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We've been discussing the "Is our universe a simulation" concept for roughly a week now without it degrading into a poodoo-fest, and that certainly falls under the label of Intelligent Design.

I could've sworn I've seen gold foil on some parts, though I can't remember now what they were offhand.

I heard about this, but from what I was able to gather, it's only a local server game, and has no large-scale MMO-style server, is that right? I'd much rather have something like this if I can watch factions rise and fall over the years.

GlaDOS can...

Not nitpicking, but is it even really possible to discuss the space race without bringing politics into it? It primarily was, after all, fueled by politics.

Not that I have a problem with people who don't agree with religion, but the "fairy tale" jab is as old as "Your mom" jokes. ((and this is exactly why they don't allow these kinds of threads))

My gut tells me though, that we won't get anywhere unless we can all unanimously decide that there are some things more important than profit. It's the greed that's holding everyone back. Even a CEO, if he wants to be the good guy, risks being hung by the shareholders if he/she does ANYTHING besides maximize profit.

Apocalypse commencing in 5...4....3.....2.......1................

Social science, so why not? And given that a lot of mathematics, logistical analysis, and psychology is involved...

Considering that we are getting wool pulled over our eyes by something every hour we're awake, is it really that surprising? You don't even need a conspiracy theory to prove this. Just watch TV for an hour. Attempts to manipulate your mind will be happening the whole time.

Yeah.. lulz. If the thread I started wasn't allowed, this sure as heck won't be.

Nice, a tech version of leaping into the air before shooting a basketball. I hope it's pretty darned reliable though. Letting it fall into the ocean won't be an option here, so where's it going to crash if something goes awry?

My god... it's full of.... everything!

I think it depends on who you ask. It seems to me, that 'immortality' is implied in the subconscious. We are probably the only species on the planet that has figured out death is inevitable, and that is going to have a detrimental effect, at least on some people. I find 'limited existence' to be particularly demotivating. Sure, if I knew I was going to die next week, I'd do all sorts of wild things, but that's a very impractical lifestyle in the long-term when investing in life choices that can take 50+ years to mature. The old saying is "He who dies with the most toys wins." Why the heck does that even matter since you're going to be dead?

The Little Prince isn't going to be thrilled about this.

Oh yeah, when it comes to RTS games, when I first started playing them, high-casualties (even if I won the battle) always drove me bonkers. I was always kicking myself over all those deaths, my mind telling me that there had to be a better strategy.

Only if they play keyboards and heckle talk show hosts (completely plausible in the Portal/HL universe).

Correction, the source of their funding doesn't have the attitude. If NASA had the equivalent funding they had during the space race, you'd see some pretty amazing stuff go down, methinks. That's not to say it isn't still going on though. Quantum leaps in computing technology makes manned missions far less necessary than they used to be. As for whether or not another space race could happen? Based on how politicians barely bat an eyelash at America being outperformed in every aspect of industry by "3rd World Countries," I can't see them giving a darn about spending money to 'beat' another country at anything in space. American pride is also at an all-time low, and if we went ape trying to race China to Mars, or (insert space mission here), all anyone would be saying is, "Great, will beating them to Mars bring the jobs back?"

Huh, I like that word the best, just because it sounds cool. If you want other words for "guide book," just hit up Thesaurus.com. I've found a lot of little-known, but fun words there for common things. A number of them have wound up in my little sci-fi/fantasy stories.

Gosh, I can't even imagine where they could go next with Portal. Of course, it doesn't help that we can't even take a guess at what year Portal 2 ends. My gut told me that humanity had long since vanished from the Earth though. If it's a sequel though... the Space Core has to reenter the atmosphere and make a giant crater (surviving of course), and it then becomes a companion for the character, at least briefly. I'd also like if the portal tech can be expanded further somehow. Sadly, while I was half awake in the past week or so, I dreamt up something that could be done to increase functionality of the portal gun. Can't remember a darned thing now though.

Interesting thought now though, I wonder at what point they would decide deflecting the asteroid is worth it? We still don't seem to be capable of exactly where an asteroid will pass, so it's highly unlikely we could predict where one would impact. If it WASN'T a global disaster sized rock, but is still big enough to wipe a city, would we bother trying to deflect it at all? After all, people can still bicker that the odds are in our favor that it won't strike land, but then if it DOES hit a city, and everyone knows that it was being tracked? Oh, the PR nightmare.

LOL or alternatively, the fact that the universe appears to be expanding faster is the result of someone thinking, "Drat... they're developing long-range sensor capability sooner than we thought. We'd better tweak the expansion rate." ...and this must be why when players start whining for more content, devs release what is typically referred to as an expansion.

Why is it assumed that the simulation computer needs to accurately calculate the entire universe at the same time? Based on the assumption that our reality is a simulation (granted, this is a geocentric outlook) then just as with deities, we have to consider that this whole darned thing was created just for us, and WE are the target of the experiment. Therefore there is no reason to accurately render other star systems or galaxies, beyond the amount of information we are able to gather with advanced telescopes. We can't use the Hubble to analyze the subatomic particles of Pluto, so there's no reason to render Pluto at that level of detail. KSP does this kind of thing all the time by reducing the complexity of the physics calculations of any craft that we're not currently focusing on - very similar to the Schrodinger's Cat concept. Heh, for all we know, we're already learning exploits. You could make a pretty good argument that if the Alcubierre drive actually works, that it would technically be a system 'hack' because it violates Light-speed. Also, simulation or not, I wonder how deep into the microcosm we'd have to go before we reached this universe's equivalent of 1's and 0's? There HAS to be a final level of tiny bits of matter, doesn't there? We keep finding more though. We once thought atoms was as small as it would go. And as a little aside, quantum physics could be an interesting argument for this being a simulation. We can never accurately predict where an electron is going to be at a certain time. One has to wonder if this could actually be a feature of the system, designed to prevent us from tampering. Of course it didn't work, since we succeeded in that anyway, but security protocols in systems are never infallible. Maybe the seemingly chaotic nature of matter at the quantum level is simply an encryption algorithm that we're learning to crack. Oh, and all of this talk about how a game could never possibly handle such things, here's a quantum leap in the right direction.

I remember having to execute a mercy killing in one game, that left me pretty emotional for a time.

I've been hearing that as well and it's silly. Though I haven't tried it myself to make sure. Asteroids are NOT mysterious goo and have no reason to yield different results depending on where you analyze it. I understand why they want to give you more science for bringing it into orbit (you can just assume that the extra science represents multiple missions, like what NASA actually wants to be able to do). But yep. They should treat the different asteroid classes as having different compositions. Each class gives you great science only ONCE.