#5: You're right, but I guarantee that all state building codes specify a requirement for railings on an exposed stairwell.

Well to be fair to Ben Stein, it is not the bit about things changing over time that really gets him all boiled up inside. It is more the bit that things probably started on this world from things randomly coming together, rather than that God thing (or aliens for that matter) seeding life.

The theory of evolution makes absolutely no claim to how life started. Zero. Nada. None. It's the theory of evolution not the theory of biogenesis.

So, no, I'd rather not "be fair" to BS.

James: Big frown on the unnecessary Ben Stein slam. :(

After being involved with the travesty that is Expelled, I don't think there is such a thing as an unnecessary slam on Ben Stein.

Evidence: What do you mean by evolution?

http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u27/Guysmiley777/Evolution2.jpg

There was a LOT of dust on the Moon. The astronauts drug a lot of it back into the lunar module after EVAs despite their best efforts.

The main problem was it was so fine grained and so dry that it would stick to things electro-statically. They had brushes to try and clean themselves off, but it was pretty futile.

The critical part about that fender was without it dust would spray up everywhere on the rover. There were mirrored surfaces on the battery covers, intended to reflect sunlight and keep them cool. When dust built up on them they would start to heat up. So one activity they'd have to do (even after the jury rigged repair) was to dust the battery covers after each stop.

Of course brushing mirrors off that are covered in very fine powdered rick is really not a good way to keep them shiny, but it was better than nothing. And the repaired fender was better than no fender at all.

There were actually higher levels of relaxation before and after playing the game as opposed to experiencing anger

True, unless you JUST GOT CHAIN FEARED AND DOTTED TO DEATH BY THAT STUPID WARLOCK!!! PvP is a whole different dynamic. There are many ways to "play WOW".

Ok... those were not zits. I don't know what that was but it's burned into my skull forever.

§ 91.119 Minimum safe altitudes: General.
(b) Over congested areas. Over any congested area of a city, town, or settlement, or over any open air assembly of persons, an altitude of 1,000 feet above the highest obstacle within a horizontal radius of 2,000 feet of the aircraft.

I'm guessing daddy's going to be getting a rather unpleasant letter from the FAA shortly.

I feel ill.

"Fossil evidence says 'yes'"?

I thought that fossils were placed in the ground by the devil as a test of faith?

Ugh. Why don't they just lobotomize these kids and be done with it? Sick.

Search is an awesome thing:

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/01/06/more-from-evil-elmo.html

Different story, same theme.

#8 Ankh:

You'd think that's how orbital mechanics work, but it's not.

To increase orbital altitude, you need to increase rotational velocity, that is velocity at the tangent to "down".

Simply pushing an object "up" will not increase it's orbital altitude. It will only increase its eccentricity.

If you think about it, you can't just go straight up and say "yay, I'm in orbit!". The hard part about getting into orbit is getting going fast enough to fall at the Earth and miss.

They're welcome to forfeit the game and go back to the 19th century.

These steam traction engines have an amazing amount of power. They develop maximum torque at 0 rpm, which means the slower they go the more they "dig in".

I'm a licensed hobbyist engineer, I get to play at WMSTR every year. These old tractors will PULL. We will enter a little 50hp Case in a tractor pull and run full pulls nonstop.

Here's a vid of a 120hp Rumley tractor developing 3,000+ ft-lb of torque on a Prony brake: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFGmGk7WgNg&feature=related

Awesome.

I'm guessing now they've transitioned to F/A-18s? The F-14 is no longer in service with the U.S. Navy.

If you don't specify that the treadmill must keep the airplane stationary, then the problem is trivial. All that happens is that the wheels spin faster and the plane takes off (as demonstrated). That's barely even debatable. The whole point of the problem (as I understood it) is to figure out if a plane can produce lift by applying thrust and having its ground motion counteracted by the conveyor. The problem they solved is boring and dumb.

So it's their fault you've misread and misunderstood the question and therefore were WRONG?

And Jeff: Told ya so.

KEVTASTIC:

That "wheel speed" interpretation is meaningless and collapses to infinity very quickly. If that's what the statement is intended to be interpreted as you mine as well argue about "what happens when you accelerate when you are traveling at the speed of light?"

#48, 49: Good lord.

You're saying that if the treadmill either

a. Rotates opposite the motion of the aircraft at equal speed rotating the wheels at twice the speed of the aircraft

or

b. Rotates at the same speed as the aircraft, keeping the wheels from rotating

that will somehow generate as much force as the propulsion from the aircraft engine?

The thought experiment says NOTHING about the motion of the aircraft with respect to the ground. It says the treadmill moves with respect to the WHEELS OF THE PLANE. It also handily can be read two different ways.

Again to be clear: THE TREADMILL SPEED IS NOT RELATED TO THE GROUND SPEED OF THE AIRCRAFT. "speed of the wheels" is NOT "speed of the aircraft".

Either way you read it, the plane takes off. Either with the wheels spinning at 2x the ground speed or spinning at 0 RPM.

High school physics 101.

#42: No, totally wrong.

What force is counter-acting the thrust from the engine(s)? The wheels free-wheeling below it? Nope, sorry. Unless the brakes are applied, in which case you aren't taking off anyway.

Either way, the wheels are (nearly) frictionless and unaffected by the motion of the belt.

The. Plane. Takes. Off.

#33: If you read it that way, the plane STILL TAKES OFF. If the conveyor belt keeps the wheels from turning, the aircraft still has a velocity with respect to the Earth, it has "indicated airspeed" and it takes off.

Assuming you could control the treadmill speed perfectly, to an observer on the ground it would look like the aircraft is just moving along the conveyor with the wheels not moving.

There's nothing magical about it, it's simple physics.

#10, read the problem again, specifically:

The conveyer belt is designed to exactly match the speed of the wheels, moving in the opposite direction.

So when the aircraft is moving 10 MPH forwards, the conveyor belt is moving 10 MPH backwards.

Since the wheels on an aircraft are free-wheeling (that is they do not provide propulsion), the wheels will just spin at 20 MPH.

The common misconception is due to people thinking in automotive terms, where the wheels are providing propulsion. In an aircraft that is not the case.

If you were to put a real aircraft on a real treadmill that really traveled the same speed as an aircraft taking off, only in reverse, the aircraft would take off. Period. The wheels would be rotating at twice the speed of the aircraft, but assuming the wheels/tires don't explode from the stress, you'll get airborne.

Frictional losses would not overcome the engine thrust. The MTOW and runway length required may be different, but assuming an aircraft that is not overloaded, it'll fly.

Saying that their experiment misses the point because it ignores "ideal" treadmills misses the point that magical super treadmills don't exist.

It's a good thought experiment and it gets you thinking about what forces are really in play.

#4: There is a difference between relaxing and having fun and going into a vegetative coma and letting your brain leak out your ears.

Disgusting. These fake news interview style propaganda videos are a disgrace.

You'd think the REAL news organizations would be more up in arms about this sort of thing as it serves to discredit them (more than they already are...)

Isn't this the same thing FEMA got caught doing after the Katrina debacle?

#2: Absorb "toxins" through your feet? No, no you could not have a foot pad that does what this claims to do.

Sociopathic behavior is funny, I guess?

So, would they be laughing if some hacker took down the Gizmodo site "to be funny"?

Yeah, it turns out Edison was kind of a dick.

Daha: Arrgh! I guess I haven't looked at my queue since Christmas, that is INCREDIBLY annoying. Time to warm up the flamethrower. Thanks for that link.

Between him and Nancy Grace, I just don't watch CNN/Headline News.

@ Bricology:

Exactly, 133hp for something that large is just not enough power for it to actually fly.

Looking at the rotor bearing, I don't see any kind of swashplate, it looks to maybe be hinged to pivot fore and aft only. No flapping hinge either, so as it gains speed it will start to bank towards the retreating blade.

Impressive for something built out of scrap and spare parts for sure, but I don't think I'd want to ride in it. :)

Wired may be jumping the gun here. The cannon system in question was a "hack" on a 1950's era AA system. The GDF Mark 5 version, which the South African system is based on came out in 1985. The double barreled cannon is electronically directed by a fire control system. But nobody knows yet what exactly happens.

Reports are that there were multiple cannons set up line abreast on a firing line for a demonstration. A cannon on one end of the line had a jam or malfunction. After clearing the malfunction one of the two barrels started firing and the cannon pivoted 90 degrees to face down the line at the rest of the cannons.

Couple of things here. First, automatically directed AA guns are nothing new. We had radar directed AA in WWII even. There have been fully autonomous close in weapon systems on naval vessels since the '80s (like the US Phalanx system.)

This looks to be an ugly chain of mistakes and failures. South Africa modified these cannon systems to be electronically directed even though Oerlikon (the cannon manufacturer) warned them the mount wasn't designed for that purpose.

SA has been under a weapons embargo for some time, their desire to develop "in-house" solutions may have led to mistakes, oversights and shortcuts in the development of the system.

Most property owners I knew on the border just kept a shotgun handy, but the illegals generally kept a distance from ranches.

The worst part about the border runners were the ones that would kill dogs.

MadMolecule:

There was an extendable trapeze that would engage a harness attached to the top of the airplane.

See http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/g440000/g441979.jpg for a good picture.

Obviously it required specialized aircraft, they were mostly for scouting and defense of the mothership.

The planes were lowered through the bottom of the airship through a closeable hole. Rigid airships aren't like blimps, the outer skin does not hold the lifting gas.

Later in use they completely removed the landing gear from the planes(you can also see the hatch the planes are raised up in: http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/h77000/h77433.jpg

Waldo:

A Gulfstream II has a maximum useful load of 26,000 pounds and a maximum range of about 4,200 nautical miles.

Take 3.7 tons of that load out and you have 21,000 pounds of fuel. That still gives you a range of 3,300 nautical miles (pretty dang good, a Learjet 60's max range is only 2,700nm).