As an American living in Thailand, I've adjusted pretty well to metric units for most things (to the point that I'd prefer them for MOST things).

Celsius has more sensible set points (1 and 100 being freeze and boil of water), but I still prefer to think in Fahrenheit for temperatures. For some reason it is harder for me to overcome the inertia of ~25 years of using Fahrenheit than it was to get used to metric distances.

One other thing I noticed about this video is that you could easily make similar arguments about our system of time being backwards or primitive. For some reason we have days of 24 hours, which are sometimes divided into 12 AM and 12 PM hours. Each hour has an arbitrary 60 minutes. Each minute has 60 seconds. Sometimes we divide seconds into hundredths (1/100) or milliseconds (1/1000). We have 12 months, each containing somewhere between 28 and 31 days. One year has 365.242199 days, so we call it 365 and then add one more on leap years, or occasionally skip a leap year since that fraction isn't a perfect 1/4.

That is all very messy and based on local, non-universal phenomena -- just like all those silly antiquated imperial units. Maybe at some point we'll shift to metric time based on radioactive isotope decay rates or something.

Who gave us gravity and inertia? Blame god, that bastard.

Conclusion: god hates piano players. And Elton John doubly-so because, you know, the gays.

Gathering votes on inertia, methinks. This isn't funny.

It's a space dogfighting game, so there is atmosphere in space, or at least it controls like it is. The human spaceships are supposed to look something like WW2 era fighter planes, since that's what this game is about, WW2 dogfighting in space.

You can even see what could be atmospheric maneuvering controls on one of the ships at the 4 minute mark. Wings or rudders or something wiggling about.

As for realism, there's much worse lapses here than just "omg spaceships with wings!". You could put wings on a spaceship for practical purposes, to make a spaceplane like the space shuttle. Or for decoration. But then you get things like the really fast military fighters have a top speed much lower than C, they can turn and kill their old inertia as if pushing against air, all the fighting is done at visual ranges under accelerations slow enough for a human to react to (and survive physically), lasers fire discrete, visible, tracer like lines rather than an invisible ray traveling at the speed of light... I'm sure there's more.

Gravity and inertia are fickle masters!

The most important thing the pedestrian did was the jump. They did a test on some car show (can't remember what it was, could be mythbusters?) that if you jump straight up, the impact is much safer. It's to do with the friction of your feet making the impact happen horizontally, ie the car pushes you forward. Where as just lifting both feet off the ground, it becomes a tumbling motion and lot less inertia is transferred, ie you stay in the same place. Also if both feet are on the ground you have the awful possibility of being dragged under the car.

>> ^ChaosEngine:

>> ^spoco2:

Yeah, and the whole 'promote' a status thing, with the option of paying to promote being trialled also spells the end it would seem.
People are entrenched, to be sure, but if a cleaner, competitor comes along and provides a simple migration process ('enter your login details and we'll transfer all your photos/videos over to our FlubBrook service now'), people will jump ship if Facebook keeps becoming more and more and more of an advertising platform rather than a social network.

I think any competitor would genuinely struggle simply to overcome the inertia, i.e. everyone is on facebook because everyone is on facebook. Look at Google+. Their interface was cleaner, they had some neat ideas (I still think the "circles" concept is something facebook needs to steal), but no-one posted there because they weren't going to post the same thing twice. As a sidenote, I personally didn't like using google as a social network. Google already knows waaaay too much about me.



Facebook and google are similar beasts-The biggest ones, the shittiest ones. Use it, then lose it is my motto on the entertainmentnet.

>> ^ChaosEngine:

>> ^spoco2:

Yeah, and the whole 'promote' a status thing, with the option of paying to promote being trialled also spells the end it would seem.
People are entrenched, to be sure, but if a cleaner, competitor comes along and provides a simple migration process ('enter your login details and we'll transfer all your photos/videos over to our FlubBrook service now'), people will jump ship if Facebook keeps becoming more and more and more of an advertising platform rather than a social network.

I think any competitor would genuinely struggle simply to overcome the inertia, i.e. everyone is on facebook because everyone is on facebook. Look at Google+. Their interface was cleaner, they had some neat ideas (I still think the "circles" concept is something facebook needs to steal), but no-one posted there because they weren't going to post the same thing twice. As a sidenote, I personally didn't like using google as a social network. Google already knows waaaay too much about me.


Don't underestimate the power of 'new and improved'... No-one thought people would move away from AOL at the time. People thought Myspace was the bee's knees. It seems like the way to build up a new social network is start specialised then grow out.

Myspace did with music, then grew out.
Facebook did so with one school, then many then anyone.
Google+ didn't do that, and it doesn't seem to be catching on yet.

If there's a competitor where they do something the others don't do really well, perhaps for a particular sub section of the market. Then that group of people will favour it... then slowly others who have to interact with the sub section will keep finding themselves being pointed there... then eventually THEY want to get in on this new action... then they use the new site's ability to auto post to Facebook so their old friends don't miss anything... then the old friends start wanting to use these new fangled things the new site has... until everyone has shifted over and Facebook becomes a wasteland that only receives auto posts from other sites.



Or, you could be right and it'll be here until we blast off from the rotting ball of Earth for our new home on another planet.

>> ^spoco2:


Yeah, and the whole 'promote' a status thing, with the option of paying to promote being trialled also spells the end it would seem.
People are entrenched, to be sure, but if a cleaner, competitor comes along and provides a simple migration process ('enter your login details and we'll transfer all your photos/videos over to our FlubBrook service now'), people will jump ship if Facebook keeps becoming more and more and more of an advertising platform rather than a social network.


I think any competitor would genuinely struggle simply to overcome the inertia, i.e. everyone is on facebook because everyone is on facebook. Look at Google+. Their interface was cleaner, they had some neat ideas (I still think the "circles" concept is something facebook needs to steal), but no-one posted there because they weren't going to post the same thing twice. As a sidenote, I personally didn't like using google as a social network. Google already knows waaaay too much about me.

I'm moving this to your profile or else the troll wins.

I see what you're getting at, and it's arguable that I came on too strong, but I think you're missing that we generally know the difference between a different opinion from ours and trolling. bk33 can criticize and vent his vitriolic bile as much as any of us (I'm including myself in that category), and I don't think there's anybody here who has a problem with that. There aren't many vocal conservatives on the Sift, but there are some (Chilaxe comes to mind), and as long as they know how to carry on a discussion, there's little issue. Tempers flare, of course, but nobody seriously thinks they're trolling, just wrong, and that's great. But bk33 contributes nothing. And I don't mean he contributes nothing to my side of the argument -- I mean he leaves the place measurably worse than when he found it.

About CrushBug's comment. He's just venting. He didn't make any claims at all, let alone unsubstantiated ones, unless you mean about renaming The Government of Canada to "The Harper Government", which Harper has actually really done. Google it. So I think you're not seeing the qualitative difference between CrushBug's comments and bk33's.

Real mobs kill people. We just happen to outnumber him. We can't hurt or even remotely silence him.

In reply to this comment by frosty:
Sometimes there is such intolerance of opposition in opinion here at the Sift. When your typical liberal Sifter decries the greed of the private sector, vilifies "big business" and slams Fox News, it is hailed throughout the ranks as a battle cry, but when bobknight33 suggests the inefficiency of government-controlled industry and criticizes MSNBC, he is bombarded by the mob with accusations of naivety, not substantiating his remarks and being a "troll." For instance, take a post like CrushBug's -- "Fucking Harper. I am glad they have spent the time and money to change the name of the gov't to "The Harper Government" so once this horrible aberration of politics is voted out we can easily identify and kill this kind of evil bullshit." This is the quintessence of unsubstantiated, ad hominem attack. Yet it is met with resounding approval and hardy back slaps aplenty, buoyed up by the inertia of the throng.

Sometimes there is such intolerance of opposition in opinion here at the Sift. When your typical liberal Sifter decries the greed of the private sector, vilifies "big business" and slams Fox News, it is hailed throughout the ranks as a battle cry, but when bobknight33 suggests the inefficiency of government-controlled industry and criticizes MSNBC, he is bombarded by the mob with accusations of naivety, not substantiating his remarks and being a "troll." For instance, take a post like CrushBug's -- "Fucking Harper. I am glad they have spent the time and money to change the name of the gov't to "The Harper Government" so once this horrible aberration of politics is voted out we can easily identify and kill this kind of evil bullshit." This is the quintessence of unsubstantiated, ad hominem attack. Yet it is met with resounding approval and hardy back slaps aplenty, buoyed up by the inertia of the throng.

"You didn't want to come. The average man don't like trouble and danger. YOU don't like trouble and danger. But if only HALF a man—like Buck Harkness, there—shouts 'Lynch him! lynch him!' you're afraid to back down—afraid you'll be found out to be what you are—COWARDS—and so you raise a yell, and hang yourselves on to that half-a-man's coat-tail, and come raging up here, swearing what big things you're going to do. The pitifulest thing out is a mob; that's what an army is—a mob; they don't fight with courage that's born in them, but with courage that's borrowed from their mass, and from their officers. But a mob without any MAN at the head of it is BENEATH pitifulness. Now the thing for YOU to do is to droop your tails and go home and crawl in a hole. If any real lynching's going to be done it will be done in the dark, Southern fashion; and when they come they'll bring their masks, and fetch a MAN along."
-Mark Twain

>> ^messenger:

Dear all,
Stop feeding the troll please. bobknight33 is a troll, and his claims in this thread are wrong or cannot be substantiated. We all know that. I understand that "Someone's wrong on the Internet" is considered an emergency that requires your intervention, but really, it's not. bk33 has no influence here other than to disrupt threads, and it's you who give him that power by responding.
Ignoring is having the last word.
Thank you.

Shh, shh, let it happen.

>> ^Boise_Lib:

>> ^hpqp:
"You suck dicks" is NOT an insult, goddammit!!

"You suck dicks," Shouldn't be an insult, but as things stand now it is.
I would also like to see this changed, but there is a whole lot of inertia behind it.

>> ^hpqp:

"You suck dicks" is NOT an insult, goddammit!!


"You suck dicks," Shouldn't be an insult, but as things stand now it is.

I would also like to see this changed, but there is a whole lot of inertia behind it.

>> ^rottenseed:

That wikipedia entry was way too simple in that it doesn't explain boo but the equations. I think it boils down to conservation of (angular) momentum when an object has angular momentum along (3) axes. So far I can't give but a rudimentary explanation. A more simple system that would convey the fundamentals would if you were to hold a spinning bike wheel while sitting in an office chair (that can spin). As you rotate your arms (holding the axis of bicycle tire spin) the angular momentum lost will be gained in the seat you're sitting on (making you spin). Here, watch this doofus and see for yourself...

I don't know if it's more complicated in theory, or just in added dimensions
>>


^dannym3141:
It's a shame that hyperphysics doesn't have anything on this cos they're usually a good balance of words and maths (i find the wikipedia entry disappointingly mathematical; i expect a bit of background and discussion) as this is something i discovered as a kid playing with the sky remote.
I used to hold the controller at the base with a thumb and a finger or two, then try to flip it end over end one full flip and catch it in the palm of my hand. I found it really hard, but i eventually worked out that it was because i was imparting some sort of force to it as my wrist twisted because if i added more twist it would do a complete spin on both axes and land nicely, and when i tried less twist it would only do half a turn on that axis.
So then i started to hold it across, with one thumb and a finger (bit like a barre grip for a guitarist) straight across it width ways and gently flip it, and bet people they couldn't do it every time but i could



You don't lose angular momentum by rotating the wheel. When you hold the bicycle wheel vertically, the angular momentum vector of the system in the axis of you and your seat is 0, as the angular momentum of the wheel is not in that same axis.

When you turn the wheel horizontal, the angular momentum vector is pointing either up or down depending on which way you turn it. So the chair spins in such a way that it sets up an opposing angular momentum vector (ie. by spinning opposite way to the wheel) to make the net ang' mom' 0 in that axis.

I think it is likely to have something to do with the moment of inertia of the object about the 3 different axes, and probably the axis around which it is unstable has the smallest value of angular momentum (don't wish to prove that for the object in the video lol). I would call on the example of my tv remote. I've just tried spinning it around two axes - end over end, and helicoptor wise. The third axis is width ways, and you don't even need maths to intuit that i require less force to spin it width ways; more of the mass is centred towards the axis, and angular momentum is dependant upon mass and the distance of the mass from the axis of rotation.

So if it's got less angular momentum, it will not only require less force to make it rotate (remember i have to use my trick to reduce force imparted on either side of the controller as i toss it), but it also has less resistance (any?) to being spun in that axis whilst already spinning in another.

My theory at least. I have a feeling it's close as that seems to tie in with the maths too. Could just be something that only makes sense mathematically. It's not like anyone's ever explained why fermions can't coexist in the same quantum state to me in anything but maths either.

For the love of god! It's 9.8 m/s^2. SQUARED!!! Do you understand what that means!!?!? For us to *feel* the gravity of Earth WITH Einstein's (or Newton's) gravitational effects it must ACCELERATE up continually per second, per second... This would not only mean that another force is responsible for Earth's movement, but since very soon after we started having gravity we would have to increase to light-speed or we stop feeling that "gravity" effect (our inertia is "caught up" if you will and we will be floating). It would mean that that force pushing us is the most powerful force in the Universe and we can't detect it even though it's strapped to our backs.

Don't get this confused with other ways to create gravitational effects or acceleration fields at 9.8 m/s^2, like centrifugal force (rotating space stations) or gravity...