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    1. Hypothetics: let's say it takes 1/100 of the current fuel to take a spacecraft out of Earth's atmosphere. What happens?

      This is obviously a thought-experiment, but maybe an interesting one. Let's say we get a super-efficient, eco-friendly alternative fuel that can do whatever rocket fuel does now with 1/100 of the...

      This is obviously a thought-experiment, but maybe an interesting one. Let's say we get a super-efficient, eco-friendly alternative fuel that can do whatever rocket fuel does now with 1/100 of the cost, 1/100 of volume and 100% more efficiency. What does it change in the short term?

      10 votes
    2. Fortnightly Programming Q&A Thread - 2019W40

      General Programming Q&A thread! Ask any questions about programming, answer the questions of other users, or post suggestions for future threads. Don't forget to format your code using the triple...

      General Programming Q&A thread! Ask any questions about programming, answer the questions of other users, or post suggestions for future threads.

      Don't forget to format your code using the triple backticks or tildes:

      Here is my schema:
      
      ```sql
      CREATE TABLE article_to_warehouse (
        article_id   INTEGER
      , warehouse_id INTEGER
      )
      ;
      ```
      
      How do I add a `UNIQUE` constraint?
      
      12 votes
    3. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 uses streaming satellite data to allow you to fly anywhere in the world, including taking off and landing at over 40,000 airports

      Microsoft held a Global Preview Event on September 19 and 20 for the new Microsoft Flight Simulator, and it's been NDA'd until today. Here's the official blog post, which doesn't say much itself,...

      Microsoft held a Global Preview Event on September 19 and 20 for the new Microsoft Flight Simulator, and it's been NDA'd until today. Here's the official blog post, which doesn't say much itself, but there are a ton of detailed impressions articles and videos all over the internet today.

      The major revelation is that they're using satellite data from Bing Maps and combining it with procedural generation and some other data sources (such as the ability to use live weather data) to make it so you can fly anywhere in the world and it will look extremely realistic. Being able to do this in Google Earth is already very cool (especially in VR), and this should be even better.

      Here are a few of the articles - a lot of them have incredibly stupid titles because that's how internet journalism works now, so I'm just going to link with the site's name:

      14 votes
    4. What's your SILLY unpopular opinion?

      By putting the word SILLY in the title, I mean SERIOUS ISSUES such as those are strictly prohibited: politics religion abortion capital punishment gender politics anything else that usually causes...

      By putting the word SILLY in the title, I mean SERIOUS ISSUES such as those are strictly prohibited:

      • politics
      • religion
      • abortion
      • capital punishment
      • gender politics
      • anything else that usually causes trouble or heated discussion
      • anything that could lock this thread

      Allowed subjects:

      • movies
      • television
      • technology
      • love
      • food
      • animals
      • any seemeling stupid thing that will definetely NOT cause any kind of heated discssion
      49 votes