Hey CBS, You need to hire a technical advisor!!!

RayWohlfarth

I was watching an episode of Scorpion on CBS and found myself yelling at the television screen. My kids think Im nuts. Scorpion is a TV show about a group of genuises who solve crimes. In this particular episode, there was an unmanned runaway freighter ship filled with thousands of gallons of oil and it was heading for the coast of California. The "geniuses" filled a 55 gallon drum with sand bags and shot it with an air hose underwater and the force of the impact was supposed to avert the course of the runaway freighter. The drum went straight as an arrow through the water but it only altered the course slightly of the freighter. The freighter was then headed to a worse landing site. The crew used a zippo lighter to light the bunker oil burner of the ship's boiler which had not run in years and they had high pressure steam in less than 10 minutes. I know, a miracle right? I changed it to reruns of the Ateam because this was more believeble. Hey CBS, I suggest you contact any of the people on this site and they could help your writers to make plausible story lines. Thanks for allowing me to vent.
Ray

DanHolohan

Ray, you always make me smile.

EBEBRATT-Ed

LOL.

Here's the one hat drives me nuts. It a home fixer upper show.

They take a house and fix it up and remodel it.

Then they give you the results:
Value before improvements $200,000
Cost of improvements $100,000
Present value after improvements $375,000

You never get back 100% of the remodel. If this was true we would all empty our bank accounts, IRAs, stocks etc and put every dime we could beg borrow or steal and put it in real estate

Every time I scream at the TV when this show is on MY GF believes this rubbish and not me!!

RayWohlfarth

Thanks Dan It drives me crazy and the bad part is that could get some great information for the price of a beer
Ed That is so funny. I thought those people used Politician Math when showing how much their house is now worth.

Erin Holohan Haskell

Spoiler alert!

RayWohlfarth

Erin It was their Halloween episode Hoping anyone who wanted to watch it would have done so by now LOL

Sal Santamaura

RayWohlfarth said:

I was watching an episode of Scorpion on CBS and found myself yelling at the television screen...

That program is equal parts science fiction and soap opera. My wife insists on watching it. I shake my head in disgust at its absurdity. Don't blame CBS, which just runs what people will tune into.

If you'd like realism in the scientific stuff included, watch The Big Bang Theory. Even what's scrawled on white boards is correct, having been put there by someone from Cal Tech who the producers hire for that purpose.

Sal Santamaura

EBEBRATT-Ed said:

...Then they give you the results:

Value before improvements $200,000
Cost of improvements $100,000
Present value after improvements $375,000

You never get back 100% of the remodel...

The catch is that what you're referring to as "value before improvements" isn't the market value of a house someone occupies and wants to fix up a kitchen, bath, etc. in. Instead, those shows buy junk heaps, usually unoccupied, that sellers (frequently estates) dump at very low sale prices. That's the only way the numbers can work.

You're absolutely correct though that, if one's home is otherwise in good condition, "updating" a kitchen, bath or similar will return less than the cost of the remodel.

RayWohlfarth

Sal You are so correct. I never knew that about The Big Bang Theory.

Mad Dog_2

I know, It insults one's intelligence, Ray. That's Hollywood. If they don't know, they'll just make it up. Good looking out. Mad Dog

RayWohlfarth

Mad Dog Good point. I guess Im naive. I once jumped from the roof of the porch using an unbrella as a child. I cursed Mary Poppins for days.