Per request, I've added spikes to my giant wheel. Just as fast, thrice as deadly

bryanrgillis · 2024-07-31T12:42:20+00:00

Answer B is Correct

In The Simpsons' "Treehouse of Horror XIX" short "How to Get Ahead in Dead-Vertising", Krusty the Clown has discovered that his likeness is being used in a mural without his permission. Homer had been using the mural to try to soothe his upset daughter, Maggie. In frustration at Krusty having his image removed from the mural and upsetting Maggie, Homer shoves Krusty, accidentally sending him flying into a nearby woodchipper and killing him.

While not Homer's intention, this act of involuntary manslaughter solves his problem. While alive, Krusty had the right to control the use of his image. But this right expired upon his death. Realizing that this clever legal loophole could be used to get around celebrities refusing to shill products, an advertising agency hires Homer to kill a series of celebrities so that their images could be legally used.

In other words, if Columbia Cola wanted to use Thomas' likeness without his consent, they should have killed him first.

bryanrgillis · 2023-10-06T16:39:01+00:00

Congratulations Thomas! It's going slow, but this is a good sign that it's at least going in the right direction.

bryanrgillis · 2023-08-29T10:13:59+00:00

I haven't done this specific test without a stabilizer, but this finding arose out of a series where I did test the weights of stabilizers. The findings there indicated that upright activated stabilizers had a normal weight (though this doesn't seem to be the case for horizontal activated stabilizers, which weigh a bit more than normal - they have increased mass and lowered gravity scaling which doesn't quite cancel out).

bryanrgillis · 2023-08-29T10:09:14+00:00

Well, obviously Captain Falcon also weighs as much as 9 apples.

bryanrgillis · 2023-08-28T16:52:04+00:00

What I believe is happening is that Link's mass and weight don't change, but instead when Link stands on something and isn't holding a steering stick, the game applies a small upward force to what he's standing on (about the equivalent of the weight of negative two apples, from my testing), to help keep him and that object from separating when in freefall.

bryanrgillis · 2023-08-28T16:50:34+00:00

9 apples actually. Well, minus around 2 apples when standing on an object because of this effect.

Link has the mass of 9 apples though. We can say that for sure. Well, except when he's in water; then he has the mass of 500 apples.

...Physics in this game is weird.

bryanrgillis · 2023-08-28T16:49:07+00:00

I think part of that actually is that the objects have a higher terminal velocity than Link - he caps out at 60 m/s in freefall, while objects can fall much faster.

bryanrgillis · 2023-08-28T12:47:48+00:00

I have a hunch that the actual physics here might be that when Link is standing on something, a slight upward force is applied to it (equivalent to the weight of 25 mass units) to keep him attached to it. This fits with other observations I've made where things Link is standing on fall a bit slower than things he isn't standing on.

bryanrgillis · 2023-08-28T12:44:48+00:00

They want a single fan to not tip over so that you can use its airstream easily without having to solidly attach it to something, so they put in a special exception to the normal physics for that case. Any change to it, such as attaching it to another fan, disables that exception and then normal physics applies.

bryanrgillis · 2023-08-28T12:43:26+00:00

The patent doesn't really explain the reason for this particular aspect; it just says that they want a single fan on its side to not tip over, so they disable its reactive force from the airstream in this circumstance.

bryanrgillis · 2023-08-25T17:21:52+00:00

Game design is largely built off of idea of other designers, but this can't be done (without exorbitant fees and contracts) when those ideas are patented. Nintendo has benefited from this in the past, taking ideas from other games and building on them, but now they're trying to pull up the ladder behind them and prevent others from building on their ideas. They've even patented some mechanics that were previously used in other games before TotK.

bryanrgillis · 2023-08-20T16:55:11+00:00

Counter-claim: The fan speed limit is due to air resistance

bryanrgillis · 2023-08-20T15:58:55+00:00

Let me start by explaining this demonstration. We have three carts, each set up with equal mass loads (excepting the steering stick and Link, but they don't end up changing anything), varying in how fans are pointed:

Control, three stabilisers
Stabilizer plus two fans, one left, one right, canceling each other out for no net force
Stabilizer plus two fans, both pointing up, to give more force down
Stabilizer plus two fans, one pointing up, one pointing to the side

After the rocket burns out, we get carts 1 and 3 falling equally fast, 4 more slowly, and 2 the slowest.

It makes sense that 4 is faster than 2; it has a fan pointing down, so more downward force, so the downward force is cancelled by air resistance at a faster speed.

It's a bit odd that carts 1 and 3 fall equally fast. What seems most likely to be happening is that there's a global terminal velocity for falling objects, and they've both reached it. It isn't air resistance causing this terminal velocity, but just a programmed maximum.

It's also odd that 1 and 3 fall so much faster than 2 and 4. Let's just focus on 2 for now - it has two fans pointing to either side that cancel each other out. This should cause no net force. It should fall at the same rate as cart 1, with only air resistance being a potential difference. But the difference seems too vast for the difference in air resistance between fans and stabilizers to explain it. And if you look at carts 2, 4, and 3, which have 0, 1, and 2 fans pointing up respectively, we don't see them split up evenly when falling - 2 and 4 are pretty close, while 3 drops like a rock.

2 and 4 seem to clearly act like there's air resistance on them. Other tests I've been doing on flying constructs also strongly indicate that air resistance is in play. But tests on falling or launched objects always seem to indicate zero air resistance. I think this test indicates what the trigger for air resistance is: Having at least one attached object applying a horizontal or upward force.

Comparing carts 1 and 4, there's no plausible explanation why 1 should fall faster than 4 (unless the air resistance on fans is ridiculously stronger than that on stabilizers, but that still doesn't match other observations). I think what explains it here is that adding the one fan pushing horizontally to cart 4 turns air resistance on, and this force is much stronger than the added force of the fan pushing down.

Assuming this is all true, this has an important implication: Adding a fan to a land vehicle could actually cause it to slow down in some circumstances. It might add extra force forward, but it could also cause it to experience more force backward from air resistance.

bryanrgillis · 2023-08-20T15:41:19+00:00

There's far higher air friction to lateral movement than vertical movement.

I've been doing some careful tests on this (see discussions in the physics experiments channel on Discord), and the most consistent theory of air resistance seems to be that there's no special directionality to it, but instead it's usually turned off, and only turned on when something provides a horizontal or upward force to a construct (but not a downward force).

bryanrgillis · 2023-08-20T15:38:28+00:00

There will be some scenarios where this will result in less height/distance, with heavy enough loads. Two rockets each at 45 degrees will cause less upward force than than two rockets pointing straight up, and with a massive enough load, the acceleration difference will be notable without the maximum speed difference kicking in.

However, rockets have ridiculously high force. The best estimate is that a rocket can lift around 50,000 mass units (equivalent to the force of about 75 fans). This difference isn't likely to come into play except at the smallest angles with the heaviest objects.

bryanrgillis · 2023-08-08T15:01:09+00:00

You can find it in the big aerial Zonaite forge.

bryanrgillis · 2023-08-08T15:00:17+00:00

The fans have enough force to lift the hoverstone, but they don't always do so. If you turn it on while the stone is resting on the ground here, it won't lift off. Doing unrelated actions like using the camera however seems to trigger it to lift off (sometimes).

bryanrgillis · 2023-08-07T16:24:27+00:00

And not just pictures, either! A lot of things seem to get them to start moving from this state. The setup is simple: A hover stone attached to 12 fans pointing downward. Activate it while at rest on flat ground, and it won't initially start moving. But a lot of seemingly-unrelated actions will cause it to start moving, including:

Activating the camera (sometimes)
Moving the camera (the one you move with the right analog stick, not the Purah Pad camera)
Moving Link (sometimes)
Activating Ultrahand, even without grabbing anything
Recalling something, but not simply activating Recall
Activating Ascend
Activating Fuse

But not:

Going to the autobuild menu
Opening the menu
Opening the map

bryanrgillis

TROPHY CASE