Green Baron

Hello and welcome ! By choosing another vessel, flag, .... as target. For experiments the mod "Waypoint Manager" is a good thing (wouldn't play without). Try it, helps a lot in finding alls those "Kerman's Hollow Alpha/Beta/Gamma" places :-) And i'm on the side of those who say Minmus is easier than Mun. The landers are lighter and more responsive, the launchers can be the same, and there is more time for corrections. That inclination thing is (almost) just a question of time ;-) When you have pilots that can hold retrograde (after first orbit and tracking station tier 2 if i remember right) then landing on one of Minmus flats is easy (if you don't run into the landing leg bug ...). When landing near/on a target just chase the retrograde marker towards the target marker, don't worry, after a few F5/F9-combinations you'll get it. Or take the offered help from the friendly collegue :-)

Hi guys, if there is already a thread about links i apologize for overseeing that. Just to share with you the sky i have to watch here ;-) 4 skydivers did a jump over the island summit (Roque de los muchachos) here a few days ago, celebrating the perseides. I saw the plane and the traces and thought something like that: http://www.redbull.com/es/es/adventure/stories/1331809905370/video-saltadores-wingsuit-estrellas-fugaces-perseidas-la-palma One site with beautiful timelapses from la palma and tenerife is this: http://www.elcielodecanarias.com/timelapses/ Stunning, isn't it ?

So i've read. Something tells me to hold back the hype :-) Well, a paper has been submitted by the group.

Yes, let's wait for an independent confirmation. Der Spiegel does everything for the sake of selling their colourful stuff and this thing hasn't been on any scientific page yet. It's too early to buy a ticket. And even if it's true: it'll be a rocky planet in the assumed habitable zone like mars and venus and we know there isn't the most of life on these two ... This is the only other source of the rumour: http://phys.org/news/2016-08-scientists-unveil-earth-like-planet.html I don't know how reliable it is ... Of course would it be fascinating ! Planets everywhere :-) Edit: the link i posted just cites the Spiegel, it's the same source. Editedit: Is this the Spiegel's source: https://palereddot.org ?

Reviews on gog are bad. I think i save the time ....

... deutscher Thread und wir fangen an über Rechtschreibung zu diskutieren. Geht's uns gut :-) Höhlenbewohner lösen bei mir Steinzeitarchäologe gleich ganz warme Gedanken aus. Nope, ich speicher keine Paßwörter (-worte ?) unverschlüsselt. Vermutlich hab' ich's nicht verstanden, aber *wozu* wäre es nicht gekommen ?

It's not only the thermosphere that protects the surface from heat, many layers play a role. There are many "thermostats"/control circuits in the different spheres and looking at a single one in a limited envorinment leads to false conclusions. Concerning carbon binding we have "thermostats" from short-term (days, like the one described) to long term (geologic scale like the building of reefs). In some carbon stays in the same reservoire, in others it switches from atmo- to hydro- to lithosphere. The thermosphere is very thin and the effects there might well be overruled by lower level effects. Furthermore these thermostats seem to work flexible and can take a certain amount of variability, but can snap into different states (don't work anymore or even reverse) when overstressed. Which is one of the great concerns of climatoloy, it'll be challenging to find out about conditions and constraints and side-effects. Knowledge is increasing :-)

That's only a summary. Check arxiv ... it's a 13 page pdf with a lot of text and figures. :-) For the lazy: you look here: https://arxiv.org/abs/1608.00706 PDF upper right corner

Venus ? I have no idea. Can't cool a planet from 750K down to 300K. Can't even cool my flat from 38°C outside to let's say 22° inside ... :-) Edit: seriously, it's relatively easy to describe a state of a complex system by observation, we don't have to consider all the details cause they are included in what we observe. Thinking that one can control such a system (climate) migth prove ... premature cause then all the details would matter, even the unknown.

I remember a laboratory for carbon-dating that allways dated what was expected (how convenient). They got a lot of stuff to date this way. Took a few years and a few redatations to realize that something was wrong with the datations of that laboratory. Imagine the mess when museums, universities, institutions had to browse through their stuff and sort out all those dates from that laboratory and rewrite publications based on those false dates.

That was a hundred years ago. Today's hoaxes are far more subtle .... and there are many more.

Here's the original for those who need a primary source. The paper is accepted but not yet reviewed or published. arxiv has it of course ... http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016GL069790/full Earth did find a way to keep it's surface temp. +/- 15degrees C through the whole history by feedback circles/regulators. Plate-tectonics play a role, all those spheres (bio/hydro/atmo/cryo/litho) offered sinks and valves for different elements/purposes. One of the things why i think that microbes are no big deal compared to the following evolution, but that's a different thread :-) Edit: much speculation in it, few facts. The idea of a habitable venus is old, the method of applying a numeric model is new. Much of the data is guessed.

He, that's a bat, a flying mammal, with fur, a mouth and teeth ... :-) That'll be a nice idea for @Spaceception, huge flying bats in low gravity. Flying was "invented" more than once. Beak, mouth and digestion: The beak-thing anabled a feature in birds: some of them can eat and digest carrion, partly decomposed organic matter. For mammals that's absolutely toxic, some can to a certain degree but i know of no mammal that relies on that (nope, Hyenas hunt).

I don't know, but i don't think so. The star itself filled only like 3 pixels +/- bloom. I have no idea what the resolution of the instruments (radio wave, ir, optical) is but i think it's way above a single star at 1500ly. There is a picture of the disc of Beetlejuice somewhere, i think it was interferometric. But that is *huge* (10 AU diameter ?) and nearer. The brightness-measurement of a single star is quite exact, i don't know how narrow ir or radio radiation measurements are. A piti that no astronomers are in here :-)

I take it it is a fantasy/fictional book ? ... cause evolution does not have a direction. Is has no goal like "we will have a language or a large brain". Evolution is the outcome of variation and selection. The "evolutionary advantage" is not a plan for the future but a momentary fitness, an advantage for an individual to have a slightly better chance than the competitors to bring its genes to the next generation, where the same rules apply. Furthermore there is no single feature without the rest of the organism. A large brain needs nutrition and oxygen, manipulative hands need a body with the necessary mechanical components to control it. A forearm and an elbow is a complicated mechanism. The bird's arm is simpler than that of a land living vertebrate, humerus (upper arm), ulna/radius(lower arm) and hand are nearly equal in length, there is only one strong finger. That cannot hold on to anything but can fly. Disadvantage: it's unflexible and breaks easily. The birds breast is formed to anchor those tasty flight-muscles. Take a look at a bird's skeleton and at a humans. You'll recognize the same basic program but different realizations. The human arm is much more flexible, more like that of a bear or a cat. It has five developed fingers (varies ;-)), the thumb is opposed, the forearm can rotate. That will never fly but can easily climb a tree or manipulate things. Birds nutrition is connected to the lifestyle: seeds and berrys, insects, some bigger ones small animals. The beak is quite suitable for that and it's light weighted (hollow). The beak has many variations, it can be long and pointed to pick insects out of the bark or a strong one to tear apart small animals. Many functions in a simple light weight tool to bring nutrition to the alimentary canal :-) The beak can't be changed to change the intestines as well and that is not easy, even for a process like evolution. A mammal mouth works different. Weight is not a problem and nutrition can be more diverse. So there are teeth and a strong jaw behind it to chew. The skull is massive compared to a birds skull to support the chewing muscles. And they have a long, winding and heavy canal that could be able to support a big brain. So as a conclusion: No, a bird will not evolve into something with a mouth, hands and a brain. It's program doesn't permit. Counter-quetion: could an ape evolve into a bird ? (of course not) But in a fictional world many things can happen of course :-)

Thanks. An interesting man, Robert Goddard, from what i read thanks to you .... convictions towards journalists .... :-)

The long term dimming is probably an artifact cause other stars dimmed as well . As has been stated before, the flickering could be explained through debris around the star. No 'artificial' emissions where detected from the star. Ok, it's 1500ly away ... But well, of course that will not keep people from speculating :-)

Enlightenment: (light is measured through time as well, radiation -> frequency). 200 years ago time was measured by counting from the beginning of the day on (culmination of a star). I'd say a more direct measurement is hardly possible. Today they are bit more subtle by counting the vibes of a caesium atom. This is a direct measurement. And once you have the time (as a base and before all) you get the rest: a distance for example since the last *time*. Speed is a derivative of time and distance, not the other way round. Of course you can rearrange the formula, when you have measured a distance and you know your speed you have a time. But that speed in the formula needed time before to be calculated. And it's the same with frequencies, acceleration, force, weight. They all depend on time, without time, no reality sotosay :-) Ok ? Show me how pls., eager to learn :-) Edit: i am not very friendly to the op by hijacking his thread ... i do apologize and kindly ask a mod to move this diskussion to an own thread if he/she thinks that should be done.

Call it dimension or not but few measurements are as accurate as the measurement of time. Time (s) is a base SI-unit. Other units depend on it. I don not understand what makes you claim that we have no way to measure time but i hope you'll enlighten me. Edit: yes calculate a speed or acceleration without time.

Of course it's real or there wouldn't be concurrency and succession. But why the assumption of the fourth spacial dimension. Is it observable, directly or indirectly in nature or what does it simplify / explain ? What is the difference of the proposed 4th dimension to for example the eleven dimensional m-theory, supergravity, whatever ... (not that i knew what i'm talking about here :-)) ? Just a mathematical playground or practical usefullness ? Layperson's questions, sorry ... Edit: oh, cancel the question, i just read your second post @RonnieThePotato.

But OP wrote that the fourth dimension is a spacial dimension. Time ist extra, sotosay. That is (edit: i was referring to @Majorjim!'s interpretation of the 4th dimension) somehow contradictory for a poor non-physicist :-) It can be measured quite accurately, no ? Aren't velocity and distance derived from the measurement of time ?

Mind-boggling. Some have these extra math-windings in the cortex and some don't. I don't. I'll be content with 4 dimensions (+time).

Small ? Welcome :-) Yeah, it crashes. Yeah, life can be irritating. My last off world-lander slided down the hill into the shades and died of empty batteries. That was 2 months ago. Waiting for a new release, new life, new irritations possibilities.

From an archaeologist: Since humankind wins resources (since the neolithic) from the environment it does so without respect to the following generations. In contrary, the following generations always become competitors once they were and are able to do the same. Individuals might think different, but larger groups have rather simple dynamics, they exploited until there is nothing left and then move on or until interfering with the interest of other groups. Written history since the iron age is full of examples (*). [/archaeologist] The garbage patch has grown in just a few decades to subcontinental size (reported, haven't seen it). And i have seen the garbage in the Atlantic ocean and Mediterranean sea, it's getting more every year and the growth rate accelerates. It is out of question that microbes or mechanical means could fight that since hundreds of millions of residents throw things in. Since so many societies are careless with their remnants even if that means death to others (or to oneself) by pollution, by infection or by poisoned water/food chain i have the feeling that things will get much worse. (*) Edit: Earth overshoot day is today (8th of august 2016). It was the 13th of august last year. Anyone need more proof ?

Only thing i'd change is the operating system .... (if i had the powder for the rest of course) Have fun :-) Do you run the two disks as a raid 1 / mirror for performance ?