Domain: wikia.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to wikia.com.
Comments · 3,241
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Not initially
But hopefully a few years before this guy takes over Earth.
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Named after the Wallace and Gromit character?
Named after the robot dog in "A Close Shave?"
Wendolene: "Daddy created him for good, but...he's turned out evil!"
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Re:Wow...
I thought it was a brain slug
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"Fair and Balanced"
R-12 is a refrigerant that revolutionized the cold storage of vaccines
That barely scratches the surface of the thing.
Charles Kettering, vice president of General Motors Research Corporation, was seeking a refrigerant replacement that would be colorless, odorless, tasteless, nontoxic, and nonflammable.
The refrigerant of choice for the 19th century ice machine was ammonia, which has the drawbacks of being highly toxic, corrosive, and difficult to compress. The net result is that the ice machines were massive (as big as a typical kitchen), steam powered (the best source of energy in the 19th century for large equipment. needing constant boiler attendance), required a lot of maintenance and were the source of industrial accidents.
Sulfur dioxide is compressed readily and has a good latent heat of 25 kJ/mol. Chemists and physicists were able to put a kitchen sized version of the refrigerator on the market after World War One. Unfortunately, sulfur dioxide isn't the most pleasant refrigerant: Early refrigerators leaked and if they didn't, sulfur dioxide is corrosive, so they soon would.
The first refrigerator to see widespread use was the General Electric "Monitor-Top" refrigerator introduced in 1927, so-called because of its resemblance to the gun turret on the ironclad warship USS Monitor of the 1860s.
As the refrigerating medium, these refrigerators used either sulfur dioxide, which is corrosive to the eyes and may cause loss of vision, painful skin burns and lesions, or methyl formate, which is highly flammable, harmful to the eyes, and toxic if inhaled or ingested.
"Refrigerator Day is the Dinosaurs analogue to Christmas and the titular celebration...Refrigerator Day, or Fridge Day for short, celebrates the development of the greatest boon to modern dinosaur, the refrigerator. Thanks to the development of this magical cold box, dinosaurs could store food and no longer had to continually roam, and thus were able to settle down and start families. Fridge Day is traditionally marked with gift-giving, a pageant recalling the first Refrigerator Day, festive decorations, a Fridge Day bonus, and jolly Refrigerator Day carols. Muppet Wiki - Refrigerator Day
Henson was on to something here.
I don't think the geek has any clear picture of what life was like before modern refrigeration and air conditioning.
The ideal refrigerant would have favorable thermodynamic properties, be noncorrosive to mechanical components, and be safe, including free from toxicity and flammability. It would not cause ozone depletion or climate change.
That ideal refrigerant doesn't exist in 2015 ---
but if you look honestly at the problem from the point of view of someone living in 1935, Freon comes pretty damn close.
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Re:Missing a target with a laser weapon
Blaster bolts do not travel at the speed of light. Certain technical details aside, and pending revision from the "new canon" forthcoming, blasters fire charged particle bolts at sublight speeds estimated by frame analysis by the Mythbusters as averaging 130-135 MPH (roughly 60 m/s), although they inexplicably described blaster bolts as "lasers" despite no canonical or practical evidence.
Rhett Alain of Wired did a much finer study for his article "An Analysis of Blaster Fire in Star Wars" and found that while hand-fired blaster bolts in the movies range between 15 - 225 m/s, the vast majority average 15 m/s. Ship-mounted blasters are significantly faster, but virtually always travel at approximately 2,500 m/s.
Also, the Death Star had plenty of point defense on the surface, but not positioned well for the trenches (which it was reasonable to believe one would have to be insane to attempt to fly in), and at least 7,000 TIE fighters. The fighters were not deployed because the rebels attacked with so small of a force they weren't deemed a practical threat until it was too late. -
Re:Missing a target with a laser weapon
Blaster bolts do not travel at the speed of light. Certain technical details aside, and pending revision from the "new canon" forthcoming, blasters fire charged particle bolts at sublight speeds estimated by frame analysis by the Mythbusters as averaging 130-135 MPH (roughly 60 m/s), although they inexplicably described blaster bolts as "lasers" despite no canonical or practical evidence.
Rhett Alain of Wired did a much finer study for his article "An Analysis of Blaster Fire in Star Wars" and found that while hand-fired blaster bolts in the movies range between 15 - 225 m/s, the vast majority average 15 m/s. Ship-mounted blasters are significantly faster, but virtually always travel at approximately 2,500 m/s.
Also, the Death Star had plenty of point defense on the surface, but not positioned well for the trenches (which it was reasonable to believe one would have to be insane to attempt to fly in), and at least 7,000 TIE fighters. The fighters were not deployed because the rebels attacked with so small of a force they weren't deemed a practical threat until it was too late. -
Re:Anthropomorphic Aliens
It can be done, but it's not easy. Most of the aliens in Farscape are human actors in makeup (Acquarans and Sebeceans don't even need make-up), and the puppets tend to be a lot more human-like then you're letting on.
Rygel, for example, has two arms, a kung-fu movie mustache, and he's wearing a robe so you can't tell whether he's standing on bipedal legs. He's also got a levitating sled so that his face can easily be brought into the frame with a human actor if the Director decides that he needs a close-up of both for this particular conversation.
Pilot looks like a guy in a really big hat at a workstation. He's literally embedded into the ship and the only limbs he still moves are his arms. He's got four of them, but they're arranged on the same horizontal plane so you can only see two at a time.
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Re:Anthropomorphic Aliens
It can be done, but it's not easy. Most of the aliens in Farscape are human actors in makeup (Acquarans and Sebeceans don't even need make-up), and the puppets tend to be a lot more human-like then you're letting on.
Rygel, for example, has two arms, a kung-fu movie mustache, and he's wearing a robe so you can't tell whether he's standing on bipedal legs. He's also got a levitating sled so that his face can easily be brought into the frame with a human actor if the Director decides that he needs a close-up of both for this particular conversation.
Pilot looks like a guy in a really big hat at a workstation. He's literally embedded into the ship and the only limbs he still moves are his arms. He's got four of them, but they're arranged on the same horizontal plane so you can only see two at a time.
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Re:Anthropomorphic Aliens
The problem with alternatives to humanoids is how the fuck do you film them?
Even assuming you can figure out how to get the expressive bits of a 40 ft dinosouroid, a 5 ft 6 in human woman, and a 2 ft froggish-type-thing in the same frame, how can you get the audience to understand the dinosouroid is scared of something the froggish thing has in it's mid-limbs and the human is trying to smooth it over?
You really see the problem in Star Wars. Most of their aliens only look a little less human then the ones on Star Trek, and they tend to be incredibly hard to read. You just don't know what a delighted Jawa or Tusken look like. You really need a humanoid, about the normal human sized, who communicates with a system very close to speech (tho you can fake this one by claiming something like the Universal Translator or translator microbes), with a human-style face, and facial expressions that will be easily decipherable even under the make-up.
You can do it in books pretty easily, because the narrator can explain that it's really a big deal that that guy's ass-looking-part which just turned blue is actually his face, and that combined with his scales flattening down to provide more protection, means the shit is about to hit the fan. It's much harder to pull off in live action.
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Re:Anthropomorphic Aliens
The problem with alternatives to humanoids is how the fuck do you film them?
Even assuming you can figure out how to get the expressive bits of a 40 ft dinosouroid, a 5 ft 6 in human woman, and a 2 ft froggish-type-thing in the same frame, how can you get the audience to understand the dinosouroid is scared of something the froggish thing has in it's mid-limbs and the human is trying to smooth it over?
You really see the problem in Star Wars. Most of their aliens only look a little less human then the ones on Star Trek, and they tend to be incredibly hard to read. You just don't know what a delighted Jawa or Tusken look like. You really need a humanoid, about the normal human sized, who communicates with a system very close to speech (tho you can fake this one by claiming something like the Universal Translator or translator microbes), with a human-style face, and facial expressions that will be easily decipherable even under the make-up.
You can do it in books pretty easily, because the narrator can explain that it's really a big deal that that guy's ass-looking-part which just turned blue is actually his face, and that combined with his scales flattening down to provide more protection, means the shit is about to hit the fan. It's much harder to pull off in live action.
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Re:The National Enquirer
They even used that issue in Men in Black: Satan Escapes from Hell LOL
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This sounds like a video game...
It reminds me of the Chaos Gate field codes in the
.Hack series.... -
Re:Sacred ground
Don't you love how people can make up nonsensical stories about how something is sacred to them to stop activities they don't like?
Of course I did! And it wasn't just me, lots of other people did too.
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Re:They didn't hear of the Fairchild XC-120 Packpl
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Re:Coren22's impersonation "APKolypse"
APK Impersonates and intelligent human being. I never impersonated Steven Burns, which I assume is what you are trying to claim with that wall of garbage you keep posting. I have no idea why you would think I did anything of the sort. I linked to a post claiming to be by him, how would I know if it is him or not?
I don't even know if this is really Alexander Peter Kowalski, or a Penguin in the New York Zoo.
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Re:Cpt. Carrot
But your real name is Captain Carrot.
The only question is:
are you a 6'6" Discworld Dwarf
or a DC Comics rabbit superheroHaha, good catch!
Here's a hint: my nickname translates to "head banger"
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Re: Build one
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Cpt. Carrot
But your real name is Captain Carrot.
The only question is:
are you a 6'6" Discworld Dwarf
or a DC Comics rabbit superhero -
Re:Some people don't understand the word "former"
I have to admit, when I hear "CIA's Former Director", all I think of is Enabran Tain .
Retired, yes. Out of the game? If he's still breathing, probably not. -
Re:Surprised?
You may be thinking of Star Wars Tales which was published after the release of Phantom Menace.
As far as I know, George Lucas's son came up with the name "Jar Jar" and he wasn't born when the original trilogy was made.
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Re:Bring back the Nixie Tube!!!
Oh crap! Another one of those Annie May fans who is depleting the inventory of Nixie tubes to build a divergence meter.
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seen one of these before...
they are creating an ore detector ?
We've got an early version of an assembler in the works. now all we need are conveyors. Anyone working on those? -
seen one of these before...
they are creating an ore detector ?
We've got an early version of an assembler in the works. now all we need are conveyors. Anyone working on those? -
Re:We've heard this all before.
There's plenty of prior art too.
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Re:Except they used regular SMS
Clothing is an alien organism that will take over the planet! Join Nudist Beach like the other AC!
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Re:Parade of the Pedants!
Actually, Harry Potter only sometimes needs a wand to cast spells. http://harrypotter.wikia.com/w...
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But are there bunnies?
I was on the beta test and even then it was filled with bunny hopping 13 year olds making it annoying.
Is there a playable species that looks like a rabbit, like Lepi? I ask because if done right, "bunny hopping" could be a way to bring in the furry fandom.
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Re:Fuck You!
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki...
Are you sure you want to shave with one though, that might hurt...
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It's starting...
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Re:Feedback welcome!
in commercial Civ games ramping up the difficulty usually means giving bonuses and cheats to the AI.
It's at least 10 years ago that I last played Freeciv, but I recall that back then, Freeciv AI was also cheating at the higher difficulty levels, by getting resources cheaper and by being able to peek into enemy cities. It didn't matter that much to me, I never got good enough to bother with the higher difficulty levels - and it was still quite a few all-nighters that I pulled playing it.
However, from a brief look at Freeciv AI documentation, I get it that nowadays the AI is not cheating, and just gets handicaps at lower difficulty levels.
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Re:The Return of BASIC...
I for one welcome our new G0-T0 crimelords!
FTFY.
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He already has ...
Cinematic Titanic which also has the people from MST3K that don't hate him. As a huge fan, this sounds fishy.
There's also the much MUCH more prolific and IMO funnier Rifftrax. The timing is interesting considering that RIfftrax just started bringing back old MST3K episodes every Monday with a new intro video by Mike Nelson. I backed one of the Rifftrax Kickstarter's and I don't regret it (I even have an mp3 I made of Kevin Murphy saying my name from one of the reward tiers.
I don't really know what caused the rift between Joel and Mike/Kevin but it seems clear that there is one. Personally, while he has his moments, I don't think Joel is as funny.
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Re:Little animated bits at the bottom of shows
Yep they know it too.
A few years ago there was a episode of Phineas and Ferb where they were poking fun at that.
http://phineasandferb.wikia.co... -
Re:Even worse..
You know Meck personally? Please introduce me! I am a fan!
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I think they should go for something like this....
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Re:Clearly, no.
Glad to hear it! There's a mod made by one of the developers that you might be interested in. Many things are addressed. The same developer released a version for The Witcher, too.
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Re:50/50
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David Weber called this "the dole"
--David Weber went into some of the ramifications / effects of having a significant percentage of the public on "the Dole" in his Honor Harrington book series. Worth reading.
http://honorverse.wikia.com/wi...
http://honorverse.wikia.com/wi...
--Distilled down a bit (this is my impression, feel free to chime in), if you have a bunch of people receiving money for effectively little-to-no work, you get a bunch of apathetic and Entitled lazy mofos.
--Technical/artistic progress stagnates and nobody is really motivated to improve much because well, they get paid anyway. Remove the stick and give them the carrot anyway, and eventually they will fall behind and get conquered because of survival of the FITTEST. Someone hungrier than you and driven to succeed will end up eating your lunch, and your identity as a people will be lucky to survive - worst case scenario here is actually not dying, but becoming a slave to the conquerors and losing that comfortable life that you thought was assured.
--Humanity needs something to strive for.
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David Weber called this "the dole"
--David Weber went into some of the ramifications / effects of having a significant percentage of the public on "the Dole" in his Honor Harrington book series. Worth reading.
http://honorverse.wikia.com/wi...
http://honorverse.wikia.com/wi...
--Distilled down a bit (this is my impression, feel free to chime in), if you have a bunch of people receiving money for effectively little-to-no work, you get a bunch of apathetic and Entitled lazy mofos.
--Technical/artistic progress stagnates and nobody is really motivated to improve much because well, they get paid anyway. Remove the stick and give them the carrot anyway, and eventually they will fall behind and get conquered because of survival of the FITTEST. Someone hungrier than you and driven to succeed will end up eating your lunch, and your identity as a people will be lucky to survive - worst case scenario here is actually not dying, but becoming a slave to the conquerors and losing that comfortable life that you thought was assured.
--Humanity needs something to strive for.
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Re:this is why we have crap for politicians
That was the crazed ranger with the rat familiar, wasn't it?
Let's look it up...
Some of Minsc's dialog includes Boo in it. For example:
"Go for the eyes Boo, GO FOR THE EYES!! RrraaaAAGHGHH!!!"
"Camaraderie, adventure and steel on steel. The stuff of legends! Right Boo?".
"Ahh, we are all heroes, you and me and Boo, hamsters and rangers everywhere, rejoice!"
Completely off topic but yeah I remember that.
I also remember rolling a ranger who had a pet bird. I walked onto a map and it was insta-gibbed for some huge amount of damage. Boom! Permanent loss of 2 constitution points! -
Taking cues from Fallout 3?
Fallout 3 was released in late 2008, and includes the People's Republic of America Radio. Presumably they thought it was a good idea?
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Re:10 years was a decent rest
> TNG is bland, tasteless drivel.
What the fuck are you blabbering about? These were some of the best episodes bar none:
* Chain of Command,
* Darmok,
* Frame of Mind Long before Deception gave us a mind-fuck, Jonathan Frakes gave us a stellar performance,
* The Inner Light,
* The Measure of a ManAlong with the 6 episodes with Q:
* Encounter at Farpoint,
* All Good Things ...,
* Q Who,
* Deja Q,
* Qpid, and
* Tapestry -
Re:10 years was a decent rest
Corrected link: http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Red_alert
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Re:Batman Beyond suit
Came to see if anyone remembered that. You did not disappoint.
On a side note - this could make every person into a Daredevil, with gloves for reading print in the dark.
While coupled with air-moisture sensors this could mean that in the future no one would be caught in the rain again, with streets suddenly emptying of people just before it starts.On the other hand people would be able to tell how long ago their chair or seat was occupied by someone else's ass and maybe even how big that ass was according to the heat still trapped in the chair.
Wonder how that would affect public transportation, cafes, restaurants, theaters... -
Re:We are the Tamarians
There's a Star Trek episode about Tamarians, a race who speak entirely in jargon. Their language uses cultural references instead of words of meaning: "Darmok on the ocean" means loneliness, isolation, "Sokath, his eyes uncovered/opened" means understanding/realization, and so on.
They didn't communicate with jargon. As your link points out, they communicated with allegory and metaphor.
Shaka, when the walls fell.
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We are the Tamarians
2. Jargon gets a bad rap, unecessarily so. Yes it makes it harder for outsiders, but with it aids communication because you don't have to have long winded and inaccurate descriptions of commonly used things every time.
For example, I can talk about corner detection and most people in computer vision would immediately know what I'm talking about wit hme using only two words. Space is imited, and verbosity is also harmful.
There's a Star Trek episode about Tamarians, a race who speak entirely in jargon. Their language uses cultural references instead of words of meaning: "Darmok on the ocean" means loneliness, isolation, "Sokath, his eyes uncovered/opened" means understanding/realization, and so on.
As an AI researcher concerned with techniques of learning (and indirectly, teaching) I've come to realize that our science is the Tamarian language.
The vast majority of ideas in academia is named after a person or event. The German Tank problem, Gauss's law, Einstein's famous equation, Planck's constant, Jenson's inequality, the Method of Frobenius, the Archimedes principle, Lou Gehrig's disease... the list is endless.
There are some intuitive ideas, such as: speed of light, triangle inequality, law of large numbers, no free lunch, principle of least action... but there are very few of these.
No one takes the time to come up with intuitive or meaningful names for things any more. It's a land-grab for esteem by having something named after the researcher.
It's really, *really* difficult for a student to learn about a field, because they also need to associate some random name with the concept. We can't just say "convex inequality", it has to be "Jensen's inequality".
Feynman once quipped that about 30% of physics is learning to do unit conversions.
I might add that another 40% is learning how to associate random, meaningless names to fundamental principles.
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Re:replicate earth air purification
Yes like on Star Trek where they use the Baryon Sweep to remove all the baryons built up from warp travel and as a side effect kill anything organic in the process. They shutdown and bail when the sweep is running.
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Re:SAFE secure SPACE there is your problem.
There is an open investigation of GG by the FBI. No need to start one, it began a year ago.
Look, it's even documented on the shitty GG wiki: http://gamergate.wikia.com/wik...
Muckrock has some proof: https://www.muckrock.com/news/...
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Re:No freedom of assembly
The problem is that the threats they keep getting seem to be sent by GamerGate to itself. In the case of threats against people like Sarkeesian there was independent verification from the venue organizers and a criminal investigation. In the case of GamerGate there do not seem to be any open FBI or local police investigations, probably because they are worried that an investigation might reveal the true origin of the threats.
Don't take my word for it though, a quick google turns up the GG wiki and Reddit channel:
http://gamergate.wikia.com/wik...
https://www.reddit.com/r/Gamer...If GamerGate is really being threatened it should be reported to the FBI, who appear more than willing to act because this sort of thing comes under terrorism.
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Godzilla?
What about Godzilla? This is worth nothing if it can't detect Godzilla.
I'm not obsessed, whatever makes you think I'm obsessed?