Oolite Bulletins

Indeed. Trouble with all that water is you need some dissolved solids as well to make bio-compounds out of, I think - you can't get very far with just water and a reducing atmosphere. And possibly some shallows for the reactions to occur in.

And when they say "water worlds" they mean literal globes of water with a solid core. Earth's proportion of water is about what you'd get if you picked a pool ball out of a bucket of water (a couple of miles depth on a 4000-mile radius is almost literally just a film of water, in planetary terms).

Ah, right... so Data has an evil twin? I ain't a Trekkie, you see. Yes. Or an evil older brother if we're picky. Didn't turn up in many episodes but made a big impact when he did (not least because of Brent Spiner's excellent acting skills). My family just got through watching the entire boxed set....

Cody wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 13, 2018 11:59 am

Who him?

Lore

Haven't read the thread, but eventually Data deactivated and disassembled him. He was just flat-out evil whether it was summoning the Crystalline Entity to murder an entire colony or building a private army of renegade Borg - there was no alternative.

There may be no feeling of acceleration, but I promise you that you are accelerating - and even removing a corresponding amount of momentum from the sea wave in the process. TANSTAAFL. Of course, a cubic metre of seawater weighs comfortably more than a tonne, so the ocean doesn't even notice you, bu...

Happyman wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 16, 2018 3:17 pm

Even though Christmas is 10 months ahead, I just purchased this book yesterday and waiting for it delivered. Can't wait!

Hurrah! May your username be apposite.

Gimbal Locke wrote: ↑

Sun Feb 11, 2018 7:22 pm

( My previous post here was in 2012? Time flies... )

lol. I thought "Who's this Gimbal Locke person then?" and it turns out you haven't posted since before I registered.

Star Trek had plenty, beginning with the very first episode aired, "The Man Trap" - the salt vampire that looked either like Nancy or Dr McCoy or someone else according to need and was only seen in its true form right at the end when it was trying to murder Jim Kirk.

It is! At the conclusion of Under the Yoke , three characters are locked into a bomb-proof bunker with a suicide bomb (which the nun is carrying, with her hand on the dead-man's switch). She is now faced with an ethical problem: her religion forbids suicide, nor can she pass the decision on to someo...

*crickets*

The book is one of a series, and an earlier volume shares a title with one of the few US Civil War songs that almost everyone can whistle even if they don't know the words.

Okay, this dystopian science fiction novel ends with someone kicking a bomb out of a nun's hands - why would anyone do a thing like that? (Or at any rate, what's the title and author? And technically it ends a tiny fraction of a second later, of course...)

ffutures wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 27, 2018 6:23 pm

OK, inspired by the previous question - in which book by which author is there a spaceship drive based on cheese?

lol. Same author, but it's Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers.

("Cheddite" is a real thing and is an explosive, btw.)

preserved as in "smoke me a Kipper" ?????? There's another type of smoked herring, particularly associated with Lowestoft and stereotypically made into fish-paste. 8) Gotcha - the Bloater drive, used in Harry Harrison's Bill the Galactic Hero and sequels. The ship changes size (if I recall correctl...

spud42 wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 26, 2018 2:39 am

preserved as in "smoke me a Kipper" ??????

There's another type of smoked herring, particularly associated with Lowestoft and stereotypically made into fish-paste.