StrandedonEarth

For my two cents, I'll just link to this.... I suppose if resource extraction is to be a thing, then a KCT function would also be. I was more after the additional science/engineer duties farther down that post.

An original John Williams score performed by the LSO?

Ya sold me. I ordered the $999 one; hopefully it’ll get to the store on their next truck on Wednesday. It threw me off a little when I realized it didn’t have a numpad, but we decided we could do without

Same here in the Pacific Northwest. We just have perpetually clenched cheeks awaiting the overdue major earthquake, or one of these long-dormant volcanoes deciding to pop off.

Well, it seems the time has come to replace my old laptop, since the screen got broken (I can still plug into another screen, but...). Since my daughter wants to pay half as a birthday/early Xmas present (with the caveat that she wants to game on it too), I can consider getting a gaming laptop The best deal around right now seems to be the Acer Nitro line, with a 2.3 GHz i5-8300U, 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD, and a GTX 1050 on sale for $750 CAD. I’ll probably look into upping the RAM and getting an SSD if I can keep it under a grand. Can I safely assume this will keep us happy for some time? E: which brings me to this, on the edge of my budget. Stil “only” 8GB tho... https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/asus-rog-15-6-gaming-laptop-intel-core-i5-9300h-256gb-ssd-8gb-ram-nvidia-geforce-gtx-1650-win-10/13620829?icmp=Recos_3across_tp_sllng_prdcts&referrer=PLP_Reco But I can pick this right now: https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/acer-aspire-nitro-5-15-6-gaming-laptop-black-red-intel-core-i5-8300h-1tb-hdd-8gb-ram-gtx-1050/13819636

So I was camping on the weekend, and got back this afternoon. When I let our mountain lab juvenile out of the back seat of the truck, she managed to pull my laptop off the truck seat and onto the driveway (I was not the one to load my computer or the dog in the truck; I guess I should have been). When I tried to boot my PC, I got HDD not found, along with spiderweb cracks on the screen. After reseating the HDD cables, the machine booted up okay, but the bottom third of the screen is, um, dead, as in just pretty colors instead of anything legible. As I was weighing my options, I realized I can at least plug into the TV, and there are other monitors in the house I could use, so it's not a total loss. I'm posting on it now, in fact. But I can see that these options are going to be inconvenient and awkward and as unergonomic as all getout, although buying a mouse-and-keyboard set might help. Of course, I already have a separate wireless mouse, but USB space is at a premium on my machine, since the USB ports on one side seem to be burnt out and useless. This machine is getting old, you see, I think I've had it for seven years now. But it's the best PC I've ever had; it was worth about $950 CAD when I bought it with AirMiles points. Yeah, the nVidia GT630m ain't that great a graphics chipset, nm the Intel 4000 onboard chipset backing it up, but it has 8GB RAM and and a 1TB HDD. The best part is the i7 3630QM, listed at 2.4GHz but I've seen it turbo up to around 3.2GHz, so not too shabby. With KSP, I can dare to get a little Whackjobian with the part count, but things like EVE get choppy. So I'm not sure what to do now. I really don't want to spend another grand on a PC right now, but I'm not sure it's worth replacing the screen, which I have to wait until Tuesday to get a price for. If I had to buy a new laptop I'd want to keep it more at the $600 range, but even then I'd rather not. The question I need to ask in the computer question megathread is what modern (7th-8th generation) CPU would be equivalent to my old 3rd-gen i7, as far as KSP demands go? Never mind graphics.... The only other game I've played lately is Civ6, but now with KSP2 on the horizon... IJDKWTD But I don't want to really delve into specs right now, I'm mainly griping that an old friend has been crippled...

Best wishes for all you Kerbals hunkering down in Florida. Meanwhile, on the Wet Coast, after a week of blazing hot weather after a mostly lacklustre summer, we head into a long weekend punctuated by showers. Right when we’re going camping.... If you can call sleeping in a travel trailer camping....

I believe the latest tests have shown that it doesn’t work, and that the positive tests results were due to interactions with the power cables. If the latest tests were more encouraging, it would have had tests in orbit by now. Unless that’s what the X-37B is doing... Although having a reactionless space drive with a power-to-thrust ratio orders of magnitude better than a photon drive would certainly be nice. We’d probably find it next to the fountain of youth , built from unobtainium.

Well, it helps to understand exactly what a capacitor is, which, in principle, is two parallel plates (like the schematic symbol), connected to the plus and minus sides of a circuit, and it charges much like filling a balloon. In fact, voltage is much like electrical “pressure”. A balloon is harder to fill the more air you put in it, and if you let air out it comes out slower as the pressure inside the balloon falls. A capacitor works in much the same way. Oversimplified, but that’s all I have time for right now.

Spotted Orion rising this morning. That’s my first indicator that summer is nearing the end...

Only aliens from the forehead/ears-of-the-month club? Tough one, but logically a Vulcan nursing home would be the best choice. But if you open it up to other universes, Kzinti would have to be the worst choice. They’d just be waiting to eat the ones who are about to die, and would probably hasten the decline.

That was AWESOME! But I can't help but be reminded of... They should have given that flying water tower an R2 paint job. Maybe make a little money advertising for Disney...

Splendid!

*Sigh* Just like trying to launch a model rocket, and the ignitor pulled out a bit and just goes *phffft*. Or worse, the battery was too weak (as happened last time I tried to launch a rocket with my son) Are they checking Starhopper's batteries along with the ignitors? Maybe they should try one of these...

And at the end of that, there's this nugget... So JJ is a reincarnation of Lucy!

As I understand it, it's the end of the Skywalker story. But don't worry, they will continue to milk that cow until the twin suns of Tatooine go nova. Unless that is what worries you, in which case, you have a lot of worrying to do.

I’m guessing that that’s all the FAA would authorize - but I’m also guessing your comment was tongue-in-cheek

Went to a hangar dance last night, with a mini airshow ahead of today's Flight Fest. I wish I had brought my Canon. I suppose I should have gone back today, but had other things to do (like sit here and browse the KSP forum...). This was about the best my iPhone 7 could do with the flying at dusk... Although some of the static shots were okay... It was cool to see the last pilot roaming the dance (a weathered older fellow with a long history with the RCAF, including as a trainer on the Tudors). I overheard him at the bar saying "Now I'm done flying, I can have a drink! I'll have something cold, wet, and tasting like barley..."

Probably already posted on this site years ago...

Actually, there was no NDA, and neither my wife or myself signed anything. The termination was verbal, with my wife picking up her final check (including severance) and termination letter two days later. The closest thing to an NDA in the termination letter was a reminder not to reach out to her former co-workers, and that's it. Again, she didn't sign anything related to the termination ever. Waiting to see what the separation papers (yet to be submitted electronically) say All the idiots had to write in the email was that she was "no longer with us," which faults nobody.This was presumably the same silly micromanager that had to proofread her outgoing emails, changing little things like "lots" to "tons."

I get that the "Next Unread Topic" button disappears when all the threads are marked as read. I believe the OP was referring to how, back before one forum update or another, the "Next Unread Topic" button would also include the title of the next unread thread. Gargamel also recalls it being that way. I myself don't really care one way or another, I'm just clarifying what the OP meant.

"Place Starship in VAT and simmer for 90 days..."

Get it right, it’s one point twenty-one jiggabucks!