Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

Faye's burned down one building already

The butler would know

being the eccentric shut in is not as much fun as you'd think

Pintsize

[Akima]

2. You ignore that objects that weight less than a couple million or billion of tons will be slowed down by the atmosphere to terminal velocity, which is in all cases below 300 m/sec.

Where on earth did you get that number? 300m/s is lower than the speed of sound at sea-level, and ballistic missiles have been falling onto their targets at supersonic speeds since at least 1944. Terminal velocity is not some sort of fixed speed-limit, but depends on the mass, cross-sectional area, and shape of the falling object. Project Thor, the hypothetical weapon-system on which all this talk of dropping tungsten rods is based, was intended to deliver its very heavy, narrow projectiles at mach ten, which is over 3000m/s.

It creeps me out that Clinton has no freckles. He's all smooth and uncanny valley compared to Claire.

[Doc]

Oooohh, did I miss the sexy stuff? Oh well.

What happened between Clinton and Hannelore again?
(Episode link anyone plz?)

[hakko504]

Oooohh, did I miss the sexy stuff? Oh well.

What happened between Clinton and Hannelore again?
(Episode link anyone plz?)

1900. Though his introduction to the strip was 2 pages earlier.

[MrNumbers]

Thread for December 1-5 now has 1-5 pages.

Meta.

[snubnose]

Where on earth did you get that number?

I assumed the terminal velocity of objects would never exceed the speed of sound, because at that point there is a massive increase of resistance.

Apparently I was wrong.

[snubnose]

I just keep getting back to todays comic.

Clinton: I'm just trying to look after you.

Claire: You dont have to. Just be happy for me.

Clinton: I'll be happy for you ... IF you introduce me to one of his hot lady friends.

What ... the ... ?????

Is it just me, or is Clinton, at this point, not established as one really huge douchebag ? I mean he's most obviously NOT trying to "just look after sister". He's just jealous is all.

[MooskiNet]

 Much as I love Claire, putting a sick burn on Clinton over how he met Hannelore sort of ignores her own faux pas.   

[bhtooefr]

But her own faux pas doesn't even hold a candle to Clinton's, to be fair.

[Doc]

1900. Though his introduction to the strip was 2 pages earlier.

Thanks!

[Thrillho]

So this dude is an asshole.

[ReindeerFlotilla]

Claire didn't go all fangirl or giddy. She was surprised, and then immediately threatened. She didn't handle it well, but she was under a lot of pressure.

[DSL]

And she realized she was messing it up. Clinton ... had to be shown.

[dawolf]

Am I missing something? Who are all these hot girls Marten can introduce Clinton to?

Faye? Yeah right! No chance
Dora/Tai - in a relationship
Hannelore - already burned that bridge
Marigold - in a relationship
Penelope - in a relationship
Emily - weirdo
Raven - no chance.

Only chance he's have full stop would be with Emily. But she might be weird, she's still not as twattish as him!

[bhtooefr]

You know, outside of Claire, the most positive female interaction we've seen Clinton have is with Emily: http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2428

And she seemed to have taken some degree of interest in him specifically, to the point of having a clipboard of questions at hand.

[hakko504]

Am I missing something? Who are all these hot girls Marten can introduce Clinton to?

Faye? Yeah right! No chance
Dora/Tai - in a relationship
Hannelore - already burned that bridge
Marigold - in a relationship
Penelope - in a relationship
Emily - weirdo
Raven - no chance.

Only chance he's have full stop would be with Emily. But she might be weird, she's still not as twattish as him!

Well, there is Gabby, Rene (from Secret Bakery) and Juicy. Outside of Emily, I'd say Gabby is the most likely. Rene we really don't know much about, except that she used to date Angus, and works at the Secret Bakery, or at least did last time we saw her (sometime before Padma's departure ~2100). And Juicy we obviously don't know much about. Not even if she'll become a regular in the cast at all.

Edit: Come to think about it - if Claire & Marten sets up Clinton with Emily, that would put an end to all speculation about Emily's motive behind her kissing Marten a while ago. We still haven't seen them together since, but surely they must have met at work by now?

[DSL]

You're all acting as though Clinton realizes he's screwed things up/has no chance.
Went to high school with a guy who ... didn't lack in self-confidence, let's say. Clinton's interaction with Hannelore reminded me of him, both in his assumption that what he was doing was OK and his failure to learn.

[aliensporebomb]

LOL.  "Juicy".  I hope that isn't her name/nickname. 

[hakko504]

LOL.  "Juicy".  I hope that isn't her name/nickname.

Until Jeph tells us otherwise, that's probably the best thing to call her. At least we know whom we're talking about. But it's quite possible she'll never appear again. The joke was quite satisfactory with just those two strips.

[Mr_Rose]

3km/sec is the velocity of an object falling for 300 secs in a constant 1g field in a vacuum (just about). 90000 metres, just on the edge of space. But to double the velocity - so get a yield of 4kg of TNT per kg of mass - you'd need 600 secs of falling - 360,000 metres. Low Earth Orbit. And so on.

1. You ignore that an object launched from orbit STARTS with a bit less than 8 km/sec. So, without atmosphere, the velocity would be 14 km/sec, not 6 km/sec, from an 360km low earth orbit.

All of which, from the PoV of dropping thugs from orbit, is basically sideways instead of down. You have to do something about that, or you will miss a) the target, b) the target's country, or c) the planet entire. And doing something about that costs reaction mass and energy, most of which you have to take with you, costing even more reaction mass and energy in the initial setup.

[BenRG]

Is it just me, or is Clinton, at this point, not established as one really huge douchebag ? I mean he's most obviously NOT trying to "just look after sister". He's just jealous is all.

For me, it's that Clinton doesn't have much in the way of emotional maturity. He acts like and talks like a teenager. Claire does too but only with him. As a general rule, she actually manages quite mature interactions with most people which, given that she likely had a pretty difficult time growing up due to her Trans status, is quite remarkable really.

Here's the thing: Setting aside apparent triggered behaviours, Claire can be thoughtless and a bit snappy with other people. However, the only time she's out-and-out childishly offensive is with Clinton. I'm wondering if this tells you more about Clinton (and, by extension, how he interacts with Claire) than anything else.

[Kugai]

In some ways I agree with DSL.

It seems to me he's one of those guys who overcompensate for a lack of social confidence and/or graces and can't understand why they keep getting proverbially (and on the odd occasion. literally) kicked in the balls when they say or do something totally douchey.

[lot_jockey]

Is it just me, or is Clinton, at this point, not established as one really huge douchebag ? I mean he's most obviously NOT trying to "just look after sister". He's just jealous is all.

For me, it's that Clinton doesn't have much in the way of emotional maturity. He acts like and talks like a teenager. Claire does too but only with him. As a general rule, she actually manages quite mature interactions with most people which, given that she likely had a pretty difficult time growing up due to her Trans status, is quite remarkable really.

Here's the thing: Setting aside apparent triggered behaviours, Claire can be thoughtless and a bit snappy with other people. However, the only time she's out-and-out childishly offensive is with Clinton. I'm wondering if this tells you more about Clinton (and, by extension, how he interacts with Claire) than anything else.

I agree with your analysis. For what it's worth, Clinton is only 21, which I believe makes him the youngest member of the cast. He really isn't much older than a teenager.

[cesium133]

Youngest aside from Sam and the AnthroPCs, anyway.

edit -- Sam and the AnthroPCs would be a pretty awesome name for a band.

[DrBear]

I agree with your analysis. For what it's worth, Clinton is only 21, which I believe makes him the youngest member of the cast. He really isn't much older than a teenager.

Well, except for Sam. And they do have a lot in common in behavior.

[lot_jockey]

I agree with your analysis. For what it's worth, Clinton is only 21, which I believe makes him the youngest member of the cast. He really isn't much older than a teenager.

Well, except for Sam. And they do have a lot in common in behavior.

Fair, I forgot about Sam.

[Rimwolf]

LOL.  "Juicy".  I hope that isn't her name/nickname.

Well, it's better than "Sweet Tits". Somewhat.

[Rghfrgl]

It feels like thursday. I want another comic.

[Kugai]

You have trouble with Thursdays?


Never mind, have a Beer and go sit over there with Arthur and Ford.

[jwhouk]

FAIL.

"I could never get the hang of Tuesdays," said Arthur Dent.

[Kugai]

Oh

PISSWHISKERS!!!

 

[DSL]

Eddies in the space-time continuum.

That's his sofa. Care for a jinnan tonix?

[vforvancouver]

85% of all known worlds in the Galaxy, be they primitive or highly advanced, have invented a drink called jynnan tonnyx, or gee-N'N-T'N-ix, or jinond-o-nicks, or any one of a thousand or more variations on the same phonetic theme. The drinks themselves are not the same, and vary between the Sivolvian "chinanto/mnigs" which is ordinary water served at slightly above room temperature, and the Gagrakackan "tzjin-anthony-ks" which kills cows at a hundred paces; and in fact the one common factor between all of them, beyond the fact that the names sound the same, is that they were all invented and named before the worlds concerned made contact with any other worlds. 

[Estron]

So . . . .
            Much . . . . .
                             Red . . . . . . . . .

[hedgie]

FAIL.

"I could never get the hang of Tuesdays," said Arthur Dent.

Wrong:

Douglas Adams
“This must be Thursday,' said Arthur to himself, sinking low over his beer. 'I never could get the hang of Thursdays.”

[GarandMarine]

85% of all known worlds in the Galaxy, be they primitive or highly advanced, have invented a drink called jynnan tonnyx, or gee-N'N-T'N-ix, or jinond-o-nicks, or any one of a thousand or more variations on the same phonetic theme. The drinks themselves are not the same, and vary between the Sivolvian "chinanto/mnigs" which is ordinary water served at slightly above room temperature, and the Gagrakackan "tzjin-anthony-ks" which kills cows at a hundred paces; and in fact the one common factor between all of them, beyond the fact that the names sound the same, is that they were all invented and named before the worlds concerned made contact with any other worlds. 

I prefer a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster. Which I have mixed. It involves booze you can light on fire, lemon, and regret.

[hedgie]

Don't forget the large gold brick to wrap the lemon around.

[DSL]

Never mind the second officer. His B Ark is worse thsn his bite.

Now, this "fire" thing. You're so smart, what color should it be?

[Loki]

pink

[KOK]

I don't see why Raven wouldn't give him a chance. As for Juicy, she is not a friend of Claire (as far as we know).

Clinton and the fairy girl would make a cute couple.

[Pilchard123]

pink

As designed by a ten year old girl, unlike the Cabinet.

[ZoeB]

Did anyone else watch the entire Orion flight on NASA TV?
I admit that after 3am local, I was a bit on the tired side.

Huge congrats to the team. I have extreme misgivings about the complexity of the re-entry process - so very, very many things that can go wrong - but they got it right first go.

[DSL]

I watched it, and was excited. My misgivings stem from the feeling of watching my country basically relearning knowledge and experience that was allowed to molder on a shelf because of various flsvors of politics . A comment that brought me up short was the comment from the Orion engineer/manager who said, "Apollo was before I was born."
And here we are again. I remember what the Shuttle was sold as, and the station was sold as, and seeing both wasted instead as multipurpose and occasionally duplicative efforts. I kept wondering why weren't, by now, testing out a multilayered space program with a deep=space element, a true shuttle for earth-to-orbit and a way station in orbit linking both, so that the tail end of a long and arduous deep space mission doesn't involve trying to thread a fiery needle at insane speed.
I'm sure the more technically savvy people on this forum --the ones who are, in fact, rocket surgeons -- will hasten to tell this here journalism-degree holder why he doesn't have it right, but it's never made sense to me.

[BenRG]

And here we are again. I remember what the Shuttle was sold as, and the station was sold as, and seeing both wasted instead as multipurpose and occasionally duplicative efforts. I kept wondering why weren't, by now, testing out a multilayered space program with a deep=space element, a true shuttle for earth-to-orbit and a way station in orbit linking both, so that the tail end of a long and arduous deep space mission doesn't involve trying to thread a fiery needle at insane speed.

It doesn't have to be, no. However, it is by far the easiest way and the only way so far proven to work in practice.

The problem with Orion is, during the development of the program way back in the early noughties, the leadership of NASA got fixated in recreating Project Apollo only on a physically larger scale. Once this paradigm was accepted, everything had to be Apollo-like. Orion had to look like an Apollo but bigger. The lander, Altair, had to look like the LEM but bigger. This had the consequence of imposing penalties and restrictions on the design that made everything more complex, less innovative and more expensive.

The "We must recreate Apollo but bigger" mindset is still in play. Look at pictures of the proposed launcher, SLS. They're going to paint it to look like the Saturn-V. The only apparent reason for doing so appears to be that they want it to look like a Saturn V.

[DSL]

I hold on to the hope that the various vehicles under private development play some role in the earth-to-orbit link of a multilayered program ... a quick ants relatively cheap way of getting people to space. What we had with the Shuttle was a semi truck that was occasionally uses to run to the corner store.

[KOK]

And here we are again. I remember what the Shuttle was sold as, and the station was sold as, and seeing both wasted instead as multipurpose and occasionally duplicative efforts. I kept wondering why weren't, by now, testing out a multilayered space program with a deep=space element, a true shuttle for earth-to-orbit and a way station in orbit linking both, so that the tail end of a long and arduous deep space mission doesn't involve trying to thread a fiery needle at insane speed.
I'm sure the more technically savvy people on this forum --the ones who are, in fact, rocket surgeons -- will hasten to tell this here journalism-degree holder why he doesn't have it right, but it's never made sense to me.

I am no rocket scentist. But slowing down a vehicle from Mars requires either an unrealistic amount of fuel or using the atmosphere. Or, just maybe, something really clever no one has thought of yet.

[BenRG]

I hold on to the hope that the various vehicles under private development play some role in the earth-to-orbit link of a multilayered program ... a quick ants relatively cheap way of getting people to space. What we had with the Shuttle was a semi truck that was occasionally uses to run to the corner store.

The only missions carried out by the Shuttle that were really in line with its original intended purpose was the construction of the ISS and the various satellite recovery and repair missions. Everything else was more-or-less filler developed and flown because the space station project was delayed around 20 years; it should have been amongst the first major programs but kept getting de-funded.

[DSL]

Oh, people have thought of it, and will probably think of more. It just involves more delta-vee, and therefore more fuel/reaction mass, than you can realistically carry if you have to load everything up at the starting point.
It's got to be easier, once the infrastructure is in place, to decelerate to parking orbit and ride a shuttle down than it is to scream in from deep space and aim it so you don't bounce or burn.

[KOK]

What kind of infrastructure would help slow the ship down to parking orbit speed? And what has this got to do with QC?

[DSL]

1.) Having a way to gas up at mission destination so you have the fuel to do so without having to load it all at the start and carry it around (spending more delta-vie to do so) until you need it.
2.) QC forumites have lots of interests and talk about them until drowned out by other interests. There's a space station in this comic ...

[cesium133]

Oh, people have thought of it, and will probably think of more. It just involves more delta-vee, and therefore more fuel/reaction mass, than you can realistically carry if you have to load everything up at the starting point.
It's got to be easier, once the infrastructure is in place, to decelerate to parking orbit and ride a shuttle down than it is to scream in from deep space and aim it so you don't bounce or burn.

The speed when you're coming in is such that you have to worry about that no matter what. A shuttle isn't really much better in this regard (in fact it was a major problem for the Space Shuttle; the heating on reentry destroyed the Columbia). If you're reentering the Earth's atmosphere from low orbit, you have to burn off a bit under 8 km/s of delta-V, regardless of whether you're in a shuttle or a capsule.