indy500fan

Blue has a wavelength. White doesn't, white is all of the visible light wavelengths.

For various reasons I haven't been able to watch many movies lately. So the only two I've seen in quite a while I just watched over the past few days. Luckily, they were both great: Son of Rambow - First time I saw the title quite a long time ago I thought it was a parody movie, and seeing the cover with kids I thought it would be a horrible parody movie. Then a bit later I saw some of the people associated with it, and then wanted to see it. Finally got around to it. It is not a parody movie, although there is a little parody in it. It takes place whenever First Blood was in the theaters. A religious kid who is not allowed to do anything teams up with a kid living with just his mean older brother because of parents being in another country. Polar opposites, they of course bond. It really is a good "coming of age" movie. Memento - I saw this a long, long time ago, when I first started really watching movies. I remembered it was one of the first movies I saw that I thought "holy [cabbage], movies can be more than just mindless entertainment". Of course it is pretty entertaining, just definitely not mindless. It's number #29 on the IMDb Top 250 list, and for good reason. It is awesome.

Eyes.

While there are lots of different action genres, and Scarface could fit into one, I usually list it under the Crime genre.

Norway's update: last year three modules were made. Three more are being made this year. Right now Japan is the only country that has mentioned making a module, no rush on that we are only in the second of eight years. But due to the lack of international participation Norway may start using some of the tax money to start building modules rather than just interest from the sovereign wealth fund. If it is getting close and the modules aren't done we will take part of the sovereign wealth fund (valued at $325 billion before the game started, increased oil revenue made up for other stuff and more plus it gains interest so it is still around $325, just hasn't increased like normal) and use it to finish it off in the last year. It is 2016 now, so Nopec prices are at 12% above market. 2nd year of module building, so they will be done in 2022.

I always just choose spam when it is spam, whether or not it is advertising. Done it many times and no one said anything, so it is OK.

Under normal circumstances, yes. You can refuse anyone service if you want (not on a basis of race, gender, religion ect...). However this is entirely different, since they had his car.

I don't see this working well.

Don't support game companies that use draconian drm. Nobody on amazon even reviews the game, all the reviews are about how much the drm sucks. I would imagine that EA did something about it, but not sure. Contact them and complain, it will help them know that they shouldn't pull this [cabbage] on consumers.

Yep, PC fanboy.

I made a blanket "welcome all donations of money or scientists or anything" for the R&D portion these past two years, so I am going to give a blanket "thank you" to everyone who donated. I was on vacation for a lot of that time and haven't kept track of who gave what, and I don't want to thank some specifically and miss others. The module building will be different, I am going to keep track of exactly how many modules everyone builds. Why is this different? Well if you build a module you get to name it :D . Each ring consists of 24 modules so I am just going to give one name to the ring I build. These are just modules, the entire project will be named by Brazil since they are the ones who started the project (the funding I originally gave at the very beginning of the game to the New World Order was for sustainable space station colonies, the original research could be used for this project but it is different than I had planned). EDIT: One module costs about $6 billion to build and takes a year. However, if you want to donate the $6 billion over a few years that would be fine also.

You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we are all part of the same compost pile. That pretty much sums up this topic. Haven't really seen anyone put something that made them really unique.

Unless major changes come this will be the last halfway interesting update from Norway. After this it will mostly be progress of the space project. First and foremost the extra military spending Norway put aside in the first year of my rule has finally paid off. While some spending was used to increase the active manpower of the military, the rest was undisclosed. Since then Norway has been developing advanced unmanned aircraft. 5 years later the nation of Norway has 5 Unmanned Stealth Bombers, 15 Unmanned Anti-aircraft Fighters and 25 Unmanned Drones (mostly for recon, though they can be used "suicidally" if need be). The thoughts behind unmanned aircraft is keeping morale up of troops in case Norway ever has to go to war, which we don't want to. Nopec rates are now 8% above market prices. This year if you are sticking with Nopec prices you will see less money from your oil (due to demand being down). However your economy should have been using the extra money those first years to start non-oil industry, so that should make up the difference. Norway's main non-oil based industry that we used Nopec money to fund were state-owned car manufacturing plants. These produced electric cars, with small gas motors in case of emergencies. We were also funding research into even more environmentally friendly automobiles. Well, 2 years later the car plants are doing well and making up for the lost revenue of oil, but we are still a few years away from hydrogen-fuel cells being used in automobiles. Now, the space project. Brazil as said earlier already received the first prototype module to use in testing. This year we worked on getting the prototype to basically the final model. While they may not quite be the final models they are close enough to start construction. Plans will be given to those countries who want to help build modules, and that will start next year. Modules will be built over an eight year period, and at 48 modules that is 6 a year. They cost $6 billion a piece to build. Norway will be building 3 a year, for a total of 24 (half of them) at a cost of $18 billion a year, and a total cost over 8 years of $144 billion. This will take almost all of the interest earned per year on my sovereign wealth fund. So all countries are welcome to build as many or as few of the modules as you would like. You can also help out in other ways, Brazil is still working on their half of the project, the propulsion system. We also have to get all the parts into space, and we have to assemble them there, which will most likely require a space station built for putting together the project.

I liked Drag Me To Hell, but it's not for everyone. Basically how you felt about the Evil Dead movies will tell you how you will feel about it.

Norway's leader is back from his year long vacation. So I will be making an actual post after I get caught up on everything.

Norway's update this year is that Norway probably isn't going to make an update this year. Next year modules for space project can start to be built.

I didn't want to assume too much money and scare people away, originally I even had $500 billion as the number. However I just drew my modules (in paint!) and when I think about the project I don't think 24 will be enough. I think it should be doubled to 48. I think the costs that I put were close. So just the module part will cost $10 billion in R&D plus 48*6=$288billion for the modules. Then we have the cost of Brazil's entire half of the project. Then we have the cost to get them into space, and assemble them. Yeah, that does get confusing. Stephen Hawking usually says everything in millions (he will say a thousand million, which is 1,000,000,000, the same for both countries, it is just called billion here in the US) Or use diamond. (See 3001: The Final Odyssey.) This isn't real life. Just set some resources aside to research it, wait a day or two, and hey presto! Stronger nanotubes. Yeah 3001 is an awesome book, just like the entire series. However diamonds are not even as strong as carbon nanotubes.

While space elevators would be awesome they aren't possible using existing materials. Carbon nano-tubes need to be about 4 times stronger (as well as being able to be longer) to be able to achieve a space elevator. Yes, construction will have to happen in space.

@doom, yes Norway will provide heavy water. Hopefully during R&D we get that much closer to cold fusion being a reality. If I wasn't using almost all of my nations extra resources on the space project then it would be for cold fusion.

Norway at the moment could use scientists (engineers, botanists, astrophysicists, ect...) and funding. Resources are not much of a problem. The main point of my research is to create modules which completely recycle everything that is used in it, to allow very very extended periods without having to replenish supplies. While millions of dollars definitely help, space projects are very expensive. To put it in perspective the International Space Station is said to cost anywhere from $30 to $100 billion dollars. Not only are the projects our coalition are working on much more advanced (and therefore costly), but the final result will be much much bigger out of necessity. Brazil will have to verify this, but I am guessing overall project cost at somewhere around $300 billion. Now this cost will be spread out over many years. I am proposing 24 modules at a construction cost of around $6 billion a piece. We have to do the initial research and development, which will probably take the rest of this year and all of the next, plus cost around $10billion. Money during that time would be appreciated. The interest on my sovereign wealth fund can cover it, but it would better if others also helped fund. After the initial development is done, any nation who wishes to construct a module can, the plans will be provided. It would take around a year for a team to build a module, and cost the aforementioned $6billion. If you don't want to put up that much you can pool resources with other countries to build a module. After the modules are built, Brazil will almost definitely have finished their half of the project and I am guessing a year or two of construction putting it all together before the project is finished.

Svalbard is part of Norway, it's the island directly north of Norway. It's not that big of deal though, don't worry about it if you don't want.

The coalition between Brazil and Norway in regards to space exploration has started off well. With our combined knowledge we both made great advances in space technology. The work on space modules is now a step closer to them being self sustaining.

That's what I thought, but you had SAR in your sig so I went with that.

Finland and Sweden have requested that along with Norway we all merge together. Norway wishes to remain autonomous, although I am willing to do a stronger alliance. Whereas in our original "alliance" one of the stipulations was that if one of the members attacks another country, Norway at least would have automatically broken the alliance. Finland has been attacking countries, and under a new alliance Norway will not break the alliance when a member country attacks. In private talks Norway mentioned uniting the military under one rule, but is redacting that. Norway will continue to serve mostly autonomously. My military will be used solely for defense, but I am willing to increase it and use the increased military to put forward defensive bases near the borders of the alliance. Finland has proposed the name Republic of Nordic Emirites (RNE) and Norway accepts, still waiting on Sweden for verification. If both Finland and Sweden are OK with what I said here, you can begin to mark us all under one colour on the map. Norway seconds the request for knowledge on how much of Denmark is being attacked. Norway would like to announce cooperation with SAR on a space program. More details to follow later.

To all Nopec members: Due to the rapid development of non oil-based technologies in many occupied countries around (some would say they came quicker than physically possible :) ) it looks like this will be the last year we can still sell oil at a higher price (currently 4% over market) and still sell it all. Next year we will be selling less. That is, unless you want to drop out of Nopec. There is a possibility if all oil drops down to OPEC level prices that developing countries that haven't quite got renewable energy will start to become dependent on oil again. Norway will continue with the original Nopec plan, since we have a very large sovereign wealth fund (second biggest fund in the world, after the UAE fund) we can afford to not sell as much oil. There is no reason you can't cut and run now if you wanted, and be happy with the 2% and 4% extra you made in two years :D . Hopefully you invested that extra in non-oil based industry, because even if oil stays cheap non-oil based cars are the future. Speaking of non-oil based cars, as part of the non-oil based industry funding increase Norway started the first year the first state owned electric car manufacturing plants are open. These cars store energy in batteries which you can charge from regular plugs. They also have very small gas engines for a little extra power when need be, or a little extra distance. Due to the large batteries that these cars require, they aren't as environmentally friendly as Norway would like to be (lithium mining is horrible on the environment). So we are continuing to fund research into alternate personal transportation (hydrogen fuel cells first and foremost). Due to the destruction of Hawaii and the New World Order government, Norway no longer sees an international space program as possible, at least not for now. Luckily the NWO never responded to any space related resources from Norway, even though we have been working on them. While our original plans were to only have to fund part of a space program, we are now funding our own. Right now we are shifting focus from creating space station modules to creating a way to get into space :D .