Nintendo DS Survives Everest

[Smoke]

Brother site Kotaku reports on two mountain climbers who for some reason decided to tote their Nintendo DS along with them on the grueling hike up Mt. Everest. Apparently, the DS “DS held up the best of any of [the electronic equipment].” And hey, fanboys even climb Mt. Everest! “I can guarantee a five-year-old can spill jelly on them and they’ll still survive… (vs. PSP)” Oops, now I’m a Sony fanboy for calling someone a Nintendo fanboy! DS Survives Everest: Expedition Update [Kotaku]

Via Gizmodo.

[Dark Jaguar]

Well for what reason would it fail? Calculators survive the trip too :D. The fact is, climbing Everest isn't nearly the mark of achievement it used to be. The reason is when it first occured, it was pushing back the boundries of human achievement. Now that it's been done, it's doing something IN the boundries of human achievement, more easily I might add.

The PSP might survive as well, though the one issue at hand there is the moving parts and how the tempurature (namely thermal compression) would affect it.

[A Black Falcon]

The DS doesn't have moving parts (other than the buttons), I'm sure that helps... but yeah, it's really about cold resistance. Obviously the DS does well... Nintendo has always made durable hardware (with a few exceptions like the N64's analog stick), so I'm not that surprised. But it is cool. :)

[Dark Jaguar]

Cold resistance is easily doable on something like the DS. One important note! There can't be any moisture inside the system before going into freezing temps. The expanding ice will destroy the electronics easily. So long as it went in dry, I see no reason why it couldn't survive that.

You want to impress me? Take that thing to a flowing lava stream. Your shoes will MELT just standing 4 feet away from something like that. Ever seen scientists studying actively flowing lava? They were these huge thermal suits with just a tiny slit for light, and just cracking open the top of a tube is enough to get them shielding that one slit!

...

That leads me to wonder how exactly Jedi masters manage to not get burnt to cinders... Well, if they are strong enough to withstand 4000 degree air, seriously, why can't they just GRAB a light saber blade like it's nothing?

[UltraMarioMan]

That leads me to wonder how exactly Jedi masters manage to not get burnt to cinders... Well, if they are strong enough to withstand 4000 degree air, seriously, why can't they just GRAB a light saber blade like it's nothing?

Maybe Lightsaber blades are 4001 degrees!

[Great Rumbler]

8,000,000 degrees!

[UltraMarioMan]

8,000,000 degrees!

I take your 8,000,000 degrees and raise you 100 BILLION DEGREES *Puts pinky to mouth*

[Great Rumbler]

Why must I be surrounded by frickin' idiots?!

[Dark Jaguar]

Well, if the lightsaber is 4000 degrees, one would think that the average person standing next to a saber battle would get burned. Ever put your hand above a lit stove? Not directly above, but a few feet above, and notice the air is still hot enough to burn your hand? Yeah... And if it's several billion degrees.... well I'm pretty sure that any planet a jedi or sith battled on would be forfeit.

[Great Rumbler]

Lightsabers are made of heat that's concentrated into a small area, they don't radiate any.

[A Black Falcon]

Right. It's only hot if you accidentally hit yourself with it... :)

(and even then, there won't be any blood because of course it cauterizes the wounds too, being so hot...)

[Weltall]

I wonder.

If you drop a lightsaber point-down directly on the ground, would it eventually eat all the way through the planet and come out the other side?

[A Black Falcon]

No, at some point the heat would probably melt the handle... or else it'd get stuck (actually, this is the far more likely one...). Sorry. :)

[Dark Jaguar]

Well I won't debate the whole heat radiating thing, because the very notion of a beam of light that just stops midway is silly to begin with.

I'm just talking about sheer power level here. Oh and, what if the light saber hit a big solid chunk of granite? That might stop it.

[A Black Falcon]

Well I won't debate the whole heat radiating thing, because the very notion of a beam of light that just stops midway is silly to begin with.

Suspension of disbelief, DJ. You just have to believe that, in that universe,the rules of physics are slightly different... to allow for hyperspace, the Force, lightsabers, etc. :)

Where a sci-fi universe is tested is not in how it creates its rules, or what those rules are, but if it follows its own rules. And Star Wars, for the most part, succeeds at that.

I'm just talking about sheer power level here. Oh and, what if the light saber hit a big solid chunk of granite? That might stop it.

Haven't you seen TPM?

[Great Rumbler]

There's also not really sound in space, but that doesn't stop people from enjoying the space battles in Star Wars. And in real life random bits of music don't actually acompany the events that occur. And guns really run out of ammunition. And...well you get the idea.

[Dark Jaguar]

Um, so what you take it that the music is actually a canon part of the storyline? If it was then I'd certainly find that... odd to say the least...

Yes ABF, I agree that the rules have to be slightly, well okay majorly, different. And yes, it's about continuity with itself, but that's what I'm talking about here. If the Jedi can hold back air that should be roasting them alive, they should be able to withstand a lightsaber.

Ya know, just once I'd like to see a space battle where there was no sound (except maybe the music). IT CAN TOO BE DRAMATIC! Yeesh do you lack an artistic taste? War movies sometimes blank out all the sound completely and just play music in the background as the battle goes on. I THINK the same thing could work for space battles.

And yeesh, why all the ganging up? You agree with me about most of it so why all this? I'm just pointing it OUT, that's all. We need to be able to do that every now and then or you end up like those people who actually try to master the force.

And another thing, the physics of jumping has always seemed a bit unnatural... Yes I know, it IS unnatural, it's the force or gamma ray enduced jumping or spidey powers, but my point is whatever supplies the initial push aside, from that point it should behave in a realistic fasion. Makes it more seamless ya know? It's just part of the way our brains work. What I mean is, it's all well and good that they used a burst of force power to shoot them into the air (if it was continous force after all there would be nothing preventing them from flight, so it couldn't be that). But, they remained the same speed through the entire jump. In reality, when anything jumps, or is thrown, or whatever, it starts out fast, slows down, stops, starts falling slowly, speeds up, then stops again when it hits something hard enough, like the ground. Now, don't get me wrong, a lack of deceleration and acceleration isn't going to kill my enjoyment of a movie, but for a man like Lucas that is so obsessed with his special effects being as realistic as possible, he must realize that a huge part of that is making sure nothing makes people somehow feel that a scene "doesn't look right". They may not know why it doesn't look right, but still it's things like this that make people realize stuff like that If they took the time to really get it right, not only would people not notice it and not be temporarily reminded they are watching a movie, but people like me would notice and appreciate that attention to detail.

[A Black Falcon]

DJ, sometimes there is something to be said for trying to NOT be realistic... and often in films and videogames, the game is a lot more fun, or the movie is a lot better, if you aren't realistic. :)

A Mario platformer with a jump only as high as a real person would be pretty boring... as would Star Wars with invisible lasers, no hyperdrive or Force, and no sound in space... you know this. Why can't you just say 'this universe has different rules from our own and that's okay'?

(Oh, there actually is an explanation in the books for the 'sound in space' thing, they excuse it with 'they have sound generators in the ships that simulate the sounds'... :) (of course this doesn't explain the music, but all films have music, and we just pretend that in the "real world" it wouldn't exist. :)))

Yes ABF, I agree that the rules have to be slightly, well okay majorly, different. And yes, it's about continuity with itself, but that's what I'm talking about here. If the Jedi can hold back air that should be roasting them alive, they should be able to withstand a lightsaber.

I'm not sure what you mean about them not being burned when they should be... when the Jedis have been hit with lightsabers they get hurt just like anyone else... remember, lightsabers don't create giant heat fields! They're closer to lasers than heatlamps, DJ...

Ya know, just once I'd like to see a space battle where there was no sound (except maybe the music). IT CAN TOO BE DRAMATIC! Yeesh do you lack an artistic taste? War movies sometimes blank out all the sound completely and just play music in the background as the battle goes on. I THINK the same thing could work for space battles.

In some specific case, sure, but not most of the time.

[Dark Jaguar]

Um, what does the music have to do with anything? Except in comedy situations, none of the characters actually hear any of the music, so it's not canonically there.

And ABF, I mean that if they don't get fried by being near all that lava, they should be able to withstand a direct hit by a lightsaber. I'm not talking about the heat radiating thing any more. I'm talking about being able to directly grab one.

I KNOW THAT THINGS DON'T ALWAYS HAVE TO BE REALISTIC! Yeesh... You are treating me like a child here. You act as though I've never thought that thought in my life... OF COURSE I agree with that! I was talking about how there is ALSO something to be said for realism in the sense that certain things can add to the whole feel of the movie, and realistic jumping physics WOULD be one of them. Why is it that when I talk about Star Wars it's so hard to actually HAVE a conversation with you without you completely ignoring everything I say or just out and out assuming I mean something I very clearly do not?

Yeesh, I'm not saying that all sci fi movies should ALWAYS obey the laws of physics. Why do you think I'm saying that? I'm saying that a lot of the stuff they do could be done in more realistic fasions and still be exciting, or in the case of the jumping thing, they could do something unrealistic in a way that appears a lot more natural. I DID explain it in a way that I thought made my viewpoint not only clear, but also artistically sound.

Look, it's just very annoying when I keep having to make my point clear. I've argued very similar things to you in the past. You should know what I mean by now.

[A Black Falcon]

And ABF, I mean that if they don't get fried by being near all that lava, they should be able to withstand a direct hit by a lightsaber. I'm not talking about the heat radiating thing any more. I'm talking about being able to directly grab one.

Ah, I see what you mean... I don't know, but could probably invent something that sounds plausible (involving the specific properties of that planet, or that lava, or something)... :) Because Jedis definitely can't just take saber hits. (also, perhaps the sabers are significantly hotter than whatever heat is radiating from the lava... it isn't necessarially quite so bad that it should be setting them on fire or something, unless they touch it...)

I KNOW THAT THINGS DON'T ALWAYS HAVE TO BE REALISTIC! Yeesh... You are treating me like a child here. You act as though I've never thought that thought in my life... OF COURSE I agree with that! I was talking about how there is ALSO something to be said for realism in the sense that certain things can add to the whole feel of the movie, and realistic jumping physics WOULD be one of them. Why is it that when I talk about Star Wars it's so hard to actually HAVE a conversation with you without you completely ignoring everything I say or just out and out assuming I mean something I very clearly do not?

Yeesh, I'm not saying that all sci fi movies should ALWAYS obey the laws of physics. Why do you think I'm saying that? I'm saying that a lot of the stuff they do could be done in more realistic fasions and still be exciting, or in the case of the jumping thing, they could do something unrealistic in a way that appears a lot more natural. I DID explain it in a way that I thought made my viewpoint not only clear, but also artistically sound.

Look, it's just very annoying when I keep having to make my point clear. I've argued very similar things to you in the past. You should know what I mean by now.

I just think that it's not looking at scifi the right way to say 'it should be realistic by real-world physics'... it should be realistic by the rules that are created for that universe. Not for our universe.

Now, yes, sometimes it can be interesting to see scifi which uses just real-world tech, and yes, it can work... but it's the exception, really, and not the rule (though it is more common in books and stories than in films, I'd say, it happenes ever so often in both). I just don't like the 'it should be more realistic' thing when what it should be is closer to the rules set by the rules of that universe. This is especially true in a case like Star Wars. (that is, I see your point, but think that I disagree about the extent to which it should be implemented... are there limits to what rules of physics they can change? Well, if they change something they need a reasonable explanation. So 'sound in space' would be a really hard rule to change -- how would you provide a medium for that sound to travel on? That's why I much prefer the books' "sound generators in the ships make the sounds to fill it in because people expect them" explanation... but things like hyperspace, or the Force, or impossible things like that? Make their existance seem plausible and have a solid explanation and it's probably just fine.)

... on that note, I WOULD like to know the explanation for why the "lasers" are visible, slower-than-light beams. :) I'm sure they've got SOMETHING, but I don't remember what it is...

how there is ALSO something to be said for realism in the sense that certain things can add to the whole feel of the movie, and realistic jumping physics WOULD be one of them.

I didn't notice anything wrong with the jumping... well, except for the fact that with the Force you can jump a whole lot higher than normal... :)

And another thing, the physics of jumping has always seemed a bit unnatural... Yes I know, it IS unnatural, it's the force or gamma ray enduced jumping or spidey powers, but my point is whatever supplies the initial push aside, from that point it should behave in a realistic fasion. Makes it more seamless ya know? It's just part of the way our brains work. What I mean is, it's all well and good that they used a burst of force power to shoot them into the air (if it was continous force after all there would be nothing preventing them from flight, so it couldn't be that). But, they remained the same speed through the entire jump. In reality, when anything jumps, or is thrown, or whatever, it starts out fast, slows down, stops, starts falling slowly, speeds up, then stops again when it hits something hard enough, like the ground. Now, don't get me wrong, a lack of deceleration and acceleration isn't going to kill my enjoyment of a movie, but for a man like Lucas that is so obsessed with his special effects being as realistic as possible, he must realize that a huge part of that is making sure nothing makes people somehow feel that a scene "doesn't look right". They may not know why it doesn't look right, but still it's things like this that make people realize stuff like that If they took the time to really get it right, not only would people not notice it and not be temporarily reminded they are watching a movie, but people like me would notice and appreciate that attention to detail.

In Star Wars, for any Jedi it can all be explained with the Force... :) (a copout? Kind of, maybe, but what is there to say that they can't use their force powers mid-jump to 'assist' them through the whole jump and not just the takeoff? The Force is like magic, remember...)

if it was continous force after all there would be nothing preventing them from flight, so it couldn't be that

It most certainly could be if that continuous force was enough to let them manipulate themselves in the air, and make them jump higher and all, but wasn't enough to actually give them flight...

[Dark Jaguar]

Well actually the thing is, that lava is about 4000 degrees due to their color. 4000 degree lava, taking up HALF their range of vision, means that the air is ALSO 4000 degrees. Touching it isn't even needed. Now, yes maybe things work different in Star Wars, but there's one flaw. Anakin caught fire the second he was delimbed and was pretty badly burned without even having to touch the lava. This suggests that yes, it really WAS that hot around him. Since his back was as badly burned as his front, it also could not be blamed on something like the ground alone being hot enough. What I can gather is that they can resist that extreme heat, as extreme as it was, to a point, but if they lose concentration, it's all over. However, that wouldn't just set him on fire. It would reduce him to cinders in a matter of INSTANT. :D Perhaps you just don't realize just how extreme a situation Lucas put on here when he created "level 8, lava world", but it really is that hot. Perhaps there is some property of those lightsabers that makes them unblockable by force powers though... I suppose that maybe they have special vibrations synched with those power crystals or whatever that manage to destabalize any force protection the jedis could have.

Once again, I feel I must point out exactly what I'm after here. When I say that certain things should be realistic, I'm not saying "that's not how it works, monkeys can't fly!". I'm saying that there are just certain things that really help things seem a lot more natural, even in the context of the laws of that universe. Let's take it to a different level. Why even bother with CG or better special effects at all? It's all about taking away things that remind people they are watching a movie. Now, I can enjoy old movies despite grossly obvious costumes or something of the sort, but it is always going to be DESPITE those things. I'll never actually enjoy them BECAUSE of it, excepting comedy, which is why everyone loves the Muppets. As an example, in the past, wires moving martial artists were very apparent and the physics of their movements just seemed "off". Currently, with better special effects, the wires are not only very thin to start with, but any appearences of them in the finished film can be digitally removed. More than that, the makers of these movies have an artistic but also scientific sense about what looks "right" and what will just end up looking "wrong". Remember, what looks right and wrong to us in the sense of physics is determined by what we notice in everyday experience. So, nowadays the movements of the magically jumping martial artists looks a lot smoother and somehow more natural than in the past. Some of the movies might suck worse in the story department, and therefor be worse, but the attention to detail will always be seen as a good thing, not a bad thing.

This is what I'm talking about here. When a CG Yoda is made, they pay special attention to the lighting to make sure one side is lit up, one is in shadow, and that everything that should cast a shadow DOES in fact cast a shadow. Now, he could be lit up on all sides evenly and be poorly textured, or even just use naked polygons with green shading, and hey as a movie watcher I could accept that that's just the way he looks or explain that this is another universe with different physics, but in the end, I think we will all agree that that attention to detail was a good thing that allowed us to better get into the movie.

Now on this jumping issue, I will simply say that I acknowledge that you can easily come up with retcon to explain exactly how it works. You've already offerend one possible explanation of constant reboosts in mid jump to maintain speed coupled with constant slowing bursts on the way down to prevent acceleration. Both would actually make tactical sense in fact. However, in the end that shouldn't have been needed. In fact, I'm not going to use such explanations. In the end, I'll simply conclude that the "reality" of the scene did involve all the right things, but it was this movie's expression of it that got it wrong.

Surely if Lucas HAD actually taken the physics of thrown and falling objects into account, Star Wars fans would see that as an example of Lucas' attention to detail and applaude it though. This much you must admit would be true.

And note that I really take no issue with any of the additional or altered nature of reality when it's needed. However, I must note that sometimes obeying the laws of physics might actually provide for a great scene that disobeying it leaves just mediocre... To that end, note when that space ship fell into the planet's atmoshere? Now it should have been that when the ship fell, unimpeded by the air for some time, two things should have occured. Firstly, if the gravity generators (another needed invention) were still intact, they should not have slid around but rather stayed on the floor of the ship, looking up to see the ground above them. That itself would corrospond with the physics of that world, which were broken when they started sliding about. So, we must assume, as is indicated anyway I believe, that the gravity generator was somehow disabled. Now if they are in orbit, this means floating, But, it ALSO means they would be floating even if they are falling towards the planet. Only if something slows down the ship itself but not the people inside it, like I suppose an atmosphere could do (though they are still outside of it at this point and aren't really slowed down enough by the atmosphere to account for falling to that degree), should they actually be sliding towards the planet faster than the ship. The opportunity they missed, I'm saying, is a zero-g situation the jedis would have to deal with. That would have been so cool! Imagine if some of those robotic duel sided cattleprod weilders were actually still on board the ship in other places and they actually had to battle them in zero g. I'm sure you can see how that could be a cool battle with jedis and robots bouncing around all sorts of surfaces and clashing for a moment in midair before continuing and moving to another wall. It's not a deal breaker or anything, but really they missed a golden opportunity for a cool fight scene they haven't done yet in the movies. PLUS, with no gravity to hinder them, there can be no "high ground", so the jedis could never encounter their greatest weakness! :D

Again, I'm not saying that they have to make everything obey real world physics. That's boring and crippling. But, there is something to be said for not only inventing new physics but maintaining a certain touch stone with us. For example, any good story has humans in it somewhere. They can add other creatures, but if at any point they try to make it clear that they think in ways totally different from humans, they can only rightly make that clear by actually ADDING humans to the story so you can see, by the writer's expression, and by direct comparison, where this difference is. It just doesn't work if you invent dog creatures on a world without any humans at all and point out in a narrative that "oh, they take pride much more seriuosly than any human". Without a human nearby to really make it clear that they are that different, there's no way to properly judge that they are anything more than a dog version of human societies that love pride. Since a writer tends to exxagerate the human condition for effect anyway, how do you tell that this isn't just an artistic interpretatino of human behavior but actually totally different from human behavior, without a token human in there as a touch stone? JRR Tolkein was of the belief that one simply couldn't. Sure he had vast stories about the life and times of the elven folks without a human in site, but he knew, as his forward stated, that if he was going to make it clear that elves see the world in a totally different light than humans, that he needed to add humans at some point to show how he the artist views humanity.

I guess that last line sums it up. Since in the end the behavior of the people in a story reflects the author's views of how people act, to come up with people that act totally different than how humans act, you must provide an example of how you think humans act to relate to. And, I've come to pretty much be convinced of that. If I see something like The Lion King, they don't really make any claims that any of the animals are anything more than creatures who act exactly like humans. Had they made the claim that lions are completely different than humans, they would need to add one somewhere, perhaps shooting Simba's mother or something, so you could get some glimpse of how the author sees humans.

So, in Lord of the Rings, the story is about hobbits, but Tolkein adds humans because he knows he made a lot of points about how hobbits are a lot different than humans, so he needs to put them in there to really get the reader to understand how different they are. When I read "the hobbit", I never got how Bilbo was that different from an adventurous human. I could see how he was different than dwarves for sure, but not humans. That didn't happen until I read Lord of the Rings. Then the idea of just how different hobbits really are from Tolkein's view of humans rang loud and clear.

Sorry for that long bit, but I was leading to something. This sort of making sure people have a touchstone to somehow relate to what they are watching is not limited to merely the characters, but the setting as well. In that sense, additional laws of physics can't stand entirely on their own. Lucas knew that well enough in that he never attempted to make this world stand in an entirely and totally fabricated manner, like some "Q continuum". Some of it had to be something we could relate to in everyday life, for example the existance of light, how it reflects and so on. Gravity and so forth also had to behave in at least a superficially similar manner. After all, if ALL the physics are totally different, what makes the Force so amazing relative to all that? It's hard to really get us to believe The Force is so amazing when everything else is also pretty frickin' amazing and weird. Where is the touchstone? To that end, most of the time Lucas got it right enough. However, that extra mile, an added attention to detail, really would have made it more clear. What I'm getting at is that something as simple as realistic jumping physics, after that initial burst of force, would really drive home how amazing the force is in this universe, at least at a barely liminal level.

All that said, I really went overboard to make my point clear, because in the end, no, little things like that, or the water coming out of those hoses putting out the fires on the incoming ship not being blown back by the wind, don't kill a good movie. Star Wars is able to stand on it's own without having to depend on a crutch like "but hey we are realistic". All I'm saying is the extra mile to make it realistic in certain areas like that can only help.

And again, in Zelda there is a LOT that defies our world, of course. However, they keep certain things normal so we have some idea of what the hell is going on. For example, Link is pretty much human (aside from those ears) and thus has human limitations. If everyone was a superpowered freak, then for what purpose would I be gathering a tool kit? No, it was the fact that he was realistically limited that made gathering all those tools with pretty obvious utility such a joy.

[Great Rumbler]

Star Wars is meant to be an exciting movies to watch, meaning a heavy emphasis on action, so there's a lax attention to making things work as realisticly as possible. 2001 is at the other end of the spectrum, making things as realistically as it can possibly make them with the technology of the time, but it isn't not really an exciting movie to watch. It's very slow and purposeful, with very little emphasis on action. It's quite likely that you can not both have excitement and realism present in the same scifi movies.

[A Black Falcon]

Perhaps you just don't realize just how extreme a situation Lucas put on here when he created "level 8, lava world", but it really is that hot. Perhaps there is some property of those lightsabers that makes them unblockable by force powers though... I suppose that maybe they have special vibrations synched with those power crystals or whatever that manage to destabalize any force protection the jedis could have.

Then how do people stand near erupting volcanoes (in the real world), DJ? You can take the heat... and Jedis definitely have ways to deal with heat (or cold, or a lack of oxygen, etc). They can regulate things... they just can't regulate a beam of light hacking through their body. :) And if they get distracted, of course they'd lose concentration... maybe Anakin wouldn't have burned (or just his clothes would have) if he had not been in shock from being so badly hit, the Force gives them a lot of power. Not unlimited power, but a lot of power...

Once again, I feel I must point out exactly what I'm after here. When I say that certain things should be realistic, I'm not saying "that's not how it works, monkeys can't fly!".

You do kind of sound like that sometimes though...

Now on this jumping issue, I will simply say that I acknowledge that you can easily come up with retcon to explain exactly how it works. You've already offerend one possible explanation of constant reboosts in mid jump to maintain speed coupled with constant slowing bursts on the way down to prevent acceleration. Both would actually make tactical sense in fact. However, in the end that shouldn't have been needed. In fact, I'm not going to use such explanations. In the end, I'll simply conclude that the "reality" of the scene did involve all the right things, but it was this movie's expression of it that got it wrong.

Yoda does midair flips. They weren't started when he was on the ground, I think. :)

Just saying, there is obviously an element of midair corrections. Yes, another element probably is unrealistic portrayal, but it's not ALL that. Jedis definitely have the ability to adjust their jump midjump.

Surely if Lucas HAD actually taken the physics of thrown and falling objects into account, Star Wars fans would see that as an example of Lucas' attention to detail and applaude it though. This much you must admit would be true.

Reminds me of the articles arguing that there should have been complete environmenal destruction on the Endor moon... :)

It's fantasy, Lucas just wasn't thinking of it in a completely "is this really possible" sense. The books make a much greater effort to do things that are really possible within the rules, but the films sometimes admittedly do play with the facts... like Endor should have had some problems. :) Perhaps not that 'total obliteration' thing, not if they made an effort to minimize the damage (post-battle), but something... that's a big station, and not a huge planet (with low gravity -- how else would even small critters like Ewoks get those gliders to stay in the air?).

So, we must assume, as is indicated anyway I believe, that the gravity generator was somehow disabled.

I'm almost certain that it was mentioned.

Zero-G: I don't know how it "should" have happened. But I thought that they were entering the atmosphere, and they were sliding because the floor was tilted... I'd need to watch it again to be sure though, but I thought that they went into the atmosphere first (or were doing so)... oh, and once it is in the atmosphere, shouldn't they slide because now they are being pulled by gravity and the deck is sloping so they won't stand still?

Again, I'm not saying that they have to make everything obey real world physics. That's boring and crippling. But, there is something to be said for not only inventing new physics but maintaining a certain touch stone with us.

Not all of what you complain about actually breaks the rules of physics in the way you imply, I think... like the heat thing, that's explained by the Jedi powers, not by changing how heat works. Same for Jedis exposed to a vacuum would be, or how high/far they can jump, or being able to affect minds, etc... it's not so much changing the rules that exist as adding things that modify how those rules are applied. :) (same for hyperspace... normal space works as we would expect, I believe... okay, so Star Wars does have incredibly powerful engines and weapons (those turbolasers produce a LOT of power. A LOT.), and ships that can go really, really fast even in normal space, etc, but there is "technology that can do that" and I don't think that any of those things technically break the rules... they're just unimaginable from our current standpoint. There's a big difference there.)

For example, any good story has humans in it somewhere.

Humans... the main reason for this is obvious: We are humans, so we understand them. Alien cultures will necessarially be based at least in some way on our human culture... we can also guess based on other animal cultures, but no other animal on earth is anywhere near as intelligent as humans so that makes things hard... and we can't really go beyond the 'what' to the 'why'... we don't know what ants are "thinking", if they're thinking anything at all... so how would we know what a super-intelligent-giant-ant civilization would be like, or how its citizens can think? We base it on guesses and humanity, that's what we do... we are humans, so of course it's easiest for us to identify with them.

In movies, though, the answer is simpler. Actors must be human. :) Unless you're doing an all-CG film, you're stuck. It's either a person or someone in a costume, and costumes can only vary the human form to a limited degree... so we get Star Trek with its ridiculous "seeding of the galaxy by a humanoid species" to explain it, and Star Wars with almost all aliens conveniently having two arms, two legs, and a head on top (yes, there are exceptions, but they aren't the majority.). Books? I'd blame it either on limited imagination or the fact that truly imagining what a real alien species would be like is something kind of impossible for us to do, so we just do what we can and make a human-ish culture. (Oh, I'm not saying that there have never been well done 'really-not-human' cultures, just that they're a LOT harder to create, and when they are done they generally seem to bear a suspicious familiarity to at some Earth animal society or other (Giant Ants... FROM SPACE!)... :D)

And, I've come to pretty much be convinced of that. If I see something like The Lion King, they don't really make any claims that any of the animals are anything more than creatures who act exactly like humans. Had they made the claim that lions are completely different than humans, they would need to add one somewhere, perhaps shooting Simba's mother or something, so you could get some glimpse of how the author sees humans.

Oh, stuff like that doesn't even pretend to represent real cultures, I'd say. Any film with talking animals is about humans and human culture, not animals. Animals aren't like that and we all know it. It's not a 'touchstone' (which it might be in a LotR) because it's not actually a truly different culture...

However, that extra mile, an added attention to detail, really would have made it more clear. What I'm getting at is that something as simple as realistic jumping physics, after that initial burst of force, would really drive home how amazing the force is in this universe, at least at a barely liminal level.

It's scifi/space opera adventure. For that kind of film, Star Wars does great. You just can't expect the level of scientific accuracy that you'd get from a 2001, as GR said! It's not realistic! They don't focus on the science... they do things and hope it works somehow or can be explained. And for that, they did great... I wouldn't say that SW is full of major scientific issues that are completely unexplainable.

And again, in Zelda there is a LOT that defies our world, of course. However, they keep certain things normal so we have some idea of what the hell is going on. For example, Link is pretty much human (aside from those ears) and thus has human limitations. If everyone was a superpowered freak, then for what purpose would I be gathering a tool kit? No, it was the fact that he was realistically limited that made gathering all those tools with pretty obvious utility such a joy.

That's not done because, quite simply, then there would be nothing to expain why they didn't solve their own problems. :)

[Smoke]

It's like OB1 never left. *wipes tear*

[A Black Falcon]

No, if he was here by now we'd be on page two at least. :)

... maybe three?

[Dark Jaguar]

ABF, you beg the question. DO people stand next to active volcanos? The answer is an emphatic "no". The reality of the situation is that flowing lava that hot REQUIRES special protection even from a distance of a meter or so away from it. Another factor is how much physical space the heat source takes up.

Here's something for you. If the moon was the same tempurature as the sun, but still as big as it was now (that is, taking up the same space in the sky as the sun) it would actuall heat up the earth by exactly the same amount as the sun. The area that a heat source takes up has a bigger impact on how much it heats something up than distance does.

So, if the lava is so far away from you, or is simply a really small drop really close to you, then you don't need protective gear. Have you never seen the protective suits people need to wear in order to gather samples of lava or gauge the temp? No, humans CAN'T take the heat. I know of what I speak here.

And you totally misunderstand gravity... First of all, the atmosphere is NOT the creator of gravity. You can be pulled by gravity well outside the atmosphere. In fact, when in orbit, gravity is not gone. In fact, it's only reduced by around 20% at the average orbitting distance. That's why the ship is in orbit and not flying off into the void. Now then, the reality is that an orbit is actually LITERALLY falling AROUND the body in question. Imagine this scenario. Let's say you were in an elevator and the cable suddenly snapped and fell. What would happen? Would you be pulled directly to the floor of the elevator and not notice what is happening? Would you be slammed into the ceiling and stay there? Neither. The reality is that if an elevator fell, with you in it, you would be in free fall, essentially weightless. You would behave exactly the same as though you were in orbit. (In fact this is a key example Einstein uses to demonstrate relativity, also an example comparing being in a standing elevator on Earth being indistinguishable from being in an elevator in space that is constantly accelerating, leading to the conclusion that not only are inertia and gravity similar, they are literally the same force, but I'll get into that another time.) What I'm saying is that on that ship, when it fell towards the planet, it should be the same as that elevator example. Since both the ship and the crew would fall at the same rate, why would they fall FASTER than the ship? Remember, they would have to fall faster than the ship for any sort of sliding to take place. They should be weightless until something happens to collide with them, like the bottom of the ship when it suddenly slows down in an instant.

At any rate, for the rest of that you seem to have quite simply ignored all the points I tried to make to defend myself and fall back on rhetoric... I may misunderstand, but it really seems as though you won't try to understand what I said. I made it very clear exactly why something like that could help the movie, and also gave some good examples of how certain things could be done. Rather than take things on point by point you seem to have ignored it. I don't appreciate that. Also, I made it clear that it's okay that it didn't happen and I was debating it purely on a conceptual level, on "if it's this or that, I would say that is the better alternative". I did like the movie, but I do have my views on how art and science can be combined in great ways and I thought I did a good job defending that.

At any rate, I will now point out something GR already knows. A lot of the science I obtained about that I got from a place called http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/movies/s..._sith.html .

This guy isn't some amateur either. He's an actual astronomer. He knows his stuff and isn't just some amateur. Check that link out and you'll see things I didn't notice. E-mail him too. It'll be funny.

[Great Rumbler]

One explanation I thought of for that scene was that the gravity generators were NOT destroyed, but in fact malfunctioning. They were creating artificial gravity in the wrong parts of the ship, thus causing everyone to slide around on the floor.

As for the lava, they used their force powers to block most of the heat, probably not ALL of it though. After Anakin looses his arm and legs is the point where he starts burning, I don't think that was a coincidence.

[Weltall]

One explanation I thought of for that scene was that the gravity generators were NOT destroyed, but in fact malfunctioning. They were creating artificial gravity in the wrong parts of the ship, thus causing everyone to slide around on the floor.

That would have been a far more effective explanation save for one thing: We see the ship bank and the whole room tilts. If the artificial gravity were suddenly pointing the wrong way, the camera angle should have remained normal, as if the room were not moving at all.

[Great Rumbler]

It's the best explanation I've come up with.

[Smoke]

Here's a better one, Star Wars is not scientifically sound.

[Great Rumbler]

Well, that too.

[Dark Jaguar]

Yep, that works just fine.

I'm just saying there are a few things they could have done that would have been cool.

And that whole "oh, the machine screwed up and slid them across the room" explanation is just... well surely that's the sort of thing people are killed for in the world of making up insulting excuses.

Of course you could come up with all sorts of models for how the gravity works but then the whole frickin' galaxy is thrown out of wack and couldn't work like it's shown. In the end, you just have to accept what you're given. A movie that is imperfect but still pretty enjoyable.

[Great Rumbler]

You and your crazy "ideas"!

[Dark Jaguar]

Yeah...

[A Black Falcon]

ABF, you beg the question. DO people stand next to active volcanos? The answer is an emphatic "no". The reality of the situation is that flowing lava that hot REQUIRES special protection even from a distance of a meter or so away from it. Another factor is how much physical space the heat source takes up.

Here's something for you. If the moon was the same tempurature as the sun, but still as big as it was now (that is, taking up the same space in the sky as the sun) it would actuall heat up the earth by exactly the same amount as the sun. The area that a heat source takes up has a bigger impact on how much it heats something up than distance does.

So, if the lava is so far away from you, or is simply a really small drop really close to you, then you don't need protective gear. Have you never seen the protective suits people need to wear in order to gather samples of lava or gauge the temp? No, humans CAN'T take the heat. I know of what I speak here.

All of this is fine, DJ, but the issue has already been answered... they use their force powers to keep the heat away. This is definitely something they can control with the Force. And as GR said, it's not exactly a cooincidence that Anakin catches on fire right after getting delimbed...

Or rather, I'm sure that a non-Jedi would need some kind of protective clothing or technology, but Jedis are okay. ... as long as they don't try to walk in the lava or something, though, I imagine...

And you totally misunderstand gravity... First of all, the atmosphere is NOT the creator of gravity. You can be pulled by gravity well outside the atmosphere. In fact, when in orbit, gravity is not gone. In fact, it's only reduced by around 20% at the average orbitting distance. That's why the ship is in orbit and not flying off into the void. Now then, the reality is that an orbit is actually LITERALLY falling AROUND the body in question. Imagine this scenario. Let's say you were in an elevator and the cable suddenly snapped and fell. What would happen? Would you be pulled directly to the floor of the elevator and not notice what is happening? Would you be slammed into the ceiling and stay there? Neither. The reality is that if an elevator fell, with you in it, you would be in free fall, essentially weightless. You would behave exactly the same as though you were in orbit. (In fact this is a key example Einstein uses to demonstrate relativity, also an example comparing being in a standing elevator on Earth being indistinguishable from being in an elevator in space that is constantly accelerating, leading to the conclusion that not only are inertia and gravity similar, they are literally the same force, but I'll get into that another time.) What I'm saying is that on that ship, when it fell towards the planet, it should be the same as that elevator example. Since both the ship and the crew would fall at the same rate, why would they fall FASTER than the ship? Remember, they would have to fall faster than the ship for any sort of sliding to take place. They should be weightless until something happens to collide with them, like the bottom of the ship when it suddenly slows down in an instant.

But if you're in that elevator and the floor, for some reason, starts tilting, wouldn't you slide towards the lower area? I know that in space (zero-g) that wouldn't happen, and I know that in a falling elevator gravity gets less until you hit the bottom, but... I don't know, it worked for me. Even if it might not have been completely accurate. (and if that depiction of gravity is indeed wrong... um, let's fall back on GR's "broken gravitic generators" thing? ... I'm sure you could come up with a way that explains it... not satisfactorially, probably, I admit (it conveniently tilted them in the direction that the ship was falling each time? Or just some parts broke and that is the result? Either one of those is somewhat implausible...). Oh well, it looks fine in the film to me anyway.

I was much more annoyed about the part where it seems like conveniently this crashing, uncontrollable ship is aimed on a perfect trajectory to land straight on a landing strip...

At any rate, for the rest of that you seem to have quite simply ignored all the points I tried to make to defend myself and fall back on rhetoric... I may misunderstand, but it really seems as though you won't try to understand what I said. I made it very clear exactly why something like that could help the movie, and also gave some good examples of how certain things could be done. Rather than take things on point by point you seem to have ignored it. I don't appreciate that. Also, I made it clear that it's okay that it didn't happen and I was debating it purely on a conceptual level, on "if it's this or that, I would say that is the better alternative". I did like the movie, but I do have my views on how art and science can be combined in great ways and I thought I did a good job defending that.

Do you mean the problem of people replying before reading all the previous material? That last post of yours was pretty long, you know... :) I read it, but some people don't seem to like to read really long posts.

... and on that issue, how about my other points? Find it too hard to keep it understandable without quotes? That's why you use them!

At any rate, I will now point out something GR already knows. A lot of the science I obtained about that I got from a place called

Yes, and thanks for telling us where it is because you've only linked it like 20 times before... :)

[Dark Jaguar]

Just thought I'd remind you...

Anyway, which elevator are you speaking of? If it's the one in free fall towards a planet, then it doens't matter if the floor tilts because you are floating around in there. With no pull to the floor of the elevator, no sliding is going to happen. Further, tilting reletive to what? With no up or down, a surface can hardly be defined as "level".

[A Black Falcon]

Anyway, which elevator are you speaking of? If it's the one in free fall towards a planet, then it doens't matter if the floor tilts because you are floating around in there. With no pull to the floor of the elevator, no sliding is going to happen. Further, tilting reletive to what? With no up or down, a surface can hardly be defined as "level".

I meant an elevator in a building, on a planet...

[Dark Jaguar]

One that is or is not falling? That makes all the difference in the world. As I've said, if the elevator is falling with you in it, you are effectively weightless.

[A Black Falcon]

The ground isn't pulling you to the floor like you will feel once you hit, but you aren't weightless, as I doubt you can just jump up and float in the air... :) You're just moving with respect to the vehicle and not with respect to the planet, right?

[Dark Jaguar]

No.

I'm surprised they never taught you this in school, seriously. Not saying anything bad about you, but about whatever school dropped the ball here (or, didn't in the case of not showing this to you directly with an easy test). This is newtonian stuff here.

Yes, you can push yourself off the floor, if that's where you were when it started falling, and float in the air. This is because both you and the elevator are falling at the same speed.

To confirm this for yourself, that two objects of differing weights fall at the same speed, test it out. For this test I suggest you use a heavy object like a bowling ball or a rollerskate, and a light object like a crumpled up piece of paper (it must be crumpled because if it is flat, wind resistance will slow it down and cause a lot of odd movement besides). Now, to complete this small test, simply hold your arms out at the same height, and drop both objects at the same time. You'll notice both strike the ground at the same time. Now, in lighter gravity, both objects may fall slower, and in heavier they may fall faster, but they will still both hit at the same time. Also, yes, a falling object accelerates over time (the reason why dropping stuff from higher up is more dangerous than from lower) but again, the rate of accelerationg and the speed of the initial drop is not relevant to the weight of what is being dropped.

This is key.

Now, for this second test to prove my point, you will need an object you may not have. You will need a heavy but clear and solid object. For example, perhaps a goldfish bowl or a transparent hamster ball. The second thing you will need is a lighter object to put inside of it. The thing that will make this experiment tought is that you will actually have to hold this second object INSIDE the first, near the middle, and let go of both at the same time without your wrist or hand accidentally hitting the rim of the object. I suggest holding the opening straight up.

Now then, if you can manage to do it, drop both at the same time in this configuration. You will notice that, again, they both fall at the same rate. You will also notice that the small object inside, because it falls at the same rate, is not drawn towards the floor of the container. For that to happen, it would need to fall at a faster rate. So, until the large object is instantly slowed down by the ground, the ball is effectively weightless.

You can do this by direct experimentation. It won't be super accurate, but it will show within what means you have that I'm not just full of it.

To go further with visual examples, you've seen sky divers on TV correct? They dive out of planes and before deploying their parachute, they can pretty much act just like a weightless person. A weightless person with a planet heading towards them at an alarming speed. Now, the second the parachute is pulled, they are suddenly pulled down because they are being restricted from free fall. Now, their movement is reduced by a bunch.

At any rate, imagine this same sky diver falling, but inside a massive sphere that is also falling with them (imagine the outside is aerodynamic enough that the atmosphere isn't slowing the sphere down to a massive degree). Since they are falling at the same rate, the sky diver will see themselves basically hovering in the middle of the sphere, and with the sphere holding in all that air like that, the upgoing wind is gone too, so if the parachute is deployed, it will behave like a parachute in a spaceship in orbit.

Now for one final point to really drive it home. It's my biggest argument really. They actually TRAIN for weightless environments by flying people really high into the sky, diving the plane at the ground for a minute, levelling off, flying back up, and diving again for a minute. They film this sort of thing all the time. When they are in the free fall, everyone is able to do everything one can do in orbit. Things like making bubbles of liquid float about or scatter M&Ms and jump after them eating them from the air.

And just as a reminder, if you were standing still in the orbit plane most satellites orbit in (reletive to the earth, everything's reletive), you would just fall straight to the planet. You have to actually be shooting by the planet to orbit. An orbit consists of you moving fast enough past the planet to avoid being pulled straight down to your death, but not so fast that you overcome gravity completely. Gravity at that point is only 20% of what it is at sea level. At this level, gravity is still felt unless you are in a state of free fall, which is what an orbit actually is. An orbit consists of you literally falling AROUND the planet. As you go around, you form an ellipse, not a perfect circle. This ellipse is actually a required part. In the further edges of the ellipse, you are slowing down a bit so you are pulled a little more towards the planet. In the closer edges of the ellipse, you are falling faster giving you the energy you need to shoot out to a further edge.

At any rate, I think I've explained this well enough, and it's explained further over at badastronomy.com (I'll link to it again because I have the nagging feeling you didn't read various bits regarding gravity at that site).

[A Black Falcon]

Yes, you can push yourself off the floor, if that's where you were when it started falling, and float in the air. This is because both you and the elevator are falling at the same speed.

That's what I said...

[Dark Jaguar]

You said you doubt you could do that.