NewScientist has put out an article debunking the possibility of space travel using warp technology based on a scientific analysis made by Dr. William Edelstein (of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore) … and apparently neither the NewScientist editor, nor Dr. Edelstein, have ever watched Star Trek.

Now, I grant you, the science itself has some merit, for some situations.  Dr. Edelstein notes that hydrogen atoms, though sparse in space at a an average of two atoms per cubic centimeter in the big black yonder, would become a rather deadly phenomenon when traversing between the stars at near the speed of light.  He calculates that the path of travel of a starship even approaching lightspeed (99.999998 percent) would be hit by a “death ray” of radiation from the hydrogen atoms equal to 7 teraelectron volts, on par with the energy of the Large Hadron Collider beam.

Which is probably true.

That part I don’t think any scientist would really dispute.  When you travel at (or in the case of Star Trek, greater) than the speed of light, every particle in space becomes deadly.  And not just the hydrogen.  Even if it didn’t hit you like a Large Hadron Collider beam and irradiate you to death in a fraction of a second, it would certainly punch holes in the hull and the crew.

If you were traveling at near the speed of light, relatively speaking.

Here’s where the first observation of the technology of Star Trek itself seems to have failed.  Warp speed is accomplished by literally warping local space/time.  You in effect create ripples around the spacecraft and ride through the waves of warped space instead of traveling in a straight line from Point A to Point B.  You effectively skip over the majority of the space that you sort-of travel through.  It’s a way to cheat Einstein and his relativity, because you do not travel at the speed of light (or even anywhere near it), you travel at a safe speed, but continually bend space around you to shorten your relative trip.  And with the skipping of traversing of all of that space, you skip running into all of the things occupying that missed space, like those pesky hydrogen atoms Dr. Edelstein counted up.  Because Dr. Edelstein is counting up the whole space, not the relative space.

It’s the whole point of warp speed.  That’s why it’s called warp.  It’s not because it just sounds cool.

Now how exactly a warp field is generated, I’m sadly not geek enough to say.  I’d suspect a gravity-based system is in play since, well, that’s how our universe naturally warps space and time.  Whatever the means however, it takes a lot of energy.  Which is why Star Trek fuels its ships with mind-boggling energy reactors such as matter/antimatter powerplants!

So right there is already great concern over just how NewScientist and Dr. Edelstein see the hydrogen in the universe affecting Star Trek specifically.  I’m sure the calculations made apply quite aptly to, say, trying to send a rocket to the speed of light.  But not to the science employed in Star Trek.

But that’s really only just the beginning.  Because we also know that in the Star Trek canon even the first warp-capable ships from Starfleet used polarized hull plating to deflect nastiness away from the hull and protect the ship and its inhabitants.  It’s funny, but I don’t see any mention of how this technology affects things in Dr. Edelstein’s scientific study.  Nor is there any mention of one of the most obvious technologies to come from Star Trek canon to protect a ship: energy shields.  (Which, again, I don’t know how exactly they operate, but I would wager is based somehow on containing plasma within an electromagnetic field.)

And that doesn’t even begin to dive into the possible alloys of which the exterior armor on the hull, nor interior shielding to protect the crew, could be made of.  And why do I mention that?  Because Dr. Edelstein specifically calculates, “that a 10-centimetre-thick layer of aluminium would absorb less than 1 per cent of the energy.”  Well great.  Who is using pure aluminum as shielding for anything in space?  Certainly not anyone in Star Trek.  According to canon even their glass is some doped-up transparent aluminum.  However that is made, I’m sure it isn’t just raw aluminum.

So then, what is my point?  Well two-fold.  First, if you’re going to do calculations on near-lightspeed to make some commentary about space travel, maybe you should take the time to research the technology that would be used to achieve that speed before you open your big mouth.  (Note that Dr. Edelstein presented his study to the American Physical Society meeting in Washington DC.)  This applies to the editors at NewScientist as well, who really ought to screen these things, since that is their job and all.

And second, if you’re going to specifically target a canon like Star Trek to throw your half-baked study at, maybe you should first respect that canon enough to do due diligence in studying it.  Because you’d probably be amazed at all of the hard science and theoretical physics that went in to creating it in the first place.  Unlike Star Wars for example that is nothing more than a space-pimped melodrama with fantasy in mind and a lot of fill in the blanks, Star Trek is a heavily scientific canon where a lot of intelligent people have taken the time to actually work these things out.  And anyone with any modicum of respect for what they’ve chosen to target should have taken the incredibly small amount of time and effort it would have needed to find that.

So Dr. William Edelstein, and the folks at NewScientist, maybe the next time you want to be scientific you should stop trying to sensationalize your findings by comparing them to something that you couldn’t have been bothered to research and just stick to the science.

And don’t knock The Enterprise.

The Enterprise, NCC-1701

First, let me preface this blog entry with some pertinent background.  Yes, I do own an ‘06 Toyota Prius.  Now, you can call me a Toyota Fanboy or whatever you like, but if you do any due diligence whatsoever, you’ll have noticed that I have expressed serious safety concerns with the Toyota Prius and especially its Traction Control and the way that it interacts interferes with the regenerative braking, especially in bad weather.  A problem further exacerbated by the incredibly tiny traditional wheel brakes, not to mention the Goodyear Integrity (What a joke!)  stock tires with their horrible traction.  A problem which Toyota has still not fixed in their latest Prius model, in spite of its threat to safety.  And only the most serious of many grievances with the poor design of the Toyota Prius in general, especially at extremes of heat and cold.  Probability is high that my next car will not be a Prius, or even a Toyota.  Not with the way that Toyota has not been addressing these issues.

Now, that said, is it me, or do we have an awful lot of Chicken Littles out there crying about how the sky is falling?

Yes, Toyota had some bad luck with parts.  Yes, there are some faulty gas pedals out there.

Is it a safety issue?  Only if you’re a f___ing moron.

Let’s step back in time a bit shall we…

My last car was a Mercury Sable.  I knew a lot of people who had Mercury Sables.  They were good cars.  Except for when they weren’t.  Each one was plagued by a minor demon.  Each and every person who I knew who drove one all had electrical issues of some kind.  From a windshield wiper that seemed to work in reverse (when it worked at all) to a dash lights that illuminated for no reason.  And hell, each and every one eventually had the same head gasket blow.  What was the special electrical quirk in mine?  Every once in a blue moon, when coming to a stop at speeds well under 10 miles an hour, the engine would suddenly take off like a bat out of hell.  Usually my foot was already on the brake, as I was slowing.  And usually it happened as I was pulling up to a gas pump.  The brakes weren’t strong enough to hold back all those ponies, and if I were a f___ing moron, the car would have gotten away from me and quite likely careened out of control, resulting in an accident.

But did I ever run my car into someone because it was accelerating out of control without my foot on the gas?

No!

And why not?  Because there’s this thing called an “ignition switch”.  Cut the power to the engine and low and behold, the vehicle stops revving like a maniac.  Gee.  Funny how that works.  And not only that, but I also know for a fact that if by some odd reason of monumental stupidity you can’t seem to figure out how to kill the ignition, there’s also a neutral gear, which while not stopping the engine from flooring it does stop the vehicle from accelerating, allowing the brakes to get it back under control, and giving you all of the time in the world to, yes, you guessed it, kill the ignition.  But what if your ignition is a button and not a key to turn?  Simple!  RTFM.  Read The F___ing Manual.  Because even the push-button ignitions can be turned off, and yes, at the simple push of a button.  Some manufacturers prefer the OMG approach where any repeated pressing will disengage the ignition.  Others, like Toyota, take the methodical approach (to avoid accidental killings) of holding the button down for a mere three seconds to kill the ignition.  It’s just that simple.  It intentionally leaves power to your steering and braking for safety purposes.  And I can guarantee that it’s right in your owner’s manual.

Wow.

Really?

Yeah.

And I know for a fact that my ‘98 Mercury Sable was hardly the first car to ever have issues either.  Why the number of stories I know of people from the generation before me who had their engines catch fire is a fascinating study alone!

Let’s face a little something called reality, shall we?  Cars have always had mechanical and/or electrical problems.  Just like every other piece of machinery ever made.  That’s why they also have off buttons.  That’s why there are always safety features and sanity checks.

It happens.  And there’s pretty much always a way to avoid these failures from becoming life threatening.

So back to the present.  The problem here is not that Toyota has some cars out there with theoretically faulty parts.  I can guarantee you that every single car manufacturer that ever was has or has had cars out there with faulty parts.  (In fact, though rarely reported, Honda is actually involved in their own recall on the Jazz/Fit right now!)  And yet, we as a species have survived.

No, the problem here is two-fold.  The first is that Toyota is actually being honest for a change.  It’s a new concept in automobile manufacturers.  Usually recall notices would be kept on the down-low, only affected people knowing, if even that many.  Usually recalls wouldn’t even be considered until at least a dozen incidents because they cost money and businesses are not always exactly honest and forthcoming.  And it was hardly ever newsworthy because that’s just how it always is.  But this time, Toyota jumped the gun.  They saw a possible problem and they immediately acted upon it.  And more than that, they threw out great blanket recalls on cars that we all know, for a fact, are fine.  There are cars being identified for recall for these faulty gas pedals that we know for a fact actually have gas pedal assemblies made by another manufacturer and aren’t faulty.  But Toyota is playing it safe for consumers and being up front.  And there are all manner of cars being identified for recall citing that the mats might get stuck under the gas pedal, that if you look at them, already are clearly cut out around the gas pedal to avoid just that very problem and tie down to the floor so that they can’t possibly shift up into the gas pedal.  (Unless you, the consumer, does something stupid like unclip them from the floor of course.)  Yet these are listed for recall anyway, because, again, Toyota is doing a big blanket safety process, costing them tons of money, all for you, the consumer.

The second problem is society.  We’ve forgotten that we also have responsibility.  We’ve reached a point where all we ever do is blame someone else for our own stupidity.  It doesn’t matter that we’re f___ing morons, because we have fingers and we can point, so it’s not our fault.  We refuse to even remotely share any shred of culpability, regardless of the reality.  We have lawyers set to sue and that’s that.  And if there’s money to be made, all the better.  And what an easy target Toyota has made of itself by being so honest and up front.  So we blame and we blame and we blame and make it the absolute end of the world.

Meanwhile, Toyota has not only confirmed two possible causes, identified their fixes, but has even tested and has had independently tested a simple little postage-stamp sized metal shim that can fix the fault in the gas pedals.  It’s easy to produce in quantity, and can correct all of the woes in record time for a minimal monetary loss to the company but with absolute surety and safety for the lifetime of the car.

But we don’t care.  Because fixing the problem isn’t what we want.  We want blame.  We want blood.

Also in the meanwhile an incredibly simple test for a fault in the gas pedal has been identified.  It is a part that wears over time.  Simply depressing the gas pedal while the vehicle is safely in park, feeling for if there is any kind of grinding, seeing if there is any kind of hesitation for it to pop back up when you release it, will tell you with absolute surety whether or not your gas pedal is presently faulty.  A test that can easily be done with no risk, by the simplest of simpletons, can guarantee you of safe driving before you get on the road.

And we don’t care.  Because identifying whether or not our car is safe isn’t what we want.  We want blame.  We want blood.

So we blame Toyota.  We demand blood.  We turn common sense off.  We claim that if not the sky, Toyota at least is falling.  Because really, what fun would common sense and a little responsibility be?

There’s this big tunnel over in Europe you see.  In fact it goes right under the English Channel to connect the United Kingdom to Europe so that cars and trains may travel freely.  They call it the Channel Tunnel, or Chunnel for short.  It’s run by Eurostar, and it’s a marvelous feat of engineering and technology, really.

Except, well, for when it isn’t.

You see, during the weekend, a couple of trains got stuck on their merry way from France to England.  A couple.  Hmm…

Well, let’s count…

One…

Two…

Three…  (Really?  Three? Didn’t someone notice a problem?)

Four… (Wow.   Four!  In a row?!)

Five!

Holy Flirking Schiznet and his orchestra, five trains all got stuck, one right after the other, in the Chunnel.  Around 2000 passengers were stranded under the English Channel, some for as long as 16 hours.  (Fortunately, no one was injured at least.)  And the reason, it would seem, was snow.

Yes, snow.

The trains seemed to have picked up a bit of snow traveling through France.  This snow melted in the Chunnel, shorting out electrical systems.  This caused the trains to become stranded, and, well, things didn’t turn out so good.

Now, first, one must wonder why the shields built onto the trains for just such a purpose as preventing snow build up still don’t actually, you know, prevent snow build up.  That itself is bad.

Second, one must further ponder how in today’s time, and with the modern marvel of engineering that the Channel Tunnel is, that it would even be possible to short out electrics with just a bit of water.  Shouldn’t we have found a way to engineer a system more robust than that?

Third, of course, would be how five trains were allowed to get stuck in there when there should have been a way to prevent further trains from following the first one or two into bedlam.

And last but certainly not least, Fourth, would be why did it take so very long to get everyone rescued?  That, at least, has a simple answer.  Because when the electrical trains of the Chunnel fail, they’re rescued by diesel locomotives, of which, there are two. Yes, a whole whopping two.  Five trains get stuck with only two emergency vehicles to rescue them.  Brilliant math, no?

These are all valid questions to ponder as one contemplates the majesty that is Eurostar.  Of course, when you’re the only option, I suppose it’s rather easy to rest upon one’s laurels.  Still, there must be a better way, one would imagine.

Bioshock - A Steampunk genre first-person shooter

I recently made a “new” game purchase: Bioshock on the PS3.  You may wonder what in blazes took me so long.  Well, price, mainly.  And that I wanted it on the PS3.

And I have to say, I really really wish more game developers delved not only into role-playing games (RPGs) but the Steampunk genre as well.

Okay, so Bioshock isn’t really an RPG.  (Unless you mean of the rocket-propelled grenade variety.  It has those.)  Bioshock is a first-person shooter (FPS), but it does have RPG-like elements to it, which helps make it more enjoyable.

But Bioshock itself isn’t really the special thing here.  I mean we could go back to games like Arcanum.  Now there was a real RPG.  The thing is, I love a setting of invention, and I love a good RPG.  And even better yet if you can find a way to mix in some magic.

The world needs more games like this.  The rawness of the dawn of invention.  The creativity of making.  The thinking.  I love it.

I was buying a gallon of milk the other day, and I had to laugh when I saw a DVD rental kiosk.  It had a whole dozen crappy movies.  And I had to wonder if maybe the concept wouldn’t be so foolish seeming if there was more of a selection.

And that got me to thinking about why I also quit Netflix.  I was tired of discs arriving unplayable due to scratches or in some cases being flat out broken into pieces.  Not to mention always being stuck on a waiting list for the titles I wanted.

It just strikes me, not only are DVD burners a dime a dozen these days, but we also have this great LightScribe system now for cover art.  So why are we stuck on failing models of pressed discs when we could be burning a Disc On Demand instead?

Netflix would be worth buying into again if the discs were just burned for each rental.  I don’t care if Netflix shreds each disc as it comes back to them.  What’s the cost of a blank dual-layer DVD?  I can find them for significantly less than a dollar retail, so to stock automated machines from bulk wholesale?  To have a shiny new disc guaranteed to work when I get it (well, not counting delivery damage) would be a huge step forward.  As would no longer having to wait for someone else to return their copy for me to rent mine.

This is digital media.  We don’t need to keep using the same antiquated model that libraries use.

Same with the rental kiosks.  (In fact, why doesn’t Netflix have branded rental kiosks?)  Why couldn’t the kiosk just burn you a Disc On Demand when you chose your movie to rent, and just shred the bugger when you return it?  What with the maximum capacity of a dual layer DVD being like 8.5GB and Terabyte drives being common these days, that’s like at least 117 movies per TB drive without even trying.  With more advanced file compression and removing DVD extras to strip movies down to cheaper single-layer discs and much smaller file sizes, heck, you could easily increase capacity per TB to more like 500.  So a kiosk with multiple drives could literally offer you thousands of titles instead of just a dozen.

So long as there’s a return procedure in place there’s no more or less worry about copies in the wild than there is with pressed rentals.

And again, this is digital media anyway.  Netflix and such offer download services with no physical media.  So surely there can’t be a hangup on the concept of the disc itself, can there?

It just seems like such a simple system to me.  And not just for rentals, but for purchases too.  Sure, a burned disc doesn’t last as long as a pressed one, but like with books and on-demand printing, why not offer CDs or DVDs printable on demand?  Inventory is minimal, as is overhead.  Walk into Walmart, press a few buttons on a CD Disc On Demand kiosk, pay there or at the register.  I don’t care.  Now you have access to more titles than you can shake a stick at.

And for people who still want pressed discs with pretty album covers and glossy lyric fold-outs and all that jazz, more power to them.  Buy the pressed disc.  It’s not like a single kiosk is going to take up so much space that it prevents the aisles and aisles of those.

I wonder why no one has done this yet.