I don't think it would work quite as easily as you've outlined. For instance, let us consider the frozen bits of Hydrogen. How will you coat them with gold? Assuming you could, when you shot the pellet with a laser, why wouldn't the laser+mAm reaction just blow the pellet apart without initiating fusion?
The last time I checked Google didn't have large numbers of men with guns at their beck and call doing things "for the children" or "to prevent terrer".
I would point out that you and I were originally just one wee cell each. Now, unless you are a particularly plucky blastocyte, your cells have divided a helluva lot more than seven times apiece.
So... TAM 4 was sucked back in time to help defeat the Shadows? It's as good an explanation as any... Either that, or it fell through a wormhole, emerged over the Pacific, and collided with Amelia Earhart's plane. It could (did?) happen...
IIRC, a neutron bomb really is just about as simple as an H-bomb with the U-238 jacket removed. I am not sure about the Pu sparkplug you mention; when lithium deuteride is compressed by the plasma generated by the Styrofoam, it starts fusing, which gives off massive amounts of neutrons. On a standard, multimegaton bomb, the U-238 jacket absorbs those neutrons. Normally, if you bombard U-238 with neutrons, you will just get a bunch of Plutonium, but since there are so damn many neutrons flying about, the U-238 undergoes fission itself. (Either that, or it is converted to Pu-239/240 and THAT fisses, I don't know) Without the Uranium casing to absorb them, the neutrons go for a long, long way, greater than the blast effect would damage. Since neutrons are damaging to people (and semi-conductors) it was felt this would enable NATO to stop teeming Soviet hoards from over-running the Fulda Gap without completely destroying Germany. Wishful thinking, I'd say. If the current Administration has its way, we will soon be developing "mini-nukes," which may be like small neutron bombs, for the purpose of destroying bunkers. Why they couldn't develop thermobaric weapons that would do nearly as good a job, I don't know.
If memory serves me correctly, ST:Voyager covered this: when Belanna Torres was unable to grieve the dead members of her Maquis team, she took to putting herself in more and more perilous holodeck programs, including jumping from a spaceship and going through re-entry, just so she could feel something. I recall the suit looked like a spacesuit with gray metal tiles on it...
At some point, I expect that RIAA reps will make sweeps through airports, libraries, anywhere that people with laptops can be found in public, demanding to check the computers for the forbidden files. They will then take the offending laptops and whup you upside the head with it, then present you a bill for a google dollars. Those unable to pay will be sent to RIAA "Consumer Education Camps," where you will be brainwashed into becoming a roving RIAA Rep. I expect that USA Patriot III will legalize all this, as everyone knows terrorists get the majority of their funding by sharing songs on the Internet.
When I was much younger there was a Taco Bell in my hometown that had a similiar system, I guess as a test/trial. You would go to the display, touch the screen and it would give you all your options, also asking (try to audiolize this) in a contralto "Would you like to add:" then in an enthusiatic baritone "Sour Cream?!" They were fun to use, if you liked computers, but most people bypassed them and went to the counter, I guess because they would rather blame the employee for screwing up their order than themselves. Taco Bell had the system for a year or two, then removed it, but if you go there today you can still see the holes in the floor where they were. I miss them every time I get a messed up seven layer burrito... What I would like to know is why no one has set up an IR or wireless interface so people could arrange orders on their PDA and then just send them when they drive-thru. IANAP, but it would seem to me that if you could download fast food restaurant menus to your PDA, decide what you want before you get there, send the order to the restaurant's network through the IR port on the drive-thru sign or wirelessly, you could speed up the ordering process and reduce the errors of communication that crop up as you try to yell your desires into the microphone. Maybe McD's can do this with their WiFi service.
I forget where, but it isn't so much that people are standing at Japanese newsstands copying the entire magazine, but (for instance) if our "Digital Shoplifter" sees a picture they like, of an outfit, a hairstyle, or what have you, they take the picture and share it with their friends, instead of purchasing the magazine, taking it to each friend, and showing them the picture in question. Of course, if it became socially unacceptable to do that, you could just send a text message, i.e. Italian Vogue, pg 133, upper left picture, would that look good on me? Then your friends would just have to mosey on down to the newsstand, find the mag in question, and look at that page. But that's just a suggestion, of course.
If you had a theoretical perfect mirror, yes. As it is, you would be unable to see the light, since your mirror would block the light from exterior view (sort of like Schrõdinger's Cat), but the non-perfect mirror material would absorb the energy in your light beam in the form of heat, and the beam would be dimmer and dimmer as a result, until it disappeared. If you had a theoretically perfect mirror sphere, you would be able to store light inside, then crack the sphere for a flash. Too bad flashbulbs are obsolete.
As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there's a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such twilight that we must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness. - - Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas - -
Not to be overly critical, but I think you missed a few points, foremost that it was meant to be humorous, secondly that the series established Riker as an extremely good pilot. Now, he could have sat down and pushed buttons like a good helmsman should, but he trusted his own judgement and tactile feedback. In fact, the original trek probably made use of key controls so that people wouldn't think it was just a big aircraft instead of a spacecraft. If there had always been a stick, no one would have batted an eye, but it wouldn't have been funny, which was the point.
Maybe the last question on Mosaic-2000 should be, "Tell me about your mother." That should clear out the violent different people in no time. Columbine and its aftermath have reminded me of how glad I am to be out of the public school system, where one is regimented in many bizarre ways, and how glad I am to be working, where I am regimented in many bizarre ways but get paid for it. Plus, here no one cares what I think as long as I do my job and don't threaten people with anything but my personality. I wouldn't be a high school student again for all the tea in China, to use a cliche.
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I don't think it would work quite as easily as you've outlined. For instance, let us consider the frozen bits of Hydrogen. How will you coat them with gold? Assuming you could, when you shot the pellet with a laser, why wouldn't the laser+mAm reaction just blow the pellet apart without initiating fusion?
The last time I checked Google didn't have large numbers of men with guns at their beck and call doing things "for the children" or "to prevent terrer".
Not to mention Sweden has anti-cannabis laws even more draconian than the US's.
I've heard of avoiding NIMBY, but that's just ridiculous.
I would point out that you and I were originally just one wee cell each. Now, unless you are a particularly plucky blastocyte, your cells have divided a helluva lot more than seven times apiece.
So... TAM 4 was sucked back in time to help defeat the Shadows?
It's as good an explanation as any...
Either that, or it fell through a wormhole, emerged over the Pacific, and collided with Amelia Earhart's plane.
It could (did?) happen...
IIRC, a neutron bomb really is just about as simple as an H-bomb with the U-238 jacket removed. I am not sure about the Pu sparkplug you mention; when lithium deuteride is compressed by the plasma generated by the Styrofoam, it starts fusing, which gives off massive amounts of neutrons. On a standard, multimegaton bomb, the U-238 jacket absorbs those neutrons. Normally, if you bombard U-238 with neutrons, you will just get a bunch of Plutonium, but since there are so damn many neutrons flying about, the U-238 undergoes fission itself. (Either that, or it is converted to Pu-239/240 and THAT fisses, I don't know)
Without the Uranium casing to absorb them, the neutrons go for a long, long way, greater than the blast effect would damage. Since neutrons are damaging to people (and semi-conductors) it was felt this would enable NATO to stop teeming Soviet hoards from over-running the Fulda Gap without completely destroying Germany. Wishful thinking, I'd say.
If the current Administration has its way, we will soon be developing "mini-nukes," which may be like small neutron bombs, for the purpose of destroying bunkers. Why they couldn't develop thermobaric weapons that would do nearly as good a job, I don't know.
If memory serves me correctly, ST:Voyager covered this: when Belanna Torres was unable to grieve the dead members of her Maquis team, she took to putting herself in more and more perilous holodeck programs, including jumping from a spaceship and going through re-entry, just so she could feel something. I recall the suit looked like a spacesuit with gray metal tiles on it...
At some point, I expect that RIAA reps will make sweeps through airports, libraries, anywhere that people with laptops can be found in public, demanding to check the computers for the forbidden files. They will then take the offending laptops and whup you upside the head with it, then present you a bill for a google dollars.
Those unable to pay will be sent to RIAA "Consumer Education Camps," where you will be brainwashed into becoming a roving RIAA Rep.
I expect that USA Patriot III will legalize all this, as everyone knows terrorists get the majority of their funding by sharing songs on the Internet.
When I was much younger there was a Taco Bell in my hometown that had a similiar system, I guess as a test/trial. You would go to the display, touch the screen and it would give you all your options, also asking (try to audiolize this) in a contralto "Would you like to add:" then in an enthusiatic baritone "Sour Cream?!"
They were fun to use, if you liked computers, but most people bypassed them and went to the counter, I guess because they would rather blame the employee for screwing up their order than themselves. Taco Bell had the system for a year or two, then removed it, but if you go there today you can still see the holes in the floor where they were. I miss them every time I get a messed up seven layer burrito...
What I would like to know is why no one has set up an IR or wireless interface so people could arrange orders on their PDA and then just send them when they drive-thru. IANAP, but it would seem to me that if you could download fast food restaurant menus to your PDA, decide what you want before you get there, send the order to the restaurant's network through the IR port on the drive-thru sign or wirelessly, you could speed up the ordering process and reduce the errors of communication that crop up as you try to yell your desires into the microphone.
Maybe McD's can do this with their WiFi service.
I forget where, but it isn't so much that people are standing at Japanese newsstands copying the entire magazine, but (for instance) if our "Digital Shoplifter" sees a picture they like, of an outfit, a hairstyle, or what have you, they take the picture and share it with their friends, instead of purchasing the magazine, taking it to each friend, and showing them the picture in question.
Of course, if it became socially unacceptable to do that, you could just send a text message, i.e. Italian Vogue, pg 133, upper left picture, would that look good on me?
Then your friends would just have to mosey on down to the newsstand, find the mag in question, and look at that page. But that's just a suggestion, of course.
If you had a theoretical perfect mirror, yes.
As it is, you would be unable to see the light, since your mirror would block the light from exterior view (sort of like Schrõdinger's Cat), but the non-perfect mirror material would absorb the energy in your light beam in the form of heat, and the beam would be dimmer and dimmer as a result, until it disappeared.
If you had a theoretically perfect mirror sphere, you would be able to store light inside, then crack the sphere for a flash. Too bad flashbulbs are obsolete.
As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression.
In both instances, there's a twilight where everything remains
seemingly unchanged, and it is in such twilight that we
must be aware of change in the air, however slight,
lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.
- - Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas - -
Not to be overly critical, but I think you missed a few points, foremost that it was meant to be humorous, secondly that the series established Riker as an extremely good pilot. Now, he could have sat down and pushed buttons like a good helmsman should, but he trusted his own judgement and tactile feedback. In fact, the original trek probably made use of key controls so that people wouldn't think it was just a big aircraft instead of a spacecraft. If there had always been a stick, no one would have batted an eye, but it wouldn't have been funny, which was the point.
Maybe the last question on Mosaic-2000 should be, "Tell me about your mother." That should clear out the violent different people in no time. Columbine and its aftermath have reminded me of how glad I am to be out of the public school system, where one is regimented in many bizarre ways, and how glad I am to be working, where I am regimented in many bizarre ways but get paid for it. Plus, here no one cares what I think as long as I do my job and don't threaten people with anything but my personality. I wouldn't be a high school student again for all the tea in China, to use a cliche.