Codraroll

At some point, you'll be better off using sub-munitions. Cluster bombs. If you want a lot of force in a small area, use a shaped charge. If you want to spread the force over a large area, multiple dispersed explosions yields better results than one big one, due to the square-cube-law.

Yeah, but YouTube is where a lot of people will be looking. That makes them prime targets for scammers. I'm gonna bet that the stream Gargamel watched included a lot of talk about cryptocurrency investment and not a whole lot about rockets.

My understanding is that the Deep Space Network services Deep Space (in the "anything beyond the Earth and the Moon" definition of the term), but in itself it's located conveniently close. Similar to how the Foreign Secretary isn't a foreign national.

Apples were definitely a thing in Scandinavia even back then. Might have been a bit more exotic and fancy than today, but unheard of. But potatoes were indeed "marketed" to farmers as "Earth apples" back when they were introduced.

There are definitely a lot of names out there that sound innocuous in their native language, but turn out to be a nasty word or even a slur in foreign languages. After all, a rule of thumb of emytology is that the shortest words in a language have been around for a long time, there are very many languages, and there are only so many sounds to combine short words from, so by necessity, some of the words that describe names in one language describe ... other things in other languages. Examples of common Norwegian names that sound bad in English include: Bård (pronounced like "bored") Simen (pronounced like "semen") Odd (and due to the quirks of language, it is fully possible to be named Odd Person) Line (not a nasty word, but foreigners will pronounce it like in English, which is nowhere close to the Norwegian pronounciation) Asmund (names that begin with the prefix "ass-" tend not to work well overseas) Additionally, due to wildly differing dialects in Norway, there are names that used to work well in one part of the country but turned out rather ... unlucky in others. The name "Bergsvend", which literally translates to "mining apprentice", was common around the Røros area, but less common nowadays as it is pronounced exactly like "Poop friend" in the Oslo dialect. Likewise, the name "Analius" (I really wonder if that will make it through the forum censorship) dropped drastically in usage once people began to realise what those first four letters mean. I also knew a girl of Vietnamese descent who had her last name changed from "Do" to "Då" (same pronounciation), because "Do" means "toilet" in Norwegian.

So Svetlana is the 1920's Russia version of Daenerys? That name has always sunded a bit funny in Norwegian, because "Svett" means "Sweaty", so anybody introducing themselves as "Svetlana" would immediately bring to mind a perspirating woman named Lana.

That's a little on the nose, isn't it?

My guess is that Private Division still holds the rights to the KSP franchise, and it is through them that KSP sales money makes its way to the T2 coffers. Continuing to "support" the game might just mean that they retain the brand rights under Private Division, and use the set-up already established by them to sell the game through Steam. That T2 lets Private Division exist as a "shell company" whose only purpose is the logistical aspects of owning and selling the Kerbal Space Program games. That they keep the same name and logo on the legal documents so they don't have to change anything in that respect. And likewise, suing in the name of Private Division if somebody tries to create and market a "Kerbal Spice Program". That way, the studio isn't technically closed, it just continues to exist purely for managing the intellectual property.

Judging by the expression on his face, he's not thinking family-friendly words as he reads that document. That's the look of a man who knows he's about to become really unpopular with the people upstairs, or downstairs, or possibly both. The word "downsizing" probably figures a lot in his mental notes at that moment.

I don't think you'd necessarily have to invent new ones, because existing ones could be fun too. Imagine handball in low G, for instance. On the Moon, the Magnus effect is almost as influential to the trajectory of the ball as gravity, so giant leaps with crazy curveballs would be possible. It'd have to require a huge stadium, though, but it should be doable compared to baseball or golf.

Or the first illustration in this one, which satirizes Kennedy's statement a bit more directly.

I maintain my position that this was one of the largest failures of KSP2: it had very little new stuff that would give players a reason to buy it. Sure, there were other issues under the hood as well. Oh so many issues. But it's generally not a concern to players what goes on under the hood - at least when they are considering whether to buy the game. Above the hood, what was offered was "KSP1, but neater graphics - which means you need a beefier computer for it." The hook was missing. Heck, I still wonder why they chose to feature the same exact solar system as the first game, even when they were going for a feature copy. Fans have already seen Minmus, Eve, Duna, and the rest of the planetary bodies. There would at least have been a hook in a new suite of planets, even if they didn't function any differently than the planets in the first game. From a development perspective, it makes no difference whether the gas giant is green and called Jool, or light-grey and called Sarnus, but it really helps marketing to have that difference to intrigue new players. Heck, ask any content creator whether they'd have preferred to make a video about "Let's see what Jool looks like in KSP2" or "Let's explore a new planet in KSP2". That difference is what makes people interested in the sequel. Granted, I don't think this would have been a simple fix and instant recipe for success. The game had enough other issues that caused development to progress like a toad in syrup. "Development hell" would still have been a thing. But maybe they'd have earned enough money to push onward a little further before giving up. And at least we'd be left with a noticeably different game experience at the end of it. As it currently stands, I have no intention of buying KSP2, because I haven't seen anything to convince me that I couldn't get the same experience, running much more smoothly, in KSP1.

My guess is that it was an AI spambot. Knowing the type, they will make a few posts until they are allowed to post links, then add in a sentence along the lines of "By the way, I used this tool to make money on crypto" somewhere in the massive nobody-reads-all-that block of quoted text, intended only for the "eyes" of search engines. The idea is to trick the search engine into thinking "oh, somebody linked to this scummy crypto tool from a well-renowned forum, I guess the scummy crypto tool deserves to appear higher in the search rankings, then!"

Now you've got me imagining the news coverage angles if a spacecraft had been built by a multiple of other prominent companies ... that have nothing to do with spaceflight. "To the surprise of absolutely nobody, Walmart's spacecraft failed to make a flight today. The responsible engineers were reportedly fired on the spot, and replacements hired among passers-by on the street outside the launch complex ..." "We're not entirely sure why Starbucks tried to build a spacecraft, but apparently a stuck valve presented problems. A spokesperson for the company says 'we're not used to working with cold liquids', and denies concerns that the fuel tanks were mostly filled with foam ..." "McDonald's's attempt to go to space today failed. Company engineers fear a revision of the spacecraft design would be necessary, as this would impact more than 65,000 spacecraft building facilities all over the world ..." "There are unconfirmed and conflicting reports that Facebook's spacecraft did not launch today. On the social media platforms, millions of accounts shared and upvoted AI-generated footage of the launch, and congratulated each other with a job well done. The footage does not remotely agree on the design of the spacecraft, however, nor the location of its launch complex." "General Motors' new rocket reportedly drove over five engineers and a school bus as it was transported to the launch stand today, where it expended enough fuel to fill a swimming pool without even turning the engines on. The 700-by-700-by-700 foot rocket, weighing several million tons, is expected to be able to launch nearly thirty pounds of groceries to space. They would have to be softly wrapped, however, so as not to scratch the finish on the Indestructium (R) trailer bed."

You're using the wrong value of "it" in this sentence. The Apollo lander only managed the equivalent of pitching a tent on the Moon's surface. Artemis asks for much more capability [Snip]