Posts by Mr P E Dant

Nuke-frying raygun 747 all ready bar the raygun

gold smoke...

@ anonymous boffin...

I'm sure there's something inert that could be used to create a suitable smoke / fog if the carbon particles would ignite. Water vapour perhaps?

As for the laser gold, the laser may be producing MJ/s worth of energy at source, but a lot is absorbed by the atmosphere between the plane and the missile. How much energy is delivered at the target 400Km away? Surely the gold plating would at least about half the effective range of the laser since it would have to be delivering nearly twice as much power as the theoretical minimum to destroy the missile. Regarding the mass of the gold, the laser gold plating is used in lots of aerospace applications, so it's probably relatively light.

Gold Member...

Hey, this should do the trick...

A coating of "Laser Gold" http://www.epner.com/laser_properties.ssi

"Laser Gold plating reflectivity is greater than 97% at 0.7 microns and greater than 99% at 10.6 microns"

The COIL laser operates at about 1.3 microns so the gold plating should reflect > 97% of the laser energy directed at it.

According to the website, it's easy to clean too.

Smoke, not Mirrors

Best way to tackle these ray-guns is to block them with smoke - launch them through a cloud of finely powdered carbon.

Maybe you could have a pair of missiles, one pumping out smoke and one carrying the nuke travelling just behind it?

Any of you physics boffins care to work out how thick the cloud of smoke would need to be to render the laser ineffective?

Wii named fastest-selling console in UK history

Serious Gamers...

S Lindsay, that's the whole point. The Wii isn't being bought by "Serious Gamers" that's why it's selling so well, it's being bought by normal people.

And, maybe the reason there's a bigger rental market for Xbox & PS3 games is that the Wii games are cheaper. Just take a look at any new cross-platform release - PS3 £39.99, Xbox 360 £39.99, same title on Wii - £29.99.

Apples, Pears and Oranges

The PS3 and Xbox 360 aren't the same, so by Matt's logic it's not fair to compare sales of those two either.

The point is, of the currently marketed games consoles, the Wii is selling best. And, it is achieving this feat even though it has less processing power than the other two rivals.

I've long been of the opinion - probably since I had a PS2 - that games don't really benefit from increased processing power. Yes, the graphics look more realistic, but if the gameplay is crap, so what? A first person shooter on the Xbox, PS2, Xbox 360, PS3, is still just a first person shooter - might as well just play it on the box you already have. The nice graphics soon get boring, it's the gameplay that really counts. That's where the Wii is strong, innovative gameplay that can be enjoyed by a group of people actually socialising in First Life. The Wii is successful because Nintendo have managed to broaden the game playing demographic, whereas the Xbox 360, PS3 and Gaming PCs are left fighting over the "hardcore" gamers.

I bought a Wii instead of a PS3 or Xbox 360 because it has gameplay that differs from anything I can do on my PS2 or PC plus I can enjoy it with friends and family. And, it's a lot cheaper than the rival options.