Two Finnish news sites, YLE and Helsinki Times, are reporting that Jamie Hyneman of Mythbusters fame has begun a five year stint as professor of "practice" at the Lappeenranta University of Technology in Finland. He was previously awarded an honorary doctorate by the same institution and there is a prototyping lab named after him where students can design, build, and test prototypes. He is said to be on site at the moment but the first lecture is scheduled to take place via proprietary videoconferencing software.
This is not the first time Hyneman has engaged with the university, as he received an honorary doctorate from the institution in 2017. The interaction helped spark the creation of the Jamie Hyneman Center (JHC). Open to all LUT students and staff, the center's workshop helps participants "develop new ideas and solutions to problems and build and test prototypes," according to the university.
"As a Professor of Practice, I plan to encourage and support student innovations at JHC. I also hope to participate in the university's activity on a wider scale. For instance, environmental issues and different types of vehicles are especially close to my heart. These are things I've been delighted to find that LUT and I are very much aligned with," Hyneman said in the statement.
Associate Professor Markku Ikävalko said the collaboration of LUT University and Hyneman is "a good fit."
YLE: LUT University appoints former MythBuster Hyneman as Professor of Practice
Helsinki Times: MythBuster's Jamie Hyneman appointed Professor of Practice at LUT University of Finland
Previously:
(2020) Grant Imahara, Host of 'MythBusters' and 'White Rabbit Project,' Dies at 49
(2019) Former Mythbusters Host Adam Savage Will Be Back On US TV With Savage Builds
(2015) Mythbusters to End After Next Season
Related Stories
Sad news from Variety today, the next season of Mythbusters will be the last.
"'Mythbusters' is — and will always be — an incredibly important part of Discovery's history," said Rich Ross, group president of Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and Science Channel. "Adam and Jamie are enormous talents who have brought learning and science to the forefront of this network, and their legacy will continue to live on over at Science Channel. The 'Mythbusters' library will be moving over to Discovery's sister network in 2016, where I know audiences new and old alike will be able to experience and learn with Adam and Jamie and the rest of the 'Mythbusters' family."
I guess we'll just have to try it at home now.
[Ed: Headline updated, show was not "canceled".]
Adam Savage holds the remote controller and is ready to launch the Panjandrums' first test on his new show, Savage Builds.
Former MythBusters co-host Adam Savage will be back on TV in June with a new show called Savage Builds.
The eight-episode series on the Science Channel features Savage making epic creations like a 3D-printed titanium suit of armor that's inspired by the Iron Man films and actually flies.
Each Savage Builds episode will focus on one project as Savage collaborates with experts, colleagues and friends who include filmmaker Peter Jackson, former MythBusters cast member Tory Belleci and others, according to a series of tweets from Savage Wednesday.
[...] "This new series is a culmination of sorts, as I get to work with some of the most brilliant minds out there as we attempt to solve really absurd ideas that I've had in my head for a long time, but have never had the opportunity to dive into," Savage said in a statement. "Of course, the most absurd ideas are often what generates the most innovative engineering."
Savage Builds debuts in June on Science Channel and later on Discovery.
Grant Imahara, Host of 'MythBusters' and 'White Rabbit Project,' Dies at 49:
Grant Imahara, an electrical engineer and roboticist who hosted the popular science show MythBusters and Netflix's White Rabbit Project, has died. He was 49.
Imahara died suddenly following a brain aneurysm, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. "We are heartbroken to hear this sad news about Grant. He was an important part of our Discovery family and a really wonderful man. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family," a representative for Discovery said in a statement on Monday.
An electrical engineer and roboticist by training, he joined Discovery's MythBusters in its third season, replacing Scottie Chapman and was with the show until 2014 when he left with co-hosts Kari Byron and Tory Belleci. The trio would reunite in 2016 for Netflix's White Rabbit Project which lasted for one season. On MythBusters, Imahara used his technical expertise to design and build robots for the show and also operated the computers and electronics needed to test myths.
While part of the Mythbusters team, he sky-dived and drove stunt cars, on film sets he came into contact with some of the most iconic characters in screen history, installing lights onto Star Wars' R2-D2, creating the robot Geoff Peterson for The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson and working on the Energizer Bunny.
Also at Washington Post, Variety, Chicago Tribune, and The New York Times.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday November 16 2021, @08:33PM (15 children)
Right about now I bet 99% of the population even on SN is like "WTF?" and 1% is screaming SLOYD right about now.
I admit I do woodwork for recreational purposes (also, aside from recreation, why work on electronics projects that look like warmed over shite when a little woodworking makes something that looks nice on the shelf, as per the last 50 years or so of front section QST magazine "photo" section, but I digress)
Anyway my kids are young adults now but when they were little elementary aged kids I got the SLOYD books and tried to get them to make little wooden shelves and SLOYD stuff like that with mixed results. The end result is they're not little artifex like myself, but they are a hell of a lot better at fixing stuff than their competition. I would say doing like my Dad did and buying crap at goodwill and junkyards and telling the kid to take it all the way apart, figure out how it works, and put it all the way back together for a big reward if it works is fun. Also as a father myself I now know that it was all really just stage dressing, I don't care if the $2 8-track from a rummage sale ever works again or not, all along I fully intended to go out for ice cream even if they set the damn thing on fire, but why not a cool excuse to get ice cream beyond I had a craving LOL.
SLOYD is kinda hard to explain. Just a couple years ago Roy Underhill (PBS woodworker dude) did an episode on it. Its kinda like what if the lego and ikea instruction manuals fucked a woodworking textbook into giving birth to a really ... unusual by western standards way of teaching little kids both how the world works in general (like physics and biology, at least biology of wood LOL) and also laying down the practical craft of woodworking. Also it takes a long time and keeps the kids out of trouble... mostly. I found it a little tedious and slow compared to how I learned how to butcher wood, then again little kids be little kids and they think you learn math by doing 100 addition problems in a row or whatever.
Anyway I get strong vibes from the story that Prof Hyneman is going to be teaching something like Finnish SLOYD but for college age kids or even fully functioning adults (yeah, kinda a slur against college kids, LOL)
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 16 2021, @08:57PM
I assure you that I'd be one of your 1% screaming at the top of my lungs, if only I knew what you were talking about.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday November 16 2021, @09:11PM (5 children)
For the curious too lazy to Google it, "Sloyd" is a system of teaching handicrafts and handiwork that started in Sweden but is apparently popular throughout Scandanavia, including in Finland.
The USA used to have classes that are kind of like that, which we called "industrial arts" and "home economics", but we cut them sometime around 1990 because (a) those cost money and states and municipalities were too cheap to pay for them, and (b) that was around the time that the push for everybody to go to college really took hold. Of course, this move was among those that left us with neither plumbing nor theoretical frameworks that hold water.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday November 16 2021, @09:45PM (2 children)
I had to look it up, I thought it was some new weird abbreviation. It's "slöjd", usually split here into wood and textile. So it's not all about some basic woodworking but also things like knitting was on the curriculum. It was different from home economics.
https://www.skolverket.se/publikationsserier/styrdokument/2017/kursplanen-i-slojd-for-grundskolan-i-a3-format-reviderad-2017 [skolverket.se]
Not sure but I dont think we have any college equivalent. So I'm not quite sure what Hyneman is going to teach. But it could be some kind of interesting DIY tech lab stuff.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday November 17 2021, @12:27AM (1 child)
See, I was taught sewing in home economics, so I figured that was a pretty decent analogue to knitting, crochet, or other fiber arts.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 2) by looorg on Wednesday November 17 2021, @12:36AM
In home economics we were taught cooking and generally how to keep a home. I guess it's just some slight differences.
(Score: 3, Informative) by coolgopher on Wednesday November 17 2021, @04:33AM (1 child)
Actually, it goes back a lot longer than teaching slöjd in Swedish schools. The root of the word comes from what's now "sly" in English, carrying the "clever, crafty" connotations.
Back when I went to school in Sweden, there were two tracks of slöjd you could choose - wood, or textiles. The latter covering most things, such as crocheting, knitting, "knyppling", embroidering, weaving, and sewing (hand & machine). I don't recall whether we did any yarn spinning, or if that was extracurricular. I'm also not sure what was included in the woodwork track since I didn't do it.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Wednesday November 17 2021, @01:10PM
You got to pick? We had one of them in the autumn and one in the spring. There was no choosing. In woodworking it was mostly handle tools and following instructions to build a few things, mostly was pointless things. But I recall building a lamp, a shelf and a small cupboard. I think my parents still have the lamp somewhere.
(Score: 2) by HammeredGlass on Tuesday November 16 2021, @09:13PM
https://sci-hub.se/10.1038/046244a0 [sci-hub.se] (pdf)
https://i.imgur.com/U2bB4u4.png [imgur.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 16 2021, @11:33PM (6 children)
It's crazy how Europeans are so much more well rounded than Americans. They are much more likely to be bi and multi-lingual, they know more about things like geography, history, electronics, cars and auto-mechanics, home economics, musical instruments, home repair and improvement/remodeling and construction, and carpentry. These things are important and, as an American, I'm kinda saddened that these things weren't really taught in schools.
I've heard, well, America is more 'specialized'. That's partly true and there are some advantages to the U.S.'s upper educational system in some situations but it's also partly a cop out for saying that Europeans know more and can do everything Americans can do and more and perhaps even better. Plus, a broader range of generalized skills are often transferable to a specialized skill and can better help you both learn that skill, apply it, and think of new creative ways to solve problems within a specialized field by applying broader concepts to that specialized field. Better interdisciplinary talent allows you to better come up with novel approaches to old problems. Being specialized and competent in multiple areas creates more opportunities.
For instance if you are good fixing computers and are looking for an IT job opening at an accounting firm the firm is more likely to hire you if you also know a lot about accounting as well (one accounting firm someone I know is part owner only hires, or at least at one time only hired, IT staff that have an undergraduate degree in both management information systems and accounting because the firm wants their IT staff to understand accounting as well even though it's not what they do).
Airports often expect their staff to both know geography (ie: the location and capitals of countries and states) very well and be bilingual. Having multiple skills is useful when a business expects you to understand both its primary business as well as something that just happens to be incidentally important to said business (ie: a bank IT staff would benefit from also knowing a lot about finance and banking, not just IT).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 17 2021, @11:52AM
These things WERE taught in schools, until Dubya brought his "No Child Left Behind" bullshit and shut it all down.
(Score: 5, Informative) by epitaxial on Wednesday November 17 2021, @01:40PM (2 children)
In the USA being ignorant is a source of pride.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 17 2021, @04:48PM (1 child)
Hey UK too! Don't need no stinkin' exparts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 18 2021, @03:34PM
Nope the UK doesn't have a culture that celebrates ignorance and stupidity. They were pretty dumb for Brexit though but the US is still miles ahead.
You're far more likely to be bullied for being smart or knowledgeable in the USA.
See also: https://www.openculture.com/2016/10/isaac-asimov-laments-the-cult-of-ignorance-in-the-united-states.html [openculture.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 17 2021, @03:07PM
It is somewhat surprising how ignorant the "US sucks because nobody is multi-lingual" people are of simple facts. Get yourself out a map of the world and cut out the continental US. Now lay it on top of Europe. Notice that almost all the European countries are no bigger than most of the US states. Now consider that not many of those European countries that share borders speak the same primary language. Can you understand why continental Europeans are more likely to speak more than one language? Now throw in the fact that English is the lingua franca of the world (despite centuries of French effort), and ALL countries teach it to their students out of necessity, thereby meaning that almost all non-English-speaking countries are forced to know at least two languages.
You want to hear something that will really blow your mind? If you go down to the states in the US that share a border with Mexico, the number of people who can speak two languages really shoots up! I'll leave that as an exercise to the reader as to why that might be, but as a hint, it is related to the points made in the first paragraph.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday November 17 2021, @08:10PM
Need to correct for demographics in the comparison of euro vs USA. There's no magic dirt, so if you import an entire stone age village from central America, they're not going to immediately become Europeanized. In fact they generally never become Europeanized, which becomes a problem in that there's little economic space for stone age workers in the USA. Ditto the African experience, certainly the smartest most successful Africans in the world are living in the USA, but they have their own path and interests quite far away from whites interests. And again stone age abilities and cultures in a non-stone age country have problems fitting in and being productive.
Not much of a difference between euros and imported upper midwest euros... Admittedly with the exception of language: there's no point in learning foreign languages if USA counties are larger than Euro countries. We are making up for it slowly by converting our mfgrs over from imperial to metric about 50:50 now, so we might not have people who speak Swedish AND Spanish, but we do have our metric car screws and english 2x4 lumber.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 16 2021, @08:46PM (6 children)
To be honest, it sounded like more bullshit. But there's an actual need at unis to return to humble practice and doing. Above a certain age (around 35 now!) the adults pick up that they are beings of pure thought and that anything with the whiff of manual labor aka doing anything is beneath their level.
Where I work there are 5 Beings Of Light and about 25 students that are handed all the responsibility with the instruction that they need to prove themselves to the Higher Beings. Probably because they're foreign and on precarious visas, this treatment is accepted by all with the predictable result that the place is perfectly dysfunctional in every sense. Untrained students cause safety hazards that in turn get blamed on the students who are assigned more checkbox forms to fill in instead of ya know... training them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 16 2021, @09:00PM (5 children)
My first impression was that the university provost or someone at an appropriately high level, was a big Mythbusters fanboi and this is their way of getting to rub elbows with their idol.
On the other hand, this sounds an awful lot like an award like the Montgomery Burns Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 16 2021, @09:03PM (4 children)
Yes, well chances that Jamie will invent some new gizmos in Finland is zero. But as a figurehead, it beats Lord FuckWit McDeepPockets who donated $100m of his inheritance to get his name on the building.
(Score: 3, Touché) by sjames on Tuesday November 16 2021, @10:04PM (3 children)
It's not really about inventing something. It's about teaching a bunch of students which end of the tool you point at the workpiece. Perhaps one of them will invent something new and not lose a hand in the process thanks to his classes.
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Wednesday November 17 2021, @04:34AM (2 children)
And even if they don't invent anything, they'll at least pick up enough skills to fix basic stuff around the house.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday November 17 2021, @06:25AM (1 child)
UI don't know how things are in Finland these days, but U.S. schools could stand to teach more of that. I can't believe the number of people who are totally lost when it comes to minor repairs or basic maintenance of pretty much anything.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 17 2021, @04:52PM
You can even have someone go grocery shopping for you now. People somehow think that dissociating themselves from their daily life - shopping, fixing, cleaning, gardening, etc. - and paying someone else to do it is luxury. It's torture if you have to sit at your cubicle 10 more hours per week to pay for it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 17 2021, @01:54AM (2 children)
Seems to me that Jamie will be setting up the equivalent of a maker space, and facilitating the students using the available tools.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 17 2021, @10:00PM (1 child)
So when my public library did that five years ago, how come it didn't make headlines like this?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 18 2021, @01:54AM
They didn't have a big name TV star to plug their new maker space. At least that's my first guess.
(Score: 2) by D2 on Wednesday November 17 2021, @11:14PM
Awesome for LUT & Jamie H, my favorite 6-char TLD.
Years ago, a longbeard unix wizard I worked with would use lut.fi for all manner of internet health checks, and I've picked up the habit. It's quick, it's seldom used in western US so not usually cached (for DNS testing), it was pingable for a LONG damn time, and he nicknamed it "Lutefisk". What's not to like?