Randox

Someplace I have a set of strap on studs for my boots. If your careful, you can jog on ice with them.

Right, split this from the Today thread, added note to the OP. And yeah, I can't split 2 pages at the same time. Has to be done page by page >.>

The discussion on university funding has been moved to this thread.

You also have to deal with people who don't want to be with someone stupid, but don't want either a significant intelligence gap, or want to be the smarter half. Not meaning to imply that the people going with semi are stupid, I'd probably go that way myself (compromise).

Don't forget that a gigantic segment of the job market, at least for white collar jobs, require a degree, even though many of them don't really care what that degree is (anything but fine arts is normally good). So even though many many people never use their degree, they wouldn't be able to get their jobs without one.

Pay attention to the words that people use in everyday conversation. If you have never heard anyone else use a particular word, or you only hear it very rarely, then do not consider it to be common use vocabulary.

It is crazy warm out today. Yesterday it was like -3 or so (without windchill mind), and today its 12C. For you americans, that's roughly a 30 degree rise in 24 hours. There are people outside in short sleeves just enjoying the moderate sun, though most of us have a coat or sweater cause its quite breezy. Also giving me a chance to air out my room without totally freezing.

As I said, every words has its time and place. They do exist for a reason. Your usage of some of them however is sometimes, to use your word, superfluous. Also, a reminder that personal attacks are not permitted here (or anyplace on the forums), and sometimes putting some space between you and a certain poster might be required to avoid suggesting such (or if that's your actual intent, then just don't).

As a purely observational point, your choice of words lately has been typical of a person who wishes to be perceived as an intellectual. Intentional or not, this is the message you are sending. I bolded a couple words in my quote since these are words not used in everyday conversation by anyone I have ever met, running the gambit from walking doorknobs to legitimate geniuses. Again, not a criticism, but every word has a time and place, and you seem to go out of your way to find the most exotic words that will still work, when much more common words would work just as well, if not better. And finally, I remembered to post this one (I never remember it when I get home). I HATE stairs that are shorter than the standard. I find most stairs in the world are all the exact same height (or within like 4mm of each other). Taller stairs are okay, as long as it isn't rediculous. They might even be better. But I've encountered stairs that are anyplace from 1/3rd of normal to like 4/5ths, and they all suck. You have to take these little baby steps, or run up them 2 or 3 at a time.

What I don't get, and maybe you guys can explain this to me, is what people actually use a tablet for? I can see particular uses for certain ones. There are a few occupations where a highly mobile and light computer is a huge bonus, such as labwork, and if I were in meetings all the time I would consider a blackberry tablet to go with my phone (and I imagine that apple tablets can interact with apple phones as well). But outside of those areas, it hits me as too big to be convenient (for me, the size at which something can be taken anyplace is determined by my pockets, which normal means phone, a man wallet, and house keys). Anything else and there is no garuntee its always going to be on my person. The other thing is I'm not sure what a tablet can do that my phone can't. It hits me as a large cell phone with a nice big screen and more computing power, but if I ever really need computing power on the go for some reason, for like $10 I can have an app to screen share with my PC. Not as good as having the processor right there in my hands, but I've yet needed more power than my humble 600MHz phone couldn't provide (still, could have waited for the next one which is a bit over a GHz). So yeah, what do you people actually use tablets for?

First, something everyone who plays should be reading: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/~kerbalsp/wiki/index.php?title=Key_Bindings There are a lot of controls that I couldn't even find in the settings file (whatever its called), probably becuase it only lists ones you can change. Of note are alt-L to prevent accedental stage advancement, and I/J/K/L/H/N for transnational (instead of rotational) RCS control. There are a number of mods here: http://www.kerbalspaceprogram.net/kerbal-space-program-mods I have the Advanced decoupler (for looks), though there are actually 3 parts in it. I think the other two are the ones that messed up my game (at least its small engine). I have the full Lunar Lander parts mod. It has some small fuel tanks that hold less than anything stock, and are super light, but to compensate its small lander engines use almost twice the fuel per unit of thrust. I also have Nova Punch Remix, except I only pulled out the lander ASAS and small capsuel (which is the black one shows in the lander mod pic). If you pull out the whole mod though, it adds a ton of parts for making a rocket more like a real life Saturn V, where it gets wider and has these super huge fuel tanks. So far I've been trying to focus on stuff that works with stock rockets. Might put the full Nova Punch back in though and actually play around with it a bit, or I'll pick something else similar with a few less parts (Nova has a LOT of parts). For me, most of its observation. What you don't see are all my initial flights where I am totally clueless. And if you want a circular orbit, open up the map and wait to be at either the Ap or Pe. A prograde burn raises the opposite point, a retro grade burn lowers it. That might be todays task for me, establishing as close to a perfect orbit as I can, leaving something behind in that orbit (which will probably mean using the RCS thrusters to move away so that my engine exhasut doesn't hit whatever I leave), and then try to bring another rocket up and ram it. EDIT: I have made a rocket capable of putting a manned satellite into a slightly higher orbit than intended. Does not handle well until it gets to stage 2, but fortunately stage one only hits 20km anyway. Much smaller than my Thor and Mad Cat rockets. There will need to be a slight modification to stage 3 to give it an extra 2 rcs tanks and another half fuel tank for the main engine, since I anticipate a butt load of maneuvering. The Upsilon Alpha is sitting pretty in a nearly perfectly level 399km orbit, with only 1100m variance in orbital altitude. With about 1/5th of both the RCS and main fuel left, I believe it has enough fuel to de-orbit. There is no ejection engine, so if not, the poor crew is royally [bleep]ed. Even if I can't destroy the orbit though, I should be able to get it far enough into the atmosphere to put it in a degrading orbit. I have never put so many SAS units into orbit before either, but I needed a lot of rotational power without resorting to the RCS system. Luckily, the lander mod has a very light weight 60% power SAS unit, of which I am carrying 8 on stage 3. Stage 2 has a conventional unit, and stage 1 is carrying 3 of them, off center to increase their leverage. Damn this game is awesome.

Fudged the game with a mod today and reinstaled, and started out with my orbit the sun and back mission. Mad Cat I landed in a mountain range on Kerbin due to a design flaw in the rocket that prevented it from reaching breakaway velocity (ie it only had 3 boosters instead of 6). Mad Cat II suffered problems during take off due to a design tweak making things a whole lot worse and landed at Kerbin Space Center shortly after take off. Mad Cat III made it out of system, however it was not equiped with enough fuel. After putting it in an orbit that was damn close to being exactly half a year, I waited the hundred some odd days for my chance to rendezvous. However, my orbital period was off by just enough that even using the rest of the RCS fuel (still had most of it too) to have the maneuvering thrusters help with acceleration (and they actually did help a lot), and the emergency engine, the command pod was not able to catch up enough to be pulled in by Kerbin Gravity. One day the KSC hopes to develop a grappling tool. When that day comes, a first mission will be launched to attempt to retrieve the lost command pod and return it to planetary orbit and refuel the pod, and well just pray that happens before they run out of power and supplies. After that, another mission will be sent up to de orbit the command pod, and if the parachute still works, they might just make it out alive. And no, I have no idea how I will intercept an itty bitty command pod stuck in solar orbit. Still, I expect that when joining becomes possible, I will built a space station and get lots of practice in.

That's a pretty sweet deal. My phone is apparently costing a fortune, both because of its caller id (which costs almost as much per month as your entire phone :P). , and because my moms phone is on the same package (she also pays for it). Once this contract expires, I expect I will end up paying for it (but it will also end up being much cheeper). Also, internet and land line is stupid expensive, at least around here. I know this house loses its landline next year since its almost never used, except when someone wants to reduce minutes on their cell.

Do you not have a cell phone as well? If not, then I guess that works pretty awesome for you. I however, need a cellphone because pretty much all my communication (that is, text, phone calls and email) are all run through it. My computer also gets in on the email when I need to send a longer message, or need to view large pictures/files. I'd be paying a monthly fee either way, but this way I get the phone virtually for free by signing onto longer contracts (the trick is to get a new phone before the battery needs replacing, because those cost almost as much as the freaking phone).

This is what I use my phone for (Blackberry), except I prefer movies to games.

So I guess I really only had the one Mun landing in me (yeah, I landed on my first approach attempt on day 1). To bad I did it on the wrong side of the Mun (I wasn't much for precision, I just kinda ran into it), and didn't bother figuring out where Kerbal was on the compass, because telling which side of the command pod is which (for control purposes) is so easy. And next time I try I am using the mods non folding legs, which are more than twice as strong and not trying to slow to nearly 5m/s should prevent most of my mistakes (assuming I don't impact hard enough to kill everyone with G-force). Tomorrow (well, later today when I wake up), I am going to try something different. I can land on Mun sure enough, even if I have yet to return. and I can orbit, even though my new approach strategy is to come in a 'oh my god we're all going to die' speed, mostly because I have a method for a very strait down approach that saves time on establishing a 500km orbit (also saves some fuel, which is good because a strait burn to escape uses plenty). So tomorrow will be a new challenge in semi-precise trajectories. I am going to aim for whatever their star is called. I'll probably start with the Thor design, under a new name. I think I take the name of a Heavy mech pairing for a solar orbit, and only having 2 to choose from I think the takeoff platform will be the Mad Cat, and whatever it lifts will be the Timber Wolf. I am going to reuse an earlier design that was actually too powerful, and seemed to want to leave well beyond the Mun's orbit. Everything in stage one will get an extra fuel tank for a longer stage 1 burn, and an additional six 3 tank boosters will be strapped on, because if your going to ride a bomb, might as well make it big. The real problem is going to be aiming the damn thing at the sun before it builds up too much speed. Hopefully I will be able to kill the engines and reorient by 150 km. I would like to do this without trying to break an orbit. That will be hard enough to do on the far end (assuming I have the fuel to even make an insertion burn, and don't either plummet to a fiery death or slingshot orbit on my way to nowhere. I also feel I might end up with a 2 stage Mad Cat with just an ejector capsule, with the hope that the ejector will be able to break orbit via low mass if the insertion burn consumes all my fuel. By removing stage 3 I might be able to make a tri-engine second stage without trying to launch the empire state building into space (height wise). I've never tried to launch a second stage that large before, and its not going to have a long fuel life, but I want to have the power. Failing that, I am going to cary some solid rockets with me to provide the serious braking power I am going to need.

I've loved almost every piece of armour I have seen, though I do not relish the thought of learning all the new armous and what they are (while I like the plates on the d hide, they should not have made it so metallic looking. A flat colour might have been better). I am especially loving Dragon and Black armours, and look forward to seeing all the varients of black, adamant, and rune. I was not expecting all the varients to be unique, and I am really liking the fact that they have totally left the lazy ass recolor system behind. Vanilla rune is a bit iffy, and I am just has happy I never use a neit helm. Also the dragon bots are going to look like slippers as soon as I take my dragon armor off, but to matter. I shall wear my dragon slippers with pride when I wear barrows. Or I'll buy bandos boots (I refuse to get steadfast until they stop looking like you have toilet paper stuck on your feet. Even in the highest detail I had to get quite close to realize those were spikes). And from the pictures I have seen, this update is mostly lost on the lower details (as in, it just looks terrible, but then, everything looks terrible in the lower details). Black elite is also a notable improvement, not that it needed it. My only ciritcizim is that it seems like everything from black/white and up needs to be super special in some way, which has led to the armours being rediculously fancy. Still, I suppose we will all get used to living in a universe where art is taken just as seriously, if not more so, than function and practicality. And Torva doesn't look like a sin against the gods of fashion any more. Especially that old helm was just terrible. It doesn't look very good, but if someone handed me a set now I wouldn't be half embarrassed to wear it. I also have to laugh at any comment about armors looking the same now, seeing as more than half of the updated pieces existed as palate swaps. Oh, and the DFS now goes with ornate dragon, and essentially nothing else. Not that it actually matched anything before, but its kind of highlighted now. Still, it looks very cool.

My only issue with that video is that he does the entire orbital maneuver from that screen, which is actually quite hard to do if you have not done some very comprehensive calculations and maintained a super normal flight, because know where you are is very important in orbital maneuvers. I learned that you can actually fly from the map screen by clicking the little button at the bottom to bring up your instruments (in fact, if the map had an altimiter, and the moon was perfectly flat, it would probably be easier to fly to the Mun and back on instruments alone. The easiest way to adjust your orbit precisely is to be at either the Apoapsis or the Periapsis, and burn pro-grade or retrograde to change the opposing point. If you only want to change orbital altitude, its probably easier to burn at or away from center of gravity of whatever your orbiting, which I believe is the purple icon on the Navball. I do like how he gets into orbit though, much more efficient that blasting up and then blasting sideways as two maneuvers (ie he does it the way your supposed to) Today has been interesting. I did land on Mun, but I seriously fudged the landing and hit the surface hard enough ( I had significant lateral velocity) to detonate my decent engine (I didn't even know I had hit the surface until everything stopped moving), which also caused my lander to tip, destroying the accent separation ring (I don't think it blew up, it just fell off by the landing pod I think) and allowing the command pod to roll away. When it came to the stop the engine has been dislodged (it was sitting on it at a jaunty angle), and the parachute fell off. So everyone survived, but they can't leave Mun until I learn ultra precise landing procedure, and we get a grappling arm part to lift the command pod with (if that ever happens, It's going to need to be one heck of the lander that performs the recovery mission). I lost the picture, so I am going to aim for it on the next flight and see if I can't find it, and wave hello the the very bored Bill, Jebediah, and Bob who are for now, totally stranded. EDIT: Made a new rocket design that didn't really work. Went back to the current one, and got in a much better landing where I only fudged the throttle once (even still, rah!). Had a nice nearly strait down landing. Coming in fast (like 18m/s) but was afraid to touch the throttle. Should have touched the throttle. Broke two of the 3 landing legs right off, bounced (should have ejected at this point, but even if I had thought of it, I locked the stage advancement to prevent me doing just that since I've done it accidently several times), then crashed on my side again. Also, the additional SAS units due jack shit. Might try placing them lower where they might have more leverage (I'm guessing the further they are from the center of gravity, the better). Stage one handles like a temperamental barge, the lander handles like a squirrel on speed, but stages 1 and 2 are like strait as an arrow, especially stage 2. And one day the time warp is actually going to kill me. On another botched landing I think I had 20km to slow down from something like 800m/s (I came out of warp at 34km, it took that long to orient to retro burn). It finally got down under 100 m/s at like 800m. That landing was too stressful though, and they didn't make it. Instead the command pod fell off on impact and the landing module went spinning and bouncing away along the surface of the moon.

Alright then. I suspect that I believe in heaven because I wan't to, because it makes death a bit easier for me to deal with (not mine, other people's). As for God, I suppose the idea of something that is 'better' than us has some appeal for me. I guess what I would consider the defining point between the moderate and the fundamentalist, is that I don't know that I am right, I simply trust that I am in the absence of evidence. If science comes up with an answer to what happens after we die, I am not going to assume some sort of conspiracy. Depending on what would hypothetically be found out, I might be dissapointed though. Cross that bridge when I come to it, but I trust my logical mind to win that fight. For the assumption point, it would seem I misspoke. Most people make assumptions, though I suppose not all (the exception would be an agnostic). Since lack of evidence does not constitute proof or evidence to the contrary, the belief that God exists or does not exist is an assumption either way. One might me more logical than the other, but they are still assumptions. That was what I meant by fill in the blanks. As it stands right now, we can't know what happens after death, so we make an assumption, the most logical of which is that our awareness simply ceases to be. And my definition of Human is the taxonomic classification, Homo Sapiens. The assumption here being that in time, humans will continue to evolve to the point where future archeologists will classify us as as a different species of the Homo genus than they use for themselves (as in, rather than classify themselves as Homo Sapiens they will be Homo [insert Latin word]).

So I remade my rocket from the ground up (because its easier to order the stages that way, though I have yet to not forget something every time do this). Got all the stages worked out. Engines are one when they should be, and aren't being jettisoned first. Decided to stick with manual flight controls for stage 1 because its something to do. So after 5 bad takeoffs where I either crashed or needed to fix something, I'm breaking atmosphere, the boosters are gone, there goes stage one, and I go to fire stage two. All good, stage two works like a dream. 50 seconds later, engine goes out. I'm all wtf because it has 5 full gas tanks, and then I notice there are no fuel lines on 4 of them. D'oh. And you should totally try it steve, its great fun. I do hope they add docking soon. After I finally get a crew to Mun and back to Kerbin, I'll figure out this orbiting business that I never mastered, and then I wan't to build a space station. What would be even better is if you can fly supplies like fuel up, or even the pieces of a ship so that you can assemble something in orbit and then fly it. Would be particularly useful for a solar orbit and back again. But even just hum drum docking would be neat so that I can do my Munur mission and then have a bigger engine (that I would leave in orbit) take me home again.

Took me a bit to find the download link for the paid version too. I think my best 'crash' so far was due to a disagreement over staging order. I changed the extra fuel tanks up top (which as it turns out is a terrible design unless your planning on breaking orbit right away), and two of the ejectors for the fuel tanks were added to the solid rocket ejector stage (yeah, some of my rockets use solids). So 30 seconds into the flight, I drop the spent boosters, and I watch as the fuel tank on the camera side falls of and drops onto the liquid booster that lined up with it (other side was cool, it dropped between them, I think the rocket was leaning a bit). So of course the liquid booster separates, and the bottom of it nudges the main engines. So for a second I had an asymmetric rocket followed by the loss of most of my engines. The ensuing explosion took out stages two and three, so I had to use the lunar lander as an escape vehicle. Was a lot of fun. When I did it again to see which parts had seperated out of turn (was kinda stunned on round one), the whole thing just strait up exploded. Guess it had a different tilt. I've also been reading their forums, and now have a theoretical knowledge of how to do the proper orbits for a munar mission, though I'd like to try it my way (screw orbits) first. I'll also need a new rocket. Mine is very top heavy, which aside from terrible handling and structural instability once acceleration hits the far end of green, can't lean because its incapable of holding a horizontal attitude. Anything beyond about 5 degrees (a bit further if you get the RCS on fast enough) ensures an express trip back to sea level.

Then its a shame your not arguing with a dictionary. You might find it easier to understand what people are saying if you allow the context of words to help convey the meaning, because while English has an incredible number of words that allow you to convey the same things with very subtle differences in meaning, it does not actually have a word for everything. This more of a general point though. My point was that it would be easier to understand the arguments people make if you had some understanding of why people (can) believe in things without evidence, rather than just going "that's stupid" and walking away. You are either unable, or unwilling to comprehend the whole concept. Also, by using the pure believing in things unconditionally definition, you are inadvertently painting moderates as fundamentalists since moderates do ask questions. As it applies to death, I don't see how it makes a difference. False hope is only an issue if the possibility of finding out that hope was false actually exists. Either I am right and the hope wasn't false, or I am wrong and I'll never find out (since as it stand now, the question can't be answered for me until I die, and if I am wrong, I won't exist to know I am wrong). And Malevolent plan? Again, assuming we are talking about death, then its neccesity, not malevolence. People need to die. If we were immortal in so far as we never grew old and died, then we would all eventually starve or suffocate as our population consumed all the resources available to us. If we we're immortal, then we would also essentially need to be sterile, and you can't have a species like that since there would be no way to start it, except artificially. And that's not a religious point so don't mistake it for one. Doesn't matter if you like it. We all do it. Religion comes from humans, so all the assumptions are of human origin anyway. I'll use Evolution as an example. You don't need religion to assume that humans have always been humans. It's actually the logical conclusion unless your either 100,000 years old, someone who studies bacteria, or someone who studies archaeology and has found the right evidence. Even when Evolution is working as fast as it can (and it can work quite fast, such as African Elephants being born noticeably more often tuskless as a result of poaching), its probably going to be a few lifetimes before you can really notice it. It is unobservable unless you have been alive for way to long, you study something that reproduces incredibly fast (such as bacteria), or you have access to fossil records. Religions (plural - since I think this applies to pretty much every religion ever) assume that the creator made us as is because for thousands of years, there was no way to observe otherwise. At this point I should probably mention that I believe the works that make up the Bible were all written by humans, not God. You didn't need to believe in anything to come to the logical conclusion that humans had always been humans, and always would be humans. As for a curiosity stopper...for some people I suppose its possible, but only for those who need to know everything about the world (and to think you know even close to that would require a terribly small imagination anyway I think). I have a drive to know how things work, be it a mouse climbing something (they have fantastic grip), that camera that broke and I can finally take it apart, or how skates move so easily on ice. My curiosity and drive to know things is greater than anyone else I know. When I say it answers questions that science can't, don't make the mistake of thinking that I am filling in blanks like the grand unifaction theory with religion. I don't know how to quantify what I mean, and its a very individual thing anyway. Some people look to religion to tell them how to live(running the gambit from 'be kind and forgiving' to 'these are the absolute rules you live by', others to tell them what the meaning of live is. I guess it depends on what the questions are.

Children (non-adults, under 18) by law cannot own property. It doesn't matter who payed for the laptop, if it was a gift, or even if somehow she built it out of sand herself. Legally, her parents own everything she has. Interesting. I did not know that. I'd be less concerned with the law though, and more concerned with what is going to matter in your offspring's mind (child seems wrong here). They are going to react a lot differently to you taking away something they bought with their money as opposed to something you bought them with your money. Not sure if I made it clear why I brought that up or not.

I wish real infections worked more like computer infections. When we get sick we could just run a virus scan and delete it. We could also patch some more serious conditions like a bad heart, or any number of immune dissorders. Cold is getting better, but now I'm into the cough until everyone hates your guts phase.

I have met people who really don't understand how the world works before (actually I've met people who didn't seem to grasp that the purpose of corporations like insurance companies was to make money before), and that allowing that kind of ignorance to carry into adult hood would not be 'in the childs best interest'. Another very very important concept to grasp is that there are consequences for your actions. Better to learn it the hard way in an environment with no real lasting consequences than in the working world where you could very easily do something that might ensure you never rise beyond a certain level in a company, or an entire industry. To the second, it was a forgone conclusion that the laptop was going to vanish, and it was never coming back. It also might be important to point out that rightfully, the laptop belonged to the parents, as did all the payed for software on it. It's possession by the daughter was a privaledge, not a right (another important concept to grasp, especially during your teens). So I really don't see how it could possibly matter how it was disposed of. Shot, smashed, thrown in the trash, locked in a safe and throw away the key. Different means to the same end. However, it is worth pointing out that the video wasn't for the daughter. Yes, chances we're she was going to see it, but that wasn't a goal, or a requirement. The video was for her friends, and for the parents of her friends, to make a point to them. I think shooting the laptop makes perfect sense given that the whole point of it was to send a message to some people through a video. Things like chores exist to teach children the first lesson I mentioned (that life isn't a free ride), and also are a way to help repay your parents a bit for all the work they do providing for you. So aside from the disgusting lack of respect that her message showed, it also demonstrated a total lack of understanding that her father (and mother if she works too) does more than relax in a pool on a floating bed sipping drinks when he is at work. That he actually, you know, works (that or she is a terrible and totally self centered person). I would consider it important to grasp, in a practical understanding, that life is not a free ride before you move out so that the shock of the real world doesn't consume you. To that end, things like having a job are imperative. So at the end of the day, I think the message showed the father just what fantasy world his daughter was living in, and highlighted excellently that whatever his current parenting technique was, it wasn't working to the desired effect, and that changes needed to be made. Since he can't parent his daughters friends, but apparently felt the need to do so, he milked that change in his approach for all that it was worth in that video. Now, I don't know if what he did was the right thing, or the wrong thing. I only know that I think I can see where he is coming from. I don't believe I will ever have the perspective needed to say whether something was in the child best interest until I have children of my own, and even then, that will probably only ever apply to me because only then would I even have a chance of having all the information I need. I would also love to know what the approach he took with his daughter though (because we only saw a message for her friends, which is naturally going to be different because its a different medium, and a totally different relationship and role, and there was probably some exaggeration for emphasis). I will give him props for one thing for sure though. He took action. Some people are so afraid of ruining their children that they are petrified by the idea of doing something drastic, of doing something big enough to actually get a point home. I still remember being a child enough that if you think you can just talk your children into being sound and capable adults, you have another thing coming. Sometimes I wish my parents had been a bit more hard line with me, taught me a couple more things the hard way rather than trusting me to understand. And I know they feel the same way because we've talked about it before.