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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] dev null> 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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On Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:12:57 +0000, Invisible wrote:
>> There's
>> nothing, though, that says you can't create a mirrored set, let the
>> drives mirror, and then "break the mirror" and take one drive offline.
>> I've known people who have done that and used that for disaster
>> recovery when upgrading systems.
>
> This is a very, very dumb way to do backup. A file-level copy will be
> drastically faster. (It doesn't involve mirroring all the useless empty
> sectors.) IME, mirroring a disk typically takes something like 10 hours,
> regardless of capacity. (Lower-capacity drives are usually
> correspondingly slower too.)
>
> Also, if you do a file-level copy, you have options such as compressing
> the data and putting multiple backups on a single backup harddisk, doing
> differential or otherwise partial backups, and so forth.
Depends on what you're trying to accomplish. If the purpose is fast
recovery, mirroring is a very good way to ensure you have a workable
system if you swap the drives out.
Doing a file-level copy might be faster, but then you get to go in and
muck about with permissions afterwards. Mirroring takes care of all of
that for you.
Remember - I've got decates of working with server technology behind me
here. ;-)
>>> An often-encountered backup strategy is to copy everything onto an
>>> external USB HD and then put that somewhere. I'm not sure that all
>>> this turning the drive on and off won't just wear it out faster.
>>
>> See my anecdotal evidence in reply to Stefan. Two identical units, one
>> powered on and off regularly, one that was left on 24x7. Guess which
>> one failed? Not the one that has been turned on and off regularly for
>> 5 years now. The one that was plugged in and running for 3 years
>> solid.
>
> In theory, until the disks are spinning at full speed, you don't get
> that "cushion of air" for the heads to "fly" on, which should result in
> wear. Of course, no doubt manufacturers know all about this and have
> come up with ways to at least reduce the problem...
I would expect they do. I used to know a guy who worked for Quantum
years ago (I wonder what he's up to these days), and he said the
engineering was quite impressive.
Jim
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On Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:17:16 +0000, Invisible wrote:
>>> I don't know, man... Backing up spinning disk to... spinning disk? Is
>>> that such a sensible idea?
>>
>> Why not? It's a backup. It's not like you can read a tape without
>> spinning it. What are you going to back it up to, FLASH RAM?
>
> Tape operates at much lower speeds. And since the only people who use
> tape are people who want seriously reliable backup storage, it tends to
> be very well engineered. (And stupidly expensive...)
Never used DAT drives for backup, have you? ;-) Horrible quality of
storage media, and terrible shelf life IME.
Jim
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