XKCD: It's more than a comic

Success or Failure.

Too true.

I don't think that's the case at all, we just remember the examples where people say "it'll never catch on" etc. best.

@De Marquis: Gotta warn you, the grape plasma experiment frequently comes with a warning that it may damage your microwave. Partly from not having enough stuff in the microwave to absorb all the energy being pumped into it, partly from having grape juice and plasma arcs splattering all over the place.

But that means the Oculus Rift will be a failure and a copycat product will be successful instead

The Oculus is the successor to the Nintendo Virtual Boy.

edited 11th Mar '15 6:05:09 AM by GeekCodeRed

What about that giant Kuratas robot from a few years ago?

I saw a presentation at the Wellington Te Papa Museum using the Oculus Rift. It was damn impressive.

@ashnazg: Was that supposed to dissuade me, or encourage me? Now I'm more eager than ever, I just have to find a cheap microwave I dont mind burning out.

Sure, that sounds like a great idea.

Bromeliads and Terry Pratchett

Which reminded me of this entry, whose ALT-text is sadly no longer relevant.

I actually preferred his version of that exact same thing in the Nomeiad because he gives first person narration of one of the frogs described which, if I remember correctly, was about the frog bravely leaving the leaf.

Arbitrage.

See, I want to do this with free refill drinks, but I know I'd get thrown out if I tried it.

Fun fact: here in Chile, the fast food restaurants can't have manual refill because people would come in with bottles.

What-If #133: Flagpole

Not world-destroying expenditures of energy this time, but still fairly catastrophic on an individual level. Dang.

But what if he uses a rope or some other object instead of his hands?

To stop one's fall, the same total amount of energy must be exerted. The rope doesn't change that fact; all it does is add some elasticity to reduce the maximum amount of force applied at any given time. The more elastic the rope, the better for the person falling. This is, after all, the principle behind bungee jumping.

If you attached a steel cable to the flagpole and jumped off a building while holding it, your arms would still be torn off. If you used an ordinary rope, it would probably break, but not before severely damaging your arms. Either way, if the trauma from that didn't kill you, the ground would.

edited 17th Mar '15 9:38:53 PM by Fighteer

I wonder if the flagpole would break first.

Either way though, even if you magically managed to swing around and start ascending, I assume that you still wouldn't be able to reach the top of the building because energy is being lost to friction.

A steel flagpole mounted on the side of a building will probably have a higher tensile strength than the breaking point of a human being's arms — after all, it must be capable of supporting what is essentially a sail against high velocity winds. The What-If doesn't explore the question of whether it would break, as the question assumes that it won't.

If you do the bungee rope trick instead, and somehow manage to withstand the force and hold on, the flagpole might well break. I'm not volunteering for that experiment.

But yes, swinging back up with enough momentum to reach the top is impossible due to conservation of energy.

edited 17th Mar '15 9:57:54 PM by Fighteer

Dangit, light timers are a thing?

I was gonna invent that.

Upside-down map... With a twist.

This is pretty hilarious. Granted, if the Earth had landmasses like this, civilisation would be a lot different, but still.

Wondering what "upside-down" Antarctica would look like.