Comparing Sci-fi Starship Sizes 553
LiberalApplication writes "It looks like someone has very lovingly created something that sci-fi fans everywhere will likely want to see; if not out of curiosity, then at least to revitalize the burning, seething, grudges between fanatics of rival science-fiction universes. Starship Dimensions places images of various starships from science fiction settings such as Star Trek, Star Wars, Babylon 5, ID4, Macross/Robotech, Lexx, Freespace, and Battlestar Galactica side-by-side, in scale! The author has also conveniently included football fields, humans, King Kong, and buildings for comparison. You can even drag them around the page and stage your own interstellar battle royale."
slashdotted (Score:5, Funny)
Well, it looks like the battle happened before I got there... all the ships are gone already :(
The Force strikes again (Score:5, Insightful)
Ethical question: Do we owe our linked site owners some advance warning before our herd of tribbles swarms onto their bridge?
Bonus Question: Is it possible to be karma whoring AND trolling at the same time?
Re:The Force strikes again (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The Force strikes again (Score:5, Funny)
You know, according to the Patriot Act,
Re:The Force strikes again (Score:2)
Well, I suspect that you were just trolling but I am going to respond all the same...
Isn't there something to be said for not wanting to have to exercise crisis response? Couldn't one be content to have a server that has been designed to handle typical or even heavy loads but one which was obviously never designed for the onslaught of Slashdotters hitting like a tsunami against the beach...
One could even argue that in this case it isn't a
Re:The Force strikes again (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you are underestimating the power that is Slashdot...
Re:The Force strikes again (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, and a 25 year old harrier may not be much of a combat fighter, but if you pit it against a 1942 mustang it's not going to be much of a fight.
Slashdot may not be "a particularly big site", but it is built with a large handfull of boxes, it's own routers, etc. and probably a couple hundred megabits bandwidth. Some of the sites that get slashdotted are things that are co-hosted with dozens or even hundreds of other sites on a single box at a large hosting company and (maybe) a 10 megabit pipe.
I have a friend who's site gets throttled by his (free) service provider with just a couple dozen hits in an hour. Just the slashdot editorial team viewing his site could put him near his limit, much less being posted on the front page.
My own web site spent some time being hosted on my home ADSL connection. 0.5megabits split over 10,000 /.ers trying to get first post comes to 50baud per viewer -- and that presumes that the old 200Mz P2 that I let do the hosting doesn't collapse under the load. If I had an hour or so warning, I could at least change the box to run level 3 so that the RAM being eaten up by X could be freed up. I might even switch it over to my primary desktop box and/or just mirror it somewhere with the pipe to handle the load.
Re:slashdotted (Score:5, Funny)
Re:slashdotted (Score:3, Insightful)
Its annoying for us that read this site that half the sites you link to dont work.
Its a pain in the ass for the people that have the sites. Either because they have them at home at some small adsl connection or at a expensive host company that might uphold the
You should really make a client where you mir
Eureka! (Score:5, Interesting)
What is needed is for site authors to pre-emptively allow mirroring. This could be done with some kind of apache mod (as somebody has suggested below) or with a simple statement like "Please mirror this site if you're going to post a link to this site that is likely to generate massive amounts of traffic."
perhaps some sort of web content license that allows for mirroring... Just so that nobody has to ask before either posting to /. or mirroring.
Seriously though, anybody posting a site about dimensions of sci-fi starships must have some knowledge of slashdot and the possibility of getting /.ed.
Re:Eureka! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Eureka! (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't need permission to link to a site (I know some stupid sites tried to say you did, but none have held up in court). You don't ask permission, just give warning that you're planning to do that, and ask if they want it to be mirrored.
With this kind of story, it's been around for a few months and is hardly time sen
Re:slashdotted (Score:5, Informative)
The largest was the second Death Star from episode 6, followed by some alien ship from Macross 2, and the ID4 mothership (which held several 24 kilometer city destroyers).
Also included were ships from Star Trek (the probe from episode IV was huge) Lexx, Babylon 5, Hitchhikers Guide, Battlestar Galactica... that's all I can remember. It borrowed some graphics and the look from skyscraperpage.com [skyscraperpage.com].
What's the difference b/t a /.ing and a DDOS'ing? (Score:5, Funny)
Scotty! Beam us out! (Score:4, Funny)
More power, dammit! Show us your pretty pictures!
Webmaster Scotty:
She can't taking anymore Captain! She's givin' us all she's got, but she can't take the slashdotting!
/.'ed but who cares? (Score:5, Funny)
-Sean
Re: /.'ed but who cares? (Score:5, Funny)
> I guess comparing spaceship sizes is really important to
Maybe they don't realize that sometimes a starship is just a starship.
Someone had to say it... (Score:2)
I do! (Was: Re:/.'ed but who cares?) (Score:3, Funny)
I guess comparing spaceship sizes is really important to /. readers. Always reminds me of the scene in "Stand By Me" where the kids argue over the superiority of mighty mouse vs superman.
I just wanted to make a big battle and make laser noises:
Pshoo! Whap Whap Whap! zzt! zzt! etc....
Re:/.'ed but who cares? (Score:3, Interesting)
If you _know_ the site is gonna go down when the story gets posted, then it's the same as DDoS'ing, right?
Mighty Mouse vs. Superman (Score:5, Funny)
Superman is far greater than Mighty Mouse.
I don't know about that - on a Power per Gram ratio, Mighty Mouse beats Superman ...
Plus, MM has a better theme song ...
Re:Mighty Mouse vs. Superman (Score:3, Funny)
"Yeah, I guess so.... It would be hell of a fight though!"
Glass houses. (Score:3, Funny)
Oh wait. Isn't there some kind of saying about people in glass houses shouldn't be throwing something... forget it. I forgot who I am and what I do for a second.
What i want to know.... (Score:5, Funny)
I'd love to be watching star trek, and see a bird of prey fly along upside down in relation to the Enterprise.
Re:What i want to know.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What i want to know.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Reminds me of a Futurama episode, where people encircle a ship so that it won't move. The ship just moves up and speeds away.
Re:What i want to know.... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:What i want to know.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Right-- but they never do this until it is pointed out
Here is the problem-- the closest thing we have to 3D combat today is aircraft. The problem is that aircraft operate in a sort of "deep-2d" in that up is a costly direction, and most of it happens along a sort of deepened plane..... Furthermore, orientation *is* important aerodynamically, so the things that would be commonplace in space are completely foreign to our existance today.
This is why I would like to see a completely Newtonian-based Space Combat simulator. Maybe have orbital mechanics for battles near planets.... Would be really cool....
Re:What i want to know.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What i want to know.... (Score:5, Insightful)
It sucked.
PROBLEM: Any ship with more acceleration then the other ship can always escape. So to deal with this gameplay "problem", they made the enemy ship magically re-appear with magical acceleration so it can take another shot at you.
PROBLEM: Unless you use an unrealistically slow amount of thrust, you tend to have these ships zipping by each other at the very least hundreds of miles per hour, leaving you with a fraction of a second to meaningfully fire on the other ship, then it's turn back around and do it again. Since you're a human you can't whip around instantly, it take time to move the ship, so every time you miss and come around for another pass, you're going a little faster since you had more time to accelerate.
PROBLEM: It is virtually impossible to tail someone. If you're matching their thrust vector, you're not pointing at them, you're pointing in the same direction they are. Now, if you had a gunner this might be OK, but when you're both piloting and gunning because whatever the ship info screen says your crew is, it's just you, this doesn't work.
PROBLEM: It takes time to learn how to land on things! Typically to get somewhere in an airplane-like space simulator you point your ship at it, apply maximum boost, and stop when you get there. Do that in a real simulator and you'll whack into the object (or miss it) at a significant fraction of the speed of light. (The Elite sequel capped speeds at 1/3 the speed of light, presumably to avoid relatavistic effects.) You have to learn to turn at "midpoint", which, inconveniently enough, is also when you're going the fastest and this is fairly hard for a human to do correctly. (If you're on autopilot, it's easier, but if you're on autopilot you're not really playing...) Turn around a little too soon, and you have to creep up on the target object, which might literally take several minutes or even hours (fortunately the Elite sequel had a time compressor). Turn around a little too late and by the time you realize it you're on an unstoppable collision course. *Whack*.
PROBLEM: "Random" encounters are impossible without cheating. I would routinely see enemies boost across the system, probably hitting the 1/3 light speed, on an intercept course, and the instant they reached me, "suddenly" they're on basically the same vector as me so they can fight me. Reality is they should have zipped across my radar so fast it would be unlikely I would even see them.
Space is big. By the time ships are moving in real Newtonian mechanics and not taking years to get from Earth to Mars, you're incapable of handling the scales as a human. The computer cheating helps but not enough (and it's frustrating as all computer cheating is). A tactics-level simulator might be cool, but flying around in Newtonian space is no fun at all. If it was, we'd have more simulations based on that.
Also note this demonstrates space piracy is virtually impossible unless your acceleration is on par with your maximum speed, because you just can't intercept ships to save your life. (Literally, in some cases.)
Re:What i want to know.... (Score:3, Interesting)
The Terminus solar system is REALLY BIG. The fact that your top speed is limited means that pretty much anything interesting is going to be clustered around the vortex gate network. But that doesn't mean you have to stay there. I'v
Solutions to your problems (Score:3, Interesting)
PROBLEM: Any ship with more acceleration then the other ship can always escape. So to deal with this gameplay "problem", they made the enemy ship magically re-appear with magical acceleration so it can take another shot at you.
Solution-- for larger capital ships this would always hold true, and this is OK. But for the smaller fighters, assume they carry a limited quantity of O2. They can wait it out away from the battle, but they can't go too far or their life-suppo
Re:What i want to know.... (Score:5, Funny)
Actually, when artifial gravity fails, the graviton matrix that supports the inertial effect degenerates, and you get a recoil effect resulting in exactly that. Don't they teach you kids anything in high school any more?
Wait... This is 2203, right? Because if it's gone wrong and I've jumped too far again, the time cops are going to ki
Re:What i want to know.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What i want to know.... (Score:5, Funny)
No it isn't
You think every race in the universe decided on a standard AND they all use it? HAH!!!
In my experience as an intergalactic pilot I can tell you that, in general, a ship, while not travelling, is in a position normal to the celestial body that is exerting the largest gravitational pull on it. While traveling, a path is planned to the destination, this path is not a straight line, but a series of arcs and lines, depending on whether or not gravity is being used as a mechanism of propulsion. So, for each point in the path, a ship is either in the position it was in during its last point, or it is in transition to the position it must be in to take the next point of the journey. Often this is dictated by the design of the ship, more importantly, the flexibility of the propulsion unit. If your thrusters have a wide range of motion, then you have a bigger range of what your 'up' position could be relative to your path, and a larger set of choices for path planning
Now, if we're talking about a super-spectral propulsion mechanism.. err.. oh gods of vacuous matter, I've said too much already.
Re:What i want to know.... (Score:3, Funny)
Well, apparently every race in the universe decided on a standard for video and audio formats! So it isn't too far of a stretch...
Unless maybe the viewscreens in all these ships automatically swap codecs written in a 'universal programming language' - Universal Java Space Edition - UJSE?
--jeff++
Re:What i want to know.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What i want to know.... (Score:2)
Babylon 5 (Score:3, Interesting)
It's a religious debate, but for my money there's simply no comparison between B5 and just about any other sci-fi series out there. I've watched and enjoyed plenty of the others, but B5 is just something else. It has a fantastically intricate storyline and some great characters, all set in a universe that's futuristic but very credible. The visual effects still look good even today, several years after it was made. Even the theme music changes subtly from series to series to sound more in tune with the stor
Re:Babylon 5 (Score:3, Funny)
Best lines I've heard in a sci-fi show.
Re:Babylon 5 (Score:3, Interesting)
Whose, Earth's? They looked pretty solid to me. Clunky, overfunctional, unaesthetic, boxy, like 21st Century U.S. Army stuff. Ugly, but structurally sound for the stresses you can statically design for (acceleration/deceleration, course change, some collision and weapons-fire resistance).
Besides, I seem to recall that a lot of Earth Alliance stuff is produced in the same system we use in the 21st Century: lowest bidder. Ugly and functional is usually cheaper than pre
Re:Babylon 5 (Score:3, Interesting)
Exactly what are you talking about, than? The Earth ships are remarkably realistic. The Starfuries are dead on the way I would design a starfighter. The engines are on the tips of the 'fragile wings'? You mean like a 747 or a B52? Why didn't the designers of those place all the engines in the main body?
What about capital ships? The Hyperio
Re:What i want to know.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, how the hell do physics work in sci-fi? At least in games, have you noticed how you move along in space by firing up engines to a constant rate of thrust? In space, this would equal a constant rate of acceleration if you forget about minor gravity variances from nearby planets/stars/what-have-ye because there is no drag in space. Also, it's funny that ships in games slow down merely by decreasing the thrust from said engines... Star Trek does this too if I'm not mistaken, with constant thrust from sta
Re:What i want to know.... (Score:2)
faster than light physics (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What i want to know.... (Score:2)
That's because they actually record those scenes underwater, and the "starships" are actually submarines.
Moya from Farscape is actually just a squid.
:-]
Re:What i want to know.... (Score:2, Informative)
Ah, Microsoft webservices. :) (Score:2)
On the plus side, this is painfully geeky, so maybe it's better that the world doesn't see it.
/.ed already (Score:5, Informative)
Re:/.ed already (Score:2)
LOL (Score:2)
Re:LOL (Score:3, Informative)
wow (Score:2)
Yes, but... (Score:5, Funny)
After all, how are we supposed to compare these ships relative to the size of earth threatening meteors/asteroids [slashdot.org] without the good ol' VW bug metric?
Re:Yes, but... (Score:2, Funny)
Slashdot logic.. (Score:5, Funny)
no, this is slashdot logic... (Score:3, Funny)
5. Profit!
Re:Slashdot logic.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Another argument for having some sort of instant feedback to the editors on the red articles, if a link is broken on a story like this, what's the point of even running the story?
Re:Slashdot logic.. (Score:3, Insightful)
;)
Strange ... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Strange ... (Score:5, Funny)
They don't actually grow them that big in West Virginia
SpaceBalls (Score:5, Funny)
"Ludicrous Speed!"
Re:SpaceBalls (Score:2)
Since that site is down... (Score:5, Interesting)
-Mansa
Image from original site (Score:5, Informative)
Spaceball I (Score:2)
Home Connection (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Home Connection (Score:2)
Nah, even an ordinary PC can easily saturate the amount of bandwidth ADSL offers. If anything's smoking, it's the router just upstream from him.
Operation Timed Out?!?! (Score:5, Funny)
I mean, it's not like it is the nerd version of a pissing contest... oh wait, it is.
Nerd1: The Enterprise-E could SO waste a Star Destroyer!
Nerd2: Nuh-uh! Star Destroyers are so huge, you can't even see the windows most of the time. You can ALWAYS see the windows in the puny little federation starships.
Nerd1: Look, I don't care how big it is... One quantam torpedo from the Enterprise-E will make it a giant space junkyard.
Nerd2: You're such a dork!
Nerd1: No, you're the dork!
[begin pathetic, uncoordinated nerd brawl]
Ancent history. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's especially funny because you thought you were joking.
Where's the Sleeper Service? Or the puppeteers? (Score:4, Interesting)
And of course, they aren't even close to the true masters, the puppeteers and their home worlds.
What about Dr.Who/ (Score:3, Interesting)
If all those ships were together... (Score:5, Funny)
slashdotted (Score:3, Funny)
I guess someone should create a model of his bandwith usage today in comparison to king kong, football field ect ect.
Google (Score:5, Informative)
SHIP NAME/TYPE: V'Ger (Voyager VI)
LENGTH: Approximately 98 km.
BUILDER/COMMENTS: Originally built by humans and launched near the end of the 20th century for peacful reconnaisance purposes, the Voyager VI probe was intercepted by an evidently technologically advanced race who augmented the probe and sent it back to Earth under a new internal conciousness, resulting in a near cataclysm.
SOURCE: Star Trek, the Motion Picture (Film, 1982 Paramount Pictures), Drawn by Jeff Russell
Whale Probe from Star Trek IV, 74 km long
SHIP NAME/TYPE: Whale Probe
LENGTH: Approximately 74 km. There are numerous conflicting sources for the length of the Whale Probe, but extrapolation from the film has led me to accept this length as being the most likely.
BUILDER/COMMENTS: Unknown, although the device was able to communicate with humpback whales.
SOURCE: Star Trek IV, (Film, Paramount Pictures)
Marduk Base from Macross II, 50 km diameter
SHIP NAME/TYPE: Marduk Mothership
DIAMETER: Approximately 50 km. This is the stated length of the RPG version, although the movie version seems to be much larger. Further investigation is needed.
BUILDER/COMMENTS: Marduk, the creators of the Zentraedi.
SOURCE: Macross II, (Animated Film), Drawn by Jeff Russell
Rama, 50km long
SHIP NAME/TYPE: Rama
LENGTH: 50 km long, 20 km in diameter.
BUILDER/COMMENTS: Large habitat ship
SOURCE: Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clark, Drawn by Jeff Russell
Vorlon Planet Killer, approximately 45km long
SHIP NAME/TYPE: Vorlon Planet Killer
LENGTH: Approximately 45 km. There are numerous conflicting sources for the length of the Vorlon Planet Killer, but extrapolation from the show has led me to accept this length as being the most likely.
BUILDER/COMMENTS: The Vorlon
SOURCE: Babylon 5, (Television Series)
Phobos, moon of Mars, 27km long at longest axis
SHIP NAME/TYPE: Phobos
DIAMETER: 27 km x 23 km x 20 km
BUILDER/COMMENTS: Moon of Mars
SOURCE: Discovered in 1877, August 12 by Asaph Hall; photographed by 'Mariner 9' in 1971, 'Viking 1' in 1977, and the Russian 'Phobos' probe in 1988.
City Destroyer from ID4, 24km diameter
SHIP NAME/TYPE: ID4 City Destroyer
DIAMETER: 24 km across, stated in the film.
BUILDER/COMMENTS: ID4 Aliens. Please see notes
SOURCE: Independance Day (Film), Drawn by Jeff Russell
Super Star Destroyer from Star Wars, 17.6km long
SHIP NAME/TYPE: Executor/ Super Star Destroyer
LENGTH: 17.6 km. Please see http://www.theforce.net/swtc/ssd.html.
BUILDER/COMMENTS: The Empire under Darth Sidious (human). Darth Vader's command ship.
SOURCE: Star Wars Episode V and VI, the Empire Strikes Back, and the Return of the Jedi, (Film), originally drawn by Chad Wilson
Cloud City, 16km diameter
SHIP NAME/TYPE: Cloud City
LENGTH: 16 km.
BUILDER/COMMENTS: Bespin Mining Colony
SOURCE: Star Wars Episode V, the Empire Strikes Back (Film), Drawn by Jeff Russell
Lexx, 10km long
SHIP NAME/TYPE: LEXX
LENGTH: 10 km. From original Blueprints used in the design of the ship.
BUILDER/COMMENTS: The Empire under His Devine Shadow (human). This vessel is a wepon capable of destroying an entire Earth Size planet.
SOURCE: LEXX (TV series)
Babylon 5 Space Station, 8454.1m long
SHIP NAME/TYPE: BABYLON 5/ Deep Space Station
LENGTH: 8,454.1 m, from http://www.b5tech.com/babylonproject/babylon5stati on/babylon5station.html
BUILDER/COMMENTS: Human. "Babylon 5 is a 8,454.1* meter (five-mile) long, 840 meter diameter, 9.1 billion ton O'Neil class space station, located at a pivotal main jump gate in the Epsilon system."
SOURCE: Babylon 5 (TV series)
Macross I & II capital ships
SHIP NAME/TYPE: MACROSS Sta
Re:Google (Score:5, Funny)
LENGTH: Approximately 12600 km.
BUILDER/COMMENTS: Originally built by God for humans and launched near the creation of the universe for peacful enjoyment of life and relationship. Earth was invaded by evil forces under direct control of Lucifer and has not been the same since. Recall notice has been sent to fix problems introduced by Lucifer. The exact time of the recall is unknown.
SOURCE: Bible, (Book), Written by God, et. al.
Red Dwarf (Score:5, Interesting)
Based on the guy that paints the last letter in the intro Red Dwarf is around 1Km high, and 8Km long. Width is about 2X height.
Anyone has better numbers?
Re:Red Dwarf (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand the show is extremely inconsistent, StarBug for instance is clearly not much bigger than a truck but still it has huge cargo decks and mile-long ventilation shafts!
But who cares, it's still funny as hell.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
bit torrent (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:bit torrent (Score:3, Insightful)
However, including an mnet hash at the bottom of the article might do something for you. It's optimized for cacheing and serving up popular files. The hash is significantly small enough to be stuck on the end of an article and then no one server gets si
What about... (Score:5, Funny)
What about the starship in Spaceballs, the one that transformed into Mega Maid?
"Dear God, she's gone from suck to blow!"
One thing I have to day (Score:3, Interesting)
It was an aircraft carrier in space whereas the Enterprise was a Battleship in space.
The Federation would have been overrun by a smarter enemy.
Andromeda has em all beat. (Score:3, Interesting)
Size: Approximately 1 AU
Composition: 20 plants structually interlinked within their various orbits orbiting/powered by a small artifical star.
Armament: Point singularity weapons (no others observed firing.
Maximum Velocity: Um, all ahead slow ensign.
Episodes 1-22 & 2-01
This has to be the largest moving ship I have seen in a movie or series. I don't include Niven's ring worlds or Trek's Dyson spheres simply because they don't go anywhere. Ships go places and blow things up.
Star Wars Technical Commentaries (Score:5, Informative)
There's a couple of weeks of engrossing reading there. Highlights include Warships of the Empire [theforce.net], The Endor Holocaust [theforce.net] (an interesting examination of probably ecological fallout on the sanctuary moon due to the explosion of the Death Star II), and The Injuries of Darth Vader [theforce.net].
Surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, my Star Trek Technical Manual shows the Constitution Class and the Galaxy Class in different scale. On his site, the original Enteprises ship class looks about half as big as the Galaxy Class, which it's not, it's about 1/4 - 1/3. But seeing the size of the Sovereign Class as it compares way up there to the Super Star Destroyer (and it's comparison to the original unfinished Death Star) was even more cool.
This guy should get an award from someone for his patience.
Here is a link to a picture of starship sizes... (Score:3, Funny)
See if you can break that link..
Re:Mirror? (Score:5, Funny)
A solution - temporary local mirrors on Slashdot (Score:5, Interesting)
Looks like uber geeks who can't stand missing out on articles like this one will have to subscribe if they want a fighting chance of reading the relevant article(s). I know the editors here really don't give a damn about issues like site management any more than they have to (witness the number of headlines and summaries that are inaccurate, badly spelt and/or grammatically incorrect, the number of dupes, fakes, etc), but when it's someone else's bandwidth then they really should be trying to work with people rather than against them.
Offering to mirror articles on non-commercial sites locally for a week or so would be a good start. The story links could point to the local server mirror which after a week could be changed to s simple redirection page pointing back to the original source site. This solution would stop major slashdotting of small "mom and pop"-type sites, and benefit Slashdot readers, Slashdot and the site owners as well. (If ad revenue is an issue, I'm sure Slashdot and the site owner could agree on splitting the revenue that the locally hosted mirror generates. And I'm sure Slashdot could cover itself against any possible legal ramifications with a well-worded contract that clearly illustrates that the content and the consequences of publishing it are the responsibility of the original owner - just like ISPs do all the time and Slashdot does with posts at the moment.)
I'm not saying that this should be compulsory, but that it should be an option. It seems to be a win-win situation all around, so why wouldn't they consider it?
Any editors reading this have any comments to make?
new "mysterious future" feature (Score:3, Funny)
P.S. Yes, this is sarcasm. I just can't help noticing the irony. [slashdot.org]
Let's do it by ourselves, the community. (Score:3, Interesting)
I think we can wait a thousand years or so before the slashdot team creates such a feature, even for subscribers (imagine how frustrating it must be for subscribers when they preview a site and it's already slashdotted).
So let's move and make such a mirror by ourselves. All we need is a URL - say http://www.mysite.net/mirror/ - and when a site - say http://obscure-url.com/slashed.html - is slashdotted, the
Re:Mirror? (Score:5, Informative)
Cowboy Neal is doing well today. Earlier his spam story is a dupe, now this one where he kills a site before there'sa "FIRST POST".
Slashdot needs 1) dupe detection (or at least marking,
2) some way to mirror low-bandwidth sites (give a veto to the owner)
3) spellcheck on submissions (ESPECIALLY for the editors)
Re:Mirror? (Score:4, Informative)
http://bshort.com/shipdim/shipdim.html [bshort.com]
Please be gentle.
Re:Space 1999 (Score:3, Informative)
The Enterprise was a large, well-outfitted High-tech starship willfully exploring space. Space 1999 was a bunch of shell-shocked astronauts trying to deal with interstellar space using vaguely 20'th century technology.
About the only thing that the two shows had in common was space.
Re: Slashdotted already? (Score:3, Funny)
> And only after two posts!!!
This one's so important that everyone decided to actually read the article before posting.
Re:Which would Jesus fly? (Score:3, Funny)
How about instead of this childish fixation on size, give us some specs on fuel economy and MTBFs.
Don't forget about TCO!!!
Re:MIRRORS (Score:2)
Re:How about the RingWorld? (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh, you mean those giant anthropomorphic orbitals of the far future that assume sentient life will still exist in an old-fashioned humanoid form requiring gravity, atmosphere, day/night cycles, etc.? Pfft.
RingWorlds are ultimately just as unbelievable as conventional spaceships are... unless... unless you can suspend your disbelief by pretending transhumanism is "Crazy Talk", and that spam-in-a-can is the way things will always be and SHOULD be. Yeeeehaw spacecowboys. :)
--
Distributed Mirrors Project (Score:5, Informative)
http://solem.cs.man.ac.uk:8006/cgi-bin/mirror.pl?
Everyone, add the following URL to your shortcuts, it'll be dang handy if you're a slashdot regular.
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~brejc8/mirror/index.html [man.ac.uk]
Note that by going to the main distributed-mirror page, you can add to the list of mirrors (if you know of others, or if you are creating one yourself.)
Re:Ships? (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought the original Star Wars series was ok, and worth watching once, but suffered because it was a little too kid-oriented (Ewoks??? Jawas??? too much obligatory cuteness). I don't see why people have to get so obsessed over it (did you see the guys dressing up as Jedi and lining up for the Phantom Menace? Holy Moly). And, the new series kinda sucks. Why did George Lucas make the Jedi into such a bunch of joyless fucks??? No love, no sex, no possessions, can't have fun, can't do anything amusing... Who the hell would join such an organization? No wonder they roam around, kidnapping kids to make new Jedi. Adults would chase them off with pitchforks and torches.
And, don't get me started on Star Trek. God, what awfulness. At least the original Gene Roddenberry series was an allegory for something. You had the USS Enterprise (named after an aircraft carrier), Klingons (who were basically communist Russians), Romulans (I guess Red China?) and so on. It let Roddenberry examine the cold war without being obvious about it, and he occasionally examined a traditional sci-fi deep thought or two. Not worth obsession or anyting, but amusing. But, God, the new series don't even have that to recommend them! They're so boring and sad... I mean, Jesus, it's all about geek wish-fulfillment: all the crafty techies doing techie things, with supporting women all around them, but never stealing their thunder, and so on. And, they're all so annoyingly typecast: Oh, Klingons are always butch, whatserface is the "sensitive one", the borg chick is cold and aloof... DULL, DULL DULL. Ick, foo.
And, don't get me started on all the crazy trekkies, walking around with chirping starfleet insignias on their chests... Did you hear about that maniac who spoke to his son only in Klingon for the first two years of the kid's life, making the kid's primary language KLINGON??? What is WRONG with these people? That kid's gonna be a mental case for the rest of his life.