Drunken Hobo

Cool, am just away to buy it. Found it on GOG for £2.49 rather than 3.79, so that's a bonus.

Why isn't this just called "5 Interesting Optical Illusions"? What's with all the pseudoscience? It's all so confusing why they feel the need to attach all of that nonsense to their channel. I don't understand how these channels have so many subscribers. Spirit Science is another one. Absolute unfounded waffly nonsense, yet is somehow very popular. They also all seem to confuse ancient civilisations with magic people, and constantly go on about Mayans or the extremely broad term "Native Americans". That in particular just seems insulting, especially as there are hundreds of distinct Native American tribes with completely different cultures and ways of life. Are they all somehow magic? There are even quite a number of Native Americans left and millions of Mayans.

A wireless network card - why not just a USB network adapter? Huge benefit of being able to move the stick around if you don't get a good signal where your PC sits. Can also plug it into other devices and easily disable the internet connection by unplugging it. I'm not an expert though so maybe there are benefits to an internal card. I'm not sure what they are though.

I'm thinking about getting that one. You recommend it? Seems almost like I'm wasting money having bought almost nothing this sale.

Been a bit underwhelmed with this Steam sale. Maybe it's because the last year has been such a sucky time for games, but there's very little that I want. Bought Creeper World 3 because I loved the original browser version, but that's about it. Have thought about buying Banished, Speed Runners or Terraria as they're all pretty cheap, but it just feels like buying something for the sake of it. I'm not sure I'd actually play any of them. Anybody know of any good hidden gems around at the moment?

And there you go, Civ V complete edition down to £8.74. Absolutely worth it if you don't have it. I've probably played it more than any other game I've owned, and I got it for about £10.

Whilst I probably preferred Civ IV to Civ V, when you go back and play IV there are a few annoying things you start to notice. I personally think the combat system in V is far better than the "stack of death" tactics you had to employ in Civ IV. Other civs constantly pestering you to give them free technologies was also annoying in IV, and diplomacy in general is better in Civ V... well as long as you have the expansion packs. It was notoriously awful in the base game, as you could be effective allied with another civ for the entire game only for them to turn around and stab you in the back for absolutely no reason. Just a shame Civ V was so restrictive to mods. Some of the ones from Civ IV were quite literally like playing a new game. Civ V is definitely worth it, as it is a very good game that's also quite different to Civ IV, which makes it worth buying. It's also exactly why Beyond Earth absolutely isn't worth buying.

The base game and both expansions all have their own demos, so give them a go before you buy. As Tardises says, you can get it for ridiculously cheap during a daily or flash sale. I've seen it for under £10 for every expansion pack & DLC.

Best Civilization IV & V - Just extremely addictive & very well made games (after expansion packs, anyway). RollerCoaster Tycoon - Who doesn't want to spend hours designing a roller coaster? Gran Turismo 2 - I like racing. GTA Vice City & San Andreas - Haven't aged all that well but absolutely mind-blowing for their time. Great sense of humour. Final Fantasy VII & Crisis Core - Loved the stories & materia system was very interesting. Metal Gear Solid 1-4 - Great mix of humour, good characters, terrible stories & compelling gameplay. Driver: San Francisco - The most fun handling cars I've ever driven in a video game. Also very interesting "shift" mechanic. Worms (2D versions) - Mayhem. Worst (or most disappointing) Red Dead Redemption - Boring, buggy mess with extremely unlikable characters and almost no variation in gameplay. GTA IV - More disappointing than bad. A graphically impressive & mechanically solid game with nothing to do other than stare at grey-brown walls. No fun after San Andreas. Final Fantasy VIII - Took the emo edge too far with some pretty whiny characters and the game mechanics were just awful. You actually get punished for levelling up. Any FPS on a console - Anyone who can aim accurately with a stick is a witch. Thankfully I tend not to buy that many poor games.

Having a magnetic field doesn't help much against stripping away of hydrogen & helium. Just due to to the temperature of the atmosphere, an average H2 molecule on Venus travels at about 1/3 escape velocity. Obviously due to collisions not all molecules in a gas travel at the same speed and some will reach escape velocity, never returning to the planet. For Jupiter, hydrogen only travels about 1/40 escape velocity, hence it can hold on to it easily. It's simply a matter of temperature vs. gravity. A very hot body like the Sun can hold onto hydrogen easily due to its gravity, whilst a very cold body like Titan still can't keep a hold of hydrogen due to its low gravity. It would still be possible to have tides if the orbit of the moon was eccentric. I think two tidally locked bodies would have a tendency to have a circular orbit, but if there are other moons in the system it could prevent them from doing so.

I suppose it could still be losing its atmosphere - there's no reason it has to be stable. I have no idea how long it would take to strip away significant quantities of hydrogen from a planet. Venus has lost the equivalent to about 1 Earth atmosphere over its lifetime, but it just happens to have about another 94 Earth atmospheres to compensate. If your hypothetical planet has a large supply of hydrogen then it could last for millions or even billions of years, especially if it used to be significantly larger. (There is a hypothetical class of planets called "chthonian planets" where all of the atmosphere of a gas giant has been stripped away, so logically there must be an intermediate stage). This is sort of where my knowledge breaks down though - I was just going by the physics that dictates how quickly small molecules travel.

You've got to get quite far out for hydrogen & helium to remain in an atmosphere. They still escape from Earth and even Mars.

I don't think it's possible for an orange star to be more massive than the Sun. I'm also not entirely sure how possible a hot gas dwarf would be, as the atmosphere would be stripped away by the Sun. Even with an intense magnetic field, free hydrogen & helium would still reach escape velocity just because of temperature. If you want to mess around with orbits, then Universe Sandbox is a fun tool. Steam sale is likely to start up soon and it often becomes ridiculously cheap.

I'm sure you're all dying to know the end of my thrilling gamepad saga - I bought a wired 360 controller for PC. Found an official one for £21 so just bought it. Still not a huge fan of the shape as my hands are a bit too close together and it makes them curve inwards, but the sticks are very responsive, the triggers have a nice weight and the buttons are crisp. Also strangely heavy for something that contains no battery. Responsive sticks being the most important part for racing games.

I find it kind of amusing that the invention of the blue LED was worthy of a Nobel Prize, and all it's really used for is making computer components obnoxiously bright. I use one of them ergonomic vertical mice, as they stop my wrist sounding like a cement mixer. Need to buy a new one soon as the middle click is knackered, but Amazon recently put up free delivery to purchases over £20, and the mouse I want is £10.

Yeah you're right, I find it pretty obtuse and it doesn't actually explain what any of the options do. It's not really the lack of features, more how it is presented in a strange set of menus. Doesn't seem to let you use a deadzone either, which is a very odd choice. I tried to configure my ancient wheel and it was just impossible, as it didn't recognise the buttons for some reason. The ease of the 360 controller is a big draw, and I'll probably just end up going for that. What's annyoing is that I was going to buy it for £20 earlier in the year, but it's now up to £25... I hate buying things knowing I could have got them cheaper.

Just never like the layout or feel of the Xbox controller. Too bulky for me. Probably because I've always had PlayStations. I suppose I could get used to it. It was the cheapest adapter I could find, but I'm not sure it would make a difference. I just can't seem to get any program to recognise it as an axis. Although if I remember correctly, my PS3 did recognise it as pressure sensitive. It's frustrating how many games have terrible controller options. Assetto Corsa's is abysmal, Just Cause 2 just doesn't have any, whilst games like Wreckfest & Euro Truck Simulator 2 let you customise absolutely everything, which is nice.

I've tried my PS3 controller but it's a bugger to set up. Need to install custom drivers and I've heard dodgy things about them, so haven't attempted it yet. I do have a USB adapter for my PS2 controller, but unfortunately the buttons are only seen as binary inputs rather than analogue, so I can't control my throttle properly. Fine in a game like Wreckfest where finesse isn't an issue, but useless for Assetto Corsa. Unfortunately I think you're right and I'll just have to go for the 360 controller. I probably don't even really need to buy one; could just nick an old one off of a mate who no longer uses his 360. The Driving Force GT is still £135, so way beyond the ~£20 I want to spend on a simple controller. I do have an ancient (and when I say ancient - it has a picture of Mario Andretti on the box) racing wheel, but it's always been fairly rubbish and the deadzones are ridiculous. I may take it apart one day and see if I can clean it up, but I'm not particularly bothered about getting a wheel at the moment.

Cheers, but it's not exactly that I can't afford it, it's just that I don't have enough disposable income to really justify ~£170 on a PC peripheral. After all, my PC was only ~£435 & my monitor about £80. I would be spending my money in other places first, such as a new PC chair or new speakers (I think both were bought in 1997...). I also don't really have the space to do it justice and it would involve re-arranging the room, getting a new desk... it'd end up complicated and expensive.

Can anyone recommend any good gamepad controller for PC? Will be mainly used for driving games, as I can't afford a decent wheel yet still want the thrill of the race. Not a huge fan of the Xbox 360 controller, but from what I've read so far that seems to be be the best bet. Would prefer something more like the PlayStation set-up, but also worry about it not being fully recognised by some games.

With a simple orbit on Universe Sandbox, the Sun would be orbiting Sirius at an average of 50m/s with an orbital period of 230 million years. Sirius is only about 200-300 million years old whilst the Sun is 4.5 billion years old. The Alpha Centauri system is half the distance and 2/3 the mass of the Sirius system, so would have a more significant gravitational effect on the Sun. It simply wouldn't make sense in any way.

Never went to the 6th year formal. Was something like £60 for a set menu meal with nothing good on it. My mates who did go didn't stay for very long then went to KFC in their best suits. What lads.

Hah, oops. I had searched for "Flip" to figure out why my rocket was flipping, must have left the window open, came back and assumed this was in the current "Science Labs" forum. Big surge for tails since I voted. I call shenanigans!

My British Pound coin minted in 1995 with a Welsh Dragon design landed on heads. I hope this has been valuable data for your experiment.

It's a singe-player game with no achievements, a full sandbox mode and easily-accessible cheat menu. You can play it any way you like. If you like playing a certain way and don't let anyone else's opinion bother you. If you're looking for validation, MechJeb is useful for many things: Learning the basics. If you have a slow PC it hugely expands your options. Flying insanely large/unrealistic ships. If you don't like quicksaving/reverting (in my eyes far more "cheaty" than using an autopilot). Docking easily. Data. Landing safely/efficiently. Testing using a consistent take-off profile. Accuracy - can get orbits absolutely perfect. For adding missing features that really should be in the game (interplanetary windows, and in the past Smart A.S.S.) Like a lot of popular things on the internet, people like to decry it in order to appear edgy & cool. Pay them no heed & enjoy what you enjoy. You're not hurting them or yourself.