So...

Every time I hear Sarah Palin I think about that Parah Salin poster. So what did everyone dress up as?

I've heard of two other people dressing as Sarah Palin, and my friend said she saw a little kid dressed as Obama.

A friend of mine dressed up as President Dennis Kucinich. Now thats terrifying.

LOL. Oh, poor Kucinich - even if he had the best strategy in the world, he'd still lose because no one's going to vote for someone who looks like an elf.

rock_nog wrote:LOL. Oh, poor Kucinich - even if he had the best strategy in the world, he'd still lose because no one's going to vote for someone who looks like an elf.

Or someone who openly admits to being visited by aliens.

The Desperado wrote:Or someone who openly admits to being visited by aliens.

A friend of mine ha a fat suit and a Cheney mask. It was scary...

You know what's always bugged me? The part of science fiction movies where the good guys destroy the bad guys' big ship with a single attack. I mean, why do all of these things have these weak points that just destroy the whole thing? In Independence Day, it was the primary weapon; in Star Wars it was the exhaust (or whatever that was). How can these things be so vulnerable that a well placed bomb in the right place just completely annihilates everything?

phattonez wrote:You know what's always bugged me? The part of science fiction movies where the good guys destroy the bad guys' big ship with a single attack. I mean, why do all of these things have these weak points that just destroy the whole thing? In Independence Day, it was the primary weapon; in Star Wars it was the exhaust (or whatever that was). How can these things be so vulnerable that a well placed bomb in the right place just completely annihilates everything?

There is a spot on the human head, and if you shoot it, the head with explode.

You're right, that is baffling. I mean, I've always thought it'd make sense that say, a single bomb could disable one of those ships - after all, for instance, the entire point of the Death Star is the superlaser - a hit to a critical system of the superlaser would easily disable the laser, and thus, render the Death Star useless, but really, the entire thing blowing up because of an exhaust port?

Not to mention - the Rebels found the weakness on the Death Star so easily, why didn't Imperial engineers? All you'd need is a metal plate or something in front of it to keep missiles out.

phattonez wrote:You know what's always bugged me? The part of science fiction movies where the good guys destroy the bad guys' big ship with a single attack. I mean, why do all of these things have these weak points that just destroy the whole thing? In Independence Day, it was the primary weapon; in Star Wars it was the exhaust (or whatever that was). How can these things be so vulnerable that a well placed bomb in the right place just completely annihilates everything?

Well, then again, the Death Star was the size of a small moon - there was probably plenty of oxygen on-board to make some pretty fireworks.

The Death Star's explosions might have been warrented, but all the other Star Wars explosions aren't.

russadwan wrote:The Death Star's explosions might have been warrented, but all the other Star Wars explosions aren't.

Are you so familiar with the physics and engineering principles behind the reactor cores of starfighter engines that you can say with certainty that they would not explode?

Explosions or not, the most fake thing is the sound.

rock_nog wrote:Not to mention - the Rebels found the weakness on the Death Star so easily, why didn't Imperial engineers? All you'd need is a metal plate or something in front of it to keep missiles out.

A metal plate in front of an exhaust pipe. Let me go get my car and try it out.

phattonez wrote:A metal plate in front of an exhaust pipe. Let me go get my car and try it out.

-----]OOO|
OOOOOOO|
-----]OOO|

See, there is plenty of distance between the port and the plate to allow the port to do its job. However, you're gonna have a helluva time getting a missile in there. All you really have to do is prevent a direct shot.

EDIT: The Os represent empty space.

Yes, I know what you meant, but then I wouldn't have been able to make a joke about it.

Also, I don't know just how well such a plate would have been able to cover it up. I mean, you still need good efficiency, so the plate would have to be a pretty good distance away. Would a shot still be possible?

But this detracts from the main topic. How can 1 proton torpedo destroy the entire Death Star? How can you have one spot on such a giant ship that will destroy the entire ship?

phattonez wrote: How can you have one spot on such a giant ship that will destroy the entire ship?

Try dropping an M80 into the gas tank of an M1 Abrams Battle Tank. You'll quickly see how a small bit of munitions can destroy a large combat vessel given the correct placement.

I thought about that, but I think it has to be a direct hit - you could hit the port at an angle, but the proton torpedo needs to go all the way down the shaft - firing at an angle would cause the torpedo to collide with the shaft wall and prematurely detonate.

Also, I think the shaft led directly to the reactor core. I confess I'm not an expert on Star Wars technology, but I can imagine a scenario where that might lead to the ship exploding. For instance, if the reactor operated on matter/antimatter reactions, an explosion could disrupt the antimatter containment field, and given the amount of antimatter that would be necessary to power such a large ship, it could probably easily destroy it.

This conversation is way too intelligent. Therefore:

I heard that the last 17 times the Steelers have played the Redskins, it was right before a presidential election. Every time the Steelers won, a Democrat won, and when the Redskins won, a Republican won.

I don't know if this is true, but it's pretty interesting nonetheless.

rock_nog wrote:
Also, I think the shaft led directly to the reactor core. I confess I'm not an expert on Star Wars technology, but I can imagine a scenario where that might lead to the ship exploding. For instance, if the reactor operated on matter/antimatter reactions, an explosion could disrupt the antimatter containment field, and given the amount of antimatter that would be necessary to power such a large ship, it could probably easily destroy it.

Or perhaps more trivially, the blast merely collapsed the exhaust port, causing the reactor component that emitted the exhaust to overload and explode, which set off the "chain reaction" that they spoke of in the briefing.

Two things:

1. Chain reaction! Yes. That's right. The shaft doesn't go all the way down to the reactor core, it just goes down to something sensitive which can destroy something else sensitive, and so on.

2.

rock_nog wrote:I thought about that, but I think it has to be a direct hit - you could hit the port at an angle, but the proton torpedo needs to go all the way down the shaft - firing at an angle would cause the torpedo to collide with the shaft wall and prematurely detonate.

In the movie, you see that the shot basically flies perpendicular to the surface of the Death Star for quite a distance before suddenly dropping straight down into the exhaust shaft. If the torpedo were following a ballistic motion curve, then that would be completely ridiculous. Thus, in an effort to rationalize what's already present (like so many humans defending beloved science fiction material), let's just say that since we've established that it is a torpedo, which implies that it has some internal means of propulsion, perhaps once it is carefully and properly targeted to the opening of the exhaust shaft, it automatically changes its trajectory to go straight down into it.

...you know, how you contain antimatter anyway?
It can't be made of matter, unless you've got a way of making something solid without protons, neutrons, and electrons.
And what particle would repulse an antimatter particle as needed for a force field. For example, are there other positive particles besides Positrons that we could form a field out of? Another negative particle that would repulse Antiprotons?

Amaster42 wrote:...you know, how you contain antimatter anyway?
It can't be made of matter, unless you've got a way of making something solid without protons, neutrons, and electrons.
And what particle would repulse an antimatter particle as needed for a force field. For example, are there other positive particles besides Positrons that we could form a field out of? Another negative particle that would repulse Antiprotons?

Wouldn't a positive electric field be composed of Positrons? How would you make a generator out of matter that could produce antimatter. Usually that entails some contact between the field and generator. Unless the positive electric charge from the nucleus is sufficient enough to repel Positrons away before they contact the outer electrons, which I doubt.

Amaster42 wrote:Wouldn't a positive electric field be composed of Positrons?

Electric fields are not composed of anything. They are simply a mathematical construct representing the area of effect and strength of a positively charged particle. You can have an electric field in totally empty space.

Amaster42 wrote:Usually that entails some contact between the field and generator.

Fields cannot "contact" things. They can only influence them. You are not in contact with gravity, you are just experiencing the effects of Earth's gravitational field. Note that you do not have to be touching the Earth to feel its gravitational field.

Oh, right, right, the messenger particle for an electromagnetic field isn't electrons but photons. Sorry, forgot that for a sec there.

Although when you say "empty space" do you mean devoid of any particles at all, or just matter particles? Because without messenger particles there is no influence. Case in point; the Gluons in the nucleus.

Amaster42 wrote:
Although when you say "empty space" do you mean devoid of any particles at all, or just matter particles?

I meant only matter particles, like electrons and positrons. (er... matter and antimatter particles.)

I don't really know anything about messenger particles, so I have no idea how they'd interact in a matter/anti-matter situation.

Am I the only one wondering why the lasers that come out of the weaponry move so damn slow?

phattonez wrote:A metal plate in front of an exhaust pipe. Let me go get my car and try it out.

Pineconn wrote:This conversation is way too intelligent. Therefore:

I heard that the last 17 times the Steelers have played the Redskins, it was right before a presidential election. Every time the Steelers won, a Democrat won, and when the Redskins won, a Republican won.

I don't know if this is true, but it's pretty interesting nonetheless.

Amaster42 wrote:...you know, how you contain antimatter anyway?
It can't be made of matter, unless you've got a way of making something solid without protons, neutrons, and electrons.
And what particle would repulse an antimatter particle as needed for a force field. For example, are there other positive particles besides Positrons that we could form a field out of? Another negative particle that would repulse Antiprotons?