vger

Gosh, I was just reading an awesome article the other day, that would've fit into this thread, but my own memory of the title, combined with my browser history, is failing me. It was a really interesting read about the internet's role in polarizing society. Not just in politics, but in ANY discussion where opinions are involved. It has often been believed that 'education' would ultimately liberate humanity from petty squabbling, but this has not happened. In fact, it appears that the opposite has. The belief is that although the internet has given us far more information than we could imagine (educating us), assimilation bias has overwhelmed reason in this regard. What was posted in that TED talk is part of it, but blaming news filter algorithms is too simple. We're doing it ourselves. Pretty sure there was a social experiment involved as well that tested people's reactions to different political articles. For those of us who get passionate about any topic, we seek out like-minded groups and become locked into echo chambers that gradually push us towards zealotry for something that we once had lenience on. We've become a world of feudal tribes who are bound by ideas instead of geography, and we are ill-equipped to handle it.

Finally bought it on sale. Now I just need a year of free time to learn it.

Pay attention, everyone. Jupiter has been drinking all night and wants to compare sizes.

Space Engineers is 33% off now. $13.39 USD. Bought it.

...5 years from now

Goat simulator deserves Kudos for being the first of a breed. Sort of like the Blair Witch Project. It was worthy of praise and success for having never been done before. We're going to see a hundred knockoffs now though and the novelty is going to get old, REALLY FAST.

The internet was infinitely cool in the 90's for two reasons. #1. Big business didn't see any use for it. #2. It was too hard for idiots to use.

Back in my day, we called this a screensaver.

If you think camping has been given a bad reputation, even more insane is "LoSing." LoS stands for "line of sight," a message that pops up in some games when you try to attack a target that you can't see. MMO PvPers in particular see "LoSing" as a cheat. What IS LoSing exactly? Using an object (like a building) for cover.

Why does the station appear twice in the photo? It's in the upper left corner as well.

Depends on how fast you need your data though. As long as you don't want to stream your video content, it still works fine. You could pretty easily set your computer up for P2P sharing, and just don't hand out the torrent for your file archive to anyone. You can also password protect it. No such thing as "no NSA backdoor." You're still using an ISP to connect to the internet, which means anyone with access can peek into your datastream if they want. All of this said, I don't trust cloud services AT ALL. It amazes me that so many people are storing their sensitive data on some random remote service that could instantly get shutdown the way Megaupload(I 'think' that's what it was called) did.

Why do you need to be able to look at both ends? Is this a Schrodinger's Cat phenomenon sort of like the double-slit uncertainty?

I smell potential for a future gameshow here. Alternatively though, having the wealth of the entire planet? I'd be tempted to obliterate it all, just to see what society did in the wake of that (maybe build myself the ultimate bunker first just so I could live long enough...)

That certainly sounds like what NASA does. Wait, what?

Angry Birds taught me that Apple is even more evil than I previously thought.

If we actually went into full-blown "Oh crap we're screwed" panic mode, you'd be amazed at how quickly we'd probably move forward. Maybe not bending space-time, but you'd see a heck of a lot of advancements. It's already happened a few times, such as during WWII.

If the test tube is "filled" with a lighter-than-air gas, wouldn't it need to be capped?

Cover the end with the right material, give it the ability to release the helium and change shape, and I bet you could do it Or at least as well as a parrot could.

Maybe it's been too long since I've been in any IRL nerdy social circles, but last time I checked, one didn't have to dress as a Jedi and speak Hutt in order to get into a plastic light saber fight. I rather doubt a ringtone qualifies as extreme fandom either. But... yeah, if you were on a bridge replica when it happened, that's funny no matter which way you slice it.

*snrk*I guess nobody warned you that Karma exists in the 23rd Century. Slightly more serious though... is it just my imagination or am I right on this: In spite of how much more widely-accepted nerddom is now, and the explosion of the Cosplay culture, are Trekkies STILL that looked down on?

If something is scientifically impossible, then it has logically been proven to be wrong. If you tell someone to prove you wrong, you get hit with the "burden of proof" argument, and "you can't prove a negative." So from that perspective... yup. Never thought of "scientifically impossible" that way though.

Space engineers... 10% off... or two dollars. Uhh... exciting.

For some reason it felt like a search for a solution though, but... I dunno. If this is going to be a "saving humanity" thing, it's not going to be very many people. At best it looks like everyone else is screwed and just a handful of people are going to find a new place to live. Not that it's necessarily wrong (it's very realistic) but it's hard to imagine that as a Hollywood Blockbuster. I guess "I Am Legend" in space is a cool concept though. And it's Nolan, so it oughta be good. Certainly better than Armageddon at least

Another thing about an asteroid of such low density though. If it's accurate, an asteroid 6 cubic meters in volume would weigh about 13000lbs. That's only about half a ton heavier than the Apollo command module. So, put some heat shielding on it, and yay, we can bring it back home the Kerbal way.

I think the transfer of heat would still eventually wreck the Earth, regardless of pressure difference. A tiny part of Earth would essentially be MUCH closer to the sun. There's one way to say we have "human-induced global warming."