Carl Sagan

6 hours ago, TigerTedd said:

My fact for the day, which is apt considering all the big numbers involved in space travel:

1 million seconds = about 11 days. 
1 billion seconds = about 35 years. 

we tend think of a billion as being the next number up from a million. But this demonstrates just how massive a billion really is. The thought of billionaires existing in the world makes me sick to be honest. The thought of trillions of dollars of debt is crazy. But money is just a made uk thing anyway, it’s all just 1s and 0s, and you can always take a few zeros off if it gets out of hand. The size of space, and the age of the universe, however, will always be massive. Really, really, ridiculously massive. 

This is so important, not just for space travel but also life on Earth. People struggle so much to grasp the meaning of numbers as they become large. Unless things are put in context, people can easily draw wrong conclusions.

We know from Douglas Adams that space is big, but to try to convey some of the relative distances, just here in our inner solar system, here's a great animation about the speed of light to different places. When we have a settlement on Mars, there will be no real-time communication with Earth. The Human Martians will be cut off and taking all their own decisions, making their own laws.

18 hours ago, sage said:

What a waste of money and effort. We should purely be concentrating this planet sustainable to live on. You know that place with oxygen and temperature we can survive with.  

18 hours ago, cstand said:

Current US debt is 27 Trillion think it’s more important to look after Mother Earth before the money runs out.

 

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/americas-debt-27-trillion-and-counting/

Thanks @TigerTeddfor your rebuttals to these, but they are representative of comments that will likely keep surfacing throughout what I hope will be an ongoing thread, so I'll add my two-penneth too.

There's a movement called Effective Altruism (or EA), whose aim is how to do the most good with what you have. They have three core priorities which are:

1. relieving extreme global poverty
2. fighting for nonhuman animal rights
3. working to prevent existential risk

but it's number 3 that is their highest priority. If Humans become extinct, then we can no longer do any good, Conversely, the more Humans there are, the more potential good we are able to do in the Universe. Earlier this year I helped publish a book called The Precipice by Toby Ord, one of the founders of EA, and Toby's dedication reads:

"To the hundred billion people before us, who fashioned our civilisation; to the seven billion now alive, whose actions may determine its fate; to the trillions to come, whose existence lies in the balance."

The thing is, future people do not have a voice to ask for our help or plead their case. They are wholly reliant on us to create a future in which they can exist and flourish. The plan for a self-sustaining settlement on Mars is massive to help increase the potential future good that can be done in the Universe for two reasons.

One, which is Elon Musk's argument, is that it's like creating a backup in case your computer goes wrong. If everything goes to hell here on Earth, then Humanity can still go on and eventually spread to the stars, doing good in the process. The other is that it accelerates Humanity's expansion into space and becoming a multiplanetary species, which means we will be on course to spread out across the Universe more quickly, allowing trillions more future Humans to be born and do good. Another influential figure in the EA movement whose books I publish is Nick Bostrom, and he wrote about this in a paper entitled "Astronomical Waste: the Opportunity Cost of Delayed Technological Development". Bostrom writes:

"With very advanced technology, a very large population of people living happy lives could be sustained in the accessible region of the universe. For every year that development of such technologies and colonization of the universe is delayed, there is therefore an opportunity cost: a potential good, lives worth living, is not being realized."

For me these are compelling arguments from two of the most prominent moral philosophers in the world today.  They resonate especially because I'm a mathematical physicist and often try to think in higher dimensions, meaning I'll often think about the Universe as a continuous present rather than past, present and future. The future isn't some nebulous thing that's going to happen. In a very real sense it coexists with us at the moment. It's just as real as the present we're living in. And I want that future to be the best it possibly can be for Humanity and for the Universe. And despite the Universe existing for nearly 14 billion years the only evidence of an advanced technological civilization existing anywhere within it, is here on Earth. So if the Universe is to realize its potential for future good, it could well be down to us to make that happen.

From Boca Chica to Mars is the next step on that road, but an incredibly important one.

1 hour ago, DarkFruitsRam7 said:

Obviously visiting a different planet would be unbelievable, but I can't say I'd ever want to live there. It will be interesting to see the kind of people who choose to reside there.

One of the things about the SpaceX Mars project is that they need the ships back to take more people, so in theory you would be able to return home.  But living in low/zero gravity environments for such a prolonged period of time would make a return to Earth difficult.

1 hour ago, Sith Happens said:

It all looks good but all through my life it seems almost every president has been targeting Mars in x amount of years. I guess this is different as its not NASA so it may actually happen.

Indeed. As it's 50 years now since the Moon landings, those of us committed to space see that you can't rely on governments to make this potential future real. Policies can change on whims and people will think there are always more deserving causes than space travel. But we're lucky that the two richest Humans (Muxk isn't quite there yet but will be soon because of the extraordinary dominance of Tesla) are both investing heavily in this. Jeff Bezos founded Blue Origin before Musk founded SpaceX and it has vast resources behind it, but progress is slow and secretive. What's amazing is to be able to watch what SpaceX are doing out in the open. Musk recognizes the inspiration that this will bring to kids growing up now to dream of the future we might be able to achieve as a spacefaring civilization.

I love that there seem plenty of space geeks on here. Something that's going to come increasingly into the public consciousness over the next few years will be the work from Elon Musk's SpaceX to transport many tens of thousands of Humans to Mars to build the first sustainable settlement on another world. It sounds like fantasy, but the amazing thing is they're doing this in public view in Boca Chica, on the coast of Texas, and we can all watch. There are lots of livestreams and over the last couple of years a barren field has started to be transformed into a shipyard. But not for ordinary ships, for spaceships. The goal is ultimately to have completed ones roll off the production line once a week. And each will be able to take a hundred people at a time.

The optimal time for going to Mars in terms of minimizing fuel (the launch window) comes round every 26 months and the plan is to have a fleet of Starships gather in Earth orbit that will then travel to Mars together, before returning to bring more settlers for the next launch window. Tickets will cost you about $250k but there'll be high baggage charges on top I should think. The secret to the low price comes from reusability and scale. SpaceX has pioneered rocket reusability and landed 65 or so "first stages" (the main rocket booster) after orbital insertion. No other company has done any - they're at least a decade ahead of the competition, but the competition should worry because their pace of innovation is extraordinary.

The new rocket being built in Texas will be the first fully resusable craft where all of it flies again and again with minimal refurbishment, just the same as an airplane. The top section where the passengers and cargo will go is called Starship and the lower section to help boost it into orbit is called Super Heavy. In a dramatic innovation, instead of being built from an advanced carbon fiber skin these are both made from stainless steel. Making them a fraction of the normal rocket price. The Super Heavy booster is needed to escape Earth's gravity well. Once there it will return to Earth and launch half a dozen tankers to refuel Starship in orbit so it can fly much more quickly than normal to Mars (normally a spaceprobe just has enough fuel to reach escape velocity and then coasts all the way to Mars). Refuelling in orbit hasn't been attempted in the past, but is a technology we need to master to become a spacefaring species.

Because Mars is smaller, with lower gravity (one-third of ours) the Starships can be what we call "single stage to orbit" when they take off from the red planet for the return journey. We'll build factories on Mars to manufacture fuel through a process called in situ resource utilization (ISRU), which is another technology we need to master to become spacefaring. And because they can carry so many passengers at a time, the price of the trip becomes a lot cheaper as it's divided between many more people.

The Super Heavy booster will be quite similar to the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, just a lot bigger. So in principle SpaceX already knows how to design, build, fly and land that. They have started on the harder problem first, by developing Starship, the first ever fully resuable second stage. This week there's been a lot of work on the eighth prototype (called SN8 standing for serial number 8 ) which will probably be the first to attempt a high-altitude (15km up) test flight as the key trial of the novel landing system (the "belly flop"). Before now three different partial Starships have flown 150m on one engine only. It's been amazing to watch. Here's the Starship SN5 "hop test":

While SN8 is the focus at the moment, also partly built are SN9 through to SN14, each better than the last, and also the very first Super Heavy booster (SH1) is being constructed. There's a good chance that the first Starships (without people) will go into orbit and return next year. There'll be hundreds of test flights before they start taking crew, but I'd expect the first uncrewed Starships to leave for Mars carrying cargo and experiments either late 2022 or early 2025.

The reason SpaceX was founded was to safeguard Humanity's future by building a self-sustaining community on Mars, the aim to reach a population of a million by the end of this century. This is why the company is privately held and you can't buy shares, because shareholders might look at the amazing technology and say Mars colonization is a waste of money when we can do a lot of profitable stuff closer to home. However, NASA wants to return to the Moon by late 2024 (though after the US election this date will slip) and are contributing funds to create an adapted Starship to land on the Moon (the normal engines are too powerful for this because the rocket is so big, so SpaceX are going to add smaller thrusters higher up to do the job). However, Elon Musk has said it's easier to just go and land on the Moon than jump through all NASA's certification to say they'll allow someone to launch astronauts safely to the Moon.

I hope we'll be able to keep this thread going over the next decade while we watch developments until the first Humans get to land on Mars, and it can be a wonderful record of the progress that took us to that point.

The Bodyguard was on the tellybox just now. I'd forgotten what a magnificent piece of filmmaking it is. Kevin Costner at the height of his powers. Whitney is everything. I feel I didn't appreciate her when she was alive. And watching it always reminds me that I was upgraded into a top-floor suite at Miami's Fontainebleu Hilton one time when they screwed up my room booking.

9/10!!

This is the weirdest thread to be on the main board. A kind of "I told you it would all be terrible and look I've been proved right" type of thread. From the people who used to wear sackcloth and ashes and beat themselves.

I have zero time for Bradley Johnson because he was so unbelievably ignorant that he called us Derby City. He was an embarrassment to himself and an embarrassment to our club, for being stupid enough to sign him on a massive wage. And it was an embarrassment to watch him play as he was always the person on the pitch with by far the least technical ability.

He got lucky in the game against us and as a result he got lucky and won player of the month. So what? It doesn't make me any less glad he's an ex-Ram.

Bill and Ted Face the Music

Paul Coutts/10

Did a job. Didn't set the world alight. Nice to get out to the pictures and the pub.

9 hours ago, Ambitious said:

I'd honestly forgotten about this guy. He always looked quite cumbersome in what was a relatively poor academy class. I remember him getting a loan move to the Eredivisie and barely playing a minute. 

It'll be interesting to see how he gets on in the Championship. I'm assuming he must've improved considerably in order to get this move, especially considering they've spent over a million on hm. It's not too dissimilar to what we're looking to pay for Dursun. 

It's all about opinions! I was surprised we let him go as he seemed one of the consistent strong performers, always bagging goals in a team that wasn't as strong as we have now. If I recall he was quite critical of his lack of opportunities when he was released, but I may be doing him a disservice because I can't find a link. It might have been that he was shipped out to VVV-Venlo in January 2018 and didn't really have any contact with the club from then on.

Marshall

Byrne     Te Wierik     Clarke     Forsyth

Bielik    Rooney

Ibe      Lawrence     Jozwiak

Marriott

Very tough picking the bench. I started but gave up. This team if everyone is on their best form. I realize no one from the academy makes my first 11. Bogle and Lowe would if they were still here.

2 hours ago, Chester40 said:

No pressure..... 

I will try to be objective... I did just moan about Endgame being boring so maybe bear that in mind. 

The Prestige, Memento and Inception would probably feature in my top 20 films of all time so I am going in looking for it to be good. 

Inception in my top 5, Interstellar in my top 10 and The Prestige in my top 20. No pressure with TENET. Hope you love it.

1 minute ago, Chester40 said:

Love those films too.... Oh no!!! Going tomorrow.. 

Hope you find it better than I did. Report back!

Went to TENET last night as a lover of Nolan's Inception, Interstellar, Memento and The Prestige.

I didn't know what the film was going to be about, but it turned out to link to areas of my scientific expertise on which Nolan decided to build the plot. I found it so disappointing. It might be that on the third or fourth watch it falls into place, but a film has got to give you a decent payoff on first viewing.

I'll give it 3/10 for some pretty scenes and the mention in the script of Richard Feynman.

4 hours ago, oomarkwright said:

I lived next door to Robert Maxwell for a year just off Headington hill. I went to most Oxford home games that 84-85 season. They were brilliant with John Aldridge Billy Hamilton and later Ray Hughton. Loved Jim Smith then. 

I started work at Headington Hill Hall (for Pergamon) in 89. We even played in old Oxford United shirts for the company footy team! In my day it was Joey Beauchamp terrorising full backs. Amazing, unfulfilled talent.

I moved to Oxford at a time when Robert Maxwell was Chairman of my company as well as my football team! And also of Oxford United! Their players were always hanging round the office and we had free tickets most weeks, so I developed a soft spot for them. Very pleased they made it through to Web-ber-ley. Hope we join them!

Watched the first six episodes (out of eight) of Alex Garland's DEVS.

A tech company with a secret department doing profound research with quantum computing that may impact on the whole world. Garland also wrote and directed Ex Machina, another thoughtful discussion of near-future technology. DEVS also shares the same cinematographer, Rob Hardy, so is extraordinarily beautiful. And the sound is fascinating, sometimes reminding me of 2001.

Absolutely loving it so far. The pacing is very, very good. Expect to watch the final two episodes tonight.

It's currently on BBC meaning the ful series is up on iPlayer for easiest access. In the US it was Hulu for anyone there (and has finished).

Extraordinary. No one could go into the ring with Fury in that mindset and stand a chance.

And it's a great thing to have a heavyweight champion who's a personality too. Entering the ring to Patsy Cline's Crazy should scare any opponent! Loved American Pie straight after the victory.

When Mike Tyson was at the height of his powers he was a frightening person to get in the ring with. When Fury started licking the blood off Wilder it was exactly the same. This is a boxer out of a Quentin Tarantino movie. An unbeatable brute a man.

When AJ lost to the fat bloke I remember Fury saying "AJ's problem is he doesn't want to be hit" or something like that. He's not born to box in the way Tyson Fury was born to box, named after Iron Mike.  It's a shame Fury will probably retire soon but he will have a lot of money and there's surely no one in his league when he's fit and firing?

1 hour ago, Van Wolfie said:

I'd give that prize to DS9. I persevered with it for ages and then it apparently got really good just after I stopped watching.

I watched Picard last light & agree with you. I've also just started watching Discovery but Picard seems the more interesting premise.

Absolutely right with DS9 which was such a ripoff of Babylon 5 (which was first pitched to the team that went on to make DS9). And meandered pointlessly until they suddenly adopted the great series spanning intergalactic conflict story arcs of Babylon 5 and went from zero to hero.

Been meaning to check out Discovery. 

Have never been a massive Trekkie and always felt The Next Generation was the dullest of its incarnations, but Picard has a good first episode (Amazon Prime). Set up some interesting ideas. They're doing one episode at a time, so no binging. 

3 hours ago, uttoxram75 said:

Not a film but enjoying The Trial of Christine Keeler, full of political intrigue, something I sort of knew about growing up so its an interesting insight into the 1960's..

Also, Sophie Cookson, ?

I'd say the movie Scandal is better, but so much is about long-form (ie TV) nowadays. And Sophie Cookson is no Joanne Whalley ?

Two cinema trips this weekend. Saw Fellini's Nights of Cabiria which probably has more plot and structure than most of his work, but understandably feels dated. I'll go for 6.5/10. There's a Fellini season at the British Film Institute at the moment.

Also went to 1917 at the BFI IMax (biggest screen in the country). In a way it was great that this is really booked up, but the disappointing thing was we were forced to sit in the second row as a result. Still a long way back but hard to take everything in. Normally I suspend my disbelief but perhaps because of proximity to the screen I felt I was always watching a film.

That said it was an extremely clever, well made film that was quite thought-provoking. For anyone who doesn't know the idea is the entire movie is made to appear a single show without scene shifts/breaks. Of course you find yourself looking for where the breaks really are. The bravery of the soldiers and the futility of the war come across. I still felt it was a bit sanitized. Ending was powerful. Delighted I didn't notice the soundtrack, meaning it wasn't overpowering (as happened with Nolan's Dunkirk).

Overall I'd give it 8/10. A filmmaker's film so could well win the Oscar, I think for Best Direction more likely than Best Film, but very often they go together.

Ad Astra 4/10

How do people get money to make some films? I guess people backed this because of the (movie) stars attached: Brad Pitt, Liv Tyler, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland. 

Not going to give spoilers other than saying what little story there is is totally bonkers and illogical. Some pretty space scenes but didn't find them on a par with other space movies, despite the claims. 

4/10 is quite generous but I want to reward people for at least trying to create a space-based blockbuster. That's probably as good as it gets. 

Without Hazard last season Chelsea were a midtable team ("officially" ranked 12th). Now they have a rookie manager. And he wasn't helped in an interview I heard with his Uncle Harry before Frank jumped ship saying if Lampard took the job he probably wouldn't be able to get 1st or 2nd because of the transfer ban but he should be able to get 3rd place. 

I don't know how I feel about him going, but it would be funny if he's not able to win a game and gets sacked come October.

Mason playing very well. I always thought he had the ability to be better for us than he was. Playing while injured against Chelsea really stuffed him for a lot of last season.

It's a travesty that Chelsea are behind to Man Utd and they've rocked the inner frame of the goal twice. But one player who's not settled is Zouma who looks an accident and sending off waiting to happen and gave away a penalty. Maybe we'll see Fikayo on for him in the second half? 

Watched Alita Battle Angel the other night. 5.5/10.

Some surprises and good moments but not enough substance. And too much of the storyline felt assumed, as if they expected you to have read the manga.

Really enjoyed The Dead Don't Die which has a great cast and is very meta. A tongue-in-cheek zombie movie.

8/10

Trailer:

15 hours ago, Inverurie Ram said:

Aberdeenshire Rams & Jersey Rams meeting up 10am onwards in The Globe opposite Baker Street Tube Station on route to Wembley.

https://www.greeneking-pubs.co.uk/pubs/greater-london/globe/?utm_source=g_places&utm_medium=locations&utm_campaign

43-47 Marylebone Road.

 

Yay! Delighted there's an Aberdeen (and Jersey) contingent rendezvousing for the game. Good spot with easy Wembley access. Here's a song for all of you winding your way down on Baker Street: