Slashdot Mirror
MythBusters Bust House
ewhac writes "The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that the MythBusters accidentally sent a cannon ball hurtling through Dublin this afternoon, punching through a home, bouncing across a six-lane road, and ultimately coming to a rest inside a now-demolished Toyota minivan. Amazingly, there were no injuries. The ball was fired from a home-made cannon at the Alameda County Sheriff's Department bomb range, and was intended to strike a water target. Instead the ball missed the water, punched through a cinder-block wall, and skipped off the hill behind. Prior to today, the MythBusters had been shooting episodes at the bomb range for over seven years without major incident. It is not clear whether Savage/Hyneman or Belleci/Imahara/Byron were conducting the experiment."
MythBusters isn't at fault here, the Alameda County Sheriff's Department bomb range is. Its their job to ensure the safety of any tests conducted on their site. Half the time you see sheriff whats-his-name preparing the explosives and one of the MB crew pushes the button to make boom. This will probably result in a few sensationalist headlines, insurance claims and the bomb range building bigger hills out of dirt. Case closed.
"Professionals" means that, unlike us slashdot posters, they get paid for being insane.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Are you kidding? That's ratings GOLD, my friend. Hell, Discovery will probably promo the shit out of it.
The only way you wouldn't see footage like that was if someone got seriously hurt or killed. And even then they would probably do a very special "tribute" episode.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Well, in this case the bomb range was built first, and then they build houses around if afterwards. It takes NIMBY to quite another level when you build the backyard in question on top of what you don't want there.
Obligatory xkcd, for smug dipshits who feel the need to inject "They're not REAL scientists" into every Mythbusters thread.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
So, airport exists in the 1950s. This airport gets occasional traffic from prop planes, mostly daylight hours when no one is around. Hence, people don't worry about the noise, and build homes near the airport.
Air travel booms in the 60s/70s/80s. Jet engines are introduced; noise is probably 10x - 100x what it was before. Wouldn't you complain?
Some idiot air travel company tried to do that in our neck of the woods recently. "Let's extend the runway for your minor use airport by 1000' - it's a safety issue for our pilots!" Bullshit. It's a way to bump the airport from "minor use" status to the next step up, which is cargo planes taking off and landing 24/7. I don't mind "minor use" - I like seeing the light aircraft taking off/landing/flying overhead, especially in the summer when they bring in the old WW2 aircraft - but I do mind cargo jets taking off/landing over my "suburbanite" home, because they are many orders of magnitude louder than all the other aircraft we've got going here right now.
Needless to say, that idiot air travel company was tarred & feathered & run out of town.
Because Savage and Huneman worked as professional special effects artists before they started in Mythbusters.
That is what made them professionals. Support your claims.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
They also achieve 4 worthwhile goals:
1) They get people interested in science.
2) They show scientific experimentation using a variety of tools.
3) They entertain.
4) See #1
Dude, they were at a police bomb range, under police supervision. Nobody's getting arrested (though some wrists are going to be slapped). The biggest question is whether or not they'll be permitted to keep using the range.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
That's nothing. You can be arrested for resisting arrest.
A large percentage of what they do on the show is strictly for entertainment value. Many of the so-called myths they test, and the methods they devise to test them, are completely predictable by anyone with any common sense, yet they perform the "tests" anyway because they involve entertaining car wrecks, explosions, fire balls, or Adam ending up in pain and/or puking.
It's a TV show, so 100% of what they do is strictly for entertainment value. It just so happens that they've managed to capture parts of the scientific method in ways that end up being entertaining. The fact that many of their experiments are predictable isn't a mark against them, either - science is about formally testing and verifying any kind of knowledge, and sometimes, even when we think the answer is obvious, it turns out differently than we expect and we learn something from it.
No, the biggest question is that: 'Will they air the accident sequence and the resulting damage'? I REALLY think that they should, it is a good lesson as to why you do not try this stuff at home.
Why is it that most of the people that I encounter seem to have been shat from the Sphincter of Mediocrity?
Bad plan. If you don't get the lawyers involved and ask the people involved to sign a waiver, your "gift" will count for nothing: they can say "thanks for the new minivan" and still sue you for the loss of the old one (and in court the act of doing all this so quickly might be taken as a sign of guilt). Sometimes you do need to call in the lawyers and insurance companies, and this is one of those times. It would probably also be a no-no not to inform your insurer about an event like this, since when your policy is up for renewal it does not look good to have hidden a previous accident.
.sig withheld by request