Rocketpjs

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• Commented on Crib Sheet: Quantum of Nightmares
  I'd say Cory Doctorow did alright with his Little Brother series as far as young people facing up against large institutional systems. He did throw in a couple of very punchable villains to be sure. And it really is right...
• Commented on Crib Sheet: Quantum of Nightmares
  On the general topic thread. I'd like to say that I really enjoyed QoN, more even than DLD, though I suspect my readthrough of DLD was affected by my ongoing 'want to know what happens' with the Laundry stories. I...
• Commented on Crib Sheet: Quantum of Nightmares
  It's been quite a few years since I read it, but as I recall there was a lot of world-explaining done by Bob. A fair amount of it could be done by showing rather than telling as well. No need...
• Commented on Crib Sheet: Quantum of Nightmares
  New Management might succeed in a transition to screen. I'm fairly sure that the first couple of Laundry books would make an excellent miniseries - particularly the novellas in the Atrocity Archives, largely because they do a nice job of...
• Commented on Place your bets
  whitroth: "Meanwhile, I have always said that it the parent who is most important to the kid reads for pleasure, the kid will, too." If only. Spouse and I are and always have been constant readers - we both have...
• Commented on Place your bets
  I have tried to show my kids a few films from 'the old days' that I enjoyed, it has had mixed results. In the age of Tiktok and Youtube, a video that doesn't grab you in the first 30 seconds...
• Commented on Place your bets
  The Indus Valley civilization is a prime example of an historical misunderstanding. Because they had no palaces, monuments to big men or huge temples, historians apparently didn't think much of a society that spanned a vast area, had shared systems...
• Commented on Place your bets
  Strange consonance. I think I may have coached his great grandson in baseball....
• Commented on Place your bets
  That is a part of the uniquely distorted US right wing perception/projection that anything which is not extreme right wing is therefore left wing. It explains a lot of why economic issues are bound up with social inclusion issues and/or...
• Commented on Place your bets
  My father carries a little laser range finder in his golf bag which helps us determine how far to the next flag. Not that it improves my outcomes at all, but I would think laser range finders are a widely...
• Commented on Place your bets
  I guess I started it when I mentioned the sf concept I read in an sf novel that included violent climate activism - framed as a 'hope nobody does this'. Nobody seemed particularly interested in doing much but misunderstanding the...
• Commented on Place your bets
  "You all seem to have very violent fantasies. Why is the use of extreme violence so unquestioningly normalized for a group of otherwise very smart people who—I presume—are not normally in their personal lives inclined to solve every situation they...
• Commented on Place your bets
  That, I'm afraid, is entirely a you problem. You are an outlier. Thankfully we don't need to collect every outlier to solve big problems. Your objection is personal, to a societal issue. I object to plenty of societal things because...
• Commented on Place your bets
  I can't afford a Tesla either, which is why I didn't buy one. I bought a different EV, which is compatible with all the charging stations. A Tesla supercharger is a 'level 3 charger' in the term of art. That...
• Commented on Place your bets
  "would be a demonstration of planning." Of course, I think that would be the point. Currently I can fly in a jumbo jet with a very high expectation of arriving at my destination alive. The percentage of airliners falling out...
• Commented on Place your bets
  I have at least heard of that, but was operating on the assumption that delivering a mass of pebbles to a particular 3 dimensional location at a precise time from many directions would be slightly more challenging from a computational...
• Commented on Place your bets
  I have zero hope that Trump will ever see the inside of a jail cell. He will use his lawyers to delay, obfuscate and put off every single step of every process. If and when he ever starts to look...
• Commented on Place your bets
  The point in the novel (which I encourage you to read) was to shut down air travel by jet, with a side of targeting those who profit from climate denial. Alternative models of long-distance travel were not targeted....
• Commented on Place your bets
  I wasn't specifically referring to the concept of a drone swarm (though I find them terrifying). KSR's novel uses pebbles, fired from 100 or 1000 different directions at precise velocities, all to arrive exact same point and time. In effect...
• Commented on Place your bets
  As I said above, state level actors may well become radical environmentalists after a few megadeaths due to heat waves - when the cause is evident. India is a rising power with plenty of technological ability. They just might not...
• Commented on Place your bets
  A pebble mob (as in the Kim Stanley Robisons novels 2312 and The Ministry for the Future. A swarm of autonomous micro-explosives that approach a target from all directions and arrive at one time, planned and executed using software. In...
• Commented on Place your bets
  "Um, er, you might want to look up the word "convoy", per usage in, say, WWI and WWII." Convoys had navies to defend them. More importantly, what would be the use of a convoy of supertankers all arriving in port...
• Commented on Place your bets
  Climte refugees are likely to be a thing, they are now. I think we underestimate the intensity with which countries like India will be motivated to stop climate change. Sinking a few/many/dozens of oil tankers would create an impossible situation...
• Commented on Place your bets
  "in the current situation the central bank raising interest rates was NOT the tool to cool off inflation." It is however an excellent took for creating a recession and some downward pressure on wages. Know what actually can be very...
• Commented on Place your bets
  "OTOH - if you go in the opposite direction, with high inflation, the really rich get richer, because of property & the poor are ruined, because their small stash of money is valueless. See also Germany 1923, for the extreme...
• Commented on Place your bets
  Most of my understanding of the financial system is cribbed from Matt Levine's daily newsletter. My comments about how the Fed will kill as many poors as necessary to protect the wealth of the bankers are very much not his...
• Commented on Place your bets
  There is another interpretation of the collapse of SVB, which is that it will signal the end of the interest rate hikes and a likely return to lower rates. In the US, Canada and probably almost everywhere else with a...
• Commented on Place your bets
  Gah! Edit: 'I can attest that clothing is not at all OPTIONAL'...
• Commented on Place your bets
  I spent most of a decade working in various parts of the Canadian North and can attest that clothing is not at all optimal (aside from the occasional riverside fire party with sauna). Leaving aside the megatons of biting insects...
• Commented on Place your bets
  Here in Canada the cable companies lost a long fight about fractional billing. I only paid partial attention because I haven't paid for cable in decades, but it is apparently possible to pick and choose here. A large part of...