John Crichton

It's good...but a lot better with chilly. LINDT (best chocolate brand in the world) has amazing dark chocolate with chilly. Also good: Melt it and dip fruit in it...chocolate fondue.

Would be unplayable given the size of Kerbal "maps". Compare the average level size of a CryEngine map to what KSP has. You could run an i7 overclocked at 4.5gh, 16gb of ram and a geforce 780 and still lag considerably.

Depends on what's included in these programs. Often NASA initiatives won't work for the private industry because those ventures aren't profitable...and they're not meant to be. They lay the ground work for future (commercial) exploration. Sputnik for example wasn't exactly a "profitable venture", yet it laid the ground work for sooooo many future satellite launches. A company only cares about one thing, profits. So if it isn't profitable, they won't do it. That's where government steps in. It fosters progress that otherwise couldn't be funded. Progress in fields that then allow private companies to step in once the very unprofitable first exploration took place. Still think they could cut a HUGE chunk of military spending and move it over to NASA. Hell, pick any cost center of NASA and you'll realize it's probably more useful than more war spending.

The BBC covered it extensively, so did Swiss news. In fact, the Swiss had an entire hour long program about it just recently. I generally agree though, the mass media are ****e...especially comedy networks like Fox "News". Can't bring myself to watch a network that calls global warming a "hoax" or one that invites people as panelist despite them believing the earth is 6k years old.

Well, last I checked humans need processing power and electricity as well. And who says they need to be dependent on humans for that? What stops a sentient machine from simply building its own stuff? Before you say they need raw materials...yes...that's true. However, that would align their own needs with ours once again, which is likely to cause conflict. I'm not being negative, I'm simply realistic. Although it doesn't help that I was a charity dinner last week where a woman from Rwanda told her war story. Her house was surrounded by another tribe, they killed her sons and husband, tried to **** her child (which ran away), then had over 35 men **** her (she stopped counting at 35!!!) before they hit her over the head with a machete. She barely survived. Why did they do that? Because she was of a different tribe. Now you might say this is an isolated incident, but just look how immigrants are often treated. Or how a large percentage in the US distrusts (understatement!) Muslims in general although the vast (!!) majority of them have never done anything bad. In the past other "new groups" were treated the same way every single time. Native Americans, Asians during colonization, and so on. And no, sadly it doesn't seem we have learned from those atrocities. The same thing is happening again and again, although sometimes in different forms. Look at the latest Canadian trade agreement with Costa Rica for example. In that agreement, they made sure that Canadian companies do not have to follow normal Costa Rican worker rights and environmental laws. It's another form of colonization where once again people who are "different" are taken advantage of. Power always flows to the top, and yes, it's often abused no matter what form of government. I named dictatorships as an example, there's plenty of others I'm afraid I'm less positive because I don't think we necessarily learn from historic mistakes (quickly enough). An example are those wars in the Middle East. They only benefit defense contractors, everyone else loses. Taxpayers lose because wars are expensive, citizens lose because it doesn't make 'em safer, the local population suffers casualties and in the end no one is off better than before. So you'd assume they realise this...but just look at the amount of people who cheered on those war efforts! Yes, we learn of course as we go on, but that learning process seems awfully slow to me. PS: Funny how Kerbal's forum and the one on EVE ONLINE are the only game forums where you have conversations like that...I guess "space people" like to argue about "deep" subjects

Humans will react like they do every time something new comes along...they freak out and will try to take advantage of "it". At least at first. I don't think the human race is read for another sentient being. We can barely live among ourselves without killing eachother off. If I was an alien or some AI, I'd stay the hell away unless humans become more "mature". I'd love to clean house by removing dictatorships and forcing humanity to take better care of their planet...but that would turn me into a dictator. In the long run, dictatorships don't exactly have a good chance of survival, so as an alien race or AI I wouldn't go there As for rights for AIs...it took DECADES for black people to have equal rights in the US (and in some respects they still aren't on the same level as whites!). So how can I assume it would be any different with AIs? Unless those AIs are more powerful than humans, I expect them to be the next slave race...at least for a few decades. As for the AIs motivations...who knows? They don't aren't going to be driven by a lot of the stuff that drives us (***, etc.), so speculating about their motivations is pretty futile in my opinion. Same goes for alien beings. Unless you know their motives, it's hard to predict their actions.

For reading books, the Kindle is better and it's not even close. Try reading a book for 3hrs using an iPad screen...and then do the same using a Kindle. iPads cause more eyestrain. So it comes down to what you'll be using your pad for the most. If it's reading books, go with a Kindle. If it's a mix of light reading, browsing the web and watching Youtube videos, pick an iPad. I got a Kindle for reading and an Android tablet for everything else.

As of last night, he's stranded in high Kerbal orbit. He took a joy-ride with an SSTO plane and wouldn't listen to the space centre's low fuel warnings. People on the ground heard him scream "MMMMMOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAARRRRR SPEEEEEEED!!!" about 2min before his fuel ran out. Will save him eventually, but I am tempted to leave him in orbit for a year so he learns his lesson.

Thanks for the advice Launch plans for my interplanetary ship just got delayed...got home from the pub and promptly got Jeb stranded in orbit. Told him to come home but he wouldn't listen and just floored the gas pedal until he ran out of fuel. I think he was in need of some space...

Your craft on its own has been to the Mun a few times only, just started playing 2 weeks ago. Here's what I'll have on my "world ship that is small enough not to lag everything to a standstill": 1) Your ship & lander 2) Science & habitat module 3) Several satellites that will free up docking ports as I spread them out...despite satellites being pretty useless so far. 4) Drive for the entire thing...nuke powered for efficiency. Using a 3 orange tank setup. Got another drive to ship my main drive to wherever it needs to go if I run out of fuel. 5) Heavy lander (to start a base on moons/planets). Will probably move one of these ships to every planet and leave it there as a mobile station. Tempted to add Kethane stuff in a later stage so I won't have to ship fuel back and forth all the time. Your ship and the drive are already up in LKO (including a spare drive that will trail the main ship once it leaves). The science and habitat modules and satellites almost made it up to LKO last night but I ran to the shop for beer once it almost made it...which was a mistake as I got home to a crash. No Kerbals were hurt though, I only ship 'em up using your plane. In fact, I'm thinking about fitting outside seats to your plane so I can carry more than just 1 Kerbal into space at once. Bill & Bob strapped to the wings, pretty sure they'll love it Will post pics before it leaves LKO. Need to pass by the Mun before heading to another planet though, Jeb's been stuck there ever since my first Mun mission. Was fooling around with your lander and kind of forgot to keep an eye on fuel. He's still smiling though, probably has a **** stash hidden in his little ship (no food though!). EDIT: One suggestion though...I wouldn't use a single button to toggle all intakes at once. Splitting them up allows for a bit more efficiency in terms of drag I think.

This x1000! Compounding is awesome. Yes, it's a slow start, but before you know it, you're making billions every month with very little work. Just have a trading alt or two sit in Jita and/or Rens/Amarr.

Started playing EVE in 2004...and I still have 2 characters. Best...game...EVER!! No other game kept me going for so long, not even close. Find a good corp and it's awesome. Also, learn how to TRADE in that game and all your money problems are solved. You can even pay for your monthly subscription with in-game money. Once you know how to (station) trade, it's super easy to make money. I think I spend a grand total of 1-2hrs per month making ISK...which pays for my 2 subscriptions and more ships than I can possibly lose. Still talking about EVE political events from 2006 with other players, it's almost like real life politics. You can be a trader, a pirate, a normal grunt, a miner, someone who uses probes to find hidden spots, a PVE'er...and my favorite, a "pirate-hunting trader". Nowadays I mostly play solo because I can't put in an insane amount of hours anymore, but I still team up with a few old mates (who are also mostly veterans from before 2005). Imo the MMORPG with the best PVP. I like that it's harsh and that you can really lose stuff. You don't just respawn like in kiddie-WoW for example. PS: In case there's other oldtimers around, I was in Celestial Horizon (CLS) during the Xetic days...and then joined Outbreak after in-game politics got "too real". In a solo corp now, but I tend to team up with people from various corps/alliances. We have some funny gangs going sometimes, half of us would be enemies if we followed our alliance/corp orders. Fun to run a gang of mixed blues and reds...always confuses targets when we jump into a system

Reminds me of a great quote from Religulous (awesome movie!):

First ship I downloaded after the Munshine rockets...it rocks! I took the liberty of modifying it a bit. Added a docking port, so now I can link it with my main fuel depot & drive in orbit. Pretty cool because now I have a SSTO to land on planets and take off again, a lander for moons and a large drive allowing me to go pretty much anywhere I want. Got mobile fuel depots to recharge the drive if I run out while away from home. Just need to add a heavy science lander, rover and escape pod and I'm good to go. The escape return pod is key, too many of my Kerbals ended up stranded in the past (they keep on smiling anyway though, I don't understand that...but it makes me feel less guilty)...and rescue missions can be a pain.

The main problem? The fact that I'm now sitting at my desk at work thinking about whether to fit gigantors to my craft or not. Also doesn't help that I'm thinking about turbojet vs Rapier during meetings

Education!! And then education again!! The only reason all the other issues don't get tackled like they should is due to a lack of education. If more people had a good education (and genuine interest/curiosity), they would see through all the political BS and focus on the issues at hand. If education was better, more people would cringe at: 1) "Evolution is only a theory." 2) "Global warming is just a hoax." 3) "Global warming is real, but humans aren't the key cause." 4) etc. I also put a LOT of blame on the mass media. They changed from being NEWS outlets holding politicians accountable to mere propaganda networks who care most about the message than facts. PS: First post...and it's a rant, lol.