Fabrication

A day with the 'MythBusters'

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 … Read more

Coming Friday: A day with the 'MythBusters'

If you're a big MythBusters fan, or even if you're not, I hope you will stop on by on Friday morning, as I'll have a story and extensive photo gallery from the day I spent Wednesday hanging out with the famous team.

Without giving too much away, I got to spend most of the day yesterday at the MythBusters headquarters in San Francisco, talking with the hit TV show's stars as they prepared for upcoming episodes.

Think magnets and sharks, flapping fish, dynamite and steak, and ninjas and poison darts.

And if you want to know … Read more

Lego promoted do-it-yourself in 1971

With Web 2.0 in full ascent and the widely accepted view that do-it-yourself, or DIY, is the way to get users or audiences engaged these days, we tend to forget that it's a relatively new phenomenon, at least from the corporate perspective.

For every Second Life or YouTube that exists today, that encourages users to create their own content and to potentially do so without spending any money on their corporate parents' products, there are endless examples of companies going out of their way in the past to make sure you do anything but that.

But way back … Read more

Waking up Pleo

Is it possible to love an animatronic dinosaur?

I don't know yet, but I'm likely to find out over the next few days.

That's because I'm road-testing Pleo, the new animatronic dinosaur robot from Ugobe. Though much talked about since it was unveiled at Demo last year, Pleo is only just now being officially released, and I was lucky enough to be among the first to get a review unit.

What I'm dreading is the moment in a week or so when I have to put Pleo back in its box and send it back … Read more