A Blue Episode

As always, an episode synopsis will be found over at Scott’s Polite Dissent

Network 101

Those shapeshifter memory discs didn’t look like they were arranged in a daisy chain wiring pattern.  In a daisy chain, each device is hooked to the next device in series, like links in a chain.  Those discs looked more like they were wired in a centralized topology.

Product Placement

Well Thanks to Fringe, we now know that Olivia’s Ford can read text messages aloud to you.  At this point, if they have any chance of helping get Fringe renewed for another season, I’ll put up with the blatant product placements.

Counterbalance

Well, I think I know how they achieved counterbalance.  The boots are weighted.

I think Peter means something more like counter-buoyancy or counter-weight.  The thieves weren’t balancing against an opposing weight on a pivot or working with a center of gravity, they were countering the mystery buoyancy.

Let My Cameron Go

The bad guy in this episode was played by Alan Ruck, probably best known for his portrayal of Cameron Frye in Ferris Beuller’s Day Off.  He also played the captain of the Enterprise B in the horrible movie Star Trek: Generations, but I won’t hold that against him.

Dead Weight

What was the point of testing the body for lighter than air gases like helium?  In a non Fringified universe, for buoyancy, the buoyant force on an object is going to be equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the object, meaning that you would have to displace enough volume of air with helium, such that the mass of the air displaced has to be greater than the mass of the body to be lifted + the mass of the lifting gas.  There’s not nearly enough volume in a human body to achieve buoyancy by traditional lifting gas no matter how much (or how little) helium or hydrogen it contains.

The World’s Heaviest Element

Osmium is the world’s densest element, but it is not really correct to refer to it as the heaviest element.  When you refer to the weight of an element, you are usually referring to it’s atomic mass, as in the combined number of protons and neutrons in the nucleus or it’s atomic weight, which is basically the average atomic mass of a sample of the element.   At this time, the world’s heaviest element would be Ununoctium.  The world’s heaviest stable element is Lead, although Bismuth-209 has a half life so long (nine orders of magnitude greater than the current age of the universe) that it can be considered stable for all practical purposes.

Sure, Shoot Me Up!

Would you let some stranger you met in a gymnasium shoot you up with some mystery juice that he told you could cure your incurable condition?  I’d be a little worried that I’d wake up in an alley several hours later with my pants around my ankles and my wallet missing.

Ice Hot, Doctor, Ice Hot!

If extremely cold temperatures melt the Osmium, is the boiling point below absolute zero, and therefore unachievable?  Is there a limit to how cold you can get it by applying unlimited heat, or is it possible to get it colder than absolute zero by supplying enough heat?

Elemental Mistake

I think the writers got their elements mixed up. Lutetium (9.84 g/cm^3) is rare, but is not even as dense as lead (11.34 g/cm^3), let alone Osmium (22.59 g/cm^3), and it does not come from meteorites.  It think the writers were thinking of Iridium (22.56 g/cm^3), which is very nearly as dense as Osmium, is also rare, and is found in meteorites.  In fact, it is the relative abundance of iridium in the K-T boundary of 65 million years ago that provide support for the theory that an impact  of a comet or asteroid lead to the extinction of the dinosaurs.

I Am Your Density

Density does not equal strength.  Gold is very dense (19.3 g/cm^3) and also very soft.  It would make horrible armor protection.  Why would you work with “two of the densest elements on earth” when trying to make a material to protect aircraft from ground fire?  Strength to weight ratio is the key for aircraft, not density.  Titanium (4.51 g/cm^3) is used in the A-10 to protect the pilot from enemy fire .

(A Blue Episode)

As always, an episode synopsis can be found over at Scott’s Polite Dissent.

Sometimes It’s OK To Be a Dick

The title of this episode is a reference to the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Phillip K. Dick upon which the movie Blade Runner was based, which is arguably the greatest science fiction movie of all time.

The Writers Seem to Be Telegraphing It In For Us Lately

Peter to Fauxlivia:

“We draw our moral lines in the sand, and unless you can put yourself in another man’s shoes, I don’t think you can really judge their actions.”

Ignoring the fact that Peter is mixing genders between masculine and plural/gender neutral indefinite singular here (“another man’s shoes…judge his actions” or “another person’s shoes…judge their actions”), the entire scene seemed poorly contrived to supply us with the dialog to strongly hint that Peter will eventually come to some sort of acceptance of what Walter did.  Either that or they just want us to think Peter is an oblivious hypocrite.

Quote of the Show

“Don’t you see that the brain is consciousness?  The mind is God.”

Mad As a Hatter

Walter’s explanation for the origins of the term “mad hatter” is one of the theories behind the origins of the term, but the actual etymology is undetermined.

Did He At Least Have To Sign For Them?

Apparently Homeland Security briefings are not “Classified” or “Eyes Only” but are instead for “Official Use Only”.

Don’t Tell Lies That Can Easily Be Uncovered

When Newton calls Fauxlivia on her cell phone, she tells Peter that it is her sister Rachel calling.  Rachel visits semi-regularly, and she and Peter occasionally speak together without Olivia present.  It seems that lie could easily be accidentally exposed several different ways.  A Better lie would have been for her to say it was her cell phone company trying to sell her extra services.  I would have bought it as my cell phone company does that almost every month.

Clsd Craptioning for the hrg !pred

I’d just like to point out for everyone that doesn’t use closed captioning (I use it for Fringe to make it easier to write down quotes), that tonight’s captions appear to have been prepared by a partially deaf, arthritic person with two fingers missing on each hand on a computer with several keys missing.  Thanks, Captionmax!

Unanswered Question:

Did Newton kill the shapeshifter cop’s family after killing him?

Do They Have to Make the Product Placement So Obvious?

It sure seemed natural for the camera to pan down to and center on the Taurus badge on the trunk of Fauxlivia’s car (or is it more proper to call it Olivia’s car that Fauxlivia was driving?) before it took off in pursuit of Newton, didn’t it?  It looked like a shot right out a Ford brochure.

Protected Storage

I suppose locating the data storage unit at the base of the spine could offer it better protection from damage than locating it in the brain would.  By the way, it’s only a theory (really just a speculation) that the stegosaurus had a second brain in the hip region of its spinal cord.

Who’s In Charge of Designing the Security Protocols, anyway?

So, you have a high value, dangerous shape shifter that can somehow move between parallel universes in your custody, and you don’t have him under constant, 24 hour video and audio surveillance?  WTF?

Something Just Occurred to Me…

While watching the previews  for next week’s episode, the following thought occurred to me:  In the other universe, are they going to secretly dye Olivia’s hair in her sleep every once in a while?  Sooner or later, her blond roots are going to show, and that would likely trigger a breakdown of the imprinting of the Fauxlivia personality.  (I suppose one could also ask if the carpet matches the drapes, but that would be a little crude.)  Perhaps they have a method of permanently altering hair color in the other universe.