Ric

There is also the situation that, where there is money to be "made" and the only resources you need to make it is lots of electricity and some high power computers then the "big boys" will step in. We will have companies (or other associated financial groupings) who can afford the initial outlay on the equipment and as result will reap bigger rewards than your average Joe with a spare PC. This will create a "class system" where the rich will simply get richer, and in doing so will have a currency that can't be easily tracked allowing for all sorts of untraceable financial misdemeanour's. Now while not every company wants to avoid tax, or has a need to syphon off money to nefarious operations, but the truth of the matter is the crash has shown that a large percentage of them when given the chance, have. I don't think virtual currencies are not possible, in fact I think they are an integral way in resolving a lot of the problems that have developed in the modern global economy, but Bitcoins as they are (and imo) I have some difficulty in believing they can succeed and more so if they do they don't open the door to the issues I mentioned.

I understand the technical principles, but using your analogy above you are effectively describing quantitative easing which the BoE was forced into due to the crash. However printing money has obvious knock on effects, if it was as easy as that then the BoE would just continue printing money until there was so much of it we would all end up millionaires. Edit: Loki was quicker..

I'm not a stupid man but I will be honest with you, I find the whole mining of Bitcoins and how it affects the currency is still a bit confusing. I've read enough articles about it, but the idea that you can "create new money" simply by running an application on your PC is a bit odd. I like Bitcoins as a concept, but in practice due to it's almost untrackable nature I just cannot see how it is viable in the world economy.

Are there not free remakes of Privateer and/or Wing Commander? I could go looking but from memory I'm sure there are.

Leaked... Edit: I see fiddy had already posted this.

You see this is the problem (or solution, whichever way you look at it) right here. When Elite first came out it used very clever ways to hold lots of repeating data, resulting in a fairly simple game set up in what seemed a massive galaxy (8 of them iirc). There wasn't anything around that seemed to match it's open world feel. Elite 2 and 3 (or Ecounters and Frontiers) took that a little further with far more integration with your surrounding environment and with the inclusion of 'intelligent' NPCs it was the natural transition of the game. Between then and now, there have been several times when Elite should have taken the next step. Greater CPU power would have allowed the worlds to get much more detailed with greater levels of AI being applied to them, and in the growth in MMOs would be the final creamy topping bringing it all in together as really, really massive game. Thing is, during that time other games have come out and taken the crown from what would have been a natural coronation. There are countless games out there delivering almost exactly what you would expect from a modern Elite and I honestly don't think that simply having a good name to trade on (no pun intended) will be enough to separate this from the herd.

Because it has been discussed quite a bit before, if you can be bothered to do a search you should find a few threads - certainly one started by me. Regarding E:D in itself, there have been so many false dawns with Elite that anyone following the project will generally consider it vapourware until something playable actually arrives (even if it's alpha). We've be living off a diet of the occasional sneaked preview images for years now.

Just a couple of months until ISON, fingers crossed... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C/2012_S1 Don't know if it's visible just now with an amateur telescope or not. Has anyone tried to find it?

Stunning track, unbelievable live all 20 minutes or so! Anyway, Jimmy, CODA, that is all you really need. Everything about that album is brilliant from the cover, to where they got the name to the addition of the wind up phone call to Stewart's dad about Stewart going mental and running away.

It is a good book, I found it a little simplified in places but it's certainly one that doesn't race off in a hope that people catch up with the ideas he puts forward. Is that from the book, I can't remember to be honest. I wonder if it is that taking into consideration the amount of "nothingness" inside atoms? The statement is for matter instead of mass, a subtle difference. The "space" inside atoms is equally large in comparison to it's component parts, making it possible that the figure you quoted 4.2^-21 is an exaggeration and that it's considerably less.

There is "nothing" outside, there is "no" outside.

When you say "real" I presume you mean in the visible light spectrum, and in that sense yes it is. Cassini has several imaging cameras on it. If you are interested, the instruments are listed here.. http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/cassiniorbiterinstruments/instrumentscassiniiss/

In the same 4 dimensions you began in, ergo the Universe.

Here is a bit of trivia for people, the geographical area of Russia is actually larger than the surface of Pluto.

Saw this, thought I might add it onto this thread. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/13/130710-moon-birth-impact-science-space-cover It's all about how thinking is changing about the moon and how it was formed.

Recent Hubble imagery of two galaxies in the process of colliding. http://www.space.com/21658-penguin-galaxy-crash-hubble-photo.html The video is a decent watch, if a little light on detail, as it shows other colliding galaxies near the end.

Fields of potentiality. There you go, told you you wouldn't like it. All that does is open up more questions, but scientifically that is what was "before" our Universe and also the cause of that Universe coming into existence.

If you want a serious answer I can give you it, although you're not going to like it.

Really?

This. I've touched on it a few time on this thread. Mankind has evolved specifically to interact with 3 dimensions, while having an abstract understanding of the 4th. That doesn't mean we can't understand higher dimensions, but it does mean we are predisposed not to.

It's not a hashtag or an abbreviation, instead it's a YT link of the tune I automatically sing in my head whenever I see the thread title "club dece" Whether the drinks are free, or if there is enough fun and sunshine for everyone I can't say, but as this has been nipping at my head I thought I'd share it.

That's the best you got? I'm disappointed...

Considering the amount of cock you suck, I'd take your word on that. Although it is true that HPV increases the risk of certain cancers.

Depends on the context, if you are talking about the basic rules which govern our Universe then I would disagree with you and say we know a surprisingly large part. This already happened. Just think how far we have come in the last century (or couple of centuries, if you wish to expand it beyond just the cosmos). We are reaping the seeds sown in the early 1900's like relativity or quantum theory. While people may laugh at that comment, but I genuinely think you are right. Again it's a contextual thing, we think the Universe is big and all our results show it to be fucking big, but I feel that there is going to be a trick in the tail which will affect how we interpret those results.