My favourite part is “challenge” being misspelt multiple times. It’s just chefs kiss

They got the results of the tests back. They definitely have cancer.

One game that we always play at LANs is Spellforce III . It’s got a great old school RTS vibe while throwing some new stuff in the mix and there’s a free version of the multiplayer which gives it a really low barrier of entry.

They targeted gamers.

Gamers.

We’re a group of people who will sit for hours, days, even weeks on end performing some of the hardest, most mentally demanding tasks. Over, and over, and over all for nothing more than a little digital token saying we did.

We’ll punish our selfs doing things others would consider torture, because we think it’s fun.

We’ll spend most if not all of our free time min maxing the stats of a fictional character all to draw out a single extra point of damage per second.

Many of us have made careers out of doing just these things: slogging through the grind, all day, the same quests over and over, hundreds of times to the point where we know evety little detail such that some have attained such gamer nirvana that they can literally play these games blindfolded.

Do these people have any idea how many controllers have been smashed, systems over heated, disks and carts destroyed 8n frustration? All to latter be referred to as bragging rights?

These people honestly think this is a battle they can win? They take our media? We’re already building a new one without them. They take our devs? Gamers aren’t shy about throwing their money else where, or even making the games our selves. They think calling us racist, mysoginistic, rape apologists is going to change us? We’ve been called worse things by prepubescent 10 year olds with a shitty head set. They picked a fight against a group that’s already grown desensitized to their strategies and methods. Who enjoy the battle of attrition they’ve threatened us with. Who take it as a challange when they tell us we no longer matter. Our obsession with proving we can after being told we can’t is so deeply ingrained from years of dealing with big brothers/sisters and friends laughing at how pathetic we used to be that proving you people wrong has become a very real need; a honed reflex.

Gamers are competative, hard core, by nature. We love a challange. The worst thing you did in all of this was to challange us. You’re not special, you’re not original, you’re not the first; this is just another boss fight.

I hear you but I think you’re missing my point. His wealth and privilege started in South Africa. He could not have achieved what he did without the opportunity to migrate from South Africa to Canada and then to America.

As for his business prowess here’s just a few key points from the book:

• Musk is cuckoo taking advantage of other people’s talent to elevate himself.

• Musk’s funding was critical to x.com’s early development, but many of the key decisions that made its merge with PayPal successful were credited to Levchin, Thiel, and others.

• Tesla was co-founded by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Musk did not like his position being confined to financier so conspired to have the original founders removed and himself listed as founder instead.

• Tesla has consistently faces financial instability, often operating on the brink of bankruptcy.

• Both Tesla and SpaceX were rescued by massive government contracts from Federal Governmentd desperate to pull itself out of the global financial crisis or a failing oil economy. Not by Musk’s talent as a business manager.

• A hamster wheel of investor hype to raise capital driven by false promises is the only thing keeping Tesla afloat. Even their government loans are based on the same high hopes and false promises.

• Musk’s infamous “funding secured” tweet is proof of his success being driven by lies. He was willing to break the law of it meant he could outrun the consequences of his poor management

Or a space elevator perhaps

Very fair point. But the biggest barrier is always going to be fuel spent vs potential payload.

Trains an incredibly efficient once built, able to move huge payloads for very low ongoing fuel use.

Throwback to an ancient thread on Reddit by AdmiralPelleon

It takes 6 BFR launches to put a fully fueled BFS in orbit, going for $7 million/launch. I’ll be generous, and pretend that the BFS making the trip to the asteroid doesn’t lose value along the way (hint: it does).

So let’s plug in the Rocket Equation for a fully-fueled BFS in orbit, let’s see how much fuel we must expend to get the BFS to the asteroid to pick up it’s cargo:

Delta-v to Ryugu (a near-earth asteroid) has $95 billion of minerals on it = Raptor Engine ISP * ln( (start fuel mass + empty mass)/ (start fuel mass - fuel used + empty mass) )

OR: 4666 = 3759.81ln((1100+85)/(1100-fuel used + 85))

fuel used = 851.67

So just getting the BFS to the closest near earth object takes up 851,000 kg of fuel! This is before we’ve loaded any minerals on board. To calculate how much payload we can bring back do earth, it’s the same equation except:

Delta-v to Earth = Raptor Engine ISP * ln( (start fuel mass + payload + empty mass)/ (payload + empty mass) )

OR: 4666 = 3759.81ln((1100-852+p+85)/(p + 85))

payload = 28.893 metric tons

So that sucks! We go all that way, launch 6 rockets, spend probably years in outer space, and all we get are 29 metric tons of cobalt!?! At current prices, that’s worth ~$899,000. Compare that to the “best case” cost of 6 BFR launches or $42 million.

BUT WAIT!

It’s commonly agreed that some sort of ISRU (creating fuel out of the asteroid itself) will be required for space mining. The asteroid Ryugu probably has water, and while I don’t think it has carbon, amateur scientists like us need not be constrained by such petty laws of chemistry! Let’s assume that, once the ship arrives, it is fully refueled at zero cost. Now our return-payload looks like:

Delta-v to Earth = Raptor Engine ISP * ln( (start fuel mass + payload + empty mass)/ (payload + empty mass) )

OR: 4666 = 3759.81ln((1100+p+85)/(p+ 85))

payload = 345.5 metric tons

The good news is we’ve increased our revenues by an order of magnitude (~$ 10,710,500)! The bad news is we are now at just over 25% of our fixed, “best case” costs. (I’m actually not sure if the BFS could land with that much payload, but at this point it doesn’t really matter does it?)

These numbers can be made to work for elements like Helium 3 and Platinum, due to their super-high cost-per-kg (345.5 metric tons of Platinum is technically worth over $10 billion). However, the world’s yearly supply of platinum is roughly just 243 metric tons, and increasing this significantly would serve to quickly crater the price.

All this is to say that no, asteroid mining is not, and may never be, feasible>

When 90% of your countrymen are born into a world where they cannot legally hold the same jobs as you. You are born into extreme privilege.

After reading the book Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors by Edward Niedermeyer I came away with the feeling he really wasn’t a pretty good self-made businessman.

I agree that people tend to overstate his income due to misunderstanding his relationship with his father. And the story about him keeping emeralds in his pockets is murky at best.

But his wealth compared to the average income of any black person in South Africa in 1971, still makes him vastly better off than any ‘colored’ child born in the same country, making him institutionally old money by grace of being born white.

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Would go well with my Zenit 11 SLR camera

I like old tech

I absolutely don’t agree with your perspective.

AI is just another way to ensure control of the means of production stays in the hands of capitalists.

It empowers the techno-feudalist monopolies to put further pressure on more industries. Not content to own a portion of every retail purchase, every digital payment, every house, and every entertainment property. They now get to own a portion of every act of creation, every communication that could possibly challenge their power.

They can subvert any act of independent impactful art by copying it and remanufacturing lesser versions over and over until the original’s impact is lost. And they can do it faster than ever before, cashing in on the original creative’s effort and syphoning returns away from creators into their own pockets.

You might think it’s inevitable and inescapable, but that’s what people once thought of the divine right of kings.

The atomization of society. The process of a society breaking down into smaller, isolated units, where individuals are self-interested and self-sufficient. It can lead to a feeling of being alone even when surrounded by people.

Shoutout to child care workers. You’re all criminally underpaid by your employers, but do the most amazing work.

You have to shout to gather and control your ki. If you’re doing it right you’ll gain a red fiery aura, and in turn, your whole body and clothes might bristle and turn a reddish tint.

People in Australia do experience medical bankruptcy. It’s incredibly rare now. But it’s true. But it used to be so much worse before we had a public health system. And health outcomes were worse as well. And it cost more.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-18/bob-hawke-what-did-australia-have-before-medicare/11124180

Singapore HBD.

https://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2015/apr/30/how-do-you-solve-a-housing-crisis-study-the-example-of-singapore