"I think actually, it's probably a cheap machine. If you think a Blu-Ray player by itself might be £600-700, and we're coming in at just £425, it's a bargain."
This assumes that people actually want a BluRay player. The market viability of BluRay in general isn't a sure thing.
Either the guy being quoted said it while wincing at having to toe the company line like this ("Of course everybody wants BluRay!"), or there are going to be some unhappy stockholders when they see how many executives are so willing to jump off a cliff like this.
"therefore the steel must have already been melted, as by large amounts of thermite or other unexplained extreme heat sources."
How about you use your much-vaunted math skills and figure out, using your model, how hot the steel would have to be at the time of collapse to still be molten 7 days after the collapse. If you're going to make extraordinary claims, do the math and back up your assertions.
"Ok its strange that you mention thermodynamics, and yet seem to believe that by insulating a mixture of hot and cooler sections of material underground, that parts of it can magically suck all the heat surrounding them in to become hotter than the original peak temperatures."
No, I'm saying that, once buried, there are fewer ways for the heat to escape as it would have done if the building were still standing. As mentioned in the numerous links you pointed to, fires were still burning, and being buried means there was no place else for the heat to go. It work like your typical underground oven, something humans have been using for millenia.
"thats wierd, no where does it mention areas exceeding the initial maximum temperatures, nor "it's easier to get hotter for longer periods of time" (initially cooler sections can and will obviously be heated by nearby hotter sections, thus COOLING the hotter sections and lowering the maximum temperature in/raising the lowest temperature in, i.e, "gradually smoothing", the temperature distribution."
But the entire structure will stay hotter longer than it would if it were exposed to convection or able to radiate heat away.
The way you're talking, the only way to have the steel molten weeks after the collapse is if the building was taken down by nuclear fission.
"As to calculus, I completed 1st year uni calculus 1 and 2 while at high school as extra credit subjects at ballarat university, and got over 90%(and no I never declared myself alpha and omega of anything, just trying to point out im not a "fucking moron")."
That's still less than half of what your typical undergraduate engineering degree requires, and that still doesn't have more than the most basic examination of mechanics. You make unfounded claims about the design of the buildings as well as what a "normal" structural failure looks like, having neither the data nor the experience to back up your claims. If anything, the way you point to your IQ, your unrelated degree, and your "DE for Dummies" coursework as foundation for your claims that run counter to people who do this for a living gives you several points on the Crackpot Index, if not making you a "fucking moron" outright.
"Enough personal attacks, how about dealing with the issue at hand?"
Pointing out your near-complete lack of credentials (or the way you believe they are credentials) isn't an ad hominem attack.
"you have, unfortunately, yet to overcome your brainwashing/conditioning."
You're the one who thinks the images Hollywood has given them of collapsing buildings is the way things are "supposed" to be, and yet I'm the brainwashed one?
"That's funny. World's tallest structures, made out of cards."
It's essentially how it works. You don't just randomly throw I-beams in and hope it stands, you make sure that everything is in tension or compression with not a wit of shear.
Any move that calls itself "WarCraft" that doesn't feature exploding sheep is no better than a "Doom" movie that doesn't involve space marines killing demons from Hell on Mars!
"the empire state building had a plane crash into it:"
A smaller, slower plane, coming in for a landing (i. e. not laden with fuel, and not at full throttle).
"Regardless of this, the building was designed to withstand impacts by aircraft of this size, so it shouldn't (and indeed thats not the official explanation) have been the impact that caused the problem."
Impact in and of itself, perhaps. Impact aggrevated by heat is something else.
No, black indicates a lot of soot, as you'd expect to see from burning plastics (carpeting, office equipment, etc.). You're a Slashdotter, didn't you ever burn things as a kid?
"and burned for 10 hours, yet didn't collapse,"
Heat alone is one thing. Heat aggrevated by impact is something else.
"with only parts not including the inner support section collapsing after burning for hours, as you might expect. Note that the tower, while smaller, had a similar construction to the wtc, being a central support column and perimeter supports,"
Uh... no. The walls of the WTC were load-bearing members. Since you like referencing Wikipedia, here's this
instead of bracing the buildings corner-to-corner or using internal walls, the towers were essentially hollow steel tubes surrounding a strong central core. (...)This method of construction also meant that the twin towers had the world's highest load-bearing walls.
"therefore apart from a hot start and some mild damage to the outer structure (which was not intended for holding up the bulk of the weight of the building but rather to resist torsional forces from wind etc,"
Aside from debunking your "The walls didn't hold up weight" offering in my last paragraph, the planes still went through the buildings, as can be seen in the photos you yourself linked to.
""Bollyn also cites Mark Loizeaux, president of Controlled Demolition Inc. (CDI) of Phoenix, MD, as having seen molten steel in the bottoms of elevator shafts "three, four, and five weeks" after the attack." ok this ones heresay, but still provides slightly more evidence."
As the quote says, weeks after the attack. The collapse of the buildings introduced a new element into the equation: pressure. That, along with a lack of convection cooling under thousands of tons of debris means it's easier to get hotter for longer periods of time.
"even if there wasnt, you have failed to explain why heat expansion or partial loss of strength in the steel supports was enough to cause two world first collapses in minutes of each other,"
Um... because they were near-identical structures subjected to near-identical circumstances?
"flammable gas filled room with reasonable fuel air mix can cause large explosions (class A building, certainly shouldnt have been many unsafe sources of gas for explosions, unless safety regs werent being followed, but you never know), atomised flour or other combustable dust (not a flour silo---check, nope not that)."
How about "Pressure differential between flaming room and non-flaming room becoming violently equallized due to catastrophic failure of walls/fire doors/etc?" All "explosion" means is "Violent change in pressure" and need not involve something combusting in less than a second.
"(watch the video for puffs of debris explosively ejected long before the leading edge of the destructive zone reaches that level)"
Ah, you mean where the windows shattered because the walls around them were warping due to shifting weight in the building, forshadowing its eventual collapse?
"not many can cause the almost complete pulverization of between 200,000 and 500,000(hard to find accurate figure) tonnes of steel, concrete,"
Who said anything about "completely pulverize?" All you need
"I have yet to receive a bill for the miles I put on my sailboat. Is it coming soon?"
The wind comes from fusing hydrogen (putting out heat, heating up the earth's atmosphere non-uniformly, creating weather, etc.). The bill will arrive when the sun goes nova.
"As soon as the power's available, we'll find a way to make it scarce again."
It's not exactly a neck-and-neck race for the title of "Most Abundend Element."
"Just because it's the most abundant thing in the universe doesn't mean there's enough in the local area to do whatever ridiculous engineering thing we're going to end up doing when it comes time to leave the nest and expand past Sol."
Well, before we leave this planet, there's this stuff called "water" that we can crack hydrogen out of, fuse the hydrogen, and still have a net gain of energy.
And if we're going to be leaving Sol any time soon, we'll have to pass this little thing on the way out called "Jupiter." I hear it has a little bit of raw hydrogen.
"Remember also please that the solar wind isn't really that abundant; it's just that the universe is ginormous."
But Jupiter is.
"The bulk of stuff that isn't out in the sticks (galactic style) is in gas giants or stars;"
If you're talking interstellar scales, there are nebulae. Heck, there's enough in those to make Bussard ramjets feasable.
"The lower the cost of energy is, the more important it's going to be that we use focussed high-frequency neutrino beams to light the area under the pen, because it's such a nicer shade of off-white,"
Lay off the Star Trek. Neutrinos will go through the paper, the desk, your legs, the rest of the planet and come out the other side without interacting with anything.
"Remember the buffalo?"
Yes, because every schoolchild knows we used buffalo as a fuel source to power the industrial revolution.
Yeah, but 99.999% of the time this channel will be as interesting to watch as C-SPAN. I doubt you'll find so many people watching the channel at any one time.
"No. Neither of those will tell you which way you're pointing. Both of those tell you where you are (actually, the cellestial version will only tell you where you are with the aid of an accurate clock)."
Uh... no. There's this thing in the night sky called "the North Star." It's always north. It doesn't move, a function of the geographic pole rather than the magnetic one (and the more important of the two). And durning the day, the sun and a calendar can tell you which way is north. Compasses are only really necessary in cloudy weather.
North and south are easy, people figured it out even before the invention of the magnetic compass. The Vikings found North America without a magnetic compass. It's east and west you need a clock for.
"Also, I know I'm in the minority here, but I personally think that the Treasures of Aht Urhgan expansion *stinks*. It's had an easy ride from the player-base, because it added 3 new jobs, which is what people always shout for in expansions."
I haven't bothered unlocking the Aht Urhgan jobs yet, but I can say that I prefer it over the Chains of Promathia expansion simply because I can get there. With CoP, I can go to Carpenter's Landing, I can go to Bibiki Bay, and that's about it, since I don't have the right jobs levelled to get into parties to beat the Promyvion bosses (it's apparently real particular what parties can successfully complete the missions). And the boss fights wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the annoying trip to them through level-capped areas; on my last failed attempt I noticed the goblin footprint near the boss monster and laughed, since you have to go through the insanity of putting together a party just to reach it.
At least with the Aht Urhgan zones I can actually explore and, if I have any problems, I know I can just come back a few levels later and bluster my way through. I'm beginning to doubt I'll ever see the Tavnazian Archipelago.
"Besides, I have a feeling MS is trying to do the same thing Sony did when they launched the Playstation and got Square to release FFVII on it instead of the N64."
As someone who bought an X360 solely to play FFXI, that would be very nice, but we've already seen FFXIII announced as a PS3 exclusive. They're doing re-releases for the DS and some FF spin-offs for other Nintendo consoles, but S-E will keep the FF core on Sony platforms until either a console tanks or Sony hires Yamauchi.
"not true. people don't always want what's cheap and gives them the most for their money."
The "most for the buyer's money" argument only works if the purchaser was going to buy all the separate components anyway.
Besides, either Sony is using the PS3 to sell BluRay or they're using BluRay to sell the PS3; it can't work both ways without violating the First Law of Thermodynamics.
"However, if it turns out that most games are better without the 'chucks, how would Nintendo fan boys justify spending another 200 bucks on a system that is no better than the gamecube they already have?"
My GameCube won't be able to play this new Smash Bros. game. I ultimately buy game systems to play games on.
"This study wasn't looking at which men women would really date - it looked at their reaction to pictures. Whooptefreakingdo."
Getting your foot into the door has nothing to do with dating?
"Perhaps I'm spoiled by having a lot of intelligent female friends, but we're looking for someone to spend time with, not just someone to make a baby with."
TFA says you're actually looking for both, someone "to spend time with" but then somebody else to make a baby with on the side. None of your friends have ever done anything that can be described as this?
Even if not, I have my own anecdotal evidence to counter yours, a friend whose fiance cheated on him and got pregnant; he found out and yet she still managed to convince him to go through with the wedding.
Of course, I also know another guy who went into a very bad marriage solely because of cleavage as well.
Slashdot Mirror
Sony BluRay laptop demo was using a DVD-ROM!
Karl Rove has been indicted!
Everything you read on the intrawebs is the absolute truth!
"I think actually, it's probably a cheap machine. If you think a Blu-Ray player by itself might be £600-700, and we're coming in at just £425, it's a bargain."
This assumes that people actually want a BluRay player. The market viability of BluRay in general isn't a sure thing.
Either the guy being quoted said it while wincing at having to toe the company line like this ("Of course everybody wants BluRay!"), or there are going to be some unhappy stockholders when they see how many executives are so willing to jump off a cliff like this.
"therefore the steel must have already been melted, as by large amounts of thermite or other unexplained extreme heat sources."
How about you use your much-vaunted math skills and figure out, using your model, how hot the steel would have to be at the time of collapse to still be molten 7 days after the collapse. If you're going to make extraordinary claims, do the math and back up your assertions.
"how will bone structure determine regional accent?"
What, you don't think Leonardo spoke Modern English with a thick Japanese accent?
"Ok its strange that you mention thermodynamics, and yet seem to believe that by insulating a mixture of hot and cooler sections of material underground, that parts of it can magically suck all the heat surrounding them in to become hotter than the original peak temperatures."
No, I'm saying that, once buried, there are fewer ways for the heat to escape as it would have done if the building were still standing. As mentioned in the numerous links you pointed to, fires were still burning, and being buried means there was no place else for the heat to go. It work like your typical underground oven, something humans have been using for millenia.
"thats wierd, no where does it mention areas exceeding the initial maximum temperatures, nor "it's easier to get hotter for longer periods of time" (initially cooler sections can and will obviously be heated by nearby hotter sections, thus COOLING the hotter sections and lowering the maximum temperature in/raising the lowest temperature in, i.e, "gradually smoothing", the temperature distribution."
But the entire structure will stay hotter longer than it would if it were exposed to convection or able to radiate heat away.
The way you're talking, the only way to have the steel molten weeks after the collapse is if the building was taken down by nuclear fission.
"As to calculus, I completed 1st year uni calculus 1 and 2 while at high school as extra credit subjects at ballarat university, and got over 90%(and no I never declared myself alpha and omega of anything, just trying to point out im not a "fucking moron")."
That's still less than half of what your typical undergraduate engineering degree requires, and that still doesn't have more than the most basic examination of mechanics. You make unfounded claims about the design of the buildings as well as what a "normal" structural failure looks like, having neither the data nor the experience to back up your claims. If anything, the way you point to your IQ, your unrelated degree, and your "DE for Dummies" coursework as foundation for your claims that run counter to people who do this for a living gives you several points on the Crackpot Index, if not making you a "fucking moron" outright.
"Enough personal attacks, how about dealing with the issue at hand?"
Pointing out your near-complete lack of credentials (or the way you believe they are credentials) isn't an ad hominem attack.
"you have, unfortunately, yet to overcome your brainwashing/conditioning."
You're the one who thinks the images Hollywood has given them of collapsing buildings is the way things are "supposed" to be, and yet I'm the brainwashed one?
"That's funny. World's tallest structures, made out of cards."
It's essentially how it works. You don't just randomly throw I-beams in and hope it stands, you make sure that everything is in tension or compression with not a wit of shear.
No Erector sets when you were a kid?
Any move that calls itself "WarCraft" that doesn't feature exploding sheep is no better than a "Doom" movie that doesn't involve space marines killing demons from Hell on Mars!
A smaller, slower plane, coming in for a landing (i. e. not laden with fuel, and not at full throttle).
"Regardless of this, the building was designed to withstand impacts by aircraft of this size, so it shouldn't (and indeed thats not the official explanation) have been the impact that caused the problem."
Impact in and of itself, perhaps. Impact aggrevated by heat is something else.
"(black indicating low oxygen therefore cooler fires)"
No, black indicates a lot of soot, as you'd expect to see from burning plastics (carpeting, office equipment, etc.). You're a Slashdotter, didn't you ever burn things as a kid?
"and burned for 10 hours, yet didn't collapse,"
Heat alone is one thing. Heat aggrevated by impact is something else.
"with only parts not including the inner support section collapsing after burning for hours, as you might expect. Note that the tower, while smaller, had a similar construction to the wtc, being a central support column and perimeter supports,"
Uh... no. The walls of the WTC were load-bearing members. Since you like referencing Wikipedia, here's this
"therefore apart from a hot start and some mild damage to the outer structure (which was not intended for holding up the bulk of the weight of the building but rather to resist torsional forces from wind etc,"
Aside from debunking your "The walls didn't hold up weight" offering in my last paragraph, the planes still went through the buildings, as can be seen in the photos you yourself linked to.
""Bollyn also cites Mark Loizeaux, president of Controlled Demolition Inc. (CDI) of Phoenix, MD, as having seen molten steel in the bottoms of elevator shafts "three, four, and five weeks" after the attack." ok this ones heresay, but still provides slightly more evidence."
As the quote says, weeks after the attack. The collapse of the buildings introduced a new element into the equation: pressure. That, along with a lack of convection cooling under thousands of tons of debris means it's easier to get hotter for longer periods of time.
"even if there wasnt, you have failed to explain why heat expansion or partial loss of strength in the steel supports was enough to cause two world first collapses in minutes of each other,"
Um... because they were near-identical structures subjected to near-identical circumstances?
"flammable gas filled room with reasonable fuel air mix can cause large explosions (class A building, certainly shouldnt have been many unsafe sources of gas for explosions, unless safety regs werent being followed, but you never know), atomised flour or other combustable dust (not a flour silo---check, nope not that)."
How about "Pressure differential between flaming room and non-flaming room becoming violently equallized due to catastrophic failure of walls/fire doors/etc?" All "explosion" means is "Violent change in pressure" and need not involve something combusting in less than a second.
"(watch the video for puffs of debris explosively ejected long before the leading edge of the destructive zone reaches that level)"
Ah, you mean where the windows shattered because the walls around them were warping due to shifting weight in the building, forshadowing its eventual collapse?
"not many can cause the almost complete pulverization of between 200,000 and 500,000(hard to find accurate figure) tonnes of steel, concrete,"
Who said anything about "completely pulverize?" All you need
Dad? I didn't know you had a Slashdot account...
Y'see, unlike the PS3, the Wiimote still has rumble...
"I have yet to receive a bill for the miles I put on my sailboat. Is it coming soon?"
The wind comes from fusing hydrogen (putting out heat, heating up the earth's atmosphere non-uniformly, creating weather, etc.). The bill will arrive when the sun goes nova.
"As soon as the power's available, we'll find a way to make it scarce again."
It's not exactly a neck-and-neck race for the title of "Most Abundend Element."
"Just because it's the most abundant thing in the universe doesn't mean there's enough in the local area to do whatever ridiculous engineering thing we're going to end up doing when it comes time to leave the nest and expand past Sol."
Well, before we leave this planet, there's this stuff called "water" that we can crack hydrogen out of, fuse the hydrogen, and still have a net gain of energy.
And if we're going to be leaving Sol any time soon, we'll have to pass this little thing on the way out called "Jupiter." I hear it has a little bit of raw hydrogen.
"Remember also please that the solar wind isn't really that abundant; it's just that the universe is ginormous."
But Jupiter is.
"The bulk of stuff that isn't out in the sticks (galactic style) is in gas giants or stars;"
If you're talking interstellar scales, there are nebulae. Heck, there's enough in those to make Bussard ramjets feasable.
"The lower the cost of energy is, the more important it's going to be that we use focussed high-frequency neutrino beams to light the area under the pen, because it's such a nicer shade of off-white,"
Lay off the Star Trek. Neutrinos will go through the paper, the desk, your legs, the rest of the planet and come out the other side without interacting with anything.
"Remember the buffalo?"
Yes, because every schoolchild knows we used buffalo as a fuel source to power the industrial revolution.
"There's a threshold though."
Yeah, but 99.999% of the time this channel will be as interesting to watch as C-SPAN. I doubt you'll find so many people watching the channel at any one time.
"No. Neither of those will tell you which way you're pointing. Both of those tell you where you are (actually, the cellestial version will only tell you where you are with the aid of an accurate clock)."
Uh... no. There's this thing in the night sky called "the North Star." It's always north. It doesn't move, a function of the geographic pole rather than the magnetic one (and the more important of the two). And durning the day, the sun and a calendar can tell you which way is north. Compasses are only really necessary in cloudy weather.
North and south are easy, people figured it out even before the invention of the magnetic compass. The Vikings found North America without a magnetic compass. It's east and west you need a clock for.
"There is no perpetual motion energy source."
Perhaps, but when your fuel source is the most abundant substance in the universe, there's "close enough for engineering purposes."
"Where is the balancing "bad" for fusion energy?"
You seem to be confusing thermodynamics with kharma.
"Exactly. The interface was painful. I couldn't use the mouse for 90% of the things I wanted to use it for."
Not a Linux fan, are we?
"Also, I know I'm in the minority here, but I personally think that the Treasures of Aht Urhgan expansion *stinks*. It's had an easy ride from the player-base, because it added 3 new jobs, which is what people always shout for in expansions."
I haven't bothered unlocking the Aht Urhgan jobs yet, but I can say that I prefer it over the Chains of Promathia expansion simply because I can get there. With CoP, I can go to Carpenter's Landing, I can go to Bibiki Bay, and that's about it, since I don't have the right jobs levelled to get into parties to beat the Promyvion bosses (it's apparently real particular what parties can successfully complete the missions). And the boss fights wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the annoying trip to them through level-capped areas; on my last failed attempt I noticed the goblin footprint near the boss monster and laughed, since you have to go through the insanity of putting together a party just to reach it.
At least with the Aht Urhgan zones I can actually explore and, if I have any problems, I know I can just come back a few levels later and bluster my way through. I'm beginning to doubt I'll ever see the Tavnazian Archipelago.
"Besides, I have a feeling MS is trying to do the same thing Sony did when they launched the Playstation and got Square to release FFVII on it instead of the N64."
As someone who bought an X360 solely to play FFXI, that would be very nice, but we've already seen FFXIII announced as a PS3 exclusive. They're doing re-releases for the DS and some FF spin-offs for other Nintendo consoles, but S-E will keep the FF core on Sony platforms until either a console tanks or Sony hires Yamauchi.
They had fetish clubs back then, too?
"not true. people don't always want what's cheap and gives them the most for their money."
The "most for the buyer's money" argument only works if the purchaser was going to buy all the separate components anyway.
Besides, either Sony is using the PS3 to sell BluRay or they're using BluRay to sell the PS3; it can't work both ways without violating the First Law of Thermodynamics.
"Hudson is behind the TurboGrafx-16."
Access to every Bomberman game ever made on any console ever.
Just add keg.
Other ideas for "Wii" quotes include:
Wii will rock you
Wii will bury you
Wii be jammin'
Wii're not gonna take it
Wii hold these truths to be self-evident...
"Wednesday top House Republicans announced a bill to make 'social' Web sites unreachable from schools and libraries."
So you're trying to propose a federal law to restrict what can be done from state institutions?
I'm glad the GOP is out there preserving states' rights!
"However, if it turns out that most games are better without the 'chucks, how would Nintendo fan boys justify spending another 200 bucks on a system that is no better than the gamecube they already have?"
My GameCube won't be able to play this new Smash Bros. game. I ultimately buy game systems to play games on.
"This study wasn't looking at which men women would really date - it looked at their reaction to pictures. Whooptefreakingdo."
Getting your foot into the door has nothing to do with dating?
"Perhaps I'm spoiled by having a lot of intelligent female friends, but we're looking for someone to spend time with, not just someone to make a baby with."
TFA says you're actually looking for both, someone "to spend time with" but then somebody else to make a baby with on the side. None of your friends have ever done anything that can be described as this?
Even if not, I have my own anecdotal evidence to counter yours, a friend whose fiance cheated on him and got pregnant; he found out and yet she still managed to convince him to go through with the wedding.
Of course, I also know another guy who went into a very bad marriage solely because of cleavage as well.