Australian redneck fixes plasma television with baseball bat

I'm not really sure what is going on with this gentleman's plasma screen — mine certainly doesn't do that — but I sympathize with his technique: after a day of having a constantly spinning disc stuck in my DVD drive, I'm about to use the same technique to loosen it from my brand new, $2500 MacBook Pro.

[via Gizmodo]

[#1 posted by PasteEater , January 13, 2009 5:09 AM]

John, have you tried rebooting the machine with the trackpad button pressed?

[#2 posted by John Brownlee , January 13, 2009 5:12 AM]

Yes, I have. For like ten minutes. It's really aggravating me.

[#3 posted by Agies , January 13, 2009 5:14 AM]

The sound of smashing is hypnotic...

[#4 posted by Anonymous , January 13, 2009 5:15 AM]

Try this: Restart your Mac while holding down the mouse button (or the trackpad "button")

This should make your machine spit out the disc…

[#5 posted by zuzu , January 13, 2009 5:25 AM]

Little does he realize that it's actually a problem with the digital signal and his banging on the display is merely a reenactment of B.F. Skinner's pigeon experiment on superstition. :p

c.f. post hoc ergo propter hoc

Seriously though, any ideas what might be malfunctioning and thereafter "fixed" by this "percussive maintenance"?

[#6 posted by Galoot , January 13, 2009 5:48 AM]

Would this technique work on my mother-in-law's crow's feet?

[#7 posted by HeatherB , January 13, 2009 5:54 AM]

I wanted to see the rest of the "Bargain Hunt" episode he was watching.

[#8 posted by David Carroll , January 13, 2009 6:00 AM]

Actually the best part is the conversation in the background.

I have a 27" Sony that has a cold solder joint somewhere. Every month or so I have to give it a Fonzie like tap in just the right place to stop the screen from being wiggly.

[#9 posted by oligore , January 13, 2009 6:01 AM]

Australians call them bogans not rednecks

[#10 posted by zuzu , January 13, 2009 6:28 AM]

Rednecks, bogans, chavs... whatever the term, the "surplus population".

Where'd this idea that childbirth is a miracle came from? Ha, I missed that fucking meeting, okay? "It's a miracle, childbirth is a miracle." No it's not. No more than a miracle than eating food and a turd coming out of your ass. It's a chemical reaction, that's all it fucking is. If, you wanna know what a miracle is: raisin' a kid that doesn't talk in a movie theatre. Okay, there, there, there is a goddam miracle. It's not a miracle if every nine months any yin yang in the world can drop a litter of these mewling cabbages on our planet. And just in case you haven't seen the single mom statistics lately, the miracle is spreading like wild-fire. "Hallelujah!" Trailer parks and council flats all over the world just filling up with little miracles. Thunk, thunk, thunk, like frogs laying eggs. "Thunk, look at all my little miracles, thunk, filling up my trailer like a sardine can. Thunk. You know what would be a real miracle, if I could remember your daddy's name, aargh, thunk. I guess I'll have to call you Lorry Driver Junior. Thunk. That's all I remember about your daddy was his fuzzy little pot-belly riding on top of me shooting his caffeine ridden semen into my belly to produce my little water-headed miracle baby, urgh. There's your brother, Pizza Delivery Boy Junior."

She doesn't need children. That's a judgment call and I'm making' it. But it happens to be true and that gives it the force, that extra oomph. Can't support 'em, can't raise 'em, don't even love 'em. Ponk! Why don't you get the cops camera and shine it up your pussy and film the little criminal coming out. This is crime prevention. "Here comes another illiterate unwanted child! Cuff him, Banano!" Can you calm down on your rutting just for a couple of seconds until we can figure out this food/air deal?

-- Bill Hicks

[#11 posted by krex , January 13, 2009 7:31 AM]

I had a CD stuck in a MAC a few weeks ago - got it out by sticking a piece of thin cardboard into the slot above the disk & then ejecting. I guess they get stuck in some state in between 'there is no disk here' & 'let me try to spin up this disk' - forcing the disk down a bit makes it think there is a disk there to eject. or something. I dunno YMMV.

[#12 posted by paulj , January 13, 2009 7:41 AM]

So...they play baseball in Australia?

Actually, the picture looked like some electrode connectors along the top edge of the screen may have come loose just enough to cause an intermittent problem. A light whack to the frame may actually fix it temporarily, though hitting the screen itself is asking for trouble.

[#13 posted by noen , January 13, 2009 8:25 AM]

I understand, people who are poor and disadvantaged are inherently inferior to me. It all makes sense. Anyway... the guy is smart and able to fix it without breaking the screen. Pretty resourceful I'd say. Given an education and a lucky break he'd be dangerous. Which I think explains the mindless hate spewed at him.

[#14 posted by Anonymous , January 13, 2009 9:03 AM]

How would it even dawn on someone to beat on the TV like that? I can understand the urge to put a bat through the screen. That happens all the time.

[#15 posted by zuzu , January 13, 2009 10:09 AM]

I understand, people who are poor and disadvantaged are inherently inferior to me.

"Inferior" only insofar as they are, in fact, as you say, "poor and disadvantaged" -- hardly in a position to afford to breed, and yet breed they do, creating even more poor and disadvantaged people in a world that's already overstocked with the poor and disadvantaged.

What's your motive for defending such idiocy?

[#16 posted by Blackhat , January 13, 2009 10:23 AM]

Was anyone else disappointed that the clip didn't end with the screen destroyed? I was SURE this was where this was leading...

John, you can't eject your disk using the OSX disk utility? That's always worked for me with non-responsive CDs/DVDs.

[#17 posted by dculberson , January 13, 2009 10:36 AM]

It's really amazing that the screen put up with that much abuse. Those things are tougher than you think.

[#18 posted by Ito Kagehisa , January 13, 2009 11:12 AM]

I see no reason to think ill of this man.

His technique works, and the tool he is using seems appropriate to the task; it appears to be a hollow plastic toy which limits potentially damaging application of force.

Judging by the video, I would suspect at least two bad connections at the top of the screen. They are likely to build up carbon until eventually it will no longer be possible to establish continuity by applying shock.

Mr. Brownlee, I have had similar problems when two applications were attempting to use a drive - in my case, VLC and the most execrable iTunes. Terminating both applications and rebooting MacOS with the magic button pushed solved it. I'm using older hardware and software, though.

[#19 posted by Maneki Nico , January 13, 2009 11:13 AM]

Anonymous @ #14: That's what I was thinking! I want to know what process led to the discovery that this is precisely the method needed to fix the problem.

I also really want to see what didn't work... O_o

[#20 posted by noen , January 13, 2009 11:25 AM]

This doesn't work well at all.

Rebooting a Mac while pressing the mouse button is trick that goes way back. Worked for me back when I had one.

[#21 posted by Lemon , January 13, 2009 12:05 PM]

I think it's a sonic baseball bat, you know like the sonic screwdriver and hammer Dr. Who runs around with.

[#22 posted by Mycroft , January 13, 2009 1:03 PM]

There are few things in life more satisfying than mechanical or electronic problems that can be fixed by hitting them.

[#23 posted by d13hwt , January 13, 2009 2:09 PM]

Good sir,
Have you tried straightening a paperclip and poking in the little tiny hole next to your *ahem* slot? Not sure if there is one - althought there was on my old white macbook.

Also what's going on in the background? I'm sure they don't use the f word on Cash in the Attic.

[#24 posted by The Life Of Bryan , January 13, 2009 2:20 PM]

Might be more efficient just to give the bugger a Wii.

[#25 posted by mmbb , January 13, 2009 2:43 PM]

Just a variation of the "Television Repair Boot" that repairmen (back in the day when they made on-site repairs) used to use to fix CRT TVs.

[#26 posted by BlindKarma , January 13, 2009 6:11 PM]

Wait... they play baseball in Australia?

[#27 posted by Daniel Amos , January 13, 2009 10:39 PM]

We call them bogans here in Australia. I'm guessing he had a baseball bat for his weekly smash-and-grab operations.

I love the girl in the background (who I imagine is named Shazza), "I don't give a shit about Simon!"