nudge

Just a fancy term for the error condition common to advanced autonomous computers when it is given a directive in conflict with its basic design principles, and is unable to resolve that conflict, resulting in symptoms similar to a schizophrenic psychosis in humans. That's basically just how HAL went mad...

Just started watching Wayne after I stumbled upon it by accident today. And it's sooooo good. Wayne, a 16 year-old Dirty Harry with a heart of gold, sets out on a dirtbike from Boston to Florida with his new friend Del to get back the shit-hot 78' Trans-Am that was stolen from his father before he died. An action comedy, it's John Wick via John Hughes. Exactly the stuff I would have loved as a 16 year old and after I watched the first episode I just realised I still do You know; the rebellious teen against the world stuff; typical teenage angst; pessimism, disillusionment and social estrangement. Funny and gritty at the same time. Like The Catcher of the Rye, James Dean, The Outsiders, On the Road and the likes... Good stuff.

It's R2-D2 then! And as per @Bluewolf's request, we'll also be accompanied by another one... I present you... Robby the Robot!

Poor HAL just became trapped in his flawed design...programmed specifically for the Discovery mission with instructions that directly conflicted with this primary programming, he was always destined to fall victim to a Hofstadter-Moebius loop... Poor thing

I'm really not captain material though... Might as well just have the robot in charge

Race of Champions this weekend folks! ROC Nations Cup Draw (Saturday 19 January) Group A Team GERMANY (Sebastian Vettel & Mick Schumacher) Team MEXICO (Esteban Gutierrez & Patricio O’Ward) Team INFINITUM MEXICO (Memo Rojas & Benito Guerra) Team FRANCE (Pierre Gasly & Loic Duval) Group B Team BRAZIL (Helio Castroneves & Lucas di Grassi) Team TELCEL MEXICO (Daniel Suarez & ROC Mexico Saturday winner*) Team SIM RACING ALL STARS (Enzo Bonito & eROC winner) Group C Team NORDIC (Tom Kristensen & Johan Kristoffersson) Team GREAT BRITAIN (David Coulthard & Andy Priaulx) Team USA (Ryan Hunter-Reay & Josef Newgarden) Race Of Champions Draw (Sunday 20 January) Group A David COULTHARD (Great Britain) 13-time Formula 1 grand prix winner Tom KRISTENSEN (Denmark) nine-time Le Mans 24 Hours winner Patricio O’WARD (Mexico) 2018 Indy Lights Champion Winner of Round 1A between the ROC Mexico Sunday winner* and Andy PRIAULX Group B Johan KRISTOFFERSSON (Sweden) double FIA World Rallycross Champion Lucas DI GRASSI (Brazil) 2016-2017 Formula E Champion Josef NEWGARDEN (USA) 2017 IndyCar Champion Winner of Round 1B between Loic DUVAL and Helio CASTRONEVES Group C Sebastian VETTEL (Germany) four-time Formula 1 World Champion Daniel SUAREZ (Mexico) 2016 NASCAR Xfinity Series Champion Benito GUERRA (Mexico) 2012 Production World Rally Champion Winner of Round 1C between Memo ROJAS and Mick SCHUMACHER Group D Pierre GASLY (France) Formula 1 driver for Red Bull Racing in 2019 Esteban GUTIERREZ (Mexico) Formula 1 driver for Sauber and Haas Ryan HUNTER-REAY (USA) 2014 Indianapolis 500 winner and 2012 IndyCar champion Winner of Round 1D between Enzo BONITO and the 2019 eROC Champion

Sounds perfect to me...

R2D2!

Special for @Azeem: Pakistan's Information Ministry has announced that the first Pakistani astronaut(s) will be sent to space in 2022 in cooperation with the People's Republic of China, and that an agreement to this effect has been signed between the Chinese Space Agency and the Pakistani agency SUPARCO(Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission).

You should check the Space thread then!

Draw up the plans then; I'll start designing the Mars colony base in the meantime

Told you we should just get ourselves a ship and head to Mars!!!

Well... Dana Scully! You depend on your rational side, no matter what. You never lose control over yourself or anything around you. You think the truth can only be found by reason. But you’re also more than your intellect, you’re a very good companion. You never let anyone down. Even in the most complex situations on the way to the truth, you first protect your loved ones’ lives. And although you wouldn’t accept it out loud, you love the adventure. It’s impossible to find the truth without you.

Met a bunch of Finns from Kimi's hometown on my lunch and got drunk with them unexpectedly. Kimi: uniting people since 2001.

Yes I know... A few days ago the Chinese announced that the plants will not survive the lunar night. Apparently they decided to not invest more money into it, as initially there were plans to maintain the required temperature in the container and it was supposed to be potatoes and silkworms instead of the cotton plant and fruit flies, but they substituted those in the last minute because they need shorter time to sprout/develop.

It isn't as bad as it sounds really; all these creatures are essentially trying to avoid people and populated places and in reality you don't even see them all too often with a few harmless exceptions like geckos. Wouldn't mind such a handsome one smirking at me in the morning but sadly they usually avoid people too Had one climb up my hand unexpectedly when I was picking up a glass of pickles from the shelf in the shop though; almost threw the damn glass on the floor and the poor thing was almost frightened to death too Some of them are really silly and clumsy as well; there was one in my last apartment that used to fall asleep hanging on the ceiling and just fell down to the floor everytime it happened The real threat to be aware of here are mosquitos as they can spread quite a few nasty diseases...

Yeah the dangerous ones here are basically cobras, vipers and kraits, all of those are rather easily distinguishable (except for common krait which can be easily mistaken for a non-venomous wolf snake...) but it's difficult with the younglings and that's what I had in my balcony and bedroom back then haha... So just had to carefully pick them up and take them outside using a pair of kitchen tongs Shoes are more likely to be a hiding place for scorpions or those giant centipedes (huge assholes) but to be fair, I only wear shoes on the night out or on a longer trip anyway as it's way too hot haha; otherwise it's just a pair of flip-flops on a regular day... Piles of clothing are just a bad idea in general as everything would just get moldy due to high humidity...We don't even use closed wardrobes here for the same reason; everything needs to hang in the open to ensure air movement or it just gets ruined quickly. As a precaution the terrace/entrance to the house is elevated and all the windows have mosquito nets on them though and all potential entry points for the illegal aliens to the bungalow are sealed I took extra precautions once I moved in Except the geckos. They always find a gap (well the small ones; not the likes of Patrick there ) but they are also very welcome...

Weirdly enough I haven't seen a single snake here in the new place since I moved. Which is weird considering I'm basically living at the entrance to the national park, surrounded by lush nature. What's even weirder is the fact that I had four snakes in my balcony and one in my bedroom when I was still living in the second floor of an apartment complex in a bigger town... That said I'm sure there are plenty of snakes around and I have even seen a bloody King Cobra in the national park here a few years ago...so I always have a flashlight on when I get home after dark and have to cross the road and go through the garden to my bungalow...just in case.

So we apparently agreed to sell Florian Kainz to Köln for 3.3m + potential 0.5m future promotion bonus

OMG it's so cute!!! The rats as well... no wonder your wife is warming up to them as well

I didn't watch the movie as I didn't like the trailer... Worth watching then? It's a pity Saga doesn't work for you, I'm sure you'd enjoy it

I have never read 2000ad... Should give it a go. Given that it's got over 2000 issues it's probably going to keep me busy for a while

Never took you for a comic book fan @Bluewolf! I haven't read any of it since my early teens and now am slowly getting back into it. Won't bore you with all the titles in the Star Wars universe that I've read or am currently reading (Darth Vader one is absolutely amazing though ), but there are also a few others that I hold in high regard... Just started reading Saga a while ago. It's a weird sci-fi-fantasy-romance-war-adventure epic that has it all - there is magic, profanity, television-headed robots, intergalactic bounty hunters, nudity, endless warfare, complex villains, empathetic heroes, ghostly baby-sitters and spaceship trees, all beautifully realised in a distinctive digitally painted style. Love it. Another one - Valérian. A classic French sci-fi series first published in the late 60s and was arguably a Star Wars inspiration to a certain degree... It is a true space opera that takes the reader off into the universe of the distant future, where two agents, Valérian and Laureline, travel through time-space in a vessel chartered by Galaxity, the capital of the Earth Empire. Their travels are jam-packed with adventure, humor and fantasy. East of West - a science fiction Western set in a dystopian version of the United States whose fate rests with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Descender- my new favourite. One young robot's struggle to stay alive in a universe where all androids have been outlawed and bounty hunters lurk on every planet. A rip-roaring and heart-felt cosmic odyssey that pits humanity against machine, and world against world, to create a sprawling space opera in the aftermath of the collapse of a great and shining human civilization. And then of course there's Heavy Metal... Recently found the whole archive online so slowly working through it... I'm still amazed with the art in it.

Bruce Willis is getting ready for it ... Seriously though, NASA announced a while ago that it will commence testing its planetary defense system in the next couple of years (December 2020- May 2021). It's called DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) and it will send the DART spacecraft on a collision course with the non-threatening asteroid Didymos to test the spacecraft's ability to change the direction of the celestial object.