Items: Rocket ships, mechanical pong, liquid-free alcohol, lockpicking, clocks
It's been a while since I've posted a URL sweep. I've been collecting URLs, but I don't want to just dump them all at you at once; I'm gonna try to limit my postings of them to no more than 5 at a time, in general.
Today's loose theme: technology.
- "So You Wanna Build A Rocket?: Atomic Rocketships of the Space Patrol" provides some back-of-envelope approaches for creating vaguely scientifically accurate rocketships for sfnal purposes. A bunch of straightforward equations and explanations, a bunch of cool old sf art and newer diagrams, commentary on topics ranging from engines to artificial gravity to war in space to FTL. Excerpt from the preliminary notes: "Robinson's Second Law of space combat is that for every kilogram of handwavium you remove from a setting, you add about 10 cubic meters of impossible to maintain plumbing." (Thanks, Matt!)
- Pongmechanik is a mechanical version of Pong. The computer control is built entirely out of relays; the ball and paddles are dragged around by strings attached to the computer and controlled by joysticks; the ball makes satisfying thunking noises when it hits things. There's a 7-minute video (in German, with English subtitles) that explains how the whole thing works.
- Apparently there's a new kind of inhalable alcohol: "Alcohol Without Liquid," or AWOL, delivered in inhalers.
- I assume y'all saw that you can use an ordinary ballpoint pen to pick some kinds of locks, including some kinds of Kryptonite locks? See BikeBiz.com article for some videos of this in action. It's unclear to me whether this technique works on Kensington (and similar) laptop locks; I wrote to Kensington about it the other day but haven't heard back.
- The Internet House of Clocks has some cool photos and descriptions of clocks. It's not clear to me whether it's entirely fictional or not.
