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."
Up stairs and through walls (Score:5, Insightful)
Its not their problem (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Remember (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Remember (Score:5, Insightful)
What is wrong with journalism. (Score:5, Insightful)
Who really cares about the police show us more pictures of the hole and the vehicle.
Re:Funny Stuff (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm guessing they're new parents.
Re:Footage (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:NIMBY's (Score:5, Insightful)
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:Not to be too pedantic (Score:5, Insightful)
You do realize that stories are submitted well in advance of when they're actually posted, right? Sometimes DAYS in advance.
Re:Its not their problem (Score:5, Insightful)
It is their problem if the Alameda County Sheriff's Department gets cold feet (or sued) and doesn't want to do any more myth busting.
Re:Remember (Score:5, Insightful)
Professional really just means you have insurance for when you screw up.
Re:Its not their problem (Score:4, Insightful)
My guess is that the cannonball bounced off of one of the backing berms, the "hill" being spoken about in the news.
Re:Remember (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
Obligatory xkcd [xkcd.com], for smug dipshits who feel the need to inject "They're not REAL scientists" into every Mythbusters thread.
Re:NIMBY's (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Remember (Score:5, Insightful)
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:Adam was quoted as (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, me too. Cept I don't have a minivan. I'd probably want them to autograph the wreckage too and get a certificate of authenticity and all that. I might actually be annoyed with the house thing though but I imagine Discovery is good for it.
Still, this brings up an important security issue. I always thought that bomb ranges were, I dunno, more secure? If the Mythbusters stuff can get out of there, shouldn't conventional explosives be able to also?
Re:Remember (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Re:Remember (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Remember (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not to be too pedantic (Score:5, Insightful)
People are not arrested and prosecuted for accidents. They were at a bomb range, not recklessly firing cannon balls in the middle of residential areas. They took appropriate precautions, but shit happens, and their insurance pays for the damage.
If anything the Mythbusters are too careful. It's clear not just from their "don't try this at home" every half hour but from everything they do that they're expected to exemplify caution and thorough planning in all circumstances. And they have a big-ass staff to do it; not just the entire crew at M5 but a lot of people at their insurance company examine and clear every stunt.
No, any jury or civil judge would inevitably conclude that the Mythbusters were careful to a fault. They'd ask for a free T-shirt, tell the insurance company to pay up and the victims to quit bitching, and send Adam and Jamie on their merry way.
Re:Not to be too pedantic (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not to be too pedantic (Score:4, Insightful)
No, obviously they didn't.
That isn't "obvious" at all, unless you have some insider information. Sometimes, even if you take all precautions that seem necessary, shit happens. The fact that something went wrong is not in itself evidence of carelessness.
Re:Adam was quoted as (Score:5, Insightful)
A good question. My guess is no. This one rolled. So heavy round things hurled with extreme directed force should be avoided at this range (in other words, cannons).
It does raise questions, though. I'd like to see cops answer this one.
Re:Not to be too pedantic (Score:2, Insightful)
"Appropriate precautions" doesn't mean "guarantee nothing goes wrong".
There will be investigations to make sure appropriate precautions WERE taken. Maybe they were, maybe they weren't. Certainly having video of "oh-my-god-that-was-amazing" post-oops reactions of the guests will probably prove to be problematic considering the scope of actual damage, but that doesn't by itself mean that the event wasn't being taken seriously.
Re:Remember (Score:5, Insightful)
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:Not to be too pedantic (Score:5, Insightful)
That's nothing. You can be arrested for resisting arrest.
Re:Adam was quoted as (Score:1, Insightful)
I am not sure why you have such a hair up your ass about them but I assure you.
Given half a chance at being paid good money to "fuck around and blow shit up"?
I would murder 3 people and kick a small animal for the chance.
Re:Not to be too pedantic (Score:4, Insightful)
People are not arrested and prosecuted for accidents.
Want to bet?
Yes, I will bet you a large sum of money that no one will be arrested and prosecuted for this accident. How do you want to handle the wager? Some sort of escrow? How long do we have to go before you'll admit that those ne'er do well Mythbusters got away with it scott free? Because I don't want five years from now you still saying, "It's still possible that they could be arrested!"
Re:Not to be too pedantic (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not to be too pedantic (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Not to be too pedantic (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Remember (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nobody hurt, good (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not to be too pedantic (Score:4, Insightful)
The TV news report says that the cannonball completely missed the water barrels and cinderblock wall that were supposed to stop its journey.
Re:Not to be too pedantic (Score:5, Insightful)
Saying their 3rd overall priority for the entire series is a tie between Rogen and "shitty promos of Obama" based on the fact that they had *one* segment of *one* episode about Obama pretty much proves that you're irrationally attacking them because you, personally, for whatever reason, hate them.
As for them testing myths that are clearly true or false to anyone who understands Newton's laws. . What's your point? The show puts myths to the test. It wouldn't last very long if every segment was Jamie saying "Well this would be fucking obvious to you viewers if you weren't science retards."
A lot of myths are obviously bullshit to people who are well-versed in whatever subject the myth is about. The show is aiming at people who are not well-versed in those subjects, but who are interested in learning something about them (and who like something to blow up from time to time, which really is most of us ;) ). It's pretty obvious to me that if the powerful radar in the nose of an airplane, not to mention the air-to-ground phones installed in the plane, and the radios, and all the other emitting electronic devices don't screw up the instruments in the cockpit, then my cell phone certainly won't. But to people who don't have experience with radio communications, or who don't even know that airplanes have all those things installed in them, it might not be quite so clear. Doing an episode about that myth, therefore, makes sense - a lot more sense than opening and closing the segment with "Do cell phones interfere with airplanes? No. Duh."
Rather than insulting viewers by telling them that if they actually knew something they'd know the myth is BS, this show presents the information in a more entertaining and accessible way. I feel fairly safe in guessing that you'd agree with me that science education in the US is largely crap, which is why so many people fall for bullshit like life force bracelets and other stupid products. As we therefore have a large population of people who might be perfectly fine in the intelligence department, but nonetheless ignorant about aspects of science, a show that gets people interested even in a peripheral way about science or, at the very least, the scientific principle that you don't just randomly believe any crap you hear about, but test it out to see if it's plausible, is in my book a pretty good idea.
Plus, being pissed off at the 2 cohosts for not being physicists when they never claimed to be physicists, and specifically state in the intro to the show that they're movie prop makers, is kind of silly. They're two reasonably intelligent people who are very good at making custom devices and are therefore ideally suited for an "average joe wants to know about this myth" show.
I certainly don't make the claim that the Mythbuster crew is composed of scientists or that the show is about rehashing science that everyone should, according to you, already know. But Mythbusters doesn't make that claim either.
I suspect your version of the show would be very much more scientifically rigorous and educational, and thoroughly grounded in whatever discipline the myth-of-the-day required.
I also suspect that no one would watch it.