Robby

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• Commented on Upcoming blog outage
  Ooh, something I know about for once. UK water supply is designed for things to go wrong and avoid having lots of little bits of infrastructure that rely on electricity. Generally you pump from the treatment plant to service reservoirs,...
• Commented on I can't even
  I'm just hoping that when labour do get into power, they don't fall into their usual trap of letting the perfect be the enemy of "good enough". Whilst labour under Starmer may be Tory-lite, I'm content to stomach that for...
• Commented on The gathering crisis
  One comment on the whole question of what to do about electricity generation in the UK. Going all-in on one thing is a bad idea, because you get a single point of failure. Even worse when you go all-in one...
• Commented on Quantum of Nightmares
  I normally ask you to share a picture of your cats on new book threads. Can I see cats?...
• Commented on Omicron
  Going by my very simplistic maths, a doubling time of 2-3 days would infect the entire population of the UK by the end of January. Probably overwhelm hospitals around the end of December. Why are we not in ultra lockdown...
• Commented on Central Banking on Mars!
  I'm assuming that the purpose of the MuskCoin is to encourage investment into the Martian economy to grow it quickly. It is also coming under the control of a man who seems to prefer to own the assets and sell...
• Commented on Covid on Mars
  So we have a society where the majority of the people made a very conscious decision and a huge personal sacrifice to live and die on mars. Everyone is under constant surveillance/tracking. Decompression drills (shelter in place) will be frequent....
• Commented on Normal service will be resumed eventually
  Find cat, stroke cat....
• Commented on Upcoming events
  Seeing as this has become a thread on domestic appliances. I highly recommend a dehumidifier for the bathroom, seeing as it's a flat with (presumably) fairly crap ventilation. You would be surprised at how damp and musty the place is...
• Commented on Ask me anything!
  Who looks after the cats while you're away, and does this person send you daily pictures of said cats to keep your spirits up?...
• Commented on Three pieces of news about the Laundry Files (UPDATED!)
  Fingers crossed....
• Commented on Lessons learned: writing really long fiction
  I'm sure I've asked this before, but I can't remember if it was answered. Ghost Engine. Is that like palimpsest, but longer? I really like palimpsest....
• Commented on Brexit! Means! Brexit!
  As with anything Brexit, this is what I would like to see happen. I'm cautious about writing it down, because every time I do that with Brexit something even worse/more idiotic happens, that I hadn't even considered was a possibility....
• Commented on Sitrep
  Mitchell and Webb had a sketch that hit the inappropriate superhero idea on the head nicely, which was basically a superhero from the 70s. He gets the bad guys, but whilst smoking a fag, being casually racist, and having a...
• Commented on Holding Pattern
  For anyone with an interesting mental health history, if you think you need a break then you really need a break. Whist this may sound a bit shitty, it's true. When you're struggling, your writing isn't as good. I've been...
• Commented on Rejection Letter
  I work in this sort of area, although for a different organisation which thankfully hasn't been affected, because we patch. There seems to be a bit of an undercurrent in some comments that suggests "There's no point patching the systems...
• Commented on Crib Sheet: The Annihilation Score
  Whilst TAS didn't entertain me in the same way as some of the earlier books (turbo-nerd padawan under the guidance of the demon-headmaster sorcerer) the story did stick in my mind for a lot longer. It isn't as nice, because...
• Commented on Competition Time!
  Name: Addison Leecoy Classification: Urban Transport Deployment: As CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN intensifies, laundry agents must be able to quickly reach outbreaks in urban areas, whilst avoiding threats that remain invisible to the general public. Transport support was recently provided by...
• Commented on A purely theoretical dilemma
  Yes. The thing I'm giving up is privacy. Privacy is currently important to me because of a set of very British, Victorian-era values that make it embarrassing to disclose details of my finances, medical conditions, sexual preferences and opinions on...
• Commented on Towards a taxonomy of cliches in Space Opera
  Thinking about this some more, some other cliches: Ships that easily accelerate to near-lightspeed happens, time dilation happens, interest on money in bank accounts happens, yet people who work on these ships are still poor. No-one seems to start a...
• Commented on Towards a taxonomy of cliches in Space Opera
  Well done Charlie. You've now ruined a genre for me. This means you're going to have to write the book, maybe a trilogy. It's a shame you have to do something new. I have a feeling that the full-length novel...
• Commented on Holding pattern (part N ...)
  Charlie, Seeing as it seems you're tired and sick, I'd be quite happy if you just posted some pictures of cats and took a few days off. It might not quite be sipping pina coladas, but I'm sure you've earned...
• Commented on A world-building puzzler
  As a couple of others people have mentioned, both language type and songs could come into play. Language type - I don't know how various languages compare for information density, but I do know that some are better than others...
• Commented on Clickbait spasm: 14 gizmos I used in 2015
  Charlie, you threaten my wallet. My book-buying policy over the last year or so has been to buy what you said was enjoyable or the works of your guest authors. It works well, I've read some very good books over...
• Commented on Check Check Sound Check
  Cats cats cats. I'll buy your books....
• Commented on Tanks! Why tank stories make great tech myths
  This blog is like the opposite of youtube comments; everyone knows what they're talking about and can reference their claims. It's too early for that. Harold. I'm currently plowing through Blackout/All clear and it's a slog. I want something that...
• Commented on The sky's gone dark
  The social impact would be less noticeable in the developed world. GPS has popped up a few times in comments. GPS (and EGNOS, Glonass, Beidou, Galileo) satellites have a planned service life of around 15 years, but a constellation would...
• Commented on Escape from the planet of the Ice Giants
  This surprise you mentioned - could it be something like a full length version of Palimpsest? I would happily pay a couple of weeks wages for that book, the novella is still the best thing I've ever read. On the...
• Commented on Drink Me: The Horror Hotel Story, and Where Ideas Come From
  This just make me think about hotelspace. I think I first read about the term in something written by Charlie. It is quite possible that this hotel is so new that it isn't yet connected to hotelspace, which makes everything...
• Commented on Competition Time!
  Investigation was prompted when Human Resources manager [NAME REDACTED] began to submit work of an irregular nature, to wit, employee became competent in role, external help suspected. Investigation revealed unauthorised summoning of Shantak (codeword NOVA) to discuss disciplinary techniques, non-monetary...