"wow. our last day at initech." "can't believe they had security escort us out. like we're going to steal something." "*beat* i stole something" "oh yeah. guess we all did." "no. i stole something else." "what did you steal?" "call it... a going away present."
... they wanna ban us on capitol hill - cos it's DIE MOTHERFUCKER DIE MOTHERFUCKER DIE STILL...
in order to conclude anything about what it takes to activate a lightsaber, we need a case of someone attempting to activate one and failing*. until then, we have no evidence of what circumstances could cause such a failure.
* (other than the bit cut from ep1 where obi-wan shorts out his saber by going swimming with it on.)
therefore, i submit that the hypothesis of the 'saber as a purely mechanical device independent of the force explains the observed events of the movies just as well as has the one you have presented, with the added benefit of simplicity.
(yes, han is the father of three force-sensitive children, but their mother happens to be leia (skywalker) organa-solo, so being the grandchildren of anakin "call me vader" skywalker could very easily account for that.)
i understand your logic that "it takes the Force to activate a lightsaber" and "han solo activates a lightsaber" together imply "han solo has some degree of Force sensitivity."
i'm asking for a source to back up the first assertion.
George Lucas states that after all of his limbs were severed and he was extremely burned on Mustafar he lost much of his Force potential. Lucas claims that as Darth Vader, Anakin had roughly 80% the strength of the Emperor. Had he sustained none of his injuries on Mustafar he would have been twice as powerful.
so assume that palpatine is rated 100, with vader post-lava at 80 (basically, toasted torso). with legs and original left arm, anakin would have been either 160 or 200 (source ambiguous - twice as powerful as vader or as the emperor?) with the prior interp, pre-geonosis anakin [with all original parts, buy it now for only GC 4000!] would be at about 190; with the latter, 240.
of course, this need to quantify every aspect of star wars started with the damn midichlorians. (i wish the concept had been not that the Force comes from the midichlors, but that there is some unspecified correlation without implying causation.) luminous beings we are, not this crude matter, and losing body parts should have nothing to do with your connection to the force.
then how is luke able to light it without any training? hell, how is han solo able to light it, despite not even believing in the Force?
"Your father's lightsaber," Kenobi told him. "At one time they were widely used. Still are, in certain galactic quarters." Luke examined the controls on the handle, then tentatively touched a brightly colored button up near the mirrored pommel. Instantly the disk put forth a blue-white beam as thick around as his thumb. It was dense to the point of opacity and a little over a meter in length... "This was the formal weapon of a Jedi Knight," explained Kenobi. "Not as clumsy or random as a blaster... [T]o use a lightsaber well was a mark of someone a cut above the ordinary."
i always figured it was a standing finite improbability field such that light directly above it was tuned.
at the center of the blade, light tends 100% towards the characteristics of a particle; this is the actual cutting core, all those really high energy photons bouncing around.
at the edge, light tends 100% towards the characteristics of a wave, in fact it forms a sort of standing wave that wraps around the outside of the blade. this wave a) accounts for the colored fringe of the blade (since it has a set wavelength, it has a set color) and b) keeps all those high energy particles in.
when the blade hits something, the outer wave is parted, allowing the core to contact said something.
yes, i am aware i've thought this out way too much.
(rick moranis tastes the jam) "raspberry... there's only one man who would DARE give me the raspberry..." (camera tracks in as dark helmet pushes colonel sandurz out of the way and pulls down his mask) "lone star!" (thunk)
<copyright owner> hey isp, site such-and-such infringes my copyright. take it down. * isp takes it down <site webmaster> i hereby affirm that site such-and-such does not infringe their copyright. * isp puts it back up <copyright owner> hey isp, site such-and-such infringes my copyright. take it down. <isp> no, the site owner affirmed it doesn't. go sue him. we're out of it.
And I said, "Obie, I can understand you wanting my wallet so I don't have any money to spend in the cell, but what do you want my belt for?" And he said, "Kid, we don't want any hangings." I said, "Obie, did you think I was going to hang myself for littering?"
if memory serves, someone in the lucas camp did say re: episode 1: "you'll have to wait six years to really appreciate this movie".
having been throughly spoiled on ep 3, i now know what he meant.
you had to see the galaxy (and anakin) as they were before the darkness to see how major the changes were:
you had to see the bureaucratically hobbled, glacially slow to act republic to understand why it was even possible for the empire to be born.
you had to see the "whee! now this is podracing!" anakin to truly see how far the fall was to the "i don't 'fear' the dark side... i embrace it" vader. `
episode 1 really cannot stand alone. it is the prologue both to its own trilogy and to the overall saga. the events in it seem minor and unimportant... except that you know what things like 'chancellor palpatine' will lead to. or when qui-gon said, "anakin skywalker... meet obi-wan kenobi"; the entire theater collectively draws a breath at that point because they know where and how these two men will end their friendship and their lives. and that was just with knowing what would happen in 4-6. now that we (are about to) have seen all of it (obi-wan crying out in frustration "you were the chosen one!" from the new trailer sticks in one's head) we can go back to ep 1 and see the shadows forming.
yes, jar-jar is annoying. what, the universe of long ago and far away doesn't have annoying critters? besides, that's the irony - that jar-jar helped palpatine to power. yes, anakin's annoying, whiny, selfish, and clunky in "love scenes" with padme. that's part of his story and part of the reason he could fall to the dark side - palpy plays on his desire to be more powerful and his fear of losing/failing those he cares about.
if anakin were the uber-cool, suave, humble-yet-powerful jedi people seem to want, what could palps offer him to tempt him to the dark side? moreover, why would he accept? the great irony of the star wars story is that anakin falls to evil because of love. because he wants that power so he can keep those he loves with him. and then once he knows he's lost padme forever, he fully accepts his role as darth vader, taking the only power and control he can, in bitterness, guilt and probably not a little self-hatred.
and this is why luke was able to redeem vader. anakin was finally able to save someone - his own son - and not with the dark side of the force, and not even with the force at all, but by merely making a choice, a choice that he probably thought was lost to him forever.
bzzt, sorry, thank you for playing. you could be lying that everything you say is a lie without contradiction. the correct form paradox is "i lie all the time. in fact, i'm lying right now."
> Yes, I do know people who have a ring tone for everyone in their phonebook. Perhaps it is useful to them other than being a fashion statement (since caller ID also identifies incoming callers) but is it really worth paying for?
i have that. granted, i programmed it in, but it was worth the time. sometimes, especially while driving, i can't pull out my phone just to see who's calling. i have it clipped to the shoulder strap of my seatbelt anyway, because otherwise i need three hands to answer the phone - right to mute the radio, left to pluck the phone off my belt, and the other one to steer.
Slashdot Mirror
so the jedi uses the force to push the bullet aside. easy.
"wow. our last day at initech."
... they wanna ban us on capitol hill - cos it's DIE MOTHERFUCKER DIE MOTHERFUCKER DIE STILL...
"can't believe they had security escort us out. like we're going to steal something."
"*beat* i stole something"
"oh yeah. guess we all did."
"no. i stole something else."
"what did you steal?"
"call it... a going away present."
in my room
* p4 1.6 @ 2.24, 1 gig ram, 320 gigs drive - doing gaming and file storage
* k6-2/300, 256 megs ram, 8.4 gigs drive - lin/win98 (classic gaming) dual boot.
* pentium-m (banias) 1.5, 768 ram, 60 gigs drive - doing all the things a laptop does
* tivo
outside my room (housemates' gear)
* duron 1.2, 256 megs ram, 40 gig drives
* athlon 2200, 512, 40
* some hp laptop with a p4 celeron
* tivo #2
in order to conclude anything about what it takes to activate a lightsaber, we need a case of someone attempting to activate one and failing*. until then, we have no evidence of what circumstances could cause such a failure.
* (other than the bit cut from ep1 where obi-wan shorts out his saber by going swimming with it on.)
therefore, i submit that the hypothesis of the 'saber as a purely mechanical device independent of the force explains the observed events of the movies just as well as has the one you have presented, with the added benefit of simplicity.
(yes, han is the father of three force-sensitive children, but their mother happens to be leia (skywalker) organa-solo, so being the grandchildren of anakin "call me vader" skywalker could very easily account for that.)
i understand your logic that "it takes the Force to activate a lightsaber" and "han solo activates a lightsaber" together imply "han solo has some degree of Force sensitivity."
i'm asking for a source to back up the first assertion.
> One, Force Sensitivity. It's pretty clear both from canon and non-canonical sources that Han Solo had it.
cite source?
If the Midichlorian are found in cells, how did
the loss of much of Anakin's body affect his power?
wikipedia has this to say on the subject:
George Lucas states that after all of his limbs were severed and he was extremely burned on Mustafar he lost much of his Force potential. Lucas claims that as Darth Vader, Anakin had roughly 80% the strength of the Emperor. Had he sustained none of his injuries on Mustafar he would have been twice as powerful.
so assume that palpatine is rated 100, with vader post-lava at 80 (basically, toasted torso). with legs and original left arm, anakin would have been either 160 or 200 (source ambiguous - twice as powerful as vader or as the emperor?) with the prior interp, pre-geonosis anakin [with all original parts, buy it now for only GC 4000!] would be at about 190; with the latter, 240.
of course, this need to quantify every aspect of star wars started with the damn midichlorians. (i wish the concept had been not that the Force comes from the midichlors, but that there is some unspecified correlation without implying causation.) luminous beings we are, not this crude matter, and losing body parts should have nothing to do with your connection to the force.
i always figured it was a standing finite improbability field such that light directly above it was tuned.
at the center of the blade, light tends 100% towards the characteristics of a particle; this is the actual cutting core, all those really high energy photons bouncing around.
at the edge, light tends 100% towards the characteristics of a wave, in fact it forms a sort of standing wave that wraps around the outside of the blade. this wave a) accounts for the colored fringe of the blade (since it has a set wavelength, it has a set color) and b) keeps all those high energy particles in.
when the blade hits something, the outer wave is parted, allowing the core to contact said something.
yes, i am aware i've thought this out way too much.
62% is "mostly" to you?
(isr, cowboy slows down YOU!)
it's
(rick moranis tastes the jam) "raspberry... there's only one man who would DARE give me the raspberry..." (camera tracks in as dark helmet pushes colonel sandurz out of the way and pulls down his mask) "lone star!" (thunk)
no, it only happens once.
<copyright owner> hey isp, site such-and-such infringes my copyright. take it down.
* isp takes it down
<site webmaster> i hereby affirm that site such-and-such does not infringe their copyright.
* isp puts it back up
<copyright owner> hey isp, site such-and-such infringes my copyright. take it down.
<isp> no, the site owner affirmed it doesn't. go sue him. we're out of it.
i always liked the "hold alt & type fxfire for some cool fireworks" one.
especially if half the channel played along...
And I said, "Obie, I can understand you wanting my wallet so I don't have any money to spend in the cell, but what do you want my belt for?" And he said, "Kid, we don't want any hangings." I said, "Obie, did you think I was going to hang myself for littering?"
gamma works on a + bi where a <= 0 and b == 0?
er.
if memory serves, factorial(x) is undefined on x (unsigned int) -1 wouldn't take a nice long time...
well, Car Analogies Don't Map Well To Computers. no one will sell you a car with crappy tires.
otoh, people sell computers with crappy psus all the time (because hey, psus don't make big impressive 3.6 gHz for $300 price tags).
no, his statement reads like, "having a tire blowout at 85 on the freeway can kill you, so don't buy cheap tires."
hey! where's my credit?
if memory serves, someone in the lucas camp did say re: episode 1: "you'll have to wait six years to really appreciate this movie".
having been throughly spoiled on ep 3, i now know what he meant.
you had to see the galaxy (and anakin) as they were before the darkness to see how major the changes were:
you had to see the bureaucratically hobbled, glacially slow to act republic to understand why it was even possible for the empire to be born.
you had to see the "whee! now this is podracing!" anakin to truly see how far the fall was to the "i don't 'fear' the dark side... i embrace it" vader. `
episode 1 really cannot stand alone. it is the prologue both to its own trilogy and to the overall saga. the events in it seem minor and unimportant... except that you know what things like 'chancellor palpatine' will lead to. or when qui-gon said, "anakin skywalker... meet obi-wan kenobi"; the entire theater collectively draws a breath at that point because they know where and how these two men will end their friendship and their lives. and that was just with knowing what would happen in 4-6. now that we (are about to) have seen all of it (obi-wan crying out in frustration "you were the chosen one!" from the new trailer sticks in one's head) we can go back to ep 1 and see the shadows forming.
yes, jar-jar is annoying. what, the universe of long ago and far away doesn't have annoying critters? besides, that's the irony - that jar-jar helped palpatine to power. yes, anakin's annoying, whiny, selfish, and clunky in "love scenes" with padme. that's part of his story and part of the reason he could fall to the dark side - palpy plays on his desire to be more powerful and his fear of losing/failing those he cares about.
if anakin were the uber-cool, suave, humble-yet-powerful jedi people seem to want, what could palps offer him to tempt him to the dark side? moreover, why would he accept? the great irony of the star wars story is that anakin falls to evil because of love. because he wants that power so he can keep those he loves with him. and then once he knows he's lost padme forever, he fully accepts his role as darth vader, taking the only power and control he can, in bitterness, guilt and probably not a little self-hatred.
and this is why luke was able to redeem vader. anakin was finally able to save someone - his own son - and not with the dark side of the force, and not even with the force at all, but by merely making a choice, a choice that he probably thought was lost to him forever.
off topic:
free advice: don't bother wasting mod points on ACs. they don't care about negatives and they won't benefit from positives.
unless the object in question is *naturally* pink...
bzzt, sorry, thank you for playing. you could be lying that everything you say is a lie without contradiction. the correct form paradox is "i lie all the time. in fact, i'm lying right now."
> Yes, I do know people who have a ring tone for everyone in their phonebook. Perhaps it is useful to them other than being a fashion statement (since caller ID also identifies incoming callers) but is it really worth paying for?
i have that. granted, i programmed it in, but it was worth the time. sometimes, especially while driving, i can't pull out my phone just to see who's calling. i have it clipped to the shoulder strap of my seatbelt anyway, because otherwise i need three hands to answer the phone - right to mute the radio, left to pluck the phone off my belt, and the other one to steer.
video game ringtones are probably at just the right point of retro-ness and irony to work really well.
i used to have the whistle sound from zelda 1 as my ringtone. short, clean, not an earworm, and distinctive.