Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Also, as I mentioned, millions of films seem to assume that an EMP only
> affects devices which are turned on. (E.g., War of the Worlds, only one
> working car because it wasn't turned on. WTF? Then again... War of the
> Worlds. WTF?)

Well, IIRC, it was never explicitly stated that an EMP was responsible for that.

I quite enjoyed that film actually. Very little attempt to explain anything,
which is the best way to do SF, and definitely the best way to do first-person
drama.

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>> Never mind the "minor detail" of the fact that "stationary" doesn't
>> exist in outer space.
> 
> Correct - "relative dead stop". Apparently according to The Bible (the
> Enterprise Tech Manual I bought in '92) StarFleet uses the galactic center
> as navref.

Right. So an imaginary point in space. That's great. Now all we need is 
an unambiguous way to orient a cartesian grid... oh, wait...

> Its part of what I love about old TNG episodes,
> the "thrummmm" sound of the Enterprise is orbits
>
yet-another-planet-with-human-looking-aliens-and-hot-alien-chicks-only-distinction-is-a-new-head-piece.

Yeah. Amazing how all sentient beings are humanoids who just happen to 
speak American English, eh?

>> Well, the fastest starships reputedly reach Warp 10 (i.e., 10c). Never
>> mind the "minor detail" that this would cause the ship to travel
>> backwards in time, and have an imaginary mass. (Irony?)
> 
> ... and need infinite energy to move an infinite mass that occupies all
> points in the universe simultaneously. Sounds painful.

No, an object at speed c has infinite mass. An object at 10c has a 
finite, but imaginary mass.

I have no idea what the hell kind of energy it possesses. Look up Tachyon.

>> Perhaps you're forgetting the Inertial Dampers?
> 
> No, I intentionally -ignored- them! :) 
> 
> As I ignored the SIF (structural integrity field) and the artificial gravity
> generators, the navigational deflector, subspace radio, etc. etc. and all
> the other fanciful things you apparently "need" for supralight space travel
> and five year space missions. (And discovering hot alien chicks on remote
> planets.)

In other words, everything required to make travelling through space 
EXACTLY LIKE sailing across an uncharted ocean. :-P

>> Even the teleporters have Hiesenburg Compensators on them...
> 
> :-) the thought of uncertainty with a matter dematerialisation and
> transportation device gives me the willies! Or could it possibly make you
> LOOSE your willy? Along with other bits?

Maybe it "gives you the willies" - as in, you end up with 12 of them, 
instead of just 1.

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>> Also, as I mentioned, millions of films seem to assume that an EMP only
>> affects devices which are turned on. (E.g., War of the Worlds, only one
>> working car because it wasn't turned on. WTF? Then again... War of the
>> Worlds. WTF?)
> 
> Well, IIRC, it was never explicitly stated that an EMP was responsible for that.

No. Just that the power went out and everybody's car except our hero 
stopped working due to an ignition fault.

> I quite enjoyed that film actually. Very little attempt to explain anything,
> which is the best way to do SF, and definitely the best way to do first-person
> drama.

Well, each to their own. All it seemed to be able is "hey, humanity 
sucks, maybe Earth would be better off without us".

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Invisible wrote:

> Right. So an imaginary point in space. That's great. Now all we need is
> an unambiguous way to orient a cartesian grid... oh, wait...

Yarg!
 
> Yeah. Amazing how all sentient beings are humanoids who just happen to
> speak American English, eh?

Well, what would be the point of some thing that lives at pressures we only
know as occurring at the bottom of the terran ocean, and can only
communicate by bioluminescent flashes? (Never mind that either you, or it,
will need a pressure suit of some kind so as not to either implode, or
explode, at each other's "skin" level environmental gas or fluid pressure,
or not to either burn or freeze to death at ambient temperature...)

Doesn't make for good drama. Kissing something like that would be
impossible. If Capt. Kirk doesn't get to kiss the hot alien chick at the
end of the ad-break, what's the point?!
 
> I have no idea what the hell kind of energy it possesses. Look up Tachyon.

Hah! Tardyons sonny, tardyons!
 
> In other words, everything required to make travelling through space
> EXACTLY LIKE sailing across an uncharted ocean. :-P

See? It's the romance and storytelling, not the science.
 
>>> Even the teleporters have Hiesenburg Compensators on them...
>> 
>> :-) the thought of uncertainty with a matter dematerialisation and
>> transportation device gives me the willies! Or could it possibly make you
>> LOOSE your willy? Along with other bits?
> 
> Maybe it "gives you the willies" - as in, you end up with 12 of them,
> instead of just 1.

:) well that should maybe match up with those extraterrestrial alien
chicks. "Them aliens got weird ways on them yonder remote planets, son..."

-- 
Stefan Viljoen

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> >> Also, as I mentioned, millions of films seem to assume that an EMP only
> >> affects devices which are turned on. (E.g., War of the Worlds, only one
> >> working car because it wasn't turned on. WTF? Then again... War of the
> >> Worlds. WTF?)
> >
> > Well, IIRC, it was never explicitly stated that an EMP was responsible for that.
>
> No. Just that the power went out and everybody's car except our hero
> stopped working due to an ignition fault.

Yes. Everything electrical that was on at the time stopped working. Nobody said
EMP though. Maybe the filmmakers were well aware of what an EMP would actually
do, and deliberately made it different, coincidentally echoing the common
hollywood mistake.... yeah I doubt it too ;-) But still, nobody said EMP.

> Well, each to their own. All it seemed to be able is "hey, humanity
> sucks, maybe Earth would be better off without us".

Hmm, I didn't get that at all.

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Invisible wrote:
> No chance of buying an adaptor?

Considering I already bought an entirely new case, and only have that 
one eSATA drive...

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

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Invisible wrote:
> Never mind the "minor detail" of the fact that "stationary" doesn't 
> exist in outer space.

Sure it does.  There does exist absolute motion that can be measured 
even if there's nothing else in the universe--rotation, for instance. 
And I personally suspect that there's some subtle difference between 
gravity and motion affecting something that we just haven't thought of 
yet, which will allow distinguishing between whether you're moving vs. 
just feeling the pull of something else.

> Or the fact that things don't make that "swoshing" noise in space. In 
> fact, they don't make *any* noise!

Actually they do.  It can be safely assumed the ship is constantly 
leaking some negligible amount of atmosphere, and if you get within the 
envelope of that, you can hear it swooshing as it moves past!

> Well, the fastest starships reputedly reach Warp 10 (i.e., 10c). Never 
> mind the "minor detail" that this would cause the ship to travel 
> backwards in time, and have an imaginary mass. (Irony?)

Actually, from what I remember of the Technical Manual, it's not a 1:1 
multiplicative correlation between warp speed and c, more like 
exponential.  Warp 1 *is* c, but warp 10 is 'occupies every point in 
universe simultaneously' and requires theoretically infinite 
energy...warp 9 is Really Really fast.  Because just 10x the speed of 
light still leaves months, if not *years* between most stars.

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

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>> Never mind the "minor detail" of the fact that "stationary" doesn't 
>> exist in outer space.
> 
> Sure it does.  There does exist absolute motion that can be measured 
> even if there's nothing else in the universe--rotation, for instance. 

Well, maybe.

> And I personally suspect

Prove it.

>> Or the fact that things don't make that "swoshing" noise in space. In 
>> fact, they don't make *any* noise!
> 
> Actually they do.  It can be safely assumed the ship is constantly 
> leaking some negligible amount of atmosphere, and if you get within the 
> envelope of that, you can hear it swooshing as it moves past!

1. Your ears would explode at such low pressure, so *you* can't hear 
anything. :-P

2. I rather suspect that rather than vibrating, such a gas cloud would 
simply expand outwards forever. It's not at anywhere near high enough 
pressure for audio-frequency vibrations to propogate.

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Tim Cook wrote:

> Actually, from what I remember of the Technical Manual, it's not a 1:1
> multiplicative correlation between warp speed and c, more like
> exponential.  Warp 1 *is* c, but warp 10 is 'occupies every point in
> universe simultaneously' and requires theoretically infinite
> energy...warp 9 is Really Really fast.  Because just 10x the speed of
> light still leaves months, if not *years* between most stars.

This is what always bursts my bubble about space travel - whenever I hear of
the incredible distances involved. 

Even IF we could attain, or come close to, lightspeed (and by all evidence
it is NOT like the soundbarrier, it is an absolute physical constraint,
unbreakable by any conceivable method or technology) it is still 4 YEARS in
space to the nearest start. To even get to more "close" stuff, 6 YEARS, 10
YEARS - or -thousands- of years (at LIGHTSPEED!) to another galaxy.

Of course, time dilation at high relativistic velocities might mean you can,
from your relative viewpoint, complete the journey within a human lifespan
of 70, or 80 years, depending on just how close you can get to the
magical "c". Nothing would be left back home though, since thousands of
years might have passed there...

It just somehow... sad.
-- 
Stefan Viljoen

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> It just somehow... sad.

Yup, need to come up with a faster way of travelling before the sun burns us 
up!

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