If by "almost breathable" you mean "only slightly more deadly than car exhaust", then sure.

It's really the humidity that gets you.

living on Jupiter
on Jupiter
on

Mars has water too. The problem with the Moon as a refueling base for a Mars trip is that the energy required to get down to the surface and back is greater than the energy you get out of the fuel.(*) As Robert Zubrin puts it, "even if there were tanks of rocket fuel sitting on the Moon, it still wouldn't be worth…

Because the moon is a trap. The controlling factor for long-distance space missions is how much fuel you need to get there, how much fuel you need to get back, and the tanks and structure needed to carry all of it.

Agree that it's not a fair comparison, but I think there's a better one: settling Mars without visiting first is like Jamestown, Popham Colony, Charlesfort, or Fort Caroline, the first European settlements on the east coast of North America. You've only heard of Jamestown, because that's the one where a few people…

Yikes. Better not let the park ranger catch you fishing with live bait.

To their credit, that would explain its behavior a lot better than the actual movie did.

bitch-filled letter to the school

ex-machina suffered from both artificial intelligence tropes. there's the … ai wants to be human and there's the … ai wants to kill humans.

I think you're right, but that's fairly common in modern action movies. What drove me nuts was that they also tried to fold in the "incompetent manager who fucks it all up" character in there too, while keeping her a heroine.

An unabashed anti-recommendation: if you haven't seen Jurassic World yet, don't. I can't believe I paid $6 to rent that piece of crap.

They've got some good ideas for cutting defense spending, for sure: Army should have more half-days, and paratroopers really don't need parachutes.

Pretty sure that actual kids visiting a dildo factory would be a lot less goofy and a lot more embarrassed, bewildered, and grossed out.

The source game material absolutely focuses on morally ambiguous conflict, and has lots of characters on both sides who are worth rooting for.

Possible spoilers for movie, based on 20-year-old game mythology:

I didn't get that sense from the trailer at all, seemed like there was a mix of good and bad on both sides. I'm not much for trailer Kremlinology, I'll need to see the actual movie to judge.

We haven't had real debates in politics since probably 1980. If candidates are allowed to actually talk to each other, they'd have to think on their feet and speak extemporaneously, which means a) they'd need a modicum of brains, and b) they might make a gaffe that ends up on permanent rotation on the cable networks.

Amish Star Wars: The Phantom Mennonite

I'm 27 years old and I'm registering for the first time… . I thought about registering for Obama (first term) but, he seemed to have that one pretty much in the bag.