Us astute readers have also noted that your earth-massed black hole is going to pull on you with a lot more than 1G if you're going to be that close to it. If you were 1,080 miles from this black hole (radius of Earth) you would experience a gravitational pull of 1G, but if you're only 6 feet from all this mass, well, I don't care to do the math...
It looks like your research is paralleling my own. Using a combination of transcendental meditation, backbreaking landscaping labor, and marihuana, I have been able to achieve a 2% weight reduction. =P
Actually, the reason that the billiard ball in the aforementioned story moved so quickly was because the scientist's machine produced a field in which the mass of the billiard ball was reduced to zero, so it behaved like a typical massless particle and moved at the speed of light. As soon as it exited the field, it regained its mass, but somehow retained enough kinetic energy to punch a hole through the victim's chest (not to mention the window behind the victim, and any other thing unfortunate enough to get in its way).
Excellently written story, if the science was a bit sloppy. I especially like how in the epilogue, one of the characters explains to another why this crime could never be brought to trial, due to the extremely technical nature of the incident....a bit like the computer crime legal difficulties we've been experiencing lately.
Done right, and with enough baloons, this could actually cool venus down, at least to the point where the temperature is no longer above boiling.
Um....no. First of all, the high surface temperature of Venus is maintained by a pronounced greenhouse efect...the energy leaking through the clouds is equal to the energy it receives from the Sun. If you were to lower the total heat energy of Venus by chucking water balloons at it, less energy would leak out through the cloud cover until the system again hit equilibrium. (Actually, the planet would wind up hotter than before, since you've added water vapor, which is in itself a greenhouse gas.)
Secondly, how do you plan on delivering these water balloons to Venus? There is the problem of kinetic energy to consider...objects hitting a planet from orbit tend to have a lot of velocity and attendant kinetic energy, which probably will offset any temporary gains from the addition of liquid water to the Venusian atmosphere.
Third, just how much water do you plan on using? Earth has plenty, but we're sorta using it at the moment.
How come we didn't have kids going on shoot `em ups, say, before 1980?
How soon they forget...
Brenda Spencer, a 16-year old schoolgirl, fired a volley of bullets from her house toward the Cleveland Elementary School playground Jan. 29, 1979. She told a reporter who called her during the 6 1/2 -hour siege that she opened fire because, "I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day."
Spencer opened fire from her house on Lake Atlin Avenue across the street from the school at 8:30 a.m., just as students were heading into their classes from the playground.
Principal Burton Wragg, 53, was killed, and Mike Suchar, 56, the school's head custodian was shot in the chest and killed when he ran to help Wragg. Eight children were wounded as they ran for cover, and a police officer was wounded in the neck.
Authorities drove a trash disposal truck between Spencer's house and the school to block her line of fire. After hours of negotiations with police, Spencer surrendered. Police found a.22-caliber semiautomatic rifle and about 40 expended shells in her home.
The shooting attracted worldwide attention, and an Irish rock group, the Boomtown Rats, wrote a song titled "I Don't Like Mondays."
I was curious to find out what Peacefire was....but when I tried to find out, I discovered that the firewall at my workplace blocks it as a 'non-business-oriented website'.
It shouldn't be terribly difficult to rig up some sort of bypass that will let the car go as fast as the driver wants, while broadcasting an erroneous 'legal' speed to the satellite. I'm certain select non-geek, type A personas will pay well for this sort of modification. If this does go through, I just might set up shop in the UK.;)
Evidently, there are not, nor will there ever be, any plans for the eventual release of Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, etc. The removal of the Peter/Valentine world takeover subplot, as well as the time shift of Ender's discovery of the Bugger queen, effectively short-circuit any further development of the series.
Pity...I feel that the entire series has potential.
Could everyone please just shut the hell up about this? We understand. Honestly. Continually spouting this crap is a lot like telling everyone that the apparent motion of the sun is actually due to the rotation of the earth every time someone mentions sunrises or sunsets.
I'm telling you now, on behalf of everyone on the planet bright enough to spell "Millennium", we get it. Let it go.
(P.S.: this goes for everyone else, too. Enough already.)
OK...here's a question. Can anyone tell me why the doctor model (the one modeling the sensor glove) is also wearing one of those head mirror things? Personally, I haven't seen one of those since Quincy got cancelled.
Your average Bengal tiger sleeps in its own piss and eats rotting carcasses.
You're obviously basing your opinion of other animals on what you've seen in zoos...which is about as accurate as forming an opinion of Man based on what can observe in your typical Turkish prison.
While the transcendental fantasy of the noble, wild forest is fun stuff for motivational posters, it's a load of crap, in the end.
I don't recall advocating going off to live in the forest...as a matter of fact, my previous post said quite the opposite. Because of our advantages as a species, we have been able to rise to the position of dominant life form on this planet. We keep the mighty tiger in cages for our young ones to gawk at. We're clearly the winners here.
"Become", nothing. We always were the dominant "species".
Your incomprehensible use of quotation marks around the word "species" notwithstanding, this is patently false. Are you advocating creationism here? When our species first appeared on this planet, we had the brainpower, but lacked the technology...the technology we have been able to develop is the only reason we are still here. If you think our dominance on this planet could possibly have preceeded our toolmaking skills, then I cordially invite you to strip naked and climb into the cage with the tiger.
My dog and I never had any contests to see who had a bigger brain, sorry.
You give your dog food, shelter, and medical care, and he gives back nothing in return. Who's the smart one, again?;)
We are physically weak and inelegant as a species. Your average Bengal tiger is far more elegant than Mikhail Baryshnikov, and could stomp Stone Cold Steve Austin into the ground.
The tiger easily beats us in grace and power, but we have excellent color vision, can perform fine manipulation of objects in our forepaws, and have a complex, tightly-knit social system. Added to all of this is the fact that we have freakishly large, incredibly complex brains, which give us toolmaking ability and language skills.
While we are no match one-on-one with the tiger, we belong to a technologically advanced species that has easily become the dominant life form on the planet.
Sure, the tiger's great, but I'd like to see him build a cyclotron.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah...just great....think of all the cataclysmic storms and tsunamis.
Us astute readers have also noted that your earth-massed black hole is going to pull on you with a lot more than 1G if you're going to be that close to it. If you were 1,080 miles from this black hole (radius of Earth) you would experience a gravitational pull of 1G, but if you're only 6 feet from all this mass, well, I don't care to do the math...
It looks like your research is paralleling my own. Using a combination of transcendental meditation, backbreaking landscaping labor, and marihuana, I have been able to achieve a 2% weight reduction. =P
Excellently written story, if the science was a bit sloppy. I especially like how in the epilogue, one of the characters explains to another why this crime could never be brought to trial, due to the extremely technical nature of the incident....a bit like the computer crime legal difficulties we've been experiencing lately.
I was promised flying cars.
What you say?
Um....no. First of all, the high surface temperature of Venus is maintained by a pronounced greenhouse efect...the energy leaking through the clouds is equal to the energy it receives from the Sun. If you were to lower the total heat energy of Venus by chucking water balloons at it, less energy would leak out through the cloud cover until the system again hit equilibrium. (Actually, the planet would wind up hotter than before, since you've added water vapor, which is in itself a greenhouse gas.)
Secondly, how do you plan on delivering these water balloons to Venus? There is the problem of kinetic energy to consider...objects hitting a planet from orbit tend to have a lot of velocity and attendant kinetic energy, which probably will offset any temporary gains from the addition of liquid water to the Venusian atmosphere.
Third, just how much water do you plan on using? Earth has plenty, but we're sorta using it at the moment.
How soon they forget...
It thinks it's March 1st.
For the same amount of money, Trinity Micro will install switches on your Athlon, including a switch to change the cache clock multiplier.
It's really quite a nice dream...come...dream with me. Release the caps-lock key.
Talk about censorship... :/
There's another reference to soap in the toilet! What the hell is wrong with you people??? Can't you think of anywhere else to keep your soap???
Seems like an odd place to keep your soap...
Then again, I do live in Detroit... ;)
It shouldn't be terribly difficult to rig up some sort of bypass that will let the car go as fast as the driver wants, while broadcasting an erroneous 'legal' speed to the satellite. I'm certain select non-geek, type A personas will pay well for this sort of modification. If this does go through, I just might set up shop in the UK. ;)
Pity...I feel that the entire series has potential.
Yes, he is that bad, dude. They didn't call him "Mannequin Skywalker" on the set for nothing, you know...
Mmmmmmm....I just love that new-baby smell...
Speak for yourself, dude...I've got Meowth chilling on my desk as we speak ;)
This doesn't explain why he made the same error three times.
Clumsy he may be...but he's definitely an idiot.
I'm telling you now, on behalf of everyone on the planet bright enough to spell "Millennium", we get it. Let it go.
OK...here's a question. Can anyone tell me why the doctor model (the one modeling the sensor glove) is also wearing one of those head mirror things? Personally, I haven't seen one of those since Quincy got cancelled.
You're obviously basing your opinion of other animals on what you've seen in zoos...which is about as accurate as forming an opinion of Man based on what can observe in your typical Turkish prison.
While the transcendental fantasy of the noble, wild forest is fun stuff for motivational posters, it's a load of crap, in the end.
I don't recall advocating going off to live in the forest...as a matter of fact, my previous post said quite the opposite. Because of our advantages as a species, we have been able to rise to the position of dominant life form on this planet. We keep the mighty tiger in cages for our young ones to gawk at. We're clearly the winners here.
"Become", nothing. We always were the dominant "species".
Your incomprehensible use of quotation marks around the word "species" notwithstanding, this is patently false. Are you advocating creationism here? When our species first appeared on this planet, we had the brainpower, but lacked the technology...the technology we have been able to develop is the only reason we are still here. If you think our dominance on this planet could possibly have preceeded our toolmaking skills, then I cordially invite you to strip naked and climb into the cage with the tiger.
My dog and I never had any contests to see who had a bigger brain, sorry.
You give your dog food, shelter, and medical care, and he gives back nothing in return. Who's the smart one, again? ;)
The tiger easily beats us in grace and power, but we have excellent color vision, can perform fine manipulation of objects in our forepaws, and have a complex, tightly-knit social system. Added to all of this is the fact that we have freakishly large, incredibly complex brains, which give us toolmaking ability and language skills.
While we are no match one-on-one with the tiger, we belong to a technologically advanced species that has easily become the dominant life form on the planet.
Sure, the tiger's great, but I'd like to see him build a cyclotron.