Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Boeing, Fraud, Fundage
Next they'll tell us they're not involved with Areas 51-63! Louis_Wu writes: "Space.com says that Boeing isn't really working on Anti-Gravity, regardless of previous news from the the BBC or Jane's Defence. It seems that the rumors spread because some people in Boeing were thinking of developing a relationship with the Russian scientist who did anti-grav research a few years ago, Dr. Evgeny Podkletnov.
Boeing spokesman:
'The recent report that we are [involved in anti-grav research] is based on a misinterpretation of information. For instance, GRASP is not a codename for a current project but rather an acronym for a presentation entitled "Gravity Research for Advanced Space Propulsion," in which a Boeing engineer explains Podkletnov's theory and proposes that we should continue to monitor this work and perhaps even conduct some low-cost experiments to further assess its plausibility. No steps have been taken beyond this point by Boeing.'
Jane's also mentions theorized weapons 'capable of producing a beam of "gravity-like" energy that can exert an instantaneous force of 1,000g [1000 Gravities, not grams] on any object -- enough, in principle, to vaporise it, especially if the object is moving at high speed.'
Don't tell Einstein. :)"
And here's the part where I skip town.
Planetes writes "The Florida Times Union (Jacksonville, FL) has an interesting article about a lab testing company that has discounted his claims about some technology previously discussed on /.
Personal favorite paragraph:
'Lawyers for the company, Intertek Testing Services, discounted almost every aspect of a three-page letter that appears to validate an invention that sends high-speed data over electrical power lines. The letter is addressed to Madison Priest, a St. Augustine man whose disputed communications technologies were the subject of a sweeping Times-Union investigation this year.'"
Not at all what he said. knorthern knight writes: "Crow tastes icky, but here goes. Since I submitted the original citing about the story in The Register, ISPAI have sent a polite note to me. Here it is ...
Subject: ISPAI Reaction on HT News Item dated 27th July '02Dear Sir,
This is in reference to the front page news article by the Hindustan Times dtd: 27/07/02. Mr Amitabh Singhal, Secretary, ISPAI has denied having made any statements favoring blocking of sites by Indian ISPs.In reply to Mr. Singhal's letter to Hindustan Times,(copy enclosed) the HT has released the following news clipping at today's news paper http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/printedition/01 0802/detECO07.shtml
This is for your informaton and necessary action please.
With regards,
Puneet Tiwari Sr. Executive -ISPAI"
Behind every horde of enemy attackers are the people who thought them up. Anonymous Coward writes "I've finally posted the game binaries and source code to the Indie Game Jam games. The Indie Game Jam is a yearly game design and programming event designed to encourage experimentation and innovation in the game industry. 14 professional game developers created 12 experimental and innovative games in 4 days! The source to the engine and all the game code is GPLed on SourceForge, so enjoy. Remember, they're experimental and a bit rough, not commercial quality games."
One Blender you can buy for forever. kabir writes "The Blender Fund is up around 65K Euro right now... so close, yet still so far! This would be a great time for anyone who was on the fence about donating (wondering if the fund would make it, etc.) to pitch in and help put us over the top." Here's our previous story about this effort to liberate the Blender source. Does anyone have a business which might see a donation here as a good long-term investment?
Furthermore, if it's in space, it might just be sent to a higher orbit around the earth.
Orbital Sniper
Make people little red stains from a few miles up.
Wow, back down. 1G is not 9.8 m/s. Although in a gravitational field of 1G things would accellerate at 9.8 m/s. 9.8 m/s is earths mass accelleration or whatever it is called in my not native language English.
Look a monkey!
The games use the sprites from Doom 2.
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
I'm sorry man, but you're completely wrong.
> Certainly they can. Take a familiar object (say, an empty soda can) and put it in a uniform 20g field and it would crush.
It would only crush if it was being pushed by the gravitational field against something else. And, if that is true, then obviously the bottom of the can is not being accellerated at all (it is staying in the same place). From the can's perspective, part of it (the top part) is being accellerated, while the bottom is not. That's not a uniform accelleration. The reason that objects can be crushed is that you can accellerate part of the object without accellerating the rest of the object, thus changing the size of said object!
Be careful that you are not confusing uniform acceleration with uniform velocity. The first is not an inertial reference frame while the second is. Any simple accelerometer will tell you that you are accelerating; it is the special relativity constancy of physics that holds in the intertial reference frame. You might be thinking of Einstein's Equivalence Principle that says (colloquially) that you can't tell if you are standing on the surface of the Earth or in an elevator that accelerates in free space at 9.8 m/s2.
Once again, you are wrong. A simple accelerometer only tells you if you are applying a force on the sensor element in the accellerometer. Imagine that you are in free space with no forces acting on you. A properly calibrated accellerometer will read zero. Then imagine that you are moving with some velocity, and you encounter a planet. You begin to be pulled towards the planet, but your accellerometer reads zero. It will only register a gravitational pull on the sensor element if there is something to oppose it. In this case, you have nowhere to stand, so you cannot oppose the gravitational force; thus it reads nothing. It is physically impossible for the accelerometer to "know" you are falling down the gravity well. Another way of saying it is that accelerometers only work if you are feeling a force that the sensing element is not. (for instance, you're being pulled by a drag line to a spaceship)
So while it is true that there is a big difference here between constant acceleration and constant velocity, it doesn't change the validity of my previous post. And inertial reference frames have nothing to do with this, my discussion is entirely in newtonian mechanics, it need not require relativity.
I suppose I understand how my points could have been misunderstood, as I use my words in a very precise manner. They will not be true when interpreted imprecisely.
To clear some things up, 1G is not even in m/s^2 units. 'g' a.k.a. "little g" is ~9.8m/s^2 (so that mass*g is a force, kg*m/s^2), but 'G', a.k.a. "big G", is, ~6.67*10^-11 m^3/kg/s^2 (in mks).
The confusion is that 'g' is the acceleration due to gravity close to the earth, while 'G' is the universal gravitational constant. It is a constant that is used to derive little 'g'. The relationship can be explaied in a couple of steps.
- The gravitational force between two objects is
- put m1 = mass of earth, M
- F is now = G*M*m/R^2
- This form of the equation now has two constant-ish variables that are closely tied to eachother (M and R), one constant (G), and one independant variable (m). Let's tie up all the constants into one variable and call it 'g'. That is,
- We now have F = mg for objects close to the surface of the earth.
Here we can see that 'g' is just an easy generalization for calculations and not anything defining about the universe. Hope that helps. The use of the same letter but differing in capitalization can lead to confusion and silly misunderstandings.F=G*m1*m2/r^2
m1 = mass of object 1,
m2 = mass of object 2
r = distance separating objects 1 and 2
m2 = mass of random object, such as a super-ball, m
r = radius of Earth, R
g = G*M/R^2