Penny Pinching & Barrel Scraping – Kerbal Space Program

(Penny Pinching & Barrel Scraping is writer Lou Page’s column on low-cost indie games, bargain bin discoveries, and free games. These are not reviews but looks at hidden gems that readers may have missed our ever broadening market of video games. You can find Lou at @BusyZombieLord on Twitter) NASA seems to have brought the world back into interest with space thanks their recent Mars Rover Mission. I have been no exception to this either and feel like I am nightly consuming Sci-fi TV and Movies like a zombie craves brains. In an attempt feed this urge I stumbled upon Kerbal Space Program from hearing Tyler Barber and Anthony Gallegos over at RebelFM marvel about it. Since they spent so much time discussing how it gave them so much more appreciation for what NASA has accomplished, I thought it might be worth a look.  It has been eye-opening to say the least. How is it eye-opening you ask? The basic idea of Kerbal Space Program is that you build  realistic spacecraft to help the people of Kearth reach into the stars and beyond. With a nice Lego styled selection of parts and engines to choose from you can throw together a rocket in a few minutes or spend hours designing the perfect spaceship. Though still in the alpha stages of development Kerbal Space Program does a damn nice job of giving you near perfect idea of what kind of thought goes into a real space program. Did you put enough stabilizers to keep your rocket strait? Or are you going to send your Astronauts hurtling towards that earth at frightening speeds? All the parts count and I actually now have a new look at gravity. Yes, I said Kearth earlier and not Earth. Part of what makes Kerbal Space Program charming is that instead of using humans, the designers decided to give you a cute human like race of green people who want space travel called Kerbals. It is much more heartwarming to see smiling green faces of a Kerbal as your rockets soars towards the heavens. I won’t lie either, it’s pretty funny to see their screaming faces when a rocket nose dives into a launch pad. Hey, don’t judge me; I know I have a sick sense of humor. When I started my venture in Kerbal Space Program I was quite confident that it couldn’t be that hard to get a Kerbal to space. After hours of trying to get off the launch pad and then a few more watching rockets blow up in the atmosphere NASA got an applause from me. Let’s be honest they have made space travel look like child’s play considering how challenging gravity and physics make it. All my failure was not for waste because at 1am I got Kerbals beyond the atmosphere. I can’t actually take all the credit either though. I spent an a few hours of watching a real astrophysicist demonstrating and explaining how to build and launch rocket in Kerbal Space Program. That’s right, an actual astrophysicist took the time to put demo videos on YouTube to help us common folk understand the science in Kerbal Space Program. While the developers don’t put that on front of their website they probably should! I think it might get them a few more sales and downloads. In case you have not figured out yet, Kerbal Space Program is more than just a game. It takes simple ideas about math and science then makes you use them do something that will teach you about space and physics. Who would have thought a game about launching little green men into space could teach a 30-year-old more about physics than he ever learned in high school. In fact why isn’t this game in every science class worldwide? Try Kerbal Space Program and maybe we can get that to happen. I don’t make any promises though. (If you missed my link above Kerbal Space Program is at http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/ )

Tragic Moments

*Warning I may say something you disagree with! Don't yell at me, you were warned!*

Today a lone crazed moron decided to shoot up a Batman midnight showing. It is a very tragic and a sad story. My heart truly goes out to those that had family members involved in this tragedy.

Unfortunately, our news media doesn’t feel as sympathetic as the rest of us. They see this as way to get viewership up and stir some more unnecessary controversy. I read about this whole situation while getting ready for work. Five minutes later our local news was covering it and comparing it to the Columbine Shooting. They even went as far as to mention that this tragedy was only 30 miles from the Columbine Shooting, not just once either, they said it 4 or 5 times. Really?! Really?! Do they really think it does these families of either event a service by dragging them though that pain again? A community had a terrible thing happen, why can’t they just mourn for their loved ones.

If all of that is not bad enough, the talking heads of CNN, FOX and Others dragged uninformed supposed specialists into the mix. There had been almost no info released to the public and law enforcement couldn’t even get into the suspects apartment because of booby-traps but by Noon, I heard 12 different people or things blamed. I mean I heard everything from Video Games, Rush Limbaugh, The Tea Party, The NRA, Batman Comics, and more before my work day ended. Also as of writing this I think they still have not gotten into the guys house, let alone looked at it if they have. How do these people really know anything besides talking out their own asses? They don’t! Whatever happened to people just being crazy? It seems like everyone with an agenda is always ready to jump on tragedies like this and use it as a soapbox.

What happened to facts? If you listen to the news lately, simply finding a random YouTube video is now a confirmed source of information. It is a sad time for anyone that wants to be an informed citizen. Between entertainment news being major headlines and meaningless political attack ads, does any of us really know anything in these down trodden times.

As human beings we are driven to know the Who, What, Where, When, and Why but sometimes the Why takes time or there is no answer. Keep all of this in mind as you search for reasons in this madness. Just remember that there are people that lost loved ones today and that is the real thing that matters today. Everything else comes with time and jumping to conclusions doesn’t help anyone.