madlogician

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• Commented on Crib Sheet: The Atrocity Archive(s)
  There are some havens within the civil service for tech types where they are allowed to get on with the job. I used to work in one for some very good years. The problem was that higher management didn't understand...
• Commented on Of Blood and Honey, And Blue Skies from Pain
  The link from Stina's book at the top doesn't seem to work for purchases in the UK, the Baen link on the Nightshade site fails and the other links are to US sellers. By connecting directly to the Baen site...
• Commented on The ticking clock, stopped
  I take the elixir if and only if my wife does. We'd discuss, and my guess is that we'd agree to take it. One huge question you don't specify: does it restore child-bearing ability?...
• Commented on Mercury, Retrograde
  I get junk mail from Virgin Media asking me to sign up for their cable service about every three days. Word of mouth like this is why it always goes straight in the bin....
• Commented on Upcoming Appearances
  I once swore a mighty vow never to return to the non-Euclidean. In recent years I have repented - it was the year that Eastercon had Charlie as one of four mighty guests that convinced me. These days the room...
• Commented on Another trick question ...
  CharlesH: your worst enemy now has an AI, friendly to him, which is twice as artificial and twice as intelligent as yours. Get used to being outsmarted....
• Commented on Another trick question ...
  I think the hidden whammy in Sheckley's version was that when the demon offered the wish and told the protagonist who his worst enemy was he immediately accepted that he had one and set about doing him harm. Thereby falling...
• Commented on Design changes
  'No change' vote. I find indented commnets harder to follow, if anything, and they take up more space on the screen....
• Commented on Sartorial semiotics
  the German African Korps ... was not a "political" unit < So much so that General Rommel, its famous commander, refused throughout to allow any SS troops within his theatre. Rommel was eventually forced to commit suicide after his...
• Commented on More on books
  Rowling, for getting people to read. Bujold, for two new series doing something new (Chalion and the Sharing Knife). The most important book for me personally is 'Paladin of Souls'. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. I'm a card-carrying Bujold fan but...
• Commented on Wicked (1)
  The design of any web-based collaborative system needs to allow for griefers and spammers - users who seek to exploit the system for their own ends or simply to cause damage to it....
• Commented on "These Aren't the Worlds You're Looking For"
  'The War Against the Chtorr' by David Gerrold is about Earth being colonised by an alien ecosystem. Logically, they start with worms. It's just that their worms are bigger than ours ......
• Commented on Rule 34
  When I ordered this, one of the recommendations was Pterry's new one, which is apparently called 'Snuff'. I'm not sure I want to think about the results of applying one to the other....
• Commented on Going underground
  Glad to hear you'll be at the Eastercon. I think as you do on AV. One point is that the three biggest parties all use the system for their own elections....
• Commented on Five year retrospective
  Charlie made on interesting prediction that almost no-one has been commenting on: 'What we're going to see is an explosion of new types of game. In addition to current-day MMOs, we're going to see systems that tie into social networks:...
• Commented on Travel tips
  As I get older I've more and more often stayed at hotels the night before travelling out and also on return (especially with return transatlantic flights). At Heathrow and Gatwick I've found that it's well worth paying the extra for...
• Commented on High and Low Thrillers
  1984 may be an example of a left-wing technothriller....
• Commented on On not passing the Turing Test
  Turing's original paper introducing his test started with the idea of whether a human operator could determine whether a man or woman was on the other end of the line, then he extended it to telling the difference between a...
• Commented on The season of snark
  I see two practical advantages to having a constitutional monarchy. (1) The head of government is not the head of state. This reduces the prestige of the head of government and makes it harder for them to abuse their powers....
• Commented on The hard edge of empire
  One day I'll write a similar denunciation of the Regency period in England, which included secret police provocateurs and cavalry charges with swords against peaceful demonstrators (Peterloo)....
• Commented on Heinlein
  Heinlein's book allows faster-than-light communication. That alone is inconsistent with relativity both special and general - he knows this, and has one of his characters say as much. In his alternate universe, the twin paradox works the same way as...
• Commented on Public Service Announcement
  Just ordered mine from Amazon. I'd have preferred to go to Waterstones but I usually have problems making up the 3 books for a 3 for 2....
• Commented on Gadget Patrol: iPad, a month on
  I also find Flash in ads terminally annoying. I don't block Flash, I just block the ads themselves....
• Commented on We appear to have a hung parliament
  Ha. Remember I said I was believing the Lib Dems when they said the Tories could not win in Watford? The Tories won in Watford, about 1500 ahead of the Lib Dems, Labour some way behind. A more honest approach...
• Commented on Party Election Broadcast
  I'm in Watford, which is a 3-way marginal. My main objective is to keep the Tories out. I was considering a tactical vote for the Lib Dems. The Lib Dems themselves have talked me out of it: (1) their local...
• Commented on CMAP #4: Territories, Translations, and Foreign Rights
  @1: Dying didn't seem to do Stieg Larsson's career any harm... His books are selling, but his literary estate is in dispute between his family and his partner of many years, and there are conflicting accounts as to whether he...
• Commented on The sound of silence
  I want to read all of these, but the time opera most. I do hope you'll keep on with the Laundry series....