MYTHBUSTERS 10th Anniversary Season

Discussion in 'TV & Media' started by Christopher, May 2, 2013.

  1. Forbin

    Forbin Admiral Admiral

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    Two good things:

    1) A 1965 Corvair!!!! That was my first car! Mine was even red! And mine broke down all the time too! I was kvelling. :rommie:

    2) Adam bobbing in the water in the bubble suit with his legs in the air. My wife almost fell off the couch laughing. She said it was almost as funny as him getting slapped in slow motion.

    Question: Is "Bubble Pack" a copyrighted brand name? 'Cause they were going way out of their way to always refer to it as "bubble packaging".
     
  2. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    I had the same thought. Really, I hate it that they even tried to fictionalize the premise. It goes against the spirit of Mythbusters.


    As a rule, they don't fake things like that. And these guys have put their bodies on the line for worse. There were probably more safety precautions off-camera than we were shown.


    True. And the other two, I guess.

    What I miss are the earlier seasons when they had more than one woman on the show. There were Kari, Scottie (whom I really liked), Christine, and eventually Jess, though I think she came along after Scottie and Christine had left. Honestly, I think I'd be happier if Scottie had stayed and Tory had been the one replaced by Grant. Although I guess Tory serves a purpose, since he's the strongest and usually takes the lead on the physical stuff. He's kind of a living equivalent of Buster.


    I think I heard them call it both bubble pack and bubble packaging. The brand name that they avoid using is Bubble Wrap, which is the term I know it by. It's one of those brand names that have become effectively generic through usage, like escalator and yo-yo and band-aid, but apparently it is still trademarked by the Sealed Air Corporation (a creative work is copyrighted, while a name or logo is trademarked), so they have to avoid it.
     
  3. Redfern

    Redfern Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    If I got one thing out of this episode, it's the insulating properties of the bubble packaging. I never considered that. But I should have. The sun shield I tuck under my car's windshield is a Mylar type reflective plastic covering a semi-rigid layer of bubble sheeting, an item I've had for years.

    Sincerely,

    Bill
     
  4. davejames

    davejames Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Yeah there wasn't much value as far as mythbusting goes, but I still enjoyed it, was pretty impressed by some of the stuff Adam and Jaime had to do. Even if they had tons of safety experts around, it still looked like it required an awful lot of exertion on their part, and like it was still plenty dangerous.

    Especially going down the rapids in their flimsy boats (and yes, that was clearly Adam who had fallen into the water, which was a pretty shocking thing to see) and climbing down that rocky outcropping into the water at the end (which just looked like a completely insane thing to do).
     
  5. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Okay, this was a much better episode. Much like the season-premiere JATO rocket car episode, they revisit two of their most notable failures, cases where they didn't quite get things to work right in the time available, and try to figure out how to get them to work right this time.

    Painting with explosives: I always liked this myth, and I really like the revisit. It's cool to see Adam and Jamie applying the experimental method, testing out designs and learning from their observations. It makes me feel all sciencey just watching it.

    And "C4 jerky?" :lol:

    This is a myth I have a vested interest in seeing proven viable, since in my novel Only Superhuman there's a device called a "scene-painter grenade" that fools security cameras (which in the future could be embedded in pretty much any surface in a room) by coating the whole room in a spray of nanoparticles that "freeze" the incoming light and continue projecting light of the same color and intensity, so that any hidden camera lens sees a still image of the room until the particles wear out. So if Adam and Jamie could get this gimmick to work, it'd be proof of concept for my idea. (Although I hedged by asserting that the nanoparticles would flow together to form a solid coating first.)

    I'm a little disappointed that Adam cheated and changed the parameters of what he was trying to do, since that left only one chance to get it right. And while the high-speed shot of the multicolored paint explosion was gorgeous, I kind of had a feeling that the resultant "art" would be just the kind of dull brown or gray you get when you mix too many colors together. And that's pretty much exactly what happened.

    I also wasn't very satisfied with Jamie's rig, which seemed a few steps backward from the Flower of Death he got moderately good results with last time. I might've liked to see a further refinement of that principle. Now, his idea of the sphere with nozzles had potential, but why did he limit it to only four nozzles? If it had had many nozzles pointing in all directions, that would probably have worked better. Although I suppose too many holes would've meant too little blast containment. But there's got to be a better balance.


    Bifurcated boat: This was more of a conventional revisit, not just trying to perfect something they didn't manage to pull off before, but responding to fan criticisms about their methodology. Still, it was worth revisiting. The result of the test was interesting -- the channel marker breaking instead of the boat.

    But that leaves me confused about the ultimate result. They got the split at high speed, but only by using a metal pole. So how come the supposedly wooden pole in the original photo was intact?
     
  6. intrinsical

    intrinsical Commodore Commodore

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    That was a good episode. Any episode with the rocket powered sled is always a fun episode.

    I'm starting to think the only way to successfully paint a room with explosives lies in being able to create a ball of paint-mist. It would require a way of breaking up a stream of high speed paint into tiny globules... not an easy task.
     
    Last edited: Jun 27, 2013
  7. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    I think they were on the right track with the Flower of Death the first time; they just needed more, smaller "bins" pointing in more directions, and more small charges, one for each. It's all about directing the energy the right way.
     
  8. Redfern

    Redfern Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Yeah, that high speed shot of Adam's technique was absolutely beautiful. Depending upon the resolution of that footage, they should make posters of those few frames.

    Jamie's device...it looked like some kind of SteamPunk atomic bomb, something we might have seen in an old "Wild, Wild West" episode. Sure made an interesting ringing "thud" when detonated.

    Sincerely,

    Bill
     
  9. davejames

    davejames Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Yeah I think they were definitely right to call it "busted" based on the 25 mph the boat was supposedly going (even if that speed would cause damage, I doubt it would result in the boat being completely impaled like we see in the photo).

    But it still seems likely there are some wooden poles out there that might have been a lot stronger and able to withstand the impact. Either because of age or the type of wood or who knows what.

    Although interestingly the original news story describes it as a steel piling, so I'm not sure why MB focused so much on a wooden one. And from the comments it appears this is a pretty common occurrence.
    http://kwc.org/mythbusters/2007/04/episode_77_birds_in_a_truck_bi.html
     
  10. davejames

    davejames Vice Admiral Admiral

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    So anybody else check out the Breaking Bad special? After all the hype, I found it a bit disappointing to be honest, especially as they only focused on two myths from the first season.

    Although I guess it was kinda interesting to learn more about the real mercury fulminate. And while I figured the show took some liberties with how fast the acid worked, I was surprised to see that it didn't eat through the tub or floor at all.

    The discussion on the show about how the acid worked (and about the necessity of using a plastic container that the acid wouldn't eat through) was so specific I just assumed it was based in truth.
     
  11. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    This episode didn't do much for me, since I'm not familiar with Breaking Bad and it doesn't strike me as something I'd want to watch. (Can someone please parse the title for me? I can't make heads or tails of it.)

    And in general I'm getting a bit tired of these cross-promotion episodes. I don't mind when they test myths from TV shows or movies, but actually having the producers or stars come on and say "Well, you busted my myth but it still works because weasel this and hedge that" gets kind of irritating. When the Mythbusters say it's busted, it's busted, dang it! And it's their show!

    Mainly I'm surprised that the larger quantity of fulminate was able to blow apart the whole "house" they built. I would've thought that a bunch of chemical explosive just sitting there on the floor without containment wouldn't have been that powerful. But I guess a brick of C4 is able to do a great deal of damage without containment, so I guess I didn't think it through.

    I was also surprised that Grant needed to build a whole new throwing robot. Whatever happened to the sword-swinging rig? Has it been modified and reused so many times that it finally failed?

    The clip from the show didn't make any sense to me at all. The main character throws an explosive right at his own feet, it's powerful enough to blow out the windows, but he's completely unharmed? I don't need the Mythbusters to tell me that's nonsense.
     
  12. davejames

    davejames Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I share your distaste for these crossover shows, but I wouldn't let the clips shown here dissuade you from at least checking out Breaking Bad. It's an excellent show with memorable characters and the kind of original premise you don't find much on TV. And it's one of the few shows that follows through on the consequences of every action the characters take, which is exciting to watch.

    And the title just refers to when someone "breaks bad" and starts becoming a criminal.
     
  13. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    I caught the last minute or so of an episode once, and it involved something really gruesome involving a person who had half his head blown away, quite graphically. I really, profoundly wish I had never seen that, and you're not going to convince me to watch more of a show when the only part I have seen is one I desperately want to unsee.


    But Wikipedia quotes the creator as saying it means "to raise hell" -- although, since it's a gerund phrase, I assume he meant "raising hell." Either way, though, I don't understand the grammar of the phrase. I don't see how you can put those two words together in those forms to produce either meaning.

    I just have the hardest time getting my mind around slang phrases that use adjectives as the objects of verbs. I don't understand how that's supposed to work. I've never gotten used to "my bad" -- your bad what?! And don't get me started on Syfy's slogan "Imagine Greater."
     
  14. JarodRussell

    JarodRussell Vice Admiral Admiral

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    The only thing that I want to know about the Mythbusters: When are they finally going to nuke the fridge?
     
  15. T J

    T J Commodore Commodore

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    I'll tune in when they make that blue meth that's 99.9% pure, I want to know if it's possible. Then they can turn around and turn it over to the DEA for disposal. I just want to know it's it's actually possible like in the show.
     
  16. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    ^Whether they turn it in or not, they can't do something that's actually illegal, as I assume manufacturing methamphetamines would be. Consider how in their tests of drunk-driving myths, they always stay just below the legal limit. And they don't drive over the speed limit on public roads. Sometimes they can get special dispensation under proper supervision, or by going to a location where it's legal, but this? I don't see that happening. And if they wouldn't tell us what the "special sauce" was that boosted the sulfuric acid, no way would they do a "Hey, kids, here's how you make meth!" segment. So much of it would have to be blurred and censored that there'd be little point.

    (I do wonder about the "special sauce," although maybe I shouldn't ask. Jamie said it was basically hydrogen and oxygen, but... isn't that water?)
     
  17. T J

    T J Commodore Commodore

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    :rommie:

    Very understandable! They could just say mix "beep" and "beep", cook and done. Buy yeah, no way it can happen, it would be cool though. Just another thing in the show I bet is bunk... no such thing as pure blue meth. It would be a cool episode though.
     
  18. UssGlenn

    UssGlenn Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    It was probably Hydrogen peroxide

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piranha_solution
     
  19. Shurik

    Shurik Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Sounds about right, it did look like what large quantity of Piranha solution might do. I worked with it a couple of times in lab during my undergrad studies, really nasty and dangerous stuff because the reaction releases a lot of heat.
     
  20. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Oh, duhh. I should've thought of that. Been too long since high-school chemistry.