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• Commented on A Wonky Experience
  Go back further to ancient Egypt: "e live in a decaying age. Young people no longer respect their parents. They are rude and impatient. They frequently inhabit taverns and have no self-control." - ancient Egyptian priest The older generation has...
• Commented on A Wonky Experience
  300 comments...
• Commented on A Wonky Experience
  It's after 30 comments. OK to talk about "Dune II"?...
• Commented on Same bullshit, new tin
  One of the things we haven't address is the sever shortage of warm bodies for cannon fodder due to collapsing birth rates and aging populations. Nobody has enough young males to sacrifice on a battlefield anymore. Putin's reliance on traditional...
• Commented on Worldcon in the news
  Oh, crap. https://www.firstpost.com/world/china-reports-death-of-woman-from-combined-h3n2-h10n5-strains-of-bird-flu-13672902.html China reports death of woman from combined H3N2, H10N5 strains of bird flu https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2801499 Bird Flu Has Begun to Spread in Mammals https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/wpro---documents/emergency/surveillance/avian-influenza/ai_20240126.pdf?sfvrsn=5f006f99_125#:~:text=From%201%20January%202003%20to,(CFR)%20of%2056%25. From 1 January 2003 to 1 November 2023, a total of 246 cases of...
• Commented on Worldcon in the news
  BTW, do the various fandoms get along? Do SF fans look down their noses at comic book fans or embrace them as family. Do steam punkers like board gamers? Does anyone like furries? Funny video of a Venn diagram presentation...
• Commented on Worldcon in the news
  Is there such a thing as a do-it-all con? Something that combines comics-sci fi-board games-videogames?...
• Commented on Same bullshit, new tin
  Shrinking demographics, low birth rates, more old people and fewer young people is a problem every nation outside of sub-Saharan Africa faces. Nobody has the manpower to fight any kind of war, especially with high tech drones creating a meat...
• Commented on The coming storm
  Batteries are getting cheaper. True but we still have yet to address what to do with old batteries. Even the best Li-ion batteries wear out. They are considered to be hazwaste by the USEPA. If you replaced every car...
• Commented on The coming storm
  We already have a local spa advertising an Ozempic knock off for weight loss at their "clinic". I'm amazed the market isn't already flooded by cheap (and potentially dangerous) Ozempic copy cats from factories in Mexico and India. These would...
• Commented on The coming storm
  I’m not sure what crop would pay for this experiment: really special “mile high” cannabis? Leela's quote in Futurama's episode Mars University (1999): "They planted traditional college foliage; ivy, trees, hemp. Soon the whole planet was terraformed."...
• Commented on The coming storm
  Take your idea to the next level and para-terraform the 4 mile deep Valley Marinaris. It's depth would allow it to sustain (with some biological or industrial maintenance and replenishment) a sufficiently thick and breathable atmosphere. They can treat the...
• Commented on The coming storm
  History doesn't repeat but it does rhyme. This isn't the first time that lower birthrates and depopulation led to increased immigration and then a nativist backlash against those foreign migrants. But unlike Europeans being afraid of dark skinned Muslims and...
• Commented on Crib Sheet: Season of Skulls
  Yet I too have an obsession with a particular murder show: Law and Order reruns when Jerry Orbach is playing Det. Lenny Briscoe (what a tough NY cop should be) and Angie Harmon playing Assistant DA Abbie Carmichael (hottest assistant...
• Commented on Crib Sheet: Season of Skulls
  We've also developed a sick and unhealthy obsession with murder shows, as parodied by this SNL sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4RdcE6H4Gs...
• Commented on Crib Sheet: Season of Skulls
  What drives me nuts about all murder shows: WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING TALKING TO THE COPS WITHOUT A LAWYER BEING PRESENT? NEVER TALK TO A COP WITHOUT A LAWYER! ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE INNOCENT! INNOCENT PEOPLE GO TO...
• Commented on Made of lies (and more lies)
  Anyone care to venture a guess as to what exactly went wrong with artificial intelligence HAL 9000 IN "2001"? Lousy programming? He actually achieved consciousness and self awareness? The inherent limitations of AI? Bowman etal making the mistake of treating...
• Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
  If SF made Fascism then fantasy made Nazism. (Before any cites Spinrad's brilliant parody "The Iron Dream" as an example of Nazi SF, remember that he was not using mil-SF to parody Nazism - he was using Nazism to parody...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  https://www.routledge.com/How-the-Irish-Became-White/Ignatiev/p/book/9780415963091 "How the Irish Became White" By Noel Ignatiev...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  Issue 1 ensuring abortion rights in Ohio's constitution and Issue 2 for legal recreational/grow your own marijuana both passed. In Red State Ohio. Big loser? The GOP. Gov. Beshear - a democrat in the red state of Kentucky - won...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  Evangelicals are facing the same demographic cliff as their Maga friends and associates. The folks under 30 who are true Evangelical believers is under 20%. Most are over 60. Maybe 70. So can we survive until they die off? MAGA...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  "Even standing up, a healthy adult should be able to cope with 3-4g before loss of consciousness, although their joints and bones might not enjoy the experience" fair enough, point well taken. So build in a factor of safety and...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  Trillions of humans over millions of years of expansion across the galaxy, terraforming and/or creating megastructures as we go if we don't stumble across what appears to be rare earth type planets. Still in favor of colonization with seed ships,...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  Here in the USA the place to go to get the most out of your post-apocalyptic survival food dollar are Mormon Service Centers (each state has at least one). Mormons are required to keep at least a year's worth of...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  Re: radii of spinning rings to create "gravity" for astronauts. Remember that the force generated by the ring drops off linearly as you got towards the axis. So even if you could spin a 6 feet radius wheel fast enough...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  "At a guess precession, caused by objects moving their weights around the wheel, would eventually doom the mission." Stupid questions: The ship ring would be spinning like a large gyroscope which are very difficult to knock off their alignment, so...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  Enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=isaac+arthur+colonizing+black+holes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxa0IrZCNzg...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  No transcripts that I can find. Seriously, if there is one YouTube video channel you should watch its Isaac Arthur. Analyzing every conceivable SF subject with hard numbers, engineering, science and common sense. His series on colonizing Black Holes (the...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  "I can't believe that Moses wandered the desert for 40 years and found the one place without any oil" - Golda Meir...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  I recommend this superb video from Isaac Arthur concerning the shortage of phosphorus throughout the universe preventing the development of life and as an answer to the Fermi Paradox. And how such a universal lack would severely limit our plans...