The last couple of decades I've really begun to see the military as corporate welfare. We have a force capable of crushing, literally crushing any non nuclear power nation 20 times over. We can never use that force against a significant nuclear power nation like Russia or China lest we risk WWW3, the war that will REALLY end all wars (by humanity at least). Our tech is also pretty much useless against a guerrilla force because they can melt across borders and into the local population.

Our outdated technology still would destroy any of the nations other than Russia or China. We have shit mothballed and decaying that would do so. We have a fucking stockpile of main battle tanks that we will never use, but we keep building them and storing them because, apparently, if you let the people go who know how to make them you can never replace that knowledge.

All the while, we let people get mired in school debt, credit debt, and increase our national debt because we need to crush some unknown force. We spend a fraction of what we should be spending on space exploration and colonization. I could go on, but why bother.

If you have any doubt, just look at the F35. By the time it is all said and done, we will have close to half a trillion sunk into that fucking debacle and it STILL isn't functioning capably. Russia and China haven't got anything close to it and we don't need it against anyone else. You could take that money and give close to 2 grand to every single man, woman, and child in the country. Instead we basically are lining Lockheed Martin's pockets.

Here is the problem, Mr. Schlosser is a journalist, not a Nuclear Scientist. He does not understand, or has chosen to ignore for propaganda reasons, that an unarmed warhead is EXTREMELY unlikely to perform the exact sequence of events that need to take place to have a nuclear reaction happen.

Yes, he is fully correct in that we have had numerous 'butt-clenching' moments in which we could have started WW3 due to a malfunction or human error. But in the other cases he mentions, such as the bombs that landed on Spain, the lightning bolt on the tower, and the wrench on the rocket, the chance of the warhead going up while being unarmed is infinitesimal. They simply don't go 'boom' because of a collision or explosion. Now you could have a 'dirty bomb' type incident where the radioactive materials could be spread and come into contact with humans, but that is about it.

The cases that have been officially listed as Broken Arrows were because they involved an active bomb, like the one in Florida. Everything else he mentions in this video is his 'belief' and is conjecture.

Now, before I get unloaded on, I wish we didn't have nuclear weapons. I don't agree with Trump that we should renew the arms race, I think he is nuts since we have more than enough weapons to blanket the cities of the world more than a couple of times. If you add all the nukes from the Big 3 (USA/Russia/France...yes, France) there are enough to cover every single inch of the world.

The problem is, who bells the cat? If we give up all of our weapons, we are at risk. I wish we weren't, but we would be. If we bring down our numbers gradually, there are still other countries that may not, like North Korea. How do we trust the other country is actually following through? In a perfect world, we would all lay down our weapons and sing kumbaya, but as Heinlein wrote: "...Anyone who clings to the historically untrue and thoroughly immoral doctrine that violence never settles anything I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and their freedoms."

PS...Yes, I know Starship Troopers is a controversial novel with overtones of Militarism and Fascism. However, there are quotes that ring true no matter what 'ism' people attach to the overall story. If you doubt that, look at the utter disbelief and depression that overcame liberals when Trump won. "He simply was supposed to, it was impossible, not like this, we have no hope, etc" were the feelings of the people who gave him no hope of winning. I, having lived and read enough to get a fair picture of how fucked up we are as a species, had little doubt he could pull it off. We elected a former Wrestler as governor, a former actor as governor, and a former actor as President. We overlook mass genocide in other countries. We ignore climate change. We spend hundreds of billions on defense and less than 10 on space exploration, all the while living on a planet that is already critically overpopulated (and is growing almost exponentially).

Yeah, exactly. There were tons of streams on Twitch of NMS before release. I should have said this in my statement, but before I thought it was just going to be an indie space exploration survival game - but it became clear from the streams - that this game consisted of a lot of grinding and was pretty repetitive. I wasn't sure if I would actually enjoy that, which is why I didn't pay for it First thing I noticed was the nerfed surface travel, you can't even crash and second thing I noticed was the retarded inventory system, third - mine, mine, mine, grind and not much variation. It WREAKS of consolitis (framerate at 30, on PC, attention to detail Sean, come on?!), but to their credit, playing the game with a controller is quite nice, so much better than the shitty PC controls they implemented. I still like it and am enjoying the surprising relaxation of the grind/exploration, so I will pay for it when it's $30 and is heavily patched & modded. $60.00 is absolutely ridiculous for this game, but hopefully they take that extra $30 they ripped off from people and put in some major work.

Overwatch is another game that I was pissed at having paid $60.00 for. But, since it's a Blizzard game I always know they will make it worth my while in the long-run and it's steadily been true of Overwatch. Blizzard really know how to support their games unlike any other developer. I enjoy OW much more now that the competitive mode came out, a new hero (a little underwhelming but still cool) added and pretty soon an awesome looking new map. The lucio-ball thing is cool that they added in, but don't care much for it. Still hate the loot, though....

People love sandbox survival and they love space exploration and they fell in love with the idea of what this game could be. The magazines talked about it like evangelical christians talk about the rapture - this is the end of gaming as we know it and it's going to change everything! And the internet fandom descended with prepubescent fury on anyone that dared suggest the emperor was, in fact, nekkid.

This long video about NMS covers it extremely well, but i'll cut a long story short. There was something veeery slightly disingenuous about the moratoriums placed on reviews, lack of pre-release review versions, and significant backtracking and retconning of promises made by lead designer(? - but definite spokesperson) Sean Murray. The clean cut, well spoken, awkwardly charming Sean Murray. Who I think understood as the release date got closer that a lot of people were not going to be happy with him, because in his interviews he started to look more and more like De Niro playing Russian roulette in The Deer Hunter.

Extra things that immediately pissed me off before i refunded it:
- Menu stuff can appear offscreen if you open it by the edges in 2016
- Can't alt tab in full screen
- Run in borderless window to solve it, performance hit
- i7 6700k, Maximus viii Hero mobo and a GTX 1080 but yes, performance hit and general poor performance anyway
- Can't bind actions to thumb buttons in 2016
- Mouse sensitivity goes from 0 to 100. Changing my sensitivity from 100 to 0 didn't even half the turning speed in game, I had to alt tab to manually change the DPI in razer synapse, which is where i discovered i couldn't alt-tab.

All this for £40? Overwatch cost £30.

They made a lot of money off this, but I'm afraid for me they did it through unfair means. If you check out the quotes from Murray and what the game actually is, there's a huge disparity and the backtracking as release date approached was the final evidence.

Funny video and the bad harmonica version of the Jurassic Park theme is hilarious however.... the game is actually really damn fun!
It's really a true space sim without much of a story line. A rough comparison can be made to Minecraft (before single player story came out) only many MANY orders of magnitude larger. Or really any great sandbox game out there without much story.
If you like space, sci-fi, exploring, and discovering, then this game is for you. One of my only wishes for this game is for a true multiplayer component, but for now it's Zen and the Art of Space Exploration. Soundtrack by 65daysofstatic is incredible, and only barely surpassed (for me) by the Eve Online ambient soundtracks.

Yes, of course Cruz is a climate denying nutbag and that is what this is REALLY about, despite his rhetoric.
Not the total schooling I was hoping for, but Bolden made a great point, if I may paraphrase him:

Yes, NASA is about space exploration, but we can't explore space without a launchpad. Earth is our launchpad.

So...criticize the agency for improving success rates, streamlining and reducing budgets, introducing private industry to reduce costs and meeting agressive timelines. Good thinking budget minded politician!

Earth sciences budget increased 41%? What percentage of the total budget is it now? Is it now larger than the money allocated for space exploration or is it still a small percentage of the total NASA pie? Not a misleading chart at all. Of course, charts is book learnin' and learnin' is what them elitist socialist do!

Go home to Canada senator, you're a tool.

> plausible space exploration technology

You must be referring to the giant sphere of galaxies where they can pick and choose where to wormhole in

I don't see how you can compare this to Gravity or even Mission to Mars.
This really looks actually awesome and very promising !
Realistic future global context, plausible space exploration technology and pertinent philosophical questioning.
2001 based modern inspiration wouldn't be such a bad thing actually.

Don't worry I totally agree. They tried a bunch of stuff cliche symbolism, character growth, but it didn't really mesh up with the plot of the movie. She was suicidal, but finds the will to go on through a space hallucination/talking with some rando Korean (dafuq)? What I gathered from the movie is that we shouldn't try and explore space since "gravity" will pull us back. We should just stay down on earth (since that's what Sandra Bullock spends the entire movie trying to get back to). But then they had George Clooney ask Sandra Bullock to enjoy the scenery, which she never does, which is a confusing message. I guess he was trying to say all the beauty we know is on Earth. This movie tried so so hard to be a "classic" space movie that dove into humanity, blah blah blah, bs bs bs. If anything this is a very anti space exploration movie.

Compare that to the rich symbolism of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Which juxtaposes the beginnings of humanity with where it is now, and asks what is the limit of humanity? Are we confined to Earth? It was really a movie of rebirth and redefining what humanity is and what we're capable of. Also the main character was a bad ass. Not only did he out smart the homicidal computer (which killed everyone except him). He continued his mission!

2001 and Gravity couldn't be more different.

In Soviet Russia, space explores you!

*rest in peace....

from the stranger:

Death / Science Neil Armstrong
Posted by Paul Constant on Sat, Aug 25, 2012 at 12:14 PM

NBC is reporting that the first man to walk on the moon has died at age 82. He had heart surgery earlier this month.

Between this news and Sally Ride's death last month, it certainly feels as though we're passing from one generation of space exploration to another.

Who said I was an adult? That's part of the fucking problem. This isn't about winning or being right.You're fighting an argument I haven't made.>> ^Yogi:

>> ^Trancecoach:
you're so right. I know nothing about being inspired by the mysteries of the universe, or becoming so enthralled that I pursued a masters and a doctorate, not in an effort to get answers, but to ask wiser questions... And I know nothing about the federal government slashing the funding of crucial social programs that have measurable and direct impact on people's lives -- like whether or not they have enough money to eat, or whether or not their child gets the medical attention they need...
And, surely, I've never thought at all about the hundreds of thousands of orbital debris objects from NASA's abandoned or lost equipment or spaceships that are orbiting earth or items as large as 10kg re-entering the atmosphere to fall god-knows-where (to say nothing of all the hardware that was left on the moon).
There's certainly nothing I can say about the ongoing "civil wars" in which our planet is continuously engaged, be it on the basis of race, status, gender, wealth, resources, or just some petty bullshit argument on a website! No, I'm certainly nowhere near smart enough to understand deGrasse-Tyson, or your scintillating brilliance that you demonstrate in your stunning ability to recognize irony versus sarcasm, and knowing just when to let it go.

>> ^Yogi:
>> ^Trancecoach:
ad hominem will get you everywhere... while I play the tiniest violin for you and Dr. deGrasse-Tyson...

Dude you didn't WIN anything here stop trying to take the high road, you're not smart enough to understand what in the hell he's even talking about.


Yeah don't be an adult, just make shit up so you can win an argument. Do us all a favor and stop trying to be a cynical bastard, you're bad at it.

>> ^Trancecoach:

you're so right. I know nothing about being inspired by the mysteries of the universe, or becoming so enthralled that I pursued a masters and a doctorate, not in an effort to get answers, but to ask wiser questions... And I know nothing about the federal government slashing the funding of crucial social programs that have measurable and direct impact on people's lives -- like whether or not they have enough money to eat, or whether or not their child gets the medical attention they need...
And, surely, I've never thought at all about the hundreds of thousands of orbital debris objects from NASA's abandoned or lost equipment or spaceships that are orbiting earth or items as large as 10kg re-entering the atmosphere to fall god-knows-where (to say nothing of all the hardware that was left on the moon).
There's certainly nothing I can say about the ongoing "civil wars" in which our planet is continuously engaged, be it on the basis of race, status, gender, wealth, resources, or just some petty bullshit argument on a website! No, I'm certainly nowhere near smart enough to understand deGrasse-Tyson, or your scintillating brilliance that you demonstrate in your stunning ability to recognize irony versus sarcasm, and knowing just when to let it go.


>> ^Yogi:
>> ^Trancecoach:
ad hominem will get you everywhere... while I play the tiniest violin for you and Dr. deGrasse-Tyson...

Dude you didn't WIN anything here stop trying to take the high road, you're not smart enough to understand what in the hell he's even talking about.



Yeah don't be an adult, just make shit up so you can win an argument. Do us all a favor and stop trying to be a cynical bastard, you're bad at it.