The Shuttle stack limits acceleration to about 3G, the SatV at that point to about 4G. Center engine shutdown is well past Max Q at about 2 minutes 15 seconds, where the acceleration is approaching 4G. The outboard engines continue to burn for another 25 or so seconds beyond that. The SRBs only burn for 2 minutes.
But this is where we get back to my point about the Shuttle and the Saturn V being just different. The Space Shuttle roars off the pad with a thrust-to-weight of 1.74:1. The Saturn V, on the other hand, limps off with a meager 1.18:1 ratio. To make up for the difference (mostly caused by too much weight and not enough thrust early on) it has to thrust for harder, longer. The shuttle, OTOH, has a much smoother curve with overall lower G forces. (Which was more or less your point.)
In other words, we can reasonably compare engine powers and weight, but comparing actual flight patterns of the total systems gets very complex. Any way you cut it, though, the Shuttle is a massive technological advancement over the Saturn V. It's more efficient, has more powerful engines, can carry more weight, and eliminates many of the known issues with the Saturn V. Which is a good thing. You'd expect the engineers to learn from their work.:-)
Maybe not. But I find it hilarious. (In a sort of contorted way.):-P
Anyway, I *am* thinking of the Odyssy 2, not the Odyssy^2. Two different machines.
The Odyssy 2 came with screen overlays, two controllers, and a light-rifle. It had verticle, horizontal, and english controllers.
You're describing the Odyssey. (Why do you keep dropping the 'e', BTW? Is that some sort of British thing?) After that there was the improved versions known as the Odyssey 200 through the Odyssey 3000. The only other machine in the line was the Odyssey^2, sometimes referred to as the "Odyssey 2". I really have no idea why you're appending the '2' to the name of your original Odyssey machine.:-)
Obviously you didn't hear about the former Microsoft manager who accidently let a little too much info slip on his blog.
Google is the LAST place that would hire this guy. The reason why we never know what they're doing is because Google employees don't talk about Google. Period.
If you read the rules, you'll find that Sourceforge doesn't allow Linux distributions. (Or operating systems for that matter.) According to their site, the specific issue isn't the size, but rather the amount of redundant data each OS creates. Sourceforge would much rather host the individual projects for the OS and let other sites host the distributions. That way they don't end up carrying three hundred plus copies of GLIBC. (All incompatible with each other.)
hawk, who has an Odessy 2, whose "programming" cards rewired the discrete logic of the machine.
And you call me a n00b. The cards you're thinking of were for the original Oddessy made by Ralph Baer. The Oddessy^2 had actual ROM cartidges. Not to mention that it post-dated the Atari 2600.
If you really want old school, I set you up with a Coleco Telestar. The one with the lightgun even.
The result of the conversation was that a rank system could be implemented similar to that of the Military ranks. Rather than working your way up some sort of point system, you'd get your promotions directly from your CO. (That's Commanding Officer for those of you who aren't familiar with the term.) High ranks would be seeded by the "Admiralty" (i.e. The people running the game), thus kicking things off. And if you really don't want to follow the whole rank system, you can always privateer.
At least, it seems to work in the context of Star Trek and military SciFi. YMMV elsewhere.:-)
I loved the cutscenes, just not the options. Taking your example with Racheal. If you made her mad, that would just pave the way for going out with the greasemonkey. Not exactly an earth-shattering choice. In WCIV, however, you had to make a choice in the cockpit as to whether or not you'll fire on Eisen. If you do, you follow the Lexington thread. If you don't, you follow the blow-up-the-Lexington thread. That's a nice option. Very seamless.
The ability to chose the Intrepid's missions was also a nice touch, but was kind of forced from a story perspective.
At least the stuff that happens in E.T. bears some resemblance to the movie... I don't remember any tsetse flies or parachuting in the raiders movies:)
*raises eyebrow*
You mean that E.T. spent the whole movie falling into holes? I must have missed that part.:-P
My friend list? I seriously doubt that. There are very few people I bother to mark that way, and the ones I do tend to stay. I don't really use it as anything other than a reminder that "hey, this person had some good thoughts."
I assume that most people friend or foe me to modify the score at which they view my posts. (Though I believe some do it just for the notifications of new journal entries.)
Mod parent up. Even this idea that a 2D game can't be a hit is just nonsense. Many gamers are screaming for another adventure game (e.g. Monkey Island, The Dig, A Final Unity, etc.) and 2D gameboy games still sell like there's no tomorrow.
3D was and still is a very cool technology. But it isn't anywhere near the be all to end all of video gaming.
Indie games have been doing this for a LONG time. Most of their games have built-in highscore routines to sync up scores with the server. Sites like AtariAge run online competitions for high scores. Heck, even the game I linked to in my sig solicits high scores.
The biggest problem is that it's no longer an arcade rivalry. You're not fighting with that one other guy who comes into the arcade every day. You're fighting with everyone in the world. And no matter how good you are, there's almost always someone way better out there. Which means that you're already defeated before you even start. There's no way you can touch some of those high scores.
At least with the Indies, some of them develop small communities around the game, keeping the competition intense. As soon as the floodgates are open, though, there's no real point in competing.
The problem here is the quality of the games in general (like with everything in the entertainment industry these days) is horrid. Quick rehashed sequels of popular games are being released more often then original game content.
I was just playing a boxing game on the XBox 360 at a local game store the other day. I could have sworn that it was just an update of the Activision Boxing game for the Atari 2600, but with photo-realistic THREE-DEE graphics and a voice announcer. Nice features to have, but not really a major improvement. Worse yet, the whole thing played like it was in slow motion.
With all the power in a system like the XBox 360, one would expect gameplay would be continuing to push the limits, not devolving. I mean, Street Fighter II was more intereting than this game.:-/
(Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm about to get creamed by responses that the game is the "best game EVAR n00b!")
Understood, but I did clarify that in the reply to his first reply:
You can put as much thick, clear plastic between the screen and the user as the optics will reasonably allow. It simply doesn't matter to the interface.
Perhaps he misread that part, but I did clarify.
In an odd twist of events, it looks like he's friended me. *shrug*:-)
Wing Commander: Gives you your mission briefing, updates you on the latest scuttlebutt, advances the story, rates your performance, hands out promotions, and advances the story. All in the cutscenes.:-)
That being said, I hated their "choose from a list of really bad responses" thing that they added to later games. If a choice has to be made, make it in flight, not in the cutscene. Doing it in the cutscene just halts the action and reminds you that you're in a video game.
I don't object to cut scenes at all, as long as they don't become the game.
Agreed. I like to think of cutscenes as my tasty reward for completing missions. I've never understood why players think they're a "problem". Of course, a crappy game won't let you skip the cutscenes, and an even crappier game is nothing but cutscenes. But in those cases players need to understand that it's the game that's crappy, not the idea of cutscenes.
Wow you don't really get it do you? That is at launch. As fuel is burned the rocket will get lighter.
No, everyone here but you gets it. If the rockets were launched in a vacuum, you'd be right. But for a launch, you're completely ignoring the factors of Gravity Drag, Aerodynamic Drag, and Engine Efficiency. Which is downright laughable since you mention the engine efficiencies as if they support your point!
You MUST get the rocket above the effects of aerodynamic drag as quickly as possible, otherwise you're going to be expending your rocket's energy against the atmosphere. You must also get your rocket the hell off the ground as fast as possible, otherwise you'll be wasting energy by fighting gravity. Remember, for every second of your burn, you're losing 9.8 meters per second per second of velocity. At a 1.5 or higher ratio, you'll gain your Delta-V far faster than gravity can rob you of it. At a 1.1 ratio, gravity will kill your fuel efficiency. Dead. From here:
When applying delta-v against gravity to increase specific orbital energy, it is advantageous to spend delta-v at as high speed as possible, rather than spending some, being decelerated by gravity, then spending some more, or spending it at less than full capacity. Gravity drag can be described as the extra delta-v needed because of not being able to spend all the needed delta-v instantaneously.
This effect can be explained in two equivalent ways:
* The specific energy gained per unit delta-v is equal to the speed, so spend the delta-v when the rocket is going fast; in the case of being decelerated by gravity this means as soon as possible.
* It is wasteful to lift fuel unnecessarily: use it right away, and then the rocket does not have to lift it.
It isn't until orbital velocity that the 9.8 meters per second per second works in your favor by drawing you toward the earth, but with enough lateral velocity to miss it completely.
Modern rockets DO NOT need aerodynamic forces for flight control.
They do if they can't overcome their own weight. You've got a large tower being balanced only by the gimballing of its lower boosters. If you don't transmit enough force throughout the structure fast enough, its own weight WILL bring it down.
1.5:1 is typical so you have a little extra thrust for vectoring and control.
And here again, you say it, but it doesn't click. If you don't have enough thrust for vectoring and control, how exactly do you expect the vehicle to remain in the air?
I've told you twice now that the touch sensors for the DISPLAY can be overlayed above the plastic. What is so hard to understand about that? Here, I'll even draw you a little ASCII diagram:
There's nothing magical in the LCD that makes the touch sensors work. Just in case that's not percolating, there's nothing magical in the LCD that makes the touch sensors work. The sensors that make a touch screen work are overlayed on top of the screen or whatever protection it uses to protect the screen. There are even touch keypads that allow you to punch in numbers through thick glass. (This is used in some security systems to prevent access to the keypad itself, while still allowing the owner to punch in his code by just tapping at the glass.)
Indeed. Undervolting from Rayovac's rechargables is what killed my wife's first MP3 player. It would sort-of work, but only with those batteries. Every time we changed the batteries, we then had to mess with it until it would power on again. In the long run, it just wasn't worth the hassle. The Shuffle can be plugged into the computer at night or when changing music. My life has been easier ever since.
There is no way Jobs would allow a design where the screen was covered with hard plastic save for a big circular hole in one end.
Say what? You do realize that the touch sensors are independent from the screen itself, right? You can put as much thick, clear plastic between the screen and the user as the optics will reasonably allow. It simply doesn't matter to the interface.
Embedding the screen a bit deeper has a lot of advantages in increasing the durability and life of the unit. If the entire interface is going to be a screen, then I see little reason why you *wouldn't* want the extra protection. Since the touch sensors have to sit reasonably close to the surface (in some cases *on* the surface), I'm afraid that they'll be more vulnerable than the screen, however.
So in short, there's no need for "a big circular hole". (Wherever that came from.)
Hopefully the screen will be a lot more durable than the current video one
With any luck, they'll embed it behind strong, scratch-resistent plastic. While the touch sensors would still be vulnerable (hey, you can't have everything) that would at least allow the screen to take some serious abuse.
Slashdot Mirror
The Shuttle stack limits acceleration to about 3G, the SatV at that point to about 4G. Center engine shutdown is well past Max Q at about 2 minutes 15 seconds, where the acceleration is approaching 4G. The outboard engines continue to burn for another 25 or so seconds beyond that. The SRBs only burn for 2 minutes.
:-)
But this is where we get back to my point about the Shuttle and the Saturn V being just different. The Space Shuttle roars off the pad with a thrust-to-weight of 1.74:1. The Saturn V, on the other hand, limps off with a meager 1.18:1 ratio. To make up for the difference (mostly caused by too much weight and not enough thrust early on) it has to thrust for harder, longer. The shuttle, OTOH, has a much smoother curve with overall lower G forces. (Which was more or less your point.)
In other words, we can reasonably compare engine powers and weight, but comparing actual flight patterns of the total systems gets very complex. Any way you cut it, though, the Shuttle is a massive technological advancement over the Saturn V. It's more efficient, has more powerful engines, can carry more weight, and eliminates many of the known issues with the Saturn V. Which is a good thing. You'd expect the engineers to learn from their work.
No, I'd never use dorktype . . .
:-P
:-)
Maybe not. But I find it hilarious. (In a sort of contorted way.)
Anyway, I *am* thinking of the Odyssy 2, not the Odyssy^2. Two different machines.
The Odyssy 2 came with screen overlays, two controllers, and a light-rifle. It had verticle, horizontal, and english controllers.
You're describing the Odyssey. (Why do you keep dropping the 'e', BTW? Is that some sort of British thing?) After that there was the improved versions known as the Odyssey 200 through the Odyssey 3000. The only other machine in the line was the Odyssey^2, sometimes referred to as the "Odyssey 2". I really have no idea why you're appending the '2' to the name of your original Odyssey machine.
Odyssey FAQ
Wow. I wonder if Google will hire him.
Obviously you didn't hear about the former Microsoft manager who accidently let a little too much info slip on his blog.
Google is the LAST place that would hire this guy. The reason why we never know what they're doing is because Google employees don't talk about Google. Period.
If you read the rules, you'll find that Sourceforge doesn't allow Linux distributions. (Or operating systems for that matter.) According to their site, the specific issue isn't the size, but rather the amount of redundant data each OS creates. Sourceforge would much rather host the individual projects for the OS and let other sites host the distributions. That way they don't end up carrying three hundred plus copies of GLIBC. (All incompatible with each other.)
hawk, who has an Odessy 2, whose "programming" cards rewired the discrete logic of the machine.
And you call me a n00b. The cards you're thinking of were for the original Oddessy made by Ralph Baer. The Oddessy^2 had actual ROM cartidges. Not to mention that it post-dated the Atari 2600.
If you really want old school, I set you up with a Coleco Telestar. The one with the lightgun even.
N00b.
Get enough Karma and you'll automatically post at +2.
:-P
N00b.
I play Gemstone, an older (to put it lightly) text-based MMORPG.
Dude. That's a MUD, not an MMORPG. I know the basic concept is the same, but the two *are* considered to be quite different.
Now that you mention it, I do believe we did.
:-)
The result of the conversation was that a rank system could be implemented similar to that of the Military ranks. Rather than working your way up some sort of point system, you'd get your promotions directly from your CO. (That's Commanding Officer for those of you who aren't familiar with the term.) High ranks would be seeded by the "Admiralty" (i.e. The people running the game), thus kicking things off. And if you really don't want to follow the whole rank system, you can always privateer.
At least, it seems to work in the context of Star Trek and military SciFi. YMMV elsewhere.
I loved the cutscenes, just not the options. Taking your example with Racheal. If you made her mad, that would just pave the way for going out with the greasemonkey. Not exactly an earth-shattering choice. In WCIV, however, you had to make a choice in the cockpit as to whether or not you'll fire on Eisen. If you do, you follow the Lexington thread. If you don't, you follow the blow-up-the-Lexington thread. That's a nice option. Very seamless.
The ability to chose the Intrepid's missions was also a nice touch, but was kind of forced from a story perspective.
At least the stuff that happens in E.T. bears some resemblance to the movie... I don't remember any tsetse flies or parachuting in the raiders movies :)
:-P
*raises eyebrow*
You mean that E.T. spent the whole movie falling into holes? I must have missed that part.
Pick a niche style/mode if you want to have a moment of fame for yourself too :)
Orchid owns. You've got to love when the arcade comes by to see you whip out a 50 hit combo. Not to mention the Ultra Combo finisher.
(If you don't know what game I'm talking about, you wouldn't understand anyway.)
* AKAImBatman defends himself by pitching hundreds of 2600 cartridges at eno2001's head
"Had enough yet?! I've got E.T. and I'm not afraid to use it!"
My friend list? I seriously doubt that. There are very few people I bother to mark that way, and the ones I do tend to stay. I don't really use it as anything other than a reminder that "hey, this person had some good thoughts."
I assume that most people friend or foe me to modify the score at which they view my posts. (Though I believe some do it just for the notifications of new journal entries.)
Mod parent up. Even this idea that a 2D game can't be a hit is just nonsense. Many gamers are screaming for another adventure game (e.g. Monkey Island, The Dig, A Final Unity, etc.) and 2D gameboy games still sell like there's no tomorrow.
3D was and still is a very cool technology. But it isn't anywhere near the be all to end all of video gaming.
Indie games have been doing this for a LONG time. Most of their games have built-in highscore routines to sync up scores with the server. Sites like AtariAge run online competitions for high scores. Heck, even the game I linked to in my sig solicits high scores.
The biggest problem is that it's no longer an arcade rivalry. You're not fighting with that one other guy who comes into the arcade every day. You're fighting with everyone in the world. And no matter how good you are, there's almost always someone way better out there. Which means that you're already defeated before you even start. There's no way you can touch some of those high scores.
At least with the Indies, some of them develop small communities around the game, keeping the competition intense. As soon as the floodgates are open, though, there's no real point in competing.
The problem here is the quality of the games in general (like with everything in the entertainment industry these days) is horrid. Quick rehashed sequels of popular games are being released more often then original game content.
:-/
I was just playing a boxing game on the XBox 360 at a local game store the other day. I could have sworn that it was just an update of the Activision Boxing game for the Atari 2600, but with photo-realistic THREE-DEE graphics and a voice announcer. Nice features to have, but not really a major improvement. Worse yet, the whole thing played like it was in slow motion.
With all the power in a system like the XBox 360, one would expect gameplay would be continuing to push the limits, not devolving. I mean, Street Fighter II was more intereting than this game.
(Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm about to get creamed by responses that the game is the "best game EVAR n00b!")
Understood, but I did clarify that in the reply to his first reply:
:-)
You can put as much thick, clear plastic between the screen and the user as the optics will reasonably allow. It simply doesn't matter to the interface.
Perhaps he misread that part, but I did clarify.
In an odd twist of events, it looks like he's friended me. *shrug*
They can have my used Atari 7800, Gameboy Color, and all the games that go with them when they pry them from my cold, dead, fingers!
Wing Commander: Gives you your mission briefing, updates you on the latest scuttlebutt, advances the story, rates your performance, hands out promotions, and advances the story. All in the cutscenes. :-)
That being said, I hated their "choose from a list of really bad responses" thing that they added to later games. If a choice has to be made, make it in flight, not in the cutscene. Doing it in the cutscene just halts the action and reminds you that you're in a video game.
I don't object to cut scenes at all, as long as they don't become the game.
Agreed. I like to think of cutscenes as my tasty reward for completing missions. I've never understood why players think they're a "problem". Of course, a crappy game won't let you skip the cutscenes, and an even crappier game is nothing but cutscenes. But in those cases players need to understand that it's the game that's crappy, not the idea of cutscenes.
No, everyone here but you gets it. If the rockets were launched in a vacuum, you'd be right. But for a launch, you're completely ignoring the factors of Gravity Drag, Aerodynamic Drag, and Engine Efficiency. Which is downright laughable since you mention the engine efficiencies as if they support your point!
You MUST get the rocket above the effects of aerodynamic drag as quickly as possible, otherwise you're going to be expending your rocket's energy against the atmosphere. You must also get your rocket the hell off the ground as fast as possible, otherwise you'll be wasting energy by fighting gravity. Remember, for every second of your burn, you're losing 9.8 meters per second per second of velocity. At a 1.5 or higher ratio, you'll gain your Delta-V far faster than gravity can rob you of it. At a 1.1 ratio, gravity will kill your fuel efficiency. Dead. From here:
It isn't until orbital velocity that the 9.8 meters per second per second works in your favor by drawing you toward the earth, but with enough lateral velocity to miss it completely.
Modern rockets DO NOT need aerodynamic forces for flight control.
They do if they can't overcome their own weight. You've got a large tower being balanced only by the gimballing of its lower boosters. If you don't transmit enough force throughout the structure fast enough, its own weight WILL bring it down.
1.5:1 is typical so you have a little extra thrust for vectoring and control.
And here again, you say it, but it doesn't click. If you don't have enough thrust for vectoring and control, how exactly do you expect the vehicle to remain in the air?
I've told you twice now that the touch sensors for the DISPLAY can be overlayed above the plastic. What is so hard to understand about that? Here, I'll even draw you a little ASCII diagram:There's nothing magical in the LCD that makes the touch sensors work. Just in case that's not percolating, there's nothing magical in the LCD that makes the touch sensors work. The sensors that make a touch screen work are overlayed on top of the screen or whatever protection it uses to protect the screen. There are even touch keypads that allow you to punch in numbers through thick glass. (This is used in some security systems to prevent access to the keypad itself, while still allowing the owner to punch in his code by just tapping at the glass.)
Now go stand in the corner and read how touch screens work.
Those 15min recharge batteries only run at 1.2V.
Indeed. Undervolting from Rayovac's rechargables is what killed my wife's first MP3 player. It would sort-of work, but only with those batteries. Every time we changed the batteries, we then had to mess with it until it would power on again. In the long run, it just wasn't worth the hassle. The Shuffle can be plugged into the computer at night or when changing music. My life has been easier ever since.
There is no way Jobs would allow a design where the screen was covered with hard plastic save for a big circular hole in one end.
Say what? You do realize that the touch sensors are independent from the screen itself, right? You can put as much thick, clear plastic between the screen and the user as the optics will reasonably allow. It simply doesn't matter to the interface.
Embedding the screen a bit deeper has a lot of advantages in increasing the durability and life of the unit. If the entire interface is going to be a screen, then I see little reason why you *wouldn't* want the extra protection. Since the touch sensors have to sit reasonably close to the surface (in some cases *on* the surface), I'm afraid that they'll be more vulnerable than the screen, however.
So in short, there's no need for "a big circular hole". (Wherever that came from.)
Hopefully the screen will be a lot more durable than the current video one
With any luck, they'll embed it behind strong, scratch-resistent plastic. While the touch sensors would still be vulnerable (hey, you can't have everything) that would at least allow the screen to take some serious abuse.