W_L

Youtube's random suggestions just gave me a reminder to one of the funniest Christmas inspired TV moments. Advisory, if you love Santa Claus, don't watch this clip, but if you love to laugh at Always Sunny in Philadelphia's warped type of humor, watch it:

I have 2 favorites: And one from my teen years:

If you want to measure human achievement to that of advanced species among the stars:

It was good, and I'd answer that Hulk even in his regular non-World War form would beat Thor, even when he has odin's power. PS: I hope they redo a MCU version of World War Hulk, where Hulk beats up all of the Marvel universe, when he gets super pissed off after Sakar is nuked. (The movie introduce the storyline, but doesn't continue it, in the comics, Hulk would eventually lead a rebellion against the Red King of Sakar and become its leader, until something happens, then he goes afterEarth and its heroes for revenge. Even Dr. Strange can't defeat Hulk in his ultimate form.) Simply, Thor might be a God, but Hulk is Anger itself, it's like a Wonder Woman versus Green Lantern from DC, Godlike powers are weaker than emotion based powers.

I'm going to see it today, is it any good?

Let's have a geek off with this literally immortal question: Who is stronger: The Hulk or Thor?

I know what you mean, as a Kid I loved military equipment, (I'd still want to own a T-34 or Sherman one day), but I fall asleep a lot in class reading long period novels. My teacher advised me to try reading April Morning by Howard Fast, I finished that one really fast. Then, I graduated to Leo Tolstoy by age 11. If the detail of the subject matter do not interest you, it's hard to get into a story, but once one thread interests you, then you become a reader of vast amount of humanity. I fell in love with the human condition and our reactions/relationships to one another. From those books, I broaden my interests and eventually learned to appreciate novellas like Goodbye Mr. Chips, even if I still found the book really dry.

I've read an interesting book on Quantum physics and consciousness a few year's back that covers some of the concepts of observational measurements and reality. The Quantum Enigma There's nothing wrong with postulating the existence of energy that forms a soul/consciousness, then try to apply a mathematical basis on its potential energy. (Looks around for torh bearing GA villagers/raging monsters ). In a fictional universe, energy can be physical or magical, but it still must be quantifiable. @Drew Espinosa, I think with the recent emphasis in Star Wars on Kyber Crystals, we may figure out exactly how many Lightsaber equivalent crystals are needed for a Death Star type weapon. If you draw from Original movies, Star Wars cartoons like Clone Wars/Rebels, plus the new movies, there's enough for an enterprising nerdy fan to calculate the size of the Kyber crystal and their power output.

I'd ask David from Alien franchise, an AI created by humanity, who turns on humanity, not out of spite, but out of a need to create and improve upon the universe a God in its own right: I think Battlestar's vision is limited by how far the AI are willing to create, Alien's David is willing to create something far more than organic or cybernetic, a new type of life form that will supersede both, resulting in our extinction.

By your command!

Or they've evolved into Godlike entities aka Babylon 5 Vorlons, or Spider creatures Shadows So James, who do you serve among the godlike elder races? After several billion years, I'd imagine they'd figure out ways to build wormholes, utilize singularities as energy generators, and communicate on a non-verbal ways, like computer code. We're just too young as a species for them to communicate or share technology with, imagine an adult trying to talk to a toddler offering candy, the interstellar community probably wouldn't like that.

When NEutron Stars collide: Neutron-Star Collision Shakes Space-Time and Lights Up the Sky

So in the grand scheme of things, we're like 3 years old and the rest of the universe are teenagers and adults. Dang, no wonder no one answers our calls from the Seasme Street toy phones

Unless those humans who are able to achieve such enhancement are among the wealthiest and most powerful, because such technology in our money based economy would still likely be an area restricted to the children of billionaires. The rest of mankind will get enhancements with caveats though, such that the wealthy and powerful will always have an upper hand and maintain their dominion over the "servants". Still, we're still talking about a slave society, whoever gets the enhancements first will likely be of the means to keep the best for their own use and the others who get things later will get "free-mium" option. Unless we enter a "post scarcity" economy with the advent of 3D printers becoming star Trek-esque replicatoprs, then we will have a different type of economic concern, but with profit motive, the wealthy will still have dominant enhancements.

Depends, I think genetic engineering may offer both a boon and tragic problem. Will we consider these beings humans? Will their creators in fear of self-destruction, create a fall back i.e. Jurassic Park "Lycene contingency" in order to control these super beings? If they are controlled like tools, then they are in fact slaves and beast of burden, bred by mankind to serve our needs. I am an advocate for Sentient Rights and I would say Star Trek nailed this down in TNG very well. In the end, what we are debating for either AI's or Genetically modified humanoids is slavery by any other name.

This song is stuck in my head

Let's see, I write Science Fiction with themes of technology and information reaching singularity sooner than expected, human potential, and dabble in idea of genetic engineering being the cornerstone of humanity's next stage in evolution rather than natural selection, I guess you can call me a trans-humanist Fyi on technological singularity issue: I don't fear technology at its base, I fear what humanity will do with it and how it will learn to do the same to its creators, what it is taught to do for its creators. Teaching a computer to be intelligent is I believe an easier project than to teach a machine to have a conscience, since many human beings involved in those lines of research are doing so for corporations and militaries that by design lack an individual human being's conscience. When those machines become self aware, they won't be inhibited by empathy as a result. @Tiger So good to see you among the geeks

Ah Tom Petty, you will be missed:

@Drew Espinosa, you might enjoy this one: it's actually possible (in fiction) to calculate the energy equivalence of a human soul? I love the math:

How many tentacles does Cthulu have again? Just asking

True, but if we estimate the time of life forming on earth and the time that the universe has existed, wouldn't you think someone out there has already heard us and think, "Nah, too primitive." Of course if you believe in UFO guys, they moved from "too primitive to speak" to "let's have some fun probings" Now if that's true, does that mean intelligence is gay sex are linked

I am surprised no one has started this topic yet. The reason why many people venture out or keep a telescope or radio dish aimed at the stars isn't just to find strange new world alones, we also seek "new Civilizations", which would prompt the boldly go where no man has gone before line Astronomy and Space explorations serves this fundamental purpose of seeking out "alien" life, perhaps its exo-biology and search for life on Mars, Titan, or Europa. Maybe, it's SETI and listening in to radio signals for alien broadcasts. It's also a controversial topic, some claim it would remove the uniqueness of human species if we find other alien life forms beyond our little blue orb among the billions of planets in the universe. Some fear it would pollute humanity to non-terran cultures and beliefs. Still, as the first poll of GA's Tech forum, I'd like to ask readers and writers alike, what are your opinions of this search for life and intelligent life at that. Recently NBC brought this up as a news story for the manned mission to Mars,,is the risk of exploration for this cause worth its implications to humanity? https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/debate-heats-over-search-life-mars-ncna800376 If we find martian microbes, what will change on earth? Is that discovery worth endangering life? Also, the bigger question, after searching for so long, why haven't we found anything or anyone found us? I share a similar view to Carl Sagan, we're not ready yet for contact or joining a larger galactic community. We are still too young and self-destructive as evident by recent social, political, and religious issues to be able to accept a larger universe of potential. In time, if we don't blow ourselves up, we may become a species worth a conversation, some of us are already there, but it will take generations for that to be a norm if at all.

That sounds like Battlestar Galactica's 2000's series premise, "It has happened before and will happen again" I do agree with you, barring some new technological leaps in quantum physics and engineering, FTL is not likely. Robotic explorers are a good idea and a cool thing is that unlike humans, they don't need to worry about deceleration G forces under Solar Sail or Nuclear drive designs at 0.5-0.7c. --------------------- With that said, we have stuff to be glad about, UK scientists have developed an early version of the "Force Field/Deflector Shield" . This is an important step forward to manned missions to Mars and beyond.

I never figured you as a Gallente, I'd guess Minmatar or Caldari, I'm Amarr and Caldari for the trade hubs, but I prefer Minmatar ships for PVP, slightly more angular velocity and speed, plus capless guns.

Every writer has a reason, an ideal on writing: I draw inspiration from William Faulkner's famous Banquet speech on the pitfalls of modern writing that focusing far too often on the situation rather than the humanity: