Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Vector]

Good lord.  La Mulana.

I've beaten one boss and now I have another two lined up... I've never wished so hard to just be playing a normal platformer in my life, but I'm having sooooo much fun >_<

[Aqizzar]

I've been aboard the USS Alabama before. It's a floating museum also. Its a little hard to understand how big 16 inch guns are until you're looking at one. We're talking a man made machine that could completely denude a fair sized island of all life above the microbial level within about an hour. And that's a museum piece. Humanity is pretty neat, even when we're being horrifying.

I think everyone who wants to have an opinion, good or ill, about warfare should visit the USS Alabama, because nothing else I've seen has really made clear the scale of what a war can be like that behemoth.  Just walking up to the thing doesn't even do it justice, not like going inside and seeing the bowels of the thing.

Meeting rooms big enough to rollerskate in, a whole floor of man-operated firing computers, a hundred anti-aircraft guns that chuck bullets the size of sausages as fast as you can load them, whole towers from turret to keel full of those massive 16-inch shells, a complete dinning hall with fine silver and tapestries for the officers, a trainyard's worth of engines, and a kitchen as big as a house with soup pots you can climb into.

I walked around thinking, this is a castle that floats.  Bigger than a castle, let alone far more dangerous.  Then you find out it was just one of the four biggest built by one country, nevermind the hundred others of comparable class built in that age.  And the only reason they were just that big was because of arms treaties made in a futile attempt to keep a world's worth of navies from being thrown at each other.

[Hanslanda]

An aircraft carrier such as the USS Nimitz carries 10,000 people. Ten. Thousand. I live in a county that probably only has five times that.

This is a ship that carries the population of a small city, all their efforts directed to one action: Ending life. Ten thousand people aboard a massive mausoleum of war. Absolutely horrifying. Absolutely awe-inspiring.

[SealyStar]

An aircraft carrier such as the USS Nimitz carries 10,000 people. Ten. Thousand. I live in a county that probably only has five times that.

Oh, county. I thought it said "country" and was like "Damn, that's a small-ass country".

[mastahcheese]

An aircraft carrier such as the USS Nimitz carries 10,000 people. Ten. Thousand. I live in a county that probably only has five times that.

Oh, county. I thought it said "country" and was like "Damn, that's a small-ass country".

He could live in Svalbard.

[Hanslanda]

I live in the Etats Unis. Except I couldn't find the big E with the accent, so screw it.

[SealyStar]

An aircraft carrier such as the USS Nimitz carries 10,000 people. Ten. Thousand. I live in a county that probably only has five times that.

Oh, county. I thought it said "country" and was like "Damn, that's a small-ass country".

He could live in Svalbard.

Wikipedia says that's between the Faroe Islands and Northern Marianas (but then, neither of those are countries).

The closest independent state is Saint Kitts and Nevis.

[Sirus]

I live in the Etats Unis. Except I couldn't find the big E with the accent, so screw it.

Until I realized that you were using Latin(?), I thought you spelled something backwards and was trying to figure out what Sinu State was

[SealyStar]

I live in the Etats Unis. Except I couldn't find the big E with the accent, so screw it.

Until I realized that you were using Latin(?), I thought you spelled something backwards and was trying to figure out what Sinu State was

*French

[Lightningfalcon]

I live in the Etats Unis. Except I couldn't find the big E with the accent, so screw it.

Wouldn't it be la Etats Unis?
There is an old WWII aircraft carrier in a city that is somewhat nearby.   Every time we go there I demand to see it.  It feels both tiny and giant at the same time.
Let's not forget ballistic missile submarines.  Doesn't seem that big compared to a super-carrier, but is powered by splitting the atom, and can destroy entire countries in moments.   
On the peaceful side, humanity can throw itself off a rock by riding in a piece of metal sitting on top of a fuckton of explosives. 

[Hanslanda]

I live in the Etats Unis. Except I couldn't find the big E with the accent, so screw it.

Until I realized that you were using Latin(?), I thought you spelled something backwards and was trying to figure out what Sinu State was

*French

French. And I forgot the - in between them, I believe.

I live in the Etats Unis. Except I couldn't find the big E with the accent, so screw it.

Wouldn't it be la Etats Unis?
There is an old WWII aircraft carrier in a city that is somewhat nearby.   Every time we go there I demand to see it.  It feels both tiny and giant at the same time.
Let's not forget ballistic missile submarines.  Doesn't seem that big compared to a super-carrier, but is powered by splitting the atom, and can destroy entire countries in moments.   
On the peaceful side, humanity can throw itself off a rock by riding in a piece of metal sitting on top of a fuckton of explosives. 

Yes it would. And yes, that's sort of what I was driving at. Humans have done some pretty fucking awesome stuff. Annihilating an entire continent within thirty minutes? Completely within the ability of modern humanity. Leaving the orbit of our planet, something no other organism that we are aware of is capable of doing deliberately? Completely within the ability of modern humanity.

What is our weakness? Pointy sticks, micro-organisms, water, air, fire, gravity, and our own bodies.

[Sirus]

...I know it's been quite a few years since my French classes, but I really should have known that 

[mastahcheese]

French. And I forgot the - in between them, I believe.

You did, but it doesn't really matter.

The way my French teacher taught me it was to put a Z sound in front of it, so it sounded like "Zay-Ta Zu-Nee"
Not sure why.

[Vector]

French. And I forgot the - in between them, I believe.

You did, but it doesn't really matter.

The way my French teacher taught me it was to put a Z sound in front of it, so it sounded like "Zay-Ta Zu-Nee"
Not sure why.

Because!

[MaximumZero]

Today, I had a random encounter at work. Three folks in their 60s: a self-professed know nothing, a mediator who knew a little, and a techno-snob from the 80s who hated anything "newfangled" and called his desktop a mainframe. I lol'd.

Snob immediately jumps on a $250 computer, says it's enough for newb, and is ready to leave. Mediator expresses doubts about machine's longevity, which I confirm. Even the newb won't grow much in such a cheapie. They bicker for the next hour, I'm interrupted several times, and newb sits on the floor, ready to give up. I find out that the newb recently lost her husband and is completely starting from scratch. I double down on my commitment to this group. Get interrupted by a geek squad agent with a fairly advanced technical question. Mainframe man jumps on the question, which gets rebuffed by the agent with a "We haven't used that in 15 years. I explain that the old way is still valid, but extremely slow, and give a modern alternative. Mainframe man begins to sulk. I proceed to give another hour to these people, giving a basic tutorial on touchscreens and Win8. Mainframe man is pissed because he can't help newb with the new computer, and attempts to tell me off for being a blowhard. I explain my rep experience. Instant nerd cred. Give more tutorials. Let mainframe man answer softball questions from newb. They wind up spending about $3k, all in all, which is about 10x my normal hourly goal. Geek squad now wants me on their team. I'm overqualified. I lol'd.