparation H - phorm
  • A year ago, in post http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=9q8np4$7t7@ne taxs.com , someone asked

    "Meanwhile, does anyone think that Survivor could be improved by combining it with Junkyard Wars?"
  • Would be great if it were a Scientist, Engineer and Economist.

    With the economist running around with crackpot assumptions that have nothing to do with reality and the Engineer to save them all!*

    *adapted from an old joke
  • I looked over the episode guide and there is
    clearly no reference to when the Harlem
    Globetrotters arrive.

    What gives?
  • Does this make anyone else think of one of the books from the old Danny Dunn series, where the trouble-bound kid is nephew of a brilliant scientist? I loved these books when I was a kid! The one titled Danny Dunn on a Desert Island [amazon.com] tells of Danny, his best friend, his uncle, and one of his uncle's peers, getting caught on a desert island.

    They turned being stranded into a competition and distributed points for whoever made the most useful inventions, such as a hot-water bath and homemade soap.

  • Why scientists? We should be sending politicians, lawyers, CEO's, and telephone sanitisers to these islands. I bet they would accomplish a whole lot more than scientists would...

    <CEO> ever since we adopted leaves as legal tender we've all become immensely rich.

    I would think that a team of engineers would be more interesting than scientists. Who knows.

    metric
  • The sales pitch sounds nice, but the programme's pretty boring. They don't actually sleep on the island or anything, they just try to do neat little examples, like making shampoo out of seaweed or building a music instrument.
  • Trapped somewhere with nothing but nature -- and a TV crew?

    Within a day, there would be a broadcast showing the crew tied up in the background with the 'subject' announcing to the network that they have 24 hours to get them out of here.

  • My favorite Episode was when Kirk... (Score:5, Funny)

    by shoppa ( 464619 ) on Saturday September 28, 2002 @12:54PM (#4350596)
    My favorite episode of this series was when Kirk, forced to battle the oversized Gorn, created a crude cannon out of various native materials.

    I repeatedly uttered "fascinating" while watching this episode from the viewscreen on the bridge.

  • "Martin, draw a plan for a coconut radio, and if possible, a coconut Nintendo system." --Bart, "Das Bus"
  • My wife works for DuPont. This is their press release which gives information about where it will be aired:

    Rough Science - DuPont will be the corporate sponsor of the BBC production "Rough Science" in which 5 scientists on a remote island are challenged to solve science problems through their collective wits, scavenged items and the natural resources of their surroundings. The program will air on PBS stations in many of the top markets including LA, NYC, Philadelphia, Houston, Dallas & Washington D.C. Air dates and times vary by market. Major funding for the program is provided by the National Science Foundation. DuPont is the only corporate sponsor and our 15 second messages will appear at the beginning and close of each segment.

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