Art, books, education, Fantasy, Science, Technology, TV, Uncategorized

RIP Grant Imahara

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I saw the sad news that Grant Imahara has passed away, from a brain aneurysm at the age of 49.  Although he worked for 9 years behind the scenes and Lucasfilms and Industrial Light & Magic as well as winning the third season of Battlebots, he is probably best known as one of the co-hosts of Mythbusters from 2005 to 2014.

I started watching Mythbusters right about the time that Grant started and I was hooked from the beginning.  This was about the time in my life when I was really starting to embrace my interest in science or as my baby sister says “my nerd stuff”.  As I know I’ve talked about here before, I spent decades of my life trying to mask my intelligence.  Even though I was the “smart one” in the family and did well in school, I never highlighted any accomplishments and purposely didn’t gravitate to things that were too nerdy.

But by the time Grant came into my life I had begun to realize that being interested in science, being a big reader, watching shows like Mythbusters was nothing to be ashamed about.  I loved the show and I was always amazed at Grant’s ability to whip up a robot whenever it was needed, from a baseball pitching machine to a robot that could fling a metal rimmed hat at a statue (a la James Bond).

So I will always be grateful to Grant for helping me along a path that has made me happier – I (and the rest of the world) will miss him.

Anything around your house you would like a have a robot do?

31 thoughts on “RIP Grant Imahara”

  1. Cherry season has just passed, but it would have been nice to have a robot that would go out and pick all the cherries and pit them. Then I could have made them into a nice cherry cobbler or something. As it was, I picked and ate some of them, but mostly left them for the birds.

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    1. I’ve been enjoying going out and picking the raspberries every afternoon for the last week or so however I’ve gotten one good mosquito bite every trip. It does seem silly to put on bug spray for a five minute chore though.

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      1. Brent Olson, a friend of Ben’s i believe, writes and occasional whimsical essay that he posts to Facebook. This morning’s starts out as being about raspberries, but as usual, it’s about much more than that. Here’s how it starts:

        “A few years ago, we bought six raspberry plants and stuck them in the ground along the orchard fence. Now we have a raspberry patch 50 feet long and 6 feet wide, and growing every year.

        Yesterday I picked two pints of raspberries, it looks like tomorrow I can pick two more, and the crop is just starting to come in.

        They are a bit of a bother. Apples, grapes, pears…they’re all prune-able and trainable. Not raspberries. They flop about, make mowing the lawn a jungle adventure, and summer barefoot expeditions daunting. I didn’t plan on them jumping the fence and spreading out beyond where we planted them, but that happened the first year. The simplest thing to do would be to mow them to the ground – every week for about four years – and buy fruit frozen in a plastic bag.

        I remember reading an article by some horticulturist who said, “The amazing thing about raspberries is that they are an incredibly invasive weed that just happens to bear delicious fruit.””

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        3. I don’t know him personally, he used to farm over by Ortonville MN. Still lives there, just rents out the farm so he could focus on writing and public speaking and being a county commissioner.
          I first read his articles in farm magazines. He’s got a great way of viewing situations. Like Raspberries, but it goes into so much more.
          “Independently speaking” on FB.

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        4. The folks across the alley from us have a large bank of black raspberries behind their garage. This year, for some reason, many of the raspberries failed to develop. They are just little brown buds. Any idea what might cause that? I might have suspected an herbicide, but the same thing happened with our rosebushes this year—most of the buds failed to develop.

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        5. Well, it wouldn’t be lack of moisture, given how much rain you have had. Could it have been a late killing frost?

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        6. I’m still grateful that I dissuaded Mike and Leslie, our former neighbors to the east, from planting raspberries up against the fence to our yard, especially considering that the sold the house and moved less than two years later. While we love our new neighbors, they’re young and not into gardening. I know those bushes would have long since jumped the fence and become my headache.

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  3. Know what I want? When I conjure up a project, say, creating a new curtain for a bedroom window – and I have all the things I need for said project, I’d like a robot to finish that job. I’d like to sit down and think through how I’d do it (the design portion of the project), and then say “Have at it!” and by nightfall the Robot would have completed it. I would then pick and choose the funnest, most interesting ones to finish on my own, but boy, do I have a list for this Robot!

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  4. Tee hee-I am working from home today and I am having some tech difficulties with my work lap top. I was talking by phone to the State tech guy assigned to my issue, and he had to hang up because his computer wasn’t working. He will phone me back as soon as he fixes his computer. I need a robot that serves as a self repairing computer and can dust and vacuum, too.

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  5. Rise and Shine Baboons,

    AS long as this is fantasy, I want a robot that does absolutely everything I do not want to do—Progress Notes and treatment plans at work, cleaning at home, as well as mow the lawn. I might settle for a robovac.

    Meanwhile, we just went out for breakfast at a restaurant with a large outdoor seating area. We ran into tim and had a great chat.

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  6. YA and I are planning some fence post repair. I would really prefer that a robot do that.

    I would also love a robot that would scrape the rest of the paint off the stucco on the front porch.

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  7. I am pretty rough on my cell phones. I have an ‘Otterbox’ case, the toughest one I can find. I’ve always joked I need a case that comes with a guy to carry it for me. But a little hovering robot that could carry the phone and follow me around would be great. Stay just out of my way but know my moves so when I reach for the phone it would be right there under my right hand.
    We have a roomba named Rosie and we love her. She’s just the right amount of quirky. If they could invent one that would navigate stairs so she could do upstairs and downstairs would be great. Just this morning I put her down in the entry way. I can check on her from my phone and see how she’s doing. A tiny little camera would be cool too. We joke about the things we can balance on her and she can give them rides.
    We’re easily amused.

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    1. I never once thought about giving a name to our little robot vacuum. It’s not my favorite tool in the house but YA really likes it (since vacuuming is her job).

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        1. It upsets the dog and you have to be very careful that you haven’t moved anything with wires around or it gets caught on the wires. And in our house with our animals, it needs to be emptied out/cleaned every four or five days.

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        2. Oh yeah, that. (Dismissive wave of my hand). Yep, She runs Tue, Thur, and Saturday. And I have to make sure her paths are clear.
          Empty four or fine days?? Heck, she’s full before she finished once out here. I honestly don’t know where she finds all the dirt.
          Maybe it’s the fact we live in the country and the windows are open… plus two Dogs…

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  8. i have a list of stuff to do that could easily be done by robots. cutting boards, doing under the sin plumbing painting a wall trimming a tree changing the oil on the car brakes too. rotate the tires
    send off my corespondance
    tune my guitar between songs and piano on a weekly basis
    i have a robot that lifts thins into the air and then hovers and walks along beside me but i dont want any sound. drones whirrrr is not ok for me.
    one that paints 20% of the house a year and looks after caulking the windows and filling any woodpeker holes or squirrel entries to the attic

    some days are late starting for me but ill bet if the robot put stuff in front of me and got me cooking i could prioritize better.
    bill gates had a thing with the computer changing the music, pictures and lighting intensity etc to the person in the room with the magic chip in his pocket.
    is that your magic chip bill or are you just happy to see me.
    my first thoughts were massage and sex robots and i particularly like one of those options and actually i like the other one a lot too
    if i could get massages ten hours a day i think i might.
    a year ago we went to colorado and i bought a bunch of marijuana to have when i would kick back once we got back to minnesota. i have not used this option more than a couple of times because i dont like the loss of function that comes along with the buzz but i think with most of these wish list things i would love to have the opportunity to lose interest from overuse.

    ah a tunes guitar while im getting massaged and getting my plumbing looked after. after that we can look under the sink

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