That was impressively fast....and through a hard rain storm no less. I'm hiring them the next time I have a multi million dollar project that's time sensitive.

..And the Trillion taken late on a Sunday night from the nation with threats of apocalypse to clueless representatives so the failed bankers could still have their million dollar bonuses makes all taxation a pale shadow..

Also, isn't this just an allegory for a miscarriage? Better hidden meaning than Million Dollar Baby.

"He came on television and told everyone he had seen God. So I stopped channel surfing immediately. He said that he had seen God, and God told him to raise 8 million dollars. God was broke."

As was mentioned above, the cost of the fuel is a non-starter. Currently SpaceX uses a Kerosene / Liquid Oxygen fuel mix.

After the anomaly (the space industries way of saying accident) in June SpaceX did a complete vehicle review. They are now using a more advanced technique to cool the LOX which means for a denser LOX liquid in their tanks, which ultimately means they have more oxidizer on board for their flights now.

Coupled with the LOX improvements they have made upgrades to the engines which means 30% greater efficiency. Basically the horsepower per engine has increased.

This means they can get their payloads to orbit plus have more then enough fuel left over in stage 1 to return it to land.

The greatest efficiency comes from returning the stage(s) and then reusing them in future launches (not proven yet). ALL launchers (u.s, soviet, indian, ESA, Japan, etc) ditch ALL of their hardware into the ocean when getting payload to orbit. Bye, bye multi million dollars worth of engines and hardware.

If SpaceX can turn that scenario on its head and reuse those stages and MORE importantly the engines they will cut their costs per launch by a substantial amount. Ultimately that means cheaper per pound cost to get material into orbit.

All of the media uses the word "explosion" when describing the June anomaly which is funny because there was never an ignition of onboard fuels.

The LOX tanks have smaller Helium tanks inside them. The helium is released during launch. The helium rises in the LOX quickly, expands and pressurizes the tank to ensure the LOX is "squeezed" into the pipes in order to keep up with the turbo pumps.

One of the struts holding a helium tank inside the LOX tank failed. The helium tank shot up and blew threw the top of the LOX tank and took a good part of the top of the stack off. The engines actually fired for a few seconds after the anomaly and then sputtered out. The rest of the vehicle at this point is still fairly intact.

Without proper structural integrity the vehicle started to veer off course, dynamic pressures built up and the vehicle was essentially ripped apart by those forces.

At 3:20 the Helium tank rips off its struts. At 3:27 the remainder of the vehicle disintegrates:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuNymhcTtSQ

SpaceX mentioned that in June, the dragon capsule continued to relay telemetry until it smacked into the ocean. If the Dragon had better software onboard it would have detected the anomaly and recovered with chutes. Elon said that software would be active on Dragons from now on.

@Jinx

I am a bit confused. Earlier you used the word "conned" to describe the game, now you say it's not a hoax.

Aside from that, you certainly have voiced legitimate concerns. I'm also sick and tired of the usual pre-order business model. I decided that after playing the utter mess that was the Halo: Master Chief Collection for Xbox that I would never pre-order a game again. It's one thing to buy a game on day one, but yeah, in the usual sense, pre-orders need to die.

Thing is though...this is a kickstarter, thus the rules are different, by it's very nature, you HAVE to sell promises and pre-orders, or at the very least, contribution promises/swag/perks/etc. It's an alternative to going to a publisher and begging them for money to make the game and risk having the publisher exert creative control over the game/product/etc and whatever other compromises a publisher might force a developer to make. How many games have been utter shite because the publisher meddled and forced a game out before it was ready. Too many.

With kickstarters, it's the other way around. Backers demand that a game not be released before it's ready, but now the hype train has to start chugging along WAY earlier than a publisher-backed game in order to generate interest, because now the publishers are the backers and this is happening long before a game even gets to an alpha stage.

There is a risk with any kickstarter. If it was anyone other than Chris Roberts, I doubt I would have backed it. I backed the Shadowrun games mainly because it was being run by the guy who created the game originally and that turned out to be successful...twice. I'll be going for the hat-trick with the Battletech game they're working on now. Chris Roberts and Jordan Weisman both have solid reputations and have demonstrated they can make solid games. If it was Derek Smart or someone relatively unknown, I doubt I would have backed.

I find it interesting how the detractors are coming from various levels. Some of the detractors seem to be against kickstarters in general. Some seem to be against SC specifically and I think others are simply against it just because they want to see something ambitious crash and burn....and then there's Derek Smart who seems to have a personal, unhinged, vendetta against Chris Roberts.

Regardless of how successful SC will or won't be. SC is still a niche game by the very fact that it's a space sim. Even if it is a complete and total success, it's going to be a very complex game with a crazy amount of information to absorb and it will be difficult to be good at it. It is not for the casual gamer. So it will never reach mass appeal or become a widely recognized franchise like, say, Halo or Call of Duty. I think that is part of the appeal. A couple decades ago, publishers as a whole gave space sims the middle finger, but now thanks to crowdfunding, space sims are making a comeback.

Roberts has clearly tapped into something or people wouldn't be giving him money. He originally only asked for 2 million dollars, so even he didn't think it was going to be this big. (Europe is going absolutely bonkers for Space Citizen, they're way more into SC than we are in America)

WTF?!? "Tangible plan"? What on earth could you possibly mean by that?
The "plan" to round up over 11 million people and deport them, but with zero details about it?
The "plan" to make Mexico pay to build a 2500 mile wall, with zero details about how?
The "plan" to illegally deny fugitives entry to states because, you know, Muslims are bad...MmmmK?
The "plan" to skew the tax system even more in favor of those in the top 5%, to the detriment of the middle and lower classes?
His "plan" to be a smarmy, dickish, douchebag to anyone that isn't in his camp...but also to completely control those people to make them do exactly what he wants...again with zero details how he plans to do so?
The "plan" to force China to...I don't know...ignore all our debt and treat us like the boss we are?

As for Clinton's being 'currently under Federal investigation by America's FBI department.'...the "email scandal" has, just like Benghazi, turned up absolutely zero illegal behavior and is nothing more than a red herring designed by the (absolutely not) "conservative" side of our political system, has gone absolutely no where, and only matters to people who would NEVER have voted for her in the first place...if you think differently, you really need to get out of the Fox bubble and look around at reality for a bit.

Little could be more disastrous for the country than having that vitriolic humanoid pumpkin as our 'leader', since the only successful leading he's ever done is leading people to hate each other, and leading far more people to hate HIM. He's a fairly terrible business man, successful only due to starting with a "tiny loan" (his words, really more of a gift from daddy) of a million dollars and being forced to allow others to take control of his investments. He's a bold faced liar, in fact the truth does not seem to be palatable to him in the least....and he's clearly admitted that in his books and sees it as a good thing to hyper exaggerate and minimize. He's a 'good Christian', who's been divorced how many times? There's no way on earth his plans would even be tried. He (and other republican candidates) don't even have a grasp of what the president does or how, claiming they'll 'repeal the ACA on day one', and they'll discard multiple government departments...somethings the president simply CAN'T just do...along with most of their other ridiculous, impossible 'plans'. They all know they wouldn't actually have that power, yet they all lie to you and tell you they will do the hateful things they've convinced you are the right thing to do by themselves. Fortunately our system is designed so that one nutjob, or even one party of nutjobs can't change laws precipitously.

I hate to tell you, but Bernie Sanders is not excluded for being honest and knowledgeable. ALL candidates are socialist, he's just honest enough to admit it. Tax breaks for the rich...socialism. Bailouts for the airlines and banks...socialism. Social security...socialism. Medicare...socialism. "jobs programs"...socialism. Public parks...socialism. Public roads...socialism. Need I go on?

Your mischaracterization of Obama's record is so patently ridiculous it's not worth contradicting.

That's definitely a big factor and maybe the only one in his mind, having the time to rest your muscles and work some of that lactic acid out.

I still think the other thing can also be a big factor. It's not for learning strategy, but it's a big motivator to know how quickly you must go in order to win a million dollars. No matter how fast you think your fastest is, when you have that huge carrot dangling out in front of you, it gives you a good kick in the ass and you're able to push yourself to go even faster than your fastest.

Similar to the mother lifting a car to get her baby out from under it.

Rather than "I hope my fastest is fast enough," you are forced to push yourself to "I am going to beat Popeye's time!"

How about those forearms, man. Sick impressive.

Million dollar car, camera is potato.

Wait, the music...

Dum dum, dee dee, dum dum, dee dee, dum dum dum....
Dum dum, dee dee, dum dum, dee dee, dum dum dum....

(Soaring melody line)...

Steve Austin, the $6 million dollar man... (back when that was a lot of money)

They had a business permit, just not the new one that Santa Ana came up with for Pot Dispensaries. These shops have been operating in legal grey areas in Orange County, awhile back Santa Ana decided that they'd directly permit for it... but did it in a really screwed up way. A lottery.

Anybody who wanted to operate a dispensary had to pay $1690, a non-refundable amount, to enter a lottery for the privilege to buy a permit. Santa Ana collected more than a million dollars in the lottery fees. There have been enough accusations of shady behavior with the lottery process that a Judge recently issued an order to stop the program from going forward until it can be investigated.

The business in the video has been around since well before the Lottery. They got word that the city was going to use the Police to raid them instead of doing any of the normal things when shutting down a business, which is why they setup the hidden cameras.

I disagree with the insinuation that that is intuitive...

I think to answer @Zawash 's concerns, the seven riffle shuffles is probably close to the "sweet spot" because even a card on the very bottom or very top will likely move at least 1-2 places away from those extreme positions (top or bottom) in a single shuffle. Then, on the second shuffle, it is likely to move even further -- the probable "distance moved" is even higher and goes up rapidly away from the extreme edges. By the time that you've riffle shuffled 7 times, it should easily have shifted far enough away from either extreme end to be sufficiently "random".

Sorta like the old elementary school math question of would you rather have a million dollars NOW, or one penny today and then double that amount each day for the next month. We tend to underestimate the value of option 2 (over $5 million after 30 days, $10m+ for 31) because our brains are much better at grasping/predicting geometric growth than exponential growth.

That doesn't have anything to do with "inability to perform a proper riffle shuffle", just a very human tendency to underestimate exponential changes over a few iterations.

They went over this in Episode 3 quite a lot. It was the reason Anakin turned to the dark side...the fear of the loss of his love. It may not be explicitly forbidden, but it's certainly discouraged and frowned upon. While telling the child he could get married as a Jedi was a sweet thought, it's not really being honest.

I found it insane that 'low income' was anyone making under $72K per year!
It really does sound like the housing project is a slap back at his neighbors for not letting him expand his studio. Where his ranch is, there are no services, no stores, and probably no busses. I went there in the early 90's, and it was not near town at all. Today it's nearly a gated community in the hills with multi to hundreds of million dollar homes. It's a nice thought, and I hope it does help some people who are struggling, but purchasing land in or near town to build it really seems more reasonable and helpful to those really in need, like people living on or near minimum wage in the bay area. Those people won't be able to live in these low income homes, because they won't be able to get to work reasonably from there unless they're doing something about that problem too.

@everyone
Part of the reason, I should point out, that her care cost so much is because we don't have enough government intrusion @bobknight33

When I look at the bill for her formula for example, it apparently cost my insurance company $750 to buy one can of formula (in bulk, mind you) when I can walk down to Walgreen's and get the same can for $20~.
It's truly baffling and if requested I can post pictures.


Why is this? It has to do with insurance companies and negotiations about prices through the hospital. Those prices should be capped with a law, but they aren't.

Thank you to everyone for your kind words. She's doing well and just had a first birthday, but we have 3 appointments a week and another few here and there that each have their own $$$ amount attached. I REALLY would be in the streets if we had to pay for all of this alone. Even if they didn't drop us because of the pre-existing condition, she's reaching what would have been her cap for care of 1 million dollars. Obamacare did away with those too. :-)

Thanks Obama!