Heads up! MYTHBUSTERS season premiere tonight at 9 Eastern!

[Christopher]

Trekker4747 wrote:

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It bugged me through the course of the show how they kept calling them "chain reaction machines" instead of the better known term of a "Rube Goldberg Machine."

I was wondering about that myself, so I did some Googling and found this:

http://www.rubegoldberg.com/

Rube Goldberg is a registered trademark of Rube Goldberg Inc. who holds the Rube Goldberg copyrights and trademarks. While Rube Goldberg Inc. encourages educational, non-profit, and commercial reprint and use of Rube's work, permission to reproduce drawings and images or use our trademark (RUBE GOLDBERG) in any way or in any media (including presentations, training materials, etc. both in-house and to clients), must be secured prior to use and requested in writing.

So they can't call them "Rube Goldberg machines" by name because that's a trademarked term.

[Trekker4747]

Huh. Odd that it's a trademarked term I've always heard it for such machines. I wonder if it was trademarked before or after the term became popular? I could almost see it being a generic-ized term like "styrofoam" or "thermos."

Anyway, it just grated whenever they called it a chain-reaction machine.

[Christopher]

^Well, like the disclaimer says, the term can be used in non-profit contexts like articles, and there's nothing stopping people from using trademarks in casual conversation, or we'd be in trouble every time we typed the title of a TV show around here. But since Unchained Reaction is a profit-making commercial venture, they wouldn't be able to call their creations "Rube Goldberg machines" without obtaining a license from Rube Goldberg, Inc.

[Mr. Adventure]

Odd about Rube Goldberg and I would've thought they'd have a ® or ™ displayed.

Sundays is terrible for me even with the DVR, too many shows already.

[Trekker4747]

Christopher wrote:

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^Well, like the disclaimer says, the term can be used in non-profit contexts like articles, and there's nothing stopping people from using trademarks in casual conversation, or we'd be in trouble every time we typed the title of a TV show around here. But since Unchained Reaction is a profit-making commercial venture, they wouldn't be able to call their creations "Rube Goldberg machines" without obtaining a license from Rube Goldberg, Inc.

Yeah, I know all of that it just seems odd that it's a trademarked term since I've never heard such "machines" called anything else.

Part of me wonders how "it all worked in one go" really happened. In the MB episode where Jamie and Adam made a Rube Goldbe... err... "chain reaction machine" themed around the Diet Soda/Mentos reaction we see directly it took several tries to dial in the steps of the "machine." Not just as they worked on the different "steps" but as they worked on the machine as a whole.

Work on the Honda commercial "Cog":



Which was a RGM using pieces of a car took months of work to get it to work properly. (Yes, I know there's an edit in there as the entire "machine" couldn't fit in one space so it's actually two "machines" spliced together to look like one.)

Anyone who has tried to make such machines themselves or even a chain of standing dominoes knows it takes work to "dial in" everything.

So it seems odd to me that everything with these machines worked perfectly (save the tent collapsing) in one go.

[Christopher]

^Well, we have seen that they test each part individually while building. There's probably a preliminary test of the whole apparatus, but that gets edited out since it's more dramatic if the audience doesn't see the whole thing put together until the big reveal.

[Christopher]

Since the Mythbusters threads generally don't run too long, anyone mind if we just use this as a combined thread for the whole season?

This week was "Fire vs. Ice," which apparently is the name of a viral video pitting a fire extinguisher against a flamethrower -- which doesn't make sense, since a fire extinguisher uses carbon dioxide, not cold, to smother a flame. Okay, a compressed gas does get pretty cold when it's released, but that's a far cry from being "ice." One strike against the video right there.

It's a little unclear to me exactly what the viral video showed, since they didn't show the whole thing. Was it just about using an extinguisher to deflect the flame from a flamethrower, or to put it out altogether? Adam & Jamie were acting as though it was the latter, but the clips never got that far. Anyway, they showed that deflecting it was barely feasible with a really powerful, souped-up fire extinguisher (and Adam's modification adding a water feed actually did make it "ice" this time), but not with a more conventional one as supposedly used in the video. As for dousing it, clearly that's not going to happen unless the actual ignition source on the flamethrower itself is engulfed in CO(sub)2 long enough to put it out, and that's not going to happen from a distance, as we saw.

I wish they'd addressed how the illusion in the video was created, but otherwise, a decent test and result, if a bit simple. (I also wonder -- if making a flamethrower is so illegal, how did the video makers get away with it?)


Dust cloud kidnapping: I've never seen the movie this is from (or even heard of it, as far as I can recall), but it was an interesting thing to test. They really managed to punch a lot of holes in the movie's idea that a bunch of SUVs kicking up a dust cloud could obscure a kidnapping from an overhead UAV/drone. The difficulty of driving safely in a dust cloud, the fact that circling the subject doesn't kick up enough dust in the center, and most of all the fact that UAVs have thermal imaging which could see right through the dust. And it wasn't that difficult for the Mythbusters (or their research/writing team?) to come up with a better solution than the one in the movie! Seriously, why aren't filmmakers hiring these guys as consultants by this point?


As for this week's Unchained Reaction, for once I didn't have a clear preference or any disagreement with the outcome. Both teams' machines worked very smoothly (although there were a couple of points where it seemed they wouldn't and then they did) and were both creative in their own ways, and the motorcycle team managed to overcome the handicap of a team member dropping out. (I wonder if it really was just "stress" or if that was a TV-friendly substitute for something else. None of my business, though.) Though I agree that having the guy just drive off on the motorcycle at the end was cheating a bit. The creature-FX team's machine was more imaginative and funny but a bit gruesome for my tastes.

I'm really wondering if the timing of events on this show corresponds to real life. Is it practical for Adam and Jamie to fly from SF to LA twice a week just to do their host segments? I'm wondering if it's like Mythbusters where the intro segments are actually recorded afterward and they just pretend it's before.

[Marc]

Christopher wrote:

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I'm really wondering if the timing of events on this show corresponds to real life. Is it practical for Adam and Jamie to fly from SF to LA twice a week just to do their host segments? I'm wondering if it's like Mythbusters where the intro segments are actually recorded afterward and they just pretend it's before.

unchained reaction hasn't started in Canada to my knowlege so haven't seen it but is there anything to indicate that they do film the host segments in LA?

[Christopher]

They do make a big deal about how the warehouse setting for the show is in LA. Adam and Jamie always finish the intros by saying "We have to go back to San Francisco now, so Charles here will be our eyes and ears." I don't see any reason for them to lie about where it takes place.

[Admiral2]

Christopher wrote:

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(I also wonder -- if making a flamethrower is so illegal, how did the video makers get away with it?)

It's a youtube video, which means no prosecutor in the universe would be able to prove conclusively that it's not faked (especially when the Mythbusters just busted it for the creators), which means it's not evidence of anybody actually making and using a flamethrower.

[Trekker4747]

Christopher wrote:

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Since the Mythbusters threads generally don't run too long, anyone mind if we just use this as a combined thread for the whole season?

Works for me, I'd PM one of the TV/M mods to rename the thread something more generic. "Mythbusters Discussion Thread" or something.

The Fire v. Ice myth was an interesting one to test but not surprised at the results. Though this is one I'd like to see them "ramp up" in a revisit. The problem I see even with the water Adam's device is still pretty much shooting a gas, the flame-thrower is throwing something with "substance" to it either the liquid fuel or the plasma of the fire, what's more is it's being constantly fed by the tank and the fire is always keeping the fuel lit as it exits the nozzle. It's like trying to stop a freight train moving at 80 mph with a puff of air.

They'd need a pretty supersized and well-thought out "fire extinguisher" to re-create the (obviously CGI) effect of the viral video. Probably an extinguisher powered by LN2 or something because still with the device Adam built that "worked' it was pretty pathetic.

On the Jr. team's efforts, I'm sort of surprised they didn't go with a robotic/RC rig to create the circular dust storm. Such a rig would eliminate the human element and wouldn't be as restricted by speed, etc. They could've essentially built a merry-go-round with the cars locked into a turn and operated remotely and have them drive at high-speed to generate a lot of dust. Stop. Have Kari get into one of the cars and then see if Grant could guess which one when the dust settles. (No need to do the "guess which car driving off in what direction aspect.)

I wish they'd addressed how the illusion in the video was created, but otherwise, a decent test and result, if a bit simple. (I also wonder -- if making a flamethrower is so illegal, how did the video makers get away with it?)

I don't see why the illusion would need to be addressed, it's the loss of the "magic" in movie making. It was obviously CGI.

As for the legality thing, my understanding is that flame-throwers aren't strictly illegal -at least not a Federal level- but were illegal under California law.

[Christopher]

Trekker4747 wrote:

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Works for me, I'd PM one of the TV/M mods to rename the thread something more generic. "Mythbusters Discussion Thread" or something.

Good idea. Maybe specifying it's for the 2012 season.

The Fire v. Ice myth was an interesting one to test but not surprised at the results. Though this is one I'd like to see them "ramp up" in a revisit. The problem I see even with the water Adam's device is still pretty much shooting a gas, the flame-thrower is throwing something with "substance" to it either the liquid fuel or the plasma of the fire, what's more is it's being constantly fed by the tank and the fire is always keeping the fuel lit as it exits the nozzle. It's like trying to stop a freight train moving at 80 mph with a puff of air.

From what I understand, there's relatively little actual plasma in a normal flame; it's mostly just incandescent gas. In this case, with gasoline as the substance undergoing combustion, the reaction products (the constituents of the flame) would be mostly carbon dioxide and water vapor, plus carbon monoxide if some of the combustion was incomplete. So since Adam's souped-up extinguisher blew out carbon dioxide and aerosolized water/ice, it was basically a duel between two clouds of nearly identical chemical composition, differing only in temperature and pressure. As you say, the stream of uncombusted gasoline from the flamethrower might be a factor, but it looked to me like most of the liquid was falling to the ground before it reached Adam's "little house."

You know, I never realized that before -- that flame is made out of the same substances that are generally used to put out fires. So "fighting fire with fire" isn't so far off, in a way. (And this is why fires generally don't burn long in microgravity. Without convection to spirit the hot gases away, they smother the ignition source and cut off its oxygen.)

They'd need a pretty supersized and well-thought out "fire extinguisher" to re-create the (obviously CGI) effect of the viral video.

CGI? No way. I've never seen computer animation that can so accurately replicate the fluid dynamics of fire or clouds, and there's no way some viral video creators could have access to such sophisticated tech if it existed.

I found the actual YouTube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTMcPXNreis

The flame and vapor elements are definitely real, and mostly the illusion is created simply through editing and composition. There are only a few long shots showing the full scene of the flame stream and the CO2 cloud meeting, and the rest is close-ups of the individual "combatants" and the streams/clouds in midair. Classic old-school FX psychology: do just a brief shot to sell the illusion and then let the audience's mind fill in the rest. I think that for the long shots they probably filmed a smaller-scale pyro/vapor element and composited it into the scene, since the vapor cloud seems too big to be emanating from a normal fire extinguisher and I'm not sure the arc of the flamethrower stream is dipping as much as it should over that distance (see the shot at 2:48).

And the Mythbusters' approach was misleading, I think. They seemed to be testing whether the extinguisher could douse the flamethrower, but the video only shows it deflecting the flame and keeping its wielder safe until the flamethrower runs out of gas. And I think the results showed that to be borderline plausible, at least given a powerful enough extinguisher (and maybe a less potent flamethrower; Jamie's seemed to produce a much bigger flame than the one in the video).

On the Jr. team's efforts, I'm sort of surprised they didn't go with a robotic/RC rig to create the circular dust storm. Such a rig would eliminate the human element and wouldn't be as restricted by speed, etc.

But part of the movie myth was that it could be done by human-driven cars. It wasn't just the dust issue they were testing, but the whole scenario.

I don't see why the illusion would need to be addressed, it's the loss of the "magic" in movie making.

I would like it to be addressed because I'm interested in how special effects are created. And the Mythbusters have done that before with a number of their movie myths -- not only busted the depicted scene but explained how it was really done.

[Trekker4747]

Christopher wrote:

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I would like it to be addressed because I'm interested in how special effects are created. And the Mythbusters have done that before with a number of their movie myths -- not only busted the depicted scene but explained how it was really done.

Well, I think the "magic" of special effects is long lost as now things are mostly CGI when comes to effects. I used to watch and love SFX BTS videos on movies as it was interesting to see how things were achieved. Now days it's like, "Yeah we had a team of people looking at computer screens for 10 hours a day compiling lines of code." But, again, this assumes the effect was done with CGI and wasn't some sort of practical effect. If it was a practical effect, yeah, seeing how it was done could be interesting.

On the front of the Jr. team testing "if it could be done" hence why they didn't use robotic cars for the test... Yeah, but...

I didn't catch it when they were setting up the myth and I've never seen the movie either but I suspect in the movie they may have been professionals of some sort who -one could argue- would be better adept at driving a car in low-visibility conditions as opposed to a group of people who spent an afternoon or two at a stunt-driving school.

[Christopher]

^Still, they proved that people who spent an afternoon or two at a stunt-driving school could in fact pull it off, so that makes it plausible that more experienced professionals could do so as well. It did the job.

And I think that video shows that there is still more to special effects than CGI. That's one tool in the kit, but there's still plenty of room for practical effects, miniatures, optical illusions, and simple misdirection and psychological sleight-of-hand. The fact is, it's hard to make computer-generated images look and behave like real physical objects. It takes a great deal of hard work and skill to force the machine to go against its natural preference to make everything look smooth, clean, and mathematically precise. So unless you have a big-budget movie's worth of time, money, and expertise to devote to it, CGI looks pretty fake. So there's still a very real and important place for other FX techniques.

As I said, this video fell back on some of the simplest, oldest techniques that are all about suggestion -- cut between one guy firing left and another guy firing right, and the viewer's mind puts the pieces together and perceives it as two guys firing at one another, even if in reality the two scenes were shot far apart in space or time. Then insert some shots of the flame and cloud meeting, and that links the other two scenes in the viewer's mind, even if they were shot separately in a studio or something. There were maybe three brief composite shots of the full scene, but otherwise, the only "special effect" involved was editing. And that's interesting.

But that's not the main reason I wish they'd addressed how the illusion was created. I think if you're going to bust something as fake, part of proving that should ideally be demonstrating how the fakery was done, revealing what it is we're really seeing.

[Trekker4747]

Christopher wrote:

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But that's not the main reason I wish they'd addressed how the illusion was created. I think if you're going to bust something as fake, part of proving that should ideally be demonstrating how the fakery was done, revealing what it is we're really seeing.

True enough, and if anyone could do it Jamie and Adam could. I'll have to watch the video again but the fire had a "cheap CGI" look to it which is why I instantly went that route.