Ice Twisters
I’m watching this scientific train wreck of a movie called Ice Twisters, about a government-funded cloud-seeding experiment gone wrong. The EPG gives it three out of four stars, a rating clearly not awarded, in any part, based on scientific accuracy.
Here’s the worst bit of science so far. The research team developed a Predator-like drone that flies a swarm formation, creating rain clouds (the drones are called SERIFs, but I don’t remember the exact acronym). The first test run of the swarm of 2000 drones is initially successful, causing the expected rain. But soon, violent, brief storms begin to form in the surrounding areas, accompanied by dramatic drops in temperature, and icy tornadoes. Anyone caught a tornado is instantly frozen. And that’s not the bad science. Read on.
The team brings in Charlie, a former scientist (now a science calamity fiction author) to “think outside the box”. The principal investigator is Joanne. Other scientists include Damon, Gary, and Phil. Here’s the dialogue from the scene, with the worst parts in italics.
Damon: “You, uh, heard thunder.”
Charlie: “No, no, it wasn’t thunder, it was something else. These SERIFs, you say they make the clouds, then seed them with silver iodide? How, exactly, are they doing this?”
(Cut to CG shot of the drones doing their thing in the sky.)
Joanne: “They use tiny wind turbines to supply power to their propulsion systems, so there’s no limit to how long they can stay airborne.
Once up, each one has a revolutionary moisture evaporator designed to condense liquid nitrogen out of the upper atmosphere.”
Charlie: “Upper atmosphere? I thought these were in the troposphere.”
Joanne: “They are, right at the ceiling, just below the tropopause.”
(Charlie walks over to a large diagram of the atmosphere, gestures toward it.)
Charlie: “Your SERIFs are here, taking any moisture in the atmosphere, and processing it into liquid nitrogen, right? Making this area extremely dry at first, right? Correct me if I’m wrong.”
Joanne: “No, you’re right.”
Charlie: “All right. There’s a subatomic reaction happening. It’s drawing moisture from the upper atmosphere. The effect of this process is creating…vertical weather.”
What kills me is that it’s not necessary to create such bullshit. Movies are better when they’re more believable, and “science” movies like this have to be on their best behavior when creating their disasters.
Anyway, enough procrastinating. Project time!
The Nissan LEAF Finally Arrived
On Friday, May 20, 2011, I finally took delivery of the Nissan LEAF I had on order for so long. I reserved it in April of 2010, and ordered it September 23, 2010.
Overall, I quite like it. My only other car is a 1995 Acura Integra GS-R that I bought new. It was a basic car, but well engineered, and very fun to drive.
The LEAF is a huge step up in luxury. Much quieter, about a thousand more airbags, computerized, cool. It has a range of about 100 miles, which is fine for my daily commute. It’s smooth, and has excellent fit and finish. The traction motor control is excellent. It has a really cool backup camera that draws lines predicting where you’ll go based on steering angle input. It has an excellent Bluetooth hands-free system, and it can play music directly off my iPhone via A2DP.
The computer systems leave a lot to be desired, though. I don’t think they’re generally any worse than those of other cars, but now that I own one, I see lots of places where they really failed to create a great product. I’ll write an article about that later.