zlionsfan

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• Commented on Not Enough Credit, Not Enough Time: Thoughts on Writing Pt 4 (and Final)
  Nothing else matters but writing and reading ... I can appreciate that. I do love to read - over the last year or so, I've made a more conscious effort to keep reading as an important part of my life....
• Commented on Eating the seed corn
  Road conditions in the US, particularly in the Snow Belt, are also a result of larger area plus, outside of the largest metro areas, almost an aversion to mass transit. Combine that with funding issues and you can have stark...
• Commented on Three wishes
  I'd wish that Count Chocula would be available in stores again. I'd wish that Microsoft's Olympic Decathlon would run on my laptop. (There seems to be a problem with Apple emulators and USB joysticks.) I'd wish that you could...
• Commented on A cultural thought experiment
  Hmm, I don't think I explained myself very well if I left that impression. I meant to support FMguru's position ... not only is even a shitpile Earth a much more promising target to re-colonize than the most hospitable off-Earth...
• Commented on A cultural thought experiment
  Besides, it would be more difficult, by orders of magnitude, to put together a program to attempt to colonize a planet or moon or whatever in an era where it's accurate to say that colonization would be no worse than...
• Commented on I'd hate to have his email inbox right now ...
  Ugh. Some of those comments ... I don't know what to say. To take one as an example: the idea that there would be this incredible bounty out there if only we could terraform Mars. Basically, just think what we...
• Commented on Design changes
  I prefer threaded comments, but I don't think that would work well without changes that aren't practical to make. You've got a system that works pretty well as is; even if you get a volunteer (or more than one) to...
• Commented on Microbes grow the starship
  If we're talking about television, well, Farscape not only featured living ships, but based some episodes around them. There was a bit of handwaving about exactly how Talyn grew his weapons (and why the Peacekeepers wouldn't use that technology on...
• Commented on Scary Monsters (and Super-Creeps)
  oh! I actually thought The Day After was scary ... but I was 15, and you just didn't get to see anything like that in those days, so I expect it was more the visuals than anything else. Also, I...
• Commented on Scary Monsters (and Super-Creeps)
  I do read horror, although not nearly as often as I did when I was younger. I think what I like is the process of finding out what is going on, what things are affecting the characters in the story...
• Commented on 9/11
  I don't have satellite any more - not worth the cost - but I do spend a good bit of time online, and even sports-related sites here are pimping 9/11 for all they're worth. It's the same as on TV:...
• Commented on More on books
  I think that in this context, I think about importance with respect to the industry more than anything else. Maybe because it's too soon to say that $NOVEL changed the world in $WAY, maybe because it's also too soon to...
• Commented on What am I missing?
  That was at Auburn University, and considering that they not only have an athletic rivalry with a school that has a few deranged fans, but also have a number of related majors (horticulture, agronomy and soils ...), they would probably...
• Commented on What am I missing?
  Actually, I own a laptop that can be unlocked by my face. The software is crude, and it does have a practical ceiling of usefulness, as you point out, but it's been here for a while. My laptop shipped with...
• Commented on USENIX 2011 Keynote: Network Security in the Medium Term, 2061-2561 AD
  I think I have been thinking about this more like you seem to be. After all, at some point in the past, people must have been thinking "You know, in the future, we'll have some kind of technology that'll record...
• Commented on Back again
  Actually, I believe 101 is a US highway ... white shield with black lettering. I drove it a couple of times in the distant past; it's very nice, but can be a bit unsettling if you're not familiar with the...
• Commented on It's people!
  In a college town in south-central Indiana (in other words, not Indianapolis, and not a really small town either), our history options were still pretty limited. We had US history, some local history (blah blah Northwest Territory blah blah old...
• Commented on On dealing with exhaustion and its causes
  Enjoy some time with the people and cats who are most important to you. We'll be here when you get back ......
• Commented on An observation
  Hmmm ... isn't the worst-case scenario for continued use of coal (and other fossil fuels) something like Venus?...
• Commented on Five year retrospective
  Yeah, the RPG field on the 360 (and thus on the PS3 as well, usually) is pretty barren. There's Oblivion, Mass Effect, and ... um ... yeah. Dragon Age is OK, but there are a lot of "I'm just here"...
• Commented on Five year retrospective
  I don't know about omnipresent GPS being a done deal ... I live in a suburb of Indianapolis in an area that's covered very well by cell towers, spend most of my traveling hours in and around the city, and...
• Commented on Obsolete before it ships
  Well, if you're waiting for the corrected version of the book, then you're not really getting speed, are you? And if revisions are continuing to happen after the book has been initially published, those are going to cost money. It...
• Commented on Books, food and happiness
  Re Gladwell, I think I'm in the camp that says that's not exactly how it happened, but it's in the right direction, and maybe it'll prompt people who are interested to read more about it and find out how it...