Completely a side note, but I was re-reading The Jennifer Morgue and got to the flashback of Ramona's briefing: "This part of west Texas, between Sonora and San Angelo, is just way too far inland for Ramona's taste... She doesn't much like arid, dusty landscapes with no water."
I'd imagined it as dry God-forsaken desert, like much of Nevada. But I got a surprise when on a whim I dropped down into Google Street View. While certainly drier than most places, and probably everywhere in the British Isles, that stretch of Texas is... not as bad as I'd imagined. Okay, there's not exactly a lot of lush greenery I'm used to, and there's no open water to speak of, but there are worse places.
It does offer miles and miles of absolutely fuck all, so someone wanting a secret hideout with no neighbors might well find it agreeable.
I haven't driven US 277 from Sonora to San Angelo, but I've passed through both cities ... westbound on US 67 through San Angelo in April 2005 and eastbound on I-10 through (past?) Sonora in January 2013.
They're both on the eastern edge of Texas's Permian Basin (oil fields). My impression was they're fairly green winter & spring, although a bit dusty, but the grass turns brown in the summer. The scrub bushes & trees do stay fairly green year round (from what I can see in Google Street View).
The primary use of the area appears to be cattle ranching, wind & solar power and oil wells, if the price per barrel goes high enough - these are mostly OLD wells so it's more in the interest of the owners of the mineral rights to leave the oil in the ground.
Also Texas Bluebells which is what got me off the interstate and driving down US 67 back in April 2005. Texas hill country gets many wild flowers in the spring.
Despite the Permian Basin being an ancient sea bed, I didn't see any aquatic mammals along the way. But somewhere between Stephenville & San Angelo I looked to my left (south of US 67) and saw giraffes, zebras and rhinoceroses).
Never been able to find what that was on Google maps. Maybe someday.
]]>Dave Lester @ 436
I assume that *Libertarian IN "NH"/USA fell apart because of petty faction-fights & "MAH_Rights! & zero consideration for balancing "Obligations", yes?
Yeah, pretty much. In all my experience dealing with "Libertarians" they never acknowledge any kind of obligations; especially any kind of obligation to the surrounding society.
That's somebody else's job, but they will complain bitterly when that "somebody else" doesn't do the job to their satisfaction.
]]>what of 3-D printers of magic items?
spellcasts prepared within a self-contained bespoke CPU/pentagram?
bespoke elf armor? with full wards and clever stealthing? embedded inside layerings of kevlar?
dwarfen swords with custom crafted grips and a nano-edging of synthetic diamond capable of smiting with each swing a blistering 53-D6 hit points
god-slaying by way of squadrons of cheap drones (thank you Ukraine) deploying mass produced but precisely customized widgets... "give me all variants of spellcasts between 0.00600 and 0.0069 for deployment on a Tuesday night comma moonless against a squid deity massing 19,000 tons"
]]>So long as the story of Bob and Mo is resolved – maybe not happily, but given some sense of closure – then I'll be happy. Anything else is gravy.
]]>I guess some alignment for the Godlike equivalent of a gravity slingshot would work - presumably around somewhere with a magic-capable population.
Hm. Maybe it means "you apes are the energy supply for this particular slingshot"?
]]>Or perhaps the presence of those two species may be exactly the reason the Matrioshka has to be built using the Moon - their (sensor?) reach just doesn't extend that far.
]]>Somewhere in the New Management world there will be a climate activist with more charisma and energy than mathematical ability promoting the idea of fighting global warming by importing already frozen blocks of ice from parallel worlds. A TEU sized block of ice could be plopped down in any open space in London and people would immediately notice it. And the annoyingly hot Tube tunnels have rail links; just plop down a TEU of ice onto a flatcar and roll it into any overheated station with a siding! Entire train loads of ice blocks could be delivered to deserts, providing both coldness and water.
Surely there would be a market for lumber once the dead trees were defrosted a bit, too.
The bad ideas are endless!
]]>Already answered above, comment 291 and preceding.
JHomes
]]>all manner of fictitious reference works
"Dummy's Guide to Fighting Elder Gods" by John Doe
"Bad As It Is, Could Be Worse: Jewish Wisdom and Wit For Surviving Yet Another Apocalyptic Shitstorm" by Rabbi Zvi ben-Yisrael
"Necrotelicomnicon: Guide To Contacting Gods and Supernatural Entities" by Sir Terry Pratchett
"H.P. Lovecraft's the Call of Cthulhu for Beginning Readers" by R. J. Ivankovic
"Ludvig Prinn and his De Vermis Mysteriis" by Robert Bloch
"Liber Paginarum Fulvarum" annually published by Barbarus Magicis Communicationis
("Book of Yellowish Pages" by Barbarian Magical Communications AKA British Telecom)
"C Is for Cthulhu: The Lovecraft Alphabet Book" by Jason Ciaramella
"Mediterranean Magical Leftover Dishes: 120 Bold and Healthy Recipes For Unicorn, Dragon, Elf, and Whatever Other Incidental Roadkill You Run Across Post-Singularity"
]]>ShotSpotter for magickal 'incidents'
]]>ShotSpotter for magickal 'incidents'
and a mage-based means of actually getting ShotSpotter to work effectively in identifying gun play fast enough to arrest thugs
]]>