Posts by BenWilson
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
He should know that shockwaves propagate at the speed of sound in their medium (sound is a series of shockwaves after all), which is much faster than gravity-induced acceleration. Buildings are complex structures and I can easily imagine the shock of the impacts of collapsing floors at upper levels propagating through the structure to find points of concentration below, causing sudden catastrophic buckling, producing lateral bursts of dust and debris.
Certainly seems that way from the numerous Lego towers my son has collapsed recently. Once a collapse starts, all bets are off about how it will fall. What happens at the top will affect all of the structures below.
Naturally I haven't tried creating a collapse that will crumble Lego blocks to dust, so it's not a perfect model, just an observation that not-even-very-complex structures can collapse in unpredictable ways. My favorite was where all of the pieces afterward were in a perfect circle around the base - I can't explain how it happened, somehow the thing fell in a spiral.
-
Not really. Someone had to place the laser reflectors there, unless we're now turning it into a debate about extraterrestrial lifeforms capable of taking part in earth-based conspiracy theories.
Um, actually, it could have been done remotely, with unmanned craft. But I don't think it was.
-
Before I get totally pilloried here I would like to point out that I take both sides of the 911 story with equal scepticism
It's hard to pin down what the actual 'sides' even are. Seems like there's a wide collection of theories both ways. You could draw a line in the sand and say 'one side thinks that the collapse of the towers was entirely caused by the planes, the other does not'. But it's not even that simple.
On the first side, there are many nuances, ranging from merely thinking it likely that the planes did all the damage because of a lack of evidence to the contrary, right through to people who believe they can explain in excruciating detail exactly how a plane crash into that particular building could do exactly that, to those who claim to know exactly who was in the planes, how they pulled it off, and why.
The other side could be as nuanced as saying 'it seems unlikely that planes could do that to a building', right through to 'A building can't be dropped that way, it must have been explosives placed here, here and here.', to people who even have theories about who placed these explosives, and why.
Both 'sides' can always retreat to the central position that says very little, and is merely an expression of opinion about statistical likelihoods of an event that has only 1 data point.
I'm fairly willing to believe Gio's portrayal of the Truther presentation as a fairly unbalanced look at their side, full of rhetoric, cynically exploiting the human angle to push subliminally their bizarre theory.
-
I, for one, feel sorry for Craig's desk.
-
> I would guess that the firm compassion of the "It's Not OK" campaign has probably done far, far more good in this country than the anger and indignation expressed by the McVicars and McCroskies of the world.
I think you're right. I'm proud to have played a small part in it.
I like to think Mark is right too. But then I hear people talking about "It's not OK" who are not sympathetic already, and I despair, just a little.
I can say this, whilst I personally found the overall message just one that 'preached to the choir' (of which I'm generally a part), one line stood out and affected me "It's not OK to take it out on your family because you've had a hard day". It kept resonating in my mind, not because I've ever been violent to my family, but because it got me thinking about a number of other ways you can "take it out on your family", some of which I've been guilty of. It did change my ways a little. You can hurt people just by ignoring them, too. The way my child psychologist father tells it, it's one of the worst things you can do to kids, and a lot of misbehavior stems from it. At some level, a lot of kids would rather be smacked than ignored. Neither one is OK, really.
-
Holy crap, South America looks like a shitty place to be transgender. Or is it just a murderous kind of place, generally?
Sounds like they were mostly ganked, too. World PvP is the nastiest kind. Some people really get off on ganking, and griefing generally. The Corrupted Blood Incident gave an interesting look at this, considering that the victims were generally not from the other faction.
-
I just wrote something on the order of 2000 words answering Brent. Then I deleted it all, because I'm getting tired of talking about other people's opinions on science and having them held up as my own, and tired of hearing Steve's opinion on what other peoples opinions are about it too, since that leaves both of us stuck with making strawmen.
I wrote a slightly lengthier post on my own actual opinion. Some shitty quirk of Internet Explorer on my netbook which I just got today lost the entire lot because I was logged out during the writing of the post.
So, if anyone wants to know anything futher about the opinions of various philosophers of science, go read them. No more posts from me unless some new material comes up.
-
Yeah WoW shows its age. It's not the prettiest game, but it is still evocative of ... a mythical past, I guess. Eve sounds awesome. Considering the hours I wasted as a teen playing Elite, I'm sure it would hook me quicksmart. Has Leo reviewed it btw?
Perhaps the next patch will reel Leo in one more time? Personally it demotivated me, having not even upgraded to Lich King.
-
When I started looking at it, I actually thought she might be on to something. I really just tried to appraise what she had, which turned out to be very little. Oh well.
That's how I took it. But in blogging about it, you engaged with it.
(And I did say I was "reminding myself" not to go anywhere near these people. I don't always follow my own advice ... )
Indeed. It's tough advice to follow. There was possibly an interesting story in there.
-
Sometimes, however, it's important to call people on their bullshit.
It can be hard to do that whilst simultaneously declining to engage with them.
Last ←Newer Page 1 … 827 828 829 830 831 … 1066 Older→ First