Dave Lester

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• Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
  then choke to death on a burger bun. Like in so many things timing is everything. If that happens between after Dec 17 and before being sworn in then the Vice Presidential candidate gets sworn in. MTG OMG. There are...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  Found lots of articles about deer acting as a reservoir for Covid, but nothing that actually gave me any clue how you would CATCH Covid from a deer? Think Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease. First discovered in cannibals, and eventually tracked to their...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  To USA-ians - & everybody else: It appears that the new US "speaker" is actually worse than Trump - he's in bed with Putin & is a "real" US "conservative" { = fascist } & also CHRISTIAN. Kill all the...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  Does the U.K. court system have the presumption of innocence the way the U.S. does? Well, firstly there is no UK system. There is English Law (which is pretty much Welsh and Irish Law) and Scottish Law. There is indeed...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  I've lately been musing over whether we are witnessing the opening moves of WW3 in Ukraine and Israel, and possibly with Taiwan next. As you may recall WW2 had a number of opening moves (e.g. Mongolia 1931, Abyssinia 1935, Austria...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  407 I suppose a steam tank has a native ability to harvest timber house frames for fuel. Ha, Damian, you are not thinking about the Twenty-First Century's equivalent. Wandering around Bristol Robotics Lab with Chris Melhuish, he proudly pointed out...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  Howard, Two books of interest on steam lorries. The first is really a 64 page picture book, but at about £10, and available in the US via wordery. https://www.amberley-books.com/steam-lorries.html If you really want a popular history, then Martin Bott is...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  There are between 10 and 20 Rs who'd rather burn the place down than not get their way. They are now working hard at it. - and other people have FINALLY - started to notice this. About time. This article...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  Actually, I do have one question for our US readership: What happens if a Congressperson resigns in disgust? Is there an election or does the State Governor make an appointment?...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  Greg, (1) Put forward Jim Jordan as speaker. (2) Fail to vote for him. (3) Try with McHenry/McCarthy and fail to vote for him/them, also. (4) Scratch head and a(r)s(s)e. (5) Make like it's 65,000,000BC again. Don't forget your Dictator's...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  Incidentally, what is it about Gaza [and warfare]? Flat land and the proximity of major powers to the North (Turkey), West (Egypt) and East (Iraq/Iran). The first recorded battle -- with a description of the action -- was the battle...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  What are the chances [Kari Lake will] be able to beat all the other right-wingnutz in the primary and get the nomination? I'll bite, albeit from a distance of 4,000 miles away and having only very briefly lived in the...
• Commented on Pushing it back
  Doctor Buzzkill here. Former mycorrhizast. Slight thread-diversion here, but do you happen to have any pointers to the original fungus that started living out of water? Attenborough's final nature series had a little nod towards a twenty foot high funghi...
• Commented on Pushing it back
  Did you study climate model outputs for your local geography first ? "Hot(er)&Humid(er)" is not at good outlook for wood as a construction material, [...] But is that what Denmark and England might expect from global warming? I'd read that...
• Commented on Pushing it back
  H, According to this research, what makes Roman Concrete so good is that it is "self-healing", because it has minute "clasts" of undissolved lime in the mix. This means that if cracks form, atmospheric moisture can get in and help...
• Commented on Do my Laundry
  Greg Tingey #438I assume that *Libertarian IN "NH"/USA fell apart because of petty faction-fights & "MAH_Rights! & zero consideration for balancing "Obligations", yes? Read the link in Scott Sandford's comment #428 (labelled "don't feed the bears") and weep ... ......
• Commented on Do my Laundry
  Ranching s a form of farming, and ranchers are every bit as territorial as arable farmers. Indeed, hunters are nearly as territorial. And that was precisely the point I was trying to make, although I got side-tracked by the corollary,...
• Commented on Do my Laundry
  Thanks for that article about Libertarian Bears, Scott. Libertaria (in New Hampshire, at least) works exactly as well as I imagined it would!...
• Commented on Do my Laundry
  I love it - "oh, look, a tasty world! Mine!!!" shout all the Elder Gods... I've just realised that I was probably wrong to describe the Elder Gods as farmers. Suppose the Elder Gods are Ranchers Now we get an...
• Commented on Do my Laundry
  Well that's the spoiler to end all spoilers! (Eye roll) Well I had harboured the illusion you were writing an epic tale, a sort of Iliad or Beowulf if you will, rather than a romantic folk tale (".. and then...
• Commented on Do my Laundry
  Nope: he's facing stiff opposition from the other horrors, and none of them make it to full immanent godhood because CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN is gridlocked after mid-2015 (and there isn't enough available mana to bring through an entire god --...
• Commented on Do my Laundry
  »Making vacuum tube electronics is one thing, but making them with million year MTBFs is...challenging. « I would say that it is physically impossible. It probably is impossible, ... ... nevertheless, the old-timers amongst the engineering staff at Manchester reckoned...
• Commented on Do my Laundry
  proposed names for a tavern... bad answers only... I'll start The Scratching Cat At Tadlow (between Biggleswade and Cambridge) on the B1042, which is )or at least was) a much, much faster road than the A505 between Letchworth and Cambridge....
• Commented on Do my Laundry
  OK back to the original topic. (*) How did Iris Carpenter avoid getting fried in brimstone? Surely Part III of the OSA imposed a geas? So how was this avoided? The Senior Auditor covering his bets? (*) What's a Lamia?...
• Commented on Do my Laundry
  If you could go on about the role of slide rules in railway design and operation, you could do a guest post that would keep most of the regular discussion participants occupied for days. If we could just add a...
• Commented on Do my Laundry
  Do one talking cat, people expect the worst. Two or more? You're branded "the talking cat guy" for life. Amongst the cognoscenti on the EU's "Human Brain Project" you were always known as the "Lobster Brain Upload in Space Guy"....
• Commented on Do my Laundry
  Dave Lester, when you were at Oxford did you run into a certain Michael Dewar in LH/Classics? If so, what was your impression at the time? I left at Christmas 1987. Looks like Prof Dewar was possibly there, but I...
• Commented on Do my Laundry
  The New Management is the Ruling Party, i.e. that fraction of the Tories (a majority, I fear) who are purely about power and cruelty and willing to worship His Dread Majesty if that's what it takes to get ahead. Charlie,...
• Commented on Do my Laundry
  Honestly I just want to see the Queen's (or the King's) head in a Tzompantli. I can see where you are coming from, but Queen Letizia doesn't seem to me to deserve quite that much opprobrium... ... her father, on...
• Commented on Do my Laundry
  Elephants or Dolphins? Get back to me if you see them summoning demons. Elephant matriarchs pausing and fondling skulls of their predecessors on their perambulations? Chimpanzees throwing stones at a tree? May or may not be proto-religion... but intriguing, nonetheless....