Archived comment by Noyock:
This is true. I suppose my feeling of geekiness comes mainly from the fact that a) we're doing it as a couple, and b) the characters we're going as are from a campaign that's no longer actually running.

Archived comment by Inuki:
Been there, done that, Noyock - my gaming group in high school all went as our characters one year. I even found a rubber-bladed dagger and a wooden short sword, and managed to get through the whole school day without anyone yelling at me about having a weapon in school. (This was only a few years ago, and the district was paranoid.) It was fun, but very weird to see one of my guy friends with long blue-and-white streaked hair, in a silver-and-blue wizard's robe. :)

Archived comment by Saint:
I'm not sure dressing up as D&D characters counts as extra-geeky when you do it for Halloween. To go to the park and play frisbee, yeah. To attend church or go to the store, yeah. But not so much for Halloween.

Archived comment by Noyock:
Yeah, I have reached a new level of geekiness today. My boyfriend gave me a dagger for my birthday, which I thought was really cool, and somehow we've now decided that for Halloween, we're going to dress up as our D&D characters. Really, it's just sad. And yet somehow unavoidable.

Archived comment by tim:
I'd take you all so much more seriously if you weren't all wearing Spock ears.

: D


Ok ok...it's me picturing you all with Spock ears but still......

Archived comment by Noyock:
The Babylon 5 Starfuries were able to operate in atmosphere (although not Earth-type atmospheres, I think, at least the first ones, but we did see them flying around on Mars) so they had to be at least roughly aerodynamic. I liked them though. Especially the pilot eject seat; about a third of the ship would blow free when they did that. It was cool-looking.

Archived comment by Matt:
Then there was, of course, the Death Blossom in The Last Starfighter. That's about as close to a sphere as intergalactic battle can get, I'll bet.

Archived comment by Inuki:
In one of the Star Wars spinoff novels (The Courtship of Princess Leia by Dave Wolverton, IIRC), there were ships that were round and flat, and had a rotating ring of gun turrets on the top (and, I'd assume, on the bottom as well). The ring rotated around the edge of the disk, so that the ship could keep up a continuous stream of fire at any given point. Each gun would fire a shot, then be moved along as it recharged, then fire at another angle and possibly another target, then recharge again. It sounded really nifty to me, though I imagine it would make the gunners dizzy.

Archived comment by Paul:
Well, were I designing a ship capable of firing weapons that require long tubes, I would arrange them radially out from the tube and build the rest of the ship around them to make it have the least amound of angular momentum possible, and have enough of them so that it would only need to turn 15 degrees or so to bring a tube to bear. But spherical would be the way to go- you could spin the ship like a basketball, then fire its main drive and turn in a vanishingly small radius. It could dart around space like a soccer ball, firing all over the place, and not have vulnerable bits sticking out on ridiculously long arms to be shot off by stray shots during a battle. Lucas basically designed his X-wings around airplanes, which look cool on screen but are as practical as a cowboy in a pure white outfit with silver accents. *grin*

Archived comment by tim:
le batonnet de jerry lewis??


" So I'm good. :) "


ummmmmm...nevermind

Archived comment by Intellilassy:
I don't know the name of the jester head on a stick, but I have one. Oddly, attending a Ren fest wasn't a thing to check on the geek test. Working at one, sure, but not attending. Not even in full garb. Wish I could have bought a sword. But I got a jester head on a stick, a walking stick with a cobra head topper (lovely), and a claddagh ring three respective years. So I'm good. :)

Archived comment by hypoxic:
well they did have the death star. That was a big round ball. Also depending on if the vehicles have to leave and or enter atmosphere will also influence the shape. Also it depends on your weapons. If your weapons can only fire straight ahead and or are bulky then you don't need a sphere but rather a tube, like a sub. But if you can fire all over the ship a sphere would be best.

Archived comment by daen:
I used to know the term for the jester's-head-on-a-stick thingy. I've been trying to remember it for a month now, and all that comes back to me is that it's French.

Anyone?

Archived comment by Paul:
Actually, to continue with the commentary regarding Star Trek/Star Wars space battles-

If they wanted to make a ship truly maneuverable and hard to destroy, they would make them roughly spherical to decrease angular momentum and make it harder to shoot off bits. But since we're used to seeing aerodynamic needle shapes having fights at high speed a la Top Gun, they make them look like mutant airplanes. I'm waiting for them to be a bit more commonsense about that...

Archived comment by marinerd:
Hypo, thanks for the Einstein/4th dimension article. Nice picture of the artist as a young man.

Archived comment by Cebu:
Intellilassy, please share what is so funny. If not with the whole class, then at least me. Or no birthday gifts for you!

Archived comment by Intelligirly:
Speaking of her amusement, Steff, you should see my room at the house. Heh. heheh. hehehehehehahahahahahaHAHAHAHA!!!

yu

Archived comment by tim:
Thanks steff...sometimes we tend to forget the cardinal rule..." It's all about steff's amusement"

Archived comment by steff:
hee. it's the tim and mike show - always amusing, rarely tasteful. does the jester job come with a costume? i'd be willing to forego the whip if i could carry one of those little... um... sticks... with a, um... head on it? yeah.

although, you know there are many on this site who kind of think of you as their jester, or at least the one responsible for huge steaming chunks of their amusement, right? so, if you're the jester, and you HAVE a jester, and i-who-am-amused-by-everything take the job and jest forthwith while you continue to amuse ME and everyone else... it just gets all funhouse mirrory.

with, you know, dimensions. heh.

Archived comment by hypoxic:
and here's some info regarding the 4th dimension

Archived comment by hypoxic:
Here's some of the math involving knots.

Archived comment by hypoxic:
I think that I read that guy's article in Discover. He was the one discussing that by going in dimensions above the one the know is in makes it easy to solve. At least I think so.

Archived comment by ParU:
Nicely put tim - 1 extra-dimesional pt.

Though, of course, the Red Sox will choke in the post-season.

And I speaking dimensionally. I knew a guy at UC Berkeley who was getting his PhD (in Math) dealing with the topology of knots. Non-trivial mathematics, that stuff is. Which is interesting that visually you can 'see' something, but describing it in a series of equations can be very difficult.

Archived comment by Jon:
I'll have to dig it up, but I read a relatively recent magazine article that discussed perspectives between dimensions (i.e. 4D individual looking at 3D world and vice versa). It was described in an article about black holes, as part of an analysis of recent findings and theories.
If there's a link to the article online, I'll try to find that.

Archived comment by Mike:
Eh. So long as the Yankees get booted out. Bonus points if Derek Jeter cries on camera.


...Anyway, "time as the fourth dimension" question-dodging aside, I'm pretty sure that I remember hearing about a fourth spatial dimension like marinerd was asking about. I was working under the assumption that it wasn't just a science fiction motif, although that's pretty much the only place I've really seen it discussed now that I think about it. They even named the extra 4D directions didn't they? Ana and kata if I remember right. Whatever.

The only such story whose name I recall is William Sleator's The Boy Who Reversed Himself. There were others though.

<post relevance>I wonder how much a personal jester costs? If it keeps you running back and forth to the ATM, I guess I can't afford one. </post relevance>

Archived comment by tim:
"We interrupt your regularly scheduled program. 'Dimensions For the Demented' to bring you this reality update...The Boston Red Sox have clinched the wild card spot and will be going to the post season for the first time in 4 years.. First up is the total annihilation of the Oakland Athletics....and now back to "Is that a rhomboid in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"

Archived comment by Paul:
The fourth dimension is easy enough to move in- you just sit there. In fact, you just moved through it a bit while reading this post. *gryn*

Archived comment by ParU:
Well Heinlein wrote a great story about a six dimensional 'car' with 4 people in it. Called The Number of the Beast (namelink). Tied in a lot of his other stories and was really, really good.

But we do too live in a 4D world, as otherwise baseball players wouldn't have so much trouble with fast balls and off-speed pitches. The time factor is crucial for many things (baseball, of course, being the most important). And Einstein showed that it does change when you approach 'c' (the speed of light). Though nobody's been able to prove or disprove his theories, yet.

Archived comment by Inuki:
Mostly I've heard time being hypothesized as a limited 4th dimension (that only moves in one direction), or that it's simply beyond our ability to perceive and manipulate any direction of it.

As far as space and shapes go, the first dimension is a line. The second is a line squared, or a square. The third is a square squared - a cube. This is fairly basic understanding of dimensions. Well, perhaps Time has multiple dimensions as well - so we live in a world that has three dimensions of space and one of time (ie, moving linearly forward, according to our perceptions). Of course, we may simple be unable to perceive the others.

I've also heard that scientists postulate that there's 7 dimensions, or 9, or even more. I think I remember some of them being on the subatomic level, or something, where there's no way we could ever see them without special tools. But I'm not positive of any of that, and my brain's shutting down now.

Archived comment by marinerd:
I've heard about time being the fourth dimension, but is it really? Is it a direction you can travel in, comparable to up, sideways, forward? I think you could make a case for that, but you'd be getting into semantics.

There are some physicists who believe that time (the way we perceive it) is an illusion our brains cooked up to enable us to function, and that one moment after another in one direction only is not really the way it works at all.

Of course, it's the way we are forced to deal with it so that taxi cabs won't run us down, etc. Anyway, just a thought to chew on in your spare time. *G*

Archived comment by hypoxic:
yup we are in a 4-d world. However because we are in a 4-d world we cannot interact with the fouth d. I was reading some interesting stuff about knots and stuff. If you are in a 2-d world you can very easily get out of 0-d knots but it is much more difficult to get out of a 1-d knot. Same with 3d. You can easily get out of a 1-d knot but not a 2-d knot. Basically you need to be a d above the knot to easily dismantle it. Though it might have been two d's above the current d. I can't remember.

Damn.

Sorry disregard all that.

I d

Archived comment by ParU:
Valid pts all, but actually you're living in a 4 (four) dimensional world, the 4th dimension being time. In hypo's example you wouldn't worry about the car rushing at you if not for the time factor. (Which is interesting, here, of all places, cause one time Eve tripped and fell when we were crossing a street in NY and a cabbie, (running a red light) came speeding at us. I literally stood my ground (cause he wouldn't have seen her) with my hand up and he stopped about 0.5 inches from me. - So time is important).

And your 3D example for sci-fi battles is interesting, because, IRL, fighter pilots worry about 3-D (and 4-D) situations in ACM (air combat manouvering).

Archived comment by Inuki:
I was generalizing about the Star Trek combat system - mostly based on what I can remember of TNG episodes and the like. But I think as a general rule, it holds. (Not necessarily for the newer episodes/movies, but for most of the stuff that's more than a few years old, I'd guesstimate.)

Never seen B5, and don't remember enough BG to compare those.

I do agree with Saint that depth can be considered the third dimension, especially in still images - Maya's axes naming convention certainly reflects that view. However, it's a fact that most people rarely look up - if you're being chased through a wood (or equivalent space), hiding up in a tree might be a good way to shake a pursuer, because we're mostly wired to look left, right, and down.

Don't know if I'm making valid points anymore.. too tired and drugged up on cold meds to tell.

Archived comment by Jon:
In general, I agree that B5 had better use of 3 dimensions in space battles. One motivator for that is that in the "space opera" genre, it is usually one-on-many or many-on-many fighting. The Star Trek shows have relied on more submarine and other naval history, which obviously is more limited in the z-axis. One of the most famous original Star Trek episodes directly cribbed from a war movie with two submarines playing "cat and mouse" - imitation as flattery, there.

I think that you'll find in a few of the later Treks that they start to do more with ships using more interesting angles of attack. Having the Borg to fight helped (see the first DS9 episode for a refresher), and the Dominion War was on a more epic scale. The Treks still have a lot of ground to make up in that regard, though.

YMMV.

Archived comment by marinerd:
Thanks, Saint, for the different perspective. I just wish I had a little less "depth" sometimes! I'm still working on that.

Archived comment by Noyock:
Another show that did a really good job of showing outer space combat was Babylon 5. I read an article at one point about how they decided from the very beginning to forgo model shots altogether and use only CGI for all exteriors, and it really worked well (though the animation is visibly rough in the first season).

But, hell, even Battlestar Galactica had better on-screen combat than the Star Treks.

Archived comment by hypoxic:
Hey I never said that we weren't living in a 3-d world. But rather that we don't get to utilize that third dimension very well. Like I said we are living on a flatworld. And more often then not we can't get out of the squares mentality.

I really do recommend that people find someway of truly experiencing the third dimension. Flying your own plane; taking a vomit comet; or freediving/scubadiving are all good ways. It's neat to have to be aware of what's above and below you.

Archived comment by Saint:
I'd always considered 2D as being up-down and left-right, with 3D adding near-far (not a technical explanation, I admit, but that's what you get for spending most of your time in geometry sketching fantasy scenes). Remember when Homer Simpson went 3D? He got depth, not the ability to fly. So, I have a hard time thinking of humans as 2D, though I suppose you math types would know better than I.

Archived comment by Kris the Girl:
I always thought they could've used more imagination for the battle scenes in the Treks.
And for the aliens.
They need to employ children to think up new and interesting things to encounter and fight.

But I'm with Marinerd. We use 3 dimensions all the time, even if it's not on a very large scale.

Archived comment by marinerd:
I think my point is that although we may be rather limited in our use of the 3rd dimension, we still use it. Every time I lift my foot to walk, I use it. Otherwise I'd drag them along the ground, no? It's a 3-D world, whether we fly in it or not. We may not "fully" use it, but as long as we can look at clouds, or walk down the street, or children can jump rope, we are using it to some extent.

Archived comment by Inuki:
You know, if you watch Star Trek, you'll see that 90+% of the time, two ships in space are oriented exactly the same way relative to a common "down." Even while fighting, it's rare to see the larger ships reorient - they just use the fact that their guns can swivel to attack at nearly any arc.

I think that's based on the fact that we as a species aren't used to fully 3D space. Yeah, we can swim, but we need air, so we're mostly limited to the surface - and most things underwater tend to have their bellies towards the ground anyway. Yes, we can fly (in planes), but even then they have to keep the belly of the plane towards the ground, or they won't be flying anymore. We just never developed the conception of fully 3D space, where orientation is a matter of prefrence or chance, rather than based on gravity.

Some people are better at conceptualizing how things would behave in outer space than others. Star Wars (I'm thinking original trilogy) is fairly good at using all three dimensions in combat - groups of similar ships may have the same orientation to begin with, but as soon as they enter combat, they all break off in every direction. And while forming up a fighter wing or a fleet to have the same relative down makes sense while travelling (same frame of refrence for all pilots), it makes no sense in combat.

...If any of that makes no sense, I apologize, and blame it on whatever bug I caught that's making my nose run like a faucet and my throat feel on fire.

Archived comment by tim:
...And here is where I'm once again thankful I only scored 8.6785% on the geek test.

Archived comment by peegee:
I'll admit that relative to moving on the surface of a sphere (i.e. good old mother earth), we move relatively little along the z-axis, up and down.

But I still insist that even then our world is full of three-dimensionality, because otherwise there would be no "Society for putting things on top of other things" and things couldn't go "under the bay". Even though most of the time we move along a fairly level 2D-surface our world (or mine at least) does not lack a third dimension.

Archived comment by Matt:
I think hypo's right, in a general way. Remember, this is just a generalization. The reason our eyes shift horizontally during REM sleep is because our world is planar that way. But there are indiginous people in places like The Amazon where, because their ability to avoid predators and/or find food is based upon trees, their eyes shift vertically during REM.

Images--good ones--have three dimensions, but not in the true planar sense. Since I started using Photoshop at my job, I've come to believe that the third dimension in images (good ones, at least) is texture.

Archived comment by hypoxic:
well think about it this way. Can you really affect what happens in the z-axis? Only to a very limited extent. If a car is coming at you you can only move in a X-Y relationship to you (barring any type of hole or air-launching device). But if you are in a plane and another plane is coming at you, you suddenly have a whole nother dimension to move into. My point is that yes even though you can get on a hill (pt A) and see over other people to another point (pt B) you still can't go in straight line from point a to b without either going around those people or knocking them over and then over them. In a plane or in water you could.

Therefore we in general are limited to a 2-d existance. Whens the last time you were crossing a street and you had to look up of down? :)

Archived comment by Kris the Girl:
That is not true and you know it!
OK so it might be true...but Peegee totally lost me, and I just feel in my gut that hypoxic is wrong about us not moving much in 3D.
Does it matter what you name the axis...es? How do you plural "axis"? Axes? eh, I need all my sleepyness to actually leaad to sleeping.

Archived comment by Inuki:
Interestingly enough, the default prefrences for Maya (very common 3D modeling and animation software) have the y-axis being vertical, and the x- and z- being horizontal. That is, the coordinate plane that Maya provides as a visual extends in the x and z directions, not x and y as most people might think. (I have reason to know, I just spent 4 hours fighting with the stupid program...)

Not to contradict anyone, but there's more than one way of thinking about these things. :)

Archived comment by ParU:
And a cool pt. to peegee! Nice connection there.

Archived comment by peegee:
Hmm, hypoxic, I know you're not strictly talking about mathematics, but since this is a topic I like to be pedantic about, I will. I think your concept of 3D is rather strange.

In traditional Euclidean geometry the z-axis is an orthogonal extension to a 2D-plane. In the concept of 3D you describe the z-axis is the distance to some fixed point, and the x-y-plane is the surface of a sphere with some fixed radious and its centre in that same fixed point; rather similar to spherical geometry.

And even from that perspective, I'd insist there is plenty of 3D motion for us. Or else, how could it ever go under the bay ?
*grin*

Archived comment by hypoxic:
but stairs, hills and other elevated places still only leave you with 2-d range of motion. My point is that we as humans rarely get to move in a true 3-d enviornment.