FleshJeb

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence." --Hanlon's Razor

Not fixed. It's a fallacy to assume that the status quo is de facto correct (or incorrect, for that matter). It's also incorrect to assume that the status quo is unchanging--One of the tactics of the "extremist" is to shift the definition of "normal," and so the opinions of reflexive moderate are always at the mercy of the tides of popular opinion: So you're left being forced to examine the context of that extremism--The what, why, and how of what the extremist wants. It's hard work; it requires thought and reflection; it requires considering whether you may have been wrong. Since this was written in 1963, and it's required reading in many American schools, I trust it's not too "political." See page 4, middle 3 paragraphs. https://www.csuchico.edu/iege/_assets/documents/susi-letter-from-birmingham-jail.pdf

ARTEMIS RISK ASSESSMENT - Industry Experts Panel and Discussion

Really excellent interview, clarifies a lot of things.

Careful, they put Peter Kropotkin in prison for that kind of naughty talk.

You could have levels of increasingly smaller administrative districts to deal with more localized issues, and provide some levels of redundancy and scaling in case of major events. They might even have different means and methods of approaching similar issues, resulting in a broad base of practical knowledge and experience. Interestingly, that framework could be applied to any complex system, such as power generation. Of course, it's not perfectly efficient, but it's much more robust and resistant to disruption than any one-size-fits-all solution. Someone mentioned wind turbine blades in landfills. I happen to know that they're now using a lot of fiber in concrete mixes, far in excess of all the blades that could ever be recycled. So I went looking: https://www.specifyconcrete.org/blog/wind-turbine-blade-recycling-for-the-concrete-industry https://www.energy.gov/eere/wind/articles/carbon-rivers-makes-wind-turbine-blade-recycling-and-upcycling-reality-support https://www.energy.gov/eere/wind/articles/carbon-rivers-makes-wind-turbine-blade-recycling-and-upcycling-reality-support https://www.lmwindpower.com/en/sustainability/blade-recycling https://www.nrel.gov/news/press/2024/nrel-advances-method-for-recyclable-wind-turbine-blades.html I know the shallow FUD-wanking really entertains some people and makes them feel special, but some of us are not that bored with life and are solutions-oriented. EDIT: LOL, I just found out why this thread exists: https://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/ President Trump’s energy policies will end leasing to massive wind farms that degrade our natural landscapes and fail to serve American energy consumers. Cowardly hoes. Some of the critiques were quite good, thank you for those. On the topic of fossil fuel companies diversifying: Their capabilities and skillsets are perfect for Enhanced Geothermal / Deep-Well Geothermal, but I suppose that's currently less profitable than pure extraction. https://geysers.com/untapped (I'm slightly biased because I knew one of the lead engineers on the EGS pilot project, and I can see the steam plumes from my house.)

@SunlitZelkova My responses include: CLEARLY, they've solved the lead paint problem that plagued earlier generations. OK, OK, we'll let you sit at the adults' table for the holidays. Jesus kid, can I (a GenX) adopt you? Damn fine argument, sir. I'm deducting 0.5 style points for apologizing for butting in. My sixth grade teacher once told me, "Never apologize for your work." As I've gotten older, it's become a deeper and more layered sentiment than I initially thought.

My understanding is that while Kerbiloid is Russian(or former Soviet) by birth, he's lived in Portugal for some time. I've always assumed (without concrete evidence) that he takes robust advantage of Portugal's very liberal drug laws. So, I'm hoping he's just in rehab or taking a break or something. He and I have many substantial disagreements, but he has an utterly unique sense of humor, is far from stupid, cultured, and when the heat of argument dies down, he's been gracious. That sets him apart from the vast majority of people. We've both been here about 11 years, and I've never spoken to him in private, but I'd miss him terribly if he were gone. As opposed to some of these folks, who I wouldn't liquid on if they were on fire.

@kerbiloidYou'd better not leave me alone with these boorish cretins.

The ones featuring my craft, of course. On a more serious note: Everything by Cupcake Landers: https://www.youtube.com/@CupcakesLanders/videos The state of KSP cinema and gameplay has come a LONG way, but this was utterly mind-blowing 10 years ago: And this one because sometimes I like to blow out my speakers with a TASTY metal riff:

It's not politics, it's water resource engineering. Anyway, I'm given to understand that the thinnest amount of plausible deniability is now sufficient to justify doing exactly what one wants to do, so I'm just going along with the zeitgeist. Perhaps some people will reflect on the fact that it's a rotten way to go about doing things and re-evaluate some of their behaviors and opinions. Anyway, onto technical matters and an actual good-faith question I had: Starship is being considered for a lot of roles. At what points does it make sense to specialize a sub-variant to the degree that it doesn't share much commonality with the base design? A parallel might be the F-35B vs the A and C variants. There's been a lot of critique that trying to overgeneralize the design to accommodate the VTOL really harmed the other two variants. For instance, is there merit to going with a nearly clean-sheet design for a tanker variant, that's never going to leave space again, versus something that's re-entry capable? I thought ULA's ACES system made a lot of sense, and I'd expect "Tanker Starship" to have many of the same features or solutions. I'm sure folks are well along to figuring this out, I'm just unaware.

https://www.google.com/search?q=vasimr+site%3Aforum.kerbalspaceprogram.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirk_and_Uhura's_kiss

The Captain, being well-qualified for her position, prudently chooses to dodge. Because what kind of gorram idiot would be willing to take ANY kind of impact when they don't have inertial dampeners, and the Engineering Department has not provided the specifications for the elasticity of the shields. Of note, the AIM-26A (250 t TNT equivalent) was retired in 1972, and the AIR-2 Genie (1.5 kt) in 1985. Now I know sci-fi is terrible about using realistic masses, but 350 tons?!? That's less than a 747 airliner. This is 328 tons and has a crew of 28. It's teeny: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone-class_patrol_ship

I would ordinarily be in agreement, but it's just a harmless bit of fun, and you can always poke it with your adblocker. I cut all the annoying bits out of every website I use--It's a very peaceful browsing experience. EDIT: The element zapper for uBlock Origin didn't seem to persist on refresh, so here's the custom filter: ||kerbal-forum-uploads.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/monthly_2025_01/Forumcommunity4.png.819cf608c689ba778662bafcc648c8bd.png$image