Yeah, it sounded weird when I had it like that, so I added the disc to the end. Turned out, it was only 4 characters, so not a big imposition.

We are in space near the sun… And we have successfully used solar as far out as Jupiter.

Haha, no I didn’t account for lunar eclipses, but that lasts what, 2 hours?

But yeah, not falling over definitely improves the whole mission. No argument there.

Would it barely work, or would it always work?

If you plan to land on the pole, at a high altitude, you could potentially have direct line of sight to the sun 24/7 all year round. From the ground, the sun would appear to travel left to right along the horizon, making a full circle over the course of a month. You just need your solar panels pointed to the sides, not up.

However, if they aren’t directly on the pole, they could still plan their landing to be in a location that gets sunlight for 15 earth days straight, with 0 interruption. As that might be more than the necessary time period for their experiments, that’s probably perfect. And that doesn’t even require being at a high elevation.

Also, being on the pole doesn’t result in dimmer sunlight than on the equator like it would on earth. No atmosphere means the poles get the same completely unfiltered sunlight.

Look, the vast majority of lunar landers (and there have been quite a few) have used solar power, it’s the obvious choice in space.

I mean, you’re not wrong. A low center of mass is legitimately a good idea.

I really don’t understand the tall moon lander strategy… I mean, if you’re going to design it with a high center of gravity, then design it to fall over… Just use two landing legs instead of four, to ensure it falls over the right way. Then you put the solar panels on the side, so that when it topples over they’re facing up.

I’ve literally done this in Kerbal space program, it’s a pretty reliable landing system if your probe is tall.

Well, if we have boots on the moon, at that point we don’t need probes like these. At that point you just drop a sensor, or whatever experiment you want directly on the surface.

Eh… I think they should stick to solar power. Given how much trouble they’ve been having, let’s not give them any weapons grade isotopes…

For what it’s worth, just last week, Firefly stuck the landIng on their first attempt. They’re seriously killing it these days, I’m happy for them.

Honestly, I would invest in spaceX stock if I could.

As much as musk sucks, I would invest in any company making reusable rockets. That’s the next major step in human technology. A big shout-out to Stoke Space too, their rocket looks awesome! I can’t wait to see it fly.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say this company that makes DVDs probably also makes Blu-Ray discs.

Yeah, that’s not a bad idea

China won’t sell just 1, unless they want it for the price of 30.

Well yes, the way your thinking about it is wrong, because advancements in one area can lead to advancements in other areas, and often they do. I mean it’s not a guarantee, it doesn’t “necessarily” happen that way, but nothing is guaranteed.

But then I’ve already made that argument, so I’m not sure why I’m bothering to say it again.

Well you’re the expert, you must be right.

I mean yeah, most systems with a reservoir are going to use some kind of feed tubes to get the ink to the print head, and tubes just clog; basically, they only have 2 states of existence and one of them is “clogged”. If you do very regular printing, like a full color page at least twice a week, then they aren’t going to clog, but very few people actually print that consistently.

Truth be told, I’m just done with inkjet printing all together. At this point I can’t recommend anything but a laser printer, you tend to pay more up front, but then it actually works and it keeps working for a decade or more.

Haha, yeah the French totally do that.

I remember when I was a kid and my dad worked in the computer industry. He went to France for work somewhere around 1990. I remember he said that France likes to keep their language pure, not adopt English words, and in technology, where there were a lot of new words, they didn’t always have one for things. So for example, their word for “hard disk” translated literally to “spinning magnetic binary drive”. Whereas, the Japanese would say something along the lines of “harta disku”, which was at least more succinct.

Well that’s great and all, but what if that doesn’t happen? Would you rather be dead or living comfortably in a warmer climate?

Something like learning to make perfect custom designed edits to genes, such abilities could easily save hundreds of millions when the next major plague or crop blight hits. We’ll definitely find ways to make hardier crops, that can survive harsher climates. Who knows, we could get so good at it that we could afford to just strengthen every species we can find with genes to help them survive the rapidly changing world, at least for long enough for us to turn things around. Maybe we could design lichens or mosses that could grow on Mars, adding oxygen to the atmosphere. Maybe we could learn to do even more impactful things that I can’t even think of right now (since I’m not even a biologist).

And maybe, just maybe, genetics isn’t even the only field that could turn out to be extraordinarily important to survival in the future. Maybe we should continue to pursue every field of science and engineering… Because fucking obviously we should.

So why mammoths? Why not? Bringing back the mammoth is just a bit of problem solving, it’s an exercise with a tangible goal.

Would you rather call it “official” or “certified” or “genuine” toner cartridges? Because that sounds worse to me.

I mean, they really do need some way to differentiate their product from others. Because they do guarantee that their cartridge works with their printer (and customers would hold them accountable if they did not). They really can’t guarantee that with any others. (simply because they didn’t design the others, haven’t tested them, and have no power to change them if there was a problem. All of which is perfectly reasonable)

Meh, I think it’s pretty straight forward. It’s just a description of the scenario.

Mario games are first party content, because they’re made by the same company that makes the console. This says nothing positive or negative about the game, just who developed it.

I’ve used printers that don’t have cartridges, instead they just have ink wells you can fill with any ink. You do have more freedom with ink choices, but they’re a different kind of hassle. It’s not simply a better solution.

(Speaking of solutions, sometimes the ink you buy is more of a suspension than a solution, and it’ll clump up and dry in the feed hoses, a real pain in the ass.)

Oh man, I have bad news for you about living languages…

But no, I know what you mean, I don’t like it either.