Things in Obsoletely Fabulous

[on:]

Post things you noticed in the new ep here. I did find that the water wheel robot went a long time with out water compared to how fast it ran out first when she was introduced. 

[Reply #1 on:]

Yeah, and the ship runs on dark matter.  What was that gasoline doing?

[Reply #2 on:]

Wooden Bender?
I like many people could go on for quite a while on this, but I'll just say that for one, wood does not make very good electronical devices that are essential for Bender to operate, such as a hard drive, fuel cells, fuses, transistors, etc....

It's also important to note that the core of the episode was just a trance that Bender was in while the upgrade was being performed on him.  So, anything that his imagination would have come up with is just that:  Figments of his imagination.  But it's still fun to point out the wierd stuff.   

[Reply #3 on:]

 

Originally posted by canned eggs:
Yeah, and the ship runs on dark matter.  What was that gasoline doing?

Maybe the dark matter gets coverted to a liquid state at some point. What I don't get is why Hermes said that the fuel was expensive. Don't they use Nibbler's poop?

[Reply #4 on:]

I'm going out on a limb here but mabye the fuel was not used to run the ship itself (that runs on dark matter), but is used to run various applinces on the ship.

[Reply #5 on:]

Posted originally in the General Discussion thread, but posted here too for futher discussion:

 

Originally posted by Akito01:
If a robot is sentient, then what is the process by which you modify it's behaviour?

By teaching it a lesson! Teaching it acceptance through experience - exactly what happened. My guess is that Bender was hooked up to the port that we saw in "Hell is Other Robots" and "Love and Rocket" and a vision was injected into him. The vision was customized (hence the "everyone experiences the upgrade in a different way" comment) to Bender's personality type and the experience he would learn the best from.
Also, that explains the fact that Amy's hair grew back for the next episode in production order. It doesn't explain how "Bend Her" was in 3004 and "Obsoletely Fabulous" was in 3003 (made clear by signs in each). They did it to confuse us!

[Reply #6 on:]

 

Originally posted by SQFreak:
It doesn't explain how "Bend Her" was in 3004 and "Obsoletely Fabulous" was in 3003 (made clear by signs in each). They did it to confuse us!

Maybe in the future the olympic games run like how new cars are introduced... like a new car that comes out in '03 is actually the '04 model *shrugs* anything could happen in the future 

[Reply #7 on:]

In "Parasites Lost" the ship was running on gasoline wasn't it?
Maybe the gasoline runs one thing and the doodie runs something else, like in Back to the Future the time machine needed gasoline and plutonium.

But newhook_1 already said that so,ba.

[Reply #8 on:]

 

Originally posted by canned eggs:
Yeah, and the ship runs on dark matter.  What was that gasoline doing?

tiny details like this makes the show lesser and lesser futuristic......if lesser is a word ofcoarse

[Reply #9 on:]

 

Originally posted by newhook_1:
I'm going out on a limb here but mabye the fuel was not used to run the ship itself (that runs on dark matter), but is used to run various applinces on the ship.

I like this concept. The Dark Matter runs the main engines and the Liquid Fuel is for an APU (Auxilary Power Unit).

[Reply #10 on:]

 

Originally posted by newhook_1:
Post things you noticed in the new ep here. I did find that the water wheel robot went a long time with out water compared to how fast it ran out first when she was introduced. 

yeah but i mean......it would get really annoying if she ran out of water every five seconds like she did when introduced....plus it wouldnt be funny anymore, they would wear it out

what happened to fatbot's voice??? its all weird and different now!!

[Reply #11 on:]

 

Originally posted by Killbot Bot Jnr:
In "Parasites Lost" the ship was running on gasoline wasn't it?

ooh, strike!
there were 3 pumps there, Dark Matter, Regular Matter and Whassa Matta.
Leela was filling up on Dark Matter via a pump.

[Reply #12 on:]

In "Love & Rocket" Bender were pouring alcohol into an auxilliary tank. Probably for some generator or whatnot. That's probably what we saw leaking out.

In other news: Bender apparently have taught himself how to get up when he's on his back.

[Reply #13 on:]

No, he was slightly on his side... and it was all a dream.

[Reply #14 on:]

Perhaps the stuff that caught on fire was Coke syrup... 

[Reply #15 on:]

despite how much i dislike Coke, i doubt they'd put Coke in a container marked GASOLINE

[Reply #16 on:]

@JDHannan: I'd doubt they'd do that too, but considering the container was marked FUEL it could have been Coke syrup.

 

Originally posted by Finglonger:
Perhaps the stuff that caught on fire was coke syrup...

If that's true I'm never going into my theaters pop room again... There's so much syrup in there it's go up in flames in seconds, wait so would the rest of the building.       

[Reply #17 on:]

Did anyone catch R2D2 at the robot trade show, when Bender is at the scratching post?

[Reply #18 on:]

 

Originally posted by canned eggs:
Did anyone catch R2D2 at the robot trade show, when Bender is at the scratching post?

Yes, and it looked like there was an R5D4 next to it too.

[Reply #19 on:]

Once again an episode where Bender says "Neat!" and take a photo.
I've already noticed this in those eps:

1- 308 - That's Lobstertainment
During the visit of the town, a plane crashes by the fault of Fox's projectors.

2- 410 - A Leela of Her Own
When he meets real Hank Aaron head in the jar.

3- 504 - A Taste of Freedom
When the oppressors show the "Mobile Oppression Palace".

4- 505 - Kif gets Knocked up a Notch
When Kif gives birth.

And it's always with the same camera!
 
If someone knows others...

[Reply #20 on:]

I remember the commentary on "A Fishful of Dollars" talking about having a wooden robot. In that one of the scenes cut out, Fry was supposed to get luxury robot out of wood.

I was thinking about that when I saw this Obsoletely episode. I wonder wooden Bender was the drawing they based it on.

[Reply #21 on:]

 

Originally posted by canned eggs:
Yeah, and the ship runs on dark matter.  What was that gasoline doing?

Maybe I missed something, but:
1) I thought it was liquid dark matter: Dark matter burns, that's why the PE ship has two furnaces in the engine room.
2) Perhaps gasoline, or some other chemical fuel is used to burn dark matter in the engines?
And,
3) Does it seem crazy to anyone else to power an intergalactic starship by combustion? You know, burning? That requires oxygen, from the air; which, on a starship, is in very short supply. Or am I missing the point?
 

[Reply #22 on:]

2 things
1.) who knows what they've found to burn things with
2.) Didn't they say gasoline was extinct or something?  in 'Bendin in the Wind' when fry wanted to run his van?

[Reply #23 on:]

Yeah, and we've seen Nibbler's dookies.  They're pretty solid, dark matter is hugely dense, so it pretty much can't exist in a liquid state, presumably. 

Most spaceships nowadays are powered by combustion, rockets just bring their own oxygen, in, say, liquid form.

One possibility that has been mentioned is that the unstable liquid fuel the ship carries around is some auxiliary fuel for non-engine-related systems, maybe.

[Reply #24 on:]

You basically need two things to make combustion: an oxidizing agent and a reducing agent. In modern rockets it's usually liquid oxygene and hydrazine (N2H4) respectively.

The rocket engines doesn't power anything but themselves, though. You need an auxilary power for other systems, so I'm with canned eggs here. The leaking fuel could for example be for a generator or fuel cell that produces electricity for the ship. An obvious choice of fuel would then be methanol since it's dirt-cheap and can be converted into hydrogen with relative ease.

[Reply #25 on:]

But Methanol would burn completely invisibly. It may have been ethanol, or the whale oil used to power the VW MiniBus Fry found in "Bendin' in the Wind" (3ACV13)
(or do I have methanol and ethanol reversed?)

[Reply #26 on:]

I think you're right about methanol burning invisibly.  And remember, Hermes said it was "expensive," not "dirt-cheap."  Ethanol is expensive, especially if it's not denatured, but I think it burns pretty clear too.  I like the whale oil idea.  That's it for sure.

Edit:  But robots are ethanol-powered, and Bender never bothers to buy denatured alcohol, so maybe the tax & excise situation has improved in the future...

[Reply #27 on:]

But Bender can run off food Ethanol. as well as posably being able to draw hydrocarbon chains out of Mineral Oil.

[Reply #28 on:]

@ JDHannon: Regardless, combustion still needs fuel & oxidizer.
@Mercapto: Modern rockets are propelled by Newton's Third Law of motion (I think). You know: "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."
The action is produced by the rocket exhaust exploding out the tailpipe. The explosion is produced by (everybody say it together)... combustion.
Point of clarification, the Space shuttle is powered by hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide. The missions to the moon were fueled by liquid hydrogen (LH2) and liquid oxygen (LOx). (IIRC)
Good point about APU's.

Damn! Am I a nerd, or what?

[Reply #29 on:]

@canned eggs: ethanol is just as cheap as methanol (about $0.40/liter). You're right that they both burn with a clear flame, although various impurities could change the flame colour.

If you want a fuel that looks a bit more like the stuff that leaked out of the ship, it could be rape oil. It's being used today as a diesel alternative, because you can use it in diesel engines with only a small modification to the engine. It's also a long chain hydrocarbon so the flames would be more visible than those of ethanol/methanol. It isn't very expensive either, but Hermes is probably just being a bureaucrat.

And then again it could just be whale oil. 

[Reply #30 on:]

I wonder if the wooden Bender design was based on the one that they were planning on using in the episode "Fishful of Dollars".

[Reply #31 on:]

Nah Deluxor was peobably much less "hand made" in apperance. He was to be a super luxury all wood robot. I'm thinking polished laquer.

[Reply #32 on:]

 

Originally posted by Mercapto:
ethanol is just as cheap as methanol (about $0.40/liter).

SDA is cheap because it's undrinkable, there's benzene or methyl alcohol in it.  But Bender is powered by martinis and malt liquor, which are heavily, heavily taxed (in every country I know of, anyway).  My suggestion was that maybe this has changed in the future since drinkable alcohol has become so functional as robot fuel.  Anyway, it's irrelevant, I've decided it was whale oil.

[Reply #33 on:]

 

Originally posted by SpaceCase:
3) Does it seem crazy to anyone else to power an intergalactic starship by combustion? You know, burning? That requires oxygen, from the air; which, on a starship, is in very short supply. Or am I missing the point?
   

No, no. In the future, it's incredibly easy to create oxygen out of thin vaccuum. When you see them walking around without helmets, that's because their clothes are generating tons of oxygen (most of which just boils off into space/dissolves into the atmosphere, but enough gets into their respiratory tracts to keep them alive and comfortable). That's also how Bender continues to burn alcohol while floating through space.

So, with a super-dense fuel source, plus a nearly-free oxidizer, why not use combustion rather than something tricky like fusion?

But who says the combustion is being used to power rocket propulsion? Their coal-style combustion engine is powering some kind of multi-dimensional-physics-based technobabble-engine; the flames coming out the back of the ship are just to vent heat.

[Reply #34 on:]

 

Originally posted by payn:
 No, no. In the future, it's incredibly easy to create oxygen out of thin vaccuum. When you see them walking around without helmets, that's because their clothes are generating tons of oxygen (most of which just boils off into space/dissolves into the atmosphere, but enough gets into their respiratory tracts to keep them alive and comfortable) That's also how Bender continues to burn alcohol while floating through space.

Fine. In what episode is this explained, or alluded to?

 

So, with a super-dense fuel source, plus a nearly-free oxidizer, why not use combustion rather than something tricky like fusion?

How can I answer this without sounding arrogant, condescending, or giving some boring, 3-hour long college physics lecture... ?
1)  Reaction propulsion is inefficient.
1a) Only half the energy goes into pushing the ship. The other half goes into pushing the reaction mass.
1b) According to some NASA study, there isn't enough reaction mass in the universe to push the Space Shuttle to the nearest star in less than a gazillion years.
2)  Energy density: Combustion just doesn't produce enough energy per pound to get the job done. Nuclear power shows great promise for interplanetary missions; and antimatter reactors might be used for interstellar missions, though they'd be hideously complex.
In a thousand years, they might be using gravity amplifiers. Who knows?

But it ain't gonna' be combustion!

 

But who says the combustion is being used to power rocket propulsion? Their coal-style combustion engine is powering some kind of multi-dimensional-physics-based technobabble-engine; the flames coming out the back of the ship are just to vent heat.

Possibly: The ship does have a 'gravity pump' and we don't have a clue as to how much energy it needs.
Still, combustion seems unlikely.

<Scotty>
Bu' Capt'n, I Kinna change the laws o'physics!
</Scotty>
 

[Reply #35 on:]

 

Originally posted by SpaceCase:
Fine. In what episode is this explained, or alluded to?

5acv01, S6E01, "The Wizards Come Clean."

 

How can I answer this without sounding arrogant, condescending, or giving some boring, 3-hour long college physics lecture... ?

Go ahead. I can handle my physics. I even majored in it for a semester or so.

 

1) Reaction propulsion is inefficient.
1a) Only half the energy goes into pushing the ship. The other half goes into pushing the reaction mass.
1b) According to some NASA study, there isn't enough reaction mass in the universe to push the Space Shuttle to the nearest star in less than a gazillion years.
2) Energy density: Combustion just doesn't produce enough energy per pound to get the job done. Nuclear power shows great promise for interplanetary missions; and antimatter reactors might be used for interstellar missions, though they'd be hideously complex.

But you're missing one important fact: You don't need to push the reaction mass!

1a) Dark matter is orders of magnitude heavier than any ordinary matter, and yet Fry and Bender can (with a little effort) shovel it.* So you're getting, say, 20 million tons of fuel in 20 pounds' worth of inertial mass. Problem solved.

1b) What kind of study could show this? On the other hand, a simple calculation could do it, without the need to get those messy experimental physicists and all their engineers and grad students involved. And this is only close to the truth if you use chemical propulsion. With antimatter annihilation, you only need a few pounds to get to Alpha Centauri in a lifetime (twice as much if you want to stop, four times as much if you want to get back home). With fusion, it takes significantly more, even more with fission, and with chemical reactions you'd have to convert a decent-sized planet to fuel. Still not all the matter in the universe.

2) Combustion of ordinary matter is a definite problem (see the last paragraph to understand why). But if you're getting orders of magnitude more bang for the buck thanks to the odd powers of dark matter, it may be good enough. And burning stuff is a lot less messy than fissioning or fusing stuff.

As for nuclear power in space, why bother with controlled fission reactors?** Just set off a big uncontrolled fusion explosion behind you and let it push you forward. It's easy, it's safe, it's relatively cheap, and it means we can do something constructive with that huge arsenal of h-bombs we've built.***

The easiest thing to do (once you're clear of the atmosphere) is set off fusion bombs behind your ship. It's safe, it's easy, and it's relatively cheap.

Or build a giant laser in orbit and aim it at a reactive plate on the back of your shuttle, and you can accelerate as much as necessary without any reaction fuel (chemical, nuclear, or antimatter). Although this won't work for the first ship going to Alpha Centauri (unless aliens have been nice enough to build a deceleration laser there for us), it'll work for the second.

I know these both sound wacky, but most serious propulsion scientists who don't work for NASA support one or both.

 

<Scotty>
Bu' Capt'n, I Kinna change the laws o'physics!
</Scotty>

What kind of scientist are you? Anything is possible if you believe it is.

* This just shifts the explanation to, "How does dark matter pull this off?" but nonetheless, it is a clearly observable attribute of dark matter on Futurama. Here's an explanation for you. Inertial mass is caused by either the gravitational attraction of all other matter in the universe--Mach's Principle--or by an as-yet-undiscovered force--Higgs' Principle. Either way, dark matter, just like all characters dressed all in black, obviously has no principles. Plus, the wizards are scared o' the goofa man. And is this really any sillier than dilithium--especially the way they tried to explain it in the novelizations?

** The answer is mainly "because the bigwigs in charge of NASA's funding are busy golfing with the bigwigs in the nuclear power industry," and partly, "because the geeks at NASA are playing Half-Life with the power-plant engineers."

*** I'm not saying that keeping them aimed at Russia just in case they become Communist again, rebuild their army overnight, convince most of the Warsaw Pact to rejoin, and invade Germany with overwhelming force isn't a constructive use....

[Reply #36 on:]

Im going to have to say this now:
Ion Engine.

And the Darkmatter system doen't work by propulsion.

[Reply #37 on:]

Tch, tch, tch, the "vent heat" line read like humor to me.  I think he's yanking your chain 

[Reply #38 on:]

Well, not entirely, Vintage Dave. Everything I said is not only just barely plausible (assuming dark matter as it's presented on the show, which is incredibly unlikely), and certainly fits with what we do know from the show.

We see Fry and Bender shoveling it into a flame-belching furnace. If this isn't combustion, what is it? And we see flames coming out the back of the ship, which certainly looks like rocket propulsion. So, this is chemical-propelled rocket propulsion. And we see Fry and Bender shoveling millions of tons of dark matter as if it weighed (and inertially massed) a few dozen pounds--which explains why it's efficient enough to work. (Raising the speed of light helps, too.)

I can't imagine anything more plausible that this fitting with what we know from the show. That doesn't mean that I think the writers have thought out exactly the system I suggested. It's more likely that they haven't bothered to think out a completely consistent set of physics and engineering principles before designing the ship. So, the fact that the most plausible explanation is pretty ridiculous is to be expected.

And I'm glad they've done things this way. The pseudo-science-babble explanations of Star Trek are often quite funny, but not in the way we expect from Futurama.

All that being said, I don't think the best avenue for futuristic aerospace research is looking for material that acts like the dark matter on Futurama. Just finish the space station, retool the space shuttle into a vehicle for carrying ships from the station to a little farther out in space, then use h-bombs the rest of the way.

P.S., An ion drive is still a propulsion system. Whether you take advantage of Newton's Third Law with a jet of flame from chemical combustion or a jet of ions from an electrical generator, it's still propulsion.

If you really want an alternative to propulsion, you can look at warp drives, relativistic or quantum wormhole creation or manipulation, exploiting quantum nonlocality (tunneling the whole ship). And you could still have the flames to vent heat, or to give you the little push you need (most of these systems still require a little propulsion, they just let you move through more space than you're actually paying for), or just to look cool.

For a real fun future technology, increase the friction coefficient of the interstellar vaccuum and use wheels to drive to the stars!

[Reply #39 on:]

Whoa, man!  I didn't bargain on 35 lines of closely-worded defense/rebuttal.  It can read as humor: smart, dense humor that dances on the edge between plausible and not.  Especially when delivered with a straight face - that's the best way to get 'em    Oh oh, now you've got me paranoid.

Checking my mouth for hooks,
Vintage Dave