
Grant Imahara Has Died - jmcgough
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/grant-imahara-dead-mythbusters-host-was-49-1303101
======
bjt2n3904
[https://mobile.twitter.com/grantimahara/status/1243234010215...](https://mobile.twitter.com/grantimahara/status/1243234010215530496)

This was his workbench. In many ways, it doesn't look much different than
mine. Grant was an electrical engineer, like me. Gone suddenly before 50 from
an aneurysm. I can't help but wonder if it looks like that now, filled with
unfinished projects. Projects that only he understood the complexity of, and
few would have the hope of picking up where he finished. Projects that will
never be completed, now that their creator has died.

Grant, and Myth Busters were an inspiration to me as a young engineer. He was
barely my age on the show, but influenced an entire generation of future
engineers.

I checked his Twitter feed. Barely a bitter or angry tweet. None of the toxic
outrage so prevalent in society today. The world lost a decent person, and a
brilliant engineer.

Nobody knows their time. That what I leave unfinished would only be personal
trivialities, and not angry tweets. That I would be able to have that impact
on the next generation.

~~~
slau
It is eerie how much that looks like my workbench. I guess EEs are all the
same.

~~~
rbanffy
It's a neurological condition. We go to college to get a diagnosis.

~~~
pradn
From someone who gets giddy about exciting algorithms, languages, performance
numbers - I suppose we're kindred spirits, though across the pond of the
hardware-software divide. Glad the world has all sorts of people in love with
all sorts of things.

~~~
squarefoot
Do a search for "Jim Williams workbench", you won't be disappointed.

------
GloriousKoji
I normally don't care about celebrity deaths but this one really has me sad. I
know a lot younger people were influenced by him but he had a positive
influence on me even thought I was already well into my career as an engineer.
He embodied a true engineering spirit, and watching him on TV would make me
reflect and kindle the engineering spirit of my own. Even if my job wasn't as
sexy, was in a sea of cubicles and the biggest explosions were a small circuit
fuse burning off.

~~~
andrewstuart2
It's hard to think of him as a celebrity, even. He felt just like a guy you'd
hang out with at work or after work.

~~~
StavrosK
This is not relevant, but this strikes me as a big cultural difference between
wherever you're from and where I'm from. Here, the first thought to complete
that sentence would be "he strikes me as someone you'd be friends with". I
wonder why "hang out at work" was the first thing that came to mind for you.
Here we don't tend to think in terms of "people we hang out with after work",
we generally have "friends we first met at work" and "coworkers with no other
social relationship".

I know it's a small thing, but that's where cultural differences usually
manifest, and I find them very interesting.

~~~
citizenkeen
I also wonder how much of it is "nerd" adjacent.

I came to software development late in my career (I was a lawyer and a health
care administrator first). I work for a good company and I like a lot of my
coworkers. I would never want to be friends with them. That's a barrier I'm
not very comfortable crossing. When I worked in a hospital, when I was a
lawyer, it was the same. Good coworkers, no desire to keep seeing them after
quitting time.

I have a lot of software development friends who play board games or video
games or go climbing or whatever with their coworkers. It baffles me. They ask
me and my wife for social advice and I have nothing to give - how I'd resolve
a given problem with a friend and with a coworker are too totally different
things.

I've talked to friends from college who've gone into many different
industries, and a lot of them distinguish between "friends" and "friends from
work".

Except engineers, developers, and data scientists. I'm not sure what it is.

~~~
StavrosK
> Except engineers, developers, and data scientists. I'm not sure what it is.

I assume you mean "they're not friends", rather than "they're all just
friends"?

That doesn't really echo my experience, I have many good friends from past
jobs that I'm still in contact with. Though I've also definitely gotten
frustrated with people we seemed to get along with at work but then didn't
ever seem to want to hang out outside work...

~~~
soared
So frustrating when you have a coworker who you get along with very well, will
take walks/lunch/etc, but refuses to go to happy hour or do anything outside
of work.

We’re all people, shouldn’t matter where we met. It’s not like we talk about
work outside of work.

~~~
StavrosK
Yeah, and when I asked, the answer was "oh I don't hang out with coworkers
outside work", which I can't understand.

~~~
fnimick
I don't personally limit myself in this way, but I understand. Having personal
friendships at work makes it more challenging to make hard business decisions
such as switching companies when opportunities present themselves or firing /
laying off team members. I've worked with people who are very friendly and
pleasant to work with but explicitly avoid any personal relationships so they
can use pure cost-benefit analysis in career and company decisions, rather
than allowing emotion and sentiment to influence it.

Edit: actually, the most effective person I ever met who did this was someone
who _did_ hang out outside work and etc to allow others to form personal bonds
with him, but he avoided reciprocal investment in them. This let him take
advantage of their empathy while not having any of his own to limit his
decision-making. It was a bit sociopathic, but I saw firsthand how much it
helped his career.

~~~
webmaven
More than a "bit" sociopathic, unless you are saying that this person had to
make a conscious effort to _avoid_ reciprocating, and you know that they
naturally formed reciprocal bonds in other contexts.

------
pixelface
Grant was part of a group of people who showed us how engineering could be
more than cubicles and paperwork, and inspired my childhood dreams which
turned into fulfilling careers in both tech and entertainment. To this day
Grant and his coworkers are my 'what do i want to be when i grow up' answer.

~~~
glouwbug
We don't even get cubicles these days

~~~
neilpanchal
I'd kill for a bog standard, completely depressing, tall walled, beige colored
cubicle taken out of an Enron office building.

~~~
glouwbug
We had them at Intel, and I completely hated it, then 2015 rolled around with
hot seats and the open office and I learned how lucky I was

------
Alupis
Armed with science, engineering, and curiosity, the Mythbusters crew inspired
a generation. Embrace the Scientific Method, and you just might solve any
problem that comes your way.

Still to this day, my friends and I consider the Mythbusters as the final word
on so many "myths".

Grant's clever use of robotics, sensors and code opened my eyes to a world of
possibilities. I still remember the first time I read a temperature sensor on
an arduino. Here I was, interacting with the real world, using just a few
components and some code... solving no problems but feeling invincible
nonetheless.

Thanks Grant for inspiring me, and many more like me. There are so few that
inspired so much.

Rest in peace.

~~~
phaus
>Embrace the Scientific Method, and you just might solve any problem that
comes your way.

Mythbusters was a great and inspiring show, but they weren't always great at
following the scientific method IMO. It was always more about cool hacks than
scientific validity. They decided people being injured by bullets being shot
into the sky was a myth mostly because they couldn't locate the bullets they
fired into the sky, in spite of talking to one of the leading experts on the
phenomenon, talking to a doctor that performed surgery on people injured by
bullets fired into the sky, and discovering there are people in prison for
seriously insuring people miles away by, once again, shooting bullets into the
sky.

That was before Grant's time though, he was awesome.

~~~
evilduck
I just rewatched this out of curiosity and I think you’re seriously
misremembering that episode (S4E11), the final conclusions wasn’t “busted”.
They asked “busted, plausible or confirmed” and they concluded “all of the
above”.

Grant actually was part of the show already at this point, they did actually
find 9mm bullets they fired up, but couldn’t find 30-06 rounds. They did
conclude that “straight up and down” was safe but said multiple times that
bullets on a trajectory are still lethal. They present the medical evidence at
the 21 minute mark, and a simulation around the 25 minute mark.

I don’t hold Mythbusters to be a scientific end-all to a discussion but I
think they made that episode in good faith and portrayed it ok, even if they
bulk of the testing footage was on the very narrow (and filmable) straight up
and down terminal velocity aspect.

~~~
phaus
I remember being disappointed with their testing and results at the time but
it was 14 years ago maybe I didn't get it right.

I don't think they are overly rigorous with in general but its still a great
show and I actually dont think they tried to portray themselves as strictly
following the scientific method either.

------
d33lio
Wow, this cuts really deep.

This makes me want to take more risk in life, to live a bit fuller and care
less about money.

Even at 26 I still don't have a great way to digest loss like this. The loss
of someone who I genuinely looked up to and whom had significant impact on
decisions I made my life. Who I thought about when I really hated myself and
felt that I didn't belong in engineering at college. Especially Grant, since
he was one of my childhood "heroes" who never lost his luster or genuine
character.

~~~
jeffrallen
> I still don't have a great way to digest loss

I'm about double your age and don't either. And I would be surprised if
someone double my age claimed to.

Live every day like it could be your last. Don't hold grudges, and tell people
you love them.

That's the best we can do. And it is apparently what Grant did, as his
colleagues all have fond memories of him.

RIP, Grant. You were cool.

~~~
nonbirithm
> Live every day like it could be your last.

I've apparently been doing this, and you know? I'm thinking it's not going to
work out.

If I followed those words to the letter, literally believing that I was going
to die of a heart attack at any moment, I would go insane.

Maybe I am going insane, then.

There are a lot of things we take for granted. Sure. I'm incredibly grateful
to have both my hands, because if I lost even one of them then I would be
severely impacted in my work. I could end up having to take a pay cut or lose
my job outright. And I might never be able to draw at the level I could
accomplish by still having hands.

But I believe there's a reason we take these things for granted, with the side
effect in a lot of people of never understanding their importance until it's
too late. We do so because if we didn't take anything for granted, we would
spend _all of the time_ thinking about what would happen if we suddenly lost
body part X or Y, and become constantly aware of every single tendon and
muscle in our body and how they were still functional as opposed to dead, and
_never get anything done_. Or at least greatly reduce our mental capacity to
think about the important things we want to accomplish with those limbs
instead of spending it on fruitless worry.

So I have to both understand that yes, it would be _horrible_ if I lost my
hands or ability to walk or my sight or my hearing or my _life_ , and then I
have to _put it out of my mind_ and do what I want to do while there's still
time instead of worrying about it every single day.

And even thinking like that becomes counterproductive.

I'm 24 and have had this bizzarre chest pain. I went to the doctor and the ER
several times for it. Dozens of times. Nothing came of it. Not even a
diagnosis of pleurisy, or a diagnosis of _anything at all_. It was just
unresolved and I have to assume it's something in the realm of anxiety or
hypochondria. And it _still_ hurts in the most inconvenient moments and is a
constant hovering reminder of my own mortality.

So now it's 3 in the morning and I need to write this thing. I know I'm only
killing myself by failing to fall asleep at 3 in the morning but I don't know
if I'm going to be alive tomorrow and I _need_ to get this out there. _Need_
someone to know that before I died that yes, I _had_ thought enough to think
of this thing, this concept that nobody else I've ever met has thought of,
that nobody else will _ever think_ and if I'm going to die tomorrow there will
_never_ be anyone else that will think of it again. So I need to do this, to
_write this down_ and move my still functioning fingers and joints over the
keys to just _get it out_ , need to finish this before I die because I don't
take my own impending death for granted and I was smart enough to realize that
fact, so _use it._ And oh, there's that other thing, that programming project
I've spent years on committing to master alone and intend to spend several
more years on. If I die that project will never be finished because _nobody
else cares enough._ Sure, someone else realizing I died somehow and telling
the community that I intended to finish it but never could because instead I
happened to die, out of my control, could motivate someone else to take up the
flag. Or not, and as a result the planet overheats 100 years from now without
that one thing I wanted to accomplish with my life ever becoming reality. What
could _possibly_ be worse for the psyche of human accomplishment, of
redefining the status quo, when you're trapped in this box of failing hearts
and endless anxiety and just couldn't do it so that's just the end of it all?
That's the end of the dream? What else is there to lose?

No.

Not going to happen.

So now it's seven in the morning.

And I've failed to get any sleep and failed to eat anything so I'm starving
and physically exhausted and my heart is racing and it feels like it's being
shoved against my lungs and ribcage and I feel that much closer to dying than
before.

Then I try and fail to go to sleep since apparently I'm not mentally exhausted
yet and go on HN and discover this person formerly a part of Mythbusters is
dead of a brain aneurysm at 49, and then I remember that wowaka, the world
famous Vocaloid artist, probably one of if not _the_ single most popular
Vocaloid artist of all time, died of heart failure at the age of 31, _31 years
old_ for _fuck 's sake_ and that means I only have _7 years left_ if it really
comes to the worst possible scenario with my health that me never getting any
sleep and worrying about dying all of the time _every single day of the past
year_ is not doing any favors. And now it feels like my heart is going to
explode inside my chest from remembering this, remembering wowaka and Rolling
Girl and dying of heart failure in 7 years at the worst possible time because
this important person died tragically and everyone considers 49 to be young,
49 is young, right, and my heart hurts so much it feels like it's being
squeezed with a belt, and

You get the idea.

~~~
jeffrallen
One way to live every day like it could be your last is to be honest with
others, and ask them for help when you need it.

Do you need help?

~~~
nonbirithm
I think so. I think this is not normal, and if it isn't normal then it might
do me in.

But it could also be a coping mechanism that I've developed over the years
because telling myself all these negative things was the only way to motivate
me.

I believe that was influenced by the way I was raised. Operant conditioning
and such. But it's also a part of the negative feedback loop that might have
made, now that I'm alone with my own thoughts, reinforcing the same tired
patterns day after day and seeing the worst in the world get to me and letting
it validate my cynicism and morbidity.

It's like, if you're inclined to that way of thinking throughout your entire
life, how do you accidentally discover someone dying like this and _not_ let
it get to you? How are you supposed to "get over it" and do the thought
suppression or whatever that all of the other mature people around me seem to
handle reasonably well?

It's like, basically I never learned how to do that, and it does hurt me in a
sense.

So I need to unlearn that and learn something better.

But maybe that's also why I'm thinking of these things and incorporating them
into writing the way I do, because of this counterproductive way I think and
how the frustrations I want to express can be expressed with my thought
process, that people aren't usually trying to think counterproductively in
this manner so I have some kind of insight that people with more self esteem
will never find, because they don't personally understand the problems I have.

Kayne West was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. They put him on medication and
if I'm remembering correctly he said it took away some of his creativity.

If Kanye West wasn't bipolar then we might never have known him as Kanye West
the way we do today.

I think about that sometimes, for some reason.

So it's like, what is the part of me that needs the help? Okay, so I ought to
improve somehow, because I pretty much always have room for improvement, in
general. Maybe art is therapudic. But still, if nobody knows what you do and
validate you for it, it's like you're screaming into the void, and that's how
I see myself as _alone_ a lot of the time. Not validated for the things I do.
Nagata Kabi's definition of "alone" that she picked up from one of her
sympathetic Twitter followers. Even though I do have a few people that
validate the things I create, it still doesn't feel like it's enough, and
don't know at what point it will. Or if it's even supposed to be enough at
some point, like if I was some kind of genius in the top X percent of people
(I'm not, I'm somewhere in the bottom half) and somehow did everything
perfectly I'd just be happy and satisfied one thousand pages and ten thousand
upvotes later, after hundreds of comments from people whose faces I'll never
know reading "this is the best thing I've read today" and "thanks for the
words" and "cool", when I reach middle age and can just kick back and watch
the entirety of Star Trek without worrying about what impact I'm going to make
on the world every single day.

That being the only reason I do these things.

It's like when people start saying a sentence that begins with the words "In
life, you should" and talk about making interpersonal contacts, people that
will at least talk to you in good faith and not call you "salty" for getting
frustrated at your errors. Because you are _going_ to be put through adversity
and fail over and over no matter what you do, and you _need_ to have a healthy
way of managing that if you're going to survive. I mean, of _course_ I'm going
to get frustrated if I choose to play Persona 5 and end up getting my ass
handed to me over and over again. I can't help it. What do you expect me to
feel instead?

It was a miracle I managed to meet a single person that understands that kind
of frustration and never judges me for it (well, almost never) and has a
practically infinite amount of patience and _takes time out of her work day_
to do administrative things for my sake and talk to me (she isn't a therapist,
she's someone I can have a legitimate relationship with in the mentor-mentee
sense, the kind I don't have to pay to receive - you know, the ones normal
people going to see a movie together always have). She never yells at me or
tells me something matter of factly like someone smarter who tells me
everything I don't know like it's obvious and intimidates me, like they're in
a totally different intellectual sphere, and what were you doing with your
life all those 24 years to not know that simple thing? And the _only reason_ I
met her was because I had a mental health diagnosis. And _still_ the first
time I met her I treated her like absolute shit, and only by being put in my
place by people who knew better than me did I realize that my behavior was
terrible, a firable offense at any other company in any other set of
circumstances, and so I learned from my mistakes, and a year later if it
wasn't for her I'd probably be either homeless or dead.

I'm just ranting at this point, excuse me.

But I guess the reason I'm writing all of these words out in the open, on a
handle that's indexed by major search engines and adtech companies and will be
publicly searchable for decades to come, is because all I wanted was for
someone to listen, but not just listen really - to also get to know on the
level of a friendship of some kind. To not worry about having a social filter
with. The people I mentioned are essentially family that will never cross me
and keep me in check out of a parental sense of wanting to do right. But I
don't have people you can call hard-won friends, the ones you meet at
Deerhunter concerts and are of legal drinking age and have jobs and overcome
hardships as their own independent person. The ones _you 're_ responsible for
keeping or losing. I've never understood these kinds of people in the same
sense. I've either lost all their trust or, more commonly, lost interest in
_them_ when I felt I couldn't say the things I wanted without worrying about
whether or not the next word out of my mouth was going to lead them to dump me
in the middle of a nice little social outing together in a foreign country and
have me pay my own train fares back. I don't mean this metaphorically.

So yes. In a sense, I guess you could conclude from reading all of the above
that, indeed, I need help.

------
woutr_be
Brain aneurysm is truly something terrible, I lost a friend to it a couple of
years ago. (She was 22 at the time and in good health). She just woke up one
day in the middle of the night with a headache and had to vomit. On the way to
the hospital she fell into a coma and never woke up. Really scary.

~~~
codecamper
So what can be done preventatively against a brain aneurysm?

Seems like there is something called a Magnetic Resonance Angiography.

~~~
ainiriand
Having a controlled blood pressure really helps. Other than that... good luck
I guess.

~~~
TheHypnotist
Also not being a smoker. But that's not really preventative I guess.

~~~
loco5niner
Absolutely, it's preventative.

------
ShakataGaNai
Normally I ignore the "rich and famous" obits, however Grant's passing is
really quite upsetting. MythBusters meant a great deal to me during my college
years, right as I was trying to figure out where I wanted to go in life. The
build team was always the best.

With the loss of Jessie in 2019, it's been a hard year for Mythbusters.

~~~
Cthulhu_
See with the Mythbusters (sidekicks), I can't really see them as rich; I mean
I'm sure they made some decent money off of it, but I doubt it set them up for
life and I wouldn't be surprised if they got screwed over in that show in
favor of Jamie / Adam. I never heard why they were let go / quit the show,
although I've always suspected it was because the show just wasn't as popular
anymore.

~~~
bena
Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage have a reported net worth of about $8 million.
Grant and Tory have reported net worths of $2 million. And Kari is about $1.5
million.

Not bad, but both Jamie and Adam were well respected visual effects artists,
builders, and model makers before Mythbusters. Mythbusters primarily shot at
Jamie's shop.

Grant and Tory both worked at ILM. Kari was an employee of M5, Jamie's
company, when she was put on the show.

So, not terribly rich, but about what you would expect. $1 - $2 million "net
worth" is more attainable than you might think. As net worth includes assets
and what not. They have enough money to take substantial risks that might not
pay off.

~~~
mywittyname
That's peanuts compared to a similarly popular sitcom. I honestly expected
Jamie and Adam to each have net worth in the $50-100MM range because of the
syndication potential of that show, which will absolutely be on TV in 30
years. Being engineering types, maybe they all didn't really understand how to
negotiate.

Given the net worth of Grant, Tori and Kari, I'm guessing they didn't have
huge salaries from the show, maybe $200k/yr on average.

~~~
throwaway287391
> That's peanuts compared to a similarly popular sitcom.

Is it actually? Do you have particular sitcom(s) in mind? I tried to look for
this myself and couldn't find much (beyond ratings for anything beyond the top
~20 highest rated shows in a given year).

I know very little about this, but I'm a little skeptical because I feel
people tend to vastly overestimate how much money the average person they see
on TV makes. The stories of the outliers (like the Friends stars making $1M
per episode) really skew the perceptions of this -- the vast majority of
professional actors (if not regular TV actors, but maybe even then) make less
than the median Bay Area software engineer. A salary on the order of $200K a
year for a non-headliner regular actor in a sitcom with viewership around 1M
people (which I think is more than a typical episode of Mythbusters would've
gotten) doesn't sound that far out of the ballpark to me.

~~~
mywittyname
Jerry Seinfeld is almost a billionaire due to his eponymous sitcom. The
starring cast of Big Bang Theory fame were earning nearly a million dollars an
episode by the end of the series. Similar story with Two and a Half Men,
Gilmore Girls.

Jamie and Adam were stars of a wildly popular television show that ran for 14
seasons, spawn numerous spin offs and runs in syndication even today. I'd
expect them to have hit at least $500k per episode.

~~~
throwaway287391
You said "similarly popular sitcom". I loved Mythbusters but it's a geeky
Discovery Channel (cable) show, it never came anywhere close to Seinfeld
ratings...

------
ericbarrett
Grant and I lived in the same building in San Francisco for a while and I met
him at the HOA-run functions. Always a delight to talk to about his crazy path
through life. He was a good man and I'm really sorry to hear of his passing.

------
Balgair
Grant was an inspiration.

The whole crew were, are.

Their efforts pushed me along the path I am on and made my life _measurably_
better.

Grant was core to that. Grant made my life better.

I got to meet him one at a Maker Faire. They say, never meet your heroes.
Grant was the exception to that rule. Shaking his hand was everything I
expected. He was kind to some rando and seemed happy that he was able to make
a better life for some stranger he'd never met.

I'm so grateful for his efforts. I am so grateful for his humor. I am so
grateful for his joy.

Thank you Grant.

------
pontifier
For several years Grant had the only other master/slave robot arm I could find
on youtube. I was so excited when I found one and saw it was his...

I felt a real connection with him, even though I didn't know him personally.
It's been a long time dream of mine to be on battlebots, and I treasure the
Deadblow T-shirt I got there about 20 years ago. This truly hurts.

The 2 videos for the curious:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7l4YE2K-HI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7l4YE2K-HI)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XChu20hTxU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XChu20hTxU)

~~~
VikingCoder
I desperately want to put an actuated camera on that, and wear a VR helmet, so
you can see the arms from your point of view.

------
donatj
Brain aneurism. The thought has always kept me up at night, and this only
serves to make the fear worse. Poor guy, I really looked up to him. This
really puts a damper on my mood which had been on an upswing recently

~~~
ajeet_dhaliwal
Yeah it seems like an area that needs massively more research, the information
available on what causes these seems filled with gaps.

~~~
TaupeRanger
Compared to heart disease and cancer, aneurysms are a drop in the bucket. Not
that they should be ignored, but if you're choosing where to put funding it's
not going to be high on the list.

------
wallabie
A brilliant man who elevated Asian representation on mainstream American TV.
Rest in peace.

------
jmlundberg
You have got to love him as Sulu

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_Continues](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_Continues)

[https://m.imdb.com/title/tt2732442/mediaviewer/rm1680690432](https://m.imdb.com/title/tt2732442/mediaviewer/rm1680690432)

Edit. The episodes are free, at
[https://www.startrekcontinues.com](https://www.startrekcontinues.com)

~~~
JackFr
Those are AMAZING. How did I not know about this?

------
phantarch
A hollywood reporter article [1] says that he passed of a brain aneurysm.
Tragic way to go and so early. He entertained the heck out of me as a kid.

[1] [https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/grant-imahara-dead-
my...](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/grant-imahara-dead-mythbusters-
host-was-49-1303101)

~~~
dang
(This comment was merged from a thread which originally pointed to a different
article.)

------
pininja
One of his most recent creations was a Baby Yoda! So sad to hear of his
passing, like many others here I was inspired by him and still aspire to be a
creative coder and builder like he was.

[https://youtu.be/I7P4frD_GiE](https://youtu.be/I7P4frD_GiE)

~~~
ronyeh
Amazing. What a great engineer, and a great person. Rest in peace, Mr.
Imahara.

[https://www.cnet.com/news/former-mythbusters-adorable-
baby-y...](https://www.cnet.com/news/former-mythbusters-adorable-baby-yoda-
robot-will-cheer-up-sick-kids/)

------
hasperdi
For people who can not view the article, here's an outline link
[https://outline.com/uGmACW](https://outline.com/uGmACW)

~~~
kristofferR
Thanks, it's censored in Europe.

Edit: Weird, now it doesn't show the GDPR censorship page anymore.

~~~
numlock86
I can view it just fine here in Germany. Hm, wonder what's up with that.

~~~
KorfmannArno
Europe != Germany

~~~
darkwater
But Germany is indeed in Europe. So, if someone says that it cannot be viewed
in Europe, as in the whole continent, than saying that you can view it in
Germany invalidates the initial assumption.

Btw I'm in another European country and I can see the article as well.

------
chillee
Wow. When I was a kid Mythbusters was one of the only TV shows I watched, and
Grant was my favorite on the B team. It was one of the few shows really
encouraging kids to do science.

What a tragedy.

------
atum47
My dad got us direct tv back in 2000. I watched a lot of MTV, Cartoon Network
and Discovery Channel (where mithbusters was broadcasted for us, Brazil). I
already had a taste for science and engineering, I use to love Beakman's World
(when I was even younger). Is great to see how many people, like me, were
inspired by people like Grant. He will be missed, for sure. You should see
some of his videos in robot fight.

------
Mockapapella
Had to do a double take on this one. He always seemed like a genuine and kind
person, it's weird to see "Grant Imahara" and "Dies" in the same sentence.

------
mmastrac
Fuck. Grant has always been a shining example of engineering spirit. I have
looked up to him for a long time.

~~~
netmare
I remember when they were testing the aerodynamics of something in Mythbusters
and needed a quick way to create laminar flow. Grant's solution was to cut
both ends of a pack of drinking straws and put it inline with the airflow.
Such an elegantly brilliant idea.

------
maxmax_
I never comment here, but this one really hit me. I have so many great
memories watching MythBusters and seeing now this headline makes me really
sad.

------
zxcvbn4038
This will hit my kid hard, since he learned to work the TV his two favorite
shows were Mythbusters and Popular Mechanics for Kids. When they dropped the B
team and when they stopped producing the shows were probably his biggest
introduction to the general impermanence of the world.

------
an-allen
Grant Imahara’s curiosity, energy, and brilliance have taught millions of
folks the unbridled joy of how to be bewildered by the world and overcome that
with sober, rational, reason and scientific method. It gives me hope how the
celebration of Grant front and center in my networks.

------
kanobo
So very sad to lose a hero, I was lucky to be crammed right next to him at
Pershing Square in a very crowded group at the March for Science in Downtown
Los Angeles a couple years ago. He was very friendly, I was starstruck. I wish
I could have chatted with him more.

------
mhh__
Absolutely brutal. When I saw the headline I was almost hoping he died in some
kind of bizarre robotics accident.

~~~
ben174
At first glance what you say seems insensitive but after thinking about it
it’s rather endearing. Dying doing what you love, like Steve Irwin.

------
dom2
As a younger person who hasn't seen many of the celebrities I grew up with
pass away, this is probably one of the first celebrity deaths that really
affected me. I grew up watching Grant and the whole MythBusters crew. The show
was hugely influential and definitely guided me towards an interest in science
and engineering.

Whenever I think about the science of the MythBusters, I always bring up this
xkcd comic.[1]

I think science tends to have an ivory tower issue, and those who don't get
the resources growing up to be included in standard academic science may feel
left out. People like Grant and shows like the MythBusters made the viewers
feel included, and instead of just talking down to the viewer about a bunch of
facts, the show included them into the process of discovery. I think that's
really cool and important.

[1] [https://xkcd.com/397/](https://xkcd.com/397/)

------
olcor
All I know about him is that he was the one who created Geoff the Robot in
Craig Ferguson's Late Late Show. That robot was AMAZING, it enabled a lot of
good sketches!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoff_Peterson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoff_Peterson)

This is not a good year :(

------
giorgioz
I'm deeply sorry for the loss of Grant having lost an engineer friend the same
way.

An engineer friend of mine passed away due to brain aneurysm few years ago.
Higor was in his twenties and had just achieved moving to Dublin after
managing to acquire an Italian citizenship through his Italian ancestors being
from Brazil.

I fantasize I will build a machine to extract his consciouness before the
brian aneurysm saving him (but also causing the brain aneurysm).

Being an atheist I guess that's my way to hope for a way to see him again. I
miss you Higor

------
JKCalhoun
I would love to see a documentary on this man, learn more about his life. I
saw only his TV personality but the slim bio I just read suggests he had
fascinating life and was kind as well.

------
TeaDrunk
Grant was why I decided to go into STEM. :(

------
indiantinker
Super sad! It was due to Grant, Adam, and Jamie that I fancied making things
from an early age. I used to do LEGO versions of their builds as a kid that
helped me a lot to become a designer and engineer today. The kind of multi-
disciplinary notion of life they professed was a key for me to approach my
education. I still remember dubbed versions of their show in Hindi on
Discovery and my parents allowing to watch it beyond TV as "Whatever is on
discovery is good for kids"

I resonated a lot with Grant as he was very simple and introvert-ish among the
whole lot.

This year is like a nightmare.

RIP Grant :'(

------
dfinninger
The Mythbusters were incredibly influential in my desire to pursue
engineering. I also liked watching Battlebots, seeing all the crazy things
they would come up with...

I wish the best for his friends and family.

~~~
kregasaurusrex
I'd recognized him from Battlebots since his robot Deadblow was a finalist
from season 1, the final episode[0] starts with a short intro from Grant that
shows his fun perspective brought to the table on Mythbusters. The entire
Mythbusters team surely inspired the next generation of scientists and
engineers with a can-do mentality.

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTDrwWCJqAo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTDrwWCJqAo)

------
maccam94
I would not be surprised if he is diagnosed with COVID-19, it can cause blood
clots that obstruct blood flow.

"Severe brain haemorrhage and concomitant COVID-19 Infection: A neurovascular
complication of COVID-19":
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7199686/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7199686/)

~~~
d1str0
This article is specifically about a single person (60yo woman) who had a
aneurysm and was actively fighting pneumonia from COVID19.

Just because a celeb died doesn’t mean it makes any sense to try and tie in
COVID19.

~~~
maccam94
I've seen multiple reports of severe blood clotting and strokes in COVID
patients, including those who are otherwise asymptomatic, including people
under 50.[1] Given that there is a pandemic going around with similar
symptoms, I don't think this is a huge leap (but again, I am not saying it's
anywhere near certain either). I probably should have used this source in my
original comment, I just grabbed the first link I had handy.

[1]: [https://www.biospace.com/article/covid-19-increases-risk-
of-...](https://www.biospace.com/article/covid-19-increases-risk-of-heart-
attacks-and-stroke/)

[2]: [https://news.weill.cornell.edu/news/2020/07/what-is-known-
ab...](https://news.weill.cornell.edu/news/2020/07/what-is-known-about-
covid-19-and-abnormal-blood-clotting)

[3]: [https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2020/06/11/searching-for-
ways-...](https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2020/06/11/searching-for-ways-to-
prevent-life-threatening-blood-clots-in-covid-19/)

~~~
ak39
That COVID wasn't mentioned by reports is itself information. I believe that
had Grant tested positive for COVID, the reports would have mentioned that.
The fact that it isn't mentioned, makes it unlikely that it is COVID related.

~~~
maccam94
There are still testing backlogs for COVID, it can take multiple days to get
results (assuming the doctors decide to run the test). Link #2 also says: It’s
hard to know for sure [if clotting is a major factor], because the clotting
problem is apt to go undetected.

Since most people think of COVID as a respiratory disease and the clotting
symptoms aren't as well publicized, doctors may not always call for the test
when respiratory symptoms aren't present.

------
fermentation
This is such awful news. I looked up to him growing up

------
ezoe
I also lost a friend who was very influential among us this year. The death
was so sudden and guessing from his tweet before his death, it was probably
cerebral apoplexy or similar sudden brain damage.

If you have a friend not keep in touch of years, you should consider to have a
little chat sometimes because you never knew he or you still alive tomorrow.

------
emerged
Is there effective screening for aneurism potential? It runs the male side of
my family and I'm approaching due time.

~~~
Rebelgecko
I think the weakened blood vessels show up on MRI and CT scans. I don't think
it's usually done unless you have specific risk factors. Probably best to let
your doctor know about your family history.

~~~
missedthecue
What can you do about a weakened blood vessel?

~~~
belorn
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intracranial_aneurysm#Risk_fac...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intracranial_aneurysm#Risk_factors)

Managing and monitoring blood pressure, avoiding smoking, alcohol and cocaine,
avoiding excess body fat, and last managing risk for physical trauma.

------
datameta
Honestly this hit me harder than any announced passing in the last few years.
What a brilliant and pleasant human being.

------
encom
"Sorry, this content is not available in your region."

~~~
encom
[https://archive.ph/qp51G](https://archive.ph/qp51G)

~~~
encom
Replying to myself again. OP now points to a different source which actually
works.

------
ainiriand
I hate this year. I am going to miss him even though I never met him he was
kind of a friend.

------
peapicker
I’m 49. Already hit one funeral this week. 49 isn’t supposed to feel this old.
:(

------
shadykiller
RIP. He was my favorite person and in my opinion, most talented on the show.

------
staycoolboy
I'm grateful for Grant, an engineer who isn't a billionaire-egomaniac and
still stirred such a passion in so many. How often are engineers role models?
At least in this part of history.

------
BaldricksGhost
Only appropriate that this has risen to the top of HN. RIP Grant.

------
sparker72678
So, so sad. I absolutely loved Grant, in Mythbusters especially.

This is hitting me hard.

Fuck 2020.

------
peignoir
I wished there was a way to detect aneurysm without the need of an MRI...
maybe one day with AI and some blood pressure sensor. My condolences to his
family.

~~~
TaupeRanger
The problem, just as in cancer, is not detection. It's what to do once you
find it. Many aneurysms/cancers that _could_ be found will turn out to be
harmless, and the risk of harming someone physically and/or psychologically
from unnecessarily treating them is not negligible. There isn't much we can do
for aneurysms unless they are obviously immediately threatening.

~~~
petercooper
This. The risk calculations can be quite scary and people's responses to them
can be poor given a powerful human dislike of uncertainty.

Consider a totally fabricated and naive example of finding a minor aneurysm
with a 0.1% annual risk of rupture versus a 10% risk of death during surgery..
there are many people who would take the surgery to remove the uncertainty.
(And this is a highly contrived example, real life is far more complicated!)

------
victorbojica
I've really liked Mythbusters. I grew up with their shows. I still think about
their shows weekly. I'm really sad about what happened. Grant seemed (didn't
get to know him) like a very nice guy and he really inspired me (along with
the whole Mythbusters team) and as it appears, a whole lot of other people.
Thanks Grant for your work and dedication! You won't be forgotten!

------
EricE
I met him at filming of one of the early seasons (maybe first?) in Vegas - he
was warm and inviting even then before he became a household name.

Why do the good people always seem to die young yet assholes live forever?
Ugh.

We are pretty much the same age so this also hits doubly close to home for me.
Prayers for his friends and family.

------
kahlonel
Grant was my childhood hero, and one of a few people who inspired me to pursue
robotics. RIP Grant. 2020 fucking sucks.

------
Unklejoe
Damn. He was one of those people who you could just tell was a good dude. I
grew up watching him.

------
dageshi
This is very sad, Mythbusters is just about my favourite tv series of all
time.

------
filmgirlcw
Ugh. This one hits hard. I stopped watching MythBusters before he even left
the show, but it was one of those shows we always watched in college and his
robots were always the best. What a tragic and sad loss.

------
kgc
Normally when newsworthy deaths occur, I'm not affected. However, Grant's
death really hits home for some reason. I first saw him on Mythbusters. He
seemed like such a nice and brilliant guy.

------
WhyKill
Grant will be missed. I was definitely influenced by him at an early age. He
gave me a glimpse of what being a roboticist and engineer looked like. And
that was enough to propel my career forward.

------
axegon_
RIP. Thank you for all the great times I had watching MythBusters a kid! I
remember I had to run from school to my house as a kid in order to catch the
start of the show. It was awesome!

------
schappim
Just when you think 2020 can’t get worse. What a tragedy. RIP Grant!

------
brian_herman__
I wish we could get a black bar for this guy.

~~~
kleer001
Why can't we? Sure he didn't write fundamental software back in the 70s, but
he was inspirational for many of the users here.

------
jdofaz
I didn't have cable so I rarely saw myth busters, but I was a fan of his for
building the Geoff Peterson robot

------
thrownaway954
kerri said it best "i wish i had a time machine some days" :( it sucks getting
old and seeing truly wonderful people pass.

man i miss mythbusters. they all had such chemistry and it truly was a
wholesome show. grant, kerri, adam, jaime and tory really became part of my
life.

rip grant... you have no idea how many people you inspired.

------
RazvanS
Sad news.

I remember fondly watching Myth Busters show. RIP.

------
aquaticsunset
This was not an expected headline to read this morning.

I, like so many others, was shaped by Grant as a kid. It’s a sad day :(

------
grawprog
Aww man...i was just heading to bed and took a last look at hn and then this.
That really sucks. :(

------
b3lvedere
Aww damn man.

He was awesome to watch. I'll miss him. May he tinker and have fun forever
wherever he is now.

------
chris_wot
Damn, I loved watching Myth Busters and Grant. I'm very sad to see he has died
so young.

------
ravenstine
Grant's intelligence and creativity was always inspiring. This is very sad to
hear.

------
maddyboo
Grant was a hero to a generation of future makers, engineers, artists, and
creators.

~~~
kleer001
Same here. You have my feels. I may not be an engineer, but I loved his
attitude and work ethic. Gone too soon, far too soon.

------
WatchDog
That's really sad.

Grant seemed like such a genuine, kind-hearted intelligent dude.

My condolences to his family.

------
wyxuan
Damn. I watched pretty much every episode of mythbusters, so this one hits
hard.

------
alkibiades
was just watching mythbusters a few hours ago for the first time in years..
RIP Grant

Not sure about the timing but I wonder if Hulu was recommending the show
because of his death or it was just random

~~~
mkl
It's possible Hulu's recommendations have a "what's suddenly popular"
component, so it could be recommended in response to a number of people
choosing to watch it in response to the news. Or it could be a total
coincidence; it's a great show, it should be recommended!

------
hermitcrab
very sad news. I loved Mythbusters, especially the ones with Grant, Tori and
Kari. I still cringe when I think about that time Grant nearly disemboweled
himself on camera.

------
Cirpop
RIP! Another one of my childhood stars just gone like that...

------
pozy
Great man and an inspiration through Mythbusters. RIP Grant.

------
egeozcan
He was one of my heroes. Amazing person overall. RIP.

------
qserasera
This is absolutely devastating.

------
godzillabrennus
So sad! He was amazing on MB.

------
runjake
Grant warrants a black bar.

~~~
kleer001
"When someone important to the community dies, a thin black bar is added to
the top of HN as a mark of respect"

I agree. That follows.

He may not have been a founding member of a computer based community,
software, or protocol, but he certainly inspired many of us.

~~~
danpalmer
My guess is that the age demographic of the moderators may be more tuned to
earlier CS community contributors. I often recognise the names from references
in university lectures, but don't have much of a connection to them. Grant on
the other hand is someone who I grew up with on my TV, inspiring me to make
things.

------
jorgenveisdal
Such a truly good person

------
sushshshsh
wow.... horrible news :(

------
4x5-Guy
That just bites.

------
vmchale
Horrible.

------
Exuma
Damn...how

~~~
entropea
Brain Anyeurism

------
amerine
damn

------
knd775
Where's his black bar?

~~~
kleer001
Good question. IMHO the mods lean more heavily towards older more fundamental
CS contributors. I think he def deserved the honor.

------
antonzabirko
Sounds like a corona-induced aneurysm.

------
aortega
What the flying fuck, 2020. This was unexpected.

Everybody knows that the only ones capable of getting shit done in Mythbusters
were Jamie and Imahara, with Savage a distant third.

~~~
8note
Scottie? She built a lot of the early stuff

~~~
aortega
Just realized she also died, WTF.

~~~
colinmcd
That was Jessi Combs, Scottie's still around.

~~~
aortega
I have no idea who are those two girls. And I saw a lot of the show.

------
maccam94
I would not be surprised if he is diagnosed with COVID-19, it can cause blood
clots that obstruct blood flow.

"Severe brain haemorrhage and concomitant COVID-19 Infection: A neurovascular
complication of COVID-19":
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7199686/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7199686/)

------
hydrogenbonds
I'm pretty sure that for most of these posts, this is how it goes for HN
users:

\- no idea who this guy is, let's spend 5-10 minutes of my life to find out

\- hmm yeah, he did good

\- upvote

But maybe we keep doing this for post after post, wasting time and learning
stuff that won't help us achieves our actual objectives.

~~~
sanitycheck
I would guess that around 90% of HN's US users have watched Mythbusters, and
probably 30-40% of users from elsewhere - which might be half the people
reading this post. If you don't know it, I'd totally recommend it - especially
the ones with Grant in (S4-13?)

Anyway, I'm really sorry to hear this - seemed like a great guy and, as others
have said, a fantastic role model.

~~~
rbanffy
HNers should also watch him as Hikaru Sulu in Star Trek Continues. It's a fan
series that manages to perfectly recreate the original Star Trek, down to set
lighting and acting style. It's truly a work of love.

