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MythBusters - The Lost Experiments
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.
From the summary, it sounds like these guys are a step removed from Jackass. But seriously, when are they going to deal with the myth that Java "is just as efficient as C++ these days"
An old-timer with old-timey ideas.
When will they cover the Coca Cola Pesticide counter-myth?
I found it ok, but some of the things they did were a waste (who wastes a good bottle of Coke on a cleaning job? -_-;;)
I could've had that bottle...
Viable Slashdot alternatives: https://pipedot.org/ and http://soylentnews.org/
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.
do.what.promptcmds
I have relatives in the US who recently told me about the lack of quality on the Discovery Channel. I recall watching very good shows on it around a decade or so ago. True to their name, they focused on content that most traditional channels wouldn't bother to touch.
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.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
I'm not sure, but I think the water torture myth has something to do with watching a Sports Illustrated swimsuit shoot and not getting to touch...
Perhaps they should aim for an entry in the Guiness Book of World Records for busting the largest number of Myths on TV.
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Interesting... So how do you test a torture method that could possibly go on cable tv?
I've seen 3 of the 5 episodes that you've described, I'll describe what I can remember from them.
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.
All I get when I go to that page is the page header and a screen full of white.
Interesting... So how do you test a torture method that could possibly go on cable tv?
You call it "fighting terrorism" and declare that it is being done "in the name of freedom and liberty".
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
God I just love watching that cement truck explode!
If you've never seen it - dont miss it! - It's at the very end of the video
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
I actually watched the water torture one, by chance. It refers to the so-called chinese water drop - a person is immobilized, and drops of water drop on the same spot on their forehead, at a rate of one drop every 2 seconds or so.
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.
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Well flash is a standard by itself I suppose (and has a rather larger installed base (according to macromedia offcourse)).
But even when I enabled it for this possibly interesting site, all I got was a blank area where the content was supposed to be (with flash 7.0.x installed).
If these episodes are so lost how come I have seen them all on TV?
serenity now!
Anybody have a link past the flash? Or are they flash videos? Very useless.
Most of these were shown on TV in an outtakes show they did. I love the show, but don't understand why they are saying these weren't shown before.
I have heard it suggested that each segment of their show should be preceeded by a disclaimer explaining that what they're doing is not science, but is purely entertainment.
Many people mistakenly think that the MythBusters present the proper way of performing scientific experiment, and that they present verified scientific information. Indeed, watching even a single episode shows that they have very little scientific or engineering background.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
yes, but instead of SI, it's Kari in a bikini.
Karma: Negative (Mostly affected by dorm trolling)
dose anyone remember the old tv show conections
I have to admit it - I absolutely love the mythbusters show. Its a show allright - but wouldnt you rather prefer as how like this (being the geek you are) rather than those endless idiot-shows like wheel-of-fortune, jeopardy, tv-poker etc.?
;)
Sure, Jamie and Adam gets it wrong sometimes, but it inspires normal people to get an interest in science because theyre "naturally" funny and they like what they do, whats wrong with that?
You want to see bad stuff on Discovery? Watch Brainiac - probably the "WORST" science-wannabee show ever.
Being the "geek" I am, electronics all over my house theres nothing nicer than to come home from work to a little "tech" show about "normal people" dealing with things related to science they may or may not know about - and getting it out into the open. Its fun, makes tv background-noise worthy
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
Yes, No, No, Yes, and No. How the hell did you get +4 Informative when you only have 40% correct.
I really don't get the appeal of this show. I watched it a couple of times because I'd heard so much about it and it just seemed like complete crap. All of the expiriments I saw had such obvious flaws in the way they were excecuted so that they really didnt do anything that could prove if the myth was true or not.
I thought the Plywood flight myth was concerning a man who claimed to have been blown off the roof of a building under construction (several stories high) while holding onto a sheet of plywood. As the myth goes he managed to use the plywood as a sort of parachute and floated down to the ground unharmed. The Mythbusters apprentices did the actual leg-work in breaking the myth and found that the force against the wood was too much to handle and the board continually fell out of their hands. (they set-up some rig where one of the guys held onto the board, with an anemometer and such to test various forces) They failed to take into account the sheer determination a man falling to his potential death would have in holding onto his life-saving device.
The unexamined life is not worth living
Cyric, you are terribly off base! These guys are professionals who have a huge amount of hands on experience in material science. And these guys are doing a great job of introducing the basics of expiremental method to a wide audience. Is it perfect? Of course not. But you are comparing apples and oranges. While I would certainly appreciate some in depth programs on paricular aspects of science, just becuase Mythbusters is not this, does not make it worthless. I usually watch TV to relax. If I wanted a textbook education in physics I'd take a college course, not watch Mythbusters. While the information gained from the show may often be trivial, there are nontheless a great many useful tidbits to be gained from watching. Anf these guys are funny too!
:T:R:A:N:S:
Admit it...we watch the show because of Kari!
Maybe they don't play it on reruns but I've seen pretty much all of those "lost" segments.
Never heard of it until I went to my employer's house, who has all the channels (sans sports) that DirectTV offers. They had something on fabric roofs vs everything else. I think they kicked all that "weird" but good stuff to that channel.
Check your Adblock settings if your running it with Firefox. This caused problems with flash videos on my computer.
The bald guy and the producer basically tried to force that chick to slide on the wire with a piece of plywood above her.
Is that even legal in the United States? Their attitude was pretty fucking blase about what they were doing. The producer came off like a complete jackass who didn't give a shit about her safety.
I've seen these before, I think they were in fact on TV on the "MythBusters Outtakes" episode. Although I can't find a reference to this episode on the MythBusters website.
Forget Otter Ping-Ping - I want to know if Thai beaver really can shoot ping-pong balls! I knew a girl with a half-thai beaver, but I could never convince her to give it a shot, so clearly this is a job for mythbusters!
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Science in its most basic form is a system of acquiring knowledge, based on experimentation to find truth.
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.
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.
I don't understand how that's any different than merely filling the hull with air (which would of course cause it to float, as it would return the boat to the condition it was before it sank)
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
As it happens, she was pretty freaked out by it, which neither she nor anyone else was really expecting. It was very unpleasant to watch, I found. :(
When cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl
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.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
And before you ask, yes, I have seen it done.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
As for the power line myth - they didn't prove it by any means. Consider: 1) They didn't know the current on the wires above them, compared to the current of said myth, perhaps it wasn't very high voltage at the time? 2) They had a huge loopy coil of wire, something makes me think that there are more efficient ways of developing an inductive coil... The show is fun to watch, but it makes people who have sense ask a few more questions.
Almost always has HDTV rips. I usually watch these instead of my standard Tivo'd off cable ones because the quality is that much better.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
Seeing as how they're both tech/sci-oriented, why is it so difficult to comprehend that they will both cover some of the same stories?
/.'s visitors tend to be the "geeky" type &
Especially seeing as how:
A) regardless of age/maturity level - both digg &
B) there is a certain amount of crossover visitors as well
Um, perhaps if you tried to fill it with air, it would escape out the same holes that caused it to sink....last I checked, ping pong balls were slightly larger than an average molecule of N2 or 02.
*rofl*
(What was it modded informative? It's BS!)
With ping pong balls, you don't have to worry about the thousands of microcracks in the hull which would allow regular air to seep through. You only have to secure the hull so that there aren't any cracks bigger than 10 or 15 millimeters, since the pingpong balls make it so that you basically have air "molecules" that are ping pong ball sized and won't escape at any tiny hole.
I don't care what is it going to be moderate to, but after a couple of beers, I just had to say "WOW!"!!! Nice gift we got there!!!!
And yet an article that already violates Taco's guidelines.
Yup... no one likes to see a pretty girl cry!
(well, okay, there are some sickos out there, but that's another matter).
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I'm definately not a huge fan of flash for videos like this. yeah, it works for quick animations and menus and such, but this is a video, how about we pick a tried-and-true standard that everyone can play back, like Mpeg. or if you want to skimp on bandwidth, divx or xvid.
That being said this is perhaps the only time I've gotten flash videos to play on here correctly. Usually this box just shows a big "you need to download this" box and then it tells me that the appropriate plugin isn't available (firefox on linux). But this time it played, with sound and everything. not sure what they did that other people haven't but kudos to them.
And before people say "well you just need to install..." or "can't you install linux properly" or whatever else they want to say. I kinda like browsing without flash working. Saves me from tons of crap on the net, and half the the time I'm on windows I flat out disable it. Afterall, Slashdot/Gmail/ebay/plenty of other sites run fine, why should I allow more flash based pop-up-over-everything-until-I-Adblock-them ads to annoy me?
And back on topic. I've definately seen all of these before During shows On TV. It's hard to forget an episode where they blow up a concrete truck with TONS of TNT!
-=JML=-
I knew Discovery Channel went to the dogs when they dropped excellent shows like Discovery Wings and started showing crap like American Chopper.
At least they're not streaming WMV.
Why is it that when you believe something it's an opinion, but when I believe something it's a manifesto?
Are Slashdot comments moderated to +5 informative, really 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.
The REAL myth is that the water torture is dripping water on people. That's annoyance, not torture.
They would actually seal the person's mouth, shove a tube down their nose and pump water in slowly until the victim's stomach exploded. If it didn't explode on its own they would kick the victim in the stomach until it did.
Operate chopsticks?
Thai people don't use chopsticks, and there are precious few in the country (unless you go to a Chinese restaurant or are hanging out somewhere where there are a lot of Chinese tourists).
So this aspect of your story seems, well, apocryphal.
This one added for extra emphasis, the the mods don't seem to be noticing the other one.
He gives false summaries. It looks like he just guessed on every one.
Why is it that when you believe something it's an opinion, but when I believe something it's a manifesto?
Keep in mind when mythbusters say BUSTED. I am not sure if i have EVER seen a show that was actually "busted". It just didnt wokr in their very specific implementation.
But, when they say plausible, it is almost always actually plausible.
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
Yeah, anyone catch the Robin Hood episode? Why not just call in a trained archer, guys....I assure you, hitting the same spot isn't that hard. I'm no pro, and I've never managed to split an arrow to the base...but I'll usually destroy about one knock per hour, and I've destroyed 2 arrows so far by jamming another down the end. Ten metres with a basic unsighted recurve. I've seen it happen 7 times in the past 6 months, with people my age (15) using similar gear. I'm sure a pro with a sighted compound could manage it in a few minutes. Fools.
I don't use adblock, only noscript. But even after giving permission to all javascript sources and to run the plugin the screen stays empty. Konqueror works flawlessly (like suggested else where).
I wonder if they are ever going to show the video of the the card throwing experiment using metal cards? With the tivo you can see that the numbers are recorded on the data sheet but the experiment isnt shown. However from the data the results looked rather lethal.
I'm glad somebody else besides me finally sees OCC and American Chopper for what they are - when I watch the Discovery channel, its because I WANT to watch documentaries and engineering shows. They have basically tried to make the channel into MTV or VH1, but without the music.
What the hell ever happened to shows like Junkyard Wars, the robot wars show, and other cool engineering shows like them???
Thai people also don't smoke with their pussies, except at creepy strip joints.
ok people have got to stop stealing stories from digg and vise versa. makes me wanna choke a bitch!
Did you see the part of the show where they tested a piece of plywood's effectiveness as a parachute and basically found that it made the fall worse? I'm sure if you did the calculations anyway you would find that the force upward from the air resistance at some 30 mph would rip it out of the most determined hand. Its sort of like the belief that you can hold onto a baby in the front seat of a car and restrain it during a car accident, where even in a 15 g crash a 30 pound baby becomes 450 pounds trying to go forward.
Well yeah that's what they found but it wasn't really relevant. Is the guy strong enough to hang from a piece of plywood? I would certainly hope so.... he's fairly fit so I'm just sure he could. He could surely do a pullup or chinup. Perhaps the 4' span of the plywood was too far for the dude but a taller guy with a longer reach might be able to hold on better.
Could he hold onto the plywood while being strapped to the back of a pickup going down the road? No he could not, which means nothing. The wind was exterting forces on the plywwod that weren't all directed at liftng him.
Had he been lying down on a flatbed trailer a ways away from the truck holding onto a piece of plywaood that was perpendicular to the wind then the forces exterted would have been applied more to lifting him or in this case stretching him. If you set up a piece of plywwod hooked to a really big fish scale on the back of a trailer how much force would be applied to the scale at X speed? That would have been a better test.
G
While you're probably trolling, I think they did a good job of fleshing this myth out. The found that being restrained and blindfolded on an uncomfortable table made the torture worse than just water alone. Adam did the torture while sitting comfortably on a Barcalounger, and while he did last fairly long, he did eventually give it up (he claimed it was because he had to pee). The myth crew had the tough senarios, being chaned down and such. On the deleted clips, one of them (the non chineese dude) bet Adam and Jaime $20 each that he could go a total of 3 hours blindfolded, chained, and dripped on. As I recall, he didn't last more than half an hour, and this was in the security that he could stop the test anytime he wanted. I'd imagine it'd be much tougher when chained up in some chineese dungeon.
Congratulations on not understanding the myth. The myth is you can split an arrow from end to end on command like Robin Hood did in the myth. They proved that it is effectively impossible. No matter how good you are, you're at the mercy of the grain of the wood of the arrow. So it is impossible to split an arrow from end to end on command.
In the last clip, where they were testing aperson sailing from a height using a plywood sheet, at the very end when they were trying to persuade Christine to be the third guinea pig -- I mean test pilot, you could see the show's producer push her one last time to take the leap. I think she was kidding about asking for a raise, but they abruptly cut away thereafter.
Coincidence that she's no longer seen on the show? I think not!
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Uh, mod -1 Redundant? I hardly think that a high-class joint even in Thailand has women shooting ping pong balls out of her nether orifices. On a similar note, high class clubs in Mexico don't feature women pleasuring donkeys, either. That doesn't mean such things don't occur in their respective locales. I was in the Navy, and I know these things.
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!
The idea was (first of all) to try to prove or disprove what the hypothetical truckdriver was supposed to have done - which would not have entailed drilling a hole in the cement. After that failed, the point was to make the biggest bang possible. And they succeeded beyond all expectation - the sound even coming over the TV speakers was incredible. I agree that it would have been interesting to do any number of other experiments, but with explosives you only get one successful shot at it.
Less is more.
A couple of weeks ago I was in Mack's Discount Tackle in Lindale, Texas. While there a fellow that's a manager with the local Dr Pepper bottler came in. Being a Diet DP drinker I ask about DDP switching to sucralose. He said that all soft drink companies were trying to make the switch to sucralose.
Not necessarily because it tastes better, but rather because it has a shelf life that is twice as long as aspartame. 60 days vs. 30 days.
"Oh drat these computers, they're so naughty and so complex, I could pinch them." --Marvin the Martian
ok so they do do alot of "worthless" experements, but they are damn fun to watch. for example, they did this one myth about how during a crash a kleenex box could come from the back of the car, hit you in the head, and kill you.
clearly they could have figured it out by using p1=p2 and all of those other first year physics equations. but instead they built a dummy, and actually crashed a friggin car!
now, that is much more fun for me (and %99.9 percent of the population) to watch, and that is what they are after.
These have been on the website for months now. I watched them around 6 or so months ago. And yes, they are all from episodes that have screened, but these are BITS of them that were not aired. PAY ATTENTION PEOPLE! :D
I'm no chemist, but I imagine he was refering to lab shelf life, rather than store shelf life, and I'm not quite sure how that rates an 'oooh Yuck!' reaction...
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
...of Rocket Scientist, Brain Surgeons, Nuclear Physicists, and Assundry Brainiacs,
by the dW/dt invested in my office; I hearby banish you from our hallowed ranks, for poor taste, and viewing habits unbefitting a Uber Genius.
"Oh drat these computers, they're so naughty and so complex, I could pinch them." --Marvin the Martian
I'm glad somebody else besides me finally sees OCC and American Chopper for what they are
I completely agree! I don't have a problem with those shows per se, but they've been showing so many of them that it's saturated the channel to the point where I just don't watch it anymore.
Lately, if I watch TV it's either something like Jeopardy or History Channel. One of my favorite shows right now is Modern Marvels on History. They go over all sorts of very interesting topics from a variety of fields. Also of interest is Engineering Disasters, though they don't have very many episodes of that. For my SciFi fix, I download Stargate and Battlestar since I don't get SciFi with the cable package in my apartment.
Shows like American Crapper, er, Chopper are just the new pop-culture type engineering and documentary shows. Kids want to see "cool" and "badass" guys build stupid looking bikes. "Lookit me ma! I'm acting like a moron while skirting with breaking the law and riding my shiny new trike!" No wonder sites like MySpace are so populous anymore...
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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yep, it does. a bit. when you clean calcium carbonate off an electric kettle or rust of iron. but only because of the phosphor acid in it.
Conservatism: The fear that somewhere, somehow, someone you think is your inferior is being treated as your equal.
Water torture: they question whether or not water torture can be used to extract quality information from detainees.
Otter ping pong: they test whether otters play a form of ping pong with bundles of leaves and mud.
Live power lines: they test the danger of downed power lines.
Cement build up: they question whether solidified cement can be removed from a cement truck using dynamite.
Plywood fight: they test the myth that a kick can do more harm than a piece of plywood wielded as a weapon.
As Adam would say: Wrong, wrong, wrongity wrong.
Water torture: Kari, Scotty, Grant and Tory see how long they can withstand drops of water hitting them on the head while restrained. Nothing at ALL about "quality information".
Otter ping-pong: Footage of Adam being told that it is illegal to harm marine animals in the area they are shooting, followed by an otter stealing and playing with a ping-pong ball from the sunken ship they're trying to raise. The crew freaks out thinking that the otter will somehow kill itself with the ball.
Live power lines: They test the myth that you can get 'free' power from high voltage transmission lines by using a coil of wire near the live lines to generate current via induction.
Cement build up: More footage from the "Remove cement with dynamite" myth where they tell Tory to get in the truck full of hardened cement and remove it by hand. After an hour he's gotten less than a 5 gallon pail of broken cement, and looks ready to die.
Plywood flight: There was a planned 3rd flight by an intern who chickened out at the top of the tower and eventually refused to try jumping down a zip line with a sheet of plywood.
Good lord, for someone with so much know-it-all attitude, that was pretty awful guesswork. Thanks for playing, feel free to try again next week.
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
This was on Discovery On Demand awhile ago. Most places seem to use On Demand to advertise their network rather than provide an actual useful service.
Since they've already got the edited video, might as well put it on their website, too.
People keep complaining about how unscientific Mythbusters is, and I often see problems with their experiments, but personally I just like the creative ways they use their special effects skills to build test cases. It's just fun to watch, and it makes me wonder about the actual myths.
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.
[insert witty quote here]
Interestingly enough, both myths you talked about were tested by the B team (Kari, Grant, et al). The B team sucks. They don't seem to have much critical thinking power.
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.
There are other episodes where they test "Rare Event" and, as one would expect from a rare event, it fails to happen on command. The cell phone gasoline-vapor ignition is one that comes to mind. Or they test "Events That Take a Long-Ass Time," like soda eating through various objects. I have personally seen years-old old aluminum cans of Pepsi, stored indoors, that leaked from internal corrosion; maybe there's a new kind of liner now that prevents it or something, or maybe it just takes a long time. It didn't happen for them though, which makes it "busted." Good thing these guys don't design airplanes or spacecraft.
With great power comes great fan noise.
You know, I don't especially know why, but I feel compelled to chime in here. Look, I'm 23. I've got a BA from a liberal northeastern Ivy. I like Battlestar, even if it's a little cheesy sometimes. Jeopardy tickles me too. And I've been loving the History Channel lately. Catching the Lincoln biopic after coming home late this week was probably worth my cable bill in itself--and I pay Manhattan prices for my cable.
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.
I find water torture more effective when releasing one drop every forty five minutes - plus or minus a random number of minutes from one to five.
"What the hell ever happened to shows like Junkyard Wars, the robot wars show, and other cool engineering shows like them???"
I too miss Junkyard Wars. They actually showed people BUILDING things instead of fighting about building things. I mean, I'll watch Moster Garage because some of the stuff they make is pretty cool, but not without being frustrated that the camera is on the people rather than the car.
But it is funny you should bring up Battlebots. What happened to those guys? Well two of the contestants who made the most legendary bots, Blendo and Deadblow, they happen to be doing a TV show. Yeah, you might have heard of it, it's called....Mythbusters.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
Ya I like Monster Garage, most of the time, they make cool cars, but a lot of the time theres a few guys on the team that are outright assholes, and Myth Busters is ok, but some of the things they do are just stupid, or the myth is common sense. but as for shows like American Chopper, like I said, and the guy that started the post, and probly half the people that posted on it, it's not real engineering, or even bike building for that matter, its a bunch o guys that are supposed to be tough arguing, not coming up with insanely radical new bike designs or solving real engineering problems - like I said, they are trying to make the Discovery channel into something that interests the MTV/VH1/MySpace crowd, not real engineers or people that want to be engineers, hell its not even trying to get people to want to be engineers.
BTW: modern marvels and engineering disasters are AWESOME
Bullshit.
I live in Thailand, have done for the last 10+ years. Thais use spoon+fork for rice-based meals, and chopsticks+spoon for noodle dishes.
Just last night I had a nice plate of "bamee moo daeng" - yellow noodles with red pork - bought from a street vendor, eaten with - OMG!!1!1one!! - chopsticks.
How many times have you been told that the germans first used sloped armour when it was in fact copied by the german of captured russian tanks?
To be fair. It is not like discovery channel is hiding these facts. It also airs those docu's that tell a more complete world history. It just doesn't screen out the ones that are american centric.
Does it matter? Well I know that a program that says helicopters can't have ejection seat is telling lies. I then got to ask myself wich other lies is it telling I don't know about. If I tell you two facts and you know one of them is a lie then what reason have you got to believe the other one?
The mythbusters are prone to this problem as well. I know that a couple of the myths they bust are either false or just plain badly done. A poor example? The jaws special. Jaws was not a normal shark yet the entire docu through they try to reduce the shark from the size it is in the movie/book to real sizes because no shark so big ever existed. Wich is a lie. They have existed, the jaw bones exist to prove it. The movie/book never claims Jaws is normal. It is a freak and making it normal sized is pointless. Either examine Jaws or examine real sharks.
They do this often where they 'rewrite' myths till they no longer make sense.
It is not a bad program, just don't trust it to get all the facts straight.
Programs like the American Chopper are not docu's. They don't tell me anything but they are in a way just like those programs were you follow someone travelling around the globe showing you new things. American chopper ofcourse thought me nothing new. I already knew all americans are fat.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
You go modded +1 informative for asking a bloody question, so I think we know the answer.
Next, is +5 Funny actually funny?
J.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
...and load it smoothly enough that the lifting forces don't tear the hull.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
what does this have to do with News for Nerds... and how does this matter? I think this is an all time low for /.
Nom de dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperie de connard d encule de ta mere.
Heh. Arlington National Cemetery has a large installed base.
the article title " MythBusters - The Lost Experiments" makes me wonder how they got lost in the first place. wouldn't jamie have them stored in one of his anally organized containers? maybe between the rubber chickens and ammunition?
Actually in the water torture show they had 2 different setups for the water torture, one in which the person being tortured was just sitting on a comfy-chair, with no restraints and water dripping on his forehead and the other where the person being tortured was tied to a flat wood "torture table" and water driping on her forehead.
The confy-chair person had no problems whatsoever.
The person tied to a "torture table" panicked in less than 1h (even though she knew she would be released as soon as she asked).
The conclusion was that simply driping water in a person's forhead per-se doesn't work as torture. However, in combination with a "torture situation" (for example, bound to a flat wood table) it does work.
Interesting episode for those interested in psychology.
but a good chunk of burning wad as well.
Burning wad?
Yeah, maybe from a blunderbuss. The wads in modern mass-produced shotgun shells are plastic, just like the shells themselves. Walk downrange where people have been patterning their shotguns and you'll find them all over the ground. They don't burn.
If you have Coca-Cola from a soda fountain, it is significantly better. The carbonation is never correct from a bottle or can.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Yes, these are flash files. Flash may not be ideal for you but it is a darn sight better than streaming WMV or RM or Quicktime. Flash should be able to be viewed on the major three OSes; Windows, Linux, and Mac.
If you want to pull them down, then fine, do so. I managed to grab them all by using wget, which is incidentally avalable for all the above platforms. You can then use another tool to extract the videos from the flash files or just watch them in a flash player.
At least this way, you have....options.
Actually, the newest of those video clips have been up since shortly after "Mythbusters Outtakes" aired last spring, so if you've looked since last summer, there is nothing new. Many of the "Lost Experiments" ones were in that episode. If you haven't, do go and check all the video clips out....they are great! Mattfn
Come to the dark side.....we have cookies! www.Mythbustersfanclub.com
Yes, but that was not the myth.
The myth AFAIK was that you can start a fire by firing a pistol (with bullet).
And the B team spends as much time per myth as the A team, they just don't get as much usable footage out of it.
Between Discovery, TLC and the History Channel there is a lot of good educational content. Between the triumvirate there are more shows that tend to appeal to younger audiences (like miami ink, American Chopper, etc) than there used to be and recently TLC has been jumping on the home improvement bandwagon (which isn't all bad, especially as a homeowner) but there are still a lot of good shows like Modern Marvels, Extreme Engineering, Monster Garage, and then the specials that any given channel will do (Discovery does a lot on modern aircraft and structures, history of course on historical events, etc.) And I only watch about an hour of TV a day...
I do tend to find a lot of bones to pick with Mythbusters, but that's just because I'm a mechanical/aerospace engineer and I tend to see the misteaks they make in their setups. I like the concept. When my kids get a little older I hope to do real-time experiments with them in a similar fashion.
Somewhat amusing, yes. Real science, hardly ever.
A big problem is simply that they claim to bust myths, that myths need busting and that there are smart who don't believe in myths and stupid people who do, and that the TV People are the smart ones who should be trusted and emulated. Through this, people have their thinking subverted. --And it has less to do with crashing cars and splitting arrows. It has to do with the unstated walls of the prison in which those activities take place. When you watch television, the walls are just as much observed as are the dramas going on between them. On the Discovery Channel, is the male host wearing hot or cold colors? Is he seated above or below his female co-host? How do her mannerisms read versus his as he dictates the state of reality to her concerning vital subjects? --This stuff is regularly and deliberately manipulated and it goes in and it carries deep effect.
So many people are so very frightened of believing the 'wrong' things, and of being ostracized by society as a result, that television, and shows like Myth Busters, wield real power despite its goofiness.
--The basic undercurrent being that there are things we should feel embarrassed about considering or thinking of until the smart TV people with big budgets have validated everything for us. It links right in with the talking newsheads telling us how the world is, who is evil and who needs to be bombed, etc. --It wouldn't be such a problem if the TV didn't lull everybody who sits before one into a hypnotic state where all the information, right or wrong, gets buried deep in the subconscious, shaping our perceptions and behaviors and beliefs in ways we are barely even aware of but which manifest in very real ways.
I'll do my own experiments, thank-you very much. Television is most dangerous when it purports to tell us directly how reality works.
Television lies.
-FL
surely the point is that kids are reading. The Shakespeare can come later.
No, the point is that the kids are reading crap. Will the Shakespeare come later? Will American Idol and American Chopper watchers suddenly all go to the library and start reading Keats? You're dreaming.
Obligatory link to benchmark
r k.html
http://www.idiom.com/~zilla/Computer/javaCbenchma
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I think the aspect of this that broke a lot of them too easily is that they weren't keeping their minds on something else. They were focusing on what it was like and having to talk about how they were feeling and such. That just intensifies things like that and makes them worse. I'll bet the best ways to stand stuff like that is to put your mind in a totally different place and daydream really hard to make yourself as unaware of it as possible.
We may experience some slight turbulence and then...explode. -Capt. Mal Reynolds
"He's got wonderful plans for Minehead."
McDonalds has the exact correct mix usually. That, and if you can manage to find an old-fashioned soda fountain.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
I hereby sentence you to shut the fuck up until such time as you have actually left your home state to travel somewhere.
Enjoy!
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
"There are other episodes where they test "Rare Event" and, as one would expect from a rare event, it fails to happen on command. The cell phone gasoline-vapor ignition is one that comes to mind."
Well, is there a situation where this occured that has been documented? I mean if this happened in real life there would be extensive newspaper articles and TV news coverage. I suspect any documented ignitions would come from static electricity while someone just happened to be using a phone. And if you can't reproduce it under ideal conditions.....
Finally, they test the MYTH. Not whether something can happen. A lot of complaints occur because people don't pay attention to what they are testing. Like the difference between being able to set ships on fire vs a whole fleet. One is the myth, the other isn't. Some of yours fall into this category.
That's not to say there aren't problems. But fewer than you think. And the bulk of experiments done by scientists aren't any better....
Well they also do experiments that aren't practical for Average Joe viewer, like building a tree trunk cannon or trying to ignite fumes with a cellphone ring. Those are fun to watch.
I don't consider it dangerous if they 'tell me what to believe' because I can still decide to reject it anyway.
'Survivorman' gets a fire started with a rifle shell that he has removed the bullet from. Takes him a couple tries, but he does it.
"No, the point is that the kids are reading crap. Will the Shakespeare come later? Will American Idol and American Chopper watchers suddenly all go to the library and start reading Keats?"
Well, I do. But I guess your experience differs.
Who are you to pass judgment on popular culture, anyway? If no one's out there reading Gottfried's original, untranslated Tristan und Isolde, maybe it just isn't engaging for a modern audience in that form. I know plenty of people smarter than you or me who happen to enjoy shows like Fear Factor and Desperate Housewives, which, if you've got the imagination to make the stretch, are all just classics reinterpreted. This is not the downfall of civilization--on the contrary, if you ask me, it's evidence of a smart and discerning public.
But hey, it's Slashdot, so let's blame the user. Their fault for being stupid, right?
"Well there is no group by that name"
I got the name wrong. The group is:
alt.binaries.battlestar-galactica
The rips I'm talking about are 720 horizontal res, I think DIVX encoded sourced from HDTV. They are 700+ MB for a hour show (minus commercials) and are the sharpest I've seen. Not all posts are that good quality though. There are the SVCD and low bitrate DIVX/XVID ones.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
The wads in modern mass-produced shotgun shells are plastic, just like the shells themselves.
Um, since you're going to be removing the buckshot, I'm assuming you pack them yourself. DIYers tend to use cotton.
They actually tried a number of different plywood rigs, they took sheets of single ply (1/8" thick) and glued them together in various arrangements to construct a rough parachute (maximum surface area to weight) And still couldn't get it to keep buster from crashing.
All I took issue with was your hope that Shakespeare will come later. Let's be realistic here -- it won't (and it sounds like you partially agree?) All that about pop culture being evil, downfall of civilization, blame the user... I didn't say any of that.
:)
Interesting discussion style you have... I feel like you could get into a heck of an argument all by yourself.
He's statement specified shelf life in stores. I'm just going on his statement. FWIW. The ooo yuck was an atempt at humor as in stright from the mouth and thus oooh yuck.
"Oh drat these computers, they're so naughty and so complex, I could pinch them." --Marvin the Martian
You are seriously the biggest douchebag on Slashdot. This place is like the 'feminine hygene' aisle at your local supermarket, everybody here is a douchebag, but you sir, are the out-and-out biggest. Oh god.
ALL HAIL THE BEAST THAT ASCENDETH FROM THE PIT WITH HIS CUTE WIDDLE NOSE =^o.o^=
That's store shelf-file?!? Damn, I've gotten some dusty-ass cases of diet soda from my local grocery store before. I wonder of that load was...expired (or whatever soda does when it's past the 30-day)...
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Ah, yeah. Sorry I read too far into your comment.
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I always found the Diet Dr. Pepper advertising slogan amusing. "Tastes more like regular Dr. Pepper"... than what? Budwiser? Cough syrup? Horse piss? (For the record, I drink regular Dr. Pepper.)
On a side note, diet sodas taste infinitely better from a fountain, and I definately miss drinking pop from glass bottles. Plastic and aluminum alter the taste too much.
Why not? As far as I could tell, the myth was that you could get cemet out of a truck with a stick of dynamite.
Where's the definitive source of this myth, that says it can't involve drilling a small hole?
This explanation just reeks of the stupidity of the "hammer throw" (or whatever they called it) where they called it "busted" even through the hammer consistently reduced the surface tension. They just pulled a height out of their asses that was so high NOTHING could possibly have helped, so they pretty well pre-determined the outcome.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Unfortunately, at the very least, that leaves their "one or the other" myths as complete wastes of time.
See: Car Air conditioner vs. Open Windows, Coke vs. Tarnish remover, Salsa vs. Acid on Prison Bars, etc.
Also, having no standards what-so-ever doesn't lend much credibility to their "plausible" results either. They could easily have screwed-up a basic condition.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I live in Asia, you moron, and have for nearly 4 years now.
Admittedly, not Thailand (China), but I've been there several times as a tourist.
I've never been to Ohio, as it happens.
So how do you feel about Cops? (Seriously)
Writers imply. Readers infer.
Same deal, different values. The basic message being that, "Police are patient and good, while civilians are stupid and dangerous animals which need to be controlled." --And moreover, the message as regards to, Poor civilians.
If, for instance, a person watches COPS every week, then it is likely a low-level element of his/her thinking will voice itself through a strong emotional reaction when the idea of cutting back on police powers is brought to the table. When a neocon movement to further cut back on civil liberties and enact more Big Brother gestapo stuff, one of the building blocks of the public mind will be the public reality of the world as depicted by COPS. That building block, no matter how irrelevant or small a percentage it represents of a population's behavior, will hold an undue level of power in coloring the person's world view.
Joseph Goebbles depicted German Jews as vermin, showing scenes of rats racing through alley ways interspersed the scenes of Jews looking shifty. People watched this stuff, and made the emotional association of Jews with vermin. We've learned a lot since WWII. We've increased the effectiveness of the medium, (television versus film in its strobe effect, enhancing the absorption of the message). Now we know how to pin the 'desired' emotional value to a target population with much greater finesse, years in advance of the intended coup de gras.
-FL