TheSaint

So, prefixing my post with, "I am not an engineer, I am a guy on the Internet using his intuition," You take your APFSDS round, and you replace a significant fraction of the mass in your payload with mass that isn't penetrator. I mean, even if go to the bother of constructing that ramjet out of depleted uranium, it's not going to make a difference when it comes to actual armor penetration. The only part that's going to matter at point of contact is the penetrator. You can only push so much mass out of your cannon before it becomes ineffective. So the ramjet mass is going to do nothing but penalize you when it comes to initial muzzle velocity and penetrator mass. If your target is 100 yards away, your ramjet-enhanced round is a complete loss compared to conventional APFSDS. I don't need any sort of software or calculator to tell me that. With a muzzle velocity measured in thousands of yards per second, there is no possible way that a ramjet is going to make up that initial muzzle velocity penalty in 100 yards. Your ramjet will be operating for milliseconds at that point, at best. So the question is not, "Is a ramjet-enhanced round always better?" The question is, "At what range does a ramjet-enhanced round make up for its initial velocity penalty and become a better round than a conventional APFSDS?" Or, maybe the question is, "Does the ramjet-enhanced round ever make up for its initial velocity penalty?" If there is a break-even range, do I send my tanks out with a mix of ramjet and non-ramjet rounds? Which do they keep in the chamber? Is it worth adding one more decision to the already decision-overloaded troops in the field? Or (since everything is run by bean-counters now), perhaps a better question is, "Does the ramjet-enhanced round provide a cost benefit on the battlefield beyond that provided by a conventional APFSDS round?" Can I kill more tanks with ramjet-enhanced rounds? Or can I kill more tanks with the greater number of conventional APFSDS rounds that I can provide with the same amount of money? What did my General Dynamics lobbyist tell me this week? Again, I am not an engineer. Or a tanker, for that matter. (Paging @JoeSchmuckatelli) Just asking the questions that immediately come to mind. I guess it doesn't seem like a dumb question to me.

Well, yeah. I meant it as an illustrative example, not as a good idea.

I guess your differentiation is confusing to me. Barter is a form of exchange which trades goods and services directly without the use of currency. That's all that the term describes. It makes no assumptions about any other conditions in the exchange. A free market is an economic system in which the pricing isn't fixed by an outside entity such as a government or guild. It's easy to envision a system which is not a free market that uses barter, where the commodity exchange rates are artificially fixed. If the dairy guild mandates that all guild members must trade one gallon of milk for one pound of beef when trading with members of the butcher's guild, then you have a economic system that uses barter that is not a free market. The members are bartering, they're exchanging goods directly without the use of currency, but they aren't free to decide their exchange rates, their "prices", for themselves, So when you say, "That's not a free market, that's barter," you're comparing apples and oranges. They're two different terms that are used to describe two different aspects of an economic system. It would be like pointing at a car and saying, "That's not a Volkswagen, that's red."

Oh, I'll play all of them, eventually. And they'll be replaced with other cheap titles in the library waiting to be played. I just don't see the point in paying full price for video games. Speak of the devil, I just installed Skyrim for the first time last week. Bought it on sale (<$10) last summer. Just got around to it.

I don't buy any video game for more than $10 these days. Been burned way too many times. Besides, I already have over a dozen titles in my Steam and GOG libraries that I haven't even downloaded yet. (That I bought for less than $10 each.) Why do I need to run out and buy something for $50-60 right now when I'm not even going to get around to it for at least another three or four years?

Google Searches for 'Eyes Hurt' Spike Amid Solar Eclipse "Think about this: think about how stupid the average person is, and then realize that half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin

I have a friend in Barcelona who keeps bugging me to visit....

That was the whole thing for me. Between crowds and clouds I decided to take a pass.

If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.... Good luck, everyone. I look forward to viewing all of your amazing photographs from the comfort of my couch.

Y5 D35 - Y6 D74 - Sarnus Explorer Now that we've gotten things squared away in the Kerbin system, it's time to turn our attention to the outer system once again. On Day 35 of Year 5 of our program, Sarnus Explorer finally arrives at the outer reaches of the Sarnus system, after a journey of almost four years. Now that we're here, it's a good time to review the mission objectives for the probe: Minimum Objectives: One flyby of Sarnus One flyby of Tekto Primary Objectives: Two flybys of Sarnus Two flybys of each of Sarnus' major moons: Tekto, Slate, and Eeloo. Deploy the probe's atmospheric sub-probes, one on Sarnus and one on Tekto. Secondary Objectives: Perform flybys of Sarnus' minor moons: Ovok and Hale. Perform additional flybys of Sarnus and its major moons. As can be seen from the mission plan, one of our major goals for Sarnus Explorer is to study Tekto, which appears to have a dense, nitrogen-rich atmosphere. So, as luck would have it, Orbital Dynamics informs me that Sarnus Explorer has the opportunity to fly by Tekto immediately upon its entry into the Sarnus system. This is obviously a chance we can't pass up. So, here at the edge of the system, the probe burns to intercept Tekto. See you back here in a couple of months. ---------- Things move slowly in the outer system. Here we are almost two months later, and Sarnus Explorer is rapidly approaching Tekto. This is obviously the closest anyone has ever been to the Sarnus system, and the imagery we're getting back is just stunning. Since we have no assurances that we'll ever get this close to Tekto again, we're going to take this opportunity to deploy the Tekto atmospheric probe. As Sarnus Explorer reaches the release point, about half an hour away from periapsis, it releases the probe. Sarnus Explorer then immediately burns to raise its periapsis above Tekto's atmosphere. Now that Sarnus Explorer is safe, we can turn our attention to the Tekto probe. It strikes the upper atmosphere of Tekto and is immediately enveloped in plasma. Thankfully, the heat shield holds, and soon the probe is free-falling through Tekto's atmosphere and returning data. The probe continues to fall, slowed to ridiculously slow speeds by the dense atmosphere. It appears to be falling towards an area in Tekto's northern hemisphere that is dominated by rugged mountains and lakes of liquid hydrocarbons. Five hundred meters above the surface the probe deploys its parachute. In an incredibly lucky break, the probe touches down on an island in the middle of a lake. It continues to transmit data to Sarnus Explorer until it passes out of transmission range. Unbelievable. Sarnus Explorer passes within a hundred kilometers of Tekto, and then continues on to Sarnus. What an incredible start to the mission. Well, despite losing some velocity from its Tekto flyby, Sarnus Explorer is still on an escape trajectory out of the Sarnus system. We should probably do something about that. A gravity assist from Slate would probably allow us to capture without a burn, but unfortunately Orbital Dynamics just can't seem to find an angle for that. However, they do come up with an angle for an Eeloo flyby. Any port in a storm. Sarnus Explorer performs a minor burn just after leaving Tekto to line it up. ---------- Two days later now, and Sarnus Explorer is closing in on its encounter with Eeloo. Although the probe will lose even more velocity with this flyby, it still will not be in orbit around Sarnus when it exits Eeloo's SOI. So, in order to capture around Sarnus, it will have to burn at Eeloo periapsis. So now Sarnus Explorer is officially captured at Sarnus! (And, even though the requirements of the burn reduced our scientific gain, the Eeloo flyby was still scientifically significant, so it meets the requirements for our mission objectives.) Sarnus Explorer swings wide around Sarnus and heads out to its apoapsis. Meanwhile, Orbital Dynamics plots their next move. ---------- Okay, so it has been almost another two months. Sarnus Explorer is approaching its apoapsis, and we're all waiting with baited breath to hear what rabbit Orbital Dynamics has pulled out of their hat. <reads brief handed to him by OD supervisor> Well, it seems that the plan is to burn at apoapsis for a flyby of Slate, then to use the gravity assist at Slate to reduce Sarnus Explorer's periapsis enough to release the Sarnus atmospheric probe. I like it. Sarnus Explorer burns at apoapsis. And now we'll come back here in another couple months to see where that gets us. ---------- Here we are back on Day 191, and now Sarnus Explorer is passing by Slate for the first time. Once it has exited Slate's SOI, we get our data back...and it's not quite there. The periapsis is not quite low enough to release the probe. So we require another burn. <disapproving glare at OD gang> So now, Sarnus Explorer is finally on course to release the Sarnus atmospheric probe. As it descends towards Sarnus, we have more bad news. It appears that the atmospheric probe will be making its descent on the night side of Sarnus. So while this will have no effect on most of its scientific data, we will not be receiving the kind of stunning visual images we received from the Jool atmospheric probe. We could delay the release of the probe until such time that it could be released on the day side, but the visual images just aren't important enough to warrant the risk. In any case, Sarnus Explorer continues its descent. About half an hour away from periapsis, it releases the probe. Sarnus Explorer immediately burns to raise its periapsis so that it doesn't burn up in Sarnus' atmosphere. This consumes a large amount of fuel, and Flight informs me that this brings us below 50% of our initial fuel load. It seems early in the mission to be this low, but apparently this is going to be a very different mission than Jool Explorer was. In any case, the Sarnus probe hurtles towards its doom. However, its heat shield holds, and it descends through Sarnus' atmosphere, transmitting data to Sarnus Explorer as it goes. When it reaches 300 kilometers below the cloud tops, it deploys its parachute. It then continues transmitting until it fails at about 200 kilometers altitude. Although Sarnus Explorer is obviously in transmission blackout on the night side of Sarnus, when it reaches daylight it transmits the data it received from the atmospheric probe, as well as the data it collected from its own close flyby of Sarnus. Two more successful mission milestones! While Sarnus Explorer is climbing back out of the well to its apoapsis and Orbital Dynamics is plotting its next maneuver, we can turn our attention to the upcoming crew rotation, which will take place entirely before Sarnus Explorer returns to the vicinity of Sarnus. ---------- Day 207. Orbital Dynamics has interrupted my very busy morning to inform me that Sarnus Explorer has the opportunity for a double whammy. A burn at the next apoapsis can set up a flyby of Hale, and then on the next orbit, with no burn necessary, it will get a flyby of Ovok. Normally I wouldn't approve of fuel expenditure on secondary objectives before the primary objectives are complete, but this seems like the sort of opportunity that will only happen once on this mission, so it's too good to pass up. So I sign off on the flight plan. Then I get back to herding the cats through the crew rotation. Two days later, Sarnus Explorer burns at apoapsis. I guess we'll see how this works out. ---------- We're here on Day 227 now, and Sarnus Explorer is approaching Hale. It's a captured asteroid. I'm glad you guys are excited. I've pulled bigger rocks out of my garden. Anyway, since its so small, it has no appreciable affect on Sarnus Explorer's velocity. OD tells me that we are still on course to intercept Ovok on the next orbit. ---------- And now it's Day 256, and we're coming up on Ovok. Apparently this worked. Good job, guys. First images are coming back from Ovok...and...it looks rather odd. It's an egg.... Well, now I've seen everything. If any of the images come back with a giant space chicken, let me know. No, actually, on second thought, don't. I have enough to worry about. So, that was a very successful maneuver, killed two...birds...with one stone. So to speak. We've got another couple of weeks now until Sarnus Explorer reaches apoapsis again. ---------- So, SE is back at apoapsis again. OD looked at our objectives and poured over our options. So now we're going to make a minor burn to line up for an Eeloo flyby. And apparently the gravity assist will sling us around for another Eeloo flyby on our next orbit. Sounds good. ---------- Day 286, and Sarnus Explorer is cruising by Sarnus towards its second flyby of the little iceball, Eeloo. And there it goes. And OD informs me that the next Eeloo flyby is lined up perfectly. Good job. You've almost worked off that screw up you made with the Slate gravity assist. <wink> Meanwhile, the next day, our intrepid crew on Duna reach the end of their mission. They stow and secure the hab and rover at Duna Base, and then make their way to Olympus to prepare for their departure. Then, as Draco passes over the horizon: Liftoff! Guided by Captain Krueger's expert hand, Olympus glides into orbit next to Draco. And then he guides her in to dock. Draco's departure window is about 12 days away, so the crew has time to get their gear stowed and bring all of Draco's systems back online. In the meantime, we can get back to Sarnus. ---------- Sarnus Explorer reaches its apoapsis, but it is on course for its next Eeloo flyby and requires no intervention. I guess we'll leave things here and get back to Duna. ---------- Back aboard Draco, the crew is ready for departure. Although their time on Duna has been rewarding, and their names will go down in history, they are all ready to go home. As Draco approaches its burn time, everyone checks and double-checks their systems. When everything is GO, Captain Krueger gives the GO, and Kline ignites the ship's engine and burns for Kerbin. Several days later, Draco exits Duna's SOI. The crew spins up the habitat and settles in. Their course correction burn is more than a couple months away, and home is three times as far as that. So they might as well kick their feet up. ---------- Back at Sarnus, SE arrives at its third Eeloo flyby. While I appreciate everything that OD does for us, I think I speak for everyone when I say: We've had enough of Eeloo. However, this flyby will give us a gravity assist and push the probe's orbit further out, which should give us more opportunities for flybys with other moons on our next orbit. ---------- As Sarnus Explorer approaches apoapsis again, our fortunes have improved. OD's new flight plan involves a small burn which places us on a course back to Tekto. Excellent, more study of Tekto will improve our mission success. ---------- Okay, we're here on Day 366 for our second Tekto flyby of the mission. Well, that was a little anticlimactic. But Science is telling me they did get good data. And OD says if we had flown any closer it may have gravity-assisted us right out of the Sarnus system. Okay, I guess. Better luck next orbit. ---------- Day 397, back at apoapsis. OD has us burning for Slate this time. I guess we'll see everyone back here next year. ---------- Okay everyone, it's Year 6, Day 3 now. Happy New Year. Sarnus Explorer is cruising on down to its encounter with Slate. There now! That's a flyby! However, OD tells me that the gravity assist has seriously reduced SE's orbit. However, with a slight burn at the next apoapsis, which is now in just two days, we can plot another Slate encounter that will gravity assist the orbit back up to a reasonable distance. SE burns at apoapsis to raise its periapsis and intercept Slate. ---------- And now, two weeks later, Sarnus Explorer has another close encounter with Sarnus. And when it pulls out of that, it swings by Slate again. And, OD informs me, with a burn now, just outside of Slates SOI, we can plot another flyby of Tekto. Excellent work, everyone, excellent. However, Flight informs me that Sarnus Explorer has, as of the end of this burn, dropped below the threshold of 25% of its initial fuel load. Since we have officially met all of our primary and secondary objectives, that means we need to begin to look at our end-of-mission options. ---------- Four days later, Day 25, and Draco has reached its course correction burn. Time flies when you're having fun, right guys? The next day, Sarnus Explorer reaches its third flyby of Tekto. Orbital Dynamics has a final flight plan for me. Two days out from the Tekto flyby, SE executes a burn, which plots a course for another Tekto flyby. That flyby brings it around to a course to intercept Slate. Then the gravity assist from Slate will bring the probe's orbit down such that its periapsis intersects with Sarnus' atmosphere, which will result in the disposal of the probe and the end of the mission. So, two days out from Tekto, SE burns again. It begins its descent towards Sarnus. ---------- Day 54 now, and Sarnus Explorer is approaching its fourth and final Tekto flyby. It's another distant flyby, but it is certainly worth the effort from a scientific standpoint. As it exits Tekto's SOI, OD informs me that we will require another small course correction to finalize our trajectory to Slate. This brings the probe below 20% of its fuel load. Good thing we're ending this now. ---------- Day 72 now. Sarnus Explorer is in its last few days now. It completes its final flyby of Slate. And once it has exited the SOI, OD informs me that everything is lined up perfectly. Two days later, the probe is rapidly approaching the cloud tops of Sarnus. Slate, Eeloo, and Ovok showed up to see Sarnus Explorer off. And as the probe enters the atmosphere... ...end of transmission. Another excellent mission. Couple of hiccups in there, but we still vastly exceeded the mission objectives. Once again, good job everyone! Next up on the agenda is the homecoming of Draco and her crew. Beyond that, we will be planning our next mission to Duna, as well as possibly commissioning another vessel in the Draco class for additional missions in the inner Kerbol system. So many possibilities await!

Well, part of it is because studio executives are so risk averse today. Movies cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make, so they don't want to risk casting unknowns in them. They somehow imagine that if they cast someone who starred in a successful movie before that it will make their movie successful. It's the same reason you mostly see large franchises now instead of studios taking risks on scripts that aren't plugged in to preexisting fandoms. Another reason is because of how difficult it is to get a SAG card. In other countries, like England, joining the actor's union is simply a matter of joining and paying dues. SAG has eligibility requirements that you must meet before you can join, and they're not the easiest. You basically have to find someone who will hire you to do work that requires SAG membership before you can become a SAG member. When most casting directors only call SAG members to cast. So your analogy of there being a "no vacancy" sign isn't too far off.

Yes.

I find a better point of divergence from human-centric thinking. I am a alien arthopod intelligence. I am hetrosexual, but I may not conform to the norms of what humans define of heterosexuality. My familial unit is not father-mother-siblings. When I emerge from my egg, my parents are nowhere to be seen. Instead, my familial unit is the other creatures who emerge from the same clutch of eggs at the same time that I do. The same eggs who were stuck to the same physical object as I was. My stick. (Not stick in the physical sense. Ten-thousand years ago it may have been a stick on a tree or a bush. Now it may be a cluster of birthing appliances in a laboratory. It doesn't matter. It's a "stick".) I can't breed with my siblings in my stick. That's wrong. But I can breed with creatures who are like me from other sticks. I can breed with creatures who are like me from other sticks. But I cannot breed with my siblings. However, I can trust my siblings. To death. When my siblings trust others, from other sticks, and breed with them, I trust them. Sort of. But not like I trust my siblings. They I trust. To death. And in this crazy matrix of trusting and not trusting we somehow create a civilization. That makes it to the stars. And contacts humanity. Who is completely different from us. What in the actual? Biology leads to psychology. Learn it. Live it. Write it.

Well, my Old Fashioned decided that I'm done thinking about this. I'm going to use the calendar I came up with for my next mission report. The good news is that Kerbal Space Program is just about the most libertarian video game I've ever seen. You can use whatever calendar you want to. I am (very honestly) curious to see what you decide upon. (Because people who are more enthusiastic about their calendar choices in their saves are more interesting to me.)

I discovered that Starcraft is now free-to-play. My life is over, at least for the foreseeable future.

Maybe. Buuuut...usually calendars are developed early in a civilization, when it is still operating with a certain amount of illogic. So expecting a civilization's calendar to be 100% logical is, well, illogical. And, besides, "sexker" doesn't make it through the content filter on Bob's laptop.

Okay, so I put some more thought into this this afternoon while I should have been doing other stuff. Since the week is based on the munar cycle, call it a munar week, or meek. Split the days of the year up relatively evenly between the eight months. This gives you two months of 54 days and six months of 53 days. That's close enough to Minmus' synodic period to say it's based on it. I ran some names out of a random name generator and came up with some that I thought sounded regal enough to use for the names of months. Replace as desired. This is what I wound up with: According to the Wiki, Kerbin's year is actually 426 days, 32 minutes, 24.6 seconds long. That would mean that every 11 years would be a leap year, adding one day to one of the short months. Let's pick Maros for that. And every tenth leap year you skip.

1. I can't believe it took this long for someone to do something like this. 2. I can't believe Squad or Intercept didn't do it first. 3. Steal some days from the other minths to even out Minth 8. Kind of the way our months are the length of a lunar cycle, but not really. One is four weeks, some are 30 days, some are 31. Nobody cares. The lunar cycle doesn't line up with them anyway, and neither will yours. 4. Hold a contest to name the minths.

Oh, no hint here. I just think a worldbuilding thread would be splendid. Trust me, when it comes to thread drift, I'm The King of the Drifters.

Maybe The Lounge needs a worldbuilding thread?

So, my wife and kids talked me into starting a Stardew Valley co-op game with them. Against my better judgement. But I learned that playing Stardew Valley with the Starcraft soundtrack loudly playing in the background makes Stardew Valley 200% better.

So, it's like living in New England?

It's been snowing here all weekend. This is the latest we've seen snow in the 13 years we've been living here.