OMG OMG OMG. I’ll be the moderator for the Mythbusters panel at Comic Con this year!
Squeeee!
Comic Con is a HUGE scifi/fantasy/comic/gaming/pop culture convention held every year in San Diego. I’ve always wanted to go, and last year, the Hive Overmind Discover Magazine sent me there to be on a panel about science in science fiction (I have several blog posts about it; start here and click through to the next ones, in particular this one with a video of our panel). They’re sending me again this year (and I’ll have more about that a little later), and I’m really excited to go.
Then last week I get a call from My Close Personal Friend Adam Savage™, asking me if I’d like to moderate their panel! I said yes immediately (and then cleared it with the magazine; maybe I did that a little backwards), because despite all indications I’m not a complete idiot.
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Adam will be on the panel, as well as Jamie Hyneman, Tory Belleci, and Grant Imahara. Kari can’t attend, as by then she’ll be a brand new mommy. That’s wonderful for her, of course, though a bit of a bummer for us. Adam and Jamie were on a panel at CC last year (that’s the picture shown here) and it was a riot. This year, the room is twice as big, too. Discovery Channel has more info on their press release (PDF; click that link, select your location and "Discovery Channel" for network, then click the link on the right labeled "Mythbusters Comic Con panelists").
On the panel we’ll be talking about the new season, what they have planned for the next, and how their Moon Hoax testing episode would have been an unwatchable disaster without my science advice. I’ll really try to come up with some unusual questions for them, but I could use some help from you, me droogs. If you’ve got a good question for the ‘busters, put it in the comments below… and if I use it I’ll give you a shout-out.
And may I just say once again: squeee!
P.S. This is getting picked up a bit online, like at the San Diego City Guide and Pop Culture Zoo.
June 25th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
I am often jealous of you Mr. Plait.
June 25th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Is it true that “Mythbusters The Musical” is in the works and that Richard O’Brien will write the music?
June 25th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
I will continue to enjoy the irony that is a star-struck astronomer.
Wish I could be there.
June 25th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
That’s great, and as both a Mythbusters and BA fan I wish I could go.
But the press release link doesn’t work.
June 25th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Wish I could attend, just so I could bask in the greatest of your presence …
Ok, really I just want to meet Felicia Day, but figured if you were going to also be there … you know, I might say Hi…
June 25th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
I love Mythbusters, anything that popularizes rational scientific ways of looking at mysteries is a good thing as far as I’m concerned. That said, I find that they keep making the same mistake with regards to a specific subset of myths: fluid dynamics don’t scale. The “Mythtanic” episode is the most obvious culprit, but it’s systemic throughout the show because they so enjoy scale model testing (which works great for other things, of course, but not for this). I suppose, as a graduate student who’s spent a fair bit of time studying turbulence effects, I’d like to ask them 1) if they’re aware of the problem and 2) if they’ve looked into ways of working around it. The problem is one of Reynold’s number, of course, scale water or scale air needs to be much less viscous than the real thing to account for the difference of size parameter. On their budget I confess that I’m stumped as to how they could get around it, but I’d at least like to know that they’re aware of the issue. That they seem to believe a tiny boat sinking slowly bears any resemblance in its affect on the surrounding fluid to a massively huge ship sinking quickly has always bugged the hell out of me…
June 25th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Bummer they weren’t at the Philadelphia Comicon although Max Brooks was.
As for my question, Would Jamie’s mustache be able to repel an attack from Chuck Norris?
June 25th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Hmm, the PR link worked for me earlier and now it doesn’t. I think there is a timeout involved. I fixed the link above.
June 25th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Phil, will you be making any other appearances in San Diego while you’re here? At the Fleet Space Center and Museum perhaps? Neil deGrasse Tyson is giving a lecture there on July 23. I was able to get a ticket to that, but Comic Con is all sold out!
June 25th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
This is great news! Now I just have to figure out how to sneak away from our booth so I can check this out.
June 25th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Just saw this on Grant Imaharas Facebook Twitter widget/thing. Cool!
June 25th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Congratulations! But, Phil, please don’t speak, write or even think the word “squeee” anymore. Some things are just wrong.
June 25th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Congrats! I’m so jealous that you even get to go! Too much cool stuff in July. It’s killing me!
June 25th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
How often has information acquired via Mythbusters helped you in some way in your everyday life?
June 25th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
I sat in on the “Science in Science Fiction” panel last year, Dr. Plaitt, and very much enjoyed it. Though, I had really hoped to hear from you a bit more. It sounds like this year will include just such an opportunity!
I shall endeavor to find a good question for you!
June 25th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Is it true that Jamie’s mustache crawls away every night to Vegas to perform as Rip Taylor’s toupee?
June 25th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
DAMMIT. The first year in forever that I’m not going… too spendy, need to cut back this year. My daughter is sad, it’s a yearly ritual of ours. Advice for anyone going for the first time: it’s very crowded- Saturday is the most popular day. Line up early for the panels. Parking is not as difficult downtown as they say- just get there early each day and prepare to walk a few blocks to the convention center. Bring snacks; all the food lines are long. Have fun, everybody! I’ll catch the highlights online.
Oh, and check out the Browncoats booth at the back of the hall!
June 25th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
“Squee”?
Your days as a teenager are long behind you, Plait. Just saying.
June 25th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
This might be a little too convoluted, but here goes. I read that the LRO is expected to image some of the Apollo landing sites, and should actually be able to directly resolve the landers and maybe even the rovers. No doubt the hoax hacks will pronounce that the photos were faked in some way. My question is whether Jamie and Adam plan to do a Moon Hoax Redux to demonstrate the difficulty of faking the photos from the LRO.
June 25th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Everyone knows that the Mythbusters crew have the coolest jobs in the world. I’m tired of hearing that. I want to hear about the crappiest day they ever had when putting together a show.
June 25th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Have they ever considered putting together an educational series based on the MythBusters? MythBusters itself has decent educational value but I think that with a little effort it could become an exceptional science teaching tool.
June 25th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Ask them if they could do an episode with Penn and Teller where they each try to out-Mythbust/BS each other. You could moderate that, too. Assign points based on totally made-up criteria as they do on Who’s Line Is It Anyway. Of course the whole thing would be scripted and such, but OMG would it be a huge hit. I can just see at the end Kari holding back Jamie who’s shouting over her shoulder at Penn “That’s bullcrap!” and Teller holding back Penn who’s shouting at Jamie “Your busted!”
June 25th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Bill Roberts,
Photoshop. Not difficult at all.
June 25th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
You get to do the coolest things!!!
June 25th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
I am the very model of modern TV host.
I know everyting of blocking, scripting, and costs. I know things explosive, astronomical, and physical.
I argue things biological, chemical and dynamical.
(short version of a song that might be in the mythbusters musical)
June 25th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
You need to ask Tory something funny and witty about being Buster’s replacement. He has obviously become the show’s de-facto crash test dummy.
June 25th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
2. TS Says:
Is it true that “Mythbusters The Musical” is in the works and that Richard O’Brien will write the music?
Let’s do the de-bunk again!
OT: Speaking of comics and ‘squeee’ (really, BA, that does make me think of teenage girls and things like “Twilight”…)
Anyone else old/geeky enough to remember the MAGNUS:Robot Fighter series? Russ Manning (who, along with Wally Wood, is one of my favorite artists) created and drew the original.
J/P=?
June 25th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
I’d like you to squeeze in a question about how they think the science element has been treated throughout the seasons of the show.
In my personal experience, there’s ups and downs – some recent episodes amounting to little more than gratuitous explosion reels, or silly things caught on high speed footage (something there’s now a dedicated show for anyway – Time Warp). One of the better ones IMHO is actually the Moon Hoax episode; it was simple, explanatory and showed good reproducible experiments.
The scale testing and model building is actually a part I really enjoy (the above comments on fluid dynamics noted), and I think it adds much of the science education part of the show. It’d be interesting to know if they agree, what with more episodes following the format “let’s go directly to full scale and see what happens”.
Wish I had better access to venues like this – being a continent away it’s a bit of a pain getting there.
Anyway, that’s my question(s).
June 25th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Very cool! Congrats!
I’m planning on attending that panel–prolly squished against the wall with only a camera visible
June 25th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
Yay, you mentioned Pop Culture Zoo!!!!
My frien’d husband runs the site, and it is teh awesome.
June 25th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Is there such a thing as the Mythbuster Work Book? a high school physics/science work book doing all the Mythbuster things, back the envelope calculations, small scale experiments, electronics,safety and construction.
June 25th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
Here are some Q’z I would love to have A’d:
1) Considering your special effects origins, how much of your time has shifted from making movie magic over to busting myths?
2) How has the staff at M5 expanded as a result of the popularity of the show?
3) How do you think Kari would feel about featuring her baby in some diaper-myth debunking? Super-absorbent my @$$!
4) What’s the final verdict on the thermite-ice explosion “myth”?
June 25th, 2009 at 6:26 pm
One lame question I have wondered about for a while is:
I have noticed that they use both Imperial measurements, and Metric measurements, and I wonder if the use of Imperial is solely for the viewers’ sake, and if they’d prefer to use SI all the time.
June 25th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
Some imperial is probably used because the building trades still use imperial. Even here in Canada they still use imperial.
June 25th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
Weeeee! and Squeeee!
I’m coming all the way from Korea for this. It will be my first con ever and yay! Mythbusters! Baring Whedon’verse conflicts, I will be there!
I’m still waiting for MBs to cover “fan death”.
June 25th, 2009 at 7:05 pm
Awesome.
I love the Mythbusters – I find it entertaining and it at least gives you something to think about. My little sister and my ex-boss hate the show though and say “it’s parading as science but it’s not; their methodologies would never be accepted in a journal”.
So Phil, one BIG question: Is there some myth that they can look into with the necessary detail to please genuine scientists? It would require an awful lot more work than they currently do and of course it’s still a challenge to make it entertaining, but would Discovery at least once fund a special (much more expensive than usual) episode? That’s the question I’d like you to ask.
Pleeeease?
June 25th, 2009 at 7:24 pm
21. Stark Says:
Have they ever considered putting together an educational series based on the MythBusters? MythBusters itself has decent educational value but I think that with a little effort it could become an exceptional science teaching tool.
They DO have a kit called The Weird World Of Water at ThinkGeek:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/geek-kids/7-13-years/bcb5/
Try this at home!
J/P=?
June 25th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
I’d love to go to Comic Con, but would probably only go to see the MythBusters. I’ve never really been into comic books, and the gaming would suck, as the only D&D would be 4th edition. But when all else fails, there’s always the dealer’s room.
June 25th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
There absolutely must be an explosion, even if it is only a popped paper bag. What will Kari name her curtain climber?
June 26th, 2009 at 12:37 am
Phil
Will you ever stop being so successful…I am SOOOOOO jealous.
I hope I re-incarnate as Phil Plait II in the next life.
John
June 26th, 2009 at 1:13 am
25. Davidlpf Says: “I am the very model of modern TV host.
I know everyting of blocking, scripting, and costs.
I know things explosive, astronomical, and physical.
I argue things biological, chemical and dynamical.
(short version of a song that might be in the mythbusters musical)”
Don’t give up the day job. Or at least pass it by Tom Lehrer:
http://www.privatehand.com/flash/elements.html
For a somewhat more complete version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmwlzwGMMwc
- Jack
June 26th, 2009 at 1:41 am
Two questions that I’d like to get answered.
1. What’s the most asked for myth that you refuse to do, and why?
2. When did you realise that the show was going to be a success, and has being famous changed your life anyway?
(I know, it’s four questions)
June 26th, 2009 at 1:47 am
Would they like to do a ‘junk yard wars (US)’ / ‘scrapheap challange (UK)’ buildoff match against the Orange County Choppers guys?
June 26th, 2009 at 2:07 am
Awesome. Any details on tickets? Or will there not be tickets, just a long line, like most Comic-Con panels? We were at SDCC last year and were looking forward to the Mythbusters event, but found out that there were limited advanced tickets distributed online well prior to the convention. We don’t want to miss this two years in a row!
June 26th, 2009 at 6:25 am
@Idahogie: Wouldn’t that be the episode where they were polishing poo? Hey, you did ask for the crappiest day …
June 26th, 2009 at 8:29 am
I still really love Mythbusters, but I gotta chime in with the “please stop just exploding things” gripe.
The Bomb Range gets as much screen time as M5, recently. Stuff blowing up is cool and all, but I don’t understand why GIANT EXPLOSIONS need to be the focus of every single episode. I personally find watching the crew at work solving problems a lot more interesting.
June 26th, 2009 at 8:39 am
Apparently not a lot of Jhonen Vasquez fans here. I see squee and I think this: http://members.tripod.com/syko_pyro6669/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/jthm_squee.jpg
and this:
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Club/9622/squee.jpg
Hopefully this panel is video taped and released somewhere. I can’t go but I’d love to see this.
June 26th, 2009 at 10:02 am
I would like to join the others in wanting to know if educational materials exist or will be made in the future to bring this sort of inquiry learning to classrooms.
I’ve been wanting to create a general education science course based on the concept of Mythbusters and/or Bad Astronomy for a while now. So far, though, the only thing we’ve used is a General Physics lab on cooling based on the myth about the fastest way to chill beer (except we use bottled water).
Yes, Phil, I’m the guy who asked you the same question about a class using Bad Astronomy as a textbook at Dragon Con last year.
June 26th, 2009 at 10:51 am
Phil –
Perhaps, ask about Jamie’s cap – it has an eventful life (OK, existence). Has it been damaged in the cause of MythBusting?
I second the request for a journal-publishable MythBusting, as well. It would be good for them to show their ‘formal academic’ chops… I’d note that, given what a formal paper requires, it may not be something applicable for them to SHOW, but it would be a feather in their cap (not just Jamie’s!) for them to HAVE.
-John
June 26th, 2009 at 11:08 am
@J/P – Thanks, I had not seen that – one ordered and on the way for my son to play with. OK, dad may play a bit too.
June 26th, 2009 at 11:30 am
Cool! Glad to hear it’s in a bigger room this year — I was in line for 3 hours last year, and didn’t get in (as is the case for 2/3 of those in line!) I’ll be looking for you! (I should have said something to you while in line — you came out and spoke with some people in line just a few feet in front of me!)
To Keith — Gaming at Comic Con is more than D&D. Trust me on this — my wife is on the committee, and in fact is the #2 person in charge of gaming! There are 6 rooms of gaming in the convention centre, and usually 2 rooms at the hotel next door. There will be all sorts of games, from FRP to card to “ordinary” board games! (Yes, if you want to play Chutes and Ladders, it will be there!) And you are welcome to bring/run your own games also.
But don’t think “comics and games” are all that CCI (Comic Con International) is about! There are mass-media events, science fiction, general movie stuff, and in fact it’s one of the largest toy shows in the country! There has to be a huge variety of interests there, or they wouldn’t sell out to 125,000 attendees! (Yes, it’s the size of a small city!) Do come — next year, as this year has been all sold out for a couple of months now. (Yes, ALL sold out — 4-day, 3-day (skipping Saturday), and all 4 types of 1-day memberships are sold out!)
June 26th, 2009 at 11:53 am
Just wanted to check in and voice some support;
Mythbusters is an excellent show. Love it. And the opener with the rocket sled blew my mind (not because the results were somehow unexpected, just that the footage was something we went back and forth with on the DVR about 40 times. ) I’m in the rocket sciences business, but you really don’t get to see that kind of thing so well done very often.
Questions:
1) As posited before: any thoughts about opening up a classroom series of some sort? I know Grant sticks for the VEXplorer robots (I own one, they’re a great toy for any age that can use a wrench). I think there’s a big gap where Bill Nye once was that the mythbuster’s guys could do a great job with.
2) Adam’s hobby time stuff. I saw the TED talk on this where he sculpted a dodo skeleton and a maltese falcon. Being that this is exactly the sort of home-time silly stuff I and my buddies do, I’m interested in what other projects he’s up to on the side.
June 26th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
awesome! hope to get a chance to meet you there
June 26th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Phil, I suppose you know that David Tennant will be there… I bet you can get enough access to meet him.
Lucky!
Of course, he’ll be lucky to meet you, too. Imagine, you and DT, in a room together… can I come?
June 26th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
phil, congrats and all that, BUT are you aware that David Tennant (DAVID TENNANT!) is supposed to be there? really, isn’t *that* the star you should be revolving around?
June 26th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
OMG! Adam Savage (Phil’s Close Personal Friend[TM] has lost his phone because of $11,000 in roaming fees!!
http://techdirt.com/articles/20090626/1243235374.shtml
and the ‘tweets’ from Adam:
http://twitter.com/donttrythis/statuses/2348254114
http://twitter.com/donttrythis/statuses/2348102100
(both links are in the first, BTW)
J/P=?!!
June 26th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
@Kees – The MythBusters would win because Paul Sr. would be too busy yelling at his team and beating them up to get anything done.
For those who don’t like MythBusters explosions – I love them!! I laugh myself silly whenever they blow something up!! It wouldn’t be the same without them.
@Bill – Appreciate the info, I stand corrected.
June 26th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
Awesome!
I honestly did not know of you last year when I was at SDCC, wish I had. I will be there again this year. I and my friends may cosplay as the characters from an online comic called Looking For Group.
Uber geeky perhaps but we only Cosplay at Comic Con.
As to myths to bust I have a possibly touchy one:
There are supposedly various plans floating around the internet for how to build an EMP device from off the shelf components. I have read something (trying to track it down) that said a government commission obtained copies of a number of these plans and attempted to build the devices and failed.
The myth is that terrorists (or bored rich kids) could build the devices quickly and cheaply and take out entire city blocks (if not whole cities) worth of unshielded electronics.
A secondary myth that I have heard over the years is that older model cars particularly diesel types will be the only ones drive-able after a substantial EMP blast, either from a nuke or an EMP device/warhead. This is supposed to be because of the various computer systems within newer cars that control vital mechanical systems like fuel injection, brakes, stability control and most important interior environmental system! What good is a drive-able car if you can’t use the AC or roll down the windows!
I know Popular Mechanics or Popular Science ran an article about such devices a number of years ago trying to tell of the potential dangers of such devices in the wrong hands.
Myth Busters has touched on EMPs one or two times (007 Watches and bullets for one) but I wonder of the guys would be interested in trying this one. They would have to shield their cameras.
Also, will there be another science in science-fiction forum this year with you in attendance?
-Joseph
June 27th, 2009 at 12:46 am
58. Joseph Says: “A secondary myth that I have heard over the years is that older model cars particularly diesel types will be the only ones drive-able after a substantial EMP blast, either from a nuke or an EMP device/warhead.”
Naaah. They’ll all run fine. You just need to replace the solinoid.
- Jack
June 27th, 2009 at 3:42 am
I didn’t care for the episode where they, “tested” the polygraph. Why didn’t they put the reader in another room? They were supposed to be testing the machine, yet there are two components to the process.
June 27th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
@ Jack. Taking advice from Tom Cruise characters?
-Joseph
June 29th, 2009 at 10:44 am
Joseph:
Modern diesels wouldn’t be any better off than anything else. They still use computers to handle fuel injection. The only advantage they could have would be no computer controlled spark timing.
In general though, yes, if something took out the car’s ECU it would make the car useless until replaced. Older cars without ECU (mechanical fuel injection, like older vettes for example, or carborated, like my old RX-7) could deliver fuel. Anything with a mechanical distributor would be able to deliver spark without the use of a computer. However, little will stop the spark coils and injector solenoid coils in a car from acting as an antenna to an EMP shock and burning them out, making just about any car pointless.
Best bet for any car is to hope that all that metal on the outside makes for a good shield. Unless you go steam powered. Then you’re pretty much good (except of course for all the terrible risks of steam power anyway)
Now as far as what is best when Z-day comes? Diesel might be most rugged, since it’s not as sensitive to water getting in. Plus large, high torque, low RPM engines are readily available when you need to start assembling your DIY “dead reckoning.’ Steam could be cool, as Ash showed us in AoD, but it takes a long time to start and seems hard to conceal when needed.
Yes, work is slow today.
July 6th, 2009 at 10:36 am
[...] this panel and moderating the Mythbusters panel, Comic Con will rock the west coast. I hope to see some of you there– maybe we can figure out [...]
July 23rd, 2009 at 9:01 am
[...] – 8:15 I’m moderating the Mythbusters panel woohooyeah! That’s in Room 6BCF, and even though it seats 2000 you might wanna get there [...]
January 11th, 2010 at 10:12 pm
I’d love to hear about doing a 9/11 model. There was internet buzz that they were planning a special and it was shut down by the gov. Is there truth to that? Will they ever consider doing a 9/11 scale model of the building and the planes?