Warp wrote:
>   Would it really be so hard to actually *cooperate* with the person you are
> having a discussion with, rather than trying to constantly and meticulously
> find flaws, just for the sake of argument and to try to prove other wrong?

This seems like the new Internet conversational style. I'm not sure why. 
Endless Autumn, maybe?

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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somebody wrote:
> What you are suggesting is like
> strapping a technician to an atom bomb before dropping it off the plane, for
> him to fix it in case something goes wrong on the way down.

Yeah, but you have to give him a cowboy hat to wave about while he screams.

--
Tim Cook
http://empyrean.freesitespace.net

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Bill Pragnell wrote:
> > Not the only one! Wormholes have been discussed in the journals for a couple of
> > decades now.
> I meant in terms of "warp drive", the one scientists are talking about is
> making a bubble of space and moving that using gravity techniques.

Ah, right, sorry.

> I haven't heard of any serious scientific progress in
> hyperspace travel.

:-D

> > a rehash of Niven's The Smoke Ring).
>
> There was one I read, I don't remember what it was called, something with
> giant cat aliens in it.... Anyway, they could go FTL, and coming out, they
[snip relativistic battleships]

Interesting. Reminds me a little of the relativistic space combat featured in
Banks' The Algebraist (but cleverer). Also reminds me of some of the shenanigans
in the fourth and final Ringworld novel, which I also only read recently.

> Yeah. I have a hard time finding new authors on Amazon. Especially someone
> (like Jim Butcher) doing stuff that's good but that I wouldn't normally
> expect to be good.

Just wikied him. He doesn't look like my bag, but I'll keep my eyes open :)

> > (I read A Fire Upon the Deep for the first time last year - probably the best SF
> > I'd read for a long time!)
>
> It was way funny back when it was written, given that all the aliens
> complaining about slow netnews bandwidth was right on the money.

I was just blown away by the Tines' group minds... and then even more by the
concept of the radio links to increase range. Superb.

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Bill Pragnell wrote:
> I was just blown away by the Tines' group minds... and then even more by the
> concept of the radio links to increase range. Superb.

Have you read A Deepness in the Sky?  Also very good, and very 
no-ftl-no-impossible-species kind of thing that Warp asked about.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Bill Pragnell wrote:
> > I was just blown away by the Tines' group minds... and then even more by the
> > concept of the radio links to increase range. Superb.
>
> Have you read A Deepness in the Sky?  Also very good, and very
> no-ftl-no-impossible-species kind of thing that Warp asked about.

It's sitting on my to-read shelf as I type ;-)

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"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message
news:4adc9b91@news.povray.org...

> > Huh? Is the payload supposed to be *manually* detonated "inside" the
sun?
> > It's then sillier than I thought. If you drop a bomb into the sun and if
it
> > doesn't detonate, I'm sorry,

>   Would it really be so hard to actually *cooperate* with the person you
are
> having a discussion with, rather than trying to constantly and
meticulously
> find flaws, just for the sake of argument and to try to prove other wrong?

No, but isn't it more fun this way?

>   Imagine the following situation: One day before the final detonation
> sequence is started, an electrical failure happens (something which could
> be fixable by a crew of people), which makes the ship inoperable and the
> computer unable to start the countdown sequence. Communication with Earth
> might also get compromised.
>
>   A crew on board could fix the problem in a few hours, and the operation
> is again good to go. An unmanned ship would just continue its journey,
> plummet into the Sun and fail to detonate at the critical point. There's
> no way you could set up and send a repair crew in time before that
happens.

First, I'm not sure if you need to detonate something you drop into the sun.
If it doesn't detonate by itself at some point on its way in, it's not
detonatable. The key to success is to design a "dumb" system that will
detonate at the temperature, pressure or particle flux at its target point,
due to its physical properties, without going into any fancy electronic
timers or triggers.

Second, if for some reason, fancy electronics is needed, building massively
redundant systems is still likely much easier, cheaper and more reliable
than dealing with complexities of manned travel.

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clipka wrote:
> I actually detest such movies. If I'd want a zombie movie, I'd watch a 
> /real/ zombie movie.

Well, part of the reason I like it is that it doesn't focus so much on 
the zombies, but rather on the characters' reactions to the zombie 
apocalypse.  Watching Cillian Murphy wander around a deserted London is 
quite effective.

...Chambers

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