The way I've explained it is to imagine the ship and drill as a space tower. Station keeping is accomplished by $ANTIGRAVITY_TECHNOLOGY. Antigravity is a well established tech in the Trek universe. If you jumped off the top of a space tower (or were launched outside the influence field of your shuttle craft), you'd just fall at the regular rate of jumping off any tall building. Heating up on re-entry only occurs if you are orbiting with a significant angular velocity relative to the atmosphere. Same with the drill. It's a safe bet that it was outside the AG field of the mining ship, which was basically acting as a "skyhook" for it. Cut it and it just falls. Maybe there would be some drift, but it was at a pretty low altitude. And to be fair, the way the scene was filmed it's not clear it hit the same spot as the drill beam.
My real complaint was trying to call the stormy things black holes. Temporal anomalies and spacetime rifts and all other sorts of sci-fi hooha are available in Trekland canon. They should have used one of those.
Surely making the subject fun, interesting would be a better way of encouraging students?
Not really, no. I have a friend who used to teach at the middle school level. She was a good teacher, but there are just a lot of kids who don't care about education, are raised by parents who don't care about education, or come from subcultures that don't care about education. Generally, all three are in play, enforcing one another. There's nothing to be done from the outside about that, and the kids who do break out of the vicious cycle do so mainly through their own efforts, and a few who are just flat out intelligent enough to never get trapped by it. She helped the ones she could.
The ball and chain won't help, and it's only use is in being totally and completely hilarious.
I don't. Experience in politics to me just means a sociopath who has hidden the internal monster better than most, and hasn't gotten caught in whatever shenanigans he or she is most assuredly engaging.
Me? Cynical? Nah! The rest of you lot are too trusting.
Because the government said it was. That's sort of how it works.
You're not daring to question the government are you? *ARE* you? After all, the EU is run by noble super beings with IQs of 5000 and a completely incorruptible nature.
We're going to have to jot your name down in a ledger, I'm afraid. Some men may come to ask questions.
The unfortunate problem with this is that American society is prudish and stunted when it comes to sexuality, to the point where what is considered "normal" is actually quite unhealthily repressed
Porn in America is a $500 billion a year industry.
I made that number up, but I'm sure it's close.:-)
It's just that the sociopaths who float to the top (much like turds) of the power structure (toilet bowl) play to the prudish minority.
I also just think a lot of people like to keep sexuality private. Maybe the games could be sold in plain brown wrappers?;-)
Consider the various moral choices in Fallout 3.
I have to admit The Pitt had me scratching my head. In the end, I hated both sides, and I wanted to drag the Megaton bomb to Pittsburgh and reactivate it.
Everyone keeps saying Abrams wasn't a trek fan, but does anyone know if the actual screen writers (Orci and Kurtzman) are? It's like people forget the director doesn't pull a completed movie out of thin air without the involvement of anyone else.
I liked the film, I guess, and I thought Quinto nailed the young and conflicted Spock, but I would like to declare a moratorium in Hollywood on the use of black holes. A "temporal anomaly" would have been fine. And someone please explain to these writers exactly how BIG the galaxy is.
And my wife will tell you, I scream 'F*** you Rick Berman!' during the credits every time I see it.
Which wouldn;t bother her so much if you weren't in the movie theater.:-D
If I were her lawyer, that'd be the first article in the divorce papers.;-) I tease. Mostly.
Look, I enjoyed Star Trek. TOS and TNG and the first half of DS9 were great. A couple of the films were good, too. I even bought the After Dark Star Trek screen savers way back when. Haven't seen the new movie yet. When the TV franchise began to dumb down, I walked away. End of story. This emotionalism over it all... just never understood that. Same with BSG. Enjoyed it, but was unsatisfied by the finale. Oh well. I just switch to some other signal on my awesome home entertainment complex.
the continuity nerds.
Never got that, either. ST-TOS wasn't exactly a paragon of continuity. Who cares about continuity with a reboot? And spare me talk of Roddenbery's vision. There's plenty of other visions out there. Go read some E.E. Smith books. The Lensmen would completely own Starfleet.;-)
Slashdot Mirror
You know, I thought the kiddie ball and chain was the best (and funniest) child accessory ever, and would not be topped for quite a while.
I stand corrected.
Combine the lil' gas helmet with the lil' ball and chain, and hilarity ensues.
Ah, I was just messing with the OP. Certainly I didn't deserve a troll mod. I swear, the mod points must just go to old ladies these days.
just shouldn't be there.
Sorry, but that's religious talk. Science revels in unexpected results.
Grrrr. How *dare* you! Doubleminus badthink! Unmutual!
"emerging markets"
Translation: "We have no idea who's going to buy this."
The way I've explained it is to imagine the ship and drill as a space tower. Station keeping is accomplished by $ANTIGRAVITY_TECHNOLOGY. Antigravity is a well established tech in the Trek universe. If you jumped off the top of a space tower (or were launched outside the influence field of your shuttle craft), you'd just fall at the regular rate of jumping off any tall building. Heating up on re-entry only occurs if you are orbiting with a significant angular velocity relative to the atmosphere. Same with the drill. It's a safe bet that it was outside the AG field of the mining ship, which was basically acting as a "skyhook" for it. Cut it and it just falls. Maybe there would be some drift, but it was at a pretty low altitude. And to be fair, the way the scene was filmed it's not clear it hit the same spot as the drill beam.
My real complaint was trying to call the stormy things black holes. Temporal anomalies and spacetime rifts and all other sorts of sci-fi hooha are available in Trekland canon. They should have used one of those.
I thought that was odd, too. Even in ST-TOS it was a video screen and not a window.
Surely making the subject fun, interesting would be a better way of encouraging students?
Not really, no. I have a friend who used to teach at the middle school level. She was a good teacher, but there are just a lot of kids who don't care about education, are raised by parents who don't care about education, or come from subcultures that don't care about education. Generally, all three are in play, enforcing one another. There's nothing to be done from the outside about that, and the kids who do break out of the vicious cycle do so mainly through their own efforts, and a few who are just flat out intelligent enough to never get trapped by it. She helped the ones she could.
The ball and chain won't help, and it's only use is in being totally and completely hilarious.
I wholeheartedly endorse this product.
Surely someone is going to point out the comparison to the original magic wand?
You mean the one behind the fig leaf?
They find comfort in "experience". in politics
I don't. Experience in politics to me just means a sociopath who has hidden the internal monster better than most, and hasn't gotten caught in whatever shenanigans he or she is most assuredly engaging.
Me? Cynical? Nah! The rest of you lot are too trusting.
Didn't the alien conspiracy already do this?
not written well, nor is it written to any defined coding standard
Ah, so it's like most of the code in the world.
Wow. nice strawman. There's more than two opinions on any topic, you know.
How could that possibly be illegal?
Because the government said it was. That's sort of how it works.
You're not daring to question the government are you? *ARE* you? After all, the EU is run by noble super beings with IQs of 5000 and a completely incorruptible nature.
We're going to have to jot your name down in a ledger, I'm afraid. Some men may come to ask questions.
I can't wait to see how this thing blows in his face.
Eeeeew! I can wait. Bleah.
I don't feel like burning through $10 worth of blanks every week. Tapes are reusable and therefore much cheaper.
DVD-RW? ;-)
I use CD-RW to make random MP3 discs every week for out in the car. Some of them are on their hundredth erase/write cycle.
The unfortunate problem with this is that American society is prudish and stunted when it comes to sexuality, to the point where what is considered "normal" is actually quite unhealthily repressed
Porn in America is a $500 billion a year industry.
I made that number up, but I'm sure it's close. :-)
It's just that the sociopaths who float to the top (much like turds) of the power structure (toilet bowl) play to the prudish minority.
I also just think a lot of people like to keep sexuality private. Maybe the games could be sold in plain brown wrappers? ;-)
Consider the various moral choices in Fallout 3.
I have to admit The Pitt had me scratching my head. In the end, I hated both sides, and I wanted to drag the Megaton bomb to Pittsburgh and reactivate it.
Please?
detracts from the gravity of the situation.
Death to Mario games that glorify the squashing of poor little Goombas! Goomba rights now!
Everyone keeps saying Abrams wasn't a trek fan, but does anyone know if the actual screen writers (Orci and Kurtzman) are? It's like people forget the director doesn't pull a completed movie out of thin air without the involvement of anyone else.
I liked the film, I guess, and I thought Quinto nailed the young and conflicted Spock, but I would like to declare a moratorium in Hollywood on the use of black holes. A "temporal anomaly" would have been fine. And someone please explain to these writers exactly how BIG the galaxy is.
And my wife will tell you, I scream 'F*** you Rick Berman!' during the credits every time I see it.
Which wouldn;t bother her so much if you weren't in the movie theater. :-D
If I were her lawyer, that'd be the first article in the divorce papers. ;-) I tease. Mostly.
Look, I enjoyed Star Trek. TOS and TNG and the first half of DS9 were great. A couple of the films were good, too. I even bought the After Dark Star Trek screen savers way back when. Haven't seen the new movie yet. When the TV franchise began to dumb down, I walked away. End of story. This emotionalism over it all... just never understood that. Same with BSG. Enjoyed it, but was unsatisfied by the finale. Oh well. I just switch to some other signal on my awesome home entertainment complex.
the continuity nerds.
Never got that, either. ST-TOS wasn't exactly a paragon of continuity. Who cares about continuity with a reboot? And spare me talk of Roddenbery's vision. There's plenty of other visions out there. Go read some E.E. Smith books. The Lensmen would completely own Starfleet. ;-)
I can't believe they found a lawyer who thought this was a good idea.
I can't believe they only found one.
Could be, but not. Sorry.
Not that people shouldn't strive for it, mind you. I'm no Luddite. Some very nifty tech might result from such efforts.
Any ideas from the slashdotters on what might be going on?
It's the "block the VOIP" feature which tested much more positively than "kill the annoying guy on the phone" with focus groups.