gill2k

They won't be missed.

So the topic of people living in mars came up and Elon talked about how there's 2 ways to terraform mars to habitable environment, that is to heat up mars to create atmosphere. 
 
the fastest way was to drop nuclear bombs on both poles of the mars, that's actually a nice alternative, the more you think the more it make sense. 
 
TO BE CLEAR, this is not ELON didn't come up with the idea.

if the video is blocked in your country (outside of US) use either Zenmate and set it to US or Proxymate and download the youtube addon. 
 
ALSO,this is the first time i'm seeing Elon, never seen him before. didn't imagine him older as he looks in the video.



  Adverse effects -   You have to wait 1,000 years for the radiation to reach levels where Mars would be habitable.   If there is any kind of life on Mars, anywhere, there probably won't be when you're done. Maybe in a billion years or so some microbes would have evolved into something intelligent.   The benefits -     In theory, Mars would be habitable in 1,000 years. Which is not really that long compared to when other plans would create a habitable Mars. Certainly much shorter than "never", which is the current timeframe. It's the cheapest possible way to terraform Mars.   We'd be getting rid of a bunch of nuclear weapons.   If there is any kind of life on Mars, there probably won't be when you're done. So introducing terrestrial life forms incurs no risk of killing anything off (because we already killed it) or having it get killed by local life forms (since current theory seems to be that any microbial life on Mars originated on Earth this is at least remotely possible).
      ========================================================================================================================================   For more understanding i found an nice article explaining in detail   Once A Wet, Warm Planet
  To understand how Mars might have a habitable future, it's important to understand a bit about Mars' past.   Mars' geological history is divided into three ages, which are from oldest to youngest the Noachian, the Hesperian and the Amazonian. The Noachian epoch, ranging from about 4.1 to about 3.7 billion years ago, is characterized by heavy asteroid bombardment and abundant surface water. This is the so-called "warm, wet" period. The Hesperian, ranging from 3.7 to somewhere between 1.7 and 3.0 billion years ago, is characterized by heavy volcanic activity and massive water flow. The Hesperian was an intermediate age between the warm wet Noachian and the the cold, dry Amazonian, which is the Mars we know today as being not the kind of place to raise a kid.   It is this unique history that makes Mars such an attractive candidate for terraforming. Unlike the other bodies in the solar system, Mars has a history (ancient though it may be) of being far more Earthlike than anywhere else in the solar system short of Earth itself. The proposals for terraforming the other bodies in the solar system are all highly theoretical, involving massive energy flux and near magical technology like changing planetary orbits, speeding up planetary rotation, sequestering hundreds of bars of atmosphere (1 bar = atmospheric pressure at sea level on Earth) or constructing planet-wrapping Dyson spheres to prevent atmospheric escape.   By contrast, Mars, with its 24 hr 37 minute day, relatively abundant water ice and history of warmer wetter conditions seems more within the grasp of near future human civilization to terraform. Add to this the fact that not-too-crazily-optimistic estimates of Mars' current conditions suggest that increasing the atmospheric pressure and temperature to more life friendly conditions may be more a matter of a nudge than a shove and it's easy to see why this world holds such fascination for would-be planetary engineers.

  Jumpstarting a Greenhouse Effect   Okay, so how do we warm up the Martian poles? Several approaches have been suggested, from spreading dark material on the poles to lower their albedo, to industrial ice farming to good old fashioned thermonuclear detonations. In Technological Requirements For Terraforming Mars, Chris McKay and Robert Zubrin suggest a more elegant scheme: orbital mirrors. Constructed in high orbit above Mars, the mirrors would reflect sunlight back onto Martian surface. In McKay and Zubrin's model, the mirrors would not exactly orbit Mars. Rather, they would reside directly above Mars' night side, held in place by a balance of forces between Mars' gravity and the solar light pressure. The orbital mirror plan has the advantage of continually introducing extra heat into the Martian climate long after the poles have sublimated. Even in the later stages of terraforming, Mars' distance from the sun will make the increased insolation from the orbital mirrors desirable.   Another key to stabilizing Mars atmosphere is the activation of its hydrosphere. Water promotes ecopoiesis not only by providing a vital element for life, but also stabilizing the climate. Water retains heat and reduces the drastic swings in temperature over the diurnal cycle and water vapor is a potent greenhouse gas which will help hold thermal energy in the atmosphere.   Current models suggest that there are large quantities of water stored in permafrost aquifers. Release of this water will require a good deal more energy than will be required for the release of carbon dioxide. Nuclear mining, even with high-yield devices, would produce far too much fallout. Another approach to releasing Martian water is controlled asteroid impact, simulating the hydrosphere-promoting bombardment of the Noachian epoch. This would require a great deal of energy, however, and would be very difficult to control with any precision. Zubrin and McKay suggest that the orbital mirrors used to melt the poles could be refocused on smaller areas of the permafrost. Water melted out of the southern highland permafrost would be directed into the northern lowlands and into the Hellas basin in the south to create shallow planetary seas.  

The Building Blocks of a New Environment  So the good news is that much of the material we need to give Mars a thicker, warmer atmosphere are still present on its surface and buried in its regolith. Despite these promising circumstances, however, it's clear that one does not simply walk into terraforming Mars. In his definitive text, Terraforming: Engineering Planetary Environments, Martyn Fogg laid out five critical challenges:   1. The surface temperature must be raised 2. The atmospheric pressure must be increased 3. The chemical composition of the atmosphere must be changed 4. The surface must be made wet 5. The surface flux of UV radiation must be reduced   Fogg suggests that the engineering of the Martian environment will proceed through ecopoisis, a term coined by Robert Haynes for the process of making a planet more hospitable for primitive microbial life, to something approaching full terraforming, in which the climate of Mars will more closely resemble that of Earth's.   The most promising approach to dealing with the first two items is to reverse the runaway freezeout of the Martian atmosphere by initiating a runaway greenhouse effect. Current atmospheric pressure on Mars is between 6 and 7 millibars at low elevations. That's less than 1% of Earth's pressure at sea level. The inventory of frozen carbon dioxide remaining on the Martian surface is estimated to be between one hundred and one thousand millibars, with a good deal of it existing frozen on the surface at the poles and the rest underground in the regolithic permafrost. Increasing atmospheric pressure and temperature is a matter of warming the poles to the point where they sublimate into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide, being a greenhouse gas, will retain more of the sun's heat and promote the melting of yet more carbon dioxide out of the planetary regolith, which will retain more heat and promote further degassing. This concept of creating a runaway greenhouse effect to release Mars' reserves of frozen carbon dioxide has become known as "the standard paradigm" of Martian ecopoiesis.   Making the Air Breathable   These alterations to the Martian climate would go a far way to making Mars more habitable for microbial life and more easily explorable by humans, but the remaining challenges of reducing UV flux and making the atmosphere breathable will require considerably more time and effort. Mars' thick atmosphere of carbon dioxide would block a good deal of the incoming UV radiation, but carbon dioxide does not significantly block UV radiation in the 190 nm to 300 nm range. Current UV flux on Mars is about 6 Watts per square meter, which would be enough to kill most organisms. The plan here would be to introduce highly UV resistant lifeforms, such as lichen, directly on the surface or to grow cyanobacteria in soil which would protect the organisms from UV, and in mats on the newly formed seas, with layers of dead cells protecting the living cells beneath. These organisms would release oxygen which would slowly build to breathable levels and would form ozone in the upper atmosphere, which would reduce the harmful 190-300 nm UV flux. These organisms would also provide nutrients to help build the Martian soil up to the point where it could support more complex plants.   The difficulty with this biogenic approach to ozone formation is that Mars simply doesn't have enough nitrogen to support large scale life. Atmospheric nitrogen is at trace levels. Contrast this with Earth where 78% of the atmosphere is nitrogen. Nitrogen is an essential element for life and its scarcity on Mars presents a serious challenge to ecopoiesis. Unlike carbon dioxide, which disappeared both into carbonates and frozen carbon dioxide ice, Mars' nitrogen is pretty much all stored in mineral form as nitrates in the regolith, which means that the energy required to free Mars' reserves of nitrogen will be massive. It may be possible to introduce significant atmospheric nitrogen from extraplanetary sources, such as ammonia rich asteroids. One especially fun idea would be to introduce large quantities of nitrous oxide (yup, WhipIt good!), which is a powerful greenhouse gas and would help warm the planet. Unfortunately, N2O photodisassociates rapidly in the presence of UV. But once we get that ozone up and running, it's party time on Mars!

  Another problem with making the Martian atmosphere breathable is that even with adequate levels of oxygen, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide above 5% are lethal to humans. If the inventory of CO2 turns out to be on the low end of the estimated range, Fogg suggests a more modest approach to CO2 release than the standard paradigm coupled with the rapid introduction of nitrogen. This process would be slower in generating initial ecopoiesis but would leave Mars with an atmosphere that would be more conducive to full terraforming.
  Finally, if we cannot restart Mars' volcanoes or otherwise promote geological demineralization of bound volatiles, a terraformed Mars will have to be maintained with constant re-introduction of volatile elements and restoration of the atmosphere lost to the solar wind. But since the loss of atmosphere to space and to mineralization would take place over centuries, we might have time for some more radical planetary engineering, such at the construction of deep moholes to release gas trapped in the Martian crust and even the construction of an artificial moon to provide tidal force to reactivate Mars' geological process.   It may, however, be ultimately impossible to fine tune Mars' climate to support human life as we know it today. In the centuries it takes for us to get to this point, it might just be easier to engineer humans to tolerate the conditions that we can produce on Mars. As Kim Stanley Robinson pointed out in his Mars Trilogy, humans do not just terraform Mars, Mars aeroforms us.

Sources :   http://io9.com/5868115/how-we-will-terraform-mars

Just tell Fox news to start reporting that we need to go to war with Mars and we'll get public support.

"How not to retain or gain customers" - presented by Acer.

I'm ashamed of even considering myself an MGS fan after seeing that collection.  That is very impressive!
 
I remember those action figures.  I opened mine along time ago all because each pack comes with a piece of Metal Gear Ray.  I unfortunately don't know where they are now.
 
Thanks for sharing!

I just took this to show Kojima, figured id share it here since I know we got some MGS fans around here.
 

Here's videos from TB and Jim Sterling:
 
 

Not really interested in the multiplayer aspect of this game... or any multiplayer shoehorned into single player games.

How much more FPS will I get in my games with the Razer logo slapped on this thing?

I really think he went on a whole different lyrical level with Recovery.  It's not as explicit or controversial as his past works but the amount of word play with multiple meanings in some of his phrases were just mind boggling to me to this day ("Not Afraid" is a good example).
 
And then he drops Marshall Mathers 2 which I thought was just a quick cash grab with the name and then I started listening to it with "Bad Guy".  That track is like some sick psychological drama but in a freakin' rap!  I've never heard anything like it before.
 
And then the strong word play with his lyrics continues ("insaneness ain't even a word you stupid f***! / Neither is ain't!" - Brainless), but the more I listened to that album (still do to this day), the more I realized this is a more mature and wiser Eminem (case in point: "Headlights") who's grown up from that young man full of angst and anger in Slim Shady LP to someone who's come to terms that he's getting older and near the end of his career.  And with that growth, his lyrical skill has also reached a different level.  
 
Man... I'm glad I stumbled across this thread.  Glad to see fellow Em' fans in here!

Me out and about, getting fresh air from the dark confines of the sewers:
 

I would LOVE to see someone push through a law that damages for piracy suits cannot exceed the price of the original product.

Yep, it's the same retarded rhetoric from the piracy numbers: Every single pirate would have been translated into a sale because somehow, without piracy the latest cod would have sold 50 million extra copies and such.

Alright, who wants to line up with me right now at the theater???

So, there's a new trailer, and some new footage for Episode VII: The Force Awakens.
 
Also, a South Korean Trailer (subs in South Korean, voices in English)
 
So..... I'm super freaking excited. From everything I've read and heard, I honestly think this movie is going to suspend my cynical adult personality for an hour or two, and allow me (and the rest of us) to just be kids again.
 
Comic Con panel with Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Carie Fisher, John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Oscar Isaac, Gwendoline Christie, Adam Driver, Domhnall Gleeson, J.J. Abrams, Lawrence Kasdan, and Kathleen Kennedy.
 
And yes, this damned well does belong in the news section.
 
Edit: Apparently the Comic-Con panel is a month old, this is news to me. I feel ashamed for not being aware of it.

No Maximus VIII Impact? 
 
I was waiting for Skylake mobos from Asus to finish my mITX build.  I guess the Z170I will have to do.

'MS plans to return to PC gaming' for the 8th time (3rd time this year alone)....

And yet you will notice that their net income is down 81%
 
 
Note: Net income is profit, what's left over after everything is accounted for

$225 USD for the 6600K meaning $2000 CDN once our dollar tanks even more. :lol:  :angry:

$225 USD for the 6600K meaning $2000 CDN once our dollar tanks even more. :lol:  :angry:

I remember back when our dollar was on par or just a bit above USD: 2500k/3570k for $225CND, 2600k/3770K for $325 or thereabouts. Those were the days...

Price for the upcoming intel skylake cpus have been revealed. Cannot confirm if these are actual prices, but if they are, then its slightly cheaper than the current haswell and broadwell. Intel skylake cpus unlock should launch on August 8th, with the rest following soon after or during September.

Http://www.benchlife.info/skylake-s-cpu-price-show-as-1k-per-unit-08032015/

I think I understand what is happening or is meant.
When we upgraded to Windows 10, we didn't have a product key. A hardware ID is generated from the motherboard and associated with our Microsoft account.
 
So, if we upgrade our system NOW -> no problem. Install Windows 7/8 and then upgrade for free to Windows 10.
But after 1 year, where the free upgrade to Win10 special will be over, Microsoft didn't share any details on how we would handle hardware upgrade.
So you can STILL install back your old Windows 7 or 8, assuming it isn't OEM license, with your new hardware. But you can't upgrade to Windows 10 for free as the offer will have ended by then. And you can't directly clean install, as the hardware id associated with your Microsoft account, is different now with the new system.
 
As most people here buys the OEM license of Windows 7/8, I don't think this is an issue, as in any case you are supposed to buy a new license. For those where it worked, well it is just luck as your hardware is very similar to your old one, but you are not supposed too. Microsoft has always clearly stated: New Motherboard -> new OS (assuming OEM license of course). Those that are affected are those with a retail version of Windows.
 
I have a feeling that if the App Store performs well for Microsoft, the company can convince its shareholders and investors that having Windows 10 for free all the time is the way to go. This might explain the offer limit of 1 year, and not a few months (usually 3 and you have to pay.. just a discounted price, never free). They want the App Store to work, like it does for Apple and Google own app stores.

Finally! White lightsabers!!!

Green text on a black background? What is this? The 90s?