Is There a Java Class for this Kind of Data Structure?

T

Twisted

That's one thing I was thinking about along the way. I would classify Star
Wars as fantasy, not science fiction and can forgive them for a few points
like sound in space, but I don't think the same rule would apply to Star
Trek or other shows that claim to be more accurate.

If you've got warp drive, what's a little sound in space by
comparison? You can explain it as a form of subspace radiation that
induces audible sound frequencies in commonplace materials, or even
the universe isn't quite ours and physics is a bit different; the
interstellar medium is considerably denser than in our neck of the
woods.

The thing that really bakes my noodle is: What the hell was
transmitting the view of the V'Ger cloud from Epsilon-9 even after the
latter was completely destroyed? A tiny little free-floating camera
WITH LONG RANGE SUBSPACE CAPABILITY DESPITE HAVING AN ANTENNA THE SIZE
OF A COCKROACH?? Or maybe the same implied cloaked spy-probe that was
near the Klingon battlecruisers earlier, tasked subsequently to follow
the cloud? Yeah, but without Epsilon-9 around anymore to relay its
signal any real distance ... urgh!
 
H

Hal Vaughan

Twisted said:
If you've got warp drive, what's a little sound in space by
comparison? You can explain it as a form of subspace radiation that
induces audible sound frequencies in commonplace materials, or even
the universe isn't quite ours and physics is a bit different; the
interstellar medium is considerably denser than in our neck of the
woods.

I guess if a movie is more in the comic book or space opera genre, I don't
expect it to play by every rule. If the explosions in space make sounds, I
figure that's just enhancement for the movie, but if characters react to
the sound or it's the sound that alerts them to it, then I see that as a
flaw, just as it really bothered me that the huge asteroid the Millenium
Falcon swerved to slip by changed course while on screen. This was in one
of the important shots in that sequence and was even part of the preview
reels. It was a large asteroid that, I think, came from the upper right of
the screen and changed course as the Falcon went by it.

If it's space opera and the sound is just some kind of movie enhancement,
that's one thing, but if something that breaks the laws of physics plays an
important point in the plot, that's a problem. Both Arthur C. Clarke and
Carl Sagan have proven one can tell a tale within the boundaries of science
and make it better by following those rules.
The thing that really bakes my noodle is: What the hell was
transmitting the view of the V'Ger cloud from Epsilon-9 even after the
latter was completely destroyed? A tiny little free-floating camera
WITH LONG RANGE SUBSPACE CAPABILITY DESPITE HAVING AN ANTENNA THE SIZE
OF A COCKROACH?? Or maybe the same implied cloaked spy-probe that was
near the Klingon battlecruisers earlier, tasked subsequently to follow
the cloud? Yeah, but without Epsilon-9 around anymore to relay its
signal any real distance ... urgh!

That's an overall pet peeve: the all present recording camera that records
actions from a number of different angles and picks up details that, if it
had stayed in its one place and were sending data under real conditions,
could never have recorded.

It's a movie convention, though, and will always be there, along with the
bartenders who are always polishing a glass when the main characters walk
in. ;-)

Hal
 
H

Hal Vaughan

Martin said:
Hal said:
Martin said:
Lew wrote:
Hal Vaughan wrote:
By passion, I'm a script writer.
[ snip ]
The command line is much more powerful
[ snip ]
If I ever write the next Star Wars
(e-mail address removed) wrote:
Oh!! *That* kind of script writer!
Yeah - I kept thinking "Bash? TCL (he hates it)? Ruby?"

Hey, Hal, just remember - there's no sound in space.

Maybe not in real space, but there is in Space Opera space: you can
always hear the mighty intergalactic space cruiser rumble past. In Space
Opera space the fighters can dogfight like WW1 planes too.

IMO realizing that there's this difference between space and Space Opera
is what made the first Star Wars movie so great.

That's one thing I was thinking about along the way. I would classify
Star Wars as fantasy, not science fiction and can forgive them for a few
points like sound in space, but I don't think the same rule would apply
to Star Trek or other shows that claim to be more accurate.
I never thought of it as fantasy. To me that involves magic and swords.
Space Opera is, or should be, very close to SF but it does have its own,
often tongue in cheek, rules and conventions. It can bend but not break
physics and biology, but it MUST be set in a self-consistent universe. I
think fantasy all too often breaks the last rule. Middle Earth and the
world of Barbarella share one major feature: both universes are just a
backdrop for the action. If you want to read first rate, self-consistent
fantasy you can't find better than Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea Trilogy.

It could also be a matter of semantics. I actually classify SF as a
subcategory of fantasy, but that's because, when I was working through what
I liked to write and what "rules" I wanted to follow, I had to come up with
very careful rules about what was acceptable and when. I decided fantasy
included almost any events and abilities that were not present in the
current world. By that definition, I would include "Ghost" and "Dead
Again" as fantasy of some type. If someone were to prove life after death
and reincarnation, then either of those would, by my definitions, move out
of the category. These are my definitions, made for my use and working,
though, so I don't expect everyone to agree with them. I'm just saying
that's how I worked it out in my head.

I think most fantasy tries to stay self consistent. Not even all SF does.
If it did, then Tom Paris from Voyager could never have visited San
Francisco around the year 2000 without there having been a reference to the
Eugenics Wars. It's just that in most fantasy, the rules aren't consistent
with reality.

I'd also agree with your comment about bending but not breaking the rules.
Like I said in another post, if, in Star Wars, the exploding planet makes a
sound, that's bending, but if the characters don't know about it until they
hear it, or the sound has some importance in the plot, that's breaking the
rule.
But back to Space Opera. In the past I read more of it than was good for
me, so to me Star Wars fits right into the worlds of van Vogt (World of
Null-A, Weapon Shops of Esther, etc) and a lot of Harry Harrison (The
Stainless Steel Rat)

I read a lot of van Vogt as a teen but haven't seen any of his works in
years. I'd love to find a few to read again. I love the Stainless Steel
Rat books. When I'm under stress and need relief, I tend to re-read SSR,
or Edgar Rice Burrough's Martian Tales (which inspired so many of the great
SF writers), or watch Red Dwarf DVDs.
and, of course, much Asimov (esp. the Foundation
series). I think Lucas also read a lot of it because there's no space
opera cliche left unturned in the first film.

Lucas has openly admitted many times that comic books were a major
influence. I hate to admit it as a film lover, but I've never seen much of
Kurosawa, but I understand a number of his movies borrow from him heavily.
The scene in Star Wars where Luke comes home to find his Aunt and Uncle
dead and the homestead smoking is a direct ripoff from John Ford's "The
Searchers." (Which also spawned the line Buddy Holly made into a
song, "That'll be the Day.")
It was all the better for
that. Mind you, both Space and Horse Opera do have some fantasy
elements, witness the white-hat cowboy's deadly accurate, never reloaded
six-shooter. Not much different from a blaster or a light sword, really!
Similarly, Chewbacca and Tonto have a lot in common.

And both Chewbacca and Tonto keep replying to their leader with a language
we don't understand. Perhaps Kemo Sabe and Chewie's grunts could both
mean, "selfish, egotistical hotshot!" Didn't Mythbusters take on the
accuracy of old western guns at one point?

Hal
 
M

Martin Gregorie

Hal said:
And both Chewbacca and Tonto keep replying to their leader with a language
we don't understand. Perhaps Kemo Sabe and Chewie's grunts could both
mean, "selfish, egotistical hotshot!"
>
Well put!
Didn't Mythbusters take on the accuracy of old western guns at one point?
Pass - I don't have TV. However, I think I've known that ever since
hearing about the famous Colt Peacemaker with its 13 inch barrel. The
smart lawmen accepted the slow draw because they knew that they could
plug the varmint from a couple of buildings away while he'd likely miss
them with his 3 inch barrel. The dumber ones cut the barrel off for a
fast draw and were back to backshooting or outdrawing the baddie at 4
feet range.

Of course, a rifle beat all pistols - it just wasn't handy in a barroom
shootout.
 
O

Oliver Wong

[On the topic of Star Wars]
If you've got warp drive, what's a little sound in space by
comparison? You can explain it as a form of subspace radiation that
induces audible sound frequencies in commonplace materials, or even
the universe isn't quite ours and physics is a bit different; the
interstellar medium is considerably denser than in our neck of the
woods.

I've heard from a Star Wars fan that the "official, cannon"
explanation is that the story of Star Wars takes place in "a galaxy far,
far away", for which it is plausible that there may actually be a medium
(e.g. a very thin gas) for which sound to propagate through in that
particular galaxy.

Contrast this with Star Trek, where the ships travel through the Milky
way, and sometimes our very own solar system, where it is known that there
is no such medium.

This was my friend's argument for the superiority of Star Wars vs Star
Trek.

- Oliver
 
O

Oliver Wong

Jeff Higgins said:
Oliver,
Thanks for eye-opening(for me) explanation.
After reading your post I have been able to overcome a stumbling block
in one of my own back-burner projects, a Java impl of rmutt.

Googling on dag produced for me a package buried deep in Apache
Excalibur project with just the right dag impl for my purpose.

Glad I could be of help. I know how frustrating it can be to have to
"put down" a project for a while 'cause you're just plain stuck.

- Oliver
 
H

Hal Vaughan

Oliver said:
[On the topic of Star Wars]
If you've got warp drive, what's a little sound in space by
comparison? You can explain it as a form of subspace radiation that
induces audible sound frequencies in commonplace materials, or even
the universe isn't quite ours and physics is a bit different; the
interstellar medium is considerably denser than in our neck of the
woods.

I've heard from a Star Wars fan that the "official, cannon"
explanation is that the story of Star Wars takes place in "a galaxy far,
far away", for which it is plausible that there may actually be a medium
(e.g. a very thin gas) for which sound to propagate through in that
particular galaxy.

I'm no astronomer, but I do know the laws of physics are the same across the
Universe. If there were any thin medium in that other galaxy, it would
seriously impede the flight of spaceships, especially ones like the
Deathstar or the Star Destroyers. But it would explain the space slug and
how it could live on an airless asteroid. On the other hand, anything like
that would cause friction, which would slow down asteroids over time so the
asteroid field would become static and they wouldn't move. It would also
slow down planets in their orbit until they eventually fall into their sun
after a few million years.
Contrast this with Star Trek, where the ships travel through the Milky
way, and sometimes our very own solar system, where it is known that there
is no such medium.

This was my friend's argument for the superiority of Star Wars vs Star
Trek.

As him why he has the need to prove one is better than the other and can't
just enjoy both -- unless he's got too much time on his hands...

Hal
 
B

Bent C Dalager

If you've got warp drive, what's a little sound in space by
comparison? You can explain it as a form of subspace radiation that
induces audible sound frequencies in commonplace materials, or even
the universe isn't quite ours and physics is a bit different; the
interstellar medium is considerably denser than in our neck of the
woods.

Or, more likely IMO, the spacecraft is synthesizing the sound in order
to provide its pilot with better situational awareness.

Cheers
Bent D
 
H

Hal Vaughan

Bent said:
Or, more likely IMO, the spacecraft is synthesizing the sound in order
to provide its pilot with better situational awareness.

That's an interesting point!

Hal
 
T

Twisted

Or, more likely IMO, the spacecraft is synthesizing the sound in order
to provide its pilot with better situational awareness.

I've read sci-fi in which a starship bridge synthesized smells. E.g.
burning insulation smells when there was burning insulation in the
engine core at the far end of the ship.

What would be the standard thing to do? A yellow "check engine" light
on the dashboard? It might go unnoticed, although the very large
explosion a short time later won't. A loud alarm? That would be
typical, but how the hell are the officers supposed to discuss and
work on solving the problem with that kind of a racket drowning them
out? A smell can directly talk to the hindbrain and produce a visceral
awareness of danger, something wrong, or something off, or just
information. A rotten smell to indicate a biohazard detection; smoke
when there's fire; vague sea-breeze air-freshener type smells might
indicate the outside environment is pressurized and safe to breathe;
and so forth. And these don't obstruct communication even though they
don't risk going unnoticed -- aside from the relatively innocuous
ones, where their not being noticed doesn't mean not being alerted to
a hazard, but instead perhaps assuming more hazard than is there,
which is the safe way to err. Of course, it would take some creativity
to think of appropriate alarm smells for "too steep gravitational
field" and "magnetic containment dangerously weak" and the like.
"We've been shot at!" is easy though -- gunsmoke odor. Ambient sounds,
not too loud, can accompany as well. As for "hull breach", try a
whistling sound and a temperature drop, rather than an odor. The
temperature drop may, if shipwide, actually slow the loss of air as
well as provide an alerting sensation. Smells and low sounds like
these also provide a good continuing reminder of an unfixed problem,
which a loud braying alarm would certainly not. An "attention" tone
like aircraft play when the "no smoking" and "wear seatbelts" signs
come on might also be used at the onset of such a condition; it can be
a quiet bell tone instead of a noisy alarm sound. Of course, there's
also lighting cues -- a blue tint can accompany loss of pressure on
board, for example, or green toxic contamination, red flickering if
there's a fire somewhere, etc.; the closest we've seen to this in
movies is the lights dimming and reddening during red alerts on Star
Trek ships. A steady red tint for battle stations does seem
appropriate, with bangs and smells when damage is detected.
 
B

Bent C Dalager

I've read sci-fi in which a starship bridge synthesized smells. E.g.
burning insulation smells when there was burning insulation in the
engine core at the far end of the ship.

What would be the standard thing to do? A yellow "check engine" light
on the dashboard? It might go unnoticed, although the very large
explosion a short time later won't. A loud alarm? That would be
typical, but how the hell are the officers supposed to discuss and
work on solving the problem with that kind of a racket drowning them
out?

There are multiple considerations to take into account here, and I
believe the number of crewmembers is crucial to selecting the correct
feedback mechanisms. Some thoughts:

- You don't want to overwhelm any one single sense, so you want to
distribute your feedback (if there's a lot of it) throughout the
various senses of the operator. You would use all of sight, hearing,
feeling (e.g. force feedback) and even, as you suggest, smell. I don't
quite see taste being used, but the balance sense is a definite maybe.

- You probably do not want to use loud, audible alarms on a bridge
with two or more crewmen when those crewmen depend upon vocal
communication to work the problem.

- The more crewmembers you have, the less you will have to use
additional senses, since each crewman can be given a very focused task
and each will independently be able to assess when a situation is
grave enough to have to alert their superior. The lone crewman,
however, will have to process all incoming information himself and so
you want to use as many of his senses as possible. The lone crewman
example is therefore, I believe, the most interesting one in this
regard since it poses the biggest challenge in categorizing
information and synthesizing useful feeback.

- It is important that the computer is able to correctly categorize
various pieces of information and assign each a suitably subtle or
obvious sensory feedback mechanism. (I should add that I could see a
similar development happening for the modern infantryman: modern
battlefield technologies make available to him a staggering amount of
information but he can't possibly process it all on his own. I imagine
a team of 1-5 people dedicated to each infantryman, processing
information and presenting the salient bits to him through various
pieces of non-intrusive feedback apparatus.)
A smell can directly talk to the hindbrain and produce a visceral
awareness of danger, something wrong, or something off, or just
information. A rotten smell to indicate a biohazard detection; smoke
when there's fire; vague sea-breeze air-freshener type smells might
indicate the outside environment is pressurized and safe to breathe;
and so forth.

I expect that some of these will tend to be at the forefront of the
crew's mind at the time when they become relevant. That is, if you
intend to leave the starship you're going to manually inspect the
environment readouts first anyway and even if you don't, the ship is
likely to give you a warning if you try to operate the airlock when it
has detected adverse conditions outside.

Smells are probably best used for low-key, lasting conditions that
aren't particularly critical but which you will eventually want to get
around to addressing. A low but measurable pressure loss perhaps, or
some small anomalous drift that thrusters can easily compensate for.

It seems dangerous to overload smells that might otherwise be natural
to the surroundings though. For instance, if smoke smell is
synthesized to warn of a fire elsewhere in the ship, then this might
conflict with the natural smell of smoke that would develop when
there's a fire on the bridge.
And these don't obstruct communication even though they
don't risk going unnoticed -- aside from the relatively innocuous
ones, where their not being noticed doesn't mean not being alerted to
a hazard, but instead perhaps assuming more hazard than is there,
which is the safe way to err.

There would need to be logic in place so as to escalate the feedback
level of the more hazardous events. So a pressure loss smell might be
promoted to an audible alarm if you're in danger of losing all your
atmosphere within an hour. (That being said - I can't imagine what
might motivate anyone to enter space combat with a fully pressurized
starship anyway, but this /is/ fiction we're talking here.)

A few additional things to keep in mind:

1) Smells don't necessarily mix well, so you might be limited to one
at a time.

2) You'll want to have a fairly effecient ventilation system so as to
be able to get rid of a smell quickly once its cause has been dealt
with or a new, more important, smell needs to be substituted.

3) You want to avoid unpleasant smells since they may negatively
affect the performance of the crew.

Cheers
Bent D
 

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