Bring tradeable items. Paper money won't be worth anything if the computer systems that keep track of the country's financial system aren't operational.
I feel much safer now, I'd only need to send my hard drive to someone who can do direct data recovery off of the platters. That doesn't cost much;-)
Sarcasm aside, I've seen hard drive electronics get cooked by power supply failures. It's expensive as hell to recover data off a hard drive if the drive electronics are cooked. If this happened to a lot of people at once, the companies that do such work would be massively overwhelmed - assuming they weren't dealing with their own failures.
A "generation" seems to be whatever the popular media defines it as.
Technically a "generation" is born every (second/minute/hour/day/month/year insert your own definition here).
It's not like people are born in cycles*!
Sorry, but this is one of the completely silly social/cultural assumptions that make me wonder about the intelligence of humans en masse. "Generations" as applied to cycles of birth and death really only applies to lab cultures or completely closed and/or controlled systems of organisms, and even that becomes meaningless after a few iterations. Even within the same controlled set of the same species not all the members will reproduce at the same rate or the same times, variation ensues.
* The term "baby boomers" is bandied around a lot. Sure, there was an increase in births during/after WWII. As a measure of social and cultural memes a half a century later it's rather meaningless, especially given the non-linear increase in population even in the US. Economists go on and on about it, especially wrt Social Security, but the reality is that the birth rate in this country has been decreasing steadily since then. 20-25 years? Who says? It's a silly, meaningless definition.
The trillion star figure was for the "thruster" drive, which humanity had purchased rights to already as of Louis Wu's time (note that Beowulf Shaeffer's bribery price, hundreds of years earlier, for hiding useless information about tides/Puppeteer worlds from humanity was a million stars, so a trillion stars doesn't seem that much in comparison hundreds of years later) - (note also that as of Wu's time humanity was building thruster capable ships)
What the puppeteers purchased was not just a reactionless, inertialess drive that could move spacecraft, but one that could move entire planets, and that required no energy input from the outside (read the Worlds series that Niven wrote later on, recommended!) - it apparently drew energy from the fabric of the universe itself.
With a disclaimer that this would need propagation of gravitational disturbances into and from distant future!
Not necessarily - if gravity propagates at the speed of light, you'd still have the rest of the universe affecting your particular relativistic frame, just not the rest of the universe as it *currently* is;-)
Yeah, the mass would still be there. It would however break conservation of momentum, unless you can figure out how to translate and dump the energy you'd accumulate elsewhere. (which still technically breaks conservation of momentum unless you are dumping the energy outside the system)
seems likely to function as a way to transfer thrust evenly from the engines to the matter of the ship, crew, cargo, etc.
I see what you were trying to say, but the (material) structure of the ship would do the same thing. I've always assumed that inertial compensation is something that acts on the structure of the ship to reduce or eliminate the effects of acceleration. Artificial gravity isn't really the same thing, but if one figures out how to accomplish the first, the second would likely follow.
I'll add my thoughts after the years of watching the shows:
Photon torpedoes antimatter weapons, yes. But the mechanism by which they transfer momentum to the ship is via 1)the hard radiation front, which upon being deflected by the shields (or absorbed by the hull) transfers it's energy as momentum to the rest of the ship; and 2) a hard particle front produced by the vaporized (but not converted to energy) structure of the torpedo itself - this would consist of protons, neutrons, and other subatomic particles traveling at very close to the speed of light right behind the radiation front, the particle front would contain enormous momentum.
The inertial damping system/gravity control has a time lag in responding to momentum changes of the ship. It can compensate for accelerations it is already programmed to compensate for - such as when the ship accelerates, it ramps up to compensate for the acceleration - but not for shockwaves or other accelerations it can't "predict". The time lag would make sense if the grav control/inertial damping system requires a tremendous amount of energy to operate and change state, any changes in it's state would mean the system has to build sufficient power in it's mechanisms. (by "change state" I mean to alter it's field thruout the ship, not in the classical physics or chemistry sense)
Control consoles exploding, etc: EMP, like you said, but it can't be completely deflected by the shields, and some of it produces inductive currents in the ship's electronic systems, much like a solar storm does with electrical grids. The longer the control run or wiring, the larger the inductive effect, which would explain why the bridge tends to get hit harder (I'd expect the actual main computer systems and engineering systems to be very well shielded)
Remember that the shields *must be* in some way coupled to the shield generators, and hence to the rest of the ship's structure. This works whether the shields are electromagnetic or gravitic in nature.
Yeah, it's still hand waving:) I haven't read the book(books?) about the physics of star trek yet, so I'm not sure what they have to say, these are just my thoughts.
The "woosh" is, of course, only in the viewer's head;-)
I'm waiting for someone to use a tightly rolled bunch of political pamphlets to beat a politician to death. If you roll enough of them tightly enough, it'd be almost as hard as a lead pipe.
THEN we'll see some real fun;-)
(thanks for George Carlin for the idea (Sunday New York Times skit), but the alterations are mine)
Ah, thanks, that gives me a start. What I am really looking for is an icon that users can click on that turns autorun off if it's on, turns it on if it's off. I suspect that'll require a third party app...
I really need to sit down and research this, but it hasn't been enough of a problem for me to spend the time. Not yet, anyway.
I'm not sure what you meant by your first sentence - I have no personal deities, not even the universe or reality - but the rest of your post is very well said and deserves an insightful moderation.
I have my doubts about whether human beings - or any intelligence that exists within this reality - can ever fully comprehend what they exist within. There are likely hard limits to what an intelligence within a system can learn about that system - of course it may be possible that said intelligence can learn enough to go beyond the bounds of that system, but we as a species are a long, long way away from that at this point in time. We don't even understand enough about our own POV of the system to make it possible to teach others about it...
That's convoluted and horrible but I'm too mentally exhausted right now to try and rewrite it a dozen times...
That's... hell, I can't even figure out what you are trying to say. My signature was out of place? Where else is it supposed to go?
You might want to work on your reading comprehension - in no part of my post did I actually call the AC an idiot;-) A child, yes... as literary critiques go, that one was devoid of any real content.
Come on now. Cory Doctorow "parroting what the community wants to hear"? What community? The SF "community" (like SF writers and readers are part of some vast hive mind). Sheesus. The AC's post was beyond stupid.
You seem to have something backwards, if I understand your post correctly. The Reps are the ones who have been trying to remove gov reg on industries like that, the Dems want more.
Of course the line between the parties is blurring more and more...
However, I wasn't talking about removing gov regs - as far as my political beliefs go, I'm a rational anarchist in the Heinlein sense, however I do support gov regulation of industry, mostly because the gov is the only power that can force greedy asshats to clean up their own shit and behave like civilized human beings. That of course is assuming the government isn't run by the asshats;-)
In any case my post was meant more as a commentary on political commentary, as it were; it seems that this is the way things go in political "discussions" and it brought to my mind what Churchill said about democracies.
I like High Guy's Law - it works, as well, and is so very, very true...
Hopefully will have some holes in them, this time. I won't hold my breath - even if the people ultimately responsible are taken to task, it'll likely be decades before the lawyers sort it out, and the lawyers will, as the last few decades of history in this country prove, be the only real beneficiaries.
Slashdot Mirror
Parent should be modded informative, that's exactly what the real problem is.
I'll add that it's nearly impossible for utilities to get any sort of damage insurance for this problem.
SB
Bring tradeable items. Paper money won't be worth anything if the computer systems that keep track of the country's financial system aren't operational.
SB
I feel much safer now, I'd only need to send my hard drive to someone who can do direct data recovery off of the platters. That doesn't cost much ;-)
Sarcasm aside, I've seen hard drive electronics get cooked by power supply failures. It's expensive as hell to recover data off a hard drive if the drive electronics are cooked. If this happened to a lot of people at once, the companies that do such work would be massively overwhelmed - assuming they weren't dealing with their own failures.
SB
A "generation" seems to be whatever the popular media defines it as.
Technically a "generation" is born every (second/minute/hour/day/month/year insert your own definition here).
It's not like people are born in cycles*!
Sorry, but this is one of the completely silly social/cultural assumptions that make me wonder about the intelligence of humans en masse. "Generations" as applied to cycles of birth and death really only applies to lab cultures or completely closed and/or controlled systems of organisms, and even that becomes meaningless after a few iterations. Even within the same controlled set of the same species not all the members will reproduce at the same rate or the same times, variation ensues.
* The term "baby boomers" is bandied around a lot. Sure, there was an increase in births during/after WWII. As a measure of social and cultural memes a half a century later it's rather meaningless, especially given the non-linear increase in population even in the US. Economists go on and on about it, especially wrt Social Security, but the reality is that the birth rate in this country has been decreasing steadily since then. 20-25 years? Who says? It's a silly, meaningless definition.
SB
Even if it is possible to reduce the effect of inertia on the macro scale, the energy requirements are likely going to be enormous.
SB
Not trying to be pedantic, but the word is "predictions" and not "prescriptions" ;-)
SB
allowing those to be independent would violate the conservation laws
It would violate conservation of momentum, but not conservation of mass, is that not so? No mass is unaccounted for, but some momentum is.
SB
The maximum velocity for any spacecraft is not 0.1 C, it's dependent on the velocity of the exhaust (specific impulse) and more.
Here's a fairly good article for laymen.
SB
The trillion star figure was for the "thruster" drive, which humanity had purchased rights to already as of Louis Wu's time (note that Beowulf Shaeffer's bribery price, hundreds of years earlier, for hiding useless information about tides/Puppeteer worlds from humanity was a million stars, so a trillion stars doesn't seem that much in comparison hundreds of years later) - (note also that as of Wu's time humanity was building thruster capable ships)
What the puppeteers purchased was not just a reactionless, inertialess drive that could move spacecraft, but one that could move entire planets, and that required no energy input from the outside (read the Worlds series that Niven wrote later on, recommended!) - it apparently drew energy from the fabric of the universe itself.
Why, yes, I am a Niven fan, why do you ask? :-)
SB
With a disclaimer that this would need propagation of gravitational disturbances into and from distant future!
Not necessarily - if gravity propagates at the speed of light, you'd still have the rest of the universe affecting your particular relativistic frame, just not the rest of the universe as it *currently* is ;-)
SB
Inertial / compensate compensation compensator
SB
doesn't necessarily break conservation of mass
Yeah, the mass would still be there. It would however break conservation of momentum, unless you can figure out how to translate and dump the energy you'd accumulate elsewhere. (which still technically breaks conservation of momentum unless you are dumping the energy outside the system)
SB
seems likely to function as a way to transfer thrust evenly from the engines to the matter of the ship, crew, cargo, etc.
I see what you were trying to say, but the (material) structure of the ship would do the same thing. I've always assumed that inertial compensation is something that acts on the structure of the ship to reduce or eliminate the effects of acceleration. Artificial gravity isn't really the same thing, but if one figures out how to accomplish the first, the second would likely follow.
SB
"Inertial compensator" has always been a better term than either of those.
SB
I'll add my thoughts after the years of watching the shows:
Photon torpedoes antimatter weapons, yes. But the mechanism by which they transfer momentum to the ship is via 1)the hard radiation front, which upon being deflected by the shields (or absorbed by the hull) transfers it's energy as momentum to the rest of the ship; and 2) a hard particle front produced by the vaporized (but not converted to energy) structure of the torpedo itself - this would consist of protons, neutrons, and other subatomic particles traveling at very close to the speed of light right behind the radiation front, the particle front would contain enormous momentum.
The inertial damping system/gravity control has a time lag in responding to momentum changes of the ship. It can compensate for accelerations it is already programmed to compensate for - such as when the ship accelerates, it ramps up to compensate for the acceleration - but not for shockwaves or other accelerations it can't "predict". The time lag would make sense if the grav control/inertial damping system requires a tremendous amount of energy to operate and change state, any changes in it's state would mean the system has to build sufficient power in it's mechanisms. (by "change state" I mean to alter it's field thruout the ship, not in the classical physics or chemistry sense)
Control consoles exploding, etc: EMP, like you said, but it can't be completely deflected by the shields, and some of it produces inductive currents in the ship's electronic systems, much like a solar storm does with electrical grids. The longer the control run or wiring, the larger the inductive effect, which would explain why the bridge tends to get hit harder (I'd expect the actual main computer systems and engineering systems to be very well shielded)
Remember that the shields *must be* in some way coupled to the shield generators, and hence to the rest of the ship's structure. This works whether the shields are electromagnetic or gravitic in nature.
Yeah, it's still hand waving :) I haven't read the book(books?) about the physics of star trek yet, so I'm not sure what they have to say, these are just my thoughts.
The "woosh" is, of course, only in the viewer's head ;-)
Yeah, speculation like this is rather fun :-)
SB
I'm waiting for someone to use a tightly rolled bunch of political pamphlets to beat a politician to death. If you roll enough of them tightly enough, it'd be almost as hard as a lead pipe.
THEN we'll see some real fun ;-)
(thanks for George Carlin for the idea (Sunday New York Times skit), but the alterations are mine)
SB
That's the funniest damned thing I've read on here in a while. Well played! BTW, you owe me for rib tape...
SB
Ah, thanks, that gives me a start. What I am really looking for is an icon that users can click on that turns autorun off if it's on, turns it on if it's off. I suspect that'll require a third party app...
I really need to sit down and research this, but it hasn't been enough of a problem for me to spend the time. Not yet, anyway.
SB
I'm not sure what you meant by your first sentence - I have no personal deities, not even the universe or reality - but the rest of your post is very well said and deserves an insightful moderation.
I have my doubts about whether human beings - or any intelligence that exists within this reality - can ever fully comprehend what they exist within. There are likely hard limits to what an intelligence within a system can learn about that system - of course it may be possible that said intelligence can learn enough to go beyond the bounds of that system, but we as a species are a long, long way away from that at this point in time. We don't even understand enough about our own POV of the system to make it possible to teach others about it...
That's convoluted and horrible but I'm too mentally exhausted right now to try and rewrite it a dozen times...
SB
That's... hell, I can't even figure out what you are trying to say. My signature was out of place? Where else is it supposed to go?
You might want to work on your reading comprehension - in no part of my post did I actually call the AC an idiot ;-) A child, yes... as literary critiques go, that one was devoid of any real content.
Come on now. Cory Doctorow "parroting what the community wants to hear"?
What community? The SF "community" (like SF writers and readers are part of some vast hive mind). Sheesus. The AC's post was beyond stupid.
SB
You seem to have something backwards, if I understand your post correctly. The Reps are the ones who have been trying to remove gov reg on industries like that, the Dems want more.
Of course the line between the parties is blurring more and more...
However, I wasn't talking about removing gov regs - as far as my political beliefs go, I'm a rational anarchist in the Heinlein sense, however I do support gov regulation of industry, mostly because the gov is the only power that can force greedy asshats to clean up their own shit and behave like civilized human beings. That of course is assuming the government isn't run by the asshats ;-)
In any case my post was meant more as a commentary on political commentary, as it were; it seems that this is the way things go in political "discussions" and it brought to my mind what Churchill said about democracies.
I like High Guy's Law - it works, as well, and is so very, very true...
SB
It's cheaper than injecting testosterone into our politicians.
Redundant.
SB
"Have you noticed, Stil, how beautiful the young women are this year?"
SB
to the CEO
Golden Parachutes.
Hopefully will have some holes in them, this time. I won't hold my breath - even if the people ultimately responsible are taken to task, it'll likely be decades before the lawyers sort it out, and the lawyers will, as the last few decades of history in this country prove, be the only real beneficiaries.
It's not just a meme, nor is it funny.
SB
Every time you do, I'm forced to throw a capitalist running dog in the gulag ...
If only we could... it's a long list...
SB