vger

So, I ended up watching "The Core" today. Bad science, I know, and a lot of contrived things in it. But in spite of these things, it still managed to give me a sense of wonder that I haven't gotten from a fiction film in a long time. More classic examples include the original Journey to the Center of the Earth film (the remake did nothing for me), and Fantastic Voyage. It made me wonder if there other movies out there like this that I may not have ever seen. I don't care if it's ultra-realistic, or if the scientific knowledge is too outdated. I just want that same 'expedition to explore the unknown' feeling. Anything Star Trek is an obvious given, and "Europa Report" is on my hit list already. Any other recommendations?

There are too many incentives in the U.S. to keep drawing attention to your race/ethnicity in the case of minorities, so I think the results of that are a bit skewed. It has turned the U.S. dream of the melting pot into an attempt to blend oil and water. I doubt an interplanetary colony is going to go by the same kind of rules that the U.S. does when it comes to political correctness and 'atoning for sins'. Furthermore, since reproduction will be a pretty important issue, a colony elsewhere has a much better shot at breaking down cultural and racial boundaries, just from the size of the population. And given the limited space, the cultures will blend before they even have enough real estate to start forming towns of a particular persuasion.

What I can't understand is, why is it that so often, I can make a vehicle that flies without a problem when the runway drops off, but I can't get the darned thing to go into the air BEFORE the runway drops off? It's almost like they're magnetized to the tarmac until there's no more tarmac.

These days, that land can have value regardless of what's in the rocks. It could have value as long as its facing the Earth. Anyone remember this? First time I saw it, I got this creepy feeling that someday, someone could end up buying the moon, just so we could all look up into the sky and see a fracking Apple logo. If you entered someone's installation, or tampered with a remote probe, I'm betting that whoever's property you violated, would probably treat it as an invasion. And while a fight probably wouldn't break out on the moon over it, both parties are on Earth, and well within attacking distance of each other. Of course, if a corporation was the one that did it, then what? Would the nation claim no responsibility, the same way they typically do with terrorism, as a way of waging war without officially doing it?

Well, I can't complain too much now. That rain brought with it a pretty impressive cold front, and... it's snowing now. Not exactly cool space stuff, but this late in the season, wow, this is even more rare than an eclipse.

I'll still be selling food and steel for nada on alliance trade. Can't do anything with cash now though. With all the mining and the population size in what should primarily be a farming community, my city is turning into Beijing and I really need to save up for a recycling plant.

Kerputnicks!!! (cookies for anyone who actually knows where those are from)

The rain came in by 2AM. This region's weather almost never fails to obscure celestial events.

Actually I just realized, it reminds me of the attempt at making fusion using 100 or so lasers.

Ohhh, ha! I thought that WHOLE thing was the message you received.

Quite a unique perspective. Actually took me a few seconds before the reality of it hit me, and I'm usually an "outside the box" type of thinker. Sobering. Made me wonder what kind of thoughts would be going through my head if I were the guy chilling in the dark on board the CM.

Time to party! OK, not really. But... Yeah, sitting up late, waiting for the moon to start turning red. Hopefully the inclement weather heading for the northeast stays away long enough. Got some thin stratus clouds overhead right now, but the moon is still perfectly visible through them. Who else is waiting up? Folks in the western times zones have this one easy.

I don't know what it is, but I think it's about to attack the Enterprise.

That has got to be just about the most bi-polar message ever. It's like a drunk who can't decide whether he wants to tell off his ex or invite her over for a late dinner. Stop shooting me you jerk. By the way, wanna team? I hate you! By the way, I'm offering resources.

Why not? It's already a better plot than "Ghosts of Mars."

Dres is the "Flying Dutchman" of the Kerbal universe, capturing the souls of kerbonauts who have made their... impression... in the star system. So... who is writing the fanfic?

I got a temporary steel mill running now. Will anyone still be needing it or has the dust begun to settle now?

Yeah, we know, but it's still funny. The things to do just over some downloaded pr0n? Though I can't help but wonder if the guy just got 'lucky' and the laptop didn't have on it what he thought it did.

Next time you land there, use nothing but pink lights on your vehicles. If it doesn't make things feel safer, that oughta... humiliate it at least. ...right?

Relax, just feed it some Timelord memories and it'll go back to bed.

While it might be possible to remote-drill on the moon, if we ever want to go deeper, I can't see depending on a robot to handle the task on its own. And I'm very curious about the presence of water. If we were going to send just one more manned mission, I'd want it to be a polar landing.

And Aperture Science is waiting for a shipment of white goo.

Wow... has NASA not ever presented a 3D animated model of this? Went looking for one and didn't find any.

Even if we were to abandon all forms of power generation, population growth would STILL come back to bite us in the arse eventually. If you want to see where overpopulation combined with energy consumption will lead, we've got a convenient preview of it in Beijing. And I saw it estimated somewhere, that even if we were able to magically turn on a global utopia switch tomorrow, we already couldn't grow enough food to feed everyone. There's not enough arable land. The trouble is we're living in an industrial age but our stone age instincts still think that only 1 out of 10 kids will live to see their 2nd birthday.