Adam Savage Gives a Snowball a Chance in Hell – Unimpossible Missions

17 thoughts on “Adam Savage Gives a Snowball a Chance in Hell – Unimpossible Missions”

1. Forgive my ignorance, but why is there foam material in the X container? There was none in your pot.

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2. My impression is that this is sponsored content that pretends to be a Mythbusters style piece, but with insufficient information to qualify. It’s common for channels to do some sponsored content, but they state clearly at the start that it is such and turn it into something genuinely relevant. I think this video is dishonest and doesn’t have any worthwhile content. Tested used to be better than this.

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3. I hope the payoff for tested was HUGE. These shorts are weak and leave a bad taste in my mouth.

   Matthias Wandel has some sponsored stuff on his channel right now but he is doing his normal thing and even shows the bad stuff about the tools. This is like watching some other channel pretend to be tested while being put together by advertisers.

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4. My impression is that this is sponsored content that pretends to be a Mythbusters style piece, but with insufficient information to qualify. It’s common for channels to do some sponsored content, but they state clearly at the start that it is such and turn it into something genuinely relevant. I think this video is dishonest and doesn’t have any worthwhile content. Tested used to be better than this.

   I totally agree with you. This video series stinks of paid content. If it wasn’t for Adam, being Adam it would hold no value. The conundrum is never answered in a full fulling way and things are left to be accepted “as is”. These are not for scientific or entertaining value. It’s so obvious how GE tries to sell their products and ideas. It feels like the brainstorm started with: “How can we promote this Alloy?” and the conundrum was weakly added to as an after thought almost.

   With the legacy of Mythbusters and this trying to imitate it’s concept it show how good Mythbusters was produced and created.

   Forgive my ignorance, but why is there foam material in the X container? There was none in your pot.

   You are totally correct. It’s missing the isolating parts (the foam). Adam says it’s a control and it’s missing it’s foam (1:20 into the clip). But a control says nothing, With out a comparison it’s not a test. And the “test” didn’t show anything as the stock pot kept it’s structure as far as I saw?

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5. So-called “Alloy X” is also called “Inconel” – I googled it right quick (evidently it’s “Inconel HX”), but you can tell instantly by the color once you’re familiar with. I have some – it machines OK, sheets form like sheet steel, and it stands up to some nasty heat. It’s used in (among other things) turbine hot sides, as mentioned. It loses strength as it gets hot (everything does), but not as bad as, say, plain old 1010 steel.

   If you want to do an insulation demo sometime, try silica aerogel. 🙂 About a dollar per cubic centimeter, so don’t get too carried away, but it’s amazing stuff.

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6. I’m all for Tested experimenting with ways to produce income. If Adam can shill for GE and it keeps him and activity focused on Tested, i think there’s value. I’d rather see this change vs less content or limited content.

   I will agree with comments that suggest there should be some kind of upfront identifier of embedded advertising. More of this will impact my overall watching. Nobody feels good about discovering at the end or even part way through content that its advertisement. I want to be able to trust Tested that my time wont’ be exploited without my permission, so like other recommend clearer and up-front identification.

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7. Well, you can advertice just fine, but with doing something actually interesting and maybe even honest. This series is not and I wouldn’t like to see Adam or any of Tested do whatever makes them money and be ok with it, just because it keeps the site going. Just make ads with someone random in Adam’s shop or something.

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8. Not sure if this is an option on the YouTube version, but the description to the right of video on tested.com indicates that GE is involved. Tested is being upfront about it.

   Not really bothered by the GE series, just the opposite, I am impressed. The stuff is coming out of GE’s R&D group, Adam is discussing new technology, he is not trying to sell us a GE refrigerator or dishwasher. Would people feel better if he was showing off research from CalTech ? Corporations fund a great deal of innovative reseach at universities.

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9.   Only problem is that I haven’t seen any new stuff in this series. What is new exactly in any of them?

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10. Hi, I see Adam’s piece is a tease for the actual video produced by GE – if you click the “watch more”, you can see the GE video.

    Material engineering is not my background. The GE piece states that the material (n06002) is a metal that is designed to handle high temperatures. The experiment is to determine if the engineers found a combination of metals to make a container that protects ice from a bath of molten metal (2,000+ degree (F)). Are you suggesting that this way of looking at the technology has been done? With music? And a fleet of Mercedes Benz G65s?

    Adam turned the GE story into a nice classroom demonstration (how expensive is n06002 anyway? would like to buy some for a HS physics teacher.). The GE engineers (I hope that they are not actors) were able to play superheroes for the day (“snowball1, hell 0′). I enjoyed it.

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11. another paid commercial with a contrived story and weak execution. At least they are naming the series so I know what to not watch in the coming weeks. You guys are capable of SO much more!

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12. WTF?

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13. I totally agree with you. This video series stinks of paid content. If it wasn’t for Adam, being Adam it would hold no value. The conundrum is never answered in a full fulling way and things are left to be accepted “as is”. These are not for scientific or entertaining value. It’s so obvious how GE tries to sell their products and ideas. It feels like the brainstorm started with: “How can we promote this Alloy?” and the conundrum was weakly added to as an after thought almost.

    With the legacy of Mythbusters and this trying to imitate it’s concept it show how good Mythbusters was produced and created.

    It IS paid content. pretty blatantly so. These videos act as sort of a primer for a longer video that GE puts out for each “unimpossible missions” video which is much longer and seems to go into more detail on the idea (adam even points you in the direction of the longer video at the end). It’s an interesting campaign but i can’t help but not enjoy these sorts of videos when you know it’s just trying to push their brand at you. Ah but such is advertising. I got nothing against GE but i’ve always liked the sort of impromptu nature of the muthbuster experiments vs these which seem like they KNOW the result they’re gonna get and everything is just by the numbers. Even when Adam and Jamie could work out how something would go in advance there’s still that chance that something unexpected would happen.

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14. Forgive my ignorance, but why is there foam material in the X container? There was none in your pot.

    You are totally correct. It’s missing the isolating parts (the foam). Adam says it’s a control and it’s missing it’s foam (1:20 into the clip). But a control says nothing, With out a comparison it’s not a test. And the “test” didn’t show anything as the stock pot kept it’s structure as far as I saw?

    You’re right. It was really a test of the insulation and not the alloy.

    He did a control a with a normal stock pot, and the popsicle melted. Then he did the same experiment with the special insulated container, and the popsicle did not melt. The stock pot held up just as well as the special alloy under these conditions.

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15. Hence why I have an issue with these video’s. The previous one, the one with the watertank, didn’t even work. I mean, that’s exactly the problem I have.. ads are fine, but we all know Adam is way better at this and by acting like this it doesn’t do him well I’d say.

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16. Hi everybody,

    I kicked off this discussion because I was genuinely curious why the team chose to not put any insulation in the pot. Thanks to and for their input: I suspect Adam should have tried to demonstrate that the GE container retains its mechanical properties better than the pot, instead of trying to show that it is a better insulant.

    To those who have expressed dismay, I would argue that as this is a web site, and not an academic publication, different standards must apply. These clips have been clearly presented as sponsored content. There is nothing wrong with Tested keeping the lights on or even, hopefully, making a profit. It is not dishonest to promote a product, if you believe what you say. I believe Adam and the team have always tried to present us with interesting, well produced, material. I have no reason to doubt their intentions.

    I still am curious why there was insulation in there. Perhaps I missed something. If anyone from the Tested team is reading, please let us know!

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17. Hi everybody,

    I kicked off this discussion because I was genuinely curious why the team chose to not put any insulation in the pot. Thanks to and for their input: I suspect Adam should have tried to demonstrate that the GE container retains its mechanical properties better than the pot, instead of trying to show that it is a better insulant.

    To those who have expressed dismay, I would argue that as this is a web site, and not an academic publication, different standards must apply. These clips have been clearly presented as sponsored content. There is nothing wrong with Tested keeping the lights on or even, hopefully, making a profit. It is not dishonest to promote a product, if you believe what you say. I believe Adam and the team have always tried to present us with interesting, well produced, material. I have no reason to doubt their intentions.

    I still am curious why there was insulation in there. Perhaps I missed something. If anyone from the Tested team is reading, please let us know!

    I suspect that Alloy X, like most metals, is a very poor insulator on it’s own. But other metals would melt under extreme heat, and Alloy X does not.

    I don’t have any problem with Tested making sponsored content. But if they put a little more effort into it, they could produce sponsored content that I’d actually like to watch.

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