I objected to the Mythbusters testing of the bronze-mirror-burns-ship test--they used multiple little mirrors instead of one big mirror. I don't have the link, but a large concave mirror has been proven to be able to focus sunlight into a Plasma Beam of Death.
The people trying to recreate historical things never give the ancients credit for brains, plus they never take into account the "I'm willing to risk serious injury to make this work" factor--or rather "I'm willing to have my slaves risk serious injury to make this work" factor. They always put in safety limiters that wreck the experiment.
The people trying to recreate historical things never give the ancients credit for brains, plus they never take into account the "I'm willing to risk serious injury to make this work" factor--or rather "I'm willing to have my slaves risk serious injury to make this work" factor.
There's a BBC series called Secrets of the Ancients / Secrets of Lost Empires that does exactly that. I wish I could remember if it ever aired in the States. (It's exactly the sort of thing that would normally be sold to Discovery to air on the History Channel, but I don't think that series was a co-prod, so it might have gone to PBS instead.)
Oh, and speaking of the Beeb, Planet Earth is out on DVD -- original BBC cut, original BBC narration. (And it's also available in Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, which if you have any way of playing them are definitely worth getting since the entire series was specially shot on HD -- there's no bought-in footage, and nothing's been upconverted.)
Oh, good. Now I can delete all my unwatched episodes. It's something I really want to have and watch, but I can't handle now.
Looks like the Making of Planet Earth is on Discovery tonight. I think I'll watch it, it looks quite interesting.
TAR: Funny that they're (more or less) in the US already. Also, Mirna uses those accents on purpose so people will understand her??? I can almost see it, if they way she spoke had any relationship to the way the people where they are speak.
Gah -- I hate her so much!
We love the Blue Planet BBC series. Will definitely check out Planet Earth.
TAR: Wow, out of the six people left, there are
five women! That's got to be a first.
They sincerely think Charla and Mirna are a class act? After all the stuff.
I want the Beauty queens to win, they've been so strong and competent, and for the most part for me they've been the least annoying of the remaining teams.
Yeah, the blondies have totally won me over.
I was just working myself up into a lather over Mirna's "It's life and death that we get to the base!" until I remembered about the camera crew, so it's less likely that anyone literally believes them. I hope.
