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Adam Savage Revises Claim of Lawyer-Bullying On RFID Show
Nick writes "A few weeks ago a video of a talk given by Adam Savage of the television show MythBusters spread across the internet (including a mention on Slashdot.) On the video, Savage stated that the show was unable to produce an episode about previously known RFID vulnerabilities due to a conference call to Texas Instruments that unexpectedly included several credit card companies' legal counsel. TI (via a spokesperson talking with cnet.com) stated that only one lawyer was on the call and that the majority of the people on the call were product managers from the Smart Card Alliance (SCA) invited by TI to speak. Then Savage (via a Discovery Communications statement) reaffirmed that he was not on the call himself and that the decision was not made by Discovery or their advertising sales department but rather MythBuster's production company, Beyond Productions."
Ok, so they told him to revise his story to make them seem nicer or get the boot?
Methinks this is likely.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
I reject your reality and substitute my own!
"I really, really like my job."
SmartCard Bullying myth...
BUSTED!
That said, I'm amused that all it took was one lawyer and a bunch of product managers (no bias here, right?) to cow a production company into submission.
This sounds like the kind of statement someone was forced to read to avoid a PR problem, usually this occurs because a lawyer told him "you can't say that we will get in trouble!" to be honest I'm more likely to believe his first statement.
-Ours is the wisdom of Solomon, the magic of Merlyn, the fall of Icaris.
It sounds like the blame has shifted, but the point is still the same: they would like to do a show on RFID, but they were politically motivated not to.
become a cartoon. Maybe like Rocky & Bullwinkle. "Hey Jamie! Watch me pull our show's credibility out of a hat!"
I think it's safe to say that if he didn't have an intimidating phone call with a bunch of lawyers before, he HAS now. :)
TI is obviously hoping that by quibbling over details, people will manage not to notice that the core of the story hasn't changed.
#DeleteChrome
No, no, that's probably true! Discovery didn't make the decision, they just presented the choice to the production company to either not produce the show, or take a long walk off a short pier.
Beyond Productions made the decision of which option to take entirely on their own.
The enemies of Democracy are
...the story was accurate.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Why was there even a single lawyer in on such an innocent call?
That's not Picasso, that's Kandinsky!
... the lawyers put the thumbscrews on the production company and not on Discovery then? Wow, what a difference that makes. Boy, I feel the sudden urge to get an RFID implant.
Dude, have you worked with the legal department for a fortune 500 company? Our company policy is that if something is to be recorded, it must be scripted and the script approved by the legal department first.
Think Deeply.
Its not the first time that Mythbuster's has had obviously politically motivated skews on their production and/or results.
Like the time they were testing all the various myths involved in beating alcohol tests (Breathalyzer, etc) and were very careful to word their statements to say that no one method managed to beat all the different tests, and never specifying which methods beat which tests. Or the time they tested the fuel efficiency of drafting behind a big rig truck and spent most of the episode hamming up the potential dangers of tailgating.
To be fair though, in those cases it was more about Safety (translate Liability) as they could heavily damage road safety and Law Enforcement's ability to police it. Its like how in most fiction Ive seen, they always misquote the proportions of charcoal, sulfur, and salt peter that go into gunpowder, so the young and/or stupid won't go out and blow off fingers.
Common Sense isn't as Common as people think...
The decision was made by the Mythbuster staff in much the same way a man with a gun directed at him volunteers.
Anyone see "Wrong Trousers?" Gromit puts down the bat when feathers points the gun.
(Instant karma for using Wallace & Gromit!)
Counsel, absolutely. Chief counsel? Of all those companies? Unlikely.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
How the fuck did you arrive at the conclusion that debit cards are somehow more evil than credit cards?
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
>Discovery didn't make the decision, they just presented the choice to the production company to either not produce the show, or take a long walk off a short pier.
Beyond Productions is an independent Australian company and sells sometimes different versions to the UK and other countries (which also don't have the 'don't try this at home' stuff and where you can say things like 'sperm' on TV), they could very well do it in this case as well.
Different network, same torrent.
You know that's not possible? So you tried it, eh? Please, post the details of your experiment.
Why would you try it with a sim for a plane of a different model than the one that hit the Pentagon? Flight 77 (with a former co-worker of mine and his whole family on board) was a 757.
Of course, why let facts get in the way of a good batshit conspiracy theory?
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
I can see it happening if the Companies in question wanted underline how serious the issue is. Nothing says "we're gonna stomp you" better than saying "This is George, he's chief legal counsel for my Company. Now what were you saying?"
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
It's harder to dispute fraudulent charges on a debit card.
>attempt to fly the same path as pentagon plane (Including being in ground effect for 1km before hitting the building),
Gotta say, when you're in ground effect, the problem isn't the flying, but the opposite: you can't get the dumb plane on the ground. It just floats merrily along. But if there's something that sticks up in your way, boy howdy there's no problem running into it (like, say, the runway edge lights.)
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Really? You've never seen a MasterCard with PayPass? My bank replaced my old debit card with one over two years ago.
Granted, the only place I've seen that accepted PayPass was at a Sheetz, and it didn't seem to work. But they're definitely out there.
I just gotta say, Beyond 2000 was an awesome show! I miss it.
In the city of Fortaleza, a local newspaper once declared that half the councilmen were disonest. However, due to the strong political reaction (and a number of threats), the same newspaper decided to "step back" the following day, by declaring that half the councilmen were honest.
More precisely this event happened in 1965 and those that can read Portuguese may check it out here.
Are you saying there were no bodies, or were you saying there were two?
Allyn E. Kilsheimer, CEO of KCE Structural Engineers (a company involved in providing emergency engineering and post-collapse assistance) said "I held parts of uniforms from crew members in my hands, including body parts."
Of course, once you reach the level of batshitness you've achieved, you can simply ignore his testimony by saying "they got to him too!"
And I'm sure you simply don't accept the claim that the remains of 184 people were identified; surely "they" got to all 102 DNA analysts, sample processors, logistics staff, and administrative personnel at the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory. It's a DOD facility, after all.
Are you saying there was no debris from the plane? That's simply incorrect; hell, you can even see photos of a bunch of it at this batshit conspiracy site. And photos of the plane debris inside the building (where, in answer to your question about the lawn, most of it ended up, in agreement with conservation of momentum) can be seen at this somewhat less batshit crazy site. And some more photos here. And more photos, with amazingly detailed analysis, here
But I'm sure "they" got to the owners of all of those sites.
757. If you can't get that much right after being corrected, I don't see any point in talking to you further.
Like most of the plane, the tail and wings got shredded, and ended up inside the building. As Mete Sozen, a structural engineer who studied the impact in computer simulation, put it, "At that speed, the plane itself is like a sausage skin. It doesn't have much strength and virtually crumbles on impact."
It's like shooting an aluminum foil origami crane out of an air cannon at high speed, through a stack of steel cheese graters, and then demanding "where's the crane's tail? There must be a trick!"
Into a building? One as hardened as the part of the Pentagon that was hit? Please, name me one similar crash.
Oh, and by the way, regarding your original question about simulating the piloting of the crash, see this:
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Peter Griffin: [after "Family Guy" returns to Fox with new episodes, after a few years off the air] Everybody, I got bad news. We've been canceled.
Lois Griffin: Oh, no! Peter, how could they do that?
Peter Griffin: Well, unfortunately, Lois, there's just no more room on the schedule. We've just got to accept the fact that Fox has to make room for terrific shows, like "Dark Angel", "Titus", "Undeclared", "Action", "That '80s Show", "Wonder Falls", "Fastlane", "Andy Richter Controls the Universe", "Skin", "Girls Club", "Cracking Up", "The Pitts", "Firefly", "Get Real", "Freaky Links", "Wanda at Large", "Costello", "The Lone Gunmen", "A Minute with Stan Hooper", "Normal, Ohio", "Pasadena", "Harsh Realm", "Keen Eddie", "The Street", "American Embassy", "Cedric the Entertainer", "The Tick", "Louie", and "Greg the Bunny".
Lois Griffin: Is there no hope?
Peter Griffin: Well, I suppose if all those shows go down the tubes, we might have a shot.
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i thought it was awesome, until i lost my keys on a bike ride and some tool promptly spent $200 at the gas station. and i mean PROMPTLY, the transactions all happened while it was still out riding. anyway, i was put off by it at that point. the concept that possession of that little stick means verification of identity is kinda scary. i mean, i have ASK FOR ID on the back of my credit/debit cards and usually give a little "you gonna read the back" if they forget. with the speedpay/RFID model, they never see the card, i just wave it like a magic money wand. RFID has lots of great uses, but i don't really want my money tied to it...
Adam: Don't do anything like piss off the credit card companies at home.
Jamie: EVER!!
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...