JamesPadraicR

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• Commented on Pushing it back
  D’oh! The clay tablet thing was something you re-tooted....
• Commented on Pushing it back
  Most of our civil engineering (bridges, roads, railways, sewers) wears out within a century or so and would be hard to detect after a few millennia. Just one reason why I had no interest in the Shannara series was that...
• Commented on Do my Laundry
  I’m a bit curious to the origins of Lecter and the rest of the orchestra. I can imagine Antonio Salieri’s bones being full of malice. While I’m at it, are you going to be gathering typos for Season of Skulls?...
• Commented on Signed copies of "Season of Skulls" available for pre-order!
  I blame Peter Cushing in the original Star Wars movie. He set the pattern of Imperial officers having English accents in the series....
• Commented on Signed copies of "Season of Skulls" available for pre-order!
  See also the origin of Mansplaining. From the wikipedia article: Solnit told an anecdote about a man at a party who said he had heard she had written some books. She began to talk about her most recent, on Eadweard...
• Commented on Crib Sheet: Escape from Yokai Land
  And Hello Kitty Shinkansen: https://www.jrailpass.com/blog/hello-kitty-shinkansen more pictures: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=hello+kitty+shinkansen&t=h_&iax=images&ia=images...
• Commented on Crib Sheet: Escape from Yokai Land
  In case anyone wants to see a (modified) pink Hello Kitty Stratocaster in action: https://tonefiend.com/pickups/hello-kitty-strat-not-for-pussies/...
• Commented on WTF
  I understand that you really have to convince the rabbi that you're serious if you want to convert to Judaism. It’s traditional that a Rabbi turn away potential converts three times, to be sure they are committed to it. If...
• Commented on WTF
  Clarke did fairly well with essays in the 60s and 70s, describing computer networks with every home having a terminal connected to local mainframes, he didn’t quite get to personal computers. And of course HAL, and the story Dial F...
• Commented on WTF
  Back to the Jewish atheist subject, I wasn’t brought up with any particular religion, my mother is Jewish, my father isn’t, we had christmas trees and presents, menorahs, and that was pretty much it. After they divorced my mother was...
• Commented on WTF
  I meant to add that when telling their ministers that they were reading the OT and having trouble with it, they were told not to bother with it and stick to the gospels....
• Commented on WTF
  I’ve met a number of people thinking of converting to Judaism who say one reason they left their church is that they weren’t allowed to ask questions of anything, their versions of bible study consisted of there minister reading a...
• Commented on WTF
  Yes, it happens among Jews, most often coming from the Hassidic communities, not necessarily becoming atheists, but less orthodox. Abuses happen in the other Jewish movements, but apparently less often than the so-called Ultra-Orthodox, or churches. I’ve heard a couple...
• Commented on WTF
  Well Matthew is paraphrasing from Torah, Deuteronomy 6:5, and Leviticus 19:18. Some say that Hillel was a teacher of Jesus, so any echoing is not a surprise. I have my doubts, since I don’t particularly believe in the existence of...
• Commented on WTF
  Jewish atheist is still a Jew, and their approach to atheism doesn't mirror a Catholic atheist or a Presbyterian atheist Definitely. In my experience Christians who go atheist tend to be much more militantly anti-religion than Jewish Atheists (speaking as...
• Commented on All Glory to the New Management!
  Confirmed. Ain’t that a shame. President Donald Trump tweets he and first lady Melania Trump test positive for Covid-19...
• Commented on All Glory to the New Management!
  First source I’ve seen tonight: President Trump tests positive for coronavirus True, or looking for an excuse to cancel the next debate?...
• Commented on Books I Will Not Write #8: The Year of the Conspiracy
  I wonder how a Stirling engine might work for driving a Leslie speaker? Is there another way to regulate the speed of the Stirling engine besides that magnet? Don’t about using one for a Leslie, how big would it have...
• Commented on Books I Will Not Write #8: The Year of the Conspiracy
  Since Steampunkery has come up, and I have no interest in the gun/artillery aspects, I give you the Candela VibroPhase: the world’s first candle powered guitar effect. It’s a bit of a cheat since it has photovoltaic cells and photocells,...
• Commented on Books I Will Not Write #8: The Year of the Conspiracy
  And to you. Our congregation is doing Zoom/FB services. I’m trying to figure out how to open the a virtual Ark on Yom Kippur....
• Commented on Books I Will Not Write #8: The Year of the Conspiracy
  Well Eff You 2020, your timing sucks. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Champion Of Gender Equality, Dies At 87 The Dems better do everything they can to block a Trump appointee....
• Commented on Books I Will Not Write #8: The Year of the Conspiracy
  Of possible interest to anyone in the Glasgow area, just learned of Di Rozeve Pave. If I could I’d go for the yiddish, and maybe stay for a vegan bagel mit a shmir. “די ראָזעווע פּאַווע (pink peacock) is a...
• Commented on Books I Will Not Write #8: The Year of the Conspiracy
  Speaking of bloodthirsty unicorns: Delicacy. I may have shared this before, but always worth a repeat....
• Commented on Books I Will Not Write #8: The Year of the Conspiracy
  Anyone else wondering how clean Soviet clean rooms were for the early Venera probes? If they bothered with them, that is. I would assume it’s pretty unlikely, but maybe extremophiles hitched a ride and happily spent the next half-century on...
• Commented on Books I Will Not Write #8: The Year of the Conspiracy
  Also off-topic, sorry. That picture of Priti Patel from the Guardian article Charlie tweeted has some strong Martin Shkreli / Kim Yo-jong energy....
• Commented on Books I Will Not Write #8: The Year of the Conspiracy
  Rather off-topic, but saw this headline and thought of “Accelerando” for some reason: Taxpayer Watchdog Group Sues VA for Records of Cat De-Braining Experiments...
• Commented on No comment necessary
  Sorry, last thing, just looked up Szilard—he was also Hungarian, didn’t think he was German....
• Commented on No comment necessary
  I guess my point being that if 1920/30s Europe hadn’t been full of anti-Semitism, no one would have built The Bomb....
• Commented on No comment necessary
  ...and just looked up Fermi and found his wife was Jewish....
• Commented on No comment necessary
  Szilard (Jewish German exile), Teller (Hungarian, exile), Von Neuman (Hungarian, exile), Oppenheimer (ooh! An actual American!) all pitching in. FWIW, all four were Jewish. There’s member of my synagogue, a woman in her late 90s, who was a secretary with...