Humodour

Au naturale appreciation thread.

Jefferson Airplane - White Rabbit

Let me know what you think when you finished. Bloodlines tends to suffer somewhat from KOTOR2 syndrome.

*clenches teeth, eyes narrow* Alright, that's it... I'm not buying this game. "Sorry!" We gladly accept your offer.

I want to see OpenGL support for Onyx. Please.

Understandable but still kind of lame.

IIRC, the North Korean economy actually was doing pretty well (better than SKorea's) up until about the 1970's when their 7 year central plans started failing epically and their communist leaders all collectively started losing their minds. A big part of the reason for their economic failure at this point (besides ever less rational central planning) was the fact that they spent 25% or so of their GDP on military, which was a problem even huge amounts of Chinese and Soviet aid couldn't fix.

If we keep piling up cash like this then we may be able to pay the North Korean government to come get him. Haven't we got double their annual GDP as it is already? 'We'? Australia has a GDP of 1 trillion dollars. South Korea has a GDP just shy of 1 trillion. America has a GDP of 14 trillion. North Korea has a GDP of 0.025 billion. Oh wait, I get it. lol.

Well millions have died from NK government induced famine, so I think your figures are a bit low.

He's actually pretty hilarious once you realise he's a troll, but troll or not, some interesting things get brought up in his absurd threads that are worthy of some mental enquiry.

I disliked that they ditched a bunch of things that made HL1 great. Unfortunately a lot of those things are intangible, like atmosphere and art direction, so that's always hard to get right, and is also kind of subjective. I can replay HL1 just because it's so fun. Same for Portal. I have no desire to replay HL2 or Episode Two. (OK, so I'd like to replay Episode One but that's an exception.) Having said all that, HL2 was still above average... for an FPS. Edit: I've also replayed System Shock 2 and Deus Ex.

What happens when the politicians realise they don't need to be accountable if they just, say, close down that television studio, or order the disappearence of that journalist?

Bold claim! At this moment, I am not weaving a tapestry. I've never done it before, and I'd need to gather some resources and knowledge to do it, but if I wanted to, I could. Does that mean it's impossible for me to weave a tapestry? This is not a question of science, Aristes, it's a question of technology. Again you conflate the two. Can we recycle organic matter and water? Yes. Speak to Europe. Or the ISS. Can we build novel power sources suited to the environment they'll be needed for? Yes - choose one. I'd opt for solar and nuclear personally. Can we shield our structures from radiation? Quite clearly - the astronauts on the ISS aren't dead yet, and nor are nuclear power station workers. Can we genetically engineer plants and bacteria to suit our needs? Yes - though we often don't because it gives people the heebejeeves. Can we repair existing human structures 100 years after they've been built? Yes. Can we repair structures in space? Yes. Can we build structures in space? Yes. Can we recycle and purify air? Yes. I mean exactly what part of science would prevent us (let's say the collective capacity of Earth, entirely devoted to the project, just to throw you a bone) from making a space colony right now if we wanted to, Aristes? Because you keep claiming this and I'm intrigued as to what I'm forgetting. I imagine Australia alone has plenty such resources lying around. Ask the Chinese. Just how big do you think this thing has to be? Who told you that? What aspect of physics do you believe prevents us from scaling our space ships to be 10, 100, 1000 times bigger, integrating all the things I mentioned above? Space doesn't care about aerodynamics, and I should think the existence of the space station would be evidence enough of the viability of creating a large, permanent manned structure in space. This post has largely focused on a space colony, but similar considerations apply to a planet-bound colony.

Well, yes, because you have been arguing that the laws of physics might prevent us sorting out what are effectively logistical issues. The Europeans are already doing experiments with FTL communication. If you can transmit info faster than light, then it isn't impossible to imagine FTL travel I think they might be facing an uphill battle, since current quantum theory (which is admittedly by no means complete) seems to prevent FTL information transmission via entanglement... at least at full fidelity. I can't see how FTL travel of fermions (i.e. us) would ever be possible by quantum entanglement (Edit: but that perhaps doesn't rule out other means of FTL travel). I do, however, see how you could devise a machine to construct a replica of something based on information sent FTL (if possible) via quantum entanglement. Destroy something at one end, recreate it at the other end. $10 says I can find you a photon that travels slower than the speed of light and, likewise, a particle (that's not a photon) that travels faster than the speed of light. I am of course cheating by comparing speeds across different media (e.g. a vacuum vs water) and that brings me to the fascinating glow of Čerenkov radiation - emitted when a (charged) particle travels faster in a medium faster than the speed of light in that medium.

Because in practice, all communist regimes have been totalitarian. And to be honest, I think what you're aiming for is socialist democracy which, while not unworkable, teetters far too close to totalitarian for my liking, because the government has so much raw power.

Well, yes, because you have been arguing that the laws of physics might prevent us sorting out what are effectively logistical issues.

Hell, I make $200 a day, why not. I'll also chip in $100. How much does it cost to fly there anyway? I imagine it'd be pretty expensive since you'd probably need to hire a private jet and a pilot good enough to avoid being shot down.

Good **** mate.

Why would rapid scientific progress need to be the case? The technology required to move humans to another planet already exists. That would be the simplest form of space colony. Also, such issues have far less to do with scientific progress then they do with technological progress - you seem to repeatedly conflate the two. Such as? "The laws of physics might prevent it" is a pretty damn tenuous argument, especially in light of the fact that we already know manned space travel is perfectly possible. As I see it the single biggest barrier to an off-world colony would be radiation shielding - something we've grown accustomed to dealing with due to things like the ISS and nuclear power. Well, your arguments with respect to technological barriers stink, but I have little quarrel with your implications of social barriers to surviving the death of a sun (except the sheer magnitude of time-scale we're dealing with).

What do you mean 'if'? Physical demonstrations of memristor memory already exist. HP has built some. They have massive storage density and high speeds (one tenth the speed of DRAM for the HP prototypes). You should see them replace flash memory within 10 years I'd say, since they can be produced on current chip fabrication facilities with few modifications. But if you ask me, the real benefits of memristors extend far beyond mere storage - you might've noticed they have some powerful synergy with neural networks. I don't see how that relates to space colonies though. The fundamental requirements for a space colony are not difficult: space travel, radiation shielding, and sustainable systems. While supercomputing power would certainly help, I doubt it'd be vital, and it's certainly already available via current technology. Edit: If your interested mainly in the solid state storage side of things, Ariste, here's a decent rundown of current competitors vying for the crown: http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Data-Storage/Futu...r-Cases-137482/

The bolded bit is the only argument of yours I think is worth taking seriously. The rest sounds like you playing devil's advocate while disagreeing with yourself in the process. But the thing is, even the bolded bit is questionable. If enough sentient Earthlings pooled resources together for a brief period of time (say, 50 years, depending on basic technological level), they'd be able to produce a self-sufficient space colony. Now, due to the time-frame we're talking about, it's probable that this would happen many thousands of times of over before our sun died - even if one accepts the bizarre notion that war is humanity's natural state and our current era of democratic peace will end soon (heck the main reason we went into space to begin with was because of a war). Am I saying it's absolutely inevitable humanity will survive? No. But the alternative is as unlikely as me picking 5 cards randomly from my deck right now and getting a royal flush in diamonds (about 3.84769292 * 10^-7 for reference).

Pffft. 500 million years. You can go as slow as you damn-well like (both literally in terms of space ship speed, and in terms of technological progress), you'll still survive death of your star with that time frame on your side. All you need is a) some form of space travel (check) and b) some semblance of terraforming or the like. NASA and co are working on b now, with the aim of setting up a space colony on the Moon by 2020... but we've already got a space station - it's not hard to imagine these efforts being expanded to suit some sort of Noah's Ark in space. Can you imagine it taking any more than 1000 years for Earth to get a self-sufficient space colony set up if it put it's collective mind to it? I can't imagine it taking even 50 years, personally. Calax: The immediate goal for the world's space agencies is a Lunar Colony. America's on track to have one by 2020 or so. China claims it's on track for 2020 (doubtful). Japan and India are eyeing 2030. Many people want to go after Mars once that's done. Buzz Aldrin has been writing seriously about Mars colonies for a while now if you want to google his stuff. He reckons America's best bet is to send people to Mars permanently once they've got the tech (which they do now, just not the will). He thinks America should leave the moon to other countries. But in regards to a Lunar Colony, at the moment NASA is working on things like lunar robots, lunar plants (peas survive fine on the moon apparently), and lunar power sources (solar and nuclear are the most promising).

Would you bet any money on us getting to another planet before the year 500,000,000 though? I would. I'd bet lots. Not least of all because I'd never have to pay up.

It's an act of cruelty that serves to divert some attention away from China itself. For the same reason, the Chinese are supporting the brutal military dictatorship in Burma.

Hopefully they use the commonsense system Deus Ex used - big crosshair when it's unlikely you'll hit, small when it is, and a big crosshair getting smaller when you stop moving, Well, I dunno about the assault rifle, but I've got no problem with enemies dying easily - e.g. headshots taking down any enemy in one hit (e.g. Deus Ex). There are other ways to make the game challenging. Surely that's not enabled by default? I hope. Explain? And? That's a purely aesthetic thing which I doubt most people will even notice. Uhg. I absolutely hate that. What do you mean?