GoSlash27

No idea what phone you chose, and it's immaterial to me. If you like it, more power to ya Different people have different needs, and this is why a wide array of choices is a *good* thing. What stuck out for me was the "5 or 6 days battery life" thing. Folks seem to have forgotten that this was the norm not too long ago, and believe you me you'll miss that when it's gone! Nowadays 2 days is a lot of charge time and while capabilities have gone through the roof... the phones lack the charge necessary to actually do all that stuff. I say all that to say this: If your battery is removable, then it's upgradeable. If you upgrade your battery, you will regain the freedom you've become accustomed to and your phone will be able to function to it's full potential. Just puttin' that out there www.zerolemon.com Best, -Slashy

Same here. I have no use for a tablet because my phone does everything I would use a tablet for. Anything bigger than that... that's what my desktop is for. Best, -Slashy

Roughly a buck a gig, and I'm with you. I have no use for "cloud storage" and prefer to keep my media on my phone. It's great to be able to swap micro SDs and access my entire audio and video media libraries.

Actually, I'm inclined to give Apple a pass on this. The big gripe about them these last 2 years has been their insistence on using ridiculous little screens that suck for typing, browsing, and watching video. I'm glad they finally got away from that. -Slashy

That's true. Could be *worse* than 12 hours... /not a selling point

I forgot about that! And when they mentioned it at the unveiling, I actually did a spit-take. A watch that can't go even as long as 1/2 day without dying isn't very useful, particularly when you can only charge it at home (or wherever you keep your charger). When Samsung unveiled this watch (last year) they said it could go 1 day, and that wasn't enough to get me to buy in. Apple's had a year since then to improve on it, and they've succeeded in doing absolutely nothing new with it except cutting the battery life in half. No thanks! Best, -Slashy

Wow, that's bold! Don't you worry about breaking or scratching it? The thought of chucking an unprotected smartphone in my pocket and walking around makes my skin crawl! O_o Best, -Slashy

I'm probably never going to understand the whole "apple fanboi" thing, so I'll table that discussion. Another thing that's puzzled me is something that seems to apply to all platforms and is usually the first thing mentioned in reviews: "Premium look and feel". Can somebody who sees this as a priority please enlighten me as to why? I mean... certainly I can understand if a phone is just poorly made with buttons that don't always work and parts that fall off, but I'm talking about little stuff like "phone A is .2mm thinner, while phone B has burnished aluminum bezel". Are there people out there who buy a premium smartphone and then don't put it in a protective case with a screen protector so they can enjoy the "premium look and feel"?? Honestly curious, -Slashy

*SMH* I've done a lot of side-by-side comparison between Siri and the others, and it wasn't noticeably better than the other offerings back in the day. These days, you know who's got better voice control than Siri? Pretty much everybody. Again, this is gloating over 2 year old tech. The game has moved on since then.

Smart watches are "gimmicky" by nature. There are at least a dozen watches out there that do everything your "new" apple watch does and they've been available (and cheaper) for years now. The only difference is Apple has finally gotten around to supporting one; *their* same ol' watch that only works with *their* phone. This ain't exactly a game changer. People aren't going to flock to the Apple store merely because they finally got around to making a proprietary version of the old Sony SmartWatch 2. I already scratch my head over the whole "fanboi" attitude, like Apple is your favorite football team or sumpthin'. But it's downright bizarre to actually *gloat* over the release of a 2 year old watch design as if it's something new or different. Best, -Slashy

Hate to burst your bubble, but Samsung has had that watch for years. Their new watch completely blows it out of the water because: It's not even a competition here. Built-in 3G and it's own SIM card means that it's a true wearable smart phone. It can do everything a smart phone can do all by itself and can network with your actual phone even when you leave it at home or in your car. Apple's a generation behind on this tech. Best, -Slashy

I've never understood the whole "apple vs samsung fanboi" thing. Unless you happen to be a stockholder or employee, it's a pretty silly thing to bicker about or take pride in. I've looked over all the options and decided that the best phone *for my needs* is the Galaxy. Specifically the Note 4, and here's why: 1) the battery can be replaced (or upgraded if you wish). My current Galaxy S3 has a 7,200 mAH battery in it. I don't have to worry about running out of juice. 2) expandable micro SD memory. I have 32G on board and another 64G expansion. This is important for me because I use my phone as a portable media player more than anything else and I have a lot of media. Speaking of media... 3) Android plays mp3s and WMV. I don't want to convert all my stuff to apple-specific formats and limit where I can swap stuff. And also... 4) Bigger,brighter, cleaner, higher resolution screens. Apple is just now catching up to my current phone, and my current phone is old hat. The Note 4 has a quad HD 5.7" super Amoled display with a pixel density of over 500 pixels per inch. Great for movies and of course surfing. 5) The processor. quad core 2.7 GHz with 3G of RAM. Doesn't bog down when multitasking. Which reminds me... 6) Multitasking. The Galaxy phones are very good at this. Almost as easy as doing it on a desktop. Now... this is not to say that the Galaxy phones are "better" than iPhones. Merely that they have what *I* want in a cell phone. Or at least more of it than anything else out there. Best, -Slashy

Calculus isn't really necessary for what you need to do here. Pretty much Algebra II will suffice. The only part that you need to know (and algebra II won't necessarily tell you) is how to reverse an equation containing a logarithm. ln(x) is algebraically the same as any other value when shuffling it around in an equation, but if you wish to solve for x, then raise "e" to the power of ln(x) to yield x. It works like this: dV=blah*ln(x) dV/blah=blah*ln(x)/blah dV/blah=ln(x) e^(dV/blah)=e^[ln(x)] e^(dV/blah)=x Otherwise... basic physics and a working understanding of trig will see you through. Best, -Slashy

Having a hard time exploring other planets? Perhaps the problem is your underwear... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YTYvji3gXU -Slashy

You could also cheat and make an "infiniglider" UAV. Same effect as a photoelectric prop without using mods. Just add small control surfaces as propulsion units. The #1 most important thing to know backwards and forwards is the rocket equation. If you have that down and can manipulate it to solve for any variable, there's pretty much nothing you can't do in this game. Best, -Slashy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2VuosSk9zU Same mass, lower inertia due to a reduced mass distribution. Best, -Slashy

From a cosmological/ chemical standpoint, life cannot exist just anywhere. You need multiple stellar life cycles in order to produce elements suitable for life, yet not so much activity that the radiation breaks chemical bonds. Your galactic "neighborhood" can't be too old or too new. This limits the... I'll call it "habitable" region of a given galaxy to a certain band. Within our arm of our galaxy, the only places likely to support life would be very close to us on a cosmic scale. I think it's just a matter of time until we find it. Best, -Slashy

I'm completely hooked on this series! One of the most amazing series on TV, regardless of genre. Not exactly out of the mainstream, tho'. Best, -Slashy

"delta-v" means "change in velocity". It doesn't specify how the change in velocity is applied, so it could be either... or neither. It's like posing the question "you're in an elevator on the 20th floor and the elevator moves 2 floors"; not enough info given to determine whether it ends up higher, lower, or on the same floor. Best, -Slashy

These are both true in real life, but they don't apply to KSP. Best, -Slashy

Reaction wheels essentially give you "free" thrust other than the added mass of carrying them, so they do not negatively impact efficiency in KSP beyond that. Surprisingly, control surfaces are in the same category. In theory, they *should* cost a drag penalty for correcting a torque moment, but in KSP physics they will actually add free thrust due to the infiniglider effect. Best, -Slashy

Re. Exploits: Is infinigliding illegal? I'm working on an Eve SSTO and it relies on infinigliding and ion engines. I'm pretty sure my current prototype can pull off SSTO to Eeloo and back from Kerbin (stock parts and physics). Should I give it a go, or would it be disqualified? Best, -Slashy

Update: I think this one's very close to being Eve SSTO capable. After launching from KSC, it's still got nearly half it's fuel. I've also added monopropellant and reaction thrusters for docking. I'll give it an Eve test flight later in the week. -Slashy

I'm pretty sure this one would be impossible. The problem is that you still need (roughly) .3 t/w in order to clear the 33KM "wall" ion gliders have to overcome, even with infiniglide. Extrapolating from my manned SSTO ion infiniglider, lifting that payload into orbit would require roughly: -100 engines -170 xenon tanks -1600 solar panels -2000 batteries and -1000 small control surfaces. That's not counting all the cubic octagonal struts, bracing, and assorted other goodies necessary to transform it from a pile of parts into an actual aircraft. While this is technically possible, the parts count to pull it off is simply too high to be feasible. Best, -Slashy

Hydropos, There is simply no way to create an equation that can answer this question. It has interdependent functions. velocity is a function of drag, which is a function of velocity. Likewise, drag is also a function of atmospheric density, which is a function of altitude, which is a function of time/acceleration, which is a function of... drag. Even very simple problems of this sort are unsolvable by mathematical analysis. You have to approximate an optimal solution through repeated simulation with small adjustments to input variables. Thankfully, we have an outstanding simulation of KSP physics at our disposal; KSP itself. We also have a large distributed processor to run the simulation (all the players) and we've come up with a pretty good approximation of the ideal solution. Best, -Slashy