Zeropoint

Catamaran! Very efficient design. High available deck area and righting moment for low wetted area and good length-to-beam ratio. Also, everything in that picture is gorgeous. I wonder if the aurora look that bright to the naked eye?

It kind of depends on which version of Batman you're using as inspiration. For example, Batman from Frank Miller's "Dark Knight" would probably know Krav Maga and Muay Thai. On the other hand, Batman from The Animated Series absolutely needs a Martial Disarm that he can use with his batarang. He'd also focus on blocks, sweeps, throws, and grabs. Would that be Judo? I don't know enough about martial arts to say.

In any case, any version of Batman almost certainly knows multiple martial art styles. I guess you've got room to justify anything that sounds good to you in game terms.

13 hours ago, Old Man said:

A stop-and-start a'a flow is moving onto one of the pump pads at the geothermal plant.  It might have stopped by now, or it might engulf the entire plant.  Pele's not tipping her hand.

You humans want my geothermal energy? You like hot rocks? THEN HAVE SOME HOT ROCK!

21 hours ago, C-Note said:

                                    Force

Acceleration   =    ----------

                                    Mass

 

In your multiple "small, fast" ship thought experiment, you are increasing the Mass, but you are also increasing the "Force" (each ship also has its own engine).  It takes a lot less Force to accelerate a 50-ton fighter at 5 Gs that it does to accelerate million-ton dreadnought at 5 Gs.

Yes, I'm perfectly familiar with such basic principles of physics. I'm also perfectly aware that I was increasing the force in proportion to the mass in my thought experiment. That was actually the entire point. The million ton dreadnought masses as much as 20,000 fighters . . . and if it's equipped with 20,000 fighter engines, it will accelerate just as fast as they do, despite being larger and more massive. If the million ton dreadnought has 20,001 fighter engines on it, it will accelerate FASTER than the fighters.

21 hours ago, massey said:

In real life, larger naval vessels can go faster than smaller ones.  According to my Navy buddies, an aircraft carrier would leave everything else in the dust if it wanted to.

I can confirm that a Nimitz-class carrier can go far faster than what seems appropriate for something that big. It's a little unnerving.

You know, there's no inherent reason why larger space vessels should have lower acceleration. Let's try a thought experiment: Imagine a "small, fast" ship. It has a certain acceleration capability that you consider "fast". Now imagine two of these ships flying side by side. Obviously, they can accelerate just as fast as they can individually. Now, imagine those ships flying not just side by side, but touching. It should be clear that they can still accelerate just as well as an individual ship. Finally, imagine that they are not just touching but welded together. They've effectively become a ship with twice the mass as a single small ship, and yet they can still accelerate equally fast.

You can keep welding "small, fast" ships onto this combination until you reach any arbitrarily large volume or mass, and the resulting abomination will STILL be able to accelerate just as fast as a single small ship did in the first place.

In fact, there are reasons to believe that a larger ship would be able to accelerate even faster: First and most obviously, a single large ship will benefit from the square/cube law regarding its pressure hull and/or armor. It will be able to have the same protection for a smaller relative fraction of its weight. Second, it seems likely that there would be an economy of scale on the ship's engines--that is, that a single large engine would have a better thrust to mass ratio than a collection of small engines. I don't know enough about rocketry to be certain of this, however.

As I see it, most of the popular belief that big means slow comes from comparing things of different sizes but unlike natures. Comparing a speedboat to a cargo ship isn't fair, because one of them is designed to maximize performance, and the other is designed to maximize efficiency . . . and neither of them operate in space. Comparing a carrier to a fighter is even worse, because the fighter operates in the air, while the carrier operates in the water. If I compared civilian light aircraft to commercial airliners, I'd come to the conclusion that larger vehicles go FASTER.

Do they actually LISTEN to the ranger now? (I never watched the show; it WAS the ranger who complained and was often right, yes?)

Also: Thanks, csyphrett, I wouldn't have gotten it without your comment. Maybe they just wanted to keep a fallen comrade close.

Magus' castle! I haven't seen that for a while. I'll upvote Chrono Trigger any day!

Something's fishy here . . . I'm reasonably certain that Israel is not in Europe.

I don't know if this counts as "news", but wow, I can relate to this article:

http://www.bbc.com/news/stories-43956366

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If I saw somebody who I fancied, I didn't feel any excitement or pleasure - instead, my instant reaction was one of sadness and depression. I had a sense of hopelessness about it all.

I know how that feels.

Unlike the guy in the article, though, I have yet to find anyone special, at 41. Like him, I don't expect that I ever will.

Man, it's almost like living on a volcano is a bad idea.

The poo-and-vomit-nado, surely! ?

<shudder>

Every pit bull that I've ever met was sweet and friendly; unlikely to hurt anyone except by playing too rough.

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And on that note: Did another advanced species exist on Earth before humans?

I believe so, based on the work by Lovecraft et al.

Are you allowed to fight back if a swan or a goose attacks you? Seems like the basic right to self-defense should still apply.

Well, "interactive holograms" is not the same thing as "a holodeck". If you're playing 3D Asteroids on a one cubic meter display that can only generate white line wireframes, you've still got an "interactive hologram" and you're still using it for entertainment. All I'm saying is:

1) Video games exist and a popular form of entertainent

2) Video games have been created for every form of display tech

and from these facts we can predict that:

3) Video games will be created for whatever future display technologies that come along.

The same thing goes for input devices, obviously. When motion controls were invented, we saw a wide range of games created to explore the possibility spaces they opened up. If someone invents a volumetric projection system that can sense when you touch the projected elements, people will create games that explore THAT interface as well. Asking "will interactive holograms be a form of future entertainment" is essentially asking "will people keep making video games".

/me scratches his head

Why wouldn't they be? Interactive 2D images have been a form of entertainment for decades. Interactive 3D displays have been used for entertainment for a few years now. Given the trends already in place in society, it would take massive changes to result in world in which volumetric projection technology was mature but NOT used for some kind of entertainment.

Ah, who doesn't narrate their dreams? I tell you, you find out a lot about your shipmates in the Navy if you have trouble getting to sleep!

Stabby McBladearm would fit the modern zeitgeist.

Whoa. I just noticed that she's got her boot on the neck of a defeated foe. Hardcore. I'd pick her over any chainmail bikini model.

That was a horribly uncritical and uninformative video. Ugh. Some of the "holograms" are nothing of the sort, some of them weren't filmed from perspectives that made it clear what was going on, and some were just CGI special effects.

Still, the laser plasma stuff is cool. I wonder how hard it would be to make a lightsaber that way.

Huh, so clothing remover spray is a real thing.

Note to self, make sure underwear is cotton.

And also that a warrior's power is directly proportional to the size of their shoulder pads.

Yep.

"ZOMG! The Earth's magnetic poles could flip ANY TIME!"

"Dude, chill. They're flipping right now. They've BEEN flipping your entire life. They've been flipping since before the industrial revolution started. It's not a problem unless you're trying to navigate with a compass and old maps."

My understanding is that they're in the process of flipping right now. Check out how the North Pole (magnetic) has been moving over the last few centuries.

I read that strip again today and LOLed at it AGAIN!

I laughed out loud at that one.