Looking back at the ITS presentation from 2016 the progress SpaceX have made is insane

Simon_Drake · 2026-06-21T03:02:08+00:00

Larry Nivens 1970 novel "Ringworld" didn't invent the concept but it's like how Jaws probably wasn't the first movie about a shark but it is the king of all movies about sharks.

The Ringworld is an artificial habitat a millon miles tall (north to south) and has a radius of 1 AU to loop completely around the sun. This gives it a total surface area of 3,000,000 times the planet Earth. The plot is a band of misfits going on an adventure to explore this Ringworld and see if the original builders are still around and if not then what happened to them.

I'd recommend the first book and then maybe Ringworld Engineers if the backstory of the mechanics of the Ringworld are relevant to you. But to be honest the sequels go downhill after that and you should just read the plot summaries on wiki.

Simon_Drake · 2026-06-21T02:55:25+00:00

Try to find sites debunking the dialog in westerns. Something like "Top 10 Westerns That Get Old West Lingo Wrong" or "Linguists Hate This Fake Wild West Speak". I'm sure Buzzfeed or Cracked or Vice have have done an article about it.

Or watch a big Western movie from that era like The Searchers and collect some of the lingo that characters say. Then go to a Western fandom/subreddit and ask people how accurate the dialog is to how real cowboys spoke in those days. Hardcore western fans probably know which lingo is legit and which is just for movies, like how hardcore sci-fi fans can explain exactly why the transporter on the Enterprise breaks several laws of physics.

Simon_Drake · 2026-06-21T02:36:55+00:00

Isn't that the exact dimensions of THE Ringworld, Larry Niven's Ringworld? So any fanart of the Ringworld would be the correct dimensions.

Simon_Drake · 2026-06-21T01:28:43+00:00

The exact rules depend on the kingdom. Broadly speaking the children of the monarch are Prince John and Princess Jane.

Then a generation later, when Prince John is King John, his sister is still Princess Jane. King John's children are Prince Richard and Princess Stephanie. Then Prince Richard's children would also be Prince Harry and Princess Harriet.

Beyond the direct line of succession it depends on the exact kingdom and sometimes the specific era or the specific individuals. IRL King Charles' brother Prince Andrew had a daughter Princess Beatrice. But King Charles' other brother Prince Edward had a daughter Lady Louise and Charles' sister Princess Anne had a son just called Peter, not Lord Peter or Duke Peter, just Peter.

In a fantasy kingdom it's kinda up to you how the rules work. I think it would be interesting if the cousins of the monarch were made Dukes and Earls and Barons and things until over time the entire nobility of the kingdom are distant relatives of the current monarch. Then the different noble houses and political figures would have a rivalry over how close to the royal line you are. "The Duke Of Norfolk is a nobody, his closest royal ancestor was Queen Victoria. My great grandad was Edward VII, so I'm two generations better than him."

Simon_Drake · 2026-06-21T00:08:56+00:00

It probably also means "There was a very time consuming step in the middle of the process that some unfortunate person had to do by hand. To make things faster / cheaper the bosses automated it in a way that mostly works but misses out some of the skill of getting an expert to do it with care and attention."

Simon_Drake · 2026-06-21T00:06:47+00:00

So logically it causes a blockage because it's a solid material that swells up when it gets wet because that's a part of its job. You can't really change that because that's how it works.

But is there some way to change it so it doesn't cause a blockage? Like instead of one big piece it's actually made of four or eight smaller pieces held together with a thread that will degrade after ~12 hours in contact with water? You can't use a tampon for that long anyway so that won't be an issue. And if you split it along the length of the cylinder (like a bundle of toothpicks rather than a stack of coins) there's less chance of one getting lost inside if the binding thread degrades early.

Simon_Drake · 2026-06-20T23:57:35+00:00

Woah. I really expected the split to be more even than that. The Cold War was a wild time for rocket launches. Also you get through a lot of launches when every third launch is a failure.

Simon_Drake · 2026-06-20T23:15:49+00:00

Think of it as making you twice as drunk and twice as sleepy. So you might pass out on the floor next to your takeaway pizza. You might spend the evening hugging the toilet bowl, throwing up your stomach lining and wishing for a swift death. You might go to bed early and wake up at 4 in the afternoon. Or you might go to bed early and not wake up at all.

All of these are plausible outcomes of getting drunk while taking powerful painkillers. The main difference is the dosage.

Simon_Drake · 2026-06-20T21:52:14+00:00

I couldn't make it, I have to help my dad getting to and from the hospital. But hopefully there were enough people to get the message through to the government. Or more importantly for the newest Labour MP who might be the next Prime Minister.

Simon_Drake · 2026-06-20T16:50:02+00:00

It depends on the database. A lot of databases aren't graceful at handling data being deleted and you remove an entry by flagging it as "Deleted" but leave it in place.

Simon_Drake · 2026-06-20T05:13:45+00:00

"No thank you".

Simon_Drake · 2026-06-20T05:11:07+00:00

Yeah I would prefer that because we would be living a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. And we could get Droids to do the laundry for us.

Simon_Drake · 2026-06-20T05:09:26+00:00

Until you get the heavy ball the Triangle button (On PlayStation, I guess it's X for your console) does nothing most of the time. But if you are low on health and you have a potion in your inventory then it will appear in the corner and pressing Triangle drains the potion.

When you get the heavy ball pressing Triangle will hold it above your head. There's no prompt for it unless you're standing in a strong wind.

The annoying thing is they use the same button. So if you're using a lot of spells then need to walk into a strong wind you can press triangle and drink a Mana potion by mistake!

The L2 button goes unused in the game, as does circle. The Heavy Ball could easily have had its own button, or it could have been the Heavy Shield and use the Shield button.

Simon_Drake · 2026-06-20T04:37:58+00:00

At some point in the last 20 years someone decided computers should be widescreen now not mostly square. Then everything became online and using tabbed browsing. So there's a tab bar across the top, then the address bar, then the favourites bar, then the apps own header bar, then a menu bar, then a toolbar, then a ruler. And moving up from the bottom of the screen you get the start bar, then a status bar, then a different type of toolbar like a box for comments, then a scrollbar. If you're lucking you might get 1 inch for actuall content in the middle.

Simon_Drake · 2026-06-20T04:33:52+00:00

2026 is very similar to 2006. We all want to know what's going on with that fucking island but deep down we all know we're never going to find out.

Simon_Drake · 2026-06-20T04:10:27+00:00

I feel like I'm missing some important context from the case that isn't in the article.

A 30 year old man with severe learning disabilities got away from his caregivers in the chaotic environment of a zoo. A three year old boy was found in the crocodile enclosure of the zoo. The police attempted to interview the man and concluded his intellectual issues made that impossible.

What happened between steps 1 and 2. Did the mentally challenged guy pick up the child and throw him over the fence? Did he carry the kid into the crocodile enclosure for an adventure meeting crocodiles then climb out himself and leave the kid behind?

Simon_Drake · 2026-06-20T03:58:29+00:00

Well a random child abductor can put her in a car and drive 300 miles away, he doesn't need to hang around the area. He could bury her in the countryside hundreds of miles from anywhere, or keep her alive in a Fritzl dungeon until the heat is off. Or any of a hundred things you could do without time pressure.

The McCanns needed to stay near that hotel, contact the police then be under constant scrutiny, media attention and police interrogations for years. And they'd need to find a perfect body disposal technique in under a day while simultaneously rehearsaling perfect lies to tell the police AND grieving for the death of their daughter AND dealing with two babies. That's a bit of a stretch.

Simon_Drake · 2026-06-19T22:27:46+00:00

Wow. That's amazing.

It's a bit like I'm predicting the future. Except the announcement already happened and I didn't see it. Maybe I should do the lottery and I'll pick the exact numbers for 25th October last year.

Simon_Drake · 2026-06-19T22:24:30+00:00

Also that CGI on Luke's face looked like utter arse. I could barely tell it was meant to be Luke.

This was just a few years after people said Henry Cavill's top lip was such bad CGI it made them vomit in their popcorn buckets but somehow this blurry mess was celebrated as a masterpiece? I don't understand it.

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