Humor Random Comments Thread

[MaverickSawyer]

Link to the paper hosted on ntrs.nasa.gov:
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20140006052

Now wait just a second...

Testing was performed on a low-thrust torsion pendulum that is capable of detecting force at a single-digit micronewton level, within a stainless steel vacuum chamber with the door closed but at ambient atmospheric pressure.

(Bolded a part for emphasis)

They did this at atmospheric pressure? They need to redo it at a hard vacuum and see if they get the same results. If they do, then I'll be impressed. Until then, I'm going to view it as "cool, but useless".

 

[sorindafabico]

I guess it's not different countries that matter but the different angle. Territory to the north of Portugal has the same colored light as Portugal, although it is Spain.

Or center/southern spain use mercury lights and Portugal/northern Spain use sodium lights. But I don't know.

 

[Quick_Nick]

Now wait just a second...


(Bolded a part for emphasis)

They did this at atmospheric pressure? They need to redo it at a hard vacuum and see if they get the same results. If they do, then I'll be impressed. Until then, I'm going to view it as "cool, but useless".

It also says they got thrust from the 'null' drive that was definitely not supposed to have thrust.

 

[Urwumpe]

Or center/southern spain use mercury lights and Portugal/northern Spain use sodium lights. But I don't know.

You see the difference way more stronger in Berlin.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...-image-reveals-stark-east-west-divisions.html

 

[MaverickSawyer]

It also says they got thrust from the 'null' drive that was definitely not supposed to have thrust.

I know. That's why I think that they need to retry in a hard vacuum. There's some issues here.

 

[jedidia]

If conservation of momentum falls, thousands of physicists will probably have a massive existential crisis.

I don't think conservation of momentum is going to fail, not as such. So far, an awful lot of perfectly working laws of physics and seemingly even causality had to bow their head and say "ok, we admitt, we don't have much of a say on the quantum level. The guys down there just won't listen".

None of them, however, have been abolished so far. If there is an effect on the quantum level that somehow violates conservation of momentum, then it'll even out again at some weird and unexpected place above the quantum level.

I'm not saying I'm totally positive that this thing works. I'm not at all, and I fully expect the problem to lie somewhere in the experiment. But at least people are looking into it now. I hate the chance of missing something major just because we're incurable know-it-alls that think we understand stuff well enough now to not have to check back with reality.

As it happens, I also think this could be a bit of a side-job for NASA. I think the US government would do well to have crazy, impossible ideas that provided anomalous data on several reported occasions looked into by a serious institution under their control. It wouldn't bring much additional cost, since the workforce, knowledge and infrastructure is already there and this won't take much more time than a few weeks every year. If just one in a million of these things turn out to work, it would be worth it.

 

[Linguofreak]

Just had two spontaneous reboots in the space of 20 minutes or so. I removed a couple USB connections from a hub that's been acting up in weird ways like sending spurious keystrokes (including from keys the attached keyboard doesn't have, such as volume up/down) that made me suspect the hub might be overdrawing power, and hopefully the issue was related to that. Otherwise, I'm looking at replacing components within a few months of building the machine...

"Computer over"?
"Bad motherboard = very yes"?

That's not a good prize...

 

[Fabri91]

Just had two spontaneous reboots in the space of 20 minutes or so. I removed a couple USB connections from a hub that's been acting up in weird ways like sending spurious keystrokes (including from keys the attached keyboard doesn't have, such as volume up/down) that made me suspect the hub might be overdrawing power, and hopefully the issue was related to that. Otherwise, I'm looking at replacing components within a few months of building the machine...

"Computer over"?
"Bad motherboard = very yes"?

That's not a good prize...

Had the same problem years ago: was due to a completely dusted up power supply, which might have overheated as a result. Dust it off with compressed air.

On an unrelated note, it's raining again. I hope this time I don't have to shovel water out of the garage.

On a related note, large plastic snow shovels are surprisingly good for removing standing water.

 

[MattBaker]

On a related note, large plastic snow shovels are surprisingly good for removing standing water.

During Milan-San Remo (cycling race, THE cycling race) the Italian authorities literally vacuumed water of the finishing straight with what appeared to be a road sweeper. Since then I'm tempted to try this with my household vacuum cleaner (plastic collector, no bag) but fear I might kill myself.:lol:

 

[Fabri91]

Well, I was tempted to try that too...

 

[jedidia]

Since then I'm tempted to try this with my household vacuum cleaner (plastic collector, no bag) but fear I might kill myself.

There's hoovers certified for water, you know

 

[Urwumpe]

There's hoovers certified for water, you know

You could of course just use a centrifugal pump. :lol:

 

[SolarLiner]

Inventor's website: http://emdrive.com/theory.html

Do you even HTML5 Bootstrap bro?

 

[MaverickSawyer]

You could of course just use a centrifugal pump. :lol:

Nah, shopvac.

 

[jedidia]

Does anybody know a good Mars Atlas with elevation data and landmark names apart from the new orbiter Beta? While I could make do with that, the interface is a bit clunky for use as an atlas...

 

[MaverickSawyer]

Does anybody know a good Mars Atlas with elevation data and landmark names apart from the new orbiter Beta? While I could make do with that, the interface is a bit clunky for use as an atlas...

Hrm... I remember that there used to be an Atlas of The Solar System at my community college. Might have to go dig around there again and find it.

The other option is Google Earth. They've got a Mars mode for it.

 

[Izack]

Does anyone here play Planetary Annihilation. I am looking for a Co-op partner to play a few games with.

Maybe a little late, but I've played some. Pretty sure I'd be useless, though.

 

[kamaz]

final AlertDialog.Builder alert = new AlertDialog.Builder(context);
thread = [b]new Thread()[/b] {
	public void run() {
		[...]
		inDialog = true;					
		alert.setTitle("MFD Input");
		alert.setMessage(query);
		((Activity)context).[b]runOnUiThread[/b](new Runnable() {
			public void run() {
				final AlertDialog dialog = alert.create();
				dialog.show();
				Thread t = [b]new Thread()[/b] {
					public void run() {
						// Wait for server response
						ReadStatus(in);
						// Close dialog
						dialog.dismiss();
						inDialog = false;
					}
				};
				t.start();
			}
		});			
	}
}
thread.start();

Android programming.

Apparently the API designer believes that being able to do it in just one thread would be too quaint. So he will force you to use 3.

 

[Quick_Nick]

Android programming.

Apparently the API designer believes that being able to do it in just one thread would be too quaint. So he will force you to use 3.

Nobody likes an unresponsive UI.

 

[MattBaker]

How to spot the Rocky Mountains, internet edition:

Also interestingly Germany's densest spot seems to be Munich, not the Rhein-Ruhr area.