anonemouse

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• Commented on What else can you do with a Big Dumb Booster?
  I don't know why I thought of this when I saw what Musk was building. Obviously, he's a humanitarian, and not in dietary terms (referencing the previous thread of comments). He's one of the good guys, right? No oligarch other...
• Commented on Evolver
  There aren’t any venomous predators that hunt large game... Komodo dragons are the extreme case of nonvenomous but highly toxic mouths. Komodo dragons have glands in their lower jaw that secrete toxins (including anticoagulants) and ducts that release the toxins...
• Commented on Evolver
  It's being tried....
• Commented on Evolver
  That four out of six great ape species are critically endangered may suggest a reason. If we must consider successor primates, I'd suggest looking at baboons. Savanna-dwelling primates, large social groups, numerous......
• Commented on Writer, Interrupted
  Also think how it reads from the Iranian side: "the US, who has supported the use of WMD against us, used false accusations of possessing WMD as a cassus belli against a neighbouring country, has been accusing us of attempting...
• Commented on Sometimes I don't know why I bother!
  John Rabe, who I have seen cited as a "patron saint of moral complexity." Head of the Nazi Party in Nanjing - and leader of the Nanking Safety Zone, which saved up to a quarter of a million civilian lives...
• Commented on Sometimes I don't know why I bother!
  Talleyrand. Not so much for his (admitted) genius, but would you like to convince readers Louis-Philippe would make the guy who helped put Napoleon on his throne and depose him, one of the leading figures of the Revolution, his ambassador...
• Commented on Writer, Interrupted
  One writer I know of has a frankly terrifying schedule mainly to cope with that problem. (Search the page for the word "punishing.")...
• Commented on Writer, Interrupted
  Even without that, work-from-homers' empty desks inspire Bad Thoughts in management: everything from "we have free space in this room to put [X] team in" (say goodbye to your desk) to *shudder* hotdesking (woe betide the day more than half...
• Commented on Reality is broken
  Citation....
• Commented on Reality is broken
  I refer the honourable commenter to OGH's link to David Langford's comp.basilisk FAQ, which is a worked example of the reaction to binary weapons escaping containment (though Langford's basilisks are images rather than guns - which of course only makes...
• Commented on Reality is broken
  Can there be a very, VERY special office that is stuck in an odd corner of the Army Corps of Engineers. They do enjoy disaster planning & response so much. Just give them a primer on geomancy and they'll be...
• Commented on Mendel Acquisition Squares : A Game of Futures
  Penguin/Random House is a tour-de-force in merger naming, in the same way that someone who guesses wrong every time is a useful indicator. Every other combination of the words 'random,' 'penguin,' and 'house' is better than "Penguin Random House."...
• Commented on Who wins? Cthulhu or the Emperor of Mankind from Warhammer 40K?
  Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is a game all about communicating the right information under pressure, if you're looking for one....
• Commented on The iron law of development
  The whole of the continental USA is south of Cornwall; three cheers for the Gulf Stream!...
• Commented on The iron law of development
  Cynicism dictates student questions are mentioned in the teacher handbook as "a wonderful opportunity for peer learning."...
• Commented on The iron law of development
  Yes, but if we could eliminate the fucking stupid transfers and limit invasive species to the accidental we'd be a bit better off. Starlings only are present in North America - no joke - because Shakespeare mentions them in Henry...
• Commented on The iron law of development
  There is a definite anti-French bias here. Apologies. The ability of French artillery at the turn of the 18th Century definitely points to mathematical education being very good; it might be that the run-up to the Revolution being relatively widely...
• Commented on The iron law of development
  There's also the point that while France, Germany and Italy had the size, they were patchwork bureaucracies with no unified legal code; different laws and taxes applied depending on who and where you were. France at least also had a...
• Commented on What are you reading this summer?
  As RDSouth pointed out, shouldn't no transistors gets you dieselpunk at least?...
• Commented on What are you reading this summer?
  Fair criticism, but there is the occasional counterpoint. (Though Talleyrand's lessons are most likely "be the adviser, not the hero; alienate no-one; and keep an eye on your exit.")...
• Commented on What are you reading this summer?
  One newsletter subscription later... :-) Thanks! I'd lost track of him, somehow....
• Commented on What are you reading this summer?
  I have no idea how I missed the Situated Technologies pamphlets, but they're so precisely up the alley of a preoccupation of mine it's not even funny. Thanks a million. Sidenote: have you heard any noises about the supposed follow-ups...
• Commented on What are you reading this summer?
  Christ. Good luck to your dad - and you....
• Commented on What are you reading this summer?
  I'm planning on reading Normal once it's published as a single volume later this summer. But then I read most of what Warren Ellis publishes. I'm currently reading The Wicked and the Divine as the comics are published; a meditation...
• Commented on Cyberpunk 2.0: Political economy, energy, and the future US
  Thanks!...
• Commented on Cyberpunk 2.0: Political economy, energy, and the future US
  CRIS? (My Google abilities fail me.)...
• Commented on A plaintive request
  Which international institution do you anticipate everyone with satellite-killer munitions allowing to control the powersats, and why would they compromise their neutrality - and trigger the shooting down of the satellites - by supplying power to remote US bases? Powersat...
• Commented on A plaintive request
  1) American cultural hegemony broadcasts the specifics of the latter's beliefs a lot further. 2) WBC are part of WEIRD culture, as are we (mostly). We're being good Christians*: "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's...
• Commented on A plaintive request
  A headline today says that the Turkish military "knew hours before it started" about it. If that isn't a clear indication that Erdogan orchestrated it, I don't know what is. I'd want the details behind that headline before interpreting it...