dexterward on 9/7/2011 at 15:18
(
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1107/AtlantisReflection_ingalls900.jpg)
Don`t worry, I won`t expand on my original, weak-as-hell parallel about how quality gaming and space exploration are doomed. Just wanted to salute all these crazy folks - from all camps, Red or Righteous, no matter - that tried to realize that ultimate dream of Outer Space.
What now...is Mr.Branson all we have left really? :/
demagogue on 9/7/2011 at 15:30
It's hard not to think for as awash as we are in technological gizmotry, real inspiration seems to have been calmly sailing over the horizon for a while now.
Two things I think would kick human culture in the ass for the good and wake it up would be (1) finding simple life in our solar system, on one moon of a gas giant or another; (2) a computer AI that is credibly capable of having a human conversation, even if it's at a 3-year-old's level.
YcatX on 9/7/2011 at 16:34
How about if Rockstar buys my gaming idea?... lol... My Quantum Alchemy tarot deck did survive my HD crash. Lucky I had all 78 card image proofs on my old site. If you have no clue on what I'm talking about, that's quite alright, just turn off the light and go back to sleep... :ebil:
PeeperStorm on 9/7/2011 at 21:38
Quote Posted by dexterward
Don`t worry, I won`t expand on my original, weak-as-hell parallel about how quality gaming and space exploration are doomed.
Yet another victim of marketing-speak who uses the word "quality" as if it were an adjective.
Briareos H on 9/7/2011 at 22:01
It isn't? Dictionaries all over the place seem to agree with him.
Martin Karne on 10/7/2011 at 06:08
Well NASA was left without manned missions right after the moon landing expeditions for a few years, from 1976-1980, then came the shuttles, and now they have to wait for new private industry space vehicles.
Phatose on 10/7/2011 at 07:35
Wright Flyer first flew in 1903. The First commercial airline flight in the US was in 1914, 11 years later. Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space in 1961. 50 years later, there is no real commercial space travel.
Capitalism doesn't let markets go to waste for 50 years. If it was practical, it would exist. "Commercial Space Flight" is still pretty much a myth sold by elected officials trying to cut NASA's budget.
frozenman on 10/7/2011 at 10:46
In regards to entropy- I think the little iPod white ear buds are the most entropic objects one deals with on a day to day basis. You spend 1 minute untangling the fuckers, but if you set them down, or if they get nudged or pocketed in the wrong way, suddenly they're tangled and knotted eight times over.
dexterward on 10/7/2011 at 12:29
Quote Posted by PeeperStorm
Yet another victim of marketing-speak who uses the word "quality" as if it were an adjective.
Technically, you did miss the target sir, but I admit that "quality gaming" is a lame phrase.Should`ve been more careful...but then, eh, sod it - when in Rome, speak as the...and as a news junkie I am using lots of "quality" sites like N4G. Impossible to keep your vocab squeaky clean.
(Other phrase I hate and yet sometimes it pops out is "good practice". Ugh.)
As for marketing, I happen to share views with (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo) this fellow.
Agree with demagogue, if something like life outside this planet was found, it would shake up the current status quo a bit and perhaps redirected the resources towards space again. As it is, private corps are the ones taking over, which would be ok if they were controlled by some international body. Hehe :/
In case you fancy waving at the shuttle/ISS/Hubble here`s (
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13877321) a cute little tracker
(it`s not only iPod, as the Cable Principle states, "any two or more cables left next to each other will become infuriatingly entangled")
demagogue on 10/7/2011 at 13:49
If I see things in orbit, I want to say nothing feels better, in the field of armchair astronautomy, than taking off in a Delta glider and rendezvousing with the ISS in (
http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/) Orbiter all by yourself.
I never really understood what an orbit was actually about until I started with that sim. I mean I got the general "it's perpetually falling but fast enough it falls around the earth" part, but not how that translated into the actual shape of an orbit, or how to transition from one orbit to another and rendezvous with something, and what's the periapsis and apoapsis and inclination and all that. (Also it didn't occurr to me that a baseball could technically be in "orbit" just a foot above the ground if it were going fast enough, and the only reason you don't see things in the atmosphere in orbit is just because of wind resistance. Seems obvious now.)
