Paul
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Commented on The Radiant Future! (Of 1995)
Grant @ 352: I think the idea you can effectively armour a satellite against Kessler debris, is a bit hopeful. The energy involved is astonishing. Yes, I know about orbital velocities and kinetic energy. Thing is, most of the fragments...
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Commented on The Radiant Future! (Of 1995)
I know we're now past post 300, but I’ve been thinking about the original topic, and the more I think the more takes I have, some of them mutually contradictory. So I’m going to make a few posts. This first...
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Commented on The Radiant Future! (Of 1995)
Charlie @ 294: Torching off a Kessler cascade to deny space to their enemies therefore becomes an increasingly viable tactic for a declining Russian Empire. While I see your logic, I don't think that would actually work, thanks to SpaceX....
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Commented on A Wonky Experience
David L: But cash is hard to spend for gas if the power is out. As the pumps are all electrical. Perhaps its time for my regular repost of a link to James Burke's "Connections". Episode 1 starts with exactly...
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Commented on A Wonky Experience
Mikko: Even I'm not paranoid enough to build my own internet shared disk (and that would be kind of paranoia-inducing, considering that having a file server accessible from the public internet is kind of a nice target for all kinds...
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Commented on A Wonky Experience
JohnS @ 1003: But it appears to me, despite how everything in the U.K. & E.U. has gone downhill since Thatcher, your cities, towns & villages are still more pedestrian friendly than we have here in the U.S. This is...
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Commented on A Wonky Experience
Just about to watch a documentary about the Willy's Chocolate Experience on Channel 5....
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Commented on A Wonky Experience
SFReader @ 57 On company registration and fraud in the UK. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/dec/03/crisis-uk-companies-house-fake-directors-fraud...
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Commented on A Wonky Experience
Part of the problem in this case, I suspect, is that Cartchy tuns, exarserdray lollipops, a pasadise of sweet teats sounds almost like something Roald Dahl might have written. But this seems to be a regular kind of scam. There...
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Commented on The coming storm
Heteromeles @ 345: The problem isn’t the lithium per se, it’s the cobalt in the anode and carbide. Which is why I mentioned alternative battery chemistries. One of the reasons they are so much cheaper is that they don't need...
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Commented on The coming storm
On the battery power front, there is another tipping point coming. I don't know when because I haven't crunched the numbers, and a bunch of those numbers are going to be hard to find out anyway. But its definitely coming....
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Commented on Crib Sheet: Season of Skulls
Electricity networks: Yes, this is a mess. Once upon a time it was fairly simple. There were a few big power stations feeding power to the National Grid, and hence to consumers of all sizes. Those power stations were in...
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Commented on Crib Sheet: Season of Skulls
Geoff Hart @ 435: we have a lovely [sic] old penitentiary that's been mothballed [...] this would make a great home for the homeless (500+ beds).* I've seen a few proposals along these lines: microdwellings, living in old containers, that...
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Commented on Crib Sheet: Season of Skulls
Moz @ 283: Some 78 percent of those polled agree that it’s essential to do “whatever it takes” to limit the effects of climate change Maybe it's politics that's broken? In a sense. People: We must do whatever it takes...
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Commented on Crib Sheet: Season of Skulls
Heteromeles @ 239: I've often thought that Medieval Japan could be usefully reworked into a future SF history of the US or the Earth, with oligarchs taking the place of daimyos, Specops as the new samurai and ninja (pro-tip: ninjutsu...
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Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
ilya187@1496: Jubilees would definitely go a long way toward preventing Plutocracies/Oligarchies, but not if they occurred on any fixed schedule. I was under the impression that we do have jubilees, but we do it retail on a case by case...
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Commented on Crib Sheet: Season of Skulls
Charlie @ 183: Per my spouse, who has an archaeology degree: in the literature, labeling something a "ritual item" means "we don't have a clue what this was/was used for", quite often because it has girl cooties. The Vagina Museum...
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Commented on Crib Sheet: Season of Skulls
Charlie @ 138: The supreme court will overturn [the Colorado decision] for sure, unless Clarence Thomas has a stroke first (or Don forgets to promise to pay him off after his re-election). I'm not so pessimistic. Hold your nose for...
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Commented on Crib Sheet: Season of Skulls
The regency era roughly coincided with the birth of the novel as a popular entertainment medium Interestingly, this triggered a roughly two-decade moral panic about people reading them. Women, of every age, of every condition, contract and retain a...
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Commented on Made of lies (and more lies)
On time zones, perhaps its time to post this again: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fuhboopf6f8u71.jpg...
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Commented on Made of lies (and more lies)
Robert Prior @ 320, on a UK phone number to use for test purposes. You can actually set up your own at very low cost. A number of outfits provide an interface between the Plain Old Telephone System (POTS) and...
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Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
HowardNYC @ 1259: BTW: nobody keeps all blueprints for all buildings, never mind what the regulations call for. A while ago I was looking at the market in building safety that resulted from Grenfell Tower. I talked to one guy...
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Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
adrian smith @ 1112: russian settlers? very unlikely imo, They are already doing it. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-66393949...
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Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
Greg Tingey @ 1066: IF DJT get the presidency of the US ... Nobody else has tackled this, so I'll have a go. What, actually, are the =remaining" Four Eyes" going to do? Probably, plug whatever gaps they can and...
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Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
[Trump] already started down that path in his first term and would have plenty of help completing the job in a second term. The only thing that stopped Trump doing this the first time around was his own incompetence. There...
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Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
Charles Stross @ 992: Vanity publishers still exist, but Amazon did indeed knee them in the groin and make off with their wallet. However, self-publishing isn't without pitfalls, [...] Ahh, so if I understand correctly this is the difference between...
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Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
whitroth @ 982: I picked up a book that looked interesting at Belticon from the author [...] He really needed to spend $1k or $1500 for an actual copy editor, with copy editing software. Interesting. Many years ago I read...
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Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
Uncle Stinky @ 932: The Wikipedia picture looks more steampunk Ahh, that's Kelvin's tide predictor, which is also in the Science Museum in London, along with a lot of other really interesting and occasionally weird stuff. If I understand correctly,...
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Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
Heteromeles @ 929: Here's the text of Amendment 14.3: "No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military,... I believe the sticking point is over the...
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Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
Greg Tingey @ 903: Trump & the MAGAt's ... Anyone else heard of these people? - that's an awful lot of moolah crawling out of th woodwork. Not specifically, but it seems to be a trend. The GOP seems to...