I've got a Samsung Intensity 2, an OLD dumb-phone. Folks around me are telling me I need to upgrade to a smartphone. I know that if I did buy a smartphone, I'd be on it all the time looking up things on IMDB and Wikipedia. I'd be rude with it. I know how I sit around on my laptop all day; if I could do that when I left home, I probably would. I wouldn't be a good guy to my friends. I just have that obsessive personality.

Do we have any info--or comparison to aperture and length of exposure? These images are crazy bright-looking for how dim I expected it to be out there. I'm sure it's mostly coming from having a very good image sensor out there, but like all celestial objects, I'm mostly interested in what it would look like if I were the one floating out there 2.5 million miles away from Pluto.

That's impressive--writing on paper. When I left high school, we were just leaving the world of hand-written stuff. I had enough experience hand writing stuff, but in college, when I REALLY started writing quality stuff, I appreciated how flexible typing was. I don't do rough drafts anymore because the text is constantly evolving--it's fluid--until I finally decide to hit "attach" and off it goes to the professor or on to a blog or something. I LOVE the act of writing on a computer. But, still for eye-fatigue's sake, I print it out to proofread it.

The sad thing is, I don't think "the next generation" of readers is going to notice their different reading styles. They're going to think skimming is reading and I don't think (with smartphones and tablets) they're going to be ABLE to sit down and focus on a page of text. As an old fart, I think it's shortening attention spans.

As a Redditor coming here to Hubski, I've had to "slow my role" because reading as opposed to skimming is so much more important here. In the end, this is going to be a good thing for me--hanging out here.

Check out that Nook Simpletouch Glowlight. It's darn cheap and has that E-ink, non-backlight thing going for it. As for scale it's between a paperback and a trade paperback. But reading it is a pleasure.

It's like creamy lotion for the eyes. No, that'd probably burn. It's eye-candy.

My nook is a wonderful thing. I love being able to look up unfamiliar words by tapping and holding. Its the first thing I miss reading a print book.

What I've found surprisingly obnoxious now-a-days is holding the book open. That's actually kind of disappointing to me somehow because I LOVE the physical object and actually owning a thing. But I bought Anathem in print a few weeks ago in paperback. It's a 900 page monster and after 30 minutes of prying it open, I went online and (be it legal or not) pirated the E-book so I could read it on the nook.

I do wish publishers would get on board with that whole thing too. My idea? Buy the book at the bookstore for $15 OR go online and get it for $10 as an E-book. OR buy the book for $17 at the book store and get a code printed on the receipt to download an E-book version when you get home.

And boy do we need to make sure our children appreciate the same thing (minus the beer thing, till they're older). We just started reading James and the Giant Peach to our four-year-old. Teach that appreciation of text on a page and what it makes you feel.

Super Metroid all the way for me.

Main Titles Theme:

Planetfall

Space Pirate Chamber

First Bill Cosby, now this. What's wrong with our heroes and role models? Yikes.

I was in my tree house deciding whether or not I could see myself spending the rest of my life with this girl I had a crush on. It was first grade. Even back then as a child, I never felt like wasting time. I was always playing the long game.

I didn't realize I was old back then, but looking back, yeah, I was old to begin with. Truthfully though, I started realizing I was actually old when I didn't have time to learn to be good at video games anymore. Not only "be good at them," but I'm lucky if I can make it past tutorials anymore. They're just so darned complex now-a-days.

edit: Ahh, you said "moment." I'll get back to you.

Our state did it for revenue. Weird thing was in southwest Michigan, all the firework places were across the state line in Indiana. People'd drive down there for their mortars and big boomers. (the ground-based ones were legal here) But over on the southeast side of the state, all the firework stores were on the Michigan side because (I think) ALL fireworks were banned in Ohio.

I guess the cost of a few lives and some hospital visits, and a few noise complaint calls to the non emergency police numbers doesn't eat as much as the revenue makes. It's just a really obnoxious way for the states to make money--mostly because people don't stick to the hours and enforcement is next to impossible.

If the state wanted money, station some cops around neighborhoods at 11:50 and start handing out the $500 dollar tickets at 12:01.

I'm about 50 pages from the end. Fraa Jad is up to something. I need to know more about those Thousanders.

This stuff is great. When I sit here and close my eyes and stretch my brain out to understand how vast the cosmos is, it really just takes the words out of me. We are so insignificant. My choices are insignificant on such a grand scale. On the macro-scale of this planet they're important, but taken in everything there is to see and do out there in space (if we could get there, if we had no cosmic speed limit to follow) . . . yikes. I'm pretty sure I'm an athiest, but when I put my mind way out there and take everything in, I start asking how. Why. WHY did the elementary particles end up aligning this way so that consciousness were possible. In multiple universes there are likely universes where the atoms and laws don't work together to create anything sustainable and they blink out before they're formed. So multiverses. Why and where. Why does the policosom manifest this way? Even if there IS something somewhere out there and the polycosom is something happening in a slide under a microscope, why them?

It really makes me get all metaphysical. But the scientists are doing the right work--even if it's not solved during my lifetime, or my son's lifetime, this stuff is fascinating. I wish I understood the math so I didn't have to take their word for it.

Back to reading Anathem--a great sci-fi book if you're into the multiverse theory.

I'm so glad there are people doing what you do. You make the future possible. You make science fiction into science-reality. I imagine your job depends on funding from outside places, and I also imagine there are people who'd want to cut that funding because they don't understand what you do. I read your explanation and I STILL don't quite understand what the results are, but I do know that this is a step toward developing new materials and products.

Good stuff.

When you don't read the big event and that one series you've been enjoying since 2002 ends, it can be pretty frustrating.

A quick search on Google and I wasn't able to see what's happening with the Daredevil series. SO SAD!

I'm most looking forward to picking up with Miles Morales Spiderman. I would love a series where the events stop pooping all over his story and we get to see him learn to be Spider-man.

In Michigan, we've had way below normal temperatures, but in the west, it must be a nightmare with the heat and the lack of rain. Yikes.

My wife had to wake up at 4:30 the next day to open the cafe she helps manage. The day after sucked for her. We're both old and cranky beyond our years. (we're 35ish)

Thanks for your input on PTSD. There's a dollop of proof for the fact I make assumptions. I'm sure there are some folks it bothers, but perhaps fewer than I thought!

I guess at the age of 35 I'm turning into a cranky old man. I'm not bothered that I'm getting cranky, because at least I know how I want things to be. I do however need to investigate the why of both sides to be fair. I'm sure there are some things I do or don't do that make other folks freak out.

Thanks again!

I found Seveneves at a thrift store and I'm dying to tear into it. I've got two books in front of it in line.

Did I just hear you say we should vote for Bernie Sanders? I hope he becomes a legitimate candidate.

He came in and did what he could. It's felt like his hands have been incredibly tied most of the time, though I wouldn't want to give Republicans the sort of unfettered control that I wish Obama had, so there's that.

I do wish he'd have been more willing to full-on confront the BS he was faced with in the beginning and call out the detractors. I think he'd have done more for his race to politically sacrifice a second term to say, "okay, here's my birth certificate, the christmas tree in the residence, and by the way, I stole the idea for the ACA from Republicans--it reduces freeloaders, you idiots." And I say "it'd do more for his race" because I do believe the blind resistance to cooperating with him was based solely on the color of his skin and the fact that his last name sounded like Osama and his middle name was that of a former dirtbag middle eastern ruler.

I think his ideas were great, but in the end of the day, he needed to do more to defend himself and his policies. He was too silent and never tried to control the message.

Confirmation Bias! Interesting. I learned a lesson!

The rules of that test might need to be rephrased to be completely fair, however. I assumed there was a game aspect to it--that, you were penalized in some way for each guess, or that there was a penalty for guessing one that didn't fit the sequence (a "no" answer). I might have approached that differently being made to feel comfortable for guessing wrong.

As a teacher, I go out of my way to make sure my students know it's okay to be wrong.

Could you recommend a particular Vonnegut book? I'm always looking for the next great read.

I've started building my own six lane, one-way roundabouts by hand since the ones they give you in the menu are so gosh darned big. I've found that between that, and giving industry sections their own connection to the highway fixed LOTS.

I've only been looking at it for about 15 seconds, and I say that IS a great choice for a painting to show aliens.

How are you thinking you'll play it? Head for the center? Look for friends? Wander?

The only fear I have for this game is that every planet you visit will be TOO similar. Yes the critters will be different, and the color will be different, and the resources will be different. I just hope there are populated worlds, inhospitable worlds, worlds covered by a single city, worlds covered by liquid hydrogen, worlds covered in lava, barren worlds. . . all reflective of their position in their solar system and neighboring star systems.

The game is already a must buy. And, like a lot of people, I'll be making a beeline to the center of the galaxy. It almost feels like "Ready Player One."

I prefer to think of us as "Reddit refugees." Or Rats fleeing sinking ship. :)

And for those of you afraid we'll bring our hateful subreddits here, I don't think those folks will find much fun in this community. I'm loving what I see--the emphasis on communication and discourse.

That's one of my favorite games ever, but it doesn't hold up well. I haven't been able to play it on anything but the N64 because it was so dependent on the layout of that bonkers controller. Everything else they've ported it to has felt like they had to cram it onto the controller.

It really solidified the format for Zelda games--between that and Link to the Past on SNES.

You're right. Back in the days those old games didn't hold your hand. I was stuck for a LONG time on the water temple with those iron boots. I didn't use the guide and didn't have the internet when I first beat it, I just had all the time in the world to search EVERYWHERE and do EVERYTHING.