Toxn

My alma mater has developed a bad case of this. Also, the work on this thing continues apace:

Lots of hypotheses, very little experiment. Abiogenesis research covers some of the same ground though.

Again, the sample set we have is skewed by what we can detect. It's interesting for me that in my lifetime the available data went from 'no exoplanets detected' to 'big and orbiting suicidally close to a star' to 'large rocky planets are common'. This suggests a trend. In any case, it is always a good idea from a statistical standpoint to assume that you are average.

Well, that and Kurosawa.

I actually think it would be even more depressing if he put all this effort into the prequels only to have them suck. Can you imagine going to such obscene lengths to code your new films with a unifying plot scheme so involuted that only one dude ever cottoned on to it? And then still have all three suck a big old bag of dicks? Fuck, I'd call it a day and sell my rights to the highest bidder too.

I think Fermi's paradox is good to think about, because simply asking "why haven't we spotted any positive proof yet?" leads to some interesting places. For instance; the simple fact that our solar system is not littered with alien ruins, and our nearby neighbourhood shows no obvious signs of tampering or activity, seems to strongly indicate that interstellar travel is nearly impossible to pull off. Because if it wasn't, then the universe should be full of signs that star-crossing civilizations exist/ed. It's like washing up on an island and trying to take stock by what you can see from the shore - you can't know a lot of things for certain, but you can very quickly infer a lot by what is or isn't in your direct field of view.

I meant about Fermi's paradox. Drake's equation is very sloppy though

Fanwankpocalypse

Care to elaborate?

More:

Speaking of Fermi's paradox, what are people's thoughts? My favourite theory is that it will turn out to be easier/less energetic to crack open a portal to another dimension than to travel to other solar systems. So the trajectory for alien civilizations is to colonise their local system and then disappear into the infinity of worlds located right in their backyard. My least favourite theory is the Exterminomachy hypothesis: sensitive detectors + relativistic weapons + suitably paranoid mindset = everyone hiding in their local system and launching relativistic bombs at any system dumb enough to produce an antimatter drive signal.

Both shitty blurry phone images, but it sort of works here.

Blah blah blah the Nazis won somehow.

Seconded. The more sophisticated our techniques get, the more it looks like ours is a perfectly average solar system. Which leave Fermi's paradox looming a bit, but whatever...

Well he is rolling around in internet money right now...

Larry Correia and Corey Doctorow, agreeing on things... Edit: Having read it fully, I'm actually feeling pretty keen and upbeat. Good advice is good. Edit 2: Complementary advice

Eyes are also rapidly re-acquired (see: snakes), which seems to demonstrate that having access to the electromagnetic spectrum is just a hella good thing.

Similar - did two semesters of physics in 2004, for an electronic engineering degree I never completed. I then spent most of my masters (in biotechnology) grappling with the ballistics of tiny metal particles aimed at plant tissue. Go figure In the interests of clarity, I'm going to lay out the hypothesis that I am disagreeing with: - an arrow - strikes a shield - perpendicularly - in such a fashion that it would otherwise penetrate - but is stopped by allowing the rotation of the shield in the hand Given the relative mass and velocity of the arrow in relation to the shield, and bearing in mind their relative compositions, I feel very confident that I have shown that the above hypothesis is disproved. Feel free to give me your understanding of the situation.

4:35 - you can see the shield only starts moving after it has captured the arrow. Shield is loosely mounted.

A spear is a lot more massive and slow than an arrow. Feel free to conduct an experiment (identical shields shot with identical arrows, fixed and free-swinging) to test this, but my understanding of physics is that the loose hold simply makes getting hit with an arrow a bit more comfortable. No increase in protection. If anyone here passed more than two semesters of physics, now would be a good time to chime in.

it's more efficient because of how muscles work. The more continuous work you do, the more energy will come from anaerobic metabolism. So short bursts of activity, followed by a cool-down to allow re-oxygenation of tissues, is better. In any case, this seems to be one of these things where there is a specific weight/size range where bounding flight works. Outside of it you see flapping-and-gliding. Edit: Hahaha it looks like I'm way off the mark and this is actually a super complex field of discussion: http://www.google.co.za/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CDIQFjADahUKEwjn1uDFrvvHAhUOWtsKHTfsChA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dtic.mil%2Fcgi-bin%2FGetTRDoc%3FAD%3DADA402713&usg=AFQjCNFGh-VOUGpuWnS2enWh3TtCbuIuGw&sig2=0cXYbUGNNTSWqR4eZGIncw&bvm=bv.102829193,d.d24 http://www.brendanbody.co.uk/flight_tutorial/bounding.html http://jeb.biologists.org/content/202/13/1725.full.pdf http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022519385801648

Crosspost! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URvWSsAgtJE

A challenger appears! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URvWSsAgtJE

I'll wait here for my apology

Not strictly art, but I've been drawing shit like this for ages and it finally got made: http://www.popsci.com/darpa-put-robot-legs-on-helicopter-drone I'll post a drawing by my past self at some point...