I’m often reminded of a SpaceX render they put up on the 'Tube back when they were still working out the reusability thing. Commenters had a lot of questions about how the particular flight plan impacted on their fuel budget. And so, Elon himself waded in with the answers. Except he was talking about the dollar price it cost to buy the fuel. He was like ‘why are you worried about fuel, it’s not that expensive, guys’ because he didn’t understand the questions. He didn’t understand why the amount of fuel and the mass of the fuel would be significant to anybody. Guys, I think he doesn’t understand the rocket equation. He doesn’t understand the central problem of rocketry. I think the guy might be full of it.

If you check the ‘nerd stuff’, it shows it was posted at 15:13, and updated at 15:16. But there isn’t a UI element to show that at a glance.

I would bring a sandwich for Gavrilo Princip.

I think the TLDR bot has its purpose.

Captain EO was the shizz

They don’t even need that. They just need it to be credible to advertisers. YouTube don’t really give a shit if anyone actually watches the ads, they just need the advertisers to believe they do.

Isn’t it more like, a guy who wanted to kill the Queen talked to a chatbot about it, and the chatbot rolled with it cos chatbots will default to rolling with whatever you give them? Just seems the likely scenario to me …

Yep, this BBC article has a couple of the chat logs. If they’re representative, the bot is no more culpable than if he asked a magic 8-ball.

Makes most sense that blockade runner is a description of the role it’s being used for, same way you can describe any car as a taxi if that’s how you’re using it.

She’s called Sonia, and your last name is The Hedgehog.

I use the edge of my shirt, or whatever I happen to be wearing. I never use any sort of soap or cleaning solution. Works fine. My specs last longer than it takes until I need to get a new prescription anyway.

Winner winner chicken dinner! The ‘official’ answer is 4x3, but who says wizards prefer Pythagorean triples to squares?

Guys will tell you this is five feet

-I cannot allow you before Théoden-King so armed, Gandalf Greyhame. By order of Gríma Wormtongue. Your staff.

-Hmm? Oh. You would not part an old man from his walking stick?

-It is not by my choosing. Your staff I judge to be five feet, yet no object greater than four feet in length may be brought before the King.

-Then I must speak with the town carpenter.

Later that day, Gandalf brings his staff to the meeting with Théoden. He has not broken any rules, and the staff is unaltered. How did he manage it?

@kavin@feddit.rocks - the bot’s replying to itself again

Most of the weight is fuel/propellant, which is why most Mars mission plans have you manufacture propellant on-site. An empty fuel tank and some engines isn’t that heavy. Especially if, as you say, you’re able to reuse your lander. Anyway, everything you bring has weight. The issue is, how much and can you budget for it?

If your looking for somewhere to save weight, imo start by getting rid of the astronauts and all their associated life support and living space. Bonus - robots don’t even need frivolous luxuries like getting to return home.

I don’t think Mars colonies are realistic, but not for this reason. Mars has about one third the gravity of earth, and a much thinner atmosphere, so you can return on a significantly smaller rocket than you launched with. It’s true that manufacturing a space rocket of any size would require basically an entire civilization, but there’s no reason you couldn’t bring the return vehicle with you, and only require manufacturing fuel or propellant on site.

The top answer to this stackexchange post goes into a lot more detail on the practicalities https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/2820/how-big-would-a-manned-ascent-stage-for-mars-need-to-be

Are you thinking of newspeak?

Lex Luthor bought a company for 44 dollars then lost 40?

Super secret Nazi numbers for the super secret Nazi club. 14 = 14 words of some tedious slogan that they’re fond of, and 88 = HH = Howdly-doodly Hitlerinos