The Quantum Mechanic » media

Burn! Burn! Burn!

qm — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 16:04:23 +0000

S&P has cut the NYTimes bond rating to junk. Please let the coming economic downturn sink the NYT. That would be beauteous. And if the Globe can go down the tubes too, so much the better.

Be true, Unbeliever!

qm — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 18:42:39 +0000

For people who are into self-punishment, be aware that book 2 (Fatal Revenant) of four of The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant will be out this October.

Though if dictionary publishers were more on the ball, they’d strike a deal with Donaldson’s publisher to give away a paperback collegiate dictionary with each copy of Fatal Revenant. Lord knows Donaldson loves his 4-bit words (let alone 2-bit ones).

Happy 30th, SW!

qm — Fri, 25 May 2007 18:07:33 +0000

Star Wars opened on 25 May, 1977.

Tempus fugit and all that…

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

qm — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 03:37:51 +0000

Tom Cruise is rumoured to be starring in the latest Star Trek movie – as Mr Spock.

May JJ Abrams rot in hell forever.

(via)

“You and I are of a kind. In a different reality, I could have called you friend.”

qm — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 15:25:44 +0000

The remastered Balance of Terror will air locally on Channel 5 at 02:05 on 18 September. Set your TiVos on stun!

Happy 40th!

qm — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 17:16:29 +0000

Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Her five-year mission: to explore strange, new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.

September 8, 1966.

Space, the final frontier…

qm — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 19:29:26 +0000

It appears that Star Trek is going to be given the “Special Edition” treatment.

While it does sound cool at some level, what’s the point? And changing the music, noises, and SFX shots to be more modern? Won’t that create horrible mismatches with the rest of the footage?

The cynical part of me wonders if this isn’t a ploy on the part of the studios to push fans (who have seen the atrocities Lucas has committed on the original Star Wars films) to start buying DVDs now, so they can have the originals before they go out of print.

He’s dead,…Dave

qm — Tue, 30 May 2006 19:45:37 +0000

Actor Gary Lockwood has the distinction of being “killed” by two of the more iconic characters in SciFi — Captain James T. Kirk and HAL9000.

(Now if only we had the chance to see Kirk and HAL9000 face off directly…)

The incredible shrinking paper

qm — Mon, 08 May 2006 19:10:13 +0000

According to this article from E&P, the Globe‘s daily subscriber count has dropped to under 400,000 in an 8.5% decline from the same six-month period a year ago.

Adams or Amend sure. But Trudeau?

qm — Thu, 04 May 2006 06:26:04 +0000

This might be a first — the appearance of (which is clearly supposed to be) Thevenin and Norton equivalents in a mainstream comic strip.

Take a look.

He’s even right. A circuit of sources and resistors with only two external terminals can be collapsed down down to two forms, all three of which will yield identical results when you take measurements from those terminals.

The key measurements are the open-circuit voltage (V_oc) across the terminals and the short-circuit current (I_sc) through the terminals. From those you calculate the Thevenin resistance R_T = V_oc/I_sc.

The Thevenin form is an ideal voltage source of V_oc in series with R_T with the external terminals being connected to the “free” end of R_T and the “free” end of the voltage source. The Norton form is an ideal current source of I_sc in parallel with R_T and the external terminals being connected across R_T.

So indeed, even when nothing is connected to the terminals, the Norton form will be pumping current through the resistor while the Thevenin form will be quiescent. So Alex is quite right that the Norton form will be warmer.