PakledHostage

Mine is an attempt at cynical humor... I used to work for a company where I felt like I was being held hostage by Pakleds. I long since quit that job but the name has stuck.

Thanks for all your work summarizing the news conferences! I am still confused, though, by what you mean by "it didn't move after the first landing"? Does that mean, now, that they think it didn't actually bounce twice? Or do you mean that it didn't move after the third touch down?

Why did the girl mushroom go out with the boy mushroom? Because he was a fungi... Get it? He was a fun-guy? ...I'll show myself out.

Another couple of examples of animals that thrive in human settlements are coyotes, racoons and crows. And among those, I particularly like crows. They are very clever: Their close relative the raven are quite bright too. I was once laying in an alpine meadow on a summer day, high up on a mountain. A black dot caught my eye plummeting from the sky above me so I watched it. Shortly after, it sprouted wings and arced back up into the sky where it folded its wings back up and enjoyed another period of weightlessness as it fell towards the valley below. It was a raven. It did it three more times before I lost sight of it. All I could think was "I hear you, man. Beautiful day to be alive, isn't it?" You can't tell me that it wasn't doing that for the pure fun of it.

That's excellent news! I was worried that they wouldn't be able to reestablish contact with it. Is there any indication where it ended up in the end? Presumably the comet was rotating under it during its (as many as) 2 bounces?

Its not a theory. At best it is a hypothesis. More likely, "it ain't Scottish".

Which landing? It seems that there were two. During the news conference earlier today, ESA officials said that it first touched down pretty much where it was predicted to and when it was predicted to. The landing gear compressed by 4cm during the landing impact but the thruster and the harpoon failed to fire. The screws activated. Unfortunately, subsequent to the landing, they started seeing variations in both the radio signal strength and quality and (when they could get meaningful data), they also saw variations in the power from the solar panels. From this they inferred that Philae had bounced and was tumbling and/or spinning. It continued to do so for 2 hours until it stopped. At about the same time, Rosetta went beyond the horizon and they won't reacquire it until tomorrow. They are going to hold another news conference tomorrow (November 13th) at 13:00 UT. The live stream will be broadcast here: http://new.livestream.com/esa/cometlanding

And that is why I used words and phrases like "could be" and "maybe". We don't know. All we can do is spectate until we're given more to work with by ESA. Edit: ESA news conference is postponed until 20 minutes from now.

Fair enough, but my point applies to the ESA too. Reading between the lines, they have telemetry that the screws activated, that's it. An ESA comment I read elsewhere says that they are starting to get the first photos from the surface but that the transmission is breaking up and they are loosing the feed periodically. That could be a sign that it isn't sitting in the orientation that they expect. Maybe the antenna is pointed in some funny direction because it landed on a boulder or toppled over.

Anyone who's ever done any ice climbing (I know, percentage wise, that's not very many people - especially in this crowd) knows that it takes a bit of pressure to get an ice screw started. And it takes a practiced motion of rotating it back and forth a bit while pressing on the top to get the threads to catch. Certainly the engineers who designed the ice screw system would have tested the system while they were designing and building it, but I would be cautious about declaring the ice screws to have worked given that the thruster and harpoon didn't fire to hold it down while it was screwing itself to the comet. Its success would depend a lot on the consistency of the surface.

What I caught of the update by Kuhn Gertz in Koln, the harpoons and the landing thrusters didn't fire so it may not actually be down solidly on the surface. They are considering trying the harpoons/landing screws again. The landing legs only compressed by 4 cm, which is less than expected.

I like the analogy of this mission and missions like it to the building of the medieval cathedrals in Europe. Projects literally take decades to plan, execute and analyze. The real world isn't KSP. Pulling this off in the real world is a remarkable achievement.

I disagree. His English is far better than the vast majority of people's French. We can understand him just fine despite his strong accent.

Speaking of which, does anyone know the names of these people in the stream? What are their roles?

Maybe Philae? Or Rosetta?

I'm getting there. I just connected to the live stream.

I just got home from the theater... Nobody clapped at the end but they also didn't laugh at inappropriate times. I recognized several of the settings in the movie as being near where I grew up in southern Alberta. A handful of people seemed to stay in their seats when the credits rolled. It was better than Gravity.

I can't speak for the community but you could have a look at this link: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/96902-Lockheed-claims-breakthrough-on-fusion-energy-project

Well I'll let you all know what I think when I see it. Maybe I'll go tomorrow. I've been a harsh critic of Interstellar based on the descriptions I've read, but maybe I'll be swayed when I see it for myself.

While I mostly agree with you, I think you've got to be careful not to conflate the effects of a "realism uncanny valley" in sci-fi movies with bad story telling. Consider what often happens with movies that are advertised as having "great special effects". More often than not, that's synonymous with "it has a dumb plot". I worry that "it has accurate science" will come to mean the same thing. I feel like a broken record saying this again, but it isn't the science in Gravity that bugs me. And it isn't the science in Interstellar that is making me dubious about that movie. I am going to go see Interstellar though. Hopefully I will be pleasantly surprised. But as to plot in films: One of my main measures of a brilliant plot in a movie is how much of the audience stays seated when the credits role. A really well done and thought provoking film will leave much of the audience seated and chatting amongst themselves. Some of the contributors to this thread have said that people clapped at the end of Interstellar, but I suspect that people seeing it on opening night are biased. I saw Gravity several weeks after it was released and people were laughing at inappropriate times (i.e. the kind of reaction you get when people think something's cheesy) during the film, and I don't remember very many people sitting around at the end. By contrast, I saw District 9 several weeks after it opened and almost nobody moved when the credits rolled.

So you liked Transformers?

I have already said earlier in this thread that I have changed my mind and will probably go see it in the theaters rather than wait for it to show up on Netflix. But for what it is worth, your argument works both ways. Why should I accept anyone's opinion that it is a great movie that I should rush out and see when so many reputable critics say don't bother? You can't come down on me for being skeptical in light of the criticism and then expect me to "form an opinion [that it is a great movie] based off other people's opinion's".

At the risk of being accused of flogging a dead horse, that's not exactly high praise to say it was better than Gravity. One of the most damning criticisms of both Gravity and Interstellar is that they try too hard to be deep or somehow profound. And that has been my point all along. I have no doubt that Interstellar's visual effects are impressive. It is the story that I am worried about.

I was responding, in that post, to GregA's attempt to portray the movie's story line through a very right-wing filter. My comments had nothing to do with whether or not I think the movie is any good. And I may go and see it in the theaters after all. A professional critic whom I respect gave it 4 it of 5 stars. For her, that's a pretty good review. Of course I went to see Prometheus based on her review and I hated that movie... But I guess we'll see. I hardly think Phil Plait is a hipster. His review was a bit cynical at times, but a bit of that is healthy.

Right, your earlier assessment that reads like something penned by an Idaho militia?