catbarf on 27/8/2010 at 00:06
Back on topic, any Young Earth Creationism website is a fountain of misinformation regarding evolution and evidence thereof. It's gotten to the point where creationists present what amounts to propaganda instead of science, probably because the evidence continues to mount. But holy shit is it retarded to see the school district arguments of ITS ONLY A THEROY and that people take them seriously.
demagogue on 27/8/2010 at 01:59
We might make another thread on "surprisingly true information", but somehow it seems to fit in here.
I just watched a (
http://www.ted.com/talks/vs_ramachandran_the_neurons_that_shaped_civilization.html) video talking about mirror neurons in your sensory cortex that register the sense of touch when seeing other people getting touched, e.g., on the arm; but they normally get vetoed by your own arm's touch-detectors so you don't literally feel it yourself. The crazy part happens when you anesthetize your arm (or don't have an arm for that matter), so the detector-veto doesn't happen. Now when you watch someone else's arm get touched, you literally feel the touch yourself on your own arm as well. Consciousness can sometimes be distributed across people, sharing the same feelings for the same event. I thought that was astounding.
Here people are trying to argue the silliest things are true when there are in fact very astounding things that really are true. Quantum theory would be another candidate here. Continually astounding and still all true.
catbarf on 27/8/2010 at 02:34
I can't wait until someone, armed with that knowledge, accidentally sterilizes himself with a massive injection of Novacaine into his groin.
Martin Karne on 27/8/2010 at 03:17
Quote Posted by baeuchlein
Of course they're there! But the Ministery of Truth recently stated we never had these, so they're... ummm... They're not there, we never had them, no one ever thought of them... really, what's that you're talking about?:laff:
Sex of course what else is out there.
:joke:
Oh and drugs, nah I wish I could justify my craziness but I can't.
Sulphur on 27/8/2010 at 06:25
Quote Posted by catbarf
A weapon that requires you to be faster than your enemy is somewhat limited in its tactical usefulness.
It comes down to this. The pure physics of projectiles at these speeds, everything else being equal, just makes it a headache. It's not impossible, but it is literally a crap-shoot unless we're talking close-range combat and you're travelling at a faster velocity than the target.
Quote:
The timeframe is based on relative speeds of 1-10km/s versus laser and missile effective range of 10,000+km. At a relative 10km/s, it will take seventeen minutes for them to reach each other. If one is 'stationary' and the other is applying a continuous 1G burn, starting from dead stop at 10,000km, it will take 24 minutes for them to reach each other. Turning perpendicular shouldn't take very long at all, and once perpendicular, no turning is required to apply random burn lengths to dodge projectiles.
At those ranges, you obviously can't use projectiles. Why would you shoot at something with what is essentially a machine gun from 10,000 km away? It's an irrelevant scenario for discussion on projectile effectiveness. Lasers, travelling at the speed of light, would be the obvious thing to use. Or missiles with integrated tracking, if the target is large and relatively immobile.
Quote:
As one more note, keep in mind that the exhaust of a nuclear thermal rocket or similar will be quite intense. At the effective range of a slugthrower, just a few dozen kilometers, your enemy can point his engine at you and bathe your ship in several-thousand-degree highly radioactive exhaust. He can also do this while running away to stay fast enough to avoid your projectiles.
This is moving from theoretical physics to plain speculation - considering that we're talking about spacecraft combat which may only happen in the far-flung future (with nuclear-powered engines no less), it's not much of a leap to envision radiation shielding that overcomes this. Partly because the pilots will need to be shielded from the radiation of their own ship in the first place.
Kolya: it's not super-nerdery (too many suddenly changing variables and assumptions for one!), it's just passing the time. Did you know that in 2012 there's going to be an extinction event when the Earth hits an asteroid? Have as much sex as you can
right now before it's too late (avoid being ridden, though, that shit's responsible for about 30% of penis fractures).
baeuchlein on 27/8/2010 at 12:21
Quote Posted by Kolya
Neanderthalers were also stealing homo sapiens jobs.
That's why we made them extinct, those bastards!:ebil:
Quote Posted by Fafhrd
There's been a lot of back and forth between these theories for
years, so saying that both are common knowledge isn't really incorrect.
I meant something different: One year ago, the media always told us that the neandertals
never interbred, and left
no doubt concerning that. Then, a few months ago - surprise, surprise, they
did interbreed, and of course,
now there can't be any doubt about that. That way, "common knowledge" was
created around here.
Quote Posted by Pyrian
That's not true at all. Indeed, any theory that begins without at least
some men sticking it anywhere it'll fit is almost certainly flawed. :eww:
Even if it were true, what of it? I mean, it's like the recent revelation that the solar system may be 4.568 billion years old instead of 4.566 billion years old - that doesn't exactly constitute evidence that the whole schema is wrong, y'know.
Sure. Another reason not to sell any new theory as the one and only explanation as well as considering it totally flawless and historically accurate up to the minute - but that's exactly what the media around here does, usually. Reports where they state they're not sure, or that there's a wide margin regarding a certain number are about as common as snails in space.
Quote Posted by catbarf
To clarify, 'solar system' refers to our star, i.e. Sol. Any other star and anything orbiting it would be a 'star system'.
Oops... you got me!;)
I shouldn't have talked about space operas, I guess.:tsktsk:
Quote Posted by Martin Karne
Sex of course what else is out there.
:joke:
Sure, DDL already mentioned "those fucking neanderthals". However, there are space battles, of course. Didn't you notice?:cheeky:
catbarf on 27/8/2010 at 12:54
Quote Posted by Sulphur
At those ranges, you obviously can't use projectiles. Why would you shoot at something with what is essentially a machine gun from 10,000 km away? It's an irrelevant scenario for discussion on projectile effectiveness. Lasers, travelling at the speed of light, would be the obvious thing to use. Or missiles with integrated tracking, if the target is large and relatively immobile.
I'm not saying you'd be firing guns from 10,000km away, I'm saying you'd be firing up close, but 10,000km is the effective range of lasers. Missiles would likely have an even greater effective range. So when your opponent has roughly 18 minutes from when his lasers reach their
optimal range to shoot at you and get on a vector to avoid your guns, you'll have a hard time catching him.
Quote Posted by Sulphur
This is moving from theoretical physics to plain speculation - considering that we're talking about spacecraft combat which may only happen in the far-flung future (with nuclear-powered engines no less), it's not much of a leap to envision radiation shielding that overcomes this. Partly because the pilots will need to be shielded from the radiation of their own ship in the first place.
Well, it's not just nuclear engines. The power of an engine is directly proportional to how fast it can accelerate out the back of the spaceship. So any engine powerful enough to be interesting has equal potential as a weapon of mass devastation. It doesn't really matter what propulsion system it uses, it still spews reaction mass at incredibly high velocity.
As a side note, radiation shielding comes down to two things- putting stuff between you and the source, and distance. Most current designs for nuclear spacecraft (such as in the Attack Vector board game) utilize a barbell shape, since it's not feasible to put very, very heavy lead on a spaceship when you can just put some distance between the crew and engine. But radiation shielding is bulky and expensive, and while any spaceship would have to have enough to fly around the solar system, that's several orders of magnitude weaker than the exhaust of a typical nuclear reactor at full power.
Larry Niven wrote a series of books called the Man-Kzin Wars based upon this premise. In the far future, humans have put aside their differences and become a peaceful utopia. Aliens come to Sol expecting easy conquest. Instead they get annihilated my laser drives used for solar sails, multi-million-degree fusion exhaust, and photon drives that are essentially enormous lasers.
It's interesting to note that for that reason, it is possible that civilians might not be able to own spacecraft as in the typical sci-fi portrayal, since every random freighter could point its engines at a space station and obliterate it. With that kind of threat, I would expect massive restrictions and scrutiny over who can own a spaceship.
Queue on 27/8/2010 at 12:57
Would the Death Star fireball, like it did?
