Mythbusters and the Shark-Fisting Machine...
I don't watch a lot of television. Part of that is due to my need to isolate myself from some parts of pop culture and another part of that is due to my home being in Germany...which is, in regards to some shows and movies, a third world country getting only the "prime" stuff when it's been out on DVD for about 3-4 years. Hell, "ALF" is still on in a prime time slot. Sure it's a rerun, but ALF is played on German television every day around 6 or so.
Back on topic. Someone introduced me to a show on the Discovery Channel called "Mythbusters." The basic premise of the show is that two guys (Adam and Jamie) who have been doing special effects for years try to prove or disprove some sort of legend or urban myth. They've covered everything from "Does soda and Pop Rocks make your stomach explode?" to "Can you catch a bullet in your teeth" to "Is there such a thing as a "Brown Note" that'll make you crap your pants when you hear it?" It's a great show. A bunch of folks sit around figuring out how to make missiles, stomping machines, and automatic football kicking machines. It's not the most scientific thing in the world, but it's fun....and that's what is important here. Two highlights before I share with you the exact moment I became a Mythbusters fan.
Here Adam pees on an electric fence....for SCIENCE!
Here Adam takes a rectal thermometer...for SCIENCE! (The actual experiment in question needed to know if his body temp was rising unhealthily due to being covered in gold paint. The myth in question refers to an old James Bond movie, in case you were wondering.)
So what made me a fan of this tech-oriented geeky show? Take a look:
You're looking at two rubber dildos....shaped like fists. One of the show's interns runs off to a sexual fetish shop and buys these little pieces of sex terror. Why, you ask? This particular episode had them testing "shark-related" myths....and they needed to see if punching a shark in the nose or gills would scare them aware or just piss them off. This is where those fisting tools come into play.
Wait. What's that robot doing to that shark?
Dear Lord, what's that on the end of the robot's arm?
Holy Crap, they made a robot that punches sharks in the face with rubber dildos shaped like someone's fist. How could I NOT love this show?
-jared
posted by Jared at 4:35 AM
6 Comments:
That is awesome, but... why dildos?
A big part of the show is them using stuff you could get easily or cheaply...and buying pre-made rubber fists that are the right texture of human skin was apparently the best way to go when it came to shark-fisting.
-jared
You are still awesome.
Mmhmm.
Wait, so did it work? Did the shark back off? If the shark backed off, was it due to other reasons (like, wtf, this is a RUBBER hand, not a real hand that is hitting me.)
-blackbeltduck
The rubber-fisted robot did work, but to further test that punching a shark will save you, one of the guys actually went underwater and started punching sharks in hand-to-fin combat.
Which was awesome...and I think he punched about 30+ sharks before the day was over.
-jared
This was also the moment where Mythbusters went from "eh" to "this is my favorite show ever."
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