Carl Sagan

2 hours ago, ramit said:

The car is good all in all, there is only one problem really, yet for me a rather significant one, i can't teach it to immediately give power when i want it, because the transmission is not really automatic, it has an automatic clutch system.  It is a an agile machine, it U turns very tightly which i like and is great on the open road if i discount the need to tickle the accelerator before overtaking.  Will change cars soon probably.

An obvious solution would be to go electric and leave the world of gears behind for ever. Instant power when you want it.

3 hours ago, Unlucky Alf said:

It wasn't for the want of trying, Circa 65 million years ago they tried when a meteor crashed into earth( Chicxulub)and those around the area at the time were shot into Space.

Haha! The other day I was experimenting with AI-generated art (might start a thread on it) and I was trying to get it to give me a picture of the dinosaurs watching the Chicxulub meteor in the sky and it actually gave me this, with dinosaurs indeed being shot into space.

2 hours ago, Ghost of Clough said:

I was tempted to wait for the game tonight before starting this thread (and making my opening comment). At least it was correct for 5 hours ?

Very glad they've got it out of their system. And they could hardly have found a better place to do that. 

Home to West Brom or Sheffield United who play tomorrow evening.

Draw is 

3 minutes ago, Stive Pesley said:

Not so much advocating - i'm just saying that I don't see how it will change any other way. To quote Bill Hicks

 

Indeed we use that same quote in a book I've coauthored on decentralization. But I think it's a lie for Extinction Rebellion to pretend the primary reason for it is to do with climate change when it's about overthrowing "the system".

1 hour ago, Stive Pesley said:

Citation needed

From what I understand, the XR movement came from the Occupy lot and are under the umbrella of Compassionate Revolution

CR are an anti-establishment campaign group looking to force systemic change via peaceful, mass civil disobedience

Their literature states

Now I've read dozens of posters on here stating that they don't think we have a functioning democracy. In fact it's probably the one belief that unites us all. 

Fair enough if people disagree with their tactics, but what would you suggest as an alternative? 

I don't always disagree with their tactics but I'm starting to think that we won't see any change unless there is a mass people-led movement against the current system

Maybe once gas & electric bills are £4k per year and there isn't enough food to go round, people might start to think they haven't much left to lose...

I'm saying Extinction Rebellion is not about climate change - that's a facade - and you seem to be agreeing with me that it's instead simply an anti-establishment movement. 

Here's the founder of Extinction Rebellion, Gail Bradbrook, in her own words explaining she was always into "mass social disobedience" and initially tried to start an animal rights movement and then a nonpayment-of-tax movement. Then she went to Costa Rica for two weeks and took a shedload of drugs. She came home to the UK, ended her marriage and separated from her family, and met the other founder Roger Hallam who "is an academic who specialised in radical campaign design". https://www.whatisemerging.com/opinions/psychedelics-and-social-change

Co-founder Roger Hallam was studying for a PhD in civil disobedience at King's College and came up with the branding. In his words, "It seemed enormously clear to me that the most effective way to bring about rapid political change was mass, non-violent civil disobedience". Again he's interested in political change, not climate change. He continues, "I did a paper called Pivoting to the Real Issue in January 2013, which proposes that we create a rebellion against the British government on civil resistance principles and that led to the foundation of Extinction Rebellion ... the plan for XR took about a year and a half of research and conversations, so it didn’t come out of nowhere. It wasn’t like Occupy where there was no pre-organisation. We had twenty or thirty people involved in designing a modern social movement." https://metacpc.org/en/hallam/

These aren't nice people. He's loathed in Germany for his dismissal of the Holocaust: https://www.dw.com/en/opinion-extinction-rebellion-nothing-matters-to-this-doomsday-cult/a-51355706

With your additional questions you also seem to be advocating for an anti-establishment revolution, similarly with nothing to do with climate change. The reason for the high energy bills you mention are nothing whatsoever to do with climate change. If I've misunderstood your post then you seem to be making the error of logic I pointed out in my earlier post that, just because climate change is having an effect on the UK doesn't mean what we do in the UK can have an effect on climate change.

Do we have a functioning democracy? That's surely a whole other question.

2 hours ago, JoetheRam said:

Not sure what part of what I said is factually wrong.

The UK simply doesn't make anything and if we did we'd be a more polluting nation.

If China stopped making stuff they'd pollute less too.  But they won't because they benefit from doing so and "we" don't want them to because we all benefit from the cheap goods they produce.

Sorry if I was harsh. You asked "why do China and India produce so much CO2?" following it up with that we "outsource our emissions", implying the reason their emissions are high is because of what they manufacture on our behalf and we import. And I showed that's not true.

I would like the UK to make more, partly as that would lead to more growth here and also because it would be an ingredient in a more decentralized world. I see decentralization as a future paradigm superior to capitalism and communism. You talk about capitalism requiring economic growth but all of us require growth or else Humanity will certainly go extinct as we won't be able to fun multiplanetary expansion. The reason the dinosaurs went extinct is because they didn't have a space programme.

You suggest we need to find a way to grow without destroying the planet. Decoupling economic growth from resource use has been the holy grail for some time but it now appears (see the link) that many Western nations have been successful in achieving that. Your internal optimist has been rewarded.

I think @Ghost of Cloughhas Rosenior's team there. I would go:

Wildsmith

Smith     Davies     Cashin     Roberts

Bird

Mendez-Laing   Knight    Sibley    Hourihane

Collins

Subs: Loach Oduroh Forsyth Rooney McGoldrick Barkhuizen Dobbin

with a very fluid midfield and attack, lots of rotation between them all. And a fearsome bench to give us lots of options. Just as Sibley has absolutely earnt a starting place, I think Rooney deserves the subs' shirt ahead of Thommo following his Mansfield performance.

18 minutes ago, JuanFloEvraTheCocu'sNesta said:

I love all of this, it blows my mind. Then the cynical part of my brain kicks in and defaults to the assumption that space will always be the playground of the rich, not the future of humanity as it should be.

Fantastic! SpaceX and Starship (and Elon) stand for the democratization of space, putting it within reach of everyone. That's why I get frustrated when people lump Musk in with the likes of Bezos and Branson for whom "space" is just the playground of the super rich. Much of it comes down to scale. Ultimately Starship will be able to launch 100 people at a time into orbit and each vehicle will be capable of 5 flights per day. And in the spaceship yard in Texas they will complete a new Starship every week. 

In the past governments would select the handful of people who went to space. With Branson and Bezos you can now pay a few million dollars and go there yourself. For Musk, SpaceX and Starship it's about creating a multiplanetary future for Humanity and for that we will need a self-sustaining city on Mars, and for that we need for hundreds of thousands of people to be able to go this century. That is the mission. And it means it will be far cheaper to buy a return ticket with Musk and SpaceX to go to Mars than it is to pay Bezos or Branson for 5 minutes of zero G in low-Earth orbit.

That's why I started this thread. To show that the time is coming when space can and will be for everyone and to document the journey to reaching that point on the forum. It will take time. And lots of money. To achieve that SpaceX first created reusable rockets to make access to orbit dramatically cheaper, meaning they now launch way more tonnage to orbit than all the other countries and companies in the world combined. Their technology is a decade ahead of the rest and they innovate faster. But that's not enough as industry hasn't caught up with the new demand available, so SpaceX created the Starlink satellite internet system to monetize their incredible launch capability (and preparing for when internet will be needed around the Moon  and Mars). Also, to raise funs for the Mars mission they will work with NASA to land Humans on the Moon first (from 2025 onwards through the Artemis mission) and also take commercial passengers paying big bucks to the space station or for a few days at a time in Earth orbit. But it's all driven by the bigger purpose of leaving the cradle of this island Earth and venturing beyond, permanently. 

When you're going to fly a rocket you perform what's called a "static fire" of its engines, holding the rocket down and briefly igniting them to test that everything is working. As we approach the very first orbital flight test, what has been strange is that there hadn't been a static fire at Starbase/Boca Chica all year.

The Mars rocket, is made up of two mighty stages, the first stage which is the SuperHeavy booster and then the second, upper stage, which is Starship itself. For Mars, Starship has been designed to achieve what's called "single stage to orbit" to be able to escape Martian gravity and fly people home to Earth as required. But Earth's gravity well is much deeper so we have the addition of the booster for Starship to be able to reach orbit here (where it will refuel and then travel on to Mars).

Last night saw a static fire of both the current prototype booster (Booster 7) and the current prototype Starship (Ship 24) and both went well: 

Then, for good measure, later in the day SpaceX launched 52 more of their Starship satellites. What a company. 

With the static fires now happening, we must be ever closer to the first orbital launch. Hopefully within the next two months.

On 20/07/2022 at 12:40, JoetheRam said:

Is it worth asking why China and India produce so much CO2?

Manufacturing a large percentage of the crap that western consumers buy might be part of the reason? I mean they're not just burning resources for no reason are they?

Let's not kid ourselves that we don't just outsource our emissions (or even our carefully sorted recycling).

Capitalism requires continual growth to sustain itself and until it finds a way to exist without destroying the planet (my internal Commie says this is impossible, internal optimist says it might happen), or an as yet undeveloped, superior system is found, then we're not going to solve anything.

This is simply factually wrong. Here's a thorough analysis from Our World in Data: https://ourworldindata.org/consumption-based-co2

The UK has dramatically reduced emissions even when you account for consumption and trade, to the extent that our emissions nowadays count pretty much for diddly squat in the big picture. Climate change is something on a global scale yet we can all see the impacts happening here in the UK at a local level. Some of those impacts are bad and some are good. For instance it would be disingenuous to suggest we're not having a lovely summer. 

But it's an error of logic to suggest that by reducing emissions even further in the UK we will have more than a minuscule impact on climate change. Going back to the opening post, this is the frustration of the middle class idiots at extinction rebellion who are effectively professional protesters wanting something to protest about (which is how and why XR was formed - they wanted to launch some sort of protest movement and a branding expert advised this would be a good area to pick). If you want to make a difference in this area there are only three places that really matter, which are America, China and India. Then there are three lower-tier emitters in Germany, Russia and Japan. If XR really cared about anything they could hop on a train to Germany and try to close down the coal mines or coal-fired power stations. But that's far too much like really caring about the problem when they rather enjoy having a two-week jolly/festival camped out in Trafalgar Square.

What a clearance off the line from Cashin. I love him - a proper defender.

You're doing a fantastic job @EllafellaI'll always try to rate if I've watched the game (live or on screen) but wouldn't be confident with dishing out marks if just listening on the radio, so will pass on this one.

According to the BBC, player of the match was Tom Lawrence as Rangers overturned a 2-0 first leg deficit to progress in the Champions League: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/62460304

Just now, Miggins said:

Sibley off and Jake Rooney also.

Hopefully it means Sibley starts on Saturday. Finally. And makes sense for Rooney who's played well but only signed yesterday.

2 minutes ago, Ellafella said:

JW & MF echoing lots of fans view...why do we do the 6 yard...oh s***..stags equalise. 

Are you suggesting we're continuing to invite pressure on with idiotic short goalkicks across our 6 yard area from a defender to our keeper? Who'd have thought? I really do despair.

Sounds as if the Rams are under the cosh. Rosenior needs to change things to demonstrate he can match Nigel's tactical nous. And stopping the daft goalkicks would be a great help too.

Love it. When it's nice and hot I tend to put water bottles in the freezer and then bring them out with me for slow release of chilled water through the day. Though you might need to hide extra bottle tops somewhere in case the stewards are jobsworths and confiscate the one on the bottle.

HT 0-1 Talksport saying what a good game it's been and that Derby definitely deserve the lead.

From TalkSport a lovely cross by Sibley for Dobbin who they expected to score but missed his kick and it seemed to hit Jason Knight and go in. But other than that they're very impressed by Dobbin. 0-1, Derby lead!

Mansfield hit the underside of the bar, but Derby survive. Then Kellan Gordon brought down on the edge of the box. Freekick Mansfield.

Just now, Ellafella said:

Sibley shot...saved...scrambled clear. 

According to Talk Sport a good effort from Sibley and with the goal at his mercy Jason Knight took a touch instead of hitting it first time and the chance was gone, Knight with his head in his hands. Then a great run and cross by Sibley with a forward just studs away from turning it in. 

1 minute ago, Srg said:

Sounds like should’ve been down to 10 for last man. 

Meaning Mansfield for a last-man foul on Dobbin. Only a booking. Sibley took the freekick which deflected off the wall and out for a corner. From which it came out to Oduroh who ended up passing back to Wildsmith. This is probably the Man City way.

Rooney started well. Dobbin just crossed it but there was no one in the box.

1 hour ago, chezzyram said:

You can get Radio Derby on freeview TV, Channel 735, but I'm not sure if there are geographical limitations

Yeah you can only receive those broadcasts within the Radio Derby geographical area. Sadly not here in London town. 

In the match thread @Addingham Ramsays there's commentary on TalkSport 2 which is great for those of us far beyond the Radio Derby catchment area.