cubinator

"From this distant vantage point the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known." -- Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994

My best guess would be that the saying originated sometime in the early 1900s. *after a couple of quick Google searches* "By the 1930s, pre-sliced bread was fully commercialized, and standardization was reinforced by other inventions that required uniform slices, such as toasters. The common phrase, "the best thing since sliced bread," as a way of hyping a new product or invention may have come into use based on an advertising slogan for Wonder Bread, the first commercial manufacturer of pre-wrapped, pre-sliced bread." (http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/02/how-the-phrase-the-best-thing-since-sliced-bread-originated/252674/) CALLED ITI!!! "It was first sold in 1921 in the United States, and it later became one of the first to be soldpre-sliced, being marketed like this nationwide in 1930. This led to the popular phrase "the greatest thing since sliced bread", upholding a paragon of culinary innovation." (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonder_Bread) Before that company advertised it's sliced bread, I don't think there was any other version of the catchphrase floating around. This was it's first appearance.

I exist, therefore nothing does not exist. "No perspective" as you describe it is simply not being alive. Imagine the time before you were conceived. Imagine the time billions of years before our sun even existed. That is "no perspective" because you could not perceive things in that time. Because the universe exists, there is no such thing as "nothing." Maybe the universe exists because there was simply no way not to. Maybe it's because something just happened. That something just happens to be our universe. We may be completely incapable as a species to understand this due to the physical limitations of the human brain, just as a mayfly has no way of learning about things like continental drift because they have not enough time for their tiny brains to learn it. It's possible that only a brain with infinite cognitive power is capable of understanding why anything ever came to be. But we mere mortals are capable of lots of other cool stuff like sliced bread and KSP!

I like Minmus because of it's contrast between completely flat regions, steep hills, and bumpy terrain. It's low gravity and small size make it a fun place to explore, and it takes the least delta-V to land and return from out of everywhere else.

Yeah, the ship would have taken way too long to do the burn using "conventional" propulsion systems, so they blew the airlock instead. It had enough to slow down enough and get in reasonable range, but they still had to reel him in because it would be impossible for the pod to magically dock by itself.

You know you're a nerd when the most prominent objects on your desk (besides computer hardware) are a microscope, a complete 1x1x1-7x7x7 cube tower, a Saturn V model (with 3 stages!), a Space Shuttle model, and a shelf full of different 3x3x3 cubes.

That's probably what will happen. The first small missions will probably use non-rotating inflatables. The wide spinning ship is probably 2100s material.

For airplanes. The building is a hamster cage...

Have you ever been walking, or moving in some way and then you're not sure if you're moving through the world or if the world is moving under you? What about when you're in a car? When you close the doors, are the windows just projections, the car isn't actually moving, just feels like it is like that one Star Wars ride at Disneyland? YOU CAN'T TELL THE DIFFERENCE! What if it's all just a really convincing simulation? What if I'm not real? What is "real?" Why can I ask these questions? Time to think about kittens again...

Word game

A wide, cylindrical ship might also not need ullage motors if the fuel is stuck to the outside wall of the tank. One could have feeds to the engines placed on the side angled "downwards". These could feed fuel to the engines in a rather simple manner once the ship was set spinning. I think the best design for a Mars ship would either be a cylindrical design that spins the whole way, or a non-spinning ship with a large inflatable hab where astronauts can run around in circles to exercise. This option might be a slightly simpler and cheaper one because the different parts do not have to go through heavy stresses from the gyroscopic action. However, the astronauts would still have to spend a lot of time exercising, which detracts from time they could spend doing SCIENCE!!! The fully-spinning option also has it's drawbacks, in that it would either have to de-spin for docking/undocking or have a way to dock while spinning, in which case the astronauts will need a way to blast No Time For Caution while doing so. And also lots of design problems because it's hard to maneuver while spinning. It also would likely precess, being essentially a giant gyroscope, so that would need to be accounted for when maneuvering, or if the ship has continuous thrust.

When you start hearing KSP music...in your sleep.

That lamp it's going to have to get pretty creative... The object to your left loses all momentum relative to the Sun, sending it flying at ~30 km/s retrograde.

Why did George Mallory cross the road? Because it's there.

CHAPTER II: GETTING OUT OF THIS STUPID HOLE So, as shown in the previous chapter, the rover was safely placed on the Mun's surface after much hassle. However, it landed in a rather heavily cratered region, from which it had to get out of. Furthermore, it kept having this issue where it wouldn't get hardly any traction when going downhill, but did just fine uphill. I managed to fix this by tweaking the brake parameters, I guess. I also disabled the back wheels' motors because they didn't really add to the speed and they kept making it do wheelies when going uphill. After that was fixed, I ran into a terrain glitch where I fell straight through the Mun and came out the other side at over 50 km/s. I changed my terrain detail setting from 'low' to 'high' and the problem was fixed, as well as making things a little prettier. By the time all those problems had been taken care of, I had reached a downhill slope at the edge of a particularly big, old crater. I had some fun catching some air (vacuum? There's definitely no air here) and even doing a few totally intentional flips, at the cost of only an RTG. I still have three left, and the batteries aren't drained when I run everything, including lights so I should be ok. I finally managed to get out of that cratered region though! It took me about an hour to go 32 km in in-game time. This means it should take me 40 hours to get around the Mun (right? I think that math was correct...), not including the countless quickloads I'll certainly have to do.

Philosophical version: I am the interactions between the neurons in my brain. I am not the brain itself, nor the body which feeds it, nor the atoms from which the body is made. I merely use the body to interact with the universe, and the brain as a framework for my sentience. If you were to recreate my brain exactly as it is now, it would have my memories, my knowledge, my habits, my goals, dreams, everything. You would not be able to tell it apart from me, but it is not me because I can't be in two places at the same time(ignores quantum mechanics for once). If you made those same interactions on paper, or with rocks, it would still be the same as me, but I could look at it and still say "I am me. That version is a different me." As long as my neurons are interacting, I exist. One day, the brain which holds me will stop working, and it will wither away. Then I will no longer exist, and never will exist again. I am the only me which will ever exist, and I only get a little while so I'm going to do something that people will remember me for after I die. Simple version: The original boat is the pile of planks on the floor, because all you did was discreetly disassemble one boat and assemble another at the same time and place. The new boat is a completely different boat that is just in the same place as the old boat. The in-between parts with the new and old planks is just two different partly-assembled boats connected to each other.

I landed a rover on the Mun with much hassle (see sig)

@silversliver Nice! Makes me want to play with that "Edit Planet" menu now!

MUN ELCANO RUN This is an attempt of mine to go around the Mun by ground. Summary of past events (bolded numeral indicated which chapter is summarized): CHAPTER I: TO DRIVE AROUND THE MUN, ONE NEEDS TO BRING A CAR TO THE MUN The rover was designed to be simple, durable, reliable, and stable. It was tested around KSC and works pretty well, at least in Kerbin's high gravity. I expect it to be able to keep going day and night, and it has proven itself able to go up some pretty steep hills (namely, the side edge of the end of the runway). The only drawback to it is that it's simply awful to transport. I had to build a really awkward rocket to get it to the Mun, and it took a really long time to get it just right. It didn't quite have enough delta-V, it always decided to RUD when separated from the rover, and the rover's engines were pointed towards the crew module, which cancelled out the thrust because PHYSICS. Here is the rocket as I first designed it: And here is the rocket which actually made it: Landing: In the process of getting a rover to the Mun in working order, Jeb was stranded. This is not a problem, as I'll just drive the functional rover to his location and pick him up. The rover is currently landed on the Mun, I will post pics of it later when I start the driving.

All I know is the planet is capable of rock slides and has breathable air.

that "researches" the effect of low gravity on trampolines. "Wheee!" "What? This is totally science! Wooo!" The building is a rest stop...

I couldn't tell which thing it was because it was annihilated as soon as I looked at it and the explosion that followed was of greater concern to me. The object in front of you after spinning around with your eyes closed disappears, leaving a vacuum in it's place and creating a shock wave.

Yeah, I'm lucky to get 20 m/s with all my visual indulgences...

No Power

Hell Kraken