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loqi's Comments
Re: Send Karl Rove to Jail
Rove is very vulnerable. He's made too many enemies to count. If the next American executive is not of the Republican party, the U.S. Attorney General might go after Rove. And most of Washington would be cheering against him.
The little man has a dwindling list of friends. They might not charge Bush or Cheney criminally, but Rove? Strong possibility. We'll see what kind of pardons get handed out between the election and the inauguration. Scooter Libby's on the list. But he'll have a tough time pardoning Rove without a conviction first. Ha!
The little man has a dwindling list of friends. They might not charge Bush or Cheney criminally, but Rove? Strong possibility. We'll see what kind of pardons get handed out between the election and the inauguration. Scooter Libby's on the list. But he'll have a tough time pardoning Rove without a conviction first. Ha!
By: loqi
Re: Robot Chicken: Stretch Armstrong's Problem
I don't get the ending. Who's that other toy?
By: loqi
Re: TED: A Lyrical View of Life on Earth
That was really well put together. Nice narrative of life on Earth. Great photos. Science is pretty.
By: loqi
Re: The Political Spectrum Explained
I like his reframing of the spectrum along a high-to-low power-of-government scale. Anything that reframes an entrenched model deserves props. However, his scale breaks down as soon as he populates it. How does he put republic at a lower power-of-government scale than democracy? Or oligarchy lower than monarchy.
He lumps most governmental forms under the monarchy heading, and then folds it all into oligarchy, and strikes anarchism altogether (which he calls anarchy).
He basically ends up with a scale of republic, and non-republic governments. He mistrusts a democratic majority to act as anything but a mob, and puts total faith in law and the bureaucratic carrying out of that law. Well, in the United States, all the laws and bureaucratic machinery to follow it, ostensibly come from the legislative and executive branches, which are composed of representatives, elected by... (wait for it)... the majority.
(That, and all the election-rigging money).
He lumps most governmental forms under the monarchy heading, and then folds it all into oligarchy, and strikes anarchism altogether (which he calls anarchy).
He basically ends up with a scale of republic, and non-republic governments. He mistrusts a democratic majority to act as anything but a mob, and puts total faith in law and the bureaucratic carrying out of that law. Well, in the United States, all the laws and bureaucratic machinery to follow it, ostensibly come from the legislative and executive branches, which are composed of representatives, elected by... (wait for it)... the majority.
(That, and all the election-rigging money).
By: loqi
Re: The Space Elevator
It's closer than it might seem (decades not centuries). The biggest technical challenge is not the hardware, it's social considerations.
Who pays for and controls it? Would we need more than one? How can such elevators be protected from attack? A few thousand dollars of explosive anywhere along the tether can potentially send a few trillion dollars of elevator hurtling into the void.
I have no doubt the hardware challenges can be solved, but will our society be ready to build and keep it?
Who pays for and controls it? Would we need more than one? How can such elevators be protected from attack? A few thousand dollars of explosive anywhere along the tether can potentially send a few trillion dollars of elevator hurtling into the void.
I have no doubt the hardware challenges can be solved, but will our society be ready to build and keep it?
By: loqi
Re: Bad Astronomy: Saturn Lord of the Rings
I just now saw this bit, "...pull the outside edges of the rings in to the same distance as the inside edge?"
If the rings were held up by pressure, such as with the stuff of the body of the planet, then it would form a sphere. Taller areas would be heavier, and would push down harder. But it's a huge number of tiny orbiting ice moons. The far edge of the rings has less gravity form the planet because it's farther away, and orbits at a longer period.
Most of the time, the objects that make up the rings don't touch the other objects. They occasionally gently collide, but because they've been doing it for so long, they've settled into a fairly stable circular pattern.
If the rings were held up by pressure, such as with the stuff of the body of the planet, then it would form a sphere. Taller areas would be heavier, and would push down harder. But it's a huge number of tiny orbiting ice moons. The far edge of the rings has less gravity form the planet because it's farther away, and orbits at a longer period.
Most of the time, the objects that make up the rings don't touch the other objects. They occasionally gently collide, but because they've been doing it for so long, they've settled into a fairly stable circular pattern.
By: loqi
Re: Bad Astronomy: Saturn Lord of the Rings
The rings are made up of countless tiny satellites. Any system of orbiting bodies tends to assume a planar orientation. That's because the gravitational attraction of the satellites to each-other pull them into a single plane over time.
The planets of our solar system orbit on a roughly planar orientation, all in the same direction, and this plane gradually becomes more perfect over time. Even entire galaxies converge toward a planar configuration as all the gravitational attraction plays out.
Also, the constant collisions in Saturn's rings cause the orbiting bodies to tend toward perfectly circular orbits too. The most eccentric orbits have more collisions, until eventually everything either falls into the planet or has fewer collisions. Actually, it's all eventually going to fall into Saturn.
The planets of our solar system orbit on a roughly planar orientation, all in the same direction, and this plane gradually becomes more perfect over time. Even entire galaxies converge toward a planar configuration as all the gravitational attraction plays out.
Also, the constant collisions in Saturn's rings cause the orbiting bodies to tend toward perfectly circular orbits too. The most eccentric orbits have more collisions, until eventually everything either falls into the planet or has fewer collisions. Actually, it's all eventually going to fall into Saturn.
By: loqi
Re: Trebuchet Extreme Sport
Oops.
I did a search before submitting too. Couldn't find anything.
I did a search before submitting too. Couldn't find anything.
By: loqi
MagnoMitts(TM)
Kiro Kote(R)
"Actually this is the first time I've ever the Mew-Kiss-Masx(TM)." Lady, it's a bunch of snails. Ready-made sucker-chumps(trademark).
Gotta love that consumer culture. I think they need to watch more television and read Cosmo.