Thane

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• Commented on London Bridge
  Get some rest! I'm always wiped out for a couple of days when I fly to Europe....
• Commented on London Bridge
  "Firstly, the British population are poorer than you think -- think Kentucky or Mississippi: there are a lot of billionaires and a lot of people who already can't afford to run a hot shower once a week." Seriously? Wow. Even...
• Commented on London Bridge
  This is a response to both this post and Our Gathering Crises from a couple of weeks ago. Watching this all from the U.S., I'm struck by several things: I haven't followed British news much since Boris announced his resignation...
• Commented on Yokai Land Q&A
  On a similar note, I took an intro to chemistry class at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA; NOT the famous one in Austin) in the summer of 2003. The chemistry labs had just undergone a major renovation, and...
• Commented on Quantum of Nightmares: spoiler time!
  Hi Charlie! This week, I read Escape from Yokai Land, Dead Lies Dreaming, and Quantum of Nightmares (I had a Laundry backlog). I loved all of them, but wish Yokai Land had been longer. This probably sounds weird, but I...
• Commented on Fossil fuels are dead (and here's why)
  Based on the first hundred or so comments (plus a terms search), I think we're forgetting another major application of this rocket technology--air transport. These rockets have the capability of transporting people anywhere in the world in about an hour....
• Commented on So you think you can be a reality TV producer
  Roman Resort: Contestants from all walks of life are tasked with living in and operating a tiny Roman town for a year. They have to grow food, run shops, Roman baths, make tools, etc. with Roman-era technology. After a start-up...
• Commented on CASE NIGHTMARE BLONDE
  Thanks. I was unaware that Johnson would have the power to move the election date once the election had been called. It seems like a really bad idea for any elected official to have that power. I can only imagine...
• Commented on CASE NIGHTMARE BLONDE
  @603 I think the chlorinated chicken line was a reference to a debate that the UK was having with the US about American agricultural exports. In the US, the USDA allows meat processors to treat chicken with chlorine and/or other...
• Commented on CASE NIGHTMARE BLONDE
  Okay, I (an American) have been reading The Guardian's liveblog of Parliamentary proceedings vis-a-vis Brexit for two days now, and I am hopelessly confused. If I'm understanding correctly (doubtful), Commons just passed an amendment to the anti-No Deal bill that...
• Commented on CASE NIGHTMARE BLONDE
  As an American, watching this slow-motion disaster is maddening. It seems blatantly obvious that the UK's leadership has been charting a course for disaster for the last five years or more. And yet, no one seems willing or able to...
• Commented on Social architecture and the house of tomorrow
  Judging by the first few dozen comments, I think many people are over-emphasizing social changes at the expense of economic changes. Since the end of feudalism (and arguably before that), the primary driver of a person's living situation has been...
• Commented on Deaths and Deadlines
  Charlie, you have my sincerest sympathies and also my thanks. My father had a massive heart attack in January, received quintuple bypass surgery, and spent most of two weeks in a hospital intensive care unit. While I was spending upwards...
• Commented on Peak Brexit
  When you're writing, it's important not to any words out. I did have one specific Brexit question that I'm having trouble answering. I know that the "backstop" refers to the desire to have no hard border checkpoint between Ireland and...
• Commented on Peak Brexit
  Was Mike Pence the tree in this vision? ;-D...
• Commented on Peak Brexit
  I (an American) have been following Brexit and UK politics generally for a couple of years, and I still only understood about half of that column; it would probably be hilarious otherwise. Similarly, I've trying to read the Guardian's "UK...
• Commented on Publishing: A Slice of Life
  The Washington Post reported this week that the D.C. city government had fallen victim to a vaguely similar scam. Scammers created an email address that was off-by-one-letter from the address of a construction contractor, and emailed the city to ask...
• Commented on Happy 21st Century!
  You make an excellent point, which I hadn't considered. There goes another happy thought... :-)...
• Commented on Happy 21st Century!
  I'm fairly contemptuous of the wastefulness of Bitcoin and other proof-of-work coins. That said, I think cryptocurrency as a whole might have some beneficial effects on the world. Specifically, I think there might be a non-environmentally-disastrous social and economic benefits...
• Commented on Happy 21st Century!
  I love these threads, but occasionally find them a little frustrating. Let's talk solutions, people. Assuming that the problem Charlie describes is real (and, depressingly, it appears that it might well be), then what is the solution? Is there a...
• Commented on Happy 21st Century!
  "All of this said, this is a pretty western-centric view of the future; China's also shaping up very ugly, but while there are points of similarity -- particularly the panopticon, which is more blatant there than here -- it's not...
• Commented on Happy 21st Century!
  Charlie, it's a dark time in the U.S., and I don't see a lot here that would refute your central thesis, even if I might quibble with a few particulars. That said, assuming that society doesn't take a sharp turn...
• Commented on Test Case
  For people who don't want to read my ridiculous U.S. law school-exam-style essay, the TL;DR is this: The struck pedestrian is most likely to be found at fault for the accident because of their reckless and/or negligent behavior. This most...
• Commented on Test Case
  Note: I'm a lawyer, so I'm going to treat this one like a law school essay exam and not cheat by looking at everyone else's essay or any outside sources before I write my own. Also, I'm an American lawyer,...