lajoswinkler

I've used WinRAR for more than a decade. After all, .rar it its thing. Never bothered to register it. It's one of those programs which don't pester you with registration, unless you think closing a pop-up box is too much of a hassle...

I'm not surprised at all. Those were high quality color films in Hasselblad cameras. You can't get any better that that for classical photography.

My apologies, I've misquoted you.

There is not need for it. If Finland was developed enough (or cared to advance in the field), it would reprocess the waste because that is not waste. Almost all of the "juicy stuff" that was inside when loaded is still inside after the cycle. The only thing useless to us (at quantities present in waste) at this moment are highly radioactive fission products such as strontium-90, caesium-137. Concentrating those, vitrifying them and burying them is ok. But uranium? God, no. It's a pain in the ass to retrieve it from Earth, why should we throw it back? They get subsidized so they aren't astronomically expensive, but only very expensive. Uranium nuclear fission is not only capable of producing copious amounts of base load power, but also has less detrimental effects on the environment and the grid. The site is way smaller, too.

You've said "It's amazing how completely different Pluto really is from what we expected, we don't really understand how a world so far out can be so geologically active." where "we" is basically "scientific community". The general public has no idea of what Pluto might be at all, so this isn't much of surprise for them, either.

Oh, who cares?

Small? Well, it's not the largest I've built, but it's near my part number limit. I don't have a very powerful computer.

The very question is silly. Renewables can not possibly be the main source. Ever. This is why. Renewables can not form the base load. Observing the various energy sources just by comparing their power is just a sign you don't understand even the basics of the problem. The main power source, if we want to phase out coal, is uranium nuclear fission. That's all we have. Nothing more. No fantasies about deuterium fusion, no fancy thorium reactors (they also need uranium) and certainly no solar photovoltaics.

There is zero evidence to support those quantum things you're talking about. Of course, everything in its basis works using quantum processes because every basic matter we encounter is corporeal due to its electron clouds. But on the higher level, no. Neural networks work using ionic currents. Those are not digital processes. There are no ones and zeros in the brain. Stuff works analogue and has lots of interconnected feedback loops, some of which use faster transmissions, and some use slow, molecular signals such as secreting hormones. Basic brain functioning is very well known. We also know (somewhat worse) the blackbox model of the human behaviour. It's the whole picture, the synthesis, with its bridges between the levels, that we understand poorly.

ISS view of Soyuz thrusting into orbit. I think this was last stage thrust. Has anyone noticed how violent the rocket shook right before the liftoff?

Those are some massive parts you got there.

Moar you asked, moar you shall receive. Is this inside Neidon's van Allen belts? Who cares? The view is splendid, thought Jeb as he climbed down the ladder. While others were working, Jeb was enjoying himself. Nitrogen ice is a fascinating thing, indeed.

Time to visit the next site. Thatmo's rotational period is so slow that after the ship revolved around it for three times, the landing site was just right beneath it. The lander detached and did a retro burn. Larger, flatter area was chosen as the landing site. Thatmo's atmosphere did finally prove as a decent braking medium in Siren's case. The key is very shallow aerobraking. ALCOR's window gave a nice opportunity to examine the adjacent, smaller flat area. The nitrogen ice surface is littered with what are probably water ice boulders. Final descent speed was 10 m/s. That is still not enough for safe landing, so some thrusting is applicable. Those boulders aren't small. Siren has landed. Neidon is high in the sky.

Back at the lander, Jebediah was watching Kerbol from a little hill. And off they go, because there was nothing they could do there anymore. Siren blasts from the northern impact basin. Bill and Bob were panicking for no reason at all. Perhaps because they felt the ground was at their feet during the burn, and the actual ground was sideways? Catching up with Kron 5. Jebediah had to do his famous EVA bragging over the dark cryogenic parts, too. The crew did not appreciate their pilot doing this. The crew has docked and soon the ship was passing near the next landing site - the flat area you see just right of the ship's hull. It should provide the zero elevation point for the Kerbal geographical society.

Going to Moho's hole is always fun. I liked the part with an even smaller probe a log.

Pluto is certainly not completely different from what we expected. It's actually what we expected and we do understand how can it be geologically active. You shouldn't listen to the media (that includes NASA PR, sadly...) because they exaggerate stuff and use sensationalism. Pluto was expected to be similar to Triton, and geological activity is possible because the matter needed to be activated has low melting and sublimating points, so even little heat is enough to drive its temperature high enough to cause mobility. It is a fascinating dwarf planet, but barely unexpected. Details were unexpected, like those weird pits in solid nitrogen surface, but the global picture was very expected.

Reproductive cloning of people is a horrible idea because, to develop it, you need to go through an ungodly amount of failures. You know what a failure is in this case? Thousands and thousands of people with horrible developmental errors. Babies born without limbs, organs, disfigured babies, retarded babies with short life spans. You'd basically be producing human tragedies. It would not be a problem if the process was easy and straightforward because it would be like getting a twin brother/sister decades after you'd born. Therapeutic cloning, on the other hand, is ethical and it will soon be a standard method of curing some diseases.

Well then. It was an interesting experiment. Jeb was the first to go outside. As with most poles, Thatmo's is also an environment with stark differences in contrasts. Deploying the flag. Scientist Bob left his pals to explore the actual geographical pole itself. One of those lights in the distance is Kerbals' home. The northern pole is a cliff towering at least kilometre above the surroundings. It has few peaks of similar height. The very tip of it has a glitch that allows the Kerbal to stand on it, sideways. Later, Bob returned to the lander with his findings.

It's called Outer Planets Mod (OPM), you should totally check it out. Stockalike extension of KSP system. Not goofy as most other extensions are.

I love that song. However it's Neidon, not Niedon.

It's hard to tell. I was certainly accelerating all the time. I honestly don't know if even the parachutes themselves could enter zero acceleration motion. I don't think it was significant; I just wanted to include parachutes to see their performance. Any braking would be a bonus.

Thatmo has been concoured. The crew landed very close to its north pole. More precisely, in an impact basin right next to it. This was done in one try. If I didn't try hard at VAB, meticulously planning the whole Siren lander layout, I would've crashed. I know I had a hiatus, but remember KSP got updated and forum, too. Also I didn't have enough time. So here's lots of eye candy screenshots. Siren doing the retro burn above Thatmo. Close to northern basin, Neidon peeks out for a brief moment. Chutes have been deployed at the very edge of the tenuous atmosphere. Three radial pairs. They were barely useful. You can see the northern pole here. Thrusting is an absolute must on Thatmo. The terrain around the pole reminds me of Mün, but this is far from Mün by composition. Siren is resting very close to the steep mountains, Upon zooming out, polar intricacies are visible. The crew will now prepare for EVA. Visiting the pole itself is optional. It will depend on jetpack performance.

Something is travelling down below and occasionally heating up the surface so you get dot-dot pattern in a line.

Textbook example of a proper launch with very nice scenes.

That image doesn't have the best spatial resolution parts which are at the bottom of the image stripe. I've tried to manually stitch and correct the best of the Sputnik Planum. There are some dimples probably around 20 m in diameter on the most detailed parts. This is the preview. And here is the 7.3 MB file with over 10 000 px. http://www.filedropper.com/hiresnhlowerpart Get it while it's hot. The composite image has a gap. That's because either NASA forgot to upload one more raw image, or the probe didn't send/capture it. I've corrected the histograms of some images, but didn't bother to make it all look the same.