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MythBusters Bust House 631

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."
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MythBusters Bust House

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  • Busted! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @09:15AM (#38290222)

    Professionals my ass. I can do more damage than that by trying that at home, amateurs.

  • by NoNonAlphaCharsHere ( 2201864 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @09:16AM (#38290234)
    Jumping up and down, clapping his hands and giggling with glee.
  • Interns? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @09:16AM (#38290242)

    One of the interns who are never visible on the mythbusters episodes probably did it. I think they just photoshop in Jamie and Adam on most episodes.

  • Remember (Score:5, Funny)

    by broginator ( 1955750 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @09:16AM (#38290244)
    Don't try any of this at home. They're what you call "professionals".
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      Yes "professionals" performing "scientific experiments." That professionals line always makes me laugh.
      • Re:Remember (Score:5, Insightful)

        by rtfa-troll ( 1340807 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @09:24AM (#38290334)
        "Professionals" means that, unlike us slashdot posters, they get paid for being insane.
      • Re:Remember (Score:5, Funny)

        by L4t3r4lu5 ( 1216702 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @09:35AM (#38290492)
        They're professionals in the same way as Top Gear's Clarkson, May and Hammond are "professionals"; They dick about destroying stuff for entertainment, but have backgrounds in Seerius Bizniss.

        Someone once compared that show to Last of the Summer Wine; Three old men getting into mischief.
        • Re:Remember (Score:5, Insightful)

          by gurps_npc ( 621217 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @09:59AM (#38290806) Homepage
          Wow, did Top Gear's Clarkson, May and Hammond work as professional drivers before they got their show?

          Because Savage and Huneman worked as professional special effects artists before they started in Mythbusters.

          That is what made them professionals. Support your claims.

          • Re:Remember (Score:5, Insightful)

            by tompaulco ( 629533 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @10:29AM (#38291096) Homepage Journal
            That makes them professional special effects artists. It doesn't make them professional ballistics experts, or professionals in about 90% of the stuff that they do. It only makes them professionals in those 10% of episodes where they fake up something at the end to show how a video was faked. The rest of that stuff, they have no business doing and are just as likely to have an accident as you or I, except that they probably have professionals helping them that only rarely appear on camera.
          • Re:Remember (Score:5, Insightful)

            by technos ( 73414 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @10:58AM (#38291470) Homepage Journal

            Clarkson and May were both automotive print journalists and reviewers/presenters on the old, more serious 'Top Gear', and Hammond was a professional radio and TV host, including a stint on 'Motor Week'.

            In addition, they're all giant children.

            So yes, they're all experts at what they do; Talk about cars and act like children on television.

      • Re:Remember (Score:5, Insightful)

        by elrous0 ( 869638 ) * on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @09:45AM (#38290644)

        Obligatory xkcd [xkcd.com], for smug dipshits who feel the need to inject "They're not REAL scientists" into every Mythbusters thread.

    • Yes because unlike most do it at home they have insurance to cover it.
      I mean if they did that in a bomb range. What would happen if average joe did it in their back yard.
      • Re:Remember (Score:5, Insightful)

        by tophermeyer ( 1573841 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @09:41AM (#38290586)

        I mean if they did that in a bomb range. What would happen if average joe did it in their back yard.

        For me your point raises an interesting thought. Who are these people that are living within cannon shot of a bomb range? And would they really be all that surprised when some of their things accidentally get boomed?

    • Re:Remember (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Overzeetop ( 214511 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @09:27AM (#38290396) Journal

      Professional really just means you have insurance for when you screw up.

      • Re:Remember (Score:5, Informative)

        by TubeSteak ( 669689 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @10:36AM (#38291184) Journal

        Except in some episodes with guns, the Mythbusters always show that they have a professional gun or explosives guy around.
        The Mythbusters may be certified to do pyro and explosives, but they take care to show on TV that they have an outside expert, usually from law enforcement.

        If they were shooting off home made cannons at the Alameda County Sheriff's Department bomb range,
        then they probably had the Alameda County Sheriff's Department bomb squad present to supervise.

        Having insurance just means that you have to follow whatever protocols your insurer demands.
        Their premiums are definitely going to go up after this accident.

      • Re:Remember (Score:5, Informative)

        by mike2R ( 721965 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @10:42AM (#38291262)

        As someone who has written a fair amount of sales copy for services, I can tell you categorically that "professional" means that we intend to get paid for it.

  • by jabberw0k ( 62554 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @09:17AM (#38290246) Homepage Journal
    To shoot a cannon-ball from San Francisco to Dublin is quite a feat. Wait, not that Dublin?
    • by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @09:30AM (#38290426)
      Myth: can you build an intercontinental projectal. With duct tape and cheese.
  • Funny Stuff (Score:4, Interesting)

    by methano ( 519830 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @09:17AM (#38290252)
    So the cannon ball flies through the neighborhood at 4:15 PM when all the kids are coming home from school and tears through a house where the parents and kids are sleeping.

    So why are they sleeping in the middle of the afternoon?

    Just curious.
    • Re:Funny Stuff (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Hatta ( 162192 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @09:25AM (#38290346) Journal

      I'm guessing they're new parents.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by JSBiff ( 87824 )

      Since you've apparently never been explained the meaning of the word "nap", let me provide a link to the definition:

      http://www.thefreedictionary.com/nap [thefreedictionary.com]

    • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @09:46AM (#38290648)

      Really? That's the part of the story that makes you say hmmm? The fact that reportedly a 6-inch cannonball fired from a homemade cannon busts through a cinder-block wall, then bounces off a hillside, then flies 700 yards and bounces again, then goes through a front door, bounces up a stairway and into a bedroom where it proceeds to bust through a stucco wall, and after all that, still had enough energy to fly over to a neighboring house hitting its roof and destroying a few roof tiles, crosses a six lane highway (still in the air, presumably) over into another neighborhood and crashes into a parked minivan shattering its windshield and destroying its dashboard is all copacetic with you, but taking a nap in the afternoon makes the story hard to believe?

  • by Securityemo ( 1407943 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @09:18AM (#38290264) Journal
    and still having enough force to skip across the road and bounce off a roof? You'd think that friction would have stopped it. Wonder what the stairs looked like afterwards.
    • by Shirogitsune ( 1810950 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @09:23AM (#38290326) Homepage
      Slather it with enough lard and you don't have to worry so much about friction. ;)
    • by gurps_npc ( 621217 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @09:55AM (#38290756) Homepage
      Momentum is a killer. Heavy weight + even low speed = will not stop.

      Back when they used cannonballs in war, they used to fire "ground balls". The balls would bounce along on the ground, moving rather slowly.

      Ineveitably some newbie would see it and try to stop it with his foot.

      The next day they call those newbies "Stumpie" .

  • by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @09:18AM (#38290266) Journal
    We were just investigating claims that the house was haunted.

    By looking at the trajectory of the projectile between the entry hole in the house and the entry hole in the car, along with the complete lack of ballistic ectoplasm at the scene, I think we can conclude that myth to be busted, either by the scientific method or extreme prejudice, we aren't quite certain...
  • by xollox ( 2489800 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @09:21AM (#38290286)
    It was definitely Belleci, Imahara and Byron. They were posting all sorts of pics of it on twitter (which have since been removed.)
  • MythBusters (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @09:21AM (#38290288)

    Having run out of myths, those at MythBusters have to broaden their definition of "busting"...

  • by elrous0 ( 869638 ) * on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @09:21AM (#38290296)

    They shot a cannonball all the way from Alameda to Ireland?!? Holy shit, those guys are good!

  • by LoRdTAW ( 99712 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @09:22AM (#38290302)

    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.

  • NIMBY's (Score:5, Informative)

    by linguizic ( 806996 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @09:22AM (#38290304)
    I guess the NIMBY's were right... ...but anyway, the Alameda County bomb range is in a fairly populated area. I'm amazed this hasn't happened before. Here's a map of the area [google.com]. Point A is approximately where it landed, which is not far from the park and ride I used to use. The dark brown patches to the northwest of A is where the bomb range is.
    • Re:NIMBY's (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Zironic ( 1112127 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @09:26AM (#38290360)

      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.

      • Re:NIMBY's (Score:4, Informative)

        by Nutria ( 679911 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @09:42AM (#38290590)

        It takes NIMBY to quite another level when you build the backyard in question on top of what you don't want there.

        Happened quite frequently in the 1970s and 1980s, with fresh suburbanites screaming about noise from airports that had existed for decades.

        • Re:NIMBY's (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @09:55AM (#38290762)

          Happened quite frequently in the 1970s and 1980s, with fresh suburbanites screaming about noise from airports that had existed for decades.

          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.

    • Not On My Mini Van! (Score:5, Informative)

      by Thud457 ( 234763 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @09:43AM (#38290610) Homepage Journal
      Wikimapia says the bomb range is here [wikimapia.org]
    • Re:NIMBY's (Score:5, Informative)

      by Rary ( 566291 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @10:17AM (#38290980)

      With the combined magic of Google Street View plus the images in the linked article, we can be more specific than that.

      This image [tinypic.com] shows the cannonball's trajectory. Location #1 is the house that the cannonball went through, apparently entering through the front door and exiting through the rear wall. Location #2 is the driveway in which the cannonball came to a stop in a minivan.

  • by will_die ( 586523 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @09:25AM (#38290344) Homepage
    Here they have a story about a cannon ball destroing a car, or just damaging it, and knocking a hole in the house and they think that people want to see 2 pictures of the police telling the reports that a cannon ball knocked a hole in the house.
    Who really cares about the police show us more pictures of the hole and the vehicle.
  • by Plastic Pencil ( 1258364 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @09:34AM (#38290478)
    At least until they "accidentally" create a singularity that destroys half a state, and permanently alters the rules of our relative space-time.
    • by tnk1 ( 899206 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @10:14AM (#38290958)

      At least until they "accidentally" create a singularity that destroys half a state, and permanently alters the rules of our relative space-time.

      And today, a Very Special Mythbusters at the Large Hadron Collider!

      Myth: Creating Strange Matter and allowing it to escape containment could cause the Earth to be completely converted to Strange Matter and end life as we know it!

      Will it make a boom? Let's find out!

      Coming soon December 12, 2012!

  • Myth Busted (Score:5, Funny)

    by JoeRobe ( 207552 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @10:15AM (#38290970) Homepage

    I'd like to see them try to replicate the "myth" that a cannonball that is initially fired at a bunch of water can wind up skipping off a hill, go through a house 700 yards away, go through 6 lanes of traffic and come to rest in a car.

    They probably won't be able to do it again and declare it busted.

  • by RyuuzakiTetsuya ( 195424 ) <taiki@co x . net> on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @10:31AM (#38291116)

    I thought they conclusively demonstrated that it's plausible if not outright confirmed most of the time, it actually IS Lupus.

    never mind.

  • Nobody hurt, good (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Peter Simpson ( 112887 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @11:31AM (#38291912)
    Now the tone can be set by Mythbusters' actions. The right thing to do, is first, to repair the damage. Not pay for it, not file an insurance claim, but send a first class home repair crew over to make the house better than it was before. Deliver a better minivan to their driveway tonight. Next, in person apologies (and a night out or free passes to a Mythbusters shoot, their choice) by those involved, and Adam and Jamie. Explain carefully what your plans are to prevent anything like this from ever happening again. Do it fast, do it right and you come out looking good. Get the lawyers and insurance companies involved and ask the family to sign settlements and it all goes to heck in a handbasket.
    • by brusk ( 135896 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @01:08PM (#38293114)
      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.
  • by Jon.Laslow ( 809215 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2011 @12:18PM (#38292564) Homepage Journal
    Although they've since been taken down, Kari, Tory, and Grant tweeted pictures from the bomb range yesterday, including said canons. Reproduced on my blog: http://laslow.net/2011/12/07/mythbusters-and-damage-control/ [laslow.net]

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