Space Links

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Over the past few months, I've unveiled a few facts about the Solar system you don't know and might not be able to find from casual looking. This month, I want to give you some resources to look up some of this stuff, and to answer the questions that I'm intentionally not answering for you. There's a lot of cool stuff to know.

Did you know that it was because of studying Venus that we discovered the possibility of a runaway Greenhouse Effect? Did you know that the Sun has recently started doing some really strange things? Did you know that, even though the universe is about 14 billion years old, and that nothing can travel faster than light, it's 93 billion light-years across?

The Solar System is filled with fascinating and mysterious objects. Studying Venus was our first clue that a runaway greenhouse effect was possible, and is merely one tiny example of how studying our local space environment can help improve the quality of life on Earth. There’s lots more we need to know, not the least of which is WHEN (not IF) another huge rock is going to hit our planet. Earth is the biggest solid object in the Solar System, and as such, it gets hit far more often than smaller planets, and I think we can all see that the Moon has been hit quite a bit, with its giant craters, so it’s a good idea to find all the rocks that might hit us and get them moved out of our way. As cool as it would be to find aliens with the SETI project, I think this is a little more important.

In the past few years, we’ve built some very interesting telescopes that have allowed us to finally see planets revolving around other stars. We are finding them all over the place, with new ones being spotted literally every day.

We’ve spotted gigantic stars that are so huge they could engulf our Sun and all 9 planets. We’ve spotted star-sized diamonds. We’ve seen galaxies explode. We’ve seen objects traveling very nearly the speed of light. We’ve discovered gigantic black holes, and one of them is at the center of our own galaxy! We’re even peering back to the very beginnings of Time and the Universe themselves, and we’ve got a pretty good picture of how and when the Universe was born and how it’s going to die.

Astronomy is the biggest science, it has provided us with inventions like Velcro, scratch-resistant lenses, CCDs, and satellite protections against the Sun, and it receives very little funding for the myriad of benefits derived from its study. Here is a small list of some of NASA’s contributions to life on Earth.

With all the cool stuff that’s out there to explore, and all the useful stuff we’ve learned already, I don’t know why everyone isn’t trying to be an astronomer!

I’ll be adding more content here as I find interesting things that aren’t widely known; that’s what I’m all about: doing things no one or hardly anyone does. Those of you who want to know more incredible facts about our solar system, our galaxy, and our universe, would be well advised to visit these sites:

Badastronomy.com

Space.com

Wikipedia has lots of interesting articles, just do a search for the planet or star in question. Frex:

             Pistol Star

             What a black hole is

             What stars are

             The Pillars of Creation

             Mars

          Size of the Universe

This is just a SMALL sample of the awesomeness out there available for your discovery. And if you get the Science Channel, they often have astronomy-related programs to watch.

Oh, and if you want to feel small, watch this video.

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Further reading to whet your appetite for knowledge:
Solar System - Sun
Hey baby, what's your sign? (Updated!)
Solar System - Earth

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Railroad Tycoon 2 Untold Strategies

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There are a lot of strategy guides for Railroad Tycoon II out there. For those of you who still play Pop Top’s “Railroad Tycoon 2” game, and want to know how to be a better player, and don’t want to read rehashes the same old strategies repeated endlessly in everyone else's guides, I created my own huge personal strategy guide for Railroad Tycoon II and jam-packed it with tons of gamer-goodness!

I originally wrote it not long after getting out of the Navy, in 2001, and have added to it and updated it several times over the years because I still play it. As a result, it is probably the biggest, bestest game guide for Railroad Tycoon 2 anyone’s ever made. On top of giving you the best strategies for whipping up on Railroad Tycoon 2's butt, I've also cleared up a lot of misconceptions about the game, and even offer a few suggestions on how to perfect the game, just in case someone were to decide to try to turn the best railroading game ever made into an even better one. (That’s right, I consider RT3 and Sid’s Railroads to be steps backward.)

Want to build track efficiently? Want to operate your railroad efficiently? Want to break the other players and keep your railroading dream financed all the way to the Gold Medal? This is the guide for you!

And how much will this cost you? A lot less than you'd pay anywhere else. First, go to our More in Sanity Facebook Page and hit the LIKE button. You can read some of the articles the More in Sanity team has linked up for you if you want. Second, Click here to read the best strategy guide ever made for Railroad Tycoon II, or any other topic. Third, leave a comment below to let me know you liked it. And fourth, bookmark http://rt2p.mopjockey.com/ and check back now and then for updates. The best strategy guide does still receive improvements now and then, so kep up with them.

And if you'd be so kind, please ask your friends to LIKE the More in Sanity Facebook Page too. And now that I have Twitter, you can Follow me. And don't forget to visit the Hawk and Badger Railroad for scenarios. Thanks a bunch!

If you don't have Railroad Tycoon 2 yet, I can help you out with that, and it's dirt cheap. The Platinum Edition is the most up-to-date version released, and has has everything you could ever want. I've also linked up a few other such games, including the Eagle Games boardgame, plus a couple other games for comparison if you really want to see why I prefer RT2.

Want to share this great guide with someone? Here's the link: http://rt2p.mopjockey.com/
















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More articles which will interest or entertain you:
My high-scores are Better than Yours
10-4 Good Buddy!
Civilization 5 Got Blasted
You Might not Know how to Drive

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Webster's Rejects

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Do you remember the unusual word definitions from Reader’s Digest, Boy’s Life, and Cracked many years ago, published as if they were jokes? One of these magazines referred to such definitions as “Daffynitions”, others used some other name, but really, these words have been around for a long time, long enough that Noah Webster, author of the first dictionary, considered and rejected them. I have collected these for many years, and I now unleash them all on an unsuspecting public.

I originally created this around 2000, and posted it on my site a couple years ago. I occasionally find new words that need to be added, but there are plenty I don't add. I don't add the thematically-based ones, like "Log-on: add wood to the fire, Log-off: remove wood from the fire, Mouse: a critter that eats your food" etc.

Click here to go right to it!


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Games I Play - Civilization 4

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Civilization 4 is an awesome computer game, and I say that not just because it's really cool to play, but also because it's so FREAKIN' HUGE!!!

I don't get much chance to play it any more, but back when I did, I was pretty good at it, and I was also a regular on the CivFanatics forum, as TheDS. (I still occasionally stop by there to see how everyone's doing.)

I wrote a couple good articles on how to play the game, one entitled My Religious Experience, and the other entitled How to Pop your Borders Quickly, plus a number of useful mod suggestions to the game that might make it better. (And lets not mention all my sarcastic comments over the years, okay?) And fairly recently I finally got around to releasing my Reference Sheet from Hell, which is the most complete set of reference information available for Civ4 and its Beyond the Sword expansion.

Then back in June (2009), my buddy Dan Quick of Apolyton fame asked me to cohost his podcast show and I couldn't say no, seeing as how I'm a big fan of Civilization 4 and know a lot about it. (PSST! It's Episode #71!) For those of you who are interested only in my brand of general mayhem, and/or want to hear me tease poor Makahlua half to death, the first few minutes and the last few minutes are non-Civ-specific and most entertaining. Dan puts out one of these programs every other week, and he's got about 3 years he's been doing it now. I was invited to do another one a couple weeks ago, but unfortunately I couldn't make an appearance. I might make one in the next 4-6 weeks, though, but no promises. Thanks, Dan, for the opportunity to be a part of this!


So what's so freakin' awesome about Civilization 4 (+ the BtS expansion)? I could go on for a LOOOOOOONG time about how Sid Meier et al have outdone themselves, but I'll just say this: I like strategy games like this which are so huge that you can't possibly hold it all in your head at once. I'm no grandmaster at Chess, but nowadays, Chess bores me most of the time. (Don't tell my mom and dad!) I need something a little more interesting, and Civ4 fits the bill. You build your civilization from the dawn of time to the launch of the first starship, and over the course of this multi-day journey, you make tons of decisions, trying to wring the most efficiency out of your nation as you can under the circumstances you're faced with (terrain, neighbors, resources, random events, etc, etc, etc) and hopefully you make the right decisions that put you at the top of the heap and you conquer the world or you are the first to colonize another planet.

There is so much to see and do that you can play it with many different strategies, and indeed, that's one of the tenants of the way I play: I have a central strategy I use, but each game I change at least one thing to see what happens. One game I may try to conquer everyone, another I may leave them all alone, another I may try to control the oceans, another I may try to spread my religion(s) to all corners of the globe, another I may try to strangle the world economy, another I may nuke all my enemies, and so on and so on. There are LOTS of different strategies to try! How could you ever get tired of a game that's never quite the same twice?

Granted, this game isn't for everyone. I know someone who can't stand to play any particular game for more than about an hour (so you know he doesn't like Mega-Monopoly at all), and I know people who are even more in depth in their strategies than I am. Me, I design techniques and then use them. I want to get on with subjugating my enemies and ruling the world through military/economic/religious/diplomatic/scientific means, not analyze every little detail for hours. (I'll do that when I'm not in the middle of a game!)


Oh, and you can learn a lot about history by playing it, thanks to the built-in encyclopedia. Wouldn't want to play as Hannibal and not know what he and Carthage are famous for, would we?

Check it out!

To assist you, I've linked up Civ4 Complete, which has both of the Civ4 expansions, plus it's also got the new Colonization in it. They also have apparently released an album of music, so I linked that up for you. And if you have a game machine, you can play Revolution and tell me how you like it. (I haven't got a game machine.)