Randox

I think realistically, the next step has to be nuclear fission. There is a problem with wind and solar in particular that I never see talked about where, to keep the power grid reliable, you always need to have enough capacity on standby to replace any source of energy you can't depend on. Now, you use a lot less fuel keeping that capacity in standby, but the infrastructure to cover all that capacity still has to exist and be active. Basically, whenever you add wind or solar to the mix, you also have to back it up with something else that can take over when the wind stops blowing. If your goal is to stop using fossil fuels, then you need something else that can fill that role of reliable backbone power generation, and the reality of earth's geography means that you can't do it with more reliable hydro or geothermal power because the opportunities just don't exist everywhere in the magnitude we need them to. If you want to entirely replace fossil fuels, and you want to do it now, nuclear is the only option that has you covered. Where you have other options, that's fantastic, use them, but I really think nuclear power needs to be embraced. I am disappointed that the Paris treaty will not be binding, and I don't think any of these treaties will be anyone's grand legacy until that happens. On the other hand, as painful as it may be, I think this is a process we are going to have to go through, and it's going to take time. It sounds like we have at least some new provisions over older treaties that allow us to embarrass each other politically, and that is a step in the right direction. On the one hand, people can say "hey, we took a step in the right direction" and that takes the pressure off them to commit to something better, but on the other hand, it allows you to get all these countries to sign onto something that is better than past efforts, and it sets the bar closer to "meaningful" the next time we go through this, hence a process we just have to work through.

Well, that put a smile on my face

Good to know that other nose cones aren't so heat resistant. Everything big I've launched recently used fairings anyway, though I did discover that my primary cargo lifter + 40 tonne payload has some issues. I find that the overheat warning for the fairing likes to activate about 5 seconds before you explode, 10 if you're lucky, which usually isn't enough time to recover, even if you cut throttle instantly. Heavier/bigger payloads keep that particular rockets speed in check so that it never blows the fairing on ascent (apparently, accelerating past "white hot" is bad).

I'm pretty sure this is a bit more than I pay for (should be 46 down, 4.7 up). I've seen it go even faster from time to time. It's enough that me and the other people I live with can watch youtube/netflix or game without usually creating any problems for each other.

KER depends on the root part to calculate things correctly. My guess is that you have a command pod on the rocket set as the root (if you don't change it with the root tool, the root is whatever part you placed first, usually a command module of some sort). As far as I can tell, KER "follows" the root part and assumes that you will always be controlling that part (or rather, whatever vessel that part is attached to) through all stages, and calculates dV accordingly. Setting a part on your jumper as the root of the combined vessel should solve it. If not, a workaround is to build your jumper as a subassembly, and add it's dV to your launch vehicle with manual addition. It's a bit of a pain, but at least you won't need to guess.

Favourite car I've ever had the pleasure to drive is this: That's a '95 Mercedes C36 AMG, which you can read about here. It remains the only car I have ever driven with power headrests In all seriousness though, the car was an absolute pleasure to drive. Something missing from most pictures (and probably a modification to mine before it passed into my hands for a while) is the car phone, and the car phone ariel that made it look like an unmarked police car. The only problem was a serious lack of freon in the AC unit when I was driving it (it was never mine, just a loaner for a few months), which given mine was dark blue with a black interior was an occasional issue. My favourite car that I would actually like to own is this, a Nissan 370: And here is the topspeed review for that as well, because why not. And perhaps I need a favorite classic, and again, it's hard to not go with the one you have actually driven, so I guess I will go for the MG MGB GT: It's either that, or a John Deere 410 Backhoe I think that Mercedes is still my ultimate favourite though, and probably will be unless I someday own a Nissan Z series (will probably change before I can afford one). That was a freaking nice car, even if it wasn't stick shift (it was tiptronic, which is stick shift for ninnies. Usually just left it in auto).

I'm definitely part of the Saturn V fan club. And perhaps it's just me, but I think the Saturn V design is positively gorgeous on an aesthetic level, as well as functional.

This particular rocket had a curious design flaw in a set of non-protected extendable solar panels set just aft of the payload fairing. During the final phase of my initial ascent, despite being relatively shielded by the cargo fairing, these solar panels succumbed to the violent forces of ascent and exploded...destroying the fairing in the process, exposing the payload to this: [IMG]http://i65.tinypic.com/23rph0k.jpg[/IMG] With the payload exposed (the payload was a high resolution resource scanner intended for Minmus), bits and pieces went the way of the solar panels, causing a series of explosions like this one as the attached landing probes disintegrated: [IMG]http://i64.tinypic.com/23ijlz9.jpg[/IMG] After several such explosions, the rocket eventually lost critical pieces, including the remote guidance system. The engine, in good health and maintaining a stable trajectory, carried what remained of the mission payload off into the great beyond, to a projected apoapsis of 278km before running out of fuel. It was then decided that in the future, all solar panels, protected or not, should be located [i]inside[/i] the payload fairing. This next one was the result of a fatal error in the rocket staging. While preparing for the orbital insertion burn, a cargo rocket carrying a resource miner also bound for Minmus advanced a stage to eject the payload fairing so that the solar array could be extended, and the crew could enjoy the spectacular view. Unfortunately, the entire miner was set to jettison in the same stage, abandoning approximately half the remaining mission delta v, and the powerful engines of cargo rocket. After some face palming, it was decided that the miner had more than sufficient dv available to complete it's mission, and the insertion burn was to proceed as planned. However, the cargo rocket had ascended on a relatively steep 30 degree ascent angle, and with some horror, the crew discovered that the miner craft did not have sufficient thrust to complete the orbital insertion before it started to re-enter the atmosphere. Given that the miner was never intended to enter an atmosphere, or even perform under it's own power around Kerbin, the re-entry looked like this: [IMG]http://i66.tinypic.com/3126zo8.jpg[/IMG] The craft was not equipped with a heat shield or parachutes. It would rely entirely on the engines and powerful RCS system (80 thrust forward and back from the RCS system) to slow down the descent and hopefully hit the ocean at a survivable speed. Pictured above is the seconds before catastrophic structural failure, as the crew desperately tried to jettison the overheating LV-N engines in an attempt to live at least a little longer. [IMG]http://i66.tinypic.com/2hwh0kg.jpg[/IMG] Evidence points to a failure in engine seperation, and the critical failure of the LV-N engines destroyed most of the miner craft. If you look closely, it seemed that in its final moments, the craft managed to invert (point prograde). The Command pod can be seen on the right, and the faint profile of the craft as it falls apart can be seen in the explosion itself. The only component confirmed to have survived the explosion was the large docking port mounted on the bottom. Other unidentified debris was also spotted descending toward Kerbin, but all was lost to the depths of the ocean after impact. Three Kerbals lost their lives. Oh, and to aid in seeing the profile inside the explosion, here is her identical replacement, sitting happily on the surface of Minmus with a partially crippled landing system (note the permanently compressed landing leg. The craft is still landing capable, but touch down will be "interesting"). Also, everyone on the original flight had an identical twin, who are crewing this flight :): [IMG]http://i63.tinypic.com/2cqb8ea.jpg[/IMG]

The events in 1 and 2 provide some explanation as to the origin of things you find in the later games. Basically, if you just jump into 3 and New Vegas, there will just be things that you sort of have to accept, or only have partial explanations compared to what you know from the previous games. I'd liken it to the GTA universe. All GTA games take place in the same universe, and there is a chronological order, but story wise, you actually don't really miss out on anything in any given game by not having played games that cover the earlier chronology, because each game is a self contained story, as is the case for each fallout game.

It's pretty dependant on what I am writing with, how fast, and for how long, though it's never one of those styles that make people go "oh, you have really nice/neat writing". On the other hand, I am good at very tiny writing, particularly since my favoured writing tool is a 0.3mm pen (it sounds and feels like writing with a quill, but it's as neat as a 0.5mm pencil).

Have they said anything yet about normal blocks being affected by planetary gravity? I assume they will be. Anyway, I am looking forward to this. I am interested to see how atmospheric entry and exit works. I assume aerodynamics are still outside the scope of the game, but I would like some atmospheric effects for the eye candy.

Not at that price, and not at those requirements. I mean, yes, I'm excited for the game, but no, I probably won't be buying it for a while. I'd be able to run it, but I want more information on how well it would run on my rig, and frankly, the price has to come down pretty far too. I do however look forward to watching Gopher play it on his time machine of a computer, whenever that happens (he likes to mod those games, and showcase them, so I expect he will wait a while). On the upside, by the time I get my hands on it, the modding community should be all over it. Or maybe Oil will get expensive, the Canadian dollar will rise, and the game won't be $80 anymore. Though frankly, it's cheaper for me if gas stays cheap

Saw a comment on youtube video, that since John Williams wasn't available to do the music for the new movie, it should have been contracted out to Two Steps From Hell. While I tend to agree that the music does sound good, I have to say I agree (not that I ever expect that to happen). As a thought to the X Wing, it might be worth pointing out that the Y Wing started as a Clone War Era fighter, and they were still flying during the Yuuzhan Vong war and Second Galactic Civil War (obviously not top end fighters anymore, but still worth using for some factions). They've changed in appearance a bit, especially the original Clone Wars Era BTL-B, but like a few ships, they've had a stunningly long service life. I think if I have my chronography correct, they've probably been able enough to be worth using for nearly 100 years. They're also probably my favourite design.

This is what bugs me about having Abraham's as a director, but I can also see why he is doing it. On the one hand, his obliteration of pre existing material could be taken as a sign he wants to recreate Star Wars canon under his own brand, rather than contribute to the EU like everyone else. On the other hand, at this point, the EU has expanded to fill just about every gap not covered in the movies, including concurrent events that happen elsewhere at the same time, or simply between screen cuts in the actual movies. It would be impossible to make episodes 7 through 9 about Luke Skywalker without duplicating material covered in exhaustive detail in the EU, and that's a no win situation for the Star Wars fans. Think about it. Movies cannot tell stories the same way books, comics, animated series', or games, tell stories. There were always going to have to be changes to canon for the movies to work, and no matter how you do that, you are going to .... off a sizeable number of fans. As big a middle finger as obliterating the cannon undeniably is, it does open the door for a new EU with new heroes, villains, and stories. The EU covers events over thousands of years in part because after a while, that was the only way to create new stories without tripping over itself, just like any other massive world, such as Forgotten Realms (the most well known of the D&D universes). So I guess, the way I see it, a new canon doesn't have to diminish from the old one. I'm also in a perhaps enviable position. Episode 1 came out when I was like 10, so of course I loved it, and I was still pretty young for Episode 2, so as long as I skipped all the boring love scenes, I really liked that too. The only movie I don't watch is Episode 3, because episode 3 breaks canon (the talking/emotional droids), among other things. My point being, unlike Star Trek, I have a very broad definition of what Star Wars is, and what it feels like, so I am optimistic that the movie will feel like Star Wars to me, instead of generic sci-fi. Basically, Star Wars to me is nothing more than a universe, while Star Trek is an ideal.

I find this odd, that people would want shorter videos. To me, if I enjoy someone's videos, and I have the option between more content and less, I'd rather have more. Not that there is always a choice. Some of the people I watch keep videos in the 10-20 range because that is the content they can feasibly create without boring their viewers, while others are just cutting up continuous gameplay, so videos in the 40-50 minute range are just as easy (this is the length I tend to like). Or perhaps I am in a different market, because I mostly watch gameplay/LP's. It's also probably the way I watch. Even after years of watching stuff on youtube, I still think sitting at my computer to watch videos is silly. I sit on my couch and watch videos on my TV, like any show. Maybe that makes a difference. Frankly though, I have the same problem with 'real' TV shows. Without commercial breaks, half hour shows are only 22 minutes, which is too short. I prefer hour long shows (42-44 minutes usually).

I think I'd have to go with the Warlock class from Babylon 5: Aside from, if you ask me, looking pretty cool, this ship is an absolute power house in the Babylon universe, particularly the twin cannons mounted in the nose. This ship represents a gigantic technical jump forward in capability, and is the first Earth Alliance ship that can truly hold her own, and even dominate, in battle against older, more advanced alien species like the Minbari. As a very near runner up, Star Trek's Akira class: I'm preferential to this style of federation ship that lacks the secondary hull seen in most designs, yet still retaining the set off warp nacelles and torpedo launcher. It is, visually, basically a modernized Miranda class (Wrath of Khan), and canonically one of the new battle oriented classes, along with the Defiant, Sovereign, and I believe Steamrunner (also a cool looking ship).

I'm not really sure "second operating system" qualifies as a simple or straightforward solution Effective maybe, but probably not a good place for someone to start. I'd recommend starting with shadowplay and/or OBS as the recorder, and simply use windows movie maker as the editor. WMM isn't fancy, and if you get into making LP's or anything it's not going to be an acceptable long term option, but it's certainly capable enough of getting the job done quickly and effectively long enough for you to decide if this is something you want to keep doing, and if so, then look at a better editor, probably a paid program for windows, or a free option like AV Linux. The recorders listed can be a jumping stone too for people who decide this is something they want to do enough of, but OBS is certainly capable enough that many relatively high profile content creators are able to use it as their primary program (and it does make your life much simpler if you both record and stream). I can't say I know of anyone who has done the same with shadowplay, mostly because there are a lot more games it doesn't get along with than for OBS (there is an equivalent for AMD as well, whose name escapes me. It's part of the Raptr application, and for games it works with, it actually does seem to work very well. In a nutshell, start as simple as you can, and find out if this is something you want to keep doing, and if so, exactly how you want to do it, and then turn your attention to finding programs that might better address your needs.

My parents always have dogs. Right now, they have a single (very affectionate to his family) border collie. We cut his hair in the summer to deal with the heat, and to keep it from getting tangled when he swims, and the first year it was cut too short and his guard hairs have never grown back, which makes him unusually fluffy and soft. Because his hair sticks out without the guard hairs, he also looks bigger than he is (like a husky), though he's a big Border Collie. I think about 50 pounds.

Carrier Command: Gaea Mission is pretty bad, or at least the pathfinding is. It's not really buggy as just poorly implemented I think. Skyrim is probably the most buggy game I've ever played, and I think the only game where I've actually lost a save file because the bugs broke my game. Sometimes you never notice them, and the unofficial patches fix a lot of stuff, but the sheer fact that the patches deal with thousands of bugs is a pretty amazing testament to how spectacularly bug ridden that game is. Which hasn't stopped it being my favourite, but then, I played LCPD:FR, a mod for GTA 4 that tends to crash every 20-40 minutes once you tack a few more mods on top of it. It's borderline masochistic to play that mod with a good setup (good meaning extra mods that expand on the gameplay). LSPD:FR, for GTA 5, is infinitely more stable, though not yet as developed.

On my current playthrough, I have convenient horses, which among other things has turned my horse into a walking storage chest. I have taken advantage of this to store every book I can find (makes it easy to see when I am picking up duplicates), and will eventually build a house with a library so I can start storing them. At some point I will active a mod that gives you proper control to move and place objects, including objects that can't normally be moved. I expect to lose many hours once that goes online.

I would assume that unless specified, the question refers typically to the hand you write with, or else the hand that is usually dominant when only using one hand. For me, my right hand is dominant, in so far as it's much more co-ordinated. I switch preferences for two handed work like golf or hockey. From being a goalie in hockey, I can also catch well with my left hand, and because I used my brothers paddle when I was young, I paddle left hand. While thinking about this, I decided to test ocular dominance, and am surprised to find that for most people if they point at a distant object in front of them and then focus on it, their finger won't be doubled. I assumed everyone had that. In line with a couple other tests I tried, this suggests that I have no ocular dominance, though people watching my eyes when I test always seem to pick my left eye, which is also the side of my body that carriers more weight, so there is probably some favor to the left side. And now I know why I can aim with both eyes (I can't hold a gun right hand forward, but if I could, I could aim it just fine). But really? Most people don't see double images of objects that are far off the depth they are focusing on? Weird. Oh, and ambisinister? Really? That's kind of an awesome name, in a "people were probably horribly mistreated" kind of way.

The Handyman's Prayer (From How to Fix Everything) Our Father, Who art a craftsman, Perfectionist be thy name, Thy power tools hum, Thy walls are plum, Upstairs as they are in the basement, Give us this day a utility shed, And forgive us our borrowed tools, As we forgive those who borrow tools from us, And lead us not into renovation, But deliver us from moving, For thine is the hammer, And the Skill Saw, And the Duct Tape forever. I loved this show as a kid, and I was able to see Red perform during the how to fix everything tour. Still like to go back and watch some episodes every now and then when I have the chance.

Having some idea of what surviving a nuclear blast would be like, and not living close to a fallout shelter, I'm not sure I would be super inclined to do anything to survive. In fact, I take medication to manage a condition that would obviously stop being available, so I'd almost certainly die anyway to what would basically be "dysentery - now with internal bleeding". I'd just as soon not go out that way. Nor do I particularly relish the idea of being alone in the world if all my loved ones were to parish and not myself. Assuming the cellular system didn't immediately implode or get set to some priority access only mode, I guess I would call whoever was most dear to me to say my goodbyes, probably my parents. I mean, if your going to die in a few minutes, you might as well make peace with that. That's really one of the last things you would have any control over in that situation, and I think I would grasp on to that. Failing that, perhaps go for a drive? I like driving, it calms me down, gives me time to think. Would be a good way to go.

I'm not sure I would want an accurate portrayal on screen. I quite like the balance Babylon 5 hit, particularly with human ships, between acknowledging that physics do apply to the movie universe, but also making the fight scenes visually interesting. By far the most accurate portrayal of space combat I have come across so far are in the Halo books. There is one fight in particular between Captain Keys in a Destroyer engaging I think a couple of Covenant ships, and I can't remember which book it is (I think it's "The Fall of Reach"). The use of orbital mechanics, long range weaponry, and maneuvering thrusters is detailed in this fight, and I think it's a pretty good stab at what a real space fight could look like, at least for a ship using a mass driver and missiles. It's a relatively slow pace, long ranges, and orbital mechanics that a lot of people don't intuitively understand and which would be very clunky to try and explain as part of a movie. It's certainly not a perfect portrayal, but some thought did go into it, and the author is working within limits by what had already been portrayed in the first game and so on. As far as the ships go through, it's the engines and the way they fly. Don't thrust when you aren't accelerating, don't arrange engines in a way that couldn't possibly push without rotating the ship, don't do everything with the engines at the back (they aren't brakes), and don't fly like your in an atmosphere.

I very much enjoyed New Vegas. I've played through it a few times. Never could get into Fallout 3 though. I think a lot of it was that the Mojave was able to capture my imagination in a way that DC never did. It felt...bigger, grander, more alone. I doubt very much the graphics will be a huge deal for those willing to mod, provided that they do not do something so stupid as to tie the detailed render range to the scripting range like they did with Skyrim (for a PC title, that's a bafflingly stupid design choice to make when you are going to encourage a modding community that includes graphical mods). That's not to say that we should rely on the modding community, I am very much a proponent of the stance that even games intended to be modded should stand and be judged in their vanilla condition. But graphics have never been the focus of Fallout, and it is likely that it will have strong mod support like other Bethesda titles. I'm more interested in the gameplay though, since that's what I come for. If they over simplify the game, or cripple the RPG element altogether, then I would only go for it if I can find suitable mods. I do prefer to go through these titles stock at least once though, so my excitement is I think contingent on them showing strong vanilla gameplay. Not necessarily a new spin on the story or anything, but I want an engaging world (or the options to make it so).