p1t1o

I dunno, its stated purpose is to stimulate long-term thinking, which personally I think is a good idea, whether the clock lasts or not. People get all excited about space travel and colonising Mars, and they want it NOW or in the next coupla decades. Whereas in reality it will involve some real long-term thinking, maybe not on the 10-millenia scale, but longer than we are used to.

Easy to prevent, just build a technology-worshipping cult that sees the clock as a literal God, throw a few sinners into its inner workings, that sort of thing. *** In the Guardian yesterday there was this headline: David Davis: Brexit will not plunge Britain into 'Mad Max dystopia' The first thing I thought: HOLY HOT DANG, THAT WAS A RISK!?!?!?

Hmm. If I wanted to fracture a strata, Id use a nuke. People are freaked out, often for good reason, by "fracking" which is under similar conditions but with far less extreme forces and no radioactivity. Im not into it.

Dont get the wrong idea. The cavities formed from underground detonations do not last, almost without exception they immediately collapse, and the one exception was very, very unstable. This is a very good read: http://www.nuclearweaponarchive.org/Library/DocumentArchive/524871.pdf I think unless you are fighting lava monsters, doing anything useful with nukes underground is not a great idea. For one thing, ground is not a hermetically sealed container, just because there are no immediate outgassings, you have just done something very bad down there and none if it is particularly motivated to stay put.

Yeah the theme that "martyrdom is cool" has been getting stronger and stronger, Im not sure if Im ok with it.

And the worst weapon range in space war history... It was WAY too much of a stretch just to replicate that scene from Dambusters. AGAIN. I predict the next movie will have spacefighters with actual propellers. The one after that, space horses with pilots dressed like cowboys with laser-lassoos.

Yeh, I've heard this one a lot, but when I saw it I was just like "Huh, guided projectiles, cool."

I think they *are* playing it, they're just playing it perfectly

In response to the OP: Very, very long story short - Make a list of things that you know to be 100.0% philosophical-grade "proven" and notice how short it is. That should give you the answer.

What in the heck kind of course are you on that requires a ramjet powered unmanned drone to fly 100km at 20k feet, for "extra credit"?

Yes. Or I had the thick skin to begin with

Valid point but terribly depressing. Well since we get to choose, can we at least make it the afternoon?

Thinking about alternatives in a speculative sense, like what might be possible in the far future, for example I mentioned that I find it common in sci-fi for suits to be a nano-tachnological membrane that you "pass through" to apply the suit and the membrane also forms the airlock and is part of the wall. That is probably a little too sci-fi for much serious discussion but what if we thought closer. I think its quite well understood that suits will almost certainly develop into a much more form-fitting, if not skin-tight, garment, as vacuum itself isnt actually all-that an agressive environment. Pressure to maintain the body's equilibrium can far more easily be maintained by fabric elasticity than trying to create a human-sized bubble of air. The suits will become far more compact, flexible and resource-efficient, enabling longer spacewalks and a wider range of activities. So where to after that? And here's the speculation: since a human only needs a few things to live in vacuum - oxygen, a safe temperature, the retention of fluid and optionally, protection from physical hazards such as radiation, micrometeroids etc. Since that is the case, is there another solution to surviving other than a suit? What Im getting at are physical modifications to the body itself. Now hold your horses, Im not talking about cyborgs here, it could be much more subtle. A minor increase in elasticity and tensile strength in the skin. An interface, possibly similar to a dialysis machine perhaps, for infusing oxygen into the blood, and removing CO2. Another approach might be a whale-like ability to store vast amounts of oxygen in the body's fluid, like holding ones breath for hours. Advanced control over the fluid/gas-permeability of various membranes (lungs, eyes, skin etc.) A blubber-like temperature management layer, good for insulation, can be flushed with blood to shed heat. This also ups radiation protection of internals. If we were starting to get ambitious, how about convincing the body to grow kevlar in the skin instead of collagen. Potential altering of cellular repair mechanisms to increase resistance to radiation damage. This might also quite literally be a cure for cancer. Naturally Im not suggesting going naked, various kinds of protection and utility can be supplemented with equipment in the form of regular clothing (eg: kevlar vest, insulated trousers etc. you get it) If that were possible - and I dont think they are all that far-fetched if we are talking quite a ways into the future - there would be countless advantages, especially to colonisation.

I was avoiding the "sci-fi in VR" discussion because it made my brain hurt too much

Please tell me that the CD tray has a little tongue painted on it...

I agree that aesthetics are not relevant to the quality of the computer. But aesthetics are still relevant to quality of life in general. For example if I was building a computer, it would be a low priority. But if I was choosing a piece of furniture, it would be a much larger factor, as you have to live with it for a long time, its going to occupy your field of vision in a significant way if its in a place that you occupy often. Yeah an ugly beige monstrosity of a chair might be comfortable, but if its ugly as sin, you might not see that as a good deal. I want to make my computer look nicer not because good computers must look good, but because it is a fundamental installation in my main room, which is very visible and which will be there for, ultimately, all of the forseeable future. In the same way that someone might decide that they want a cool print by their favorite artist on the wall, I have decided that I want my computer to look good. I already have the goodness which goes inside, the computer is already built and all further upgrades are well out of my reach. But if I can make it easier on the eye - it wont make my computer any different, but it will make my household a more pleasant place. There are of course many situations where the aesthetics of the case have much less impact, where other objects have far more effect, but I doubt anybody rejects the concept of aesthetics as a whole. NB: I do reject the aesthetic concept that computers have to be crammed with kilowatts of RGB LEDs flashing all over the place cycling through the entire spectrum, some of the builds that you can find online look like schizophrenic acid trips to the planet of no eyes.

I believe Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon involves a space gun no? Much later, during the cold war, this concept received some serious research, culminating in this famous experiment: It also included some accurate conceptswhich were very advanced for its time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_Earth_to_the_Moon#Technological_aspects_of_the_novel And most technological inaccuracies were simply down to the fact that it was written in the mid 1800's, so it was probably super-hard sci-fi by the definition of its day. I dont think it is appropriate to strip it of that title just because we exist further in the future. I mean, it literally predicted the future 100 years in advance (men on the moon), so it was by definition, un-realised reality. If it was written today, it would be an "alternate history", which is a genre which has a lot of overlap with sci-fi. o_0 Noooiiiiiiice!!

lolol ...and...is he drinking his cooling fluid??

Sure, I mean, who wants this totally uncool thing: Or, you could just forgo a case completely? (Obviously nothing wrong with a pragmatic approach)

What?! No! Totally called that, had no idea about the original script

The pressure will rise until it is at a point on the phase diagram where it is happy to be liquid at 100C. Since water is happy to be liquid at 99C, the pressure rise will only be slight (see chart below, at 100kpa, 100C water is gas, at 101kpa its still liquid) but it will rise. As soon as the pressure rises a bit, the boiling point rises a bit, so thats why you dont get the full 1654atmospheres. Since water is not 100.0% incompressible (there is always a tiny amount of leeway) there will be a tiny bubble or two maybe, this will account for the rise in pressure - as obviously if the volume doesnt change, the pressure cannot rise in a fixed-volume container.

Right! The last time I did a windows install, it was asking me for USB drivers. No internet connection, no USB, no optical drive. Greeat. Had to frankenstein it up and have an optical drive hanging by the wires out the side of the open case. Time before that it asked for RAID drivers on a floppy. A FLOPPY. My motherboard didnt even have the socket for it anymore.

Not to worry, this aint my first rodeo I did go through a grace period and vetted my desires against resources and future proofing. This is post-thought excitement, I've made the decision and am now basking in the anticipation There is a particular feeling I get when I see a "right" purchase and I almost never act without getting that feeling and its very accurate. If I go against it, either buying or not-buying, I get very disappointed. I wont be filling it with flashing lights & RGB fans, my motherboard has enough of those built-in already. But I've got some nice colour-matched cables that go with the motherboard, and really its displaying the components that I like.

If any of you are literally stalking me, you might have noticed Im upgrading my PC. Aesthetics are nice but rarely a priority if you have limited funds. Then I saw this: Is that not THE most beautiful case ever made? Theres lots of pictures of it filled with horrifically gaudy fluid cooling setups, but ignore those and just look at that. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. **** I hunted through my flat for junk to sell on eBay and I recommend everyone to do this once in a while because I found enough stuff (a drone, my old motherboard, a fountain pen I never used and an old but decent set of headphones) to acquire one of these works of art. (AAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWW YEAH.) **** So? Any of you got nice looking custom builds to show off? Or seen something spectacular out in the wild or online?

Well theres a reason they didn't call it the "Falcon Quite Heavy" XD Yeah if you look close, you can see about half the wheels are jacked up, not used.