James Franklin "Jamie" Hyneman

A long time ago I wanted to do a story that involved some really big magnets that I had gotten hold of and told the producer about it. He said "Jamie, how many times do I have to tell you that the show is called Mythbusters, not 'Jamie and Adam build weird shit' ". I guess I would like to just build weird shit.

A horse sized duck..

For better or worse, I would be fine locked up in a cell for long periods of time. I was just settling into it a bit when they pulled the plug.I don't think I would have a problem descending into madness. In the episode you refer to I was writing down stuff that I have had kicking around for years. Something I won't bore people here with in detail, but the gist of it is based on the question: why the most important decisions of our day are made essentially by popular vote, by average people, average consensus? I don't want an average person making important decisions. I want somebody, and better yet, a bunch of somebodies well above average to do that. So the system I came up with is basically a variation on what is known as a meritocracy. A system of requiring that people who are in charge of making decisions have some credentials for being given the responsibility. If you want to drive a car, you need a driver's license. Why on earth would you have a governmental system where anybody, whether qualified or not, could be in charge? There are all sorts of institutions that require knowledge to be demonstrated in some basic way- if you are a professor of physics at a university, you may not be the best physics professor there is, but you probably at least have basic knowledge of physics. Not so our government.

God, I hope not.

Yes.

I wouldn't choose a co host. My companion would be my double barreled, over under, belt fed full auto 12 guage shotgun with the belts crossing over each other as they go through the gun. One ammo case of deer slugs, one with buck shot, strapped to my back. Fucking zombies.

Adam did not have to convince me to do AMA. Although I expected a lot of questions that are kind of fluffy like 'how many berets do you have' I also figured that I would get a lot of intelligent stuff from a group like this, and it is my responsibility, by way of doing a good job of being in the public eye, to keep tabs on the opinions of the public about who I am and what I mean to them.

I do wish we had more time to explain and explore the science in these stories we take on. Television and ratings seem to require that we keep things to a relatively shallow level, which I find frustrating. There is a lot of depth in some of the things we explore which I wish we could put out there. We hope to someday use the web to allow an interface that could let the viewers go as deep as they desire instead of being so limited.

Ooops.

Hi, At this point we know we have to look after ourselves. 11 years of doing this shit and barely escaping intact- we have learned a thing or two. That is why we work with the bomb squad when it comes to explosives and even then we check everything ourselves as well. Insurance adjusters and safety consultants pick up the obvious stuff, but we are pretty much only dealing with the stuff on the periphery, where unexpected things happen. So we back off on things all the time.