Author Topic: Somewhat Useful Facts Thread  (Read 204769 times)

Offline 1DeadlySAMURAI

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RE: Somewhat Useful Facts Thread
« Reply #640 on: July 19, 2008, 05:42:33 PM »
Usually floating cars either don't look right, or perform one of the two roles shitty (car or boat).

Yeah, like the Amphicar. Although very popular, it was kinda slow on water and not very agile.

Offline captain_obvious

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RE: Somewhat Useful Facts Thread
« Reply #641 on: July 19, 2008, 06:10:10 PM »
Usually floating cars either don't look right, or perform one of the two roles shitty (car or boat).

Yeah, like the Amphicar. Although very popular, it was kinda slow on water and not very agile.


and aparently it used to try and take off when going at motorway speeds (60 mph+).  That's the direct opposite of what you may want of a car ;)

it is actually possible (JUST) to hit 100MPH in a british army landrover wolf.

And I do mean just..going downhill with the wind on your back ;) did it last night..
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Offline Aeries

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RE: Somewhat Useful Facts Thread
« Reply #642 on: July 20, 2008, 02:08:53 AM »
Useful fact:
Apple's new Iphone/iPod Touch firmware (2.0) does, in fact, add a bunch of nice little tweaks and features. It also, however, inhibits the use of older jailbreaking software that allows users to install freeware and other software developed for the iphone/ipod touch by developers [very much like us BCC modders] via use of a third-party installer known simply as 'installer'. While the iPhone updates to this latest firmware for free, ipod touch users such as myself "have" to pay $10 for this upgrade that, until now, had been free with all previous versions. Talk about lame.

Granted, it features apps seen on the iphone such as Google Maps, Mail, Notes, etc., but what use will mail be if it doesn't support one of the most common email sites, Hotmail? it supports Gmail, Yahoo Mail, .Mac, and AOL, but for ANYTHING else it must be manually reconfigured which, for somebody like me, is a colossal waste of time and energy. Additionally when I got a hold of the 2.0 firmware via itunes [legally available for free if you boot your ipod touch into restore mode and let itunes detect it that way] I discovered a very f*cking lame bug in the firmware that pisses me RIGHT OFF! When typing a password, normally the digits would be covered up with the little dot thingies, right? Not on 2.0. In 2.0, each digit you type will appear and NOT get hidden under a 'dot' until you type the next digit. FRAKING LAME!

So why upgrade to 2.0? It's stupid, costs ya $10, you can't customize it half as much and to be honest, I personally find the App Store to be a sad comparison to installer. 1.1.4 works perfectly fine and apple recently released a 1.1.5 [with many bug fixes] in response to the leaked 2.0 firmware through their own software... and I might add that 1.1.5 is perfectly jail-breakable and customizable if you install a patch that, in essence, only changes the number back to 1.1.4 for installation compatibility. Therefore, while 2.0 has some nice features, it isn't really worth it. This has been a useful fact by Aeries. Have a nice day. <3 <3 <3

Weasel

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RE: Somewhat Useful Facts Thread
« Reply #643 on: July 20, 2008, 12:44:48 PM »






It is the Aquada.

This... looks kind of good actually.
Usually floating cars either don't look right, or perform one of the two roles shitty (car or boat).
This claims 160 km/h on land (can't find acceleration tho) and 26 knots on water. (counts as a speedboat)


These are made by a company called, "Gibbs"- just like me. Apparently, the US DOD is interested in some of their larger designs as a special operations vehicle.

Offline Senator

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RE: Somewhat Useful Facts Thread
« Reply #644 on: July 21, 2008, 07:29:45 PM »
Atlantis, is a subject of interest because an ancient Greek, historian, who usually was quite objective speaks about it. Said Greek historians were quite useful because they were treating history scientifically and were seeing themselves as "historians", as opposed to other historians in the era which were mixing everything with myth, or worse, politics.

What I find more interesting however, is not so much the refference of Atlantis itself, but the rest of the passage. And I quote:

"...This power came forth out of the Atlantic Ocean, for in those days the Atlantic was navigable; and there was an island situated in front of the straits which are by you called the Pillars of Heracles; the island was larger than Libya and Asia put together, and was the way to other islands, and from these you might pass to the whole of the opposite continent which surrounded the true ocean; for this sea which is within the Straits of Heracles is only a harbour, having a narrow entrance, but that other is a real sea, and the surrounding land may be
most truly called a boundless continent..."


Now, note, that "Pillaers of Heracles/Hercules" was, (we know that for sure), the way the ancient Greeks reffered to Gibraltar. Atlantis was supposed to be just outside it, except it isn't anymore, which might be him just recounting a myth he has heard from others. However doesn't anyone find damn interesting, him continuing and saying: that from the other side of Atlantis, is the opposite continent, around which is the true ocean?

Offline MLeo

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RE: Somewhat Useful Facts Thread
« Reply #645 on: July 21, 2008, 07:32:24 PM »
Sounds like from the early days after Pangaea.

But larger than Libia (Africa) and Asia? That's a bit large....
Sure it isn't one of those famous of by 10 or 10000? :P
I still can't read peoples minds, nor can I read peoples computers, even worse, I can't combine the two to read what is going wrong with your BC install...

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Weasel

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RE: Somewhat Useful Facts Thread
« Reply #646 on: July 21, 2008, 10:12:21 PM »
I think it's a reference to N. America.

Offline captain_obvious

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RE: Somewhat Useful Facts Thread
« Reply #647 on: July 22, 2008, 12:51:13 PM »
I think it's a reference to N. America.
atlantis? north america??

Pfft, we all know that the true atlantis is the UK :p

the song "this is pop" starts with the word "yes".
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Offline ChronowerX_GT

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RE: Somewhat Useful Facts Thread
« Reply #648 on: July 23, 2008, 04:12:04 PM »
Ok, I just had to show this. Look at Chakotay!!! It's only been 7 years since Voy finished. How much has he changed???





Having a smoking section in a restaurant is kinda like having a peeing section in a pool...

Offline ChronowerX_GT

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RE: Somewhat Useful Facts Thread
« Reply #649 on: July 23, 2008, 04:26:19 PM »
Alaxander Siddig's real name is, Siddig El Tahir El Fadil El Siddig Abdurrahman Mohammed Ahmed Abdul Karim El Mahdi


Having a smoking section in a restaurant is kinda like having a peeing section in a pool...

Offline JimmyB76

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RE: Somewhat Useful Facts Thread
« Reply #650 on: July 24, 2008, 12:30:18 PM »
The Smoking Memo

The Downing Street "Memo" is actually the minutes of a meeting of many of the British Prime Minister's senior ministers on July 23, 2002, regarding meeting with their counterparts in the Bush Administration, up to and including the president.
It details how "Bush wanted to remove Saddam through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMDs."

Among the memo's highlights:
  • "Bush had made up his mind to take military action...But the case was thin.  Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea, or Iran."
  • "The intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
  • The U.S. "timeline (called for war) beginning 30 days before the U.S. Congressional elections."
  • "We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors.  This would also help with legal justification for the use of force."

Offline Senator

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RE: Somewhat Useful Facts Thread
« Reply #651 on: July 24, 2008, 10:45:14 PM »

Offline lint

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RE: Somewhat Useful Facts Thread
« Reply #652 on: July 24, 2008, 10:47:02 PM »
yeah, i saw that on the news, pretty neat

Offline newman

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RE: Somewhat Useful Facts Thread
« Reply #653 on: July 25, 2008, 03:58:04 AM »
The 6th man on moon says space aliens are real:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1037471/Aliens-HAVE-contact-covered-claims-Apollo-14-astronaut.html

Truth? An old man trying to revive the glory days? Senile? Framed with false data for whatever reason?
Personally I doubt there's truth to this. Note how he never claims to have seen an alien or a UFO by himself.
He was just "in on the fact they're here". What was he told, by whom, for what reason...?
No matter. Universe is a big place, and while I do believe there's a good chance other life exists somewhere out there, I just think that the probability of this being true is very low indeed. The distances involved, the technology required.. all just too far fetched. Till I see a Zeta Reticuli mothership requesting a landing clearance with the complementary windshield wipe, I'm remaining doubtful.
It's funny. How years progressed, so have the designs of UFOs and their crews respectively. Seems the aliens are careful to follow the current design trends of Earth  :twisted:

Offline Senator

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RE: Somewhat Useful Facts Thread
« Reply #654 on: July 25, 2008, 06:13:46 AM »
Personally I used to believe. I mean, obviously not 100%. But deep down, devouring every single abductee story I could find, watching through the telescope in my room for UFOs (awww, isn't little Senator cute?). Believing them in a "so many people can't be wrong" kind of way.

Now I for sure, don't rather than do believe, because of a specific train of thought.

You see, the problem is that now, I have read a lot more of "new generation" Sci-Fi authors, who, are on and on about Transhumanism, the Technological Singularity, nanobots, universal constructors, nano fog-lets, uploading, computronium, and to sum up. Frankly at this point, I am not even sure if humans will "colonise the solar system" or is even worth the effort.
The point is simple:

Computronium is awesome. And nono clouds and universal constructors are awesome. And uploading you mind into a computer is also awesome. Because what you have then, is a technology you can make very tough and reduntant, taking very little space, getting rid of silly organic bodies, and switching in and out of virtual reality world with physical laws you control.

(For the record, computronium is just a buzzwords for matter, arranged in such a way as to have maximum information processing ability per volume. According to some of 'em authors. 1kg of it should have enough ability to simulate, not only a human brain, not only all human brains on earth, but all human brains that have ever existed, so you get an of how much computational ability that one is)

This means, that my idea of an advanced civilization now, is far more likely to have spaceships where the crew compartment is thumbdrive sized. Inside of which crewmembers will be living in a reality where each one has villa on a hill, surrounded by a forest. In fact, you can simulate an infinite amount of environments which would technically make it feel more spatious and less restricted than an entire planet. In fact, with that technology you don't need planets any more. Why colonise when you can colonise your own computronium? The only purpose for every other matter in the universe is to be converted into more of it, or energy to power it up.

In other words, I find it far more believable now that, that there is a cutoff where, after a civilization beats around in animal form for a while then, blam it goes and converts itself into a dyson sphere cloud supercomputer kind of thingy, as opposed to going around in Federation ships with captain sitting in comfy chairs while living their poor tactical officers standing.

I find it hard to believe then, that the Greys, being an advanced civilization would be fooling around with organic bodies and saucers. Even the medical examinations are starting to sound too primitive to say the truth. Not when I am seeing research of nanobots with cells grafted on them (so they convert glucoze from the blood into energy, easier than carrying batteries) being done right now by us.

The only way the Greys would sound believable to me, is if someone said to me (my theory btw) that it is the Flying Saucers themselves that are actually intelligent, and the Greys are nothing more than robotic, remotedly controlled manipulators for the physical world. They look organic, because good robotics would look so anyway. (Biology is already very good nanotechnology. In my definitions of a "robot" I see no reason why it has to be made out of "metal")

...

No, I haven't smoked anything.


Offline newman

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RE: Somewhat Useful Facts Thread
« Reply #655 on: July 25, 2008, 07:41:39 AM »
Senator: I've heard that train of thought before.. Like you, I had my "I want to believe" phase which has since passed, for slightly different reasons, tho. As for the rest, you make some interesting points. While I'm not ready to 100% subscribe to them, they are compelling.
But yeah. Greys abducting people, then probing them with various instruments does sound kind of primitive for a super advanced race (ANY race that has the technology to make the trip of such proportions on a regular basis, in a reasonable amount of time, is super advanced in my book.) My biggest problem with alien abduction and encounters is this: alien motives and M.O. always seem like a product of a contemporary human mind, rather then one of a very advanced being from another world.

Offline MLeo

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RE: Somewhat Useful Facts Thread
« Reply #656 on: July 25, 2008, 07:55:58 AM »
You could also consider it this way:

If you have the technology to make trips easily, then you sure as 1 + 1 = 11 (base 1 mind you) you will have to have saved on something else.

Maybe ethics, maybe defense, maybe weapons, or maybe medical equipment. ;)
I still can't read peoples minds, nor can I read peoples computers, even worse, I can't combine the two to read what is going wrong with your BC install...

"It was filed under 'B' for blackmail." - Morse, Inspector Morse - The dead of Jericho.

Offline Senator

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RE: Somewhat Useful Facts Thread
« Reply #657 on: July 25, 2008, 10:14:21 PM »
"Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me"

? Pete Conrad, (somewhat shorter in stature than Armstrong) the first to step on the moon from the second mission that landed, as he stepped onto the lunar surface for the first time.

Weasel

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RE: Somewhat Useful Facts Thread
« Reply #658 on: July 25, 2008, 10:16:58 PM »
What an amazing feeling that must have been.

And yet, there have been more people on the moon, than have been to the bottom of the oceans...

Offline Senator

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RE: Somewhat Useful Facts Thread
« Reply #659 on: July 25, 2008, 10:26:40 PM »
*waves hand and telepathetically extracts Weasel's memories*

You were so watching Seaquest.