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There should be a place where society's depressed and downtrodden can pay money to fall down a seemingly endless dark pit while yelling "AHHHHHHHHHHH!" (or whatever they choose). Then they hit the cushion at the bottom and leave.
2-5 bucks a fall.
Lift Shaft Air Bag
http://www.halfbake...20Shaft_20Air_20Bag
Put them where they're needed most without doing any digging. [Monkfish, Feb 06 2002, last modified Oct 04 2004]
simpsons episode featuring the springfield mystery spot
ftp://ftp.smoovenet...on3/wonderbat10.mp3
[benfrost, Jan 05 2005]
[link]
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is this supposed to be fun or the experience that is the workplace .. I'm not paying either way. |
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But if there's a bottom, it's not really endless. Then I'd be more depressed than when I went in. |
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Maybe if it were looped and (very) elliptically revolved at great speed, you could simulate the sensation of endless falling. But probably not. MINT |
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Well, once you get teleportation worked out, you could have, say, a 2 story-deep dark pit, and just repeatedly teleport the client from the bottom to the top, for as long as desired. But once you get that worked out, there's no need for a 2-story pit. You can just have a short ledge in a dark room. That removes the chance of causing any real damage, too, reducing your liability. |
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You might be able to get the same sort of free-fall feeling by turning out the lights in one of those vertical wind chambers. This has the benefit of letting people "fall" endlessly until they get bored or their credit limit is reached. |
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If the depressed want an endless pit and if we have teleportation, just toss them in the teleporter and never reconstitute them. |
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Do those indoor-skydiving places count? Baggy suit, padded room, big fan. |
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//Do those indoor-skydiving places count? Baggy suit, padded room, big fan.// |
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. . . and those things are so fun. There's one in Las Vegas (or was) that I tried a few years ago. It was great. |
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Seen those on TV, and they do look like a lot of fun. DC-3 engine and propellor and lots of padding. Whee! |
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Just fire people into orbit. We could bring them down later, if their families paid us enough money. |
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I think 'stu is proposing a new way of holding up people for ransom. But in orbit, anybody can track the person and bring him down, leaving the snatcher in the lurch. |
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To prevent them from being brought down without your consent, you could fix 'em up with a remote self-destruct device. Perhaps a custard-bomb... |
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// You can just have a short ledge in a dark room. That removes the chance of causing any real damage, too, reducing your liability. // |
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From what I understand, which is quite probably flawed, not really. |
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If they fall, and are teleported back to the top and fall, and are teleported back etc, I'd think they'd continue accelerating until they hit terminal velocity. Even though the actual distance they're falling is only a matter of a foot or so, with nothing to brake them while they continue falling they'd effectively be moving as fast as falling down a drop as long as the time they've been 'looping' for. |
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The feeling of falling at terminal velocity must be almost the same as the feeling of hovering above one of those big fans I would have thought, assuming you wouldn't mind stabilising on your back while falling down a bottomless pit, which I wouldn't. |
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So I think Monkfish has got it absolutely right. Maybe it'd be a bit more realistic if you projected a fast moving tunnel wall onto the wall. In fact, I think it would actually be pretty realistic, especially if you took some drugs as well. |
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I would like to fall for about 5 hours, all the time going "AAAAaaaagghhh!!! -- breath -- AAAaagghhhhhh!!!! -- breath" etc and then have the fan switch off suddenly so that you hit the ground with a gentle thud, accompanied by the projections showing the bottom of course, and get up and walk away, looking surprised to be alive. I would pay 2 - 5 bucks for this. Yes, I would. |
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I do not think the fan and the fall are the same. With the fan, you are held up by air but your semicircular canals can detect gravity. Really it is the same as being held up by cables, but with air instead. In free fall you are weightless and your semicirculars cannot tell which way is down. |
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Now I know the potential problem of minced customer could easily be fixed by a safety net above the fan, but I just can't help thinking of all the people falling into the fan screaming for dear life as they are quickly and violently gooified. |
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I think "gooified" is my new favorite
word. |
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The prop tunnel is the same as freefall, not really zero gravity, you're supported by the rushing air and you feel your weight. Zero gravity you can simulate by taking the fastest plane you can get, diving a bit to speed up, then pulling up and inmediatly and carefully pitching down at 0 g. The faster the plane the longer it lasts. I like it but my passengers frequently barf their souls out. So perhaps, fitting the customer with an astronaut suit and vacuuming totally the almost endleless pit, you can really zero gravity fall. A nice steel plate at the bottom stops the customer safely. |
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The body can sense accelleration but not gravity. Once the body has reached terminal velocity in a free fall, it will not significantly accellerate any more (minor nit: terminal velocity is approached asymptotically, but never really reached). If the body maintains a constant pose, the experience of terminal-velocity free-fall should be identical to that of a vertical wind tunnel. |
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The differences would be: (1) real free fall would have a substantial period of weightlessness before approaching terminal velocity; and (2) in real free fall, changing one's pose will cause one to change one's terminal velocity, accellerating or decellerating as needed; I don't think this would happen the same way in the wind tunnels. |
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baked - simpsons episode at the springfield mystery spot ( see link for sound bite) |
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Ozzie Smith: How long does it take to see this thing? I'm kind of in a hurry |
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Mystery Spot Owner: Well it's hard to say my friend, once you go in, you may never come out |
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Ozzie Smith: Wow! One please!...... aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh! |
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(supercat): Yes, that's so. When you jump out the side door of a single prop small plane, you usually float somewhat on the prop wash and there's little feeling of weightless. When jumping out of the back ramp of a cargo plane, then you have a long moment untill you stabilize. Even longer when jumping from a static helicopter, I'm told. But soon you stabilize and starts the "flying". Same in a wind tunnel.
(World) : X-tremely loud |
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AHH ... I see the bottom! AHHHH! -- poof! --
Oops, that was a laser light composition image. |
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