Patrick
Patrick is a mid-40 year old geek with an undergraduate degree in mathematics and a master's degree in Information Systems. Nothing he says here has anything to do with the official position of his employer or any other institution.
Features
Hot Posts
A Message From Devcat
Devcat is watching over, but if you notice any problems contact the editors and Devcat will be notified and deployed immediately.
Recent Comments
on Open Mic for the week of 11/25/2024You're right. Substitute "null hypothesis" and see if it makes a difference. But for that you'd need…
on Saturday Morning Gaming: The Steam Thanksgiving Sale!!!I just finished The Rise of the Golden Idol. If you liked The Case of the Golden Idol, you'll probab…
on Open Mic for the week of 11/25/2024I didn't say "null set". Why are you using quotation marks? I don't think that going on Rogan's show…
on Open Mic for the week of 11/25/2024Taxes on profits actually aren't passed on to consumers in the way tariffs are. When a tariff is lev…
on Saturday Morning Gaming: The Steam Thanksgiving Sale!!!Some other goodies from the sales: Darkest Dungeon- $1.99 Red Dead Redemption 2 - $19.79 Baldur’s Ga…
Comics
-
November 30, 2024
-
November 29, 2024
-
November 28, 2024
-
November 27, 2024
More Comments
on Open Mic for the week of 11/25/2024
on Open Mic for the week of 11/25/2024
on Open Mic for the week of 11/25/2024
on Turkeys and Drumsticks 2024
on Weekend Plans Post: Thanksgiving in Iceland
on Weekend Plans Post: Thanksgiving in Iceland
on Weekend Plans Post: Thanksgiving in Iceland
We tiny.Report
We’re not tiny. Mars is apparently huge. It must only look so small because of some mind-warping device that somebody is emitting from their planet. These Martians scare me. We must nuke their planet.Report
I just love Earth playing the role of Evening Star.Report
You are here. (Restrooms are down the hall to the left.)Report
I thought John Fogerty said there was a Bath Room on the Right.Report
I thought it was a bad moon on the right.Report
Just more evidence that space is BIG.
I saw gravity a few weeks back and remember the opening scene thinking….”yah…I’d love to be there.”
But, even more so than the wilds and the deep, space is a cold uncaring place with lots of dangers. One misstep, one careless moment and you’re gone.Report
Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.Report
Agreed, the utter vastness of space is just crushing. One enjoys the sci-fi episodes, the Star Treks, the Star Warses etc but all of that dreaming just shatters against the sheer titanic reality of the vastness of space and our own current inability to find anything that moves faster than the speed of light (itself a speed that we have no feasible or practical means of accelerating a body up to).
That we must escape the Terran gravity well is ecologically imperative. Once can theorize an industrialized and resource harvesting solar space without having to posit some kind of black box technology but the idea of escaping the Solar System? It is a crushingly difficult proposition to even imagine. Perhaps some kind of mega city sized space ship, self-sustaining and durable trundling patiently through the incredible gulfs with thousands of generations of humans aboard repairing it, harvesting the surrounding void and living their entire lifespans within it?Report
@north
That we must escape the Terran gravity well is ecologically imperative.
I’m coming round to the thought that escaping the gravity well may be an ecological impossibility; we’re not separate from the ecology, but part of it, and have complex flora and fauna and weight-bearing that may well dead end outside the appropriate environment for more then a few years.Report
I think we’ll get out. Maybe it’s wishfull thinking, but I think the allure of a new “wild west” and desire to flee “civilization” will drive people. Time will indeed tell.Report
@damon I don’t think it impossible, but I think it unlikely we’ll realize how many of our fellow travelers on Planet Earth we’ll need to bring along to make it possible. In particular, I don’t think we’ve a good notion yet of the vast variety of microbes we depend on. We’re primed to kill them before we even determine if their friend or foe. Germ phobic even as our very existence depends on germs.Report
Quite possibly Zic.Report
The first few attempts to go exosolar are very, very probably suicide missions.
I’d go anyway, but that’s me.Report
Is your use of “chemist” her a quote or affect, or are there regions in the US where that’s standard?Report
Brandon, that’s HHGTG. Adams was British. They use funny words for things.Report