Jurassic World - That final scene (spoiler warning)

[ForumSafari]

I hadn't considered the jarring movements a pilot would experience. Any chance you could compensate with internal suspension for the cockpit?

Eeeeehhhh...Yes I guess so but if you think about it you need space to dampen the impact and movement, that means massive suspension units, bulking the mech out considerably and still resulting in what would be a frankly nauseating constant soft bobbing of the cockpit. It wouldn't kill you but it'd add more weight and would still be nearly impossible to drive, you'd get so shaken up with each pace that you'd lose the ability to even stay pointed in the right direction, much less shoot on the move.

In reference to my previous post this is what confused me about dinosaurs being the future of warfare; they didn't offer anything that Boston Dynamics couldn't deliver a better version of in less years and with less money. I mean partially trained combat raptors are cool but how does it compare to a slightly more advanced version of this with a shotgun in a turret?



EDIT: If I were determined to build a legged vehicle with a pilot on board I'd look at liquid immersion a la NGE. That's how your brain survives constant jarring after all. Of course that then presents a new factor of having an environmental hazard near your pilot and necessitating on board oxygen supplies and liquid circulation.

 

[Jack Action]

No need to get snippy, fella. That isn't good enough for me. Bust the myth with some real tests. Recreate the conditions and show your work. You point at buildings and say no, I point at building-sized animals and say yes. Show me some building-sized robots and say no. Till then, it's unproven.

The square cube law is the reason we don't have giant bugs anymore, and why dinosaurs the size of buildings couldn't breathe in a present-day atmosphere (to be more specific, lung efficiency decreases as size increases past a certain point, bugs have it even worse because of even less efficient breathing; worked fine back when the atmosphere was richer in oxygen, not so much nowadays). There's also the unpleasant problem of structural integrity, which is harder to maintain the more size (and mass) increases.

Now, I can't give you a building-sized robot, but I can give you a building-sized digging machine [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagger_288]. It's big, ugly, slow, ridiculously complex, and needs to have treads larger than most houses just so it doesn't sink into the ground.

Captcha: science class.

 

[FalloutJack]

Zoop

The Scientific Method

Ask a Question
Do Background Research
Construct a Hypothesis
Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment
Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion
Communicate Your Results

Our knowledge of how the world works, even our understanding of physical law and limitation, changes with time and new discovery. If it takes a hundred years to design and build? Fine. If we have to invent new alloys along the way? Fine. If it requires a helluva generator? Fine. But I don't want to hear people going on about it if they'e not willing to pick up a wrench and get to work.

Zoop

That's very interesting. Some people would still try it despite this possibility, I think. The innate desire to ride a robot as though a wild beast is very strong. Still, I have no doubts that using dinosaurs as soldiers IS bullshit. Hell, the MOVIE pointed that one out, no problem!

EDIT: This came in while I was posting.

Digging robot

That's very cool and all, though I see it's largely a massive crane-based arm digging out the side of an entire hillscape, doing the job of a HUGE amount of people and/or explosives in presumably a short time. The treads are clearly due to it being WIDE as hell, not just heavy. That kind of thing just goes to prove that this technology is cool and should be pursued and ironed out unto its conclusion and perfection.

 

[Jack Action]

That's very cool and all, though I see it's largely a massive crane-based arm digging out the side of an entire hillscape, doing the job of a HUGE amount of people and/or explosives in presumably a short time. The treads are clearly due to it being WIDE as hell, not just heavy. That kind of thing just goes to prove that this technology is cool and should be pursued and ironed out unto its conclusion and perfection.

The treads don't provide enough surface area to stop it from tipping over if it feels like it; that's why that huge counterweight arm is there on the opposite end of the digging arm and why most of the solid bits are concentrated near the center. That huge connection to the other machine in the background isn't part of the digger itself, it's attached by the machine in the background.

Incidentally, I had a ball bearing from one of those things when I was a kid. Somehow managed to lose a 3kg steel sphere.

 

[FalloutJack]

The treads don't provide enough surface area to stop it from tipping over if it feels like it; that's why that huge counterweight arm is there on the opposite end of the digging arm and why most of the solid bits are concentrated near the center. That huge connection to the other machine in the background isn't part of the digger itself, it's attached by the machine in the background.

Incidentally, I had a ball bearing from one of those things when I was a kid. Somehow managed to lose a 3kg steel sphere.

I'm not surprised by the counterweight. It's a crane! It has a different function than a crane, but it uses the same mechanisms. I think it's far more interesting that you lost a three-kilogram ball bearing. You must've had a VERY interesting childhood.

Snip

And I suppose nuclear weapons will ignite the atmosphere and CERN is going to suck the world down a black hole, or that the speed of light is fixed when...we've managed to accelerate light particles many-times faster than they were before. That theory isn't good enough for counterpoints alone, not good enough for the large chunk of humanity that sit and wonder about this sort of thing. They'll only drop it when they pursue it until either it doesn't work or it does. Theory alone isn't going to solve this. If I asked Bill Nye about this, he'd mention Square-Cube Law too, but he'd ALSO say it should be followed to its conclusion to see whether it's right about it or not, since there are in fact MANY factors involved and so many unknowns to discover. Don't use science as a hurdle unless you're willing to jump.

 

[Jack Action]

I'm not surprised by the counterweight. It's a crane! It has a different function than a crane, but it uses the same mechanisms. I think it's far more interesting that you lost a three-kilogram ball bearing. You must've had a VERY interesting childhood.

...erm, no, actually, I just moved around a lot. Easy to lose stuff.

More on point: you mentioned earlier something about perfecting that thing, but here's the problem: why would you ever need to? It's good enough for what it does, and there's very little use for something that big in, say, constructions (it wouldn't fit on most streets), and it's far too big and slow to slap an artillery cannon on it and make a mobile firebase. You probably *could* make a faster version for the military, but you'd just be building something very big, very expensive, which is very easily targeted by aircraft, and which wouldn't do anything that a mechanized infantry unit with a couple of Paladins for support can't do.

Basically you *could* improve it, and do other stuff with it, but there's no reason to. Rule of cool kinda stops being taken into account when it comes to things that cost that much.

 

[FalloutJack]

Bazoomp

It was a report in reference to lasers, tightening and confining the beam for a faster progression of the particles involved. It's very cool, though I already knew that light was actable upon by outside forces like gravity (such as the force of black holes) and so must have a means by which they move faster or slower, dependent upon the course taken. There may also be interaction with dark matter/energy that we don't entirely know about too, but that's just theory there.

This is not a hypothesis. It is more certain than theories.

It is a calculable fact. 2x2x2 = 8; 3x3x3 = 27; 4x4x4 = 64.

I just tested it. In front of you. Happy?...

Uhhh, not really. I need some visual aid. Got a robot handy?

Snip

I'm not actually concerned about what form it takes or what use it is, per se. I'm more interested in perfecting the science of it, the technology. And by that, I mean working upon the giant robot premise to see how it functions in real life physics, to walk perhaps in the dinosaur's footprints for a while and see what they had to deal with, maybe. When I originally saw previews for Jurassic Park, I hadn't read the book. I thought it WAS giant robots. It was still damn cool. We should build a dinosaur robot to explore their traction and mobility, the ultimate test of animatronics.

 

[Jack Action]

I think it's worth remembering that the fundamental misconceptions about the nature of warfare tend to be more universal than we think. The diversity of their conclusions should not be mistaken for diversity of their thinking.

"They are weak, we are strong because "

It's an old story. Torturers learn this quickly, learn that even their victims shock themselves with their will to withstand torment. The truth of human nature is that we live and run on mostly assumptions, and if you don't care to question them, it's only experience in the field that can teach you.

Sadly, McNamara moves on, and Rumsfeld moves in. You will always find people who have failed to learn obvious lessons.

I was just thinking incendiaries would work really well against dinosaurs. And if a couple of them happen to land on PETa who're currently protesting your use of napalm against dinosaurs... well, accidents happen.

Exactly. You can build a tank that will withstand most nukes from a distance, but it turns out not to be worth it. New tanks and soldiers are cheaper and easier to maintain than uber-tanks. Of course, the military is all about the lowest bidder anyway, above all and beyond all. Everyone is then SHOCKED when that bid experiences catastrophic and "unforeseen" overruns.

TL;DR You're right, and to prove it I offer you an F-35 and a Zumwalt.

...the Zumwalt is really, REALLY ugly though.

I'm not actually concerned about what form it takes or what use it is, per se. I'm more interested in perfecting the science of it, the technology. And by that, I mean working upon the giant robot premise to see how it functions in real life physics, to walk perhaps in the dinosaur's footprints for a while and see what they had to deal with, maybe. When I originally saw previews for Jurassic Park, I hadn't read the book. I thought it WAS giant robots. It was still damn cool. We should build a dinosaur robot to explore their traction and mobility, the ultimate test of animatronics.

Well, that's not a robot, so... It would also not work with legs. At all. It's already an extremely complex piece of machinery, legs would just make everything worse. And yes, we could probably build robodinosaurs to figure out how they worked... or we could make do with much cheaper computer simulations.