Warp Spider

My understanding was that the Okinawans did not have access to weapons because there was some kind of ban on them or something. Also I heard they were farmers so guerilla warfare might be out of the question. Plus I'm not sure that guerilla warfare had really developed by then.

Trust me, you would need something sharp to sever a spinal cord. I doubt hardly anyone can sever a fresh steak with a bare handed blow, let alone a spinal cord covered in bones.

OK, this is a matter for a physics professor, but standing on one leg does NOT give you good balance. That's pure and simple nonsense. Any reputable karate/kungfu/whatever instructor, gymnast, dance instrutor, etc will dispute that one...and I sure do. Sorry, but it's true. It's a physical fact that the worst balance anything can have is with one stationary support (one leg for example), followed by two. Three (tripod) is the least amount of stationary points needed for good, stand alone stability. If your balance is better standing on one leg with that leg moving, than with 2 legs planted on the ground while punching, you're not punching correctly., and I'd guess you need major work/practice on your stances. Well, if you want to get technical, the number of supports you need is dependant on the balance of the object, the number of dimensions it resides in, and the position of those supports. A hundred supports all in a row is no better than two. Having said that, it's quite possible that Shorinryu Sensei would have better balance kicking than punching. Certainately he or she would have better balance while standing upright than while kicking, but that doesn't necessarily mean he or she won't have better balance while kicking than while punching. For instance, a shin or ankle kick is likely more stable than throwing a wild haymaker - even though the haymaker has both feet on the ground.

Well, if you want to get all physical about it.. a bullet doesn't pack that much power. The same amount of energy the bullet has leaving the muzzle is experienced as recoil, so generally the power level can't be particularly great. There are exceptions of course, if you were referring to, say 14.5mm, (which can penetrate both sides of an APC at several miles range) but that requires you to lay prone and brace the gun against something to fire it without injuring yourself. A bullet is effective at causing harm because it focuses it's energy on a small area, the same as a knife. It can then penetrate your skin (which is difficult to damage enough to cause a fatal wound) and damage your organs. Like JerryLove said, ballistic armor operates on the reverse principle by spreading out the force, preventing penetration and making it just as though you had been struck with a solid object like a bat or a 2x4. Plus, board breaking works on a very different principle - it is not sheer strength that breaks the board.

what's sharper? and don't say ceramic because it's essentially the same thing (it just holds an edge better) Well, razor blades are pretty sharp. If you're referring to hardness, diamonds are harder than glass. Technically I suppose you could hone glass to a pretty keen edge using sophisticated equipment, but definately not a piece of broken glass, and of course a diamond could be honed to an even keener edge.

I wouldn't count on severing a person's spinal cord with one blow. Many people couldn't do that with a meat cleaver. Unless perhaprs the victim is 85.

Just a hunch, but I think most football players could beat a golf player in a fight. Unless that's what you meant.

Are you telling me that the Chinese saw a dragon do something and it turned out to be an effective martial arts move? If so, why don't Kung Fu styles incorporate alot of biting, lashing with the tail, and of course, swallowing the sun?

Not even remotely true, but yes, glas is decent for cutting.

Well, I wasn't referring to that. I was instead referring to the fact that most people who claim to have been abducted by aliens describe two sorts of aliens, whereas only one of those types of aliens (the so-called 'grays') has been popularized by the media. How many people have heard of the 'blues', yet abduction "victims" routinely describe seeing creatures that match that description. Certainately not proof, far from it, but still interesting evidence. Well, it's a circular proof because time dilation is only a viable explanation of what happened if it is in fact possible. Just like saying it was aliens who did it. If aliens exist, it's a perfectly good explanation, but it certainately doesn't prove the existance of aliens. Similarly, time dilation would be a good explanation for what happened to the clocks, but only if time dilation were real, which means in order to use this as proof of relativity you'd have to first prove relativity. That's what makes it a circular proof.

Dude, the French aren't cowards because they surrendered in World War II. Or did you not realize that they fought so hard in World War I that they didn't have hardly any men left in their country, and thus could not raise an army for WWII? Also, in case you didn't notice, France isn't the only country that didn't help you in Iraq. In fact, the vast majority of the world didn't, because frankly, the vast majority of the world doesn't really care that Saddam gassed a bunch of people. (who were trying to overthrow the country, BTW, that gets you the death penalty in the US too) They also don't really care that he may be somehow related to terrorists, who may be in some way related to the terrorists who are suspected of killing 4000 Americans on one distinct occasion. (For comparison, 12000 people die of starvation every day, but I don't see you going on a crusade against people who overeat.) So in other words, people who didn't join the American's little "crusade" against terrorism aren't cowardly, they just don't care enough to trash their economy and send their country into a downward flaming spiral.

The experiments haven't shown time warping. All they've demonstrated is a circular proof, and as such not valid. It's no more reasonable than saying aliens did it. (except of course, there is some convincing evidence of certain types of alien species)

I don't think there's many babies in a bar. Plus they're kind of squishy so I don't think they'd make a very good projectile. I'm surprised noone's mentioned a beer bottle or a glass cup. Clinch and hit them in the head with it. Also, billiard balls can be thrown fairly easily and (you didn't hear this from me ) the cue balls are slightly smaller than the regular ones to facilitate automatic ball-catcher thingies that they have in bars sometimes. It just so happens that the cue ball falls in a small margin between objects small enough to swallow, and objects too large to cough back up - as a consequence if you can force it into the person's mouth it will go down and get stuck in their neck, but it's too big for them to cough back up..

Well, like I said, it is theoretically possible that time had indeed warped. However any of those other absurd possibilities are far more likely, which makes the possibility that time somehow warped so far-fetched one might as well say it was the work of leprechauns.

I'd have to agree with that mostly. Sometimes a writer is writing for a specific purpose (other than entertainement, such as the book Animal Farm. (I know it's not a movie, but still a similar concept) The vast majority though don't have any real meaning. The only one of those movies listed that I've seen is the Matrix, and although the notion may seem "deep" to some, it is completely absurd when you look at it from an informed standpoint. I can't speak on those other movies because I haven't seen them.

Well, it COULD be that time was warped, and it also COULD be that aliens teleported in, changed the clock, and then teleported out. It also COULD be that the whole thing was a government conspiracy, or it could be scientists on a bad acid trip. However, I'd rather stick within reason, rather than coming up with circular proofs.

Well, no, I couldn't say what exactly individual component of the clock was rendered ineffective. A fairly safe assumption considering that the clock's reading disagrees with another clock's reading. Obviously at least one of them has to be incorrect.

As for exactly what part of the clock caused the malfunction, it's impossible to say based on published reports about that experiment. One would likely need to repeat the experiment while using a considerable amount of equipment to monitor the clock in order to see exactly where the inaccuracy crept in.

Fight for your beliefs? So, if somebody disagrees with you about anything, start swinging? I don't think so, but that's what it looks like you're saying! That's just plain nuts if you ask me. And you're going to beat up every jerk you meet? Man, you'd better be in pretty darn good shape, because you're going to be fighting literally every time yolu step out of the house. I hope you don't live in New York City, where rudeness is the norm. You're either one tough 'mutha if that's what you do now, and have a really good lawyer to get you out of trouble. Well, you don't have to get into fights that often. Usually you can straighten a person out without attacking them (not physically anyway) through intimidation or other sorts of coercion. Well, noone can really say what's "wrong or unjust," because there's no universal set of morals. There's usually even people on both ends of the spectrum. For instance, a hippy may say "free love" and all that jazz, while some Christians may say that people who live together outside of wedlock should be stoned to death. Who's right? Noone can say which is right or wrong, they can only say that it's "right," meaning it agrees with their own morals, or that it's "wrong," meaning that it doesn't agree with their morals.

Well, I would classify a clock as broken when it ceases to keep accurate time, and since the clocks not only gave an inaccurate reading, but one that didn't even agree with relativity, I'd say it's a fair bet that the thing is busted.

I would have to say the opposite. I think that it is your duty to fight for your beliefs. Thus, if you believe that people should not be permitted to act like a bunch of pricks, you should do something about it!

Holy smokes. I realize how a cesium clock works. I'm trying to make an analogy because you meet a direct answer with "please explain." Sorry if I can't break down the notion of a reading being incorrect into something simpler. I'll try putting it in less technical terms: The fact that the clock's reading was off is no indication that time has somehow been altered for that clock, but rather an indication that the clock is broken. External interference, the result of moving the clocks around, has caused them to fail to read correctly. Although they still provide an accurate indication of chronology, they no longer provide an accurate indication of time, which is completely different. Like I said earlier in this thread, you can change the time on a clock and it doesn't mean you've gone back in time: the fact that the researchers managed to generate an erroneous reading on the clock only means that they've generated an erroneous reading, it's no indication that time dilation has occurred.

Well, they're not still either, they're at different points on the Earth which is rotating. Well, it's a poor example. The frequency of the wave changes from doppler shift; the object does not appear functionally "different". The sound is percieved as being different, and since the sound produced by a resonating object is a fair measure of it's oscillation frequency, it's oscillation frequency can appear to be different than it actually is. Please be more specific... what error has occurred in reading the output from a clock? Well, an inaccurate reading of the elapsed time was taken from the clock. This caused it to appear to have suffered some sort of "time dilation" when in reality it had not.

If you want a good concealed weapon, you can get a rifle round and a small firing mechanism built into a crucifix. The irony! Dahahahaha! Unfortunately I don't know any manufacturer of these so you'd probrably have to have them custom made. I've only ever seen a few weapons like this.

Holy smokes. I never said there was a doppler effect between the two. That was just an example of how something can appear in all ways to have changed when it actually has not. Well, it's not the clock that's failing to read the frequency, it's the experimenters who are failing to percieve the information from the clock correctly.