I seem to remember--years back on the Discovery Channel--microchip components being glued together. Now most people use a wavy line of glue on the back of tile--and after years of wear, you can see the hump of the line of adhesive. But a clear square of material was shown to go on top of an asterisk/plus sign configuration, and the glue evened out to form a perfect square--with little or no run-over! So I'm thinking a 3D asterisk shaped charge might do the trick The rubber like explosive was interesting
That's sort of what Jamie was going for with the "flower of death" in the original myth, and that worked fairly well -- which is why I'm disappointed that he abandoned that approach and did something entirely different this time instead of refining and perfecting his earlier approach.
All the crossover episodes with Discovery's other reality shows are putting me off so much that I'm not even bothering watching regularly any more - I don't give a monkeys about Deadliest Catch or whatever.
^It's not just Discovery's reality shows, as we saw with last week's Breaking Bad crossover episode, and the Green Hornet movie episode a year or two ago. And I don't mind those so much as far as the myth testing goes, since they've done tons of TV and movie myths; what annoys me is having the show/film's makers appear in the episode and try to weasel out of the "busted" results, which just comes off as obnoxious.
Well to be fair, this latest one seemed to be more of a one-off special than part of the regular season (which, if they stick with their usual schedule, won't start up again until October).
Well, the DVD caught the episode on a reair. Meh episode that didn't interest me given I don't watch the subject show and, like Christopher, I don't much care for the involvement of the outside actors/producers who try and to warble out of the results. I'm not surprised much by either results, really. As nasty as many acids are I doubted from the beginning any would eat through an animal, tub, flooring and ceiling.
I think that's even worse -- not only a crossover episode with another cable show, but a special out-of-season episode timed to air on the same night as its season premiere. It's rather blatant shilling. Though not quite as bad as that stupid duct-tape desert-survival episode that was basically an extended commercial for that special about the daredevil wirewalking across the Grand Canyon.
Mythbusters returned Thursday night from their summer hiatus with a special episode centered around "myths" around zombies. It was episode themed after the popular culture phenomenon, mixed with Halloween season and a good dash of cross-promotional tie-in with the hit AMC TV series "The Walking Dead." The episode even featured a guest appearance from a series actor Michael Rooker (Merle.) A tough episode to judge and nitpick testing methodology and results on given the purely fictional nature of the subject matter but still a fun episode. Ax vs. Gun Jamie and Adam with guest Michael Rooker tested the "myth" on which is the more effective weapon with which to fend off a horde of zombies, an ax or a gun. The idea being axes are faster to work with and don't requite reloading/aiming. However guns are quicker to use and can be used at a distance. To test the myth Adam was armed with a foam ax with a water-based paint bladder in it with which he used to strike a "zombie" with (wearing a plastic head shield.) The zombies (a bevy of fans in make-up) walked towards Adam standing in the center of a circular area Adam had to stay with in to make his "kills." Adam between two tests was able to average over a dozen zombie "kills" before being overwhelmed by the sheer numbers. Jamie was armed with a paint-ball gun between the two tests he was able to kill far fewer zombies than Adam. But there was a catch, the paint-ball gun was single-action, requiring Jamie to re-cock it between each shot. The conclusion was that the ax was the better weapon as it didn't depend on ammo, needing to be cocked or even aimed. I'd argue that Adam was simply "tapping" the zombies with the ax and didn't have to worry about the ax getting jammed in the skull, the heft of swinging it or anything of the sort. And, of course, Jamie's gun not being dual-action was a huge handicap for him. However, I agree the ax is the better weapon as it doesn't require reloading or any real aiming not to mention not making any noise (which in common zombie lore just attracts more of them.) Running Away from the Herd The Junior Mythbusters team tested the idea of whether or not running is a useful tactic in evading a zombie herd or if sheer numbers made it not worth the effort. A section of parking lot (or the Alameda Runway) was sectioned off and filed with the fan-zombies simulating a population density of New York City, the distance being inside 100 yards. Kari and Tori were both easily able to traverse the distance unscaved. Grant's two left feet tripped him up and he was overwhelmed (the population density was doubled (area halved) between each test between Kari to Tori to Grant.) In a second test the team used diversionary tactics. Kari tied Tori to a chair and offered him as a "scapegoat"/sacrificial lamb to make her escape, Grant built a noisy robot and Tori had him self made-up as a zombie and blended in with the herd to try and make an escape (pretending to be one of the extras... until he was recognized.) There's a host of problems with the tests they performed but this was mostly in it for fun. A big problem is the distance traveled, it was a reasonable, easy, distance. In a "real" situation you'd literally make it as far as you can run. Then you tire, need to catch your breath and then you're toast. Zombies don't tire. Tori's diversion tactic, while cleaver (and was used in the Walking Dead a few times) only failed because one of the extras recognized Tori as a person. Not because of any failure in the disguise. (In TWD the "disguise" technique has worked by characters hiding under bodies or covering themselves with the offal of dispatched zombies.) Breaking the Door Jamie, Adam and Michael tested the idea of the zombie herd being able to push through a barn door through mass of numbers. Adam and the zombie extras were outfitted with protective "barrels" around their torsos to push on one another with as they tried to break down a series of doors entering into a barn. The first test involved a simple, crude, barn door that offered no resistance to the herd. A second test involved a better built door that offered some more resistance, but not much as it still failed. A third test had Jamie and Michael doing the "nail every spare piece of wood to this thing!" trope. This proved vastly more effective as the herd was un able to use their mass to push through the door. Again this is all a... "maybe" but goes back to the idea of "zombies don't quit" several hundred zombies pushing against a reinforced wooden door I'm sure would result in a failure before too long. An episode I enjoyed, with a great guest host, but not much to debate on here as everything debate is very, very speculative. A pure "for fun" episode. Which it was.
It had its entertaining moments, but I am getting sick of the crossover episodes. I suppose the door-breaking myth was the one that came closest to a real-world situation, because there are cases where large groups of people, like an army or police force or something, might need to try to force its way through a barricaded door.
Yeah the door-breaking one was the closest to a "real-world" situation. And I'd argue that a large, unmoving, mass of people would overcome even the most reinforced door. There's a difference between how they were doing it (for safety) by going "1... 2... 3..." and then all pushing at once for a moment and then stopping and, say, 100 people all pushing against the door, continuously, at the same time over the course of a few minutes.
There are certainly semi-auto paintball guns, so I don't know why they didn't use one. The Heinyman would have probably equaled Adam's kill count before going down. It was hysterical that Jamie showed up with half a dozen guns and bandoleirs of spare mags ("optimistic of him," I said the the mrs.) and didn't even finish one clipful.
Yeah, I figured there'd have to be some semi-auto paintball guns out there, give him a single-action gun he had to recock and then aim after every shot seemed like a huge handicap. I guess you *could* liken that to a shotgun or many rifles but, still, it would have been nice to see them simulate a semi-auto weapon.
Okay, but the premise is zombie apocalypse, right? So we're not talking about the military, we're talking about what survivors could scrounge up from sporting-goods stores or whatever. Granted, gun control laws in America are a tragic joke these days, but even so, I'd assume that shotguns and hunting rifles would be easier to come by in a post-apocalyptic scenario than automatic weapons. There's also the question of how durable/easy to maintain they are; I imagine more basic, low-tech, low-powered weapons would be easier to keep in good repair.
Yeah, still but I doubt people are going to be running around killing zombies with six-shooter pistols. There's still all kinds of semi-automatic weapons out there. I don't deny that using simpler weapons like an ax would be better simply because they wouldn't need to be maintained or need you to keep/find ammo. Just that I think the type of gun Jamie was given was too big of a handicap. To have to stop and re-cock the gun wasted valuable time and added another step in the process making him have to completely aim again from scratch. Different than simply moving your arm and firing again.
Err, I specifically said "shotguns and hunting rifles." Yes, one of Jamie's guns was pistol-sized, but it was single-action, emulating the performance of a shotgun. You miss my point, which is that in a post-apocalyptic scenario, simpler guns like shotguns might be both easier to find and easier to maintain than automatic weapons. That, I suspect, is why they chose to focus on shotgun-like weapons in the myth.