Each year, the Discovery Channel show shoots an episode for the network's Shark Week. The results of one of its shark shows, this articulated beast, hangs on the wall at the show's headquarters, M5 Industries, in San Francisco.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)SAN FRANCISCO--For some of the nearly 100,000 followers of "MythBusters" star Adam Savage's Twitter feed, communicating with him has proven to be more than just your average back-and-forth. For some, it's been a way to submit ideas that he and his Discovery Channel show costars have used for actual episodes.
On October 7, Discovery will begin airing its fall collection of new "MythBusters" episodes, and Savage said that he and costar Jamie Hyneman have taken at least four ideas that have come directly from Twitter users and implemented them on the show.
Among them are exploring the myth that dirty cars are more fuel efficient than clean ones; one that addresses the reality of a YouTube video in which a man shoots high off a huge water slide and lands, far in the distance, in a small inflatable pool; and one about insects.
To Savage, Twitter has become a terrific way for him to have a dialogue with the show's fans, especially since he says that the highly negative tone of the comments in the show's official forums turns him off and distracts him from doing his job.
By comparison, he said that because his Twitter followers know that he reads all of the tweets sent to him, there's somewhat of a "social contract" involved that improves the conversation. "I still have disagreements with people on Twitter," Savage said. "But it's much more civilized, and for me as a person who wants to give more value to the fans, I think about what I would want to read of someone who I admired, so I post funny things from behind the set" and lots of personal anecdotes.
For Hyneman, by contrast, Twitter, or any other social network, for that matter, isn't useful, and has actually become a bit of a distraction at work.
"I do notice that it's increasingly difficult to get Adam's attention when we're trying to work," Hyneman said, "because (if) you give him an instant of inactivity...it's like, okay," and he starts to use his iPhone.
Adam Savage often takes every available moment during the work day to communicate with people on his iPhone.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)Asked why he has an iPhone, Savage said only that he is "an Apple Kool-Aid drinker from way back...and I love everything they produce."
Duct tape and much more
This fall, just as has been the case since "MythBusters" first got started, Savage and Hyneman have been scouring the world for things that pique their curiosity. Indeed, the show has taken the two--plus the show's other team of co-stars, Kari Byron, Grant Imahara and Tory Belleci--on an unending quest for myths to bust that present them with a sense of adventure.
But this fall, viewers will see more on the show about duct tape, probably, than they ever thought possible. In fact, what started as a path towards a single segment on the popular adhesive ended up resulting in an entire duct tape special.
Both teams of "MythBusters" actually did two or three duct tape stories, Savage explained. "Some spectacular stuff came out of that," he said, "and if we could, we'd just move on to more duct tape stuff. But we've got to space it out so we don't over-duct tape the audience."
And while they wouldn't reveal too many details of what they'd done with the famous grey tape, Hyneman did allow that, in one situation, "We were on our way out the Golden Gate Bridge and had to turn back because the camera crew was complaining that they were getting too wet from the rough seas."
Whether that explains the boat covered in duct tape that is now hanging from the ceiling at M5 Industries, the San Francisco studio space where Hyneman and Savage do their work, is hard to say. But the boat is clearly from the duct tape special.
And while the two are cagey about much of what's coming up in the fall's episodes, they did share some information about one or two myths they attempted to bust.
One is the idea that a prisoner could use thousands of antacid tablets to create enough pressure to bust out of his or her cell. The two wouldn't say what the outcome of their experiment with more than 20,000 antacid tablets was, but they did admit that they were able to bust through a scale model of a jail cell made out of glass.
"It comes down to how well is the cell built," joked Hyneman.
The two were also willing to talk about the segment they did for one of the upcoming episodes on the aerodynamics of dirty cars, one of the myths that came from Twitter.
The myth, explained Savage, is that a dirty car is more fuel efficient than a clean one due to the "golf ball effect" caused by the dirt. The idea, he said, is that the dirt creates something of a "boundary layer that allows the car to be more aerodynamic."
Neither Savage nor Hyneman would say what the results of their investigation was, but Hyneman did say that they were both "very, very surprised (by) the results" and that what they found will be "of quite a lot of interest to the automotive industry."
Still another future episode has to do with the physics of bullet ricochets and whether it is possible for a shooter to hit him or herself with a bullet shot in an enclosed space. The results of that experiment also took the two by surprise, particularly because, as Hyneman said, "there are some basic flaws in the concept that you see in the movies with this 'ding-ding-ding and down you go.'"
At a much higher level now
"MythBusters" has now completed production on 134 episodes, and to Hyneman, that much experience has allowed him and Savage to be much more advanced in their approach to busting myths than they were at the beginning.
"The kinds of insights that we're seeing as far as the physics and the chemistry (and) all the dynamics of what's going on there," Hyneman said, "we're starting out at a much higher level now, and so the results that we're getting are not quite as basic as they were when we started."
More to the point, he said, he and Savage attack their work with greater clarity now, and have a better sense of what the best process is for attacking a myth. Oddly, instead of doing better science, or making things stronger or taking more risks, it all begins with the very concepts for each myth.
"The most important thing to get straight is the question you're trying to ask in the first place," Hyneman said. "It seems like a simple thing, but it's hard to get to that point and, a lot of times now, we're spending much more time defining that question before we do anything else."
This post was updated at 1:50 p.m. PDT to correct the spelling of Tory Belleci's name.
MythBusters co-host Adam Savage is stepping back from public comments suggesting that legal counsel from several credit card companies led the Discovery Channel to pull the plug on an episode dedicated to security holes in RFID.
At the Last HOPE conference in New York in July, Savage told a crowd of several thousand people that his theory on why MythBusters had not gone forward with a planned episode on RFID (radio frequency identification) hackability was that on a conference call to discuss the matter with technicians from Texas Instruments, the lawyers for the credit cards companies had put the hammer down on the show.
"Texas Instruments comes on along with chief legal counsel for American Express, Visa, Discover, and everybody else (co-host Tory Belleci and a MythBusters producer) were way, way out-gunned," Savage told the crowd, "and (the lawyers) absolutely made it really clear to Discovery that they were not going to air this episode talking about how hackable this stuff was, and Discovery backed way down, being a large corporation that depends upon the revenue of the advertisers. Now it's on Discovery's radar and they won't let us go near it."
But Texas Instruments spokeswoman Cindy Huff told CNET News on Tuesday that things had gone a bit different than Savage had said.
"In June 2007, MythBusters was interested in pursuing some great myth-busting ideas for RFID. While in pursuit, they contacted Texas Instruments' RFID Systems, who is a pioneer of RFID and contactless technology, for technical help and understanding of RFID in the contactless payments space," Huff said. "Some of the information that was needed to pursue the program required further support from the contactless payment companies as they construct their own proprietary systems for security to protect their customers. To move the process along, Texas Instruments coordinated a conversation with Smart Card Alliance (SCA) who invited MasterCard and Visa, on contactless payments to help MythBusters get the right information. Of the handful of people on the call, there were mostly product managers and only one contactless payment company's legal counsel member. Technical questions were asked and answered and we were to wait for MythBusters to let us know when they were planning on showing the segment. A few weeks later, Texas Instruments was told by MythBusters that the storyline had changed and they were pursuing a different angle which did not require our help."
And now, even Savage is saying that he got his facts wrong.
In a statement from Savage--who was speaking for himself at the conference and not appearing on behalf of the show--provided to CNET News by Discovery Channel on Wednesday, the MythBusters co-host retracted the substance of what he'd told the Last HOPE audience.
"There's been a lot of talk about this RFID thing, and I have to admit that I got some of my facts wrong, as I wasn't on that story, and as I said on the video, I wasn't actually in on the call," Savage said in the statement. "Texas Instruments' account of their call with Grant and our producer is factually correct. If I went into the detail of exactly why this story didn't get filmed, it's so bizarre and convoluted that no one would believe me, but suffice to say...the decision not to continue on with the RFID story was made by our production company, Beyond Productions, and had nothing to do with Discovery, or their ad sales department."
From his statement, it's also logical to conclude that when he told the Last HOPE audience that co-host Belleci was on the conference call, he had meant Grant Imahara, another MythBuster co-host.
Further, a Discovery Channel representative told me that MythBusters did end up running an episode, last January, on RFID, but that the issue of the technology's security holes was not addressed.
'MythBusters' co-host Adam Savage, right, told a conference audience recently that Discovery Channel was convinced by legal counsel from Texas Instruments and several large credit card companies not to do an episode on the hackability of RFID.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)Update (Wednesday, 10:58 a.m.): This story now has a link to a new post on this with a statement from MythBusters co-host Adam Savage.
One of the great things about the Discovery Channel show, Mythbusters is that it confronts the realities behind some of the most interesting phenomenons and technologies around.
That's why, reported the Consumerist blog, at a recent conference--it's not clear which one--Mythbusters co-host Adam Savage was asked why the show hasn't tackled the technology behind the security limitations of RFID.
His eyes lighting up at the chance to talk about something that clearly was a memorable experience for him, Savage said the show had actually set out to do an episode on the vulnerabilities of RFID but encountered some very powerful resistance.
In the video, Savage says that a conference call was arranged between co-host Tory Belleci and Texas Instruments to talk about the RFID vulnerabilities. But when Bellici and a MythBusters producer got on the call at the appointed time, "Texas Instruments comes on along with chief legal counsel for American Express, Visa, Discover, and everybody else....(Bellici and the MythBusters producer) were way, way out-gunned and (the lawyers) absolutely made it really clear to Discovery that they were not going to air this episode talking about how hackable this stuff was, and Discovery backed way down, being a large corporation that depends upon the revenue of the advertisers. Now it's on Discovery's radar and they won't let us go near it."
Savage also said he got chills just from describing the encounter.
I sent a message to Discovery Channel to see if it would confirm Savage's account, but didn't get an immediate response. I will update this entry when I hear from them.
Note: Discovery Channel provided me with a statement from Savage Wednesday. You can read about it here.
For its part, Texas Instruments said things went a little different than the way Savage remembers it.
In a statement provided to CNET News, TI said lawyers were hardly to blame for MythBusters dropping the RFID episode.
"In June 2007, MythBusters was interested in pursuing some great myth-busting ideas for RFID. While in pursuit, they contacted Texas Instruments' RFID Systems, who is a pioneer of RFID and contactless technology, for technical help and understanding of RFID in the contactless payments space," TI spokesperson Cindy Huff said. "Some of the information that was needed to pursue the program required further support from the contactless payment companies as they construct their own proprietary systems for security to protect their customers. To move the process along, Texas Instruments coordinated a conversation with Smart Card Alliance (SCA) who invited MasterCard and Visa, on contactless payments to help MythBusters get the right information. Of the handful of people on the call, there were mostly product managers and only one contactless payment company's legal counsel member. Technical questions were asked and answered and we were to wait for MythBusters to let us know when they were planning on showing the segment. A few weeks later, Texas Instruments was told by MythBusters that the storyline had changed and they were pursuing a different angle which did not require our help."
Clearly, TI's memory of what happened is at odds with that of Savage.
Still, this is a very strange situation. If Savage is recalling things correctly, it indicates that the credit card companies may be very nervous about people learning how fragile the security is on cards that have RFID. Or maybe it's for other reasons. Either way, if true, it's revealing that those corporate giants would want to shut down such a public and prominent examination of the limitations of the technology.
If it's not true, one would wonder why Savage would have told the story he did.
And such muffling of investigation or research, in this case or others, often has the unintended consequence of stoking more interest in precisely the subject that is presumably taboo.
For example, after Savage finished his explanation, the gentleman in the audience who asked him the question said, to much applause and laughter, "Well, you do have about 3,000 people in the room who aren't under such legal arrangements."
Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage, stars of 'MythBusters,' discuss experiments they're working on in front of a lathe in their workshop's machine room in San Francisco.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET Networks)
This is a fish story--complete with attacking sharks, high-velocity steak, and ninjas with poison darts, no less.
This is the story of my Wednesday spent hanging out with the MythBusters-- Jamie Hyneman, Adam Savage, Kari Byron, Grant Imahara, and Tory Belleci--at their workshops in San Francisco.
MythBusters, for those who aren't aware, is a hit Discovery Channel show in which the five stars tackle famous myths--such as that frozen chickens pose a greater danger to airplanes than thawed poultry, or that a single postage stamp on a helicopter's rotors can cause it to crash and burn--and attempt to prove or disprove them. Often, these experiments mean explosions, broken glass, odd chemical reactions, and much more--just so long as it's interesting to the MythBusters crew and looks good on TV.
Immediately upon arriving, I was sucked straight into the strange, frenetic, hilarious world of the MythBusters. After a quick tour of a big warehouse space at the bottom of Potrero Hill known as M5 and a short autobiography by Hyneman, I was told I had the run of the place and that everyone was going back to work.
This, of course, is a reporter's dream--and a scary proposition. If you can do anything and talk to anybody, it's hard to know how to focus.
But focusing turned out to be easy. Before long, Hyneman sat down and explained to me one of the shark-related experiments he and Savage are working on for a Shark Week episode to be aired in July. They are trying to determine whether magnets are really shark-repellent--that is, to discover whether it is possible to control a shark's directional movement with electromagnets placed on its nose.
Luckily, Hyneman had to make a drawing of his planned project for the Bahamian marine biologist who would be overseeing the experiment, and he let me watch as he drew. Minutes later, he'd produced a pretty simple schematic that even I could understand. Essentially, he explained, he planned to attach two electromagnets to a shark's nose and then connect them to a controller he'd have up above the surface. If he triggered the magnet on the shark's left nose, it should turn right and vice versa, he explained--if the myth is true, that is.
One thing that is true, and which the MythBusters stars are very proud of, is that while they have a small crew of assistants, they do most of their own building, cutting, and fabricating themselves. These are not just smooth Hollywood types who get in front of the camera after everyone else has done all the real work.
And I can attest to that because during the course of the day, I saw Hyneman and Savage both make very quick work of building conundrums requiring all manner of tools and machines--things no fake builders could do themselves.
"There's a lot of shows where you can see that the hosts show up, and it's all been set up for them," said Hyneman. "What you see here, we do it ourselves."
Indeed. It turns out, as the show itself makes a point of explaining, that Savage and Hyneman have 30 years of special-effects work experience between them. Hyneman alone has owned a couple of effects companies and worked on several feature films and endless numbers of commercials. Artifacts from those projects are everywhere around M5.
Downstairs, in one workroom that is adjacent to the large warehouse space so familiar to fans of the show, I smelled the distinct aroma of steak. And the reason, it turned out, is that the MythBusters crew had spent the previous day--and were planning to spend more time on Wednesday--is diving into the world of extreme meat tenderizing.
On Tuesday, I was told, they'd tried to tenderize steak with dynamite and by shooting the meat out of an air cannon at 400 miles an hour. They'd also put some beef under heavy pressure, essentially giving it the bends.
This project was testament to their playful sides.
"These are the kinds of thing that have nothing to do with a myth," Hyneman told me. "But these are the fun things for us. We're just having a blast. We're very curious about everything. For us, this kind of experimentation is just play."
After putting the meat through its paces, they'd then used a narrow piece of metal tubing to take core samples from the meat to measure--using scientific instruments that I admit I didn't understand--exactly how tender the steak was.
Savage is an extreme multi-tasker. Even as some meat was sizzling away on a grill, he and Hyneman were hard at work on their main project of the day: designing and building what they call the "fish flapper."
This is a contraption built to examine the myth that sharks are attracted to movement and therefore are more likely to attack a fish that's flopping around than one that is dead in the water.
And on the very same table where Savage was building his fish flapper, he was also cooking his steaks.
"So many of our builds end up looking like this," Savage said. "There's a lot more complicated ways to do things, but I really like it like this."
Over the course of the day, the fish flapper proved to be a perfect example of how the MythBusters team works.
That's because their concept for the project--two dead fish hanging into the water, one from a specially built contraption that could automatically flap it around--would change several times throughout the day. But it dominated their day, with both of them spending a significant amount of time thinking about the right way to attack the problem.
After Hyneman drilled through one of the fish he and Savage were using to experiment with as part of their fish flapper project, the drill bit Hyneman used is filled with fish bits.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)In addition, they seemed to decide to abandon the mechanical side of the project in favor of someone--probably Hyneman--dangling the fish or fish-like object himself because it would be a better way of achieving the motion they wanted.
Finally, toward the end of the day, it seemed they'd settled on a system in which they would dangle two lines about 20 feet below the surface into cones surrounded by some dark material, and would string rubber fish-shape objects on those lines. By flapping one a lot, they would be able to determine, they believed, if simple movement in the water and the disturbance to the flow of the water, could attract sharks.
Working underwater--as they will likely do in at least some of their shark myths--around such dangerous marine animals is not something for the faint of heart.
But after completing more than 120 episodes--including specials and working on more than 500 myths that have demanded more than 2,000 explosions--Hyneman seems to suggest that not much frightens him.
Still, he is aware of the boundaries he and Savage have pushed over the years the show has been on.
"Both Adam and I feel that our number is up," Hyneman said, "because of the stuff we're playing with."
I asked him if that made him feel he should walk away, and he shook his head.
"No, it means we should be more careful," Hyneman said. "I don't think we've ever asked ourselves that question."
One thing both men do agree on is that they enjoy the building process and the way they almost unconsciously work together to simplify things as they go.
"We start out with some complex pile of details," Hyneman said, "and the longer we work, the more of those details we eliminate."
Another playground is M7, the satellite MythBusters workshop a few blocks away where I go for a little while in the middle of the afternoon. There, the younger three MythBusters members--Byron, Imahara, and Belleci--are working on a myth for another episode of the show.
This one deals with ninjas.
The idea is to look into whether it's realistic that a ninja really could sit underwater, breathing through a bamboo reed, lying in wait for hours for a target, and then shoot a poison dart through the reed at the target.
Grant Imahara blows a dart through his bamboo reed dart shooter. He, Kari Byron, and Tory Belleci are working on an experiment to see how long a ninja could stay underwater, breathing through one of the reeds, lying in wait to attack an enemy with a poison dart.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)When I arrive, the three are hard at work cutting a series of reeds into various length tubes, making custom darts, and then shooting them at various targets around their warehouse.
Each has chosen different width and length tubes, and the three are having variable results. Byron seems to be getting the most accuracy with her shots, while Belleci seems to be getting the most distance. And Imahara is having problems just getting his dart to even shoot.
But all three appear to be having a blast. And while they most likely won't be hitting anyone anytime soon with poison darts, soon they will most likely know more about what it would take to do so than almost anyone else still living.
Back at M5 a little later, I'm struck again by how much fun the MythBusters stars are having with their work and that, while they take what they're doing very seriously, they're also some of the luckiest people on Earth, given that they're getting paid to blow things up, to go to the Bahamas to play with sharks, and to cook and eat a lot of extreme-tenderized steak in the name of science.
"We've always said that MythBusters is a little bit of Mr. Wizard meets Jackass," said Savage. "It's not, 'Why you shouldn't jump in an elevator.' It's, 'Here's what would happen if you did.'"
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