| Author | Message | ||
     Aesquire |
http://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/solar/how-japa n-plans-to-build-an-orbital-solar-farm One of the least polluting forms of energy. No huge solar farms displacing ranchers and killing turtles. No giant swinging sword blades killing condors and eagles. No strip mines, no coal explosions, no train derailments spilling oil ( because Warren Buffet makes money on the trains......so we cannot have a pipeline ) no supertankers run aground by drunks killing sea life and fouling beaches. So, naturally it will be illegal in the US. | ||
| Sifo |
Retired officers poised to profit after Pentagon’s alarmist climate change report I'm shocked I tell you... Shocked! I guess this is a case of putting your mouth where you money is.  | ||
| Hughlysses |
Overclocking the human brain. http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/cochran/over clocking.html Anyone else a big fan of "Flowers For Algernon"? A great movie. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062794/ I haven't seen the 2000 tv version. Interesting article. Great book and movie; I wasn't aware of the newer version. On a somewhat related note, ever read Babel-17 by Samuel Delany? Overclocking through software changes. | ||
| Tpoppa |
Climate change has occurred thousands of times. Mankind played no part in it. Polar ice caps didn't exist for much of the history of the Earth. Personally, I believe that the biggest impact of man made global warming has been in the political arena. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/earth/cause-ice-age.h tml (Message edited by tpoppa on May 27, 2014) | ||
| Kenm123t |
HMMM AES where does one apply to be a Bounty Hunter? Many Consider Demonrats Varmints Collecting them would be as they say a Twofer !   | ||
| Aesquire |
Alas there turn out to be many laws that restrict hunting. Not all are bad ideas. For example I am not allowed to hunt pimps in the city of Rochester. As far as I'm concerned it's always open season on slavers..... yet..... There are laws against discharging a fire arm and the DEC doesn't have a waiver for varmint hunting with crossbow. I suppose bow and arrow would be ok but I haven't found the right paperwork. Don't think they allow slings. I could be wrong, of course. It's been a while since I checked and the rules change constantly. Wouldn't want to not have the paperwork in order here in The Imperial State. That would be bad. | ||
| Kenm123t |
Well Gander sells those very nice leg hold traps Some large enough for the Kenai Would setting them out at Whole Foods be considered a Baited Field? Tag them with GPS tags and ship them to Chicago San Francisco. A Spay and Neuter program would be a good Idea! | ||
| Mtnmason |
A Spay and Neuter program would be a good Idea! No need. They're aborting and homosexualizing themselves out of existence as it is. | ||
| Hootowl |
The universities ensure that a fresh crop of lefties will be harvested each year. | ||
| Aesquire |
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| Aesquire |
Kemn123t.... Yes, I'm afraid Whole Foods is not sporting. Trader Joes too.  Hughlysses, "Babel-17" was good. Also try "Brain Wave" by Poul Anderson. http://books.google.com/books/about/Brain_Wave.htm l?id=jDwoybqDoDYC | ||
| Kenm123t |
What about JC Penneys? though you only get one version of the alphabet freaks Then there is the NFL and Basket Ball lol | ||
| Kenm123t |
I have a niece that works at Whole Foods She asked me what I thought of the place I told her its just like any other day at the Zoo! | ||
| Aesquire |
http://pjmedia.com/blog/skeptics-play-dupe-in-clim ate-change-rope-a-dope/?singlepage=true But this is just the beginning of the bureaucratic maelstrom that will soon rend our lives and liberties. Because CO2 is an essential part of the earth’s ecosystem and is emitted and consumed virtually everywhere on the planet, the EPA’s regulatory authority might will intrude on virtually every human activity in the U.S. Regulations will soon hit “smaller sources” of CO2 emissions including hospitals, small businesses, schools, apartment buildings — even large homes. (Do you doubt that some enterprising climate scientist is currently hard at work calculating the C02 emissions from a semi-automatic weapon discharge?) http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/02/the-big-list -of-failed-climate-predictions/ | ||
| Aesquire |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/10866 273/Cycle-helmets-are-useless-says-brain-surgeon.h tml Science is never settled.... and sometimes honest differences of opinion are valid. ( NOT MY opinions here ) Factoid. Drivers drive closer to bicycle riders with helmets. Opinion. "Wearing a helmet therefore makes you less safe. Plus they are crap so why bother? I wear a cowboy hat." ( My opinion ) Makes sense. Stupid kind of sense, but it's a stupid reaction to a helmet to drive closer. I dispute the helmets are useless bit. Other guy's opinion, "helmet saved me, helmet good. I ride like a loon, but that's my choice" Other dumber guy's opinion "not wearing a helmet makes you a hazard and expensive for me to pay for since I live in a collectivist world.....so I want to force you to do what I think best" Each of the above has a point that should be considered. IMHO. That third guy needs to be forced to do someone else's will to make him safe until he grows up, ( which may never happen, that's a nasty kind of mental illness. The do-gooder-Feel-good-about-myself-for-being-more-en lightened thing is insidious. ) The second guy is a typical bike guy. Risk-reward considerations are there, he might be wrong, but at least there's some thought. The Cowboy Hat neurosurgeon? I don't think he's a reliable expert in this case. He doesn't see the people that crashed and walked away. I agree that the soft lid design for bike helmets is no where near as good as a hard shell Motorbike lid for hard object intrusion, but it's designed for a much lower impact world. In Olympic downhill racing they actually have multiple levels of mandatory head protection depending on the event, based on speed. Which is rational, a bit OCD, and something to consider. My bottom line is... I'm against helmet laws. I'm for helmet use. It's a libertarian/Darwinist attitude, and I don't try and impose it on others. I'm pretty darn sure that.... Helmets can save your life. Head injuries are more likely to kill you than other injuries. Lots of studies have shown this. Not just bike/car/plane studies, military ones too. The Brit's long ago figured out that it sucks to have hot metal splinters from artillery hit you in the chest & belly. If they hit you in they head, the odds of survival are much less. So, if there's any bit of armor you are going to wear, a helmet is usually the best choice. Or, depending on the sport, a cup. Your opinions? | ||
| Aesquire |
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-31/obama-say s-climate-change-growing-threat-to-health.html A study published in the September 2011 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that asthma-related emergency hospital visits by children are likely to increase by the 2020s as climate change leads to higher ground-level ozone concentrations. http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/20777 4-obama-climate-change-will-bring-more-hurricanes# ixzz33ERndD67 "The changes we’re seeing in our climate means that, unfortunately, storms like Sandy could end up being more common and more devastating," Obama said. "And that’s why we’re also going to be doing more to deal with the dangers of carbon pollution that help to cause this climate change and global warming. And that’s why we’re also, with the terrific help of these departments, thinking of how we can build more resilient infrastructure," he added. The administration is preparing to unveil Obama's signature climate change regulation Monday, which will limit carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants. read that as...... we are going to tax you even though Congress said no. The President did promise to destroy coal and make our energy costs skyrocket. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weathe r-gang/wp/2014/05/30/atlantic-hurricane-season-beg ins-sunday-will-record-streak-without-major-hurric ane-end/ Such a streak, or “drought”, is unprecendented going back to 1900. As of the start of this hurricane season, the span will be 3,142 days since the last U.S. major hurricane landfall. The previous longest span is about 2½ years shorter! While this is a relief for coastal residents and businesses, it inevitably increases complacency. The longer you go between events, the less likely you are to fully respect the next one and heed warnings. Will this year end the streak? There’s no way of knowing. Even during an inactive season, a single storm can leave its mark on history (think Andrew in 1992). And conversely, very active seasons like 2010 can yield no landfalls for the U.S It's important to understand that a single big, damaging storm can happen any time. ( not instantly, but happen ) It makes no difference if it's a busy, slack or other "season" for hurricanes. Ditto Blizzards, tornadoes, mega thunder whatsists, etc. I'm always amused when I hear that things like Thunder snow storms are super rare, or almost unheard of. I've seen them multiple times. I have the habit of opening the drapes and watching thunderstorms. Might be too many Pink Floyd laser shows at the planetarium as a kid. Thunder snow storms are wild as the whipping snow gets illuminated by lightning bolts. I favor heavy metal or orchestral rock for such viewings. OTOH I haven't seen a sandstorm in decades, since I was last in AZ. Not a lot of sand in the local area. | ||
| Aesquire |
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/massive-indonesian-volcano-eruption-grounds-flights-9465380.html  looks to me like a wave cloud. Lenticular. | ||
| Aesquire |
http://www.vocativ.com/culture/science/canada-clam ps-scientists-talking-climate-change/ Muzzle all opposition. Suppress free speech. Rule with a Soylent fist. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jun/1/pen tagon-wrestles-with-false-climate-predictions-a/ cut a Trillion from defense. Spend the rest on Green. A spokesman said: “The Department is incorporating consideration of likely future scenarios in planning to mitigate risk. Its responses to climate change range from the DOD Arctic Strategy — which is focused on increased engagement and stability in a region that is already seeing increased activity — to a new floodplain-management policy that directs minimization of new construction in floodplains. Even our approach to energy efficiency is focused on mission benefits and monetary savings, with carbon reductions as a side effect.” Control over development on flood plains. hmm. http://www.speaker.gov/video/promise-made-promise- kept-electricity-rates-skyrocket http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-01/obama-sai d-to-propose-30-cut-of-power-plant-greenhouse-gase s.html Obama signaled both the importance of the rule to his legacy on environmental protection and the bruising fight ahead by joining a conference call today with congressional Democrats, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy and White House counselor John Podesta to rally support. Obama dismissed complaints that the rule will hurt the economy by driving up electricity prices, and told the Democrats listening: “Please go on offense” to promote the plan’s benefits, said two people who were on the call, including Representative Gerry Connolly, a Virginia Democrat. Connolly and another person on the call said the president suggested that rather than having an adverse effect on the economy -- as critics say -- his rule to limit carbon pollution will boost the economy by $43 billion to $74 billion. So now that my energy costs are more than double under Obama policy you assure me that it won't really get worse, no matter what you said before. Actually that wasn't an assurance to ME. That was a talking point on the list of lies you will hear in defense of tithing to the cult. | ||
| Aesquire |
http://pjmedia.com/blog/epa-says-science-is-clear- as-agency-imposes-new-coal-rules/?singlepage=true Despite objections, polls establish that most people approve of the idea of the federal government reducing greenhouse gas emissions even if it results in higher energy costs. A Washington Post-ABC News Poll determined that 70 percent of those surveyed support carbon limits on existing power plants and expressed a willingness to pay an extra $20 a month to do so. A leading question poll and it's not going to be anywhere close to $20 a month. Closer to $20 a day. Oh, Sorry, you wanted to have lunch? Too bad, you have to pay the taxes on coal first. Sucker. In a conference call involving representatives of public health groups, Obama asserted that “climate change is real” and “has serious impacts.” He predicted that electricity bills “will shrink as these standards spur investment in energy efficiency, cutting waste and ultimately we’re going to be saving money for homes and for businesses.” “Now, I promise you, you will hear from critics who say the same thing they always say, that these guidelines will kill jobs or crush the economy,” Obama said. “What we’ve seen every time, is that these claims are debunked when you actually give workers and businesses the tools and the incentive they need to innovate. When Americans are called on to innovate, that’s what we do — whether it’s making more fuel-efficient cars or more fuel-efficient appliances, or making sure that we are putting in place the kinds of equipment that prevents harm to the ozone layer and eliminates acid rain.” But... didn't YOU tell us our energy costs would skyrocket? ( yep, see above ) Isn't energy cost a major factor in business costs? ( yep ) Isn't acid rain the byproduct of bad EPA regulation? ( yep, but NO ONE will admit that ) Isn't the President counting on forcing you to reduce your energy usage? ( but not his own. ) Isn't the Ozone excuse now completely disproven? ( yep. See http://windward-performance.com/projects/perlan-pr oject/ http://www.perlanproject.org/ and the kinda long presentation here. Fair warning, the presenter is not the best public speaker, it's long, and the subject matter is of interest to few. | ||
| Aesquire |
http://what-if.xkcd.com/99/ Side note: The following is the first sentence from a journal article on starling metabolism: We trained two starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) to fly in a wind tunnel whilst wearing respirometry masks. I really think the paper should have stopped there; no matter what their results were, they can't possibly improve on the achievement they opened with. agreed. | ||
| Aesquire |
 http://xkcd.com/1379/ | ||
| Sifo |
Interesting, but is seems to me they are putting art before science at this point by designing a ship that has no working engine developed. NASA's real life Enterprise may take us to other star systems one day  | ||
| Hootowl |
Can someone 'splain to me why spaceships need to be aerodynamic? I think the Borg had it right. | ||
| Aesquire |
At higher relativistic speeds you need both a shield against dust & gas and a laser to vaporize pebbles. Don't think the result is going to look like a 747 or the Graf Zeppelin. You could argue that a certain pretty shape is needed to fit inside your "warp bubble" or that you have need to arrange items a certain way, but that doesn't mean airfoils and streamlining. See The Enterprise or Andromeda.  Long spars to keep the Fission reactor away from the crew, ( which also makes the shadow shield smaller and lighter ) huge radiators to get rid of waste heat... Look at the Discovery from "2001 A Space Odyssey" ( although Kubrick skipped the radiators, the Spherical crew section a long ways from the Nuclear engines makes sense ) You can get some elegant and Aerodynamic looking designs, and some of the sillier fantasy ones actually make sense.  The Need Another Seven Astronauts folk do some great work, but designing spaceships hasn't been part of the job for a long long time. | ||
| Aesquire |
What makes the picture in Sifo's post absurd isn't the crappy aerodynamics, it's the windows that show the "bridge" is laid out so that acceleration is at right angles to the floor, so when you try to go someplace everyone ends up falling to the back wall. So you have to have anti gravity, AND artificial gravity ( perhaps not the same thing ) PLUS some kind of force field that can take repeated nuclear strikes so you can have windows on the front of a ship that goes fast enough that a BB packs relative kinetic energy to vaporize Delaware. | ||
| Sifo |
I know this has been discussed, and many don't agree with me, but it's brought up again in the article I posted... There is no acceleration inside the bubble.    | ||
| Aesquire |
And if you can't warp drive into a parking orbit you're going to have to use old school thrust Newton style. | ||
| Aesquire |
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/obama-fac es-climate-change-and-iraq/ "The President has said that anyone who doesn’t believe in man caused global warming, and that we can do unilaterally something about it by curbing the carbon emissions of the United States, is putting partisanship over national interest, and is ignoring the indisputable scientific evidence. In his speech he was a bit short on the evidence, and had nothing to say about the obvious questions. Alas, I haven’t heard any discussion of the obvious questions from the True Believers – and oddly enough, the few who do now talk about the obvious questions have left the ranks of True Believers and have become Deniers. You can hear this speech. President Obama Urges Action on Climate Change During UC Irvine Address http://time.com/2875807/obama-uc-irvine-climate-ch ange/ This is not science or any pretense of it. It is certainly not rational discussion. We seem to have degenerated to the point that important decisions are now made by partisan debating tactics, and to have no one in the decision making process who is actually interested in understanding what is actually going on with Earth’s climate. Of course it gets boring to continue to ask the questions, only to be ignored – then after a while the opposition pretends the obvious questions do not exist, or that they have been answered to the satisfaction of any rational person. The questions remain. First, there needs to be a discussion about methods of measurement, and comparing temperatures from one year to another. In the real world, in the late 1960’s, I found it difficult to come up with the average skin temperature of an astronaut in a full pressure suit to a one degree F accuracy. I used dime sized thin copper disks with thermocouples soldered to them; we taped them to the astronaut’s skin. We chose back of hand, mid back, mid abdomen, and other such places so that we would have some comparability: the point of the tests was to measure the ventilation systems in the suit. We could measure the air flow of the controlled temperature air we used for ventilation, and the input temperature of that air, so that got another thermocouple from the harness. One of the thermocouples in the 12 thermocouple set went into a carafe of melting ice; the ice had been frozen from distilled water. That gave us a reference temperature accurate to 0.1° F. The thermocouple machine printed what it could see at one minute intervals; when we consolidated the data we sampled those one-minute readings since we didn’t have the data entry capability to use them all for average. In the modern world that would not be a problem. But I do not know how to get the average temperature of my city block to any 0.1 ° F accuracy: where would I take the measurements so they would be comparable from day to day? Assuming I can answer that question, how would I do it for the City of LA? California? USA? But we want an average temperature of the entire Earth to that accuracy, and average all that over a year. We need 0.1° accuracy because that is what we find we need to describe the warming. Now I understand how we could come up with the measurements now, and take the same measurements year after year: but we were not doing that fifty years ago, much less 100 years ago, or 200 years ago. In the 1800’s the way we got sea temperatures was to pull up a bucket of sea water from some depth, put a mercury thermometer into the bucket, wait a bit, and read the thermometer. I think we can safely assume that these readings were not accurate to any 0.1 degree and probably not to 1 degree. The same is true of most of the other measurements in the 19th Century. We have measurements from many places, but from the same place every year. We know that in 1800 the Thames froze over solid enough to allow merchants to set up market stalls on the frozen river, and this practice continued until sometime into the century. The climate was certainly changing, but we don’t have a very good picture of how it changed. On Christmas Eve 1776 the cannon captured by Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga were taken to General George Washington on Haarlem Heights, saving his army from Howe who was working up the nerve to storm Washington’s position and end this rebellion once and for all. When he heard that Washington had cannon he called off the attack, and Washington escaped to fight another day. There was a time when every American school child knew this. The point being it was very cold in New York in 1776 although it was considered a warmer than usual winter. No one was astonished that the Hudson was frozen hard enough to cross with cannon. By 1850 the Hudson did not freeze so hard. As The Hudson River Freezes, Classic Ice Yachts Emerge It’s a rare sight of a sport that drew thousands of spectators in the late 1800s, when Hudson Valley gentry like the Roosevelts and brewer and New York Yankees owner Jacob Rupert raced their yachts on lengthy courses up and down the river north of Poughkeepsie. Commodore John E. Roosevelt — FDR’s uncle — built the 69-foot Icicle and formed the Hudson River Ice Yacht Club in 1869. A 46-foot version of the yacht was later clocked at more than 100 m.p.h. FDR so loved his own iceboat Hawk – a gift from his mother in 1901 — that he included it in the collection at his presidential library. http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2014/03/0 7/as-the-hudson-river-freezes-over-classic-ice-yac hts-emerge/ I cannot find a reference to the time when the Hudson froze so hard that you could bring cannon across to Haarlem Heights, but it doesn’t seem to have happened in this century. Sometime back in the days when the Vanderbilts and the Roosevelts raced ice boats. My point is that the climate has been warming since 1800; exactly when the warming trend began to accelerate doesn’t seem to have been determined; yet isn’t that important if you are doing climate models. Clearly the Earth has been colder, and it is now warming, and has been since 1800 or so. But we also know that it has been warmer. We don’t have any good numbers for the average global temperature in Viking times, but it used to be that every schoolchild knew that Leif the Lucky discovered Vinland, which was either Nova Scotia or Newfoundland. The name Vinland is interesting: certainly no place it could possibly have been grows grapes now. Leif sailed from the dairy farms his father, Eric the Red, had founded in Greenland. There are no dairy farms in Greenland now, although some of the old settlements are now emerging from the ice. In the same time period (Leif the Lucky 970 – 1020 AD) we have records from Scotland and northern England: they grew grapes and made wine there. We have records from continental monasteries where they recorded planting and harvest dates: the growing seasons were longer than at present. We have records from eastern Europe. Same message, and also from China. The obvious conclusion is that the Earth was warmer than it had been in the earlier period after Marcus Aurelius when the growing seasons began to shorten, northern climates were colder, and the great migrations that wiped out the Western Roman Empire began in full force. In other words, the Earth has been both warmer and cooler than it is now, and this in historical times. Clearly this was not a consequence of human industry. Something else happened. The best guess is solar activity, but there is some evidence of volcanic activities as well. Benjamin Franklin on passage to England observed the thick volcanic clouds streaming downwind from Iceland and wondered if enough of those would not cause an age of ice: evidence that the Great Lakes and much of Canada and New England had been covered with ice at one time was being gathered and discussed, and Franklin read everything. I note that none of the climate models that predict the climate for a hundred years from now have any explanation of the Viking Warm or the 1400—1800 Little Ice Age. Indeed then don’t really account for the period in which annual average temperature fell after 1960 to after 1980. Extreme Weather In The 1960’s & 1970’s We are all familiar with the “ice age “scare of the early 1970’s. Science News ran a report at the time, with an interview with C C Wallen, chief of the Special Environmental Applications Division, at the World Meteorological Organization. According to the article, By contrast, (with the Little Ice Age), the weather in the first part of this century has been the warmest and best for world agriculture in over a millennium, and, partly as a result, the world’s population has more than doubled. Since 1940, however, the temperature of the Northern Hemisphere has been steadily falling: Having risen about 1.1 degrees C. between 1885 and 1940, according to one estimation, the temperature has already fallen back some 0.6 degrees, and shows no signs of reversal. http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2013/ 02/09/extreme-weather-in-the-1960s-1970s/ There are no climate models that can take the initial conditions of 1900 and show the actual climate patterns that took place from 1900 to present. I do not see these questions being addressed by the True Believers, or any indication that President Obama even knows they exist. There are other questions never addressed. Antarctic Glacier Melt Due To Volcanoes, Not Global Warming Jerry “A new study by researchers at the University of Texas, Austin found that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is collapsing due to geothermal heat, not man-made global warming:” http://dailycaller.com/2014/06/11/study-west-antar ctic-glacier-melt-due-to-volcanoes-not-global-warm ing/ “Researchers from the UTA’s Institute for Geophysics found that the Thwaites Glacier in western Antarctica is being eroded by the ocean as well as geothermal heat from magma and subaerial volcanoes. Thwaites is considered a key glacier for understanding future sea level rise. UTA researchers used radar techniques to map water flows under ice sheets and estimate the rate of ice melt in the glacier. As it turns out, geothermal heat from magma and volcanoes under the glacier is much hotter and covers a much wider area than was previously thought. “Geothermal flux is one of the most dynamically critical ice sheet boundary conditions but is extremely difficult to constrain at the scale required to understand and predict the behavior of rapidly changing glaciers,” UTA researchers wrote in their study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The geothermal heat under the glaciers is likely a key factor in why the ice sheet is currently collapsing. Before this study, it was assumed that heat flow under the glacier was evenly distributed throughout, but UTA’s study shows this is not the case. Heat levels under the glacier are uneven, with some areas being much hotter than others. “The combination of variable subglacial geothermal heat flow and the interacting subglacial water system could threaten the stability of Thwaites Glacier in ways that we never before imagined,” lead researcher David Schroeder said in a press release. And volcanoes are a significant source of CO2 as well. Ed Volcanoes can cool by putting up articulate matter. Underwater volcanoes can het the seas and trigger El Nino and La Nina events. None of this is well understood. It is certainly not general purpose “global warming” or even “climate change” that has caused the change in Antarctic Ice; indeed, this latest cold period has produced more ice in polar regions that has been normal in the past few years. There appears to be a cycle at work here. It is apparently not well understood or perhaps not understood at all. Another question not addressed: There is no doubt that parts of the world are getting warmer, but the warming is not global. Freeman Dyson, American physicist. http://noconsensus.org/scientists/freeman_dyson.ph p President Obama told us today that CO2 traps heat. He said in a way that implies that no one can question that, and everyone must know it, and there is nothing else to discuss. Dyson points out that water vapor traps heat much better than CO2: indeed, anywhere there is high humidity, CO2 is irrelevant because there is no heat escaping for CO2 to trap. The water vapor has got it all. Therefore the effects of CO2 will mostly be on cold dry places. Most of the Earth is covered with water. Methane is also a much better greenhouse gas than CO2, and any place that has methane in the atmosphere – above certain evergreen forests, and near large herds of cattle, as an example – CO2 will be irrelevant because all the heat escaping through the atmosphere will already be absorbed. We could continue but there is no need to break a butterfly on the wheel: these are questions that are seldom addressed by the Climate Change True Believers, and when they are it is generally with condescension, as if everyone knows what brought about the Greenland farms. When pressed for a bit more specific information one usually is told “Gulf Stream” as if the Gulf Stream could simultaneously affect the temperature of Greenland, the Western Scottish Islands, Northumberland, York, Denmark, Saxony, Lithuania, and China, all of which recorded warmer weather and longer growing seasons. I have never had any of the True Believers offer to go beyond that condescension. The President apparently is going to make Climate Change a big and important driver of his policies for the next few years. He seems quite positive that he knows all that anyone needs to know about the subject, and the topic is closed. Anyone who does not understand this believes that the Moon is made of cheese. There is nothing to discuss" | ||
| Aesquire |
Sifo, the warp bubble with no inertial effects inside concept looks promising. It probably needs Unobtaniaum and a couple of breakthroughs to be announced later. We still don't know what, exactly gravity is. We have a few theories we like for their elegance, but last I looked, I can buy Cold Fusion stuff, but not a gravity generator. In science fiction, it's common to put some arbitrary limits on warp drives. Typically you have to be "outside the gravity limit" of a planet or star. Some quite clever limits call for accelerating up to a certain fraction of light speed before it works. They do this to ease plot holes. If you can come out of warp right next to an enemy ship in orbit, or worse yet, appear a mile over the Capitol, there is no defense. See "The Adama Maneuver" BSG new series. No idea if any of the classic limitations will apply to the real thing, if we ever can make it, but I'd bet that you have to get away from the bottom of a gravity well to make navigation easier. Then there's the "can we see out?" and "can you change course?" questions. At this time, it's just fun speculation, but I still mock any ship that has a giant wraparound window up front that shows the crew has "gravity" at right angles to supposed movement. Far more likely is that the "bridge" will be in the middle of the ship, for protection from radiation, or if there's no nuclear reaction drive, in the Butt end, to protect against dust. Don't get me started on Battlestar Galactica Vipers.... although the newer show's version was a little more plausible, and Boomer & Starbuck ( not to mention #6 ) made me forgive a LOT. | ||
| Kenm123t |
Patrick Patrick Kirk didn't have a window he had a View Screen remember? As for the Monitor being at a right angle to gravity it would be a normal ergonomic accommodation to enhance crew performance. Bipedal Humans with binocular vision have mental processing expectations. FLYWHEELS will work as a gravity generator if you stand at the perimeter and wonder of wonder your at near 90 degrees to the normal bipedal direction of travel USE all 3 d Patrick  (Message edited by Kenm123t on June 15, 2014) |
