vger

Yeah, I guess it's a good thing nobody named one of the planets Yahweh, or people would be campaigning to change it now. Venus, Mars, Neptune... they can all stick around though. Shhh.. you're going to annoy the anti-theists. Religion has to be the root of all evil in humanity, because... I dunno... they spoke out against Origin of the Species and they also killed people regularly in an era when it was normal to kill people regularly.

I think calling it an age is what one should do when you hit a point where there are so many years in your history that it has become too long to keep defining it in years. Science has 'eras' at the very least. In most cases it's pointless to say specifically how many millions it is. To just say "Triassic" is sufficient in casual discussion.

Heh, yep. Lest we forget that a lot of what we commonly view as Christian traditions are much older. The Roman Catholics had a thing for blending their traditions with the traditions of old in order to ease the assimilation process for other cultures into Christiandom. The birth of Jesus is no exception. Pagan traditions tell tales of each year being the life cycle of a 'king' or other being of stature, as a representation of the annual cycle of death and rebirth. The king was born in the heart of winter (the baby new year), got old, and then died, and the cycle would repeat. If there was an actual Jesus, most records point to his birth being NOWHERE near Christmas. No doubt, Jesus's birthday was moved to December so that Jesus and the Baby New Year would blend into one iconic figure.

Now would be a good time to propose it. Russia is already acting pretty cranky... Really, it seems like the ONLY chance of resetting the calendar would be if something happened that affected the whole world in an incredible drastic way. If it were an act by any one nation, everyone else would get jealous and wouldn't want to convert to it. Say, if we got hit by an epic asteroid and entered into one of a billion 'post-apocalyptic' sci-fi novels, that event might serve as a new 'zero.' The ONLY thing I could see a nation doing that might allow us all to agree on resetting the calendars would be a technology so incredible that it would tear down barriers in every direction it looked. Warp drive, or free energy, or as someone else suggested, a robotics renaissance.

It might not even need to switch off the view of the space center. Probably all it would need to do is move the camera down to the surface so it's only viewing a very tiny piece of land. Typically in any game I've played that lags me out like mad, getting as close to the ground as possible and staring at it results in a nice performance improvement.

From what I've been able to gather, it's only politically correct to be offended by non-destructive religious behaviors, if the originator of the behavior is Christian. And... wow... remember Y2K? And that was only an issue for time-keeping objects that have been created within the last 20 years or so. Can you imagine changing the temporal point of reference for EVERYTHING that exists in the modern world? The very notion of doing so is just begging for chaos.

Whatever type of monitor you're using, I want it.

You know what they need to start selling? Kerbalnaut Ice Cream.

Just for kicks, I've always wanted to write a mod that causes explosions to become like something rigged by a professional pryotechnician. Colors, whistling noises, crackles, etc.

Very interesting question, though not specifically a science one. However, ever since I was a teenager, my favorite stories were the ones that are capable of blending high-tech and 'mysticism' into one universe. A place where science and religion are not mortal enemies, but married partners. The best example of this has already been done though, Star Wars. Yeah, it's 99% pseudo-science (though some of the speculative science probably nobody knew for certain was wrong at the time), but it has gained enough appeal that I think you can safely say, yes it IS possible to combine fantasy with sci-fi. Star Trek has forayed into this as well. Probably a better example of a story that at least 'tries' to not insult physics at every turn. Star Trek is very largely, from what I've seen anyway, written from an atheistic perspective. But even then, you had the Vulcans (who, mind you were the most LOGICAL-thinking beings in the known universe of sentient creatures) pulling off soul-transfers and spiritual resurrections. On the more campy side of things. Flash Gordon? Mostly sci-fi, at least for the era it came from. But Ming still had some pretty magic powers. How about Krull? Or Dune?

This entire launch was just done for the purpose of encouraging innuendos, right? ....right?

Is this 'really' even worth the trouble? Are you trying to save on fuel, or.... ?

Ya know, the twisted side of me, on more than one occasion, has wanted to write a mod that made catastrophic failures look more or less like firework-factory fires. With lots of colorful explosions and whistling noises

So this Yahoo article about the Moon's north pole came into my feed today. http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-hd-moon-map-reveals-lunar-north-pole-100710053.html These images have me curious. Is this just a trick of light? Am I actually seeing deeper craters at the North pole than the surrounding latitudes? If so, how did this happen? The impacts at the poles should be far less intense than lower lats, but this mosaic suggests the opposite.

It's cool, I just prefer a little elaboration. Like I said, if things are kept indie, it's probably safe. It's when the bottom line changes from "are we doing well?" to "is profit maximized?" that this kind of thing gets dangerous. Frankly, I'm actually more comfortable with buying 'chapters' or the almost-outdated term, 'expansions,' than I am with having a silhouetted planet orbiting the sun and having to buy it before I can visit it (or whatever other bizarre thing you can think of). OP's examples of paid-for-DLC actually included the more dubious methods of separating players from their money. Were that not the case, I wouldn't have made such a post in the first place. My response was moreso directed at some of the specific things that were mentioned, rather than the idea of DLC at all. If I have to pay for a "version 2" of KSP, I won't really mind.

Oh, I do love single-line "your logic isn't logical" statements that spontaneously find their way into every internet discussion. Well, being an indie company certainly helps with things like this. I've just seen it one too many times to not get nervous when it starts being discussed. It sort of has that "Ima use the dark side of the Force just for this one thing, but I won't turn to it" and then the corruption slowly oozes its way in and takes over.

Well DLC and things like "Star Citizen" ship pre-orders (which is basically paying for a head-start in the galaxy without having to grind for a better ship, and that game shares similarities to EvE Online) got mentioned. I'm cool with superficial things like ship decals. And the Kerbalizer is a great example. But I don't want to wind up in a scenario where your science instruments pick up an anomalous reading and then you get a "Pay $2.00 to find out what it is" message. That's typically where such things go. As time wears on, eventually the game turns into a big infomercial, constantly waving DLC under your nose like a crazed door-to-door salesman. In the stereotypical DLC world, we'd be buying every new mission that comes out such as the asteroids.

I very highly doubt that any modern monopoly will ever treat its customers well. If SpaceX stayed private, then maybe. Otherwise, the moment the competitors are all dead, prices will skyrocket (no pun intended) and suck customers for every cent they're worth. We will never see another 'Ma Bell' as long as shareholders get to dictate how a company is run.

I just suggested this be added to the welding mod.

Monkeh... are you seriously encouraging the introduction of microtransactions to KSP? Do you have any idea how many games who's essences have been utterly destroyed by transferring to that business model?

Do you think it might be possible to expand the functionality of this mod to allow for 'welding' of parts during an EVA? Currently, doing the welds before launch makes it all feel a bit too easy. But in cases where something like a space station is being built, I could see using this to weld parts together after they've been connected, in order to keep the lag down. Besides, EVA welding would be pretty cool anyhow.

Alternatively, there's the "universe zoomout" videos. A couple of them. One was done in the film, Contact. There was another I saw in an IMAX documentary (pretty sure is it). And I'm sure there are others that might be more well done. It's a really freaky thing to see when it's presented right, especially if the screen encompasses your entire field of view. I've had a couple of quasi-nightmares about things like this. I say quasi, because even though the experience of getting so far from home was incredibly scary, it was also exciting at the same time. Very bizarre dual-emotional anxiety.

I've always wanted to do an entire mission from IVA, but the instrumentation seems far too limited. Even for landing, really, though I never tried it with one of the advanced pods. KSP also needs the ability to place cameras on a vessel, which could bring up a display screen in IVA. But I think the devs have said they won't ever be adding additional views.

I hope I have the opportunity to see these. Someday... http://markom.kuvat.fi/kuvat/Halo+Photos/Sotkamo+3.12-09/

Maybe it's just my locale then. Any time it's really hot, there's also an infinite amount of humidity. It may also be a light pollution issue. With more moisture near the surface, all nearby lights are getting reflected which makes seeing the stars nearly impossible.