MythBuster vents about common tech headaches, offers fixes

They're about as far from myths as you can get, but MythBuster Jamie Hyneman nonetheless took it upon himself to explore seven tech headaches that many of you are likely all too familiar with in the latest issue of Popular Mechanics, and he's offered a few suggestions on how companies could fix 'em. Those headaches include the ever-popular cordless tools with endless varieties of battery packs and chargers (which he suggests should be replaced by stackable 6-volt modules), fancy flashlights that use pricey batteries (which he thinks we'd be better off without), and cars with obnoxious electronics and near-impenetrable encasements. Of course, cellphones and their myriad of charges and connectors aren't spared either, although Hyneman sees some hope in the Open Mobile Terminal Platform that aims to make micro-USB the standard, and, as you might have guessed, he pays particular notice to computers that come pre-loaded with scores of unnecessary software. On that last note, he also offers some action consumers can take themselves: switch to Ubuntu.

[Thanks, Niall]

[BigDaddyM @ Jan 31st 2008 11:40AM]

Ubuntu is a quick fix. If everybody switched, the advertisers would just go there.
M

[John @ Jan 31st 2008 11:48AM]

true...though with open-source software it'd be oh so much easier to remove bloatware.

[BigDaddyM @ Jan 31st 2008 12:00PM]

LOL. You say that now because companies make it easy to use, but when money is on the line, I doubt it will be so easy.

Apple is a perfect example. Now that they are growing, their restrictions are getting wider and harder to work with. They now Think Different.
M

[mike @ Jan 31st 2008 12:13PM]

I am using it now, but I tend to have more issues then anything and go back to XP.

[wrabbit @ Jan 31st 2008 3:58PM]

Or you know, just do it like normal people and build your computer yourself and buy the OS OEM - no junkware, no crap anti-virus software, etc.

Do you guys seriously think that Ubuntu will always come sans-crapware? As soon as it's popular enough companies will want to make money off of it and crapware will find its way on there.

[wrabbit @ Jan 31st 2008 4:00PM]

Sorry, the above was not meant as a response to BigDaddyM but to the article.

[Karl HacksWell @ Jan 31st 2008 11:41AM]

This is old news. I read this on Wired yesterday. Sorry Engadget, you have failed.

[rhogan @ Jan 31st 2008 11:46AM]

Oh yeah? I read it on Popular Mechanics TWO days ago. YOU are old news.

[Karl HacksWell @ Jan 31st 2008 11:52AM]

Awesome! Awesome to the max. As long as Engadget dosent win im okay with that. Not that I dont like engadget but I think they need to be knocked down a peg. Just one. Just one.

[Reid @ Jan 31st 2008 11:57AM]

I read this same comment on slashdot 24 seconds before you posted it here.

Fail.

[mike @ Jan 31st 2008 12:14PM]

They are too busy posting MacBook Air posts that really didn't need to be posted.

[Jeebus @ Jan 31st 2008 12:21PM]

People relax, Karl is joking. The sarcasm is dripping from his post.

[randy @ Jan 31st 2008 12:33PM]

I stopped reading both Slashdot and Wired about 20 months ago, around the same time. Wired I canceled because of the situation with their change in scope, and also because of their flagrant Bush-bashing. But I don't know what happened with Slashdot. I do things like that, just move on all of a sudden for no real apparent reason and then hardly ever go back. I certainly must have been turned off by something. Probably Bush-bashing. that usually does it. Bash our President over and over and over, for eight years? OK, Cya. BYE.

[h0mi @ Jan 31st 2008 12:53PM]

I read the original PM article a month ago so you fail.

[caleb @ Jan 31st 2008 12:56PM]

Be fair...he's only been our president for 7 years, and he has deserved the bashing for at least 5 years and up to 6, both of with are more than 20 months.

[Chebwa @ Jan 31st 2008 11:41AM]

Oh yes. People who are unable to remove "scores of unnecessary software" on their own should just switch to using Linux and try to figure that out instead.

I see that going really well.

[DWells55 @ Jan 31st 2008 12:34PM]

Agreed. Ubuntu is a fantastic and very user-friendly operating system, but until they eliminate the use of command line completely and make it easier to install applications not downloaded through the apt-get GUI, it's still going to be intimidating for the average user. I believe that most average Windows users could adjust to Ubuntu, but it would require someone familiar with the OS to help them install and get used to it for the first few days. It's a great OS, but it's just a bit shy of being accessible for the "average" user.

However, that's pretty much irrelevant anyways, like you said, if you aren't experienced enough with PCs to know how to remove Windows software, you're not going to have any idea how partition a hard drive or install an OS.

[Juice Daddy @ Jan 31st 2008 1:07PM]

if it can't run adobe software then it's useless...


~imo

[Chebwa @ Jan 31st 2008 11:42AM]

So if Engadget doesn't catch a news article the day it happens, they should just consider it "lost" and never report on it?

[Chebwa @ Jan 31st 2008 11:43AM]

Oh for Christ's sake... that's in reponse to "Karl HacksWell."

[paragraph @ Jan 31st 2008 11:45AM]

Re: Karl HacksWell

you do have a point, but so does he. I read this on slashdot yesterday... i don't want to read it again today :-P odds are this came in from /. anyways...

[Jeebus @ Jan 31st 2008 12:22PM]

And we all read slashdot?

[John @ Jan 31st 2008 12:23PM]

@paragraph


I don't read slashdot so fuck off.

[caleb @ Jan 31st 2008 12:59PM]

Wow...I was going to stay out of this. I don;t care if a blog posts old news...If I've read it before I just skip it, but being beat to a story by Slashdot? That's sad. I thought their posting policy was to wait until everyone else had a swipe at it before considering posting it.

[moo @ Jan 31st 2008 11:43AM]

This guy's show is terrible. They're all freaking tech's... lets get some folks who went to college to look at these myths. Passive jerk probs is gonna read this and just roll his eyes. What a dick.

[paragraph @ Jan 31st 2008 11:47AM]

...

BLASPHEOMY (OR HOWEVER YOU SPELL THAT WORD!, NOTICE HOW I'M STILL SCREAMING, THAT IS HOW MAD I AM! I'LL BE SCREAMING ALL DAY!)

But really, who cares.. i don't it's an entertaining show, and they blow stuff up... it's also interesting to learn things and stuff... and junk...

atleast it's better than MTV's Mythbreakers, or whatever they have to busts urban legends with no science or real reason other than opinion... yeah that show is SOOOO much better than Mythbusters, since they all went to college or something like that...

[Bender Bending Rodriguez @ Jan 31st 2008 12:09PM]

Because nothing makes for better TV tan a bunch of arrogant know-it-alls who will discuss the theory of everything to death but never once attempt to resolve anything with empirical data from trail and error. That is exactly what we need!

[Evan @ Jan 31st 2008 2:55PM]

Yesterday they got a plane to fly off a conveyor belt!

THAT IS MADNESS!!!!

Regardless, who cares if they are perfect about it, it is a pretty entertaining show. Much better than that worthless Smash Lab after it. Smash Lab tries to solve all of the world's problems and in the end they always fail miserably.

[Karl HacksWell @ Jan 31st 2008 11:44AM]

Correct.

[josearoldan @ Jan 31st 2008 11:46AM]

I agree with some of the things on the article. But not with the switch to Ubuntu thing, not everyone has the knowledge to do that, no matter how simple it looks. Now I wish my new laptop came without vista and the preloaded crap...

[Tim @ Jan 31st 2008 11:52AM]

Have you ever tried to switch to ubuntu...

It's not hard at all, I'm 14 and I set up my laptop to dual-boot with Ubuntu and XP...

[Gian @ Jan 31st 2008 12:07PM]

@Tim

You're 14. That means you are not allowed to say it's easy. If you were 84 or 5, then we would pay attention. Anything between those ages doesn't count, especially the teenage years.

Gian

[TRAFFICBLOWS @ Jan 31st 2008 12:38PM]

ummm it's fairly easy to do a clean install of Windows:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=120228

Much easier to do a clean install of Windows vs. learning Linux from scratch.

[shawn @ Jan 31st 2008 12:56PM]

You can try it without loading it onto your hard drive. I've found the transition from Windows to Ubuntu far easier than Windows to Mac. The other adult in the house uses OSX and I hate having to do anything on it. It's mostly just a learning curve, of course, but Ubuntu's layout seems more like Windows than like OSX.

The install disk will boot from the CD drive and load into RAM. You can use it as if it was loaded on your HD. (it's a bit slower that way, depending on how much ram you have) If you like it, one click and it installs itself cleanly next to Windows and sets up a dual boot.

This costs nothing more than time and one blank CD. If you don't like it, remove the CD, reboot, and everything is the way it once was.

[josearoldan @ Jan 31st 2008 4:09PM]

As a matter of fact, I run Fedora, and Ubuntu on my house computers. The laptop I mentioned is the one that my job gave me. I have been into Linux since Red Hat 9 and my bro introduced me to ubuntu 5.4 in 2006 and I have been into it until this day.

[Michael Wong @ Jan 31st 2008 11:50AM]

I agree that trying to install Ubuntu on its own is daunting. Why not use:

http://wubi-installer.org/

to do it for you.

[bruceS @ Jan 31st 2008 11:50AM]

I don't take advice from people wearing berets.

[Philippe @ Jan 31st 2008 12:01PM]

ROFL... for the irony of someone commenting whose avatar is wearing his underpants on top of his pants...

[looseinthedeuce @ Jan 31st 2008 12:02PM]

He's bald. Give the guy a break! Would you prefer he wear a John Deere hat?

[Master Bruce @ Jan 31st 2008 1:09PM]

Haha, good one Philippe

[chrish @ Jan 31st 2008 3:40PM]

Hey moo.. So what does going to college have to do with anything? Some of the most "do nothing" clueless people I know are college grads and or professors. As a former college teacher I can tell you that a college degree is by no means a sign of intelligence. Hmm, Einstein seems to come to mind, wasn't he a 5th grade drop out??

Instead of putting other people down that you think didn't go to college why don't you get a job and start paying back your student loans.

[CarlosEmidio @ Jan 31st 2008 1:57PM]

Nope, he tried to get into ETH before finishing high school, but he did not pass the entrance examination. He then finished high school, and got a degree in physics from ETH and a PhD degree at the University of Zurich. Stop spreading this stupid myth!

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

[Sporkinum @ Jan 31st 2008 12:05PM]

By the way, what was it with the controversy of an airplane not being able to take off from a treadmill? I was shocked that the pilot of their ultralight was so stupid to believe the myth.

My only change to the way the did their test would be to add a bicycle speedometer to one of the landing gear wheels and the coorelate that with the airspeed and takeoff. Airspeed of 25mph at takeoff, wheel speed of something faster. (not that it makes any difference.

[Hoos @ Jan 31st 2008 12:07PM]

What a tool. Seriously. What a fing tool.

His TeeBee show goes in the toilet (see the plane fly!) and he decides to help out the technology world. Maybe he could team up with zdNet and the could have zdNetBusters? Blagh!

[jtc970 @ Jan 31st 2008 12:57PM]

His TeeBee show in the toilet?
As long as they have Kari Byron, the show will love forever
In my heart anyway

[jtc970 @ Jan 31st 2008 12:58PM]

^^Freudian
love=live

[andy @ Jan 31st 2008 12:10PM]

cordless tool 12v 18v and 24v battery standard system ftw.


micro USB ftw (including mp3 players)


Seriously, those are two of the biggest problems in my world. I carry four cords for my cell phone, pda, and mp3 player. WTF is that all about?

[Allen @ Jan 31st 2008 12:23PM]

So, I guess my Media Center PC needs changed to Ubuntu (with no media center) because the great Hyneman says so, right?

[w00t @ Jan 31st 2008 12:38PM]

He said nothing about Media Centres!

I've set up machines with Ubuntu for people who have never owned a computer before. It's used for browsing, email, IM and word processing.

Since I've taught them how to use it, the support calls are practically non existent. For basic use, it's very easy to use.

[shawn @ Jan 31st 2008 1:01PM]

MythBuntu. :-)

But unlike most of Ubuntu these days, getting Myth up and running does require a bit of fuss. However, once you do, you get a media center that does a lot more than MS Media Center or Apple Front Row.

caveat: if you like product lock-in strategies, Media Center and Front Row are a far better choice.