Nick K

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• Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
  There are QR code reader apps on Apple iOS devices. But they have mostly fallen away as Apple built the function into their camera app. You start the app and point it at a QR code. Without taking a picture...
• Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
  https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/argentina/#military-and-security...
• Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
  Meaning to read some Lem. [...] in translation, until I hopefully learn some Russian Stanisław Lem was Polish. Born in Lvov/Lviv...
• Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
  "Piece of Paper" - yes, well, about 20 years ago - looking for work that wasn't "minimum wage" I tried "Electrician" ( I do have an engineering MSc, after all ) ... No-one was the slightest bit interested - I...
• Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
  I get the distinct feeling that the word "Freedom" in America means something different than to does to the rest of the world (especially when capitalized). It is something unique to the American Way of Life™, and exceptional I caught...
• Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
  basic evolution shows that a 'superior' race will necessarily emerge at some stage that's not actually how evolution works. For starters you have to define "superior". I can program a computer (well sort of), so I'm "superior" to a chimp....
• Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
  By the way, if anyone is going to re/read Stranger in a Strange Land, be sure to check out the full unedited version that his widow found maybe 30 years ago. The full version is almost twice as long as...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  your links don't appear (to me) to have anything to do with trump. They all link to The Independent but are non-Trump stories. One is the UK PM being an arse, another is Braverman being an arse....
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  Something akin to how current commercial passenger air liners are operated - the human pilots take control for only a few minutes. That's not how commercial airliners are operated. I don't know about aeroplanes but sailing vessels actually operate that...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  2. Why is everyone here utterly ignoring the people who have, right now, lived in space over 1 year? Like the Soviets on Mir who came down as Russisns. Or the American astronaut who'd been on the Station, and there...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  GOOD NEWS: there are already parts of the EU and US sufficiently southern where bamboo will thrive (opportunities for innovative farming in story telling); sorry UK, not you (mild rages and scheming for southern land grabs, a very dark theme...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  the danger is not from conflicts like Iran attacking Israel but what I posted in #555 - i.e. the USA attacking Iran, China or perhaps India India?! Why would America go to war with India?...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  If the Soviet Union had not emerged, USA isolationism would have won in a future European conflict, which would have had massive effects on the world order. As it was, it was damn close in both wars. what does "USA...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  When folks want to argue that we should stop China and India as they are full of poverty and such and we are just bigger and better, I point out that both have a middle class about the same size...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  loaned from English. I think the correct expression here is borrowed from English. Again, not a native, and this loan/lend/borrow thing is something I never seem to learn properly... in the local (UK English) where I grew up, "lend" and...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  Ah, the Scunthorpe Problem rides again. Those who cannot remember the past, etc... I recall a "security program" where you entered the last 4 digits of your credit card number and it then checked emails and posts for those numbers....
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  »Unloading the [flight recorder] data after every trip would be an advantage,« This has been proposed many times, starting practically when the first flight recorders were installed, but pilot(s union)s have shot it down every single time. I understand there...
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  "how far was the fall"...
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  The pilot of the F-35 called 911 I liked the bit where the ambulance person asked "how far war the fall" "about 2000'"...
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  ...and OGH gets a mention in the comments...
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  Not on-topic but interesting bioregenerative life-support system...
• Commented on Do my Laundry
  ...and again but with saner Markdown Putin's Colder War?...
• Commented on Do my Laundry
  https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/russia-claims-new-weapons-is-based-on-new-physical-principles/ar-AA1gBsuE?ocid=winp1taskbar&cvid=92065b26c736488897a923236f52126f&ei=90 Putin's Colder War?...
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  Don't over-egg general relativity. The first proven prediction was in the 1960s ]...] . precession of orbit of Mercury 1915(?) - bending of light 1917 - gravitational redshift of a white dwarf 1954...
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  From the south-east, the Eurostar is a lot faster, relatively, not just because it's quicker to get to central London, but because most of the airports are so evil. It depends. I can catch a bus to my nearest airport...
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  Actually, you can hang on to rationality, just with a set of natural laws that are entirely different from what we are accustomed to. You need not invent your own world: our quantum reality is quite confusing enough for most...
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  I wonder if something could be done with the noir hard-boiled private detective set in the future. Larry Niven’s “The Meddler” or Alastair Reynolds "The Prefect"...
• Commented on Pass or Fail
  Re: Room-temp semiconductors Those of us around since the days of Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons and cold fusion. We wait a bit for such reports to be vetted for a while. [grin off] see also Magnetic Monopoles and Poly-Water...
• Commented on Announcement: 2nd edition Laundry Files RPG is coming
  You might enjoy The Box, a very readable story about the development of containerization. https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691170817/the-box its also available as a kindle https://www.amazon.co.uk/Box-Shipping-Container-Smaller-Economy-ebook/dp/B01772PS00...
• Commented on Pass or Fail
  Actually, Python's use of indentation is fairly sane; I don't love it, but don't loathe it, either. I'll raise you fstab, make, C, etc., where tabs and an equivalent number of spaces are syntactically different. I've never liked tabs so...