Is he a fascist? Since his books are necessarily indicative of his views I can't tell. The books certainly suggest Libertarian tendencies but then so does the Stainless Steel Rat series but, asside from an understandable disgust at the great and the good, I am not sure if Harrison was much a Libertarian.
A number of self-published authors in Amazon Kindle Unlimited seem to be current or ex-servicemen - presumably bored out of their brains somewhere. I have enjoyed much of the work and it certainly represents the American interests in things like weapons and politics. More power to their elbow. One can tell age and current occupations to a certain extent from the content. A book with a lot of sex is likely to be from a serving military person.
Oddly enough the military SF seems to stem more from retired military. Legends of the Aldenata and Stigers Tigers come to mind.
Having said all of that I still much prefer the British stuff from 20-30 years ago - David Gemmell, for example, and his spiritual descendent, Joe Abercrombie.
]]>Treat it as burnout, a phenomenon you are familiar with no doubt. My treatment, it happens to me around once a year, is a day with a good book and then actually taking time to cook something. It does take me a few hours to stop panicking that I am not working.
You could also take a walk and smell the flowers....
Ah - how much are the police tickets these days?
]]>I lost my Dad about 20 years ago.
I still have occasions when I see or read something and think "I'll have to tell Dad that" - then remember. I still miss my Dad. The immediate grief fades but the memories do not which make things a little better.
]]>For example, should an AV be able to anticipate situations better than a HDV? If so, how would one judge those situations.
It is relatively easy to grasp the liability where an HDV hits a pedestrian since well established questions exist such as - was the human driver qualified to drive the vehicle - did the human driver have a known medical condition which contributed to the accident - was the human driver doing something personally reckless - using cell phone, snorting cocaine,... - was the driver driving in a reckless fashion - speeding, reversing down a one way street (I live on one and, yes, many people do) - was the condition of the vehicle likely to have contributed to the incident (no brakes, no mirrors, ...)
It's difficult to see how some of these questions translate. One could measure the tyre tracks to see how the car braked and from that establish speed. One could read the logs (should i mention VW falsifying things?). One could examine the vehicle for faults.
Assuming that the ADV passed all of the above tests that leaves the final test of the vehicle doing something that it should reasonably have been expected to avoid. This is almost impossible to prove without detailed information from the scene at the time. Eyewitnesses would not be enough - I would imagine that the lawyers would argue the fallibility of such evidence.
I think this is the key - how would one establish the legal test for "doing something that it should reasonably been expected to avoid"? It's an important question since it is a test that is likely to be increasingly used.
I suspect the closest analogs will be aircraft accidents, where clear precedence have been established to judge liability, and industrial accidents. At least one person has been killed by a robot so some judgment must have been made.
I always felt that the issue with ADV was legal, not technical.
I haven't even addressed the liability of the supervisory driver. I think right now that many of the ADV companies are trying to have their cake and eat it. The supervisory driver remains liable even when the basis of the ADV is that the supervisory driver is less likely to be focussed on the road.
I would image that m'learned friends (or whatever they are called now - somewhat educated mates perhaps) are all agog to see how much money they will make from this subject.
]]>Some questions, I am interested in others' views
Looking forward to reading the new book and have it pre-ordered.
]]>Oh, wait...
]]>Part of this is because I don't recognize the portrayal of "my" decades - were the 1980's really a decade of racist, sexist, homophobes? I didn't think so at the time and I don't now although I grant you that same-sex marriage would not have happened in the 1980's. One positive thing is it makes me look at those decades I had previously thought prehistoric (50's, 60's) in a new light.
I have also ceased to expect any mainstream film to be interesting (books remain interesting) I also ceased to care about many of the things the press find important.
Pretty soon I will disconnect entirely and float away into outer space. Perhaps I already have.
Good luck with the knees.
]]>Many thanks for those who responded to my questions. I had assumed that there was no one reason but wanted to hear about what were seen as the issues from those of you who took part so Pigeon @269 and El's @286 comments were interesting. It looks like some of the information I had re:vote were wrong - the percentage was correct (43% Blair to 40% JC) but the swing was incorrect (I had 2% for JC but the information from the BBC is the same as from the reference supplied by Pigeon - i.e. 10%). I am trying to find the source of my original value but I can't beyond a reference which doesn't itself give the source. Should have checked it before I quoted it.
I was hugely amused by Greg Tingey's @270 proposed greetings. I can't disagree with any (although it was nice to see that in a single day a few weeks ago, arounf 25% of UK energy was generated by solar). There is a whole debate about safe fission (not least to ensure that the U.S. navy keep their sticky fingers out) but roll on fusion - PLEASE.
]]>Toad retains significant support and will continue to do so since those following him believe that any criticism is partisan (which is partially true) and will dismiss it. It would take a major scandal to change this and I don't see it.
If Toad's support remains at its current level (about 30%) then no Republican will break ranks since they will suffer if they do even to the extent of loosing their seats. It is also unlikely that the balance in the Senate will change until 2020 at the earliest - indeed the 2018 mid-term elections may well deliver a Republican super-majority.
In any case, I doubt that he was directly involved in any corruption (technical definition - he has certainly done many dishonest and vile things). All current stuff is way too nebulous to count; for example, what he said to Comey could easily be interpreted as a suggestion rather than a command. Even if it is proved that Toad has been involved in something nefarious, he will claim that he was not and will be believed.
If Clinton could not be impeached, with the direct evidence against him of lying in court, then I doubt Toad could be impeached with what I see so far.
]]>The assumption that I see now both in the press and in the response of Teresa May appears to be that the result was caused by:- - A very poor performance by Teresa May (I wasn't terribly surprise by this - she strikes me as rather narrow, inflexible and with a bunker mentality). - A reaction by the remainer young protesting brexit.
My question is - do you believe in the second assertion? If so why would remainers vote for a leader who was conspicuous by his absence during the EU referendum?
I am not trying to make a point with the second assertion - it's my conclusion from what I read during the EU referendum.
My take is that I am not convinced of the second assertion. I believe that this has more to do with the first, some very poor voter-management tactics by the Conservative party in that they were still convinced that they were going to obtain a major win and neglected their own "marginal" seats, and some very impressive voter management by Momentum among those (my prejudices here) who weren't alive during the 1970's to experience first hand the results of policies now espoused by JC.
I also note a number of references to JC delivering the largest swing to Labour since 1945. My understanding is that Tony Blair delivered a swing of more than 5 times the amount with a greater share of the vote and 1.6 times the number of seats. Is this wrong?
]]>Pretty much SOP then!
Interesting to hear your views.
My own are based on, among other things, conversations which are now long out of date in that the participants no longer live on Gibraltar together with various articles concerning sovereignty over the years. I would hope that the Gibraltarians do as you suggest although recent articles in, among others - The Telegraph - suggest that concerted efforts are being made by the U.K. government to ensure that they don't.
]]>Good advice for any information source.
I believe that the BBC has had it's day and no good can come from a 5 billion turnover managed by government appointed cronies and funded by levying a regressive tax. At best one could call it paternalistic at worst it is a gigantic social millstone.
I am much in favor of the US model with many, locally managed, stations funded in part by direct donation. It allows such glorious oddities as KPFA in Berkeley which, notwithstanding the failure of the revolution to yet appear, has some surprisingly good programming.
An argument for another day perhaps!
]]>Whether Adams is any of the things you mentioned is to me largely irrelevant, he argues which is more interesting. I may not agree with his arguments, nor is he my sole source, but at least it gives me something about which to think. For example, I am not convinced about his arguments concerning Trump - that Trump is a genius persuader and that the perturbations of the first 100 days are merely the result of a bedding down period. However, his arguments do suggest waiting to come to a conclusion.
If I relied solely on, say, the BBC, The Guardian or Labour Today as sources then I might think that Trump is merely an idiot who got lucky. However, I also read a number of right wing bloggers who are fully supportive of Trump's actions, see no problem with them and regard them as delivering on his election promises. It's an interesting challenge to my own point of view. Again, don't necessarily agree with them but finding different points of view forces me to evaluate my own.
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