2012 OT: Preview And Review Spoilers
Tim Bruening
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In this movie, Earth suffers massive geological instabilities, resulting
in LA and other cities collapsing into vast sinkholes. One review I
have read (in the Spotlight section of the November 12 Davis Enterprise)
says that solar flares are the cause of the geological instability. How
can that be?
The only thing I could think of was that the sun spit out large matter
streams which passed close to Earth, exerting a large gravitational pull
on Earth, causing the earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and sinkholes.
However, wouldn't flares on that scale make Earth very hot?
How else can we make the Earth collapse like in 2012? I suggest a black
hole like in David Brin's Earth.
Brian Davis
> One review I have read... says that solar flares are the cause of the
> geological instability. How can that be?
Because it's a movie, and any traces of technobabble are purely
accidental. They weren't remotely concerned with the plausibility of
it. The closest they got was to reference a lot of crackpot theories.
The closest I've seen to an "explanation" that's been offered is that
a large flare would change things with the Earth's magnetic field,
thereby "electrifying" fault lines and triggering massive quakes (no
kidding, I tried hard not to laugh out loud as some talking head on a
Discovery channel show tried to explain this with a straight face).
> How else can we make the Earth collapse like in 2012?
In real life? You can't. Not even a black hole would have that set of
effects. You may be thinking there might be some science in the
science fiction... but this doesn't even rise the level of "science"
fiction, to my mind.
--
Brian Davis
Erik Max Francis
> One review I
> have read (in the Spotlight section of the November 12 Davis Enterprise)
> says that solar flares are the cause of the geological instability. How
> can that be?
It's a brainless disaster movie. If you're expecting scientific realism
in brainless disaster movies, well, bad on you.
--
Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM/Y!M/Skype erikmaxfrancis
Will I disappoint my future / If I stay
-- Sade
William Hyde
> Tim Bruening wrote:
> > One review I
> > have read (in the Spotlight section of the November 12 Davis Enterprise)
> > says that solar flares are the cause of the geological instability. How
> > can that be?
>
> It's a brainless disaster movie. If you're expecting scientific realism
> in brainless disaster movies, well, bad on you.
Do we have a geologist we can convince to review this?
William Hyde
Brian Davis
> Do we have a geologist we can convince to review this?
Why? By that I mean, "why would a geologist bother?" In the case of
having a physicist address the folks who maintain that we didn't land
on the Moon, there might be some point (you won't convince those
people, but you can at least address the issue for the folks who still
have a functional mind). But here, you're asking a geologist to take
their time to debunk of movie that didn't try to get it right in the
first place?
I could start with the scenes in the teasers: like the fact that huge
chunks of land lift and tilt like a child's building blocks, when the
sediments underlying places like LA or NYC simply don't have those
strengths. Like the fact that any building would remain standing under
the large vertical accelerations shown in the teasers (let alone the
horizontal accelerations as the slabs begin to tip, something even the
buildings in LA aren't remotely designed for). The astronomy-based
physics (huge solar flares warming the Earth's core? Right... an
undergraduate armed with conservation of energy should be able to
handle this one).
The movie (according to wiki - I've not seen it) invokes true polar
wander over timescales of hours to days. It's not right... it's not
even wrong.
--
Brian Davis
Raven
news:4AFF2E2E...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us...
> How else can we make the Earth collapse like in 2012? I suggest a black
> hole like in David Brin's Earth.
I suggest the movie be viewed like a Donald Duck cartoon. Fun to watch,
but you don't believe that a talking duck with eyes so big that each eyeball
must surely be considerably bigger than the head actually exists in the real
world, right? :-)
Jon Lennart Beck.
Howard Brazee
my wall, and I have much less time than the do.
--
"In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found,
than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace
to the legislature, and not to the executive department."
- James Madison
Greg Goss
Tim Bruening <tsbr...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
>How else can we make the Earth collapse like in 2012? I suggest a black
>hole like in David Brin's Earth.
A radio review I heard this morning said that it was a wandering
planet that passed close by.k
--
Tomorrow is today already.
Greg Goss, 1989-01-27
Robert Carnegie
> How else can we make the Earth collapse like in 2012?
CGI.
> I suggest a black
> hole like in David Brin's Earth.
"The Emmental Extinction".
Tim Bruening
Brian Davis wrote:
Wouldn't a black hole in the center of the Earth eventually suck the entire
planet into it?
Tim Bruening
Jette Goldie wrote:
> Did you watch the damn movie? The reasoning was given fairly early on
> in the movie. Hint - down a copper mine in India.
One review I read did mention the Indian mine and the Earth's core melting.
I had thought that Earth's core was already molten!
cryptoguy
There was a thread within the last year on r.a.sf.science discussing
this in great detail, mainly in the context of 'how big would it have
to be to be stopped inside the Earth if it fell from extrasolar
distances?'
The short answer is yes, but it has to be traveling at low speeds.
Otherwise, it will be slowed, but not stopped, and just pop out the
other side. The thing is, the cylinder of matter it will absorb in a
single pass has much less mass than the BH, so won't affect its
momentum much.
pt
alie...@gmail.com
>
> In this movie, Earth suffers massive geological instabilities, resulting
> in LA and other cities collapsing into vast sinkholes. One review I
> have read (in the Spotlight section of the November 12 Davis Enterprise)
> says that solar flares are the cause of the geological instability. How
> can that be?
According to a blog in Sci Am:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=in-2012-neutrinos-melt-the-earths-c-2009-11-13
an overdose of solar neutrinos (solar activity peak doncha know),
which for no obvious reason interact more than usual with matter,
"boils" the Earth's core which expands, fluffing up the mantle,
cracking the crust and flipping chunks of it over a la George Carlin's
interview on Coast To Coast.
> How else can we make the Earth collapse like in 2012? I suggest a black
> hole like in David Brin's Earth.
Well, it doesn't collapse in 2012, it _expands_.
But, if all you want is "gardening" of the planet all the way down
to the core, how about a nice loop of cosmic string a couple dozen
thousand miles in diameter, vibrating in some awkwardly complex
fashion several thousand times a second, that sweeps through the Solar
system and chews up a few planets including Earth like God's own
chainsaw? If it needs to be survivable, it could just graze the
planet, maybe shave off a subcontinent or so.
Mark L. Fergerson
Mark L. Fergerson
Dorothy J Heydt
Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
>spoiler space
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>Tim Bruening <tsbr...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
>
>>How else can we make the Earth collapse like in 2012? I suggest a black
>>hole like in David Brin's Earth.
>
>A radio review I heard this morning said that it was a wandering
>planet that passed close by.k
But, but, but, George Pal already did _When Worlds Collide_ back
in the fifties.
--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at hotmail dot com
Should you wish to email me, you'd better use the hotmail edress.
Kithrup is getting too damn much spam, even with the sysop's filters.
Dorothy J Heydt
Though it might make a great episode of _Mythbusters._ Using
scale models, of course.
John Park
> On Nov 14, 10:21=A0pm, Tim Bruening <tsbru...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us>
> wrote:
>> Brian Davis wrote:
>> > On Nov 14, 5:24 pm, Tim Bruening <tsbru...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
>>
>> > > One review I have read... says that solar flares are the cause of the
>>
>> > Because it's a movie, and any traces of technobabble are purely
>> > accidental. They weren't remotely concerned with the plausibility of
>> > it. The closest they got was to reference a lot of crackpot theories.
>>
>> > The closest I've seen to an "explanation" that's been offered is that
>> > a large flare would change things with the Earth's magnetic field,
>> > thereby "electrifying" fault lines and triggering massive quakes (no
>> > kidding, I tried hard not to laugh out loud as some talking head on a
>> > Discovery channel show tried to explain this with a straight face).
>>
>> > > How else can we make the Earth collapse like in 2012?
>>
>> > In real life? You can't. Not even a black hole would have that set of
>> > effects. You may be thinking there might be some science in the
>> > science fiction... but this doesn't even rise the level of "science"
>> > fiction, to my mind.
>>
> re
>> planet into it?
>
> There was a thread within the last year on r.a.sf.science discussing
> this in great detail, mainly in the context of 'how big would it have
> to be to be stopped inside the Earth if it fell from extrasolar
> distances?'
>
> The short answer is yes, but it has to be traveling at low speeds.
> Otherwise, it will be slowed, but not stopped, and just pop out the
> other side. The thing is, the cylinder of matter it will absorb in a
> single pass has much less mass than the BH, so won't affect its
> momentum much.
Also, for reasonable-sized holes, "eventually" may mean times much longer than
the current age of the universe.
--John Park
Edward McArdle
<386335e6-0180-4fcf...@b2g2000yqi.googlegroups.com>, Brian
Davis <brd...@iusb.edu> wrote:
Well, I thought it was a documentary, until they floated past the tip of
Everest. That means the sea had risen seven miles... Hmmm.
--
Edward McArdle
John
"2012": There's something 2 be said for the special effects, then lots
of flaws such as how a cell phone works far away from a tower that's
likely under rubble. It's not Godzilla, though! (LOL!). What is so
"awesome" about the special people who get to survive while the other
billions die? I guess I'll be the crazy on...e. What "2012" sez 2 me
is most of us are disposable and unworthy. At least they let the dog
live.
Michael Grosberg
wrote:
The movie says it's strongly-interacting Neutrinos that heat up the
earth's core.
Howard Brazee
<tsbr...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
>Wouldn't a black hole in the center of the Earth eventually suck the entire
>planet into it?
In Brin's _Earth_, something different happened - although the word
"eventually" could mean after a long, long time.
Sean O'Hara
The usual scenario for "black hole eats the Earth" involves a
particle accelerator and scientists being wrong about micro-black
holes evaporating faster than they can consume matter.
--
Sean O'Hara <http://www.diogenes-sinope.blogspot.com>
New audio book: As Long as You Wish by John O'Keefe
<http://librivox.org/short-science-fiction-collection-010/>
William Hyde
> On Nov 14, 8:06 pm, William Hyde <wthyde1...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Do we have a geologist we can convince to review this?
>
> Why?
T'was a joke based on past history in rasfw. That is, I had to suffer
through "the day after tomorrow", so why should the geologists get an
easy ride?
William Hyde
Brian Davis
> T'was a joke based on past history in rasfw. That is, I had to suffer
> through "the day after tomorrow", so why should the geologists get an
> easy ride?
Ah, my bad. I guess I've seen that question, in one form or another,
way too many times asked in all seriousness :).
--
Brian Davis
Tim Bruening
cryptoguy wrote:
I was imagining a black hole that would settle in the center of the Earth.
Moriarty
It was definitely a high point of rasfw. William Hyde, a climate
scientist, lost a bet (or was somehow otherwise convinced, it was a
while ago) and had to go see the movie and review it for the group
paying particular attention to its scientific accuracy (or lack
thereof). Try and track down his review. It's hilarious and it
almost made me want to see the movie just to contextualise it.
Almost.
-Moriarty
sirblob2
> In the Year of the Earth Ox, the Great and Powerful cryptoguy declared:
>
>
>
> > On Nov 14, 10:21 pm, Tim Bruening <tsbru...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us>
> > wrote:
> >> Wouldn't a black hole in the center of the Earth eventually suck the entire
> >> planet into it?
>
> > There was a thread within the last year on r.a.sf.science discussing
> > this in great detail, mainly in the context of 'how big would it have
> > to be to be stopped inside the Earth if it fell from extrasolar
> > distances?'
>
> > The short answer is yes, but it has to be traveling at low speeds.
> > Otherwise, it will be slowed, but not stopped, and just pop out the
> > other side. The thing is, the cylinder of matter it will absorb in a
> > single pass has much less mass than the BH, so won't affect its
> > momentum much.
>
> The usual scenario for "black hole eats the Earth" involves a
> particle accelerator and scientists being wrong about micro-black
> holes evaporating faster than they can consume matter.
precisely what's gonna happen in geneva
sirblob2
they were mutant neutrinos
Erik Max Francis
Why? Do you really need a geologist to tell you that they just made
shit up?
--
Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM/Y!M/Skype erikmaxfrancis
There was never a good war or a bad peace.
-- Benjamin Franklin, 1706-1790
Erik Max Francis
Read the thread he's talking about and see for yourself.
Robert A. Woodward
Erik Max Francis <m...@alcyone.com> wrote:
> William Hyde wrote:
> > On Nov 14, 5:56 pm, Erik Max Francis <m...@alcyone.com> wrote:
> >> Tim Bruening wrote:
> >>> One review I
> >>> have read (in the Spotlight section of the November 12 Davis Enterprise)
> >>> says that solar flares are the cause of the geological instability. How
> >>> can that be?
> >> It's a brainless disaster movie. If you're expecting scientific realism
> >> in brainless disaster movies, well, bad on you.
> >
> > Do we have a geologist we can convince to review this?
>
> Why? Do you really need a geologist to tell you that they just made
> shit up?
I believe that this is a allusion to the time that he had been
persuaded to review a previous disaster movie (by the same
director, IMS). I believe he was paid a quite reasonable hourly
rate for it.
--
Robert Woodward <robe...@drizzle.com>
<http://www.drizzle.com/~robertaw>
William December Starr
Moriarty <blu...@ivillage.com> said:
> It was definitely a high point of rasfw. William Hyde, a climate
> scientist, lost a bet (or was somehow otherwise convinced, it was
> a while ago) and had to go see the movie and review it for the
> group paying particular attention to its scientific accuracy (or
> lack thereof).
As I recall, he foolishly said that he'd charge $100 to do it, and
people got together and raised the money.
-- wds
Nigel
> In article <cuWdnZqjp-yqWp3WnZ2dnUVZ_tti4...@giganews.com>,
> Erik Max Francis <m...@alcyone.com> wrote:
>
> > William Hyde wrote:
> > > On Nov 14, 5:56 pm, Erik Max Francis <m...@alcyone.com> wrote:
> > >> Tim Bruening wrote:
> > >>> One review I
> > >>> have read (in the Spotlight section of the November 12 Davis Enterprise)
> > >>> says that solar flares are the cause of the geological instability. How
> > >>> can that be?
> > >> It's a brainless disaster movie. If you're expecting scientific realism
> > >> in brainless disaster movies, well, bad on you.
>
> > > Do we have a geologist we can convince to review this?
>
> > Why? Do you really need a geologist to tell you that they just made
> > shit up?
>
> I believe that this is a allusion to the time that he had been
> persuaded to review a previous disaster movie (by the same
> director, IMS). I believe he was paid a quite reasonable hourly
> rate for it.
>
Here's the link: http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.written/msg/6e52157aaf63775f?pli=1
Cheers,
Nigel.
alie...@gmail.com
"...settle in the center of the Earth" is not gonna happen.
One of the points made in the referenced thread (I can't get Google
Groups to give me a link to it) is that a black hole small enough to
fit inside the Earth, and still eat it fast enough for dramatic
urgency, would pretty much have to be a substellar-mass primordial
hole with the mass of a large moon or small to medium sized planet*.
You can't neglect the effect of that much mass on the orbital
mechanics of the capture.
It would be the same as Earth vs. another planet until contact
occurred and capture would be as statistically unlikely as
noncatastrophic capture** of an uncollapsed planet. Earth would fall
toward the hole as it fell toward Earth, eventually they'd both settle
into an orbit around the Sun different from the object's pre-capture
trajectory _and_ Earth's pre-capture orbit. It would seriously alter
Earth's orbit. We'd notice that long before the crust started
collapsing out from under us.
*One with the mass of the Moon will have a radius of ~ .1 mm, one
with the Sun's mass will have a radius ~ 30 km.
**The difference is that an uncollapsed object can be
"catastrophically captured" by whanging into the Earth at many km/s
(see Chixculub, Tunguska, etc.), but any BH at similar velocities will
just whizz right through and keep going; to be captured closing
velocity must be relatively very slow as astronomical speeds go.
Mark L. Fergerson
Anthony Buckland
"sirblob2" <sirb...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:68db78ba-1bdb-48f0...@g23g2000yqh.googlegroups.com...
>they were mutant neutrinos
Yup, they actually did say that. In the same sentence
as hypothesizing previously unknown particles. I'd go
with the latter.
So what do I see in the considerable number of postings about a
movie that opened only three days ago? Statements about the
content of the movie based either on not having actually seen it,
or on memories with a half-life measured in hours. People pissed
off from one social standpoint or another, to whom the movie is
merely yet another excuse to restate their views. People puzzled
about the not-totally-real science, understandable since it was
used to base a probably actually impossible chain of events.
Actual intelligent debates about how the world as we know it
might end.
People, it's a Disaster Movie. It's formulaic, but as a visual
treat it's head and shoulders over most of its predecessors.
It's formulaic to the extent of including the mandatory Dog In
Peril (see also, relatively recently, Independence Day). It's
a marvellous series of special effects pieces. I might well
end up buying the DVD just to view again, several times
including frame-by-frame, the destruction of LA, the eruption
of the Yellowstone Supervolcano (something that could very
well happen in our lifetimes or soon after with no help from
any misbehavior of our Sun), the lava death of Hawaii, several
tsunamis, and various other events which would be expected
to support lesser movies all by themselves. For instance, the
Poseidon Adventure is thrown in as a minor side attraction,
admittedly with a less happy outcome.
I've been enjoying disaster movies, for themselves, since
Earthquake (which hints at my age), and I rate this and
Independence Day at the top of the heap.
Erik Max Francis
> People, it's a Disaster Movie. It's formulaic, but as a visual
> treat it's head and shoulders over most of its predecessors.
> It's formulaic to the extent of including the mandatory Dog In
> Peril (see also, relatively recently, Independence Day). It's
> a marvellous series of special effects pieces. I might well
> end up buying the DVD just to view again, several times
> including frame-by-frame, the destruction of LA, the eruption
> of the Yellowstone Supervolcano (something that could very
> well happen in our lifetimes or soon after with no help from
> any misbehavior of our Sun), the lava death of Hawaii, several
> tsunamis, and various other events which would be expected
> to support lesser movies all by themselves. For instance, the
> Poseidon Adventure is thrown in as a minor side attraction,
> admittedly with a less happy outcome.
Yeah, I'm surprised that people are even bothering. Even hardasses on
rec.arts.sf.science should understand that there's little point in
trying to scientifically analyze something that has made no attempts
whatsoever to be remotely scientifically accurate. And that's fine;
space opera and science fantasy are perfectly fine diversions if you
like such movies. Disaster movies, especially, rarely try to get things
right -- that's not the point. The point is special effects and
exploding things and scary things and exploding things and near-miss
after near-miss and some more exploding things.
In particular, the trailers for _2012_ (including a pretty hilarious one
deliberately shot to make it look like classic '70s disaster porn) make
no bones about what the movie is. Trying to take it seriously and point
out its errors is not just a waste of time, it's missing the point.
> I've been enjoying disaster movies, for themselves, since
> Earthquake (which hints at my age), and I rate this and
> Independence Day at the top of the heap.
So far I'd been hearing pretty mediocre reviews (from actual reviewers
who knew what they were getting, not science nitpickers). I'll probably
rent it. Does John Cusack say anything? (Ba dum bump.)
_Independence Day_ was similarly dumb as a doorknob but still quite
entertaining. But just wait for _Independence Day 2_ (not kidding,
unfortunately).
--
Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM/Y!M/Skype erikmaxfrancis
I sleep and dream that life is / All beauty
-- Lamya
Erik Max Francis
> In particular, the trailers for _2012_ (including a pretty hilarious one
> deliberately shot to make it look like classic '70s disaster porn) make
> no bones about what the movie is.
Minor correction there: Looks like what I was referring to was not an
official trailer, but a parody. Still, it is funny -- extra amusing gag
at around 1:16:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW2qxFkcLM0
--
Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM/Y!M/Skype erikmaxfrancis
Mona Lisa / Come to discover / I am your daughter
-- Lamya
moviePig
<anthonybucklandnos...@telus.net> wrote:
> "sirblob2" <sirbl...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
(At least you know that it's a heap...) I'm surprised to see that
2012 gets only a 6.7 from 10k IMDb users. I'll presume its audience
to comprise a bottom fifth who bought it, a top fifth who found it
priceless, and a middle three-fifths who were disappointed by (say)
the lack of character development...
--
- - - - - - - -
YOUR taste at work...
http://www.moviepig.com
Mike Van Pelt
>> earth's core.
>
>they were mutant neutrinos
Did they get bitten by a radioactive spider?
--
Mike Van Pelt "If they're going to talk about
mvp.at.calweb.com Camelot, then we get to talk about
KE6BVH The Lady in the Lake." - ?
jill
THANK YOU!!!! I have been trying to explain this to my SO for
years. He keeps trying to make these movies have a point and is
upset every time they don't. Take the movie 'Speed' for example.
Launching a greyhound bus into the air is a great thing to do in
a movie. Or look at the Transformer movies. Fantastic effects. The
look on that lady's face as she tried to cram her son under the front
seat is one of my favorite parts.
I'm going to see 2012 tomorrow just to enjoy the mayhem and
explosions. I probably won't even notice the plot (what plot there
is/isn't). I think the less believable the better, otherwise I will
have to pay too much attention to the dialog and not enough to the
things whizzing by as they blow up.
Jill
--
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The colors blend, the edges soften. Swirling and mixing
we are becoming white light.
ji...@tuells.org
Brian Davis
> THANK YOU!!!! I have been trying to explain this to my SO for
> years. He keeps trying to make these movies have a point and is
> upset every time they don't.
While I agree with Erik that worrying about the science of such movies
is a little silly, well... 1st, we were asked, and 2nd, it's sometimes
fun to do.
> I probably won't even notice the plot (what plot there
> is/isn't). I think the less believable the better, otherwise
> I will have to pay too much attention to the dialog and
> not enough to the things whizzing by as they blow up.
If all you want from your entertainment is eye-candy, then you're
right: have fun, and watch the special effects budget (want to rent
Waterworld?). Some of us like more thoughtful material while watching
things blow up (heck, Mythbusters beats most of these offerings on
that count).
Oh, and again keep in mind that some of us are replying from rasfs...
where the science is, after all, why we entered the dialog :).
--
Brian Davis
Mark Reichert
> In article <e273c65e-7b53-426f-b45f-19af74c5c...@z3g2000prd.googlegroups.com>,
> Moriarty <blue...@ivillage.com> said:
>
> > It was definitely a high point of rasfw. William Hyde, a climate
> > scientist, lost a bet (or was somehow otherwise convinced, it was
> > a while ago) and had to go see the movie and review it for the
> > group paying particular attention to its scientific accuracy (or
> > lack thereof).
>
> As I recall, he foolishly said that he'd charge $100 to do it, and
> people got together and raised the money.
>
> -- wds
But he never got his wasted hours back.
"Argh, me eyes. It burns, it burns"
Jens Kleimann
> On Nov 15, 1:13 pm, Tim Bruening <tsbru...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
>> I was imagining a black hole that would settle in the center of the Earth.
>
> "...settle in the center of the Earth" is not gonna happen.
>
> One of the points made in the referenced thread (I can't get Google
> Groups to give me a link to it) is that a black hole small enough to
> fit inside the Earth, and still eat it fast enough for dramatic
> urgency, would pretty much have to be a substellar-mass primordial
> hole with the mass of a large moon or small to medium sized planet*.
> You can't neglect the effect of that much mass on the orbital
> mechanics of the capture.
That thread is here: http://groups.google.de/group/rec.arts.sf.science/browse_thread/thread/da2e03c57909f8e3/
> It would be the same as Earth vs. another planet until contact
> occurred and capture would be as statistically unlikely as
> noncatastrophic capture** of an uncollapsed planet. Earth would fall
> toward the hole as it fell toward Earth, eventually they'd both settle
> into an orbit around the Sun different from the object's pre-capture
> trajectory _and_ Earth's pre-capture orbit. It would seriously alter
> Earth's orbit. We'd notice that long before the crust started
> collapsing out from under us.
>
> *One with the mass of the Moon will have a radius of ~ .1 mm, one
> with the Sun's mass will have a radius ~ 30 km.
<nitpick mode ON>
Make that 3 km, and all is well.
<nitpick mode OFF again>
> **The difference is that an uncollapsed object can be
> "catastrophically captured" by whanging into the Earth at many km/s
> (see Chixculub, Tunguska, etc.), but any BH at similar velocities will
> just whizz right through and keep going; to be captured closing
> velocity must be relatively very slow as astronomical speeds go.
Jens.
--
Remove '_nospam' for actual email address.
sirblob2
> I wrote:
> > In particular, the trailers for _2012_ (including a pretty hilarious one
> > deliberately shot to make it look like classic '70s disaster porn) make
> > no bones about what the movie is.
>
> Minor correction there: Looks like what I was referring to was not an
> official trailer, but a parody. Still, it is funny -- extra amusing gag
> at around 1:16:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW2qxFkcLM0
>
> --
lol!
sirblob2
im surprised no one's compared it to war of the worlds yet, with an
old spielberg vs a young emmerich. the action in war of the worlds is
more fluid, but there's less fx, more characters, but as i said, i
loved the folk in 2012, thou the guy dubbing karpov in spanish was
better than the original
David DeLaney
>THANK YOU!!!! I have been trying to explain this to my SO for
>years. He keeps trying to make these movies have a point and is
>upset every time they don't. Take the movie 'Speed' for example.
>Launching a greyhound bus into the air is a great thing to do in
>a movie. Or look at the Transformer movies. Fantastic effects. The
>look on that lady's face as she tried to cram her son under the front
>seat is one of my favorite parts.
>
>I'm going to see 2012 tomorrow just to enjoy the mayhem and
>explosions. I probably won't even notice the plot (what plot there
>is/isn't). I think the less believable the better, otherwise I will
>have to pay too much attention to the dialog and not enough to the
>things whizzing by as they blow up.
...wait wait wait.
Your SO is a guy, and you (I'm assuming from the name) are not ... and
_you're_ enjoying the movies for the explosions and lack of plot and
special effects, and _he_ is trying to get them to have a point and a
plot and gets upset when they don't?
Truly we do meet all kinds on Usenet! Thank you!
Dave
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
David DeLaney
i've fixed your gaming-mechanics speculation for you
Dave "essence -3" DeLaney
Brian Davis
> Looks like what I was referring to was not an official trailer, but a
> parody. Still, it is funny -- extra amusing gag at around 1:16:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW2qxFkcLM0
Now *that*, ironically enough, makes me want to see the original
movie. I guess I prefer my cheese to be self-referential.
--
Brian Davis
moviePig
More ironically, it makes me want to see the original *again*...
because it looks even better here than it did up on the big screen.
(Perhaps my perception then was compromised by popcorn, and anxiety
for Cusack's career...)
moviePig
> jill <j...@tuells.org> wrote:
> >THANK YOU!!!! I have been trying to explain this to my SO for
> >years. He keeps trying to make these movies have a point and is
> >upset every time they don't. Take the movie 'Speed' for example.
> >Launching a greyhound bus into the air is a great thing to do in
> >a movie. Or look at the Transformer movies. Fantastic effects. The
> >look on that lady's face as she tried to cram her son under the front
> >seat is one of my favorite parts.
>
> >I'm going to see 2012 tomorrow just to enjoy the mayhem and
> >explosions. I probably won't even notice the plot (what plot there
> >is/isn't). I think the less believable the better, otherwise I will
> >have to pay too much attention to the dialog and not enough to the
> >things whizzing by as they blow up.
>
> ...wait wait wait.
>
> Your SO is a guy, and you (I'm assuming from the name) are not ... and
> _you're_ enjoying the movies for the explosions and lack of plot and
> special effects, and _he_ is trying to get them to have a point and a
> plot and gets upset when they don't?
>
> Truly we do meet all kinds on Usenet! Thank you!
Nah, I'm sure their polarity is quite safe and normal. What's
happened is merely that she has matriculated into geekdom's
introductory levels... compelling him to retreat up to a more academic
perspective...
alie...@gmail.com
> n...@bid.nes wrote:
> > On Nov 15, 1:13 pm, Tim Bruening <tsbru...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
> >> I was imagining a black hole that would settle in the center of the Earth.
>
> > "...settle in the center of the Earth" is not gonna happen.
>
> > One of the points made in the referenced thread (I can't get Google
> That thread is here:http://groups.google.de/group/rec.arts.sf.science/browse_thread/threa...
Thank you!
(Tim, say "thank you".)
> > *[a black hole] with the mass of the Moon will have a radius of ~ .1 mm, one
> > with the Sun's mass will have a radius ~ 30 km.
>
> <nitpick mode ON>
> Make that 3 km, and all is well.
> <nitpick mode OFF again>
I cheated and snagged the numbers from Wikipedia.
Mark L. Fergerson
Jette Goldie
> jill <ji...@tuells.org> wrote:
>> THANK YOU!!!! I have been trying to explain this to my SO for
>> years. He keeps trying to make these movies have a point and is
>> upset every time they don't. Take the movie 'Speed' for example.
>> Launching a greyhound bus into the air is a great thing to do in
>> a movie. Or look at the Transformer movies. Fantastic effects. The
>> look on that lady's face as she tried to cram her son under the front
>> seat is one of my favorite parts.
>>
>> I'm going to see 2012 tomorrow just to enjoy the mayhem and
>> explosions. I probably won't even notice the plot (what plot there
>> is/isn't). I think the less believable the better, otherwise I will
>> have to pay too much attention to the dialog and not enough to the
>> things whizzing by as they blow up.
>
> ...wait wait wait.
>
> Your SO is a guy, and you (I'm assuming from the name) are not ... and
> _you're_ enjoying the movies for the explosions and lack of plot and
> special effects, and _he_ is trying to get them to have a point and a
> plot and gets upset when they don't?
>
Yeah? So?
What's so strange about that ?
--
Jette Goldie
jette....@gmail.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wolfette/
http://www.jette.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/
http://wolfette.livejournal.com/
("reply to" is spamblocked - use the email addy in sig)
Erik Max Francis
> David DeLaney wrote:
>> jill <ji...@tuells.org> wrote:
>>> I'm going to see 2012 tomorrow just to enjoy the mayhem and
>>> explosions. I probably won't even notice the plot (what plot there
>>> is/isn't). I think the less believable the better, otherwise I will
>>> have to pay too much attention to the dialog and not enough to the
>>> things whizzing by as they blow up.
>>
>> ...wait wait wait.
>>
>> Your SO is a guy, and you (I'm assuming from the name) are not ... and
>> _you're_ enjoying the movies for the explosions and lack of plot and
>> special effects, and _he_ is trying to get them to have a point and a
>> plot and gets upset when they don't?
>
> Yeah? So?
>
> What's so strange about that ?
I think ladies contributing to rec.arts.sf.* on Usenet are a rather
biased set in terms of their personal movie preferences ... :-).
--
Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM/Y!M/Skype erikmaxfrancis
Walking in space, man has never looked more puny or insignificant.
-- Alexander Chase
Phillip Thorne
>I could start with the scenes in the teasers: like the fact that huge
>chunks of land lift and tilt like a child's building blocks, when the
>sediments underlying places like LA or NYC simply don't have those
>strengths.
I'll just add my voice to the consensus: the *point* of a disaster
movie is *spectacle*. Audiences get a vicarious schadenfreude-ish
thrill by watching things break and human masses die. Scientific
accuracy is incidental and/or accidental.
Instead, pretend it's a big-budget visualization of the geologic
disruption wrought by the decaying Genesis Wave, or Unicron's
planet-eating tractor beam, or the Drej planet-spin-upper-destroyer.
Star Trek III, 1984
The Transformers: The Movie, 1986
Titan A.E., 2000
--
** Phillip Thorne ** peth...@comcast.net **************
* RPI CompSci 1998 *
** underbase.livejournal.com ***************************
Brian Davis
> I'll just add my voice to the consensus: the *point* of a disaster
> movie is *spectacle*.
So, adding in a ring-shaped explosion to the Death Star is a bonus,
just because you can do it?
I'm not saying the point isn't spectacle - it is, and always was, and
most of us here know it (including me). Which is why I pointed out how
silly it was to worry about it here (rasfs) in the first place.
> Audiences get a vicarious schadenfreude-ish thrill by watching things
> break and human masses die.
Sure. So do I. I don't bother to bring up the Indiana Jones movies
here, or Saving Private Ryan... because there isn't any science in
them at all. This is something they have in common with 2012.
Incidentally, I'm having a good time watching a similar discussion
start up in a group that studies the Yellowstone geysers - they're
getting a hoot out of the "outrun a supervolcano in a motorhome" scene
as well.
--
Brian Davis
William December Starr
Phillip Thorne <peth...@comcast.net> said:
> I'll just add my voice to the consensus: the *point* of a disaster
> movie is *spectacle*. Audiences get a vicarious schadenfreude-ish
> thrill by watching things break and human masses die. Scientific
> accuracy is incidental and/or accidental.
>
> Instead, pretend it's a big-budget visualization of the geologic
> disruption wrought by the decaying Genesis Wave, or Unicron's
> planet-eating tractor beam, or the Drej
> planet-spin-upper-destroyer.
>
> Star Trek III, 1984
> The Transformers: The Movie, 1986
> Titan A.E., 2000
Honestly, that would be way better than having to tolerate Teh
Stupid of movies that pretend that impossible disasters are
scientifically credible as natural phenomena. At least in
"Independence Day" there wasn't any of _that_ nonsense -- cities
were going up in clouds of zorch because aliens were zorching them,
not because Neptune and Venus had collided or something.
-- wds
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> On Nov 17, 7:41 pm, Phillip Thorne <petho...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> I'll just add my voice to the consensus: the *point* of a disaster
>> movie is *spectacle*.
>
> So, adding in a ring-shaped explosion to the Death Star is a bonus,
> just because you can do it?
Not just because you can do it. Because you can do it and it looks *COOL*.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://seawasp.livejournal.com
jill
Brian Davis <brd...@iusb.edu> wrote:
>On Nov 16, 10:09=A0pm, j...@tuells.org (jill) wrote:
>
>> THANK YOU!!!! I have been trying to explain this to my SO for
>> years. He keeps trying to make these movies have a point and is
>> upset every time they don't.
>
>While I agree with Erik that worrying about the science of such movies
>is a little silly, well... 1st, we were asked, and 2nd, it's sometimes
>fun to do.
Well, I saw the movie today and they _tried_ to explain why physics
was optional in this movie. I thought they did a good job of it, given
that it is impossible. *grin*
'mutated neutrinos' 'that's impossible' 'yes I know, but it _is_
happening and we don't have time to figure out why' ROTFL
So, I was happily able to suspend belief because they explained it
carefully and 'logically' *snicker*
>> I probably won't even notice the plot (what plot there
>> is/isn't). I think the less believable the better, otherwise
>> I will have to pay too much attention to the dialog and
>> not enough to the things whizzing by as they blow up.
>
>If all you want from your entertainment is eye-candy, then you're
>right: have fun, and watch the special effects budget (want to rent
>Waterworld?). Some of us like more thoughtful material while watching
>things blow up (heck, Mythbusters beats most of these offerings on
>that count).
YES! When they blew that cement mixer up. The noise it made was the
most impressive explosive noise I have ever heard. I thought 2012 had
thoughtful material to watch while things blew up, those cars were
quite nice to look at (I'm partial to the yellow ferrari myself).
>Oh, and again keep in mind that some of us are replying from rasfs...
>where the science is, after all, why we entered the dialog :).
>
>--
>Brian Davis
*I bow to your interest in science* I personally like to keep my
science out of big screen events. There isn't enough action and things
blowing up (that HUGE airplane!!!!!!!!!!) in reality.
All in all, though, this movie was definitely not up to my standards.
The first transformer movie is still head and shoulders above the rest
for massive coolness in special effects. Die Hard is still best for
cute men to look at during action adventure scenes. Maybe 2012 is
third... or fourth.
jill
David DeLaney <d...@vic.com> wrote:
>jill <ji...@tuells.org> wrote:
>>THANK YOU!!!! I have been trying to explain this to my SO for
>>years. He keeps trying to make these movies have a point and is
>>upset every time they don't. Take the movie 'Speed' for example.
>>Launching a greyhound bus into the air is a great thing to do in
>>a movie. Or look at the Transformer movies. Fantastic effects. The
>>look on that lady's face as she tried to cram her son under the front
>>seat is one of my favorite parts.
>>
>>I'm going to see 2012 tomorrow just to enjoy the mayhem and
>>explosions. I probably won't even notice the plot (what plot there
>>is/isn't). I think the less believable the better, otherwise I will
>>have to pay too much attention to the dialog and not enough to the
>>things whizzing by as they blow up.
>
>...wait wait wait.
>
>Your SO is a guy, and you (I'm assuming from the name) are not ... and
>_you're_ enjoying the movies for the explosions and lack of plot and
>special effects, and _he_ is trying to get them to have a point and a
>plot and gets upset when they don't?
>
>Truly we do meet all kinds on Usenet! Thank you!
>
>Dave
Not only that but he likes 'chick' music and I like heavy metal. And
yet, in all other ways we are so typically hetero and middle class
*grin*
Btw, the movie was great! Lots of things blowing up and falling down
and the laws of physics almost nonexistent when they would clearly
just get in the way. And that actress who was on ER for a while (the
prez's daughter) did a good job as well. There was only one ditzy
screaming blonde and she did a very good job in her role!
moviePig
> In article <dddde7d4-9d28-47e0-958e-aa536c79f...@l13g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>,
> Brian Davis <brda...@iusb.edu> wrote:
>
> >On Nov 16, 10:09=A0pm, j...@tuells.org (jill) wrote:
>
> >> THANK YOU!!!! I have been trying to explain this to my SO for
> >> years. He keeps trying to make these movies have a point and is
> >> upset every time they don't.
>
> >While I agree with Erik that worrying about the science of such movies
> >is a little silly, well... 1st, we were asked, and 2nd, it's sometimes
> >fun to do.
>
> Well, I saw the movie today and they _tried_ to explain why physics
> was optional in this movie. I thought they did a good job of it, given
> that it is impossible. *grin*
>
> 'mutated neutrinos' 'that's impossible' 'yes I know, but it _is_
> happening and we don't have time to figure out why' ROTFL
>
> So, I was happily able to suspend belief because they explained it
> carefully and 'logically' *snicker*
Neutrinos, they are very small.
They have no charge and have no mass
And do not interact at all.
The earth is just a silly ball
To them, through which they simply pass,
Like dustmaids down a drafty hall
Or photons through a sheet of glass.
They snub the most exquisite gas,
Ignore the most substantial wall,
Cold shoulder steel and sounding brass,
Insult the stallion in his stall,
And, scorning barriers of class,
Infiltrate you and me. Like tall
And painless guillotines they fall
Down through our heads into the grass.
At night, they enter at Nepal
And pierce the lover and his lass
From underneath the bed—you call
It wonderful; I call it crass.
—John Updike
Erik Max Francis
> Neutrinos, they are very small.
> They have no charge and have no mass
> And do not interact at all.
Cute, but dated. We now know that neutrinos _do_ have a non-zero mass.
(And they do interact a little, but he probably knew that at the time
so we'll let that one pass.)
--
Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM/Y!M/Skype erikmaxfrancis
Life is a gamble so I should / Live life more carefully
-- TLC
Brian Davis
<seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>> So, adding in a ring-shaped explosion to the Death Star is a bonus,
>> just because you can do it?
>
> Not just because you can do it. Because you can do it and it looks *COOL*.
See, that's where I start having a problem - it doesn't look "cool" to
some of us. It just looks dumb. Like somebody added something because
they could, not because there was an advantage or valid reason... and
it makes it even harder to willingly let the director pull the wool
over your eyes for the sack of a fun ride, when they decide to do it
again and again and again.
I would have thought it stupid if they had made the X-wing's weapons
beams crackle with electricity, or had Tinker Bell assisting Darth
Vader, because both require further suspension of disbelief. For some
of us, there's a point that you pass, where "cool special effect" is
overtopped by "you're asking us to swallow *what*?" Sadly, either the
average studio doesn't get that, or the average persons grasp of the
world around them is about as sophisticated as a brick.
As a teacher, I see a lot of evidence for the 2nd. Depressing, really.
--
Brian Davis
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> On Nov 17, 9:31 pm, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
> <seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>
>>> So, adding in a ring-shaped explosion to the Death Star is a bonus,
>>> just because you can do it?
>> Not just because you can do it. Because you can do it and it looks *COOL*.
>
> See, that's where I start having a problem - it doesn't look "cool" to
> some of us. It just looks dumb.
Then close your eyes and bang your cane three times on the floor, grandpa.
>
> I would have thought it stupid if they had made the X-wing's weapons
> beams crackle with electricity,
They're not big enough to use the "crackle and glow before firing" trope.
> or had Tinker Bell assisting Darth
> Vader,
Well, you see, THAT wouldn't make sense, because (A) Tink's a good guy,
not evil, and (B) there's no fairies in Jediland.
You're complaining about a ring-core explosion in a universe where the
physics allow asteroids to have misty atmospheres and giant worms.
Taemon
> I'm going to see 2012 tomorrow just to enjoy the mayhem and
> explosions. I probably won't even notice the plot (what plot there
> is/isn't). I think the less believable the better, otherwise I will
> have to pay too much attention to the dialog and not enough to the
> things whizzing by as they blow up.
I was distracted by the plot, though. I was led to believe that being "good"
or "bad" didn't have an effect on one's surviving or not, but that wasn't at
all true. And that stupid argument over to open the gate doors to the masses
or not was SO annoying that it certainly took away some of my viewing
pleasure. "Humanity"? It's about survival, idiots. Get on with it.
Boy, I loved that huge plane going down. And the cruiseship. And
Yellowstone. Heh.
T.
moviePig
> moviePig wrote:
> > Neutrinos, they are very small.
> > They have no charge and have no mass
> > And do not interact at all.
>
> ...
>
> Cute, but dated. We now know that neutrinos _do_ have a non-zero mass.
> (And they do interact a little, but he probably knew that at the time
> so we'll let that one pass.)
'Cute, but dated'? In Updike's presence, quantum physicists past
present and future ought remove their sandals...
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> On Nov 17, 10:34 pm, Erik Max Francis <m...@alcyone.com> wrote:
>> moviePig wrote:
>>> Neutrinos, they are very small.
>>> They have no charge and have no mass
>>> And do not interact at all.
>> ...
>>
>> Cute, but dated. We now know that neutrinos _do_ have a non-zero mass.
>> (And they do interact a little, but he probably knew that at the time
>> so we'll let that one pass.)
>
> 'Cute, but dated'? In Updike's presence, quantum physicists past
> present and future ought remove their sandals...
Greg Goss
>I've been enjoying disaster movies, for themselves, since
>Earthquake (which hints at my age), and I rate this and
>Independence Day at the top of the heap.
ID had a reasonable setup and a lousy resolution. This one has a
lousy setup and a mostly reasonable resolution.
The manner in which the plane running out of gas a few thousane miles
short of the destination was enough to come close to killing the whole
movie for me. Several people have mentioned the Yellowstone thing.
Something blows up suitable to form a mushroom cloud with multiple
blast rings and he outruns it in a motorhome.
--
Tomorrow is today already.
Greg Goss, 1989-01-27
David DeLaney
>Brian Davis <brd...@iusb.edu> wrote:
>>Oh, and again keep in mind that some of us are replying from rasfs...
>>where the science is, after all, why we entered the dialog :).
Motto: "rasfs... where the SCIENCE is!"
>*I bow to your interest in science* I personally like to keep my
>science out of big screen events. There isn't enough action and things
>blowing up (that HUGE airplane!!!!!!!!!!) in reality.
ObWebComic: Dresden Codak. "...I shall do -science- to them."
Dave
Brian Davis
> ...and he outruns it in a motorhome.
Yeah, but it was a *really fast* motorhome. And near the end of that
scene, he manages to almost outrun it on foot, so...
Hmm... maybe it's just a *really slow* shockwave.
"WhiteStars travel at the speed of plot". I prefer honest
acknowledgment in my technobabble.
--
Brian Davis
Leszek Karlik
<sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
[...]
> You're complaining about a ring-core explosion in a universe where the
> physics allow asteroids to have misty atmospheres and giant worms.
And allow them to form ultradense "belts", don't forget about that. :-)
--
Leszek 'Leslie' Karlik
Erik Max Francis
> On Nov 17, 10:34 pm, Erik Max Francis <m...@alcyone.com> wrote:
>> moviePig wrote:
>>> Neutrinos, they are very small.
>>> They have no charge and have no mass
>>> And do not interact at all.
>> ...
>>
>> Cute, but dated. We now know that neutrinos _do_ have a non-zero mass.
>> (And they do interact a little, but he probably knew that at the time
>> so we'll let that one pass.)
>
> 'Cute, but dated'? In Updike's presence, quantum physicists past
> present and future ought remove their sandals...
You're the one who crossposted the poem to rec.arts.sf.science, not me.
The first three lines of his poem contain two errors, three if you want
to get really picky (leptons are thought to be point particles and do
not have a size). He has an excuse for not knowing about neutrino
masses in 1965, since it was only discovered in the late 1990s. But not
the others. NMP.
--
Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM/Y!M/Skype erikmaxfrancis
I am not afraid / To be a lone Bohemian
-- Lamya
alie...@gmail.com
> moviePig wrote:
> > Neutrinos, they are very small.
> > They have no charge and have no mass
> > And do not interact at all.
>
> ...
>
> Cute, but dated. We now know that neutrinos _do_ have a non-zero mass.
> (And they do interact a little, but he probably knew that at the time
> so we'll let that one pass.)
(boggle)
Wait... you remonstrate with some of us for nitpicking the science
in a disaster movie, and YOU nitpick the science in a POEM??
(grin)
Mark L. Fergerson
Kurt Busiek
> moviePig wrote:
>> On Nov 17, 10:34 pm, Erik Max Francis <m...@alcyone.com> wrote:
>>> moviePig wrote:
>>>> Neutrinos, they are very small.
>>>> They have no charge and have no mass
>>>> And do not interact at all.
>>> ...
>>>
>>> Cute, but dated. We now know that neutrinos _do_ have a non-zero mass.
>>> (And they do interact a little, but he probably knew that at the time
>>> so we'll let that one pass.)
>>
>> 'Cute, but dated'? In Updike's presence, quantum physicists past
>> present and future ought remove their sandals...
>
> You're the one who crossposted the poem to rec.arts.sf.science, not me.
>
> The first three lines of his poem contain two errors, three if you want
> to get really picky (leptons are thought to be point particles and do
> not have a size). He has an excuse for not knowing about neutrino
> masses in 1965, since it was only discovered in the late 1990s. But
> not the others. NMP.
I have no idea if it make any difference to what he could have known,
but "Cosmic Gall" was first published in 1960, not 1965.
kdb
--
Visit http://www.busiek.com -- for all your Busiek needs!
Bill Snyder
Ah, but there's precedent, from no less than Charles Babbage. The
following from his Wikipedia entry:
----------------------------------------------------------------
Babbage once contacted the poet Alfred Tennyson in response to his
poem "The Vision of Sin". Babbage wrote, "In your otherwise
beautiful poem, one verse reads,
Every moment dies a man,
Every moment one is born.
... If this were true, the population of the world would be
at a standstill. In truth, the rate of birth is slightly in excess
of that of death. I would suggest [that the next version of your
poem should read]:
Every moment dies a man,
Every moment 1 1/16 is born.
Strictly speaking, the actual figure is so long I cannot get
it into a line, but I believe the figure 1 1/16 will be
sufficiently accurate for poetry."
----------------------------------------------------------------
(Why, yes, I do believe Babbage might have been slightly deficient
in the sense of humor department.)
--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank]
Thanatos
ji...@tuells.org (jill) wrote:
> *I bow to your interest in science* I personally like to keep my
> science out of big screen events. There isn't enough action and things
> blowing up (that HUGE airplane!!!!!!!!!!) in reality.
My favorite unreality was the ridiculous reliability of everyone's
cellphones, which was displayed most prominently when the Indian
physicist is standing on the side of the hill with his family, watching
a mile-high wall of water churning toward them and he's saying his
goodbyes to his friend on his cell-- as if every cell tower in the
country wouldn't have been pulverized by that point. They should have
just bowed to the ridiculousness of it and had that Verizon guy walk
through the scene in the background saying, "Can you hear me now?"
whodunit
> Tim Bruening wrote:
>> One review I
>> have read (in the Spotlight section of the November 12 Davis Enterprise)
>> says that solar flares are the cause of the geological instability. How
>> can that be?
>
> It's a brainless disaster movie. If you're expecting scientific realism
> in brainless disaster movies, well, bad on you.
>
...and yet, Al Goracle created a whole new career and 'science' based on
"The Day After Tomorrow"--go figure!
whodunit
> In article <59e4fcdc-fe7d-4c21...@w19g2000yqk.googlegroups.com>,
> Brian Davis <brd...@iusb.edu> wrote:
>> On Nov 14, 5:24 pm, Tim Bruening <tsbru...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
>>
>>> How else can we make the Earth collapse like in 2012?
>> In real life? You can't. Not even a black hole would have that set of
>> effects. You may be thinking there might be some science in the
>> science fiction... but this doesn't even rise the level of "science"
>> fiction, to my mind.
>
> Though it might make a great episode of _Mythbusters._ Using
> scale models, of course.
>
And Buster!! Don't forget Buster! :-)
William December Starr
"Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> said:
> Brian Davis wrote:
>> "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
>>> <seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> So, adding in a ring-shaped explosion to the Death Star is a bonus,
>>>> just because you can do it?
>>>
>>> Not just because you can do it. Because you can do it and it
>>> looks *COOL*.
>>
>> See, that's where I start having a problem - it doesn't look "cool" to
>> some of us. It just looks dumb.
>
> Then close your eyes and bang your cane three times on the floor, grandpa.
He's right and you're wrong, Ryk.
-- wds
William December Starr
whodunit <whod...@invalid.invalid> said:
> ...and yet, Al Goracle created a whole new career and 'science'
> based on "The Day After Tomorrow"--go figure!
Go kill yourself, liarboy.
-- wds
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
You speak, but your words, they have no meaning.
moviePig
> moviePig wrote:
> > On Nov 17, 10:34 pm, Erik Max Francis <m...@alcyone.com> wrote:
> >> moviePig wrote:
> >>> Neutrinos, they are very small.
> >>> They have no charge and have no mass
> >>> And do not interact at all.
> >> ...
>
> >> Cute, but dated. We now know that neutrinos _do_ have a non-zero mass.
> >> (And they do interact a little, but he probably knew that at the time
> >> so we'll let that one pass.)
>
> > 'Cute, but dated'? In Updike's presence, quantum physicists past
> > present and future ought remove their sandals...
>
> You're the one who crossposted the poem to rec.arts.sf.science, not me.
I clicked 'reply' -- no more, no less -- in a sub-thread chatting
about "mutant neutrinos". I thought Updike's poem was a classic worth
reproducing there.
> The first three lines of his poem contain two errors, three if you want
> to get really picky (leptons are thought to be point particles and do
> not have a size). He has an excuse for not knowing about neutrino
> masses in 1965, since it was only discovered in the late 1990s. But not
> the others. NMP.
I'm not sure Updike was actually trying to augment Bell, Feynman, et
al. Probably better to approach his doggerel as lasting literature
rather than anything so short-lived as scientific theory...
jill
Thanatos <atr...@mac.com> wrote:
>
>My favorite unreality was the ridiculous reliability of everyone's
>cellphones, which was displayed most prominently when the Indian
>physicist is standing on the side of the hill with his family, watching
>a mile-high wall of water churning toward them and he's saying his
>goodbyes to his friend on his cell-- as if every cell tower in the
>country wouldn't have been pulverized by that point. They should have
>just bowed to the ridiculousness of it and had that Verizon guy walk
>through the scene in the background saying, "Can you hear me now?"
LOL I assumed they were using satellite phones. Considering they were
not only calling while in the midst of an enormous disaster (like
the tsunami) but also across vast distances, I just assumed they must
be using satellite phones. I was convinced of it when the guy on the
cruise boat was talking on his phone. I am almost 100 percent certain
there are no cell towers in the middle of the Pacific. Why so many
people had those phones did confuse me a bit. They are _expensive_!
Erik Max Francis
> I have no idea if it make any difference to what he could have known,
> but "Cosmic Gall" was first published in 1960, not 1965.
Fair enough; I grabbed that publication date through a quick search and
obviously missed the mark. Nothing relevant changed in those five
years, though, so consider it a valid drop-in correction.
--
Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM/Y!M/Skype erikmaxfrancis
If the past sits in judgment on the present, the future will be lost.
-- Winston Churchill
Erik Max Francis
Well, anything posted to rec.arts.sf.science if fair game, but it makes
more sense than it sounds. The writers and producers of _2012_ couldn't
give two shits about accurate science and I'm sure would make no bones
about it; their best attempt was apparently throwing out technobabble
that they themselves admit is technobabble (and is in a scenario where
trying to figure it out is academic as the destruction of the world is
bearing down up on upon you).
Updike, on the other hand, in his poem, was actually writing about the
properties of neutrinos and how weird they are (in a humorous way, no
doubt). It's not inappropriate to take his approach seriously when the
first three lines of the poem introduce what he's talking about, its
properties _in technical terms_ (how many writers of _2012_ know what a
massless particle is?), and what is special about it (that it's weakly
interacting).
_2012_ just wanted to show shit blowing up and couldn't have cared less
about scientific accuracy -- and that's fine, so far as it goes, in that
it leaves very little point in correcting errors they have no interest
in avoiding making whatsoever. Updike was writing about the weird
_actual properties_ of are neutrinos (and other weakly-interacting
particles, for that matter) in a funny way. My comment was simply that
further research caught up with him.
--
Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM/Y!M/Skype erikmaxfrancis
Erik Max Francis
> Brian Davis wrote:
>> On Nov 17, 7:41 pm, Phillip Thorne <petho...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>>> I'll just add my voice to the consensus: the *point* of a disaster
>>> movie is *spectacle*.
>>
>> So, adding in a ring-shaped explosion to the Death Star is a bonus,
>> just because you can do it?
>
> Not just because you can do it. Because you can do it and it looks
> *COOL*.
Of all the sides you could take, it seems to me that defending the _Star
Trek_ special edition changes is a pretty weak one. It was all fluff --
not particularly good fluff -- coupled with the restoration of a few
deleted scenes that were pointless, backfilling of putting in the right
characters from the (awful) prequels in ghosts scenes, and Greedo firing
first which was so lame and did a spectacular job of missing the point
that it's now pretty much a universal gag.
What was astonishing is how much absolutely pointless, distracted,
animating nonsense he could gratuitously pack into nearly every scene.
They're pretty good lessons in how _not_ to make special editions of
classic movies, actually.
And no, adding the ring to the exploding Death Star didn't look all that
cool, scientific accuracy or no. It just looked like, "Oh, great,
another pointless whizz-bang effect he stuck in to sell it to a captive
audience."
--
Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM/Y!M/Skype erikmaxfrancis
Chastity the most unnatural of the sexual perversions.
-- Aldous Huxley
Erik Max Francis
> On Nov 16, 5:18 pm, Erik Max Francis <m...@alcyone.com> wrote:
>
>> Looks like what I was referring to was not an official trailer, but a
>> parody. Still, it is funny -- extra amusing gag at around 1:16:
>>
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW2qxFkcLM0
>
> Now *that*, ironically enough, makes me want to see the original
> movie. I guess I prefer my cheese to be self-referential.
Yeah. Too bad it's not a real trailer; at least it's honest in the
sense of showing exactly what they were going after. That said, I'm
sure the real producers know exactly what they were going after, too,
it's just the trailers are attempts to be a little more serious. If
you're going into full disaster porn -- which is what the movie is --
might as well come clean and have fun with it.
Erik Max Francis
> On Nov 16, 10:09 pm, j...@tuells.org (jill) wrote:
>
>> THANK YOU!!!! I have been trying to explain this to my SO for
>> years. He keeps trying to make these movies have a point and is
>> upset every time they don't.
>
> While I agree with Erik that worrying about the science of such movies
> is a little silly, well... 1st, we were asked, and 2nd, it's sometimes
> fun to do.
The basic concept I'd apply is that if a story/movie/whatever is making
no attempt be scientifically accurate and doesn't try to pretend that it
is, then there's really nothing much more to say about it. The result
won't be scientifically accurate -- go figure. Going into detail about
exactly what they got wrong seems academic and pointless. (It _can_ be
a useful exercise for certain types of not-so-bad movies for amateur
scientists and/or science fiction enthusiasts to sharpen their skills,
but that's another point entirely.)
None of that, of course, forgives basic internal consistency problems,
logic problems, blatant violations of suspension of disbelief, and/or
grotesque violations of common sense. Those are always fair game,
they're just not necessarily science per se.
If something is calls itself scientific, or based on science, or keeps
going on about its supposed scientific basis, or has a side business of
selling books based on how supposedly scientific it is, then weapons free.
>> I probably won't even notice the plot (what plot there
>> is/isn't). I think the less believable the better, otherwise
>> I will have to pay too much attention to the dialog and
>> not enough to the things whizzing by as they blow up.
>
> If all you want from your entertainment is eye-candy, then you're
> right: have fun, and watch the special effects budget (want to rent
> Waterworld?). Some of us like more thoughtful material while watching
> things blow up (heck, Mythbusters beats most of these offerings on
> that count).
Unfortunately, I'm getting more and more disappointed with _MythBusters_
lately. [I'm about half a season behind on my TiVo watching, actually
for exactly this reason, so maybe it's gotten better, but I've noticed
the trend over several seasons now.] Blowing up stuff is still always
fun, but their attempts to sound "sciency" are often frustrating since
they frequently mix up elementary things like energy, force, pressure,
momentum, and so on -- they're often using the terms colloquially but
they're really trying to pretend that they're doing science.
Representation of data gathering is particularly bad, though one can
understand that they want to cut down on the drudgery for the audience.
I do recall a somewhat recent episode where they wanted to test
something and to make it statistically accurate they went from two
subjects to ... three. (Yeah, right.) They also, needless to say,
often just blow it in their testing (though to their credit they do
retests -- but the retests are getting more and more frequent, and
sometimes they even blow the retest and have to do a re-retest).
Biggest problem lately is that they're really scraping the bottom of the
barrel which it sure doesn't seem like they should be. They've sunk to
testing Internet rumors (which are often confirmed stories from the
beginning and not rumors so the whole test is pointless; they only
reveal this partway in), to just ridiculously silly things suggested on
their Web site forum by readers (hey, gotta keep your audience happy,
but you can do better than that), or -- worst of all -- testing
"aphorisms" or just sayings which were not only never meant to be taken
literally, but frequently _miss the whole point of what the saying
means_ (the "yawns are contagious" test comes to mind where they
completely and totally missed the point of what that means). Plus I
wish their readings of the cue cards could be a _tad_ less stilted --
it's no shock to me it's scripted but, come on guys, you've been at this
for years, you should be better at it by now.
> Oh, and again keep in mind that some of us are replying from rasfs...
> where the science is, after all, why we entered the dialog :).
Yep, you get what you pay for. Well, that's nothing, but then we get to
chime in.
Jens Kleimann
This issue of accurate science in the fine arts reminds me of an op-ed which Simon Singh once wrote in The Guardian on
Katie Melua's love song "Nine Million Bicycles", which contains the lines
We are twelve billion lightyears from the edge
That's a guess
No one can ever say it's true
But I know that I will always be with you,
his point being that this figure is nowadays in fact pretty accurately known to be 13.7 billion light years, not twelve. Ms. Melua humorously responded to this by re-recording the corresponding passage of her lyrics, and the result was presented, among other occasions, at the end of Michael Shermer's talk "Michael Shermer on strange beliefs" at TED, see http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/michael_shermer_on_believing_strange_things.html . Go to 11:20 to enjoy that sequence (or just watch the whole, equally enjoyable talk).
Jens.
--
Remove '_nospam' for actual email address.
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
>> Brian Davis wrote:
>>> On Nov 17, 7:41 pm, Phillip Thorne <petho...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I'll just add my voice to the consensus: the *point* of a disaster
>>>> movie is *spectacle*.
>>>
>>> So, adding in a ring-shaped explosion to the Death Star is a bonus,
>>> just because you can do it?
>>
>> Not just because you can do it. Because you can do it and it looks
>> *COOL*.
>
> Of all the sides you could take, it seems to me that defending the _Star
> Trek_ special edition changes is a pretty weak one.
1) When being superior, you are rather undermined by confusing one
space opera franchise with another. We were talking about Star Wars, not
Trek.
2) I was in no way defending "the special edition changes"; I was
specifically and ONLY discussing the awesome coolness of the ring-core
explosion. The others were irrelevant to the discussion. Han shot first.
Was Stargate (the movie) earlier than the Special Edition? It may have
used that effect first. It's one of my fave visual effects.
Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc talk-origins@moderators.isc.org
> Ah, but there's precedent, from no less than Charles Babbage. The
> following from his Wikipedia entry:
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> Babbage once contacted the poet Alfred Tennyson in response to his
> poem "The Vision of Sin". Babbage wrote, "In your otherwise
> beautiful poem, one verse reads,
>
> Every moment dies a man,
> Every moment one is born.
>
> ... If this were true, the population of the world would be
> at a standstill. In truth, the rate of birth is slightly in excess
> of that of death. I would suggest [that the next version of your
> poem should read]:
>
> Every moment dies a man,
> Every moment 1 1/16 is born.
>
> Strictly speaking, the actual figure is so long I cannot get
> it into a line, but I believe the figure 1 1/16 will be
> sufficiently accurate for poetry."
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> (Why, yes, I do believe Babbage might have been slightly deficient
> in the sense of humor department.)
I wouldn't say so on the strength of this, although it seems he did
have issues. But isn't this an expression of a sense of humour?
There isn't a scientific definition of a "moment" anyway, and death
and certainly birth are processes that take a non-infinitesimal time.
So is conception.
Really the poetic point is that people (not only men) are dying all
the time and people (not men, babies) are being born all the time.
That it's happening at this very moment somewhere around the globe
depends on your confidence in probability distribution and the large
number in the world of people liable to die and pregnant women about
to give birth.
Oh dear, am I doing it now?
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1500734/How-Katie-put-the-
science-back-into-songwriting.html>
describes Simon Singh taking Katie Melua to task over the size of the
observable universe in a song. I'd want to raise the matter of the
bicycles as well, which unfortunately is more prominent in the song:
Beijing roads are mostly cars now, not so many bicycles at all.
Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc talk-origins@moderators.isc.org
moviePig
> On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:36:33 -0800 (PST), "n...@bid.nes"
Really? Or are you deadpanning? (...i.e., as I would surely have
thought Babbage was.)
Bill Snyder
<pwal...@moviepig.com> wrote:
>On Nov 18, 4:47 pm, Bill Snyder <bsny...@airmail.net> wrote:
[Babbage's letter to Tennyson]
>> (Why, yes, I do believe Babbage might have been slightly deficient
>> in the sense of humor department.)
>
>Really? Or are you deadpanning? (...i.e., as I would surely have
>thought Babbage was.)
What I've always understood is that he was serious in this case,
and could have served in general as the model of an Asperger's
type.
Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc talk-origins@moderators.isc.org
> On Nov 18, 4:34 pm, Erik Max Francis <m...@alcyone.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > moviePig wrote:
> > > On Nov 17, 10:34 pm, Erik Max Francis <m...@alcyone.com> wrote:
> > >> moviePig wrote:
> > >>> Neutrinos, they are very small.
> > >>> They have no charge and have no mass
> > >>> And do not interact at all.
> > >> ...
>
> > >> Cute, but dated. We now know that neutrinos _do_ have a non-zero mass.
> > >> (And they do interact a little, but he probably knew that at the time
> > >> so we'll let that one pass.)
>
> > > 'Cute, but dated'? In Updike's presence, quantum physicists past
> > > present and future ought remove their sandals...
>
> > You're the one who crossposted the poem to rec.arts.sf.science, not me.
>
> I clicked 'reply' -- no more, no less -- in a sub-thread chatting
> about "mutant neutrinos". I thought Updike's poem was a classic worth
> reproducing there.
I believe I've heard a version where the neutrinos "barely interact at
all". Or "scarcely interact", or whatever is most Updikey.
<http://www.lbl.gov/wonder/lesko-2.html> explains that neutrinos with
mass and mutant neutrinos are really the same thing...
moviePig
> On Thu, 19 Nov 2009 07:04:48 -0800 (PST), moviePig
>
> >On Nov 18, 4:47 pm, Bill Snyder <bsny...@airmail.net> wrote:
>
> [Babbage's letter to Tennyson]
>
> >> (Why, yes, I do believe Babbage might have been slightly deficient
> >> in the sense of humor department.)
>
> >Really? Or are you deadpanning? (...i.e., as I would surely have
> >thought Babbage was.)
>
> What I've always understood is that he was serious in this case,
> and could have served in general as the model of an Asperger's
> type.
I guess... especially as I'd considered saying above how "he'd have to
be autistic..."
David DeLaney
>moviePig <pwal...@moviepig.com> wrote:
>>Bill Snyder <bsny...@airmail.net> wrote:
>[Babbage's letter to Tennyson]
>
>>> (Why, yes, I do believe Babbage might have been slightly deficient
>>> in the sense of humor department.)
>>
>>Really? Or are you deadpanning? (...i.e., as I would surely have
>>thought Babbage was.)
>
>What I've always understood is that he was serious in this case,
>and could have served in general as the model of an Asperger's type.
ObWebcomicThatPointsToLotsOfSources: 2d Goggles,
http://sydneypadua.com/2dgoggles/
(Charles Babbage and Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace; together they fight CRIME!)
Dave
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
William Hyde
> On Nov 16, 3:18 am, wdst...@panix.com (William December Starr) wrote:
>
> > In article <e273c65e-7b53-426f-b45f-19af74c5c...@z3g2000prd.googlegroups.com>,
> > Moriarty <blue...@ivillage.com> said:
>
> > > It was definitely a high point of rasfw. WilliamHyde, a climate
> > > scientist, lost a bet (or was somehow otherwise convinced, it was
> > > a while ago) and had to go see the movie and review it for the
> > > group paying particular attention to its scientific accuracy (or
> > > lack thereof).
>
> > As I recall, he foolishly said that he'd charge $100 to do it, and
> > people got together and raised the money.
>
> > -- wds
>
> But he never got his wasted hours back.
Eh, there was a decent bookstore at the mall, and I wound up learning
a few things about North Carolina that I otherwise wouldn't have.
Seeing the movie was a small price to pay.
> "Argh, me eyes. It burns, it burns"
Except for that part, of course.
William Hyde
alie...@gmail.com
<seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
> Erik Max Francis wrote:
> > Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
> >> Brian Davis wrote:
> >>> On Nov 17, 7:41 pm, Phillip Thorne <petho...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> >>>> I'll just add my voice to the consensus: the *point* of a disaster
> >>>> movie is *spectacle*.
>
> >>> So, adding in a ring-shaped explosion to the Death Star is a bonus,
> >>> just because you can do it?
>
> >> Not just because you can do it. Because you can do it and it looks
> >> *COOL*.
>
> > Of all the sides you could take, it seems to me that defending the _Star
> > Trek_ special edition changes is a pretty weak one.
>
> 1) When being superior, you are rather undermined by confusing one
> space opera franchise with another. We were talking about Star Wars, not
> Trek.
(that wasn't confusion, it was lack of interest)
> 2) I was in no way defending "the special edition changes"; I was
> specifically and ONLY discussing the awesome coolness of the ring-core
> explosion. The others were irrelevant to the discussion. Han shot first.
It was cool when first (well, the first time I saw it) used with the
"depth charges" whositz uses to try to escape whatsisname in Episode
Whichever.
The delayed "FOOONNGGGGGG" sound effect helped IMO.
> Was Stargate (the movie) earlier than the Special Edition? It may have
> used that effect first. It's one of my fave visual effects.
It's prolly in WIkipedia, but I don't care sufficiently to look.
Mark L. "why did I post?" Fergerson
W. Citoan
>
> LOL I assumed they were using satellite phones. Considering they were
> not only calling while in the midst of an enormous disaster (like the
> tsunami) but also across vast distances, I just assumed they must be
> using satellite phones. I was convinced of it when the guy on the
> cruise boat was talking on his phone. I am almost 100 percent certain
> there are no cell towers in the middle of the Pacific. Why so many
> people had those phones did confuse me a bit. They are _expensive_!
Cell phones work on some cruise ships. The ship provides the equivalent
of the cell tower and then forwards the call over its satellite link.
The international roaming fees they charge can be outrageous, but if
you're not going to be around to pay the bill, hey, who cares?
- W. Citoan
--
It is a bad plan that admits no modification.
-- Publiluis Syrus
Dimensional Traveler
> In article <atropos-E1B45C...@news.giganews.com>,
> Thanatos <atr...@mac.com> wrote:
>> My favorite unreality was the ridiculous reliability of everyone's
>> cellphones, which was displayed most prominently when the Indian
>> physicist is standing on the side of the hill with his family, watching
>> a mile-high wall of water churning toward them and he's saying his
>> goodbyes to his friend on his cell-- as if every cell tower in the
>> country wouldn't have been pulverized by that point. They should have
>> just bowed to the ridiculousness of it and had that Verizon guy walk
>> through the scene in the background saying, "Can you hear me now?"
>
> LOL I assumed they were using satellite phones. Considering they were
> not only calling while in the midst of an enormous disaster (like
> the tsunami) but also across vast distances, I just assumed they must
> be using satellite phones. I was convinced of it when the guy on the
> cruise boat was talking on his phone. I am almost 100 percent certain
> there are no cell towers in the middle of the Pacific. Why so many
> people had those phones did confuse me a bit. They are _expensive_!
>
it might (probably) have to go to a satellite link but that's not the
same as the phone having to link directly to the satellite.
--
7 Years - 2265 Experiments - 10 tons of explosives - 705 Myths
Myths - Will - Fall!
Erik Max Francis
> Erik Max Francis wrote:
>> Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
>>> Not just because you can do it. Because you can do it and it
>>> looks *COOL*.
>>
>> Of all the sides you could take, it seems to me that defending the
>> _Star Trek_ special edition changes is a pretty weak one.
>
> 1) When being superior, you are rather undermined by confusing one
> space opera franchise with another. We were talking about Star Wars, not
> Trek.
Yeah, late-night thinko. Actually, it would be funnier if I did it
deliberately -- as I sometimes do to wrangle fans, as nothing makes a
Star Trek/Star Wars fan angrier than mixing up the two up -- but just a
thinko there. I certainly know the difference between the two, as
anyone reading rec.arts.sf.science for the last 10 years would probably
have noticed :-).
Besides, I wouldn't say it's "being superior" to give the opinion that
the _Star Wars_ special editions sucked, since it's a pretty widely-held
opinion. Lots of critics bashed the special edition pretty good, and
for good reason. Even you're emphatically stating you're not defending
them (below)!
> 2) I was in no way defending "the special edition changes"; I was
> specifically and ONLY discussing the awesome coolness of the ring-core
> explosion. The others were irrelevant to the discussion. Han shot first.
Scientific plausibility or not, some of us aren't all that impressed by
it. Especially coupled with the fact that it was Yet One More fancy
animation thing he stuck in the special edition simply because he could,
not because it served any purpose. (Though it was one of the more
visible and memorable -- I think it was even in the trailers.)
> Was Stargate (the movie) earlier than the Special Edition? It may
> have used that effect first. It's one of my fave visual effects.
_Stargate_ was way before (though I don't offhand remember the special
effect used in it; haven't seen it forever and I don't find the effect
all that impressive or memorable). I'm not sure which movie was the
first to use that type of effect; don't know if it was _Stargate_ or not.
Point is, reasonable people and disagree on whether it looks cool (let
alone _really_ cool :-) or not. I don't think it looks all that
impressive, even before you get to the question of whether it's
scientifically accurate or not. Brian sounds like he's in the same
camp, although he's more annoyed about it _because_ it's so blatantly
scientifically silly. I just think it's not that impressive, and
especially by the special edition, used often enough that it's kind of
cliched and boring.
--
Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM/Y!M/Skype erikmaxfrancis
I'm crying everyone's tears
-- Sade