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View Poll Results: Most-wanted Tech | |||
Warp dive/hyperdrive/jump gates/whatever | 2 | 20.00% | |
Tricorders (whir whir whir ) | 1 | 10.00% | |
Hyposprays (the real kind, not those tanks and hoses) | 0 | 0% | |
PADDs (we know they can do more than Palmpilots) | 0 | 0% | |
Transporters (one that works) | 2 | 20.00% | |
Replicators (tea, Earl Grey, hot) | 4 | 40.00% | |
Commbadges (chirping optional) | 0 | 0% | |
Lightsabres (I see your Swartz is as big as mine) | 0 | 0% | |
Phasers (so we can blink them to death) | 1 | 10.00% | |
Cybernetic eyes (VISORs can look tacky) | 0 | 0% | |
Voters: 10. You may not vote on this poll |
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#81
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Your explanation is clear, but lacks local color.
Gatac
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Katy: Can I have the skill 'drive car off bridge and have parachute handy'? Justin: It's kind of a limited skill. Greg: Depends on how often you drive off bridges. - d02 Quotes |
#82
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If you can add sand to drinking water, then I'm not going to the right parties.
I think we've got the "seethroughability" range pinned down to transparent and opaque, but I'm not sure that transparent=clear. What color is "water-white" supposed to be? I've seen "clear" water, white cloudy water, red water, and so on. As long as we're off-topic, how many people prefer a certain amount of "hardness" in their drinking water? I was raised in a house that used well water. We needed a water softener for the washing machine and so on, but the stuff coming out of the taps was all natural. The Mississippi River was literally across the street. I was raised on "rust water" and like it, within reason. To this day I find that nothing can quench my thirst like ice-cold, rock-hard water.
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mudshark: Nate's just being...Nate. Zeke: It comes nateurally to him. mudshark: I don't expect Nate to make sense, really -- it's just a bad idea. Sa'ar Chasm on the 5M.net forum: Sit back, relax, and revel in the insanity. Adam Savage: I reject your reality and substitute my own! Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. Crow T. Robot: Oh, stop pretending there's a plot. Don't cheapen yourself further. |
#83
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The first run through of any experimental procedure is to identify any potential errors by making them. |
#84
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I think we're getting to the point where the "most desired scifi invention" is a universal translator/dictionary/Encyclopedia Galactica/etc. that contains a unified set of terms.
You say "Master's of Science" as M.Sc.? Never saw that one before. Around here, it's either M.S. for master of science or M.(abbreviation of the major) When I finally go back to grad school, I'll be going for M.C.E.
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mudshark: Nate's just being...Nate. Zeke: It comes nateurally to him. mudshark: I don't expect Nate to make sense, really -- it's just a bad idea. Sa'ar Chasm on the 5M.net forum: Sit back, relax, and revel in the insanity. Adam Savage: I reject your reality and substitute my own! Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. Crow T. Robot: Oh, stop pretending there's a plot. Don't cheapen yourself further. |
#85
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I think we're getting to the point where the "most desired scifi invention" is a universal translator/dictionary/Encyclopedia Galactica/etc. that contains a unified set of terms.
You say "Master's of Science" as M.Sc.? Never saw that one before. Around here, it's either M.S. for master of science or M.(abbreviation of the major)
__________________
mudshark: Nate's just being...Nate. Zeke: It comes nateurally to him. mudshark: I don't expect Nate to make sense, really -- it's just a bad idea. Sa'ar Chasm on the 5M.net forum: Sit back, relax, and revel in the insanity. Adam Savage: I reject your reality and substitute my own! Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. Crow T. Robot: Oh, stop pretending there's a plot. Don't cheapen yourself further. |
#86
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The first run through of any experimental procedure is to identify any potential errors by making them. |
#87
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Uh, that's not universal yet, or else we'd have km/hr on our speed limit signs. Plus I hear the Alpha Centurians are miffed at our presumption.
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mudshark: Nate's just being...Nate. Zeke: It comes nateurally to him. mudshark: I don't expect Nate to make sense, really -- it's just a bad idea. Sa'ar Chasm on the 5M.net forum: Sit back, relax, and revel in the insanity. Adam Savage: I reject your reality and substitute my own! Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. Crow T. Robot: Oh, stop pretending there's a plot. Don't cheapen yourself further. |
#88
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We use the same abbreviations for science degrees over here.
Oh, and as I understand it, metric is used universally by scientists.
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O to be wafted away From this black aceldama of sorrow; Where the dust of an earthy today Is the earth of a dusty tomorrow! |
#89
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I would love a Transporter, but I'll be happy with a laser.
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Ford: Don't worry, I trust them to the end of the Earth. Arthur: And how long is that? Ford: About 12 minutes. -The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy |
#90
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Scientists have put a lot of effort into standard, universal definitions of things, so that everyone knows what everyone else is talking about when someone uses a term. It's also not my fault you haven't read them.
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The first run through of any experimental procedure is to identify any potential errors by making them. |
#91
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I suppose you'd want the sharks to attach them to, as well. Oh, and I thought we already had lasers, just not Captain Proton-worthy ones.
I'm an engineer, not a scientist! And as we all know, engineers always break the rules. As I understand it, Americans are proud of being abberant, and also proud of continually trying to rewrite the world so that we'd no longer be abberant. Just look at the proliferation of our money, language, culture, yada yada.
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mudshark: Nate's just being...Nate. Zeke: It comes nateurally to him. mudshark: I don't expect Nate to make sense, really -- it's just a bad idea. Sa'ar Chasm on the 5M.net forum: Sit back, relax, and revel in the insanity. Adam Savage: I reject your reality and substitute my own! Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. Crow T. Robot: Oh, stop pretending there's a plot. Don't cheapen yourself further. |
#92
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Metric is metric and sense. Water should freeze at zero, units should be in tens and hundreds. Water freezing at 32 or whatever doesn't make much sense. Then 0 is way below the freezing point and there's no point of having a zero if it's not doing anything special.
Don't get me wrong, I use imperial for height and stuff though I know I shouldn't. But metric makes more sense, and damn you Americans for shoving otherwise on us. You and your...coffee.
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Sig v8.2.2 No, I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm going to go and do it anyway. *pokes avatar* Made by a good LJ friend. Thanks Ani! Dark Blues: I'm going to kill you! Enzan: Not if I kill me first! Dark Blues: You...are aware my goal is accomplished either way, right? Enzan: ...Yeah... |
#93
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If you can believe Isaac Asimov's scientific essays (and I do), this is an abbreviated, as-factual-as-I-can-recall story of the zero point on the Farenheit scale:
One day a scientist made a new kind of thermometer. Whether he invented the modern mercury thermometer or not is beside the point. To create gradations he decided to set zero as the coldest temperature that he could create in a lab. This turned out to be a slush of salt and snow. He plunked in his termometer and marked off zero. As for thirty-two and two-twelve, he decided to show off by separating the range between ice freezing and boiling into a hundred and eighty degrees. This is because the predominating scale at the time had only eighteen "degrees" in it because of the crudeness of previous thermometers. He wanted to show off and say that his thermometer was ten times as accurate. Using this range of numbers and the current zero, we get thirty-two and two-twelve.
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mudshark: Nate's just being...Nate. Zeke: It comes nateurally to him. mudshark: I don't expect Nate to make sense, really -- it's just a bad idea. Sa'ar Chasm on the 5M.net forum: Sit back, relax, and revel in the insanity. Adam Savage: I reject your reality and substitute my own! Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. Crow T. Robot: Oh, stop pretending there's a plot. Don't cheapen yourself further. Last edited by Nate the Great; 04-30-2008 at 02:44 AM. |
#94
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That's a nice story, but his methods were unscientific. Nobody else can replicate or calibrate a similar thermometer, which makes it useless as a scientific instrument.
The story I heard in one of my chem classes was that 0 was "an average winter's day in Vienna", Fahrenheit being Austrian, and 100 was his body temperature (he must have been running a fever that day, given that healathy human body temperature is 98.6 F). Given the fact that he's been dead for a century and a half and global warming has ensured that winter in Vienna now is not the same as winter in Vienna in the mid nineteenth century, we still can't replicate either of these reference points.
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The first run through of any experimental procedure is to identify any potential errors by making them. |
#95
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Using that logic, all liquids should freeze at zero.
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(Apparently I'm in an argumentative mood today. Ignore me.)
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"Please, Aslan," said Lucy, "what do you call soon?" "I call all times soon," said Aslan; and instantly he vanished away and Lucy was alone with the Magician. |
#96
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As a Minnesotan I'm a little disquieted that anyone would think that "average winter days" exist, at least in anything approaching a measurable sense. Maybe if you're just talking about raw temperatures.
Water is the base unit because it's the building block of the universe. The number of lifeforms that don't depend on water as a critial element of life is either zero or so close to zero that you might as well round down. Plus it's abundant and we can measure it's properties in repeatable experiments easily. I'd look up the appropriate Asimov essay and quote passages, but the book's in my attic at the moment. A shame, really.
__________________
mudshark: Nate's just being...Nate. Zeke: It comes nateurally to him. mudshark: I don't expect Nate to make sense, really -- it's just a bad idea. Sa'ar Chasm on the 5M.net forum: Sit back, relax, and revel in the insanity. Adam Savage: I reject your reality and substitute my own! Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. Crow T. Robot: Oh, stop pretending there's a plot. Don't cheapen yourself further. |
#97
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As a Minnesotan I'm a little disquieted that anyone would think that "average winter days" exist, at least in anything approaching a measurable sense. Maybe if you're just talking about raw temperatures.
Water is the base unit because it's the building block of the universe. The number of lifeforms that don't depend on water as a critial element of life is either zero or so close to zero that you might as well round down. Plus it's abundant and we can measure it's properties in repeatable experiments easily. I'd look up the appropriate Asimov essay and quote passages, but the book's in my attic at the moment. A shame, really. Looking back at my previous story, I can already tell that there are holes in it.
__________________
mudshark: Nate's just being...Nate. Zeke: It comes nateurally to him. mudshark: I don't expect Nate to make sense, really -- it's just a bad idea. Sa'ar Chasm on the 5M.net forum: Sit back, relax, and revel in the insanity. Adam Savage: I reject your reality and substitute my own! Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. Crow T. Robot: Oh, stop pretending there's a plot. Don't cheapen yourself further. |
#98
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"Please, Aslan," said Lucy, "what do you call soon?" "I call all times soon," said Aslan; and instantly he vanished away and Lucy was alone with the Magician. |
#99
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Okay, but as it is Life that's calibrating the thermometers. I don't really see The Universe or Everything doing that stuff, do you?
I just noticed that the thread has a five-star rating. Even if that's the result of only one review, I appreciate the sentiment. Not all experiments dealing with liquids and phase changes are equally easy to repeat. For example, for compounds with longer melting and boiling ranges, where do you cut off melting and boiling temperatures? The midpoint, the solid end of the scale, what? Early scientists had to deal with these questions. Oh, and water is easy to get, easy to purify, easy to recover from a gaseous state, and so on. Think about it. Gold is more abundant than certain other metals (as I recall), it's just that a lot of it is locked up in low concentrations in water and other sources that require so much energy to extract that at this time it's de facto useless and out of reach.
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mudshark: Nate's just being...Nate. Zeke: It comes nateurally to him. mudshark: I don't expect Nate to make sense, really -- it's just a bad idea. Sa'ar Chasm on the 5M.net forum: Sit back, relax, and revel in the insanity. Adam Savage: I reject your reality and substitute my own! Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. Crow T. Robot: Oh, stop pretending there's a plot. Don't cheapen yourself further. |
#100
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While I agree that there's countless vagaries in the Celsius scale (re: boiling point - what about the salt content of your water?), it is easier to reconstruct as it only requires a fairly common substance (water) going through two aggregate changes. If you want a scientifically solid scale, try Kelvin, which is fixed through absolute zero and the triple point of water.
To me, it's not a valid defense of Fahrenheit to say "Celsius is also whack!". Yes, it is, but Fahrenheit is the worse offender, and we should pick the lesser evil instead of wallowing in our temperature scale misery and sticking with what we have because it's all hopeless anyway, which is the vibe I'm getting here... Gatac
__________________
Katy: Can I have the skill 'drive car off bridge and have parachute handy'? Justin: It's kind of a limited skill. Greg: Depends on how often you drive off bridges. - d02 Quotes |
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