Mythbusters experiment goes awry, sends cannonball through two houses

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2011/12/06/tv-experiment-goes-awry-sends-cannonball-rocketing-through-homes/

by viggity • 15 years ago

496 298 15 years ago

losangeles.cbslocal.com

viggity2• 15 years ago

Watch the video, it is surreal. Now the show is probably going to suck because their insurance won't let them do anything remotely interesting with explosives.

TillE• 15 years ago

Maybe they'll have to actually focus on doing interesting things without explosives. My interest in Mythbusters faded as their excuses for blowing stuff up every week became increasingly absurd and pointless.

kahawe2• 15 years ago

> My interest in Mythbusters faded as their excuses for blowing stuff up every week became increasingly absurd and pointless.

And the Obama episode? Really, the best they could think of was Archimedes death ray because it wasnt "tested thoroughly enough"??? Come on......

RodgerTheGreat• 15 years ago

I agree. The earlier, lower-budget seasons of the show lead to some really clever solutions for testing things that would be unfeasible to try at full-scale. Now if they want to melt a semi truck with thermite they just buy one and do it. The target audience has really shifted.

gldalmaso• 15 years ago

I have observed this also. Right now I can predict that any episode will have two "myths" that are bound to be either about explosions, cars or alcohol, with the possibility of mixins.

The myths are gone, all that's left are busters, or rather blasters.

ugh5• 15 years ago

I’m not sure whether they really are blowing up more stuff? Maybe someone should check that myth?

There were some really awful myths this year (I hated the Green Hornet show and that other show where they promoted some other stupid show on the Discovery Channel, also the Obama episode) but recent episodes have been pretty good and my subjective impression is that they have done a lot of low key myths in a big way. Also, the myths that are actually about explosions have become more sophisticated.

atourgates• 15 years ago

Well - the obvious solution is to just move the explosives testing to a more remote location.

I drove past the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center outside of 29 Palms a few months ago. You could shoot a cannon ball several miles in any direction out there without hitting anything of value.

The same is true for Fort Irwin just north of there, or the Naval Weapons Center China Lake just off the 395 on the way up to Mammoth. Of course, all those pale in comparison to the vast emptyness of the 1,300+ square mile Nevada Test Range. If it's good enough to test Nuclear armaments, it's probably good enough to handle the occasional wayward cannonball. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada_National_Security_Site

Sure, none of these are as convenient to Mythbuster's HQ - but I'm sure they can fit it in their travel budget - and if one of their experiments went wayward and actually killed someone, I'm sure it'd be the end of the show.

dholowiski4• 15 years ago

Has anybody noticed that mythubsters experiments seem to be getting more daring and un-necessarily dangerous? For me it started with the 'curving bullet' myth, that just didn't seem to have the necessary safety controls. Since then I've seen many myths that could have easily ended in disaster, had one simple thing gone wrong.

There's a lot to be said for teaching experimentation and the scientific method, but I'm worried they're teaching a whole generation of kids that science is inherently dangerous.

ryandvm2• 15 years ago

Actually, the problem I had with that episode was that they were mythbusting Newton's first law of motion.

dholowiski4• 15 years ago

Sure, it was a pretty dumb myth that they were testing and it didn't make for a great episode, i just still can't believe they didn't end up shooting someone.

jerf• 15 years ago

Meh, they've tested Newton's laws numerous times. If everybody knew them, both intellectually and in their bones, they wouldn't have the myths to test, but alas, I don't think you can claim with a straight face that we live in a society with universal knowledge and deep understanding of Newton's laws.

... and if you think you do, spend some time on the much-referenced "fan site".

And furthermore, there is nothing unscientific or wrong about testing our most well-tested theories. The entire point of science is that even then, the theories will still work, not that you should never test them again.

I'd also further observe that for all the drama happening here, those swinging gun sequences aren't that unsafe. It may look unsafe but the actual set of things that can plausibly go wrong was less than your intuition may be claiming. It's not like there was a way they were going to shoot themselves with a particularly higher probability than usual. (And remember that if you start constructing far-out implausible scenarios under which that might happen you must be willing to worry about equally improbably things all the time; one rapidly gets to the point where things like simply driving to work must be considered too unsafe to do if one starts spending too much improbability on the constructed scenario.)

ugh5• 15 years ago

The nice thing is that it is no problem to test Newton’s first law of motion again and again and again. If you do it right you will always get the same results.

That’s what Mythbusters is all about. It’s not about rigorous mathematical demonstrations of why something can or cannot be true, it’s about figuring stuff out in a way that actually makes it possible to see the result (and not necessarily as the result of a calculation).

That’s a less powerful and much more tedious approach than our usual methods of gaining knowledge but it is a lot more accessible and just good entertainment. Since Mythbusters is less about gaining knowledge and more about entertainment it’s also the appropriate approach for the show.

smackfu• 15 years ago

They had a recent Locations clip-show which was surprisingly good and mentioned some more close calls. For instance, the one where they set off so much ANFO that it broke windows in the nearby town. Or where they set off a fuel-air bomb with coffee creamer that almost blew up the build team because they didn't treat it like a serious explosion with them in the bunker and such.

scott_s4• 15 years ago

I love the show, but I felt very uneasy about the curving the bullet thing. I cringe every time they show those clips during the beginning montage. But other than that, nothing stood out to me.

worren• 15 years ago

Past observing tadpole behavior, science takes a strongly dangerous bent.

metastew• 15 years ago

>"I'm worried they're teaching a whole generation of kids that science is inherently dangerous."

Hmm, I don't know about you, but I would like kids to practice 'dangerous science' and grow up to be scientists, rather than to grow up and enter the financial sector to play with billions of dollars that aren't theirs and end up crippling the economy for everyone else.

Having the mindset of 'minimizing harm to self and others' is mostly expected in dangerous science, but unfortunately it seems to be optional in the financial sector.

CWuestefeld2• 15 years ago

Actually, I think they've gone downhill, but not quite for this reason. I'd be quite happy to see them act daring. But it seems to me that at the same time they've done this, they've tried to keep the viewers out of trouble by refusing to disclose the details of the experiment. One example is when they were doing "exploding pants", they wouldn't reveal the proportions of the various chemicals that they used.

I understand why they do this. However, for a show whose theme is supposed to be discovering truth by questioning, this attitude of "we know best, and you can trust us to do it right" seems wrong. And for me, it spoils the whole show.

lucisferre2• 15 years ago

I think you can thanks America's post 9/11 paranoia for a TV show not being comfortable with (or perhaps legally allowed) telling people how to make explosives.

afterburner2• 15 years ago

I think it's gone downhill because of a declining pool of good myths left to test (how many are basically just "someone on out forums dared us to do this" with a thin veneer of "myth").

hemancuso• 15 years ago

> There's a lot to be said for teaching experimentation and the scientific method, but I'm worried they're teaching a whole generation of kids that science is inherently dangerous.

I guarantee any teenager with a legitimate interest in science would consider some amount of danger the most exciting part.

Inherently dangerous can be inherently awesome.

TeMPOraL4• 15 years ago

> There's a lot to be said for teaching experimentation and the scientific method, but I'm worried they're teaching a whole generation of kids that science is inherently dangerous.

I wouldn't even say 'dangerous', I would say 'real'. Exploding things are real. Making rocket fuel from sugar and fertilizer is real. Computing the angle of a falling ball is NOT real unless you happen to fire that ball from potato gun. Computing velocity of a block sliding from a wedge is not real, is terribly and utterly boring.

Our education suffers from total detachment from reality. Physics lessons are boring, and it's right that kids point it out.

burgerbrain10• 15 years ago

Teaching kids that science is dangerous is perhaps one of the greatest contributions to society they could possibly have!

Kids love dangerous things. (Works best if you tell adults to back off and let them have fun)

damoncali2• 15 years ago

but I'm worried they're teaching a whole generation of kids that science is inherently dangerous.

I used to work at NASA on space shuttle launches. If I told you that some of the appeal did not come from the fact that one in 50 of those things was likely to go off like a firework, I'd be a liar.

surlyadopter3• 15 years ago

For a few years, the thing that bugged me the most about the show was the editing. It was being cut and presented like the target demo was a bunch of hyperactive 8 year olds who couldn't be trusted to remember what happened on screen 3 minutes ago. As an adult with an actual attention span it was extremely obnoxious, but I realize I'm probably not their target demo so whatevs.

_phred• 15 years ago

Watching it on Netflix, I assumed it was because the show was tailored for long commercial breaks. "After blasting 2–5 minutes of nonstop hyperactive advertising, let's recap what we were doing a minute ago!'

mjwalshe• 15 years ago

It is :-) at my first job we had a wave tank that was driven by a computer driven servo - it would be quite posible to write code to tell the servo to travel full distance in 0 time - which would have crated a wave so powerfull it wold have flooded our lab.

ryandvm2• 15 years ago

I don't believe it. If only there was a group of people that could test the plausibility of this story...

mcantor• 15 years ago

Apropos: http://xkcd.com/250/

ufo• 15 years ago

I can assert this comic has a very appropriate alt-text

darklajid• 15 years ago

Hmm.. Would have liked to see more details about the accident itself. The cannonball was cast iron? Any estimation about speed and weight?

Actually the biggest surprise were the walls of the house shown (mostly the exterior wall): Is this a brick and mortar house/wall? Or is this wood/insulation mostly?

Edit: In fullscreen that looks to be a wall made of concrete, with a network of iron/steel to support it? Even if it's a ~thin~ wall by some standards, this is a lot stronger than I initially guessed.

luastoned• 15 years ago

Just wood and insulation.

viggity2• 15 years ago

The video said the cannon ball was the size of a softball.

fr0sty3• 15 years ago

The house has a stucco exterior. Rigid foam insulation clad with a metal mesh covered with a thin layer of what is basically concrete.

unwind• 15 years ago

If it was a regulation-size softball made of average-density grey iron, I get 103.9 kg for the mass.

maxerickson11• 15 years ago

I get about 4 kg.

(It appears you may have used the 12 inch circumference from your softball regulations as the radius of the ball)

cbr3• 15 years ago

You might want to practice comparing results of calculations you make to what seems intuitively likely. I think you would find it's a very helpful in catching errors.

code_duck2• 15 years ago

Supposedly they were "trying to figure out how fast a cannonball would travel". Presumably they knew the mass, density and shape... and the force of the explosives being used. Perhaps someone should tell them about physics, it would save some trouble.

NegativeK• 15 years ago

> Perhaps someone should tell them about physics

Are you referring to the hosts or the general public that the hosts enjoy educating?

Symmetry3• 15 years ago

With low explosives like those used in cannons figuring out the force can be pretty tricky. This isn't an adiabatic expansion, the force experienced on the ball will depend on how fast the ball is moving. The rate at which the explosive burns depends on the heat inside the chamber which depends on the pressure. The burn rate and rate at which the cannonball leaves, plus a modifier based on how much escapes through the ignition hole, governs the pressure. I really wouldn't trust any calculation of all of the above without experiment.

reader5000• 15 years ago

Wow, lawsuit city. Hell, possibly criminal charges. This may spell the end of the show.

xd3• 15 years ago

Lawsuit city for sure. But criminal charges are unlikely as the bomb range personnel would be responsible, surely?

Tloewald• 15 years ago

They're ok as long as they didn't violate any touch-related patents or build anything in the shape of a rounded rectangle.

I'm worried you're right, but if it makes the show less obsessed with explosives that would be ok.

e1ven2• 15 years ago

I think you make things seem bigger than they are.

This isn't even their first, or largest accident- http://www.kcra.com/r/19016582/detail.html

Yes, it's embarrassing, and they're lucky no one was hurt. But since no one WAS it, and it's just property damage, that's what insurance companies are for.

The insurance company will probably crack down a bit, but they probably need a bit of that.

cbr3• 15 years ago

I think this counts as a larger accident. The one you link involved a "handful" of broken windows. This is a similar amount of property damage but came much closer to actually killing someone.

lambda• 15 years ago

Criminal charges are incredibly unlikely. This was a freak accident, in which they took plenty of safety precautions, but somehow managed to have an accident anyhow. They didn't actually hurt anybody. There are no real criminal charges that could be brought against them.

And it will only be lawsuit city of Discovery Channel doesn't offer an appropriate settlement. I'm sure that Discovery Channel has plenty good insurance, and plenty of cash on hand, and will over to cover the costs of the damages to those involved, plus a little extra to keep them happy. There will only be lawsuits if they don't offer a reasonable settlement, which I would find unlikely.

ajays• 15 years ago

As I was reading that story, the sequence at the beginning of each episode was flashing through my mind, in Adam's voice: "do not try this at home. We are, what you call, professionals"...

// yeah, I know, mistakes happen.

donw• 15 years ago

"Do not try this at home. Instead, let us try this at your home."

Or, "We've got years of experience that keeps us safe. You, on the other hand, not so much."

signa112• 15 years ago

i hope that they don't get judged too harshly for this unfortunate incident. it is a nice and fun program to watch, and would be a real shame if it got canned...

runako• 15 years ago

It's just a TV show. They really could have killed people in their own home with this stunt. If they can't do it safely, it's not worth the entertainment value. (And I say that as a fan of the show.)

johanbev3• 15 years ago

I hope they are judged harshly for this incident. If they are blasting cannon balls through peoples houses and cars they have no control of what they are doing. Sending balls of cast iron through habitated areas cannot be dismissed as an "unfortunate incident". In my country (Norway) you'd immediately get arrested and charged if you fired a live cannon outside a big millitary shooting range. I certainly hope that their celebrity status won't impede justice in this case.

sp3323• 15 years ago

They are at a firing range, it says right in the article "Camp Parks Military Firing Reservation". Apparently the cannonball hit one or two hills before entering the town. They weren't even firing in the direction of the town.

a-priori• 15 years ago

In my country (Norway) you'd immediately get arrested and charged if you fired a live cannon outside a big millitary shooting range.

They did fire this in a "big military shooting range". The problem is that it didn't stay confined to the range.

Actually I'd say the range is at least partly responsible for this. They shouldn't have allowed a cannon to be fired that had the energy to go beyond the confines of the range.

phamilton• 15 years ago

They DID fire it in a big military shooting range.

xd3• 15 years ago

They would have been at a bomb range .. and funny as it may seem, accidents do happen. Wait for the full report before slamming the book on them.

yock2• 15 years ago

Not to be overlooked is that they were on a military shooting range.

mindcrime• 15 years ago

It was a freaking accident, dude. Accidents happen. Nobody likes it, and nobody is making excuses for them. But sometimes you have to acknowledge that you can't control everything. From the sounds of things they took what should have been the necessary precautions, including doing the test at a military firing range.

I'm not saying they shouldn't be held accountable for the outcome of their actions or anything. Of course they should. And they should be expected to learn something from this incident that will prevent something like this from happening again. But there's absolutely no point in crucifying them over this.

_I certainly hope that their celebrity status won't impede justice in this case._

"Justice" in this case would be paying for the damage they caused. I'd be highly surprised if that doesn't happen. I mean, surely they have insurance to cover things like this???

xd3• 15 years ago

Reminds me of the convertible car mishap: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oy872Fb1ad8

ck2• 15 years ago

While I guess explosions sell to a certain crowd, I am more fond of the useful things they do like prove MPG increases with just 5psi more to the tires and how to get out of a car that has been submerged. Guess that isn't "sexy" enough for some.

I'm curious if the day they do finally kill or seriously injure someone if the show will be retired.

Not wishing for it, just wondering if that's the right thing to do.

TamDenholm• 15 years ago

One mishap in eight years* is a very good record, the Mythbusters put a LOT of time and energy into safety and it was clearly an accident, they obviously weren't being reckless.

I dont have any firm numbers but i'm pretty sure that more space debris and meteorites fall from space every year than mishaps from Mythbusters.

* I've no idea if there have been any more serious accidents, but this seems to have been the first since the news story didnt mention precedent.

lucisferre2• 15 years ago

"I don't have any firm numbers" followed by "I'm pretty sure". Sounds like the beginning of a myth.

pjin• 15 years ago

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=188105

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2009/06/04/...

A direct comparison may be misleading b/c since you could model meteorite impacts with a probability distribution over latitude/longitude, whereas Mythbusters presumably uses the same testing site(s). Also note that the Google answer's 3 cases of meteors causing injury or damaging property all lie in the US.

dholowiski4• 15 years ago

Definitely more than one mishap. Many of their mishaps make it on to the show, even. This is possibly the most significant mishap, but not the first.

noodle5• 15 years ago

they've had mishaps, but none that seriously endangered general public quite like this one, afaik.

example: http://www.kcra.com/r/19016582/detail.html

maxerickson11• 15 years ago

Shooting a high energy projectile into a residential area seems exactly reckless to me.

They do seem to take safety seriously, it is unfortunate that in this case that did not translate into choosing a more isolated location (which at least limits the consequences of a misfire to active participants).

freehunter3• 15 years ago

Building a house in the firing line of a military shooting range seems exactly reckless to me.

noodle5• 15 years ago

1) they were on a military explosives test ground and firing range. implying that they were in someone's back yard is a bit disingenuous when i'm sure more dangerous things are regularly tested there.

2) i rather suspect that they were pointing it exactly where they were told to point it by the officials and experts, as has been the case with pretty much everything they do on that range.

it sucks that this happened, everyone's lucky that no one was hurt. but i largely suspect they weren't shooting from the hip about it. the firing range must've had officials to oversee it. their insurance company regularly oversees all stunts. and the crew of the show are straight up experienced professionals, regardless of how it comes off on tv.

latch• 15 years ago

Local news coverage with good details of the damage:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jj-CErr0VOY

Splines• 15 years ago

I really hope they share what went wrong. When they deal with explosives they usually (always?) have an expert on hand to ensure things are done right, so it'll be interesting to see a post-mortem.

garyrichardson• 15 years ago

Wow, watching that news clip reminds me about why I never watch the news. So much bias and unneeded anger. There's no explanation as to why the canon ball missed. There's also no mention of the fact that:

a) the had firing experts on hand b) the fire/police departments were notified ahead of time and probably had someone on site. They also probably had veto power and input on how it was staged.

(* I don't know this for a fact. I'm basing this on every other Mythbusters episode I've ever seen)

My favorite line: "his elderly mother thought the sky was falling." Makes her sound like a simple nutcase. The son then says, "Yeah, she thought it might be a tree falling on the house or a meteorite."

A few months ago my brother and some friends went on an epic multiday hike. The previous year, someone attempted it and was never seen again.

They were all experienced and were very prepared. In the end they found themselves in a situation where they had to have search and rescue pull them out -- going forward or back wasn't an option. They had a locator beacon (part of being prepared) and decided to pull it. The other option was to head back, miss their return date and have S&R come looking for them anyway.

The local news portrayed them as inexperienced idiots who were totally unprepared. They misinterpreted or manipulated quotes. They didn't actually understand anything -- just regurgitated facts with their uneducated and biased tones and extrapolations.

In conclusion, TV news should be ended in all forms. Reporters aren't experts in the subject matter they report. Even though they should be trained to know better, modern news programs make no effort to disguise their bias.

endersshadow• 15 years ago

I think you're confusing "bias" with "sensationalism." TV journalists (especially of the local variety) look to sensationalize every piece of news that they can. This is due to a whole host of factors--not the least being plummeting local news ratings.

But most importantly, I want to touch on the following point: "Reporters aren't experts in the subject matter they report." Of course they're not! Journalism itself is not something that everybody can do. The problem you're citing is not because journalists aren't experts in whatever they're reporting (which is a ludicrous notion--news spans so many different subject areas that it would be nigh impossible to house an expert reporter on every subject). The problem is driven by falling ratings and a need for more gripping and sensational stories. Years ago, Ellen DeGeneres even had the joke that she was eating dinner and the local news came on to say, "What you're eating right now can kill you. Film at eleven."

lukejduncan2• 15 years ago

> Journalism itself is not something that everybody can do.

I think the Internet has shown otherwise

graupel• 15 years ago

I was a local television reporter for a long time, before switching to the digital side of things.

You're totally correct with most of the above.

One of the crazy (and sometimes fun) parts of the job of being a local television reporter is trying to be an expert in something new every day.

Really what it comes down to is having to try to figure out how to distill down a huge amount of information into a one minute, thirty second chunk of video - when you do that, by nature, only the 'sensational' stuff makes the cut.

Then it gets cut again by someone who has no idea about any of the stuff you left out of the story when they write a promotion about it, which is how you end up with teases like "What you're eating right now can kill you".

kbutler• 15 years ago

> In conclusion, TV news should be ended in all forms.

Wow. I agree there's a lot of misinformation and poor reporting on TV news, but that's like saying the Internet should be ended because of the poor quality of slashdot comments.

TeMPOraL4• 15 years ago

> In conclusion, TV news should be ended in all forms.

Even though it sounds a bit broad, I'll second the idea behind it as I understand it.

> Wow. I agree there's a lot of misinformation and poor reporting on TV news, but that's like saying the Internet should be ended because of the poor quality of slashdot comments.

There's too many misinformation and poor reporting on TV and no way to distinguish truth from falsehood. You wouldn't trust a person who verifiably lied to you 70% of the time. That's why you don't trust YouTube comments. It's a waste of brain resources to even try.

The same thing happened with newspapers and major news station. Even most news from news sites that end up on HN get debunked in comments after few hours by people who actually know the domain.

I personally don't know who to believe now - everyone on "popular news" seems to try either to steal attention, or to advertise something. And the truth suffers.

wpietri2• 15 years ago

For that analogy to be correct, shitty TV news stories would have to be a relatively small proportion of total TV news. That's not my experience.

RyanMcGreal• 15 years ago

A number of studies have consistently shown that TV news makes people dumber: more misinformed, more irrational, more confused, and less able to draw reasonable conclusions or make good decisions.

SomeCallMeTim• 15 years ago

I've personally been aware of the back story and facts behind maybe a dozen different US network news reports. In several cases I knew the people being interviewed.

Every single time, the news, as reported, contained glaring factual errors or lies by implication that were introduced to make more of a story. In many cases it wasn't an issue of a reporter misunderstanding the story, but rather an issue of "let's take these facts and meld them into a more compelling story."

That kind of blatant disregard for truth and pandering for ratings has no place on public airwaves.

nickpinkston• 15 years ago

Compromise: let's just end any subsidies, bandwidth licenses, etc. so we're at least not supporting it...

absconditus• 15 years ago

Except that all local TV news coverage on the major networks is bad almost without exception and cable news has degraded into celebrity news, opinions from Facebook and Twitter and heavily biased, uninformed opinion segments. If you get your news from a television news show you are likely becoming less-informed and more prone to emotional response.

PBS is one of the few organization that still broadcasts real journalism in the US and it is under constant attack by brain-dead politicians, cable news blowhards and some portion of the population whose minds have been dulled by television news.

hyperbovine• 15 years ago

Ironically, it's a TV show we're talking about here.

TheCapn• 15 years ago

I don't think you need to take it that far to say news should end. Personally if each person that was the subject of a news cast had the option to say whether it aired or not would be enough.

It sort is along the lines that if the person wasn't made available for comment then they'd have no story at all. That way the person gets to say whether the information provided is factual or bias or an alternative.

monochromatic2• 15 years ago

TV news is no better and no worse than other forms of journalism.

wpietri2• 15 years ago

That seems unlikely. Relative to print, production cost of video is high, airtime is limited, the audience is less sharp and more fickle, and producers are much more profit-focused. It'd be miraculous if TV news managed to overcome those handicaps and get up to the level of print journalism.

nitrogen• 15 years ago

I'd say long-form investigative documentary essays and films that take months to years to produce are a significantly better form of journalism than TV news.

artursapek4• 15 years ago

I disagree, the reporting is much more restricted and guided on TV what with all of the advertising partners and the push to be "family friendly."

Symmetry3• 15 years ago

No, the longer the reporter has to make the story the better a job they'll do. So TV reporting, which is produced continuously, tends to be the works, followed by daily newspapers, followed by weekly magazines.

jsherry• 15 years ago

Dude a cannonball was fired within clear sight of a residential neighborhood. Regardless of what you thought of the news reporting quality, it's pretty indefensible, negligent behavior.

tvon• 15 years ago

It seems as if this happened at Camp Parks Military Firing Reservation, which they say is surrounded by foothills.

jfoutz• 15 years ago

No, it's a military firing range. actually went over the hills. looks like a pretty big open area.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=camp+parks+prfta&hl=en&...

onemoreact• 15 years ago

From what I understand it hit a hill and bounced which is how it ended up trashing that area. While vary dangerous it was not traveling all that fast. Basically, an 80mph bullet is not that dangerous, but an 80 mph 100lb softball is.

cleaver• 15 years ago

That sounds like any contact I've had with TV news or newspapers from the inside. To be charitable, the way I'd put it is: they can only afford the time to write the story, but not enough time to really understand the story.

randall• 15 years ago

FWIW, I'm trying to fix this. Anyone else who's passionate about this, WebGL, Quartz Composer or other video graphics technology, get in touch with me.

ChuckMcM• 15 years ago

I am sure there was a fully trained crew on hand.

The riff on TV news though, that goes a bit over the top. I talked with the guy who ran the KRON news division way back when it was relevant (we were at a fundraiser and making small talk) and I commented on the challenge of making TV news accurate. His response was that the pressure to 'be first' put negative pressure on 'be accurate' and likened it to software bugs in video games as I had mentioned I was a programmer. His take was that the speed to getting the story out was primary, vetted only by confirmation by one reliable or some number of unreliable and unrelated sources, but accuracy developed over the life of the story. Each update was a bit more accurate than the previous one.

I suggested that seemed like it didn't serve the news consumer well, but he made the argument that they defined 'serving the consumer well' by measuring market share.

I came away as a much more critical viewer of news from that conversation.

That being said, Discovery is going to make bank when this episode is on TV. If I know how a lot of people are with respect to TV (and my experience is from being on Battlebots) then they send a film crew out to video the damage with a waiver that says "sign away any future claim against discovery and we'll pay to fix your house and PUT YOU ON TV!" and they will totally go for it. Maybe Jamie coming by and doing his "over the top amazed" kind of thing looking at the hole etc etc and talking with the 'regular' folks. It will be a highly rated show and draw lots of viewers. They will make some public service announcement about not trying this stuff in what is left of your home, and everyone will be happy. The folks with a hole in their house and car will have their 15 minutes of fame, the show will get a big ratings boost (look for the episode to air during sweeps week) and become another story for the mythbusters crew.

evan_• 15 years ago

You're over-estimating Discovery. They could've done the same thing when an explosion with a low cloud cover caused a bunch of window damage to a nearby town and they didn't even mention it until a "behind the scenes" special a few years later.

buckler• 15 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churnalism

I'm not sure if the same term is used in the U.S., but few British journalists have spoken out about what you've mentioned - the race to get the story out first without applying strict fact-checking standards, all happening in an industry where resources are being cut all over the place and making matters worse.

timwiseman3• 15 years ago

"but he made the argument that they defined 'serving the consumer well' by measuring market share."

It seems that if a section of the news media defines itself that way then they have defined themselves as just another consumer product.

That is not necessarily a bad thing per se. But it does seem to undercut arguments that the news media should be treated differently from others when it comes to questions like protecting sources, standards for slander/libel, public support, and access to information.

larrys• 15 years ago

"didn't serve the news consumer well"

Certainly not for every type of story (where accuracy counts more, say medical information or a lost child) but for a story like this it's more like entertainment. I mean does it really matter other than being interesting that this even happened at all?

Side: Agree highly with your PR angle. And even if rights weren't signed away even a good litigator knows what they can or can't get in damages from a case like this. It's not an automatic win with high dollars. You need to prove damages. The physical damage is easily remedied. The psychological damage is hard to prove. And ultimately the lawyer would do better to take his 33% of a quick settlement than to drag this out.

grecy• 15 years ago

> They were all experienced and were very prepared. In the end they found themselves in a situation where they had to have search and rescue pull them out -- going forward or back wasn't an option.

As a very experienced and avid hiker myself, I'm extremely curious about this. Can you provide more details? Did anyone that was on-site blog about it?

Injury is the only thing I can think of...

Thanks

tlrobinson3• 15 years ago

TV news has more in common with entertainment than journalism.

You could probably get the same amount of content from reading news story summaries for 5 minutes as you get from an hour of local TV news.

wanorris• 15 years ago

And depending on where you got your summaries from, the accuracy would likely be much, much higher.

tlb2• 15 years ago

Yes, daily TV news is crap and it's awful that it influences so many people.

But take comfort in the fact that tomorrow, TV news will have new happenings to blabber about, and yesterday's crap will be forgotten. People who care will read the full story weeks later and get something resembling truth.

YmMot• 15 years ago

That's true, but the part of the reason that it's a big problem that various news sources are so slap dash is the way the human brain works. Once a person has read a news story, it's more difficult to displace those "facts". People generally believe the first story they read, even if they read a correction later. Even if you are aware of this type of cognitive bias it still occurs. Obviously it can be overcome but it's much better to try and get the most accurate version first.

When combined with other biases, this is why polls routinely show many people still believe some story that was reported even after it has been widely discredited.

tlrobinson3• 15 years ago

This coverage isn't quite as bad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jj-CErr0VOY

cookiecaper• 15 years ago

It's not the fault of TV news. Like so many other things, the blame goes all the way upstream to the anonymous mass of idiots that comprise humanity (for almost all values). TV news is meeting the demands made by its market, which doesn't absolve their responsibility for participating, but also doesn't really make it worth much to "end TV news in all forms". We have to teach the people how to do good and not evil. If any of you know how to do this, please get back to me.

artursapek4• 15 years ago

I stopped watching the news years ago. TV news channels have unfortunately become corrupted by the tight competition for viewership, and they are willing to do shameful, pathetic things to get a story that will help them get their ratings up. What they do isn't reporting anymore. It's entertaining.

vl• 15 years ago

While your final sentiment is overly strong, there could be good TV news, and this particular bit didn't come out as overly critical or judgmental to me, phrases like "before spiraling back toward Dublin like a cruise missile" and "and bounced around like a pinball" don't help to convey the story accurately.

hmottestad• 15 years ago

Reminds me of the BBC's "How to make a news broadcast":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtGSXMuWMR4

adient• 15 years ago

You don't live in reality. Or at least your reality is not that of the average person.

andrewfelix• 15 years ago

Reminds me of the Human Giant TV News sketch... http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/8a81dd6b88/human-giant-mont...

projectileboy• 15 years ago

At least in the U.S., TV news isn't intended to inform; it's intended to sell advertising, and juicier stories sell more advertising. Expecting news from TV "news" (at either the local or national level) is like expecting news from Dancing with the Stars.

itmag• 15 years ago

Startup idea: web-based news TV channel with experts reporting on stuff (with votes).

noblethrasher• 15 years ago

"Instead the cannonball flew over the foothills surrounding Camp Parks Military Firing Reservation, before spiraling back toward Dublin like a cruise missile."

Wouldn't it be more like a ballistic missile?

rdtsc• 15 years ago

Cruise missile sounds more sensational to the average Joe.

Now they could have said "like a nuclear warhead" or a "dirty bomb" to invoke that easily accessible pre-programmed fear of terrorism as well.

Also I think they should emphasize the word "blasted" more times. I feel 4 times wasn't enough. Maybe another 12 times would really demonstrate how dangerous science can be.

freehunter3• 15 years ago

That quote made it seem like the ball changed course. "Spiraling back toward Dublin". I'm not a cannonball expert, but wouldn't it just be "heading toward Dublin"? "Spiraling back" makes it sound like it turned around and went the other way.

damoncali2• 15 years ago

projectiles in flight actually do some surprising things -curving or literally spiraling through the air are just some of them. I have no idea what this thing was doing, but at speed and with spin, weird things happen.

tlb2• 15 years ago

Perhaps "spiraling" in the sense of a football. If the cannon was rifled.

zeteo• 15 years ago

That's a really funny quote considering the iron cannonball is the size of a softball and a 17th century technology. It's a bit like saying "the horse sped by like an 18-wheeler".

dredmorbius2• 15 years ago

No, like a cruise missile.

Fired out of a cannon.

URSpider94• 15 years ago

At the risk of taking the bait, a cruise missile is powered through its entire flight to the target. A ballistic missile is powered only at the beginning of the flight, and then it arcs unpowered (ballistically) to its target.

A cannonball is not like a cruise missile.

ward2• 15 years ago

I could be wrong on this, but aren't a lot of houses in America made from softer material than stone bricks? Something like gyproc comes to mind.

I have to admit, the only reason I think this is because of seeing an episode of that awful house makeover show[1]. I believe the walls they used there were all wood/something similar.

1: Extreme makeover, house edition

HeXetic• 15 years ago

Gpyroc is drywall, and that is used for interior walls, not exterior walls.

Most (non-mobile) homes in the US & Canada are either brick veneer over wooden frame, or double-brick construction where the bricks bear the structural weight to the foundation.

fr0sty3• 15 years ago

Some home exteriors are made with brick or concrete blocks but a large number (I can't quote a percentage) of American homes are built entirely from lumber. Current construction usually involves sheathing the outside of the house with plywood sheets and covering the sheets with vinyl siding. Interior walls are generally covered in drywall (also called "sheetrock" or gypsum board)

Where are you from and what are homes built with there?

ugh5• 15 years ago

Most family homes I know in Germany are plastered brick houses†. Both exterior as well as interior walls are constructed using (different kinds of) bricks.

Wooden constructions are definitely very rare and more a fashion thing than anything else – definitely not a default choice.

—

† With those bricks: http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Datei:Lochziegel.j...

ward2• 15 years ago

I'm from Belgium, I don't know any house that doesn't use bricks/cement/other form of stone material. Maybe sometimes something softer on interior walls, but even there it's mostly stone.

I assume we don't go for the easier-to-rebuild because we don't have any strong types of nature force affecting us. There's no earthquakes, tropical storms, tornados etc here. Our summers are "cool" (going over 30C is pretty rare), our winters are "warm" (5 cm snow already feels like a lot to me). In short, we have a pretty moderate climate.

Edit: Pretty much the same as ugh[1] said in the other comment.

1: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3324587

GFischer2• 15 years ago

Yes, American houses are made of some kind of plywood (structural insulated panels according to Wikipedia).

They take it for granted, but for someone used to houses being built of bricks and mortar and concrete, it's odd.

I really don't know how they're called, but they're vastly different. Someone with at least passable knowledge of building can clarify :)

krschultz• 15 years ago

Typically the house is framed in wood. The outside is sheathed in plywood, insulation/wrap, and then siding. The inside is covered in sheetrock. There is generally fiberglass insulation inbetween. That makes each wall roughly 5-6" thick (15cm). Sometimes the outside of the house is lined with brick but that is mostly cosmetic.

Most homes are built on top of cinderblock basements, but some areas have a simple slab or a crawl space depending on ground water table height.

It has a lot of advantages over all brick construction. The spaces between the studs make running piping and electrical trivial. Sheetrock is easy to repair and install compared to plaster. The wooden frame is renewable.

A lot of commercial work is done in a similar fashion but with aluminum studs instead of wood, I think it is a fire safety thing.

I also believe wooden frame homes are safer in earthquakes, but truthfully the reason for their use is low cost.

frankus2• 15 years ago

On the West Coast nearly all residential buildings have a wood frame with plywood on the outside and drywall (gypsum sandwiched between two layers of paper) on the inside.

The decorative/weatherproof finish outside of the plywood is increasingly made with concrete products, which can be made to look like stucco, brick, or even wooden planks or shingles.

The advantages of this sort of construction are that it's inexpensive (wood, after all, grows on trees, which we have plenty of around here), fast (particularly when using nail guns), and doesn't require a great deal of experience or training at the laborer level. It also has good seismic performance and is easy to remodel.

The downsides are that the structure is vulnerable to fire, water, insects, and stray cannonballs.

But in most cases the short lifespan is a good fit for the rapidly changing geography and demographics we have in North America.

gte910h• 15 years ago

In Southern California, Stucco is a very common outer surface of a house. It's sort of a cement/plaster type material that yields a rough surface.

California is VERY earthquake prone. The state is a giant fault zone. Bricks and stones make bad building materials in that region because they fall on people and kill them in an earthquake.

I live in the Southeast US where earthquakes basically do not happen. Houses are often at least partially built with bricks here (especially older homes). My 80 year old home is built out of bricks on a dirt foundation with plaster on the interior walls.

Newer houses here are often built with pine frames, poured concrete basements and various types of siding (including brick).

Picture of stucco: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stucco_wall.jpg

Picture of typical California suburban home: http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-11376808/stock-photo-shot-of... (The stone is non-structural)

Picture of typical Southeastern US home (circa 1950): http://hwandn.com/respics/IMG_0713_1.jpg (Bricks are structural)

Picuture of 1930's Southeastern US home (not mine): http://www.redfin.com/homes-for-sale#!lat=33.78267975865834&... Brick, and not updated, brick is structural.

grannyg00se• 15 years ago

Those involved must've felt horrible when they realized that the projectile was going to miss the hillside and go into residential territory. So glad nobody got hurt.

orenmazor• 15 years ago

unfortunate, but I bet they have a lot of data now!

christo162• 15 years ago

This is crazy, happened only a couple miles away from my house...

surlyadopter3• 15 years ago

Just yesterday Kari (one of the Mythbusters) posted pictures on twitter of her standing next to the cannon. They appear to have been removed now though.

This isn't the first time one of their tests has accidentally damaged property, there was an explosion a year ago in a lake bed that was stronger than expected that ended up blowing windows in a nearby town.

DanielStraight3• 15 years ago

A general reply to everyone saying this was unacceptable or that insufficient precautions were taken:

This experiment was performed at a facility designed for such experiments under the supervision of people who are trained to handle such experiments.

The result, while upsetting, was a freak accident. It could not realistically have been predicted. It is not necessarily anyone's fault, even if human error played a role.

Life is risky.

Sometimes surgeons slip and kill patients. Sometimes food producers slip and ship contaminated products which kill people. Sometimes parents turn around for 1 second and their kids drown.

All of these are caused by human error, but there has to be a point where you can say that reasonable precaution was taken so no blame is warranted. Because the alternative, only doing things that are 100% certain to be safe, means never doing anything at all.

There is no way to guarantee 100% safety. The building you are sitting in has been checked for safety. But something could have been missed, leading it to spontaneously collapse.

And here is the most important point of this entire post:

This will be true regardless how thoroughly you check the building.

maxerickson11• 15 years ago

Can you expand on what "facility designed for such experiments" means?

Is it licensed in a certain way, or are all firing ranges used by the military reasonable to use for cannons, or what?

Skroob• 15 years ago

If it's where they do most of their explosives testing, it's the county sheriff's bomb range.

extension4• 15 years ago

Human errors will proliferate until they run up against consequences. That is why there must always be consequences.

timwiseman3• 15 years ago

This is true to a degree, and I think few would argue against it. The question is, what is the right amount of consequences?

Should the party at fault have to pay exactly the damages actually caused to make those injured whole (in other words, actual damages?)

Should the party pay a portion of the damages caused so as to partially compensate others while not being ruinous to a party that behaved with reasonable, but insufficient, precautions (a large part of the justification for "proximate cause "is to achieve this, see for isntance "Wagon Mound (No. 1)" and "Wagon Mount (No. 2)", and contributory negligence also plays a similar role)?

Or should the party at fault pay far more than damage caused to discourage improper behaviour (in other words, punitive damages)?

These are decisions best made on a case by case basis, but the doctrines we lay out for deciding which case falls where affect how willing to take or not takes risks a society becomes. And most of the biggest advancements in human society came through enormous risk, so I for one think we should not encourage society to be too risk adverse.

Here, I think the grandparent post makes a good argument that there should be consequences, but they should be exactly actual damages and nothing more.

jrockway• 15 years ago

But then there are consequences to the consequences. Surgeons will refuse to operate in marginal cases and people will die unnecessarily. Food will no longer be mass produced and people will go hungry. Parents will stop taking their kids outside to swim.

Shit happens. If you punish people for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, they'll never be in that place at all.

MichaelApproved2• 15 years ago

"The result, while upsetting, was a freak accident. It could not realistically have been predicted. It is not necessarily anyone's fault, even if human error played a role."

This statement is just as ignorant as any accusing MB of sloppiness. We know almost nothing right now. To say it a freak accident that couldn't have been predicted is premature.

There needs to be an investigation then a conclusion.

DanielStraight3• 15 years ago

I will admit that my certainty in my conclusion was premature, but it's still my best theory. The mythbusters are professionals. The choice of location was supported by government designation. And the mythbusters were supervised in the experiment. Negligence is still possible, but I feel it's much less likely than a freak accident.

Either way, what I was really trying to address was the attitude in this post ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3324444 ), among others, that accidents like this should never happen. I was trying to say that not every accident is caused by negligence. Even if this one was, the main point stands.

I also realize that sounds like a cop out, which is not my intent. You are absolutely right. My conclusion is really just a theory right now, and I should have presented it as such.

forcefsck2• 15 years ago

You just explained why nobody should play with guns.

snorkel• 15 years ago

So Confirmed, Plausible, or Busted?

bborud• 15 years ago

I hope Jamie's walrus moustache is okay.

panzagl• 15 years ago

The real question is why were the houses built so close to the firing range, not why was this experiment done in a residential area. I'd be willing to bet money that the base was there first.

Gustomaximus• 15 years ago

What I want to know; - Will they air this, please do. - Can Jasper (the minivan owner) keep the cannon ball.

mjgm• 15 years ago

No one got hurt, and I'm sure they were careful. It's something they are always very clear about on the show... but eh someone/people genuinely could have been killed... so not quite all precautions were taken.

Also how amazing is it that the canonball burst through a front door and then went UP the stairs and out the back through the wall on the second floor?! Seriously. I didn't know canon balls would bounce/ react in that way... Kinda reminds me why I love Mythbusters...

knightgj• 15 years ago

Here in UT they use a couple 1960s-era Howitzers for avalanche control in Little Cottonwood Canyon. They once loaded a shell with too much gunpowder and left a crater in someone's back yard 10-15 miles away.

dnaquin• 15 years ago

sounds like at least one of these was broken.

"ALWAYS keep the gun pointed in a safe direction.

ALWAYS keep your finger off the trigger until ready to shoot.

ALWAYS keep the gun unloaded until ready to use."

tlrobinson3• 15 years ago

I'm looking forward to the Mythbusters episode where they bust/confirm the myth about a cannonball flying through two homes and a minivan.

jasonkolb• 15 years ago

Wow, what a great story! Although, I kind of doubt they'll be able to continue using that air base.

I hope they team up with Survivorman to do some really wild stuff in remote wildernesses. The thought of a Survivorman/Mythbusters series makes me giddy.

InclinedPlane• 15 years ago

This didn't happen at the air base, it happened on a firing range.

akavlie2• 15 years ago

The physics at play here (at least as reported in the article) are hard to fathom.

It went through the front door, bounced around the home, UP to the second floor, THROUGH the back wall...

And enough energy still remained to send it across a road 50 yards, UP again to a roof, and finally smashing through a van window.

I wish they could have captured this with high-speed cameras from multiple angles, like they do with experiments that go as planned.

JeffL2• 15 years ago

I'm guessing that the reporter completely made up the "bounced around" bit to make it sound more sensational. Seems more likely to have entered the front door at an upward angle, sailed through the house and out the back and across the street.

akavlie2• 15 years ago

That makes sense. Still incredible that it had so much energy that it was still going after making it through a door and a wall.

It's also surprising that it could bounce so high (at least once) after hitting a floor.

mkramlich• 15 years ago

Mental note: don't live near firing range.

frankus2• 15 years ago

Love how the page reloads halfway through the video (no doubt in a lame attempt to get more ad impressions), and how I then get to sit through another 30 second ad before watching a two -minute news clip.

christo162• 15 years ago

Here is an official statement from the city http://www.dublin.ca.gov/civicalerts.aspx?AID=351

fecklessyouth• 15 years ago

Honestly, HN? I clicked "comments" expecting to see a bunch of insight and analysis on the physics involved, and instead it's just a bunch of rage against local news stations because the station committed the unforgivable sin of making the beloved Mythbusters look bad.

D_Drake• 15 years ago

I'm disappointed. Hyneman especially should have recognized the danger of combining energy levels like those with the elastic properties of a cast iron ball. If the firing range was within five miles of inhabited area, stone canonballs should be used. They've obeyed this rule in the past.

daemin2• 15 years ago

It certainly goes to show how lethal these weapons were, through two houses, bounced a few times, and even into a mini van. They would have been monstorously lethal on the battlefield, just imagine ranks of soldiers rather than a house.

foxhop• 15 years ago

The hosts don't "creatively try to prove things true or false". They use science.

ektimo• 15 years ago

"Incredibly, no one was injured in the mishap."

It's not incredible. Most space isn't filled with people.

forcefsck2• 15 years ago

When you're playing with guns, eventually an accident will happen, no matter how careful you are.

bluesmoon• 15 years ago

The story page is now a 404, looks like they pulled it

pud• 15 years ago

Found it: http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2011/12/07/tv-experiment-goes...

b2spirit• 15 years ago

Did the canonball also go through cbslocal's server room? That page cannot be found.

Mythbusters experiment goes awry, sends cannonball through two houses

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