_ieronim

_ieronim

  • Commented on Spoiler Thread
    As both Bob (partially) and Angleton (fully) are aspects of the Eater of Souls (who would be a city-landscaping nightmare if not constrained by human flesh), I seriously doubt that Bob could have misunderstood Angleton's demise....
  • Commented on Spoiler Thread
    Indeed, the Mahogany Row in general seems to know too much about vampirism and two great vampires of London to allow the events of the last two chapters. BTW, K syndrome is a long-term effect; you need to monitor a...
  • Commented on Spoiler Thread
    Angleton planned for his departure (I'm sure that "death" is a wrong term here) at least since the Fuller Memorandum. I suppose that Bob won't find any off-limits files on his Memex this time around... And well, if Mo, who...
  • Commented on Spoiler Thread
    I am somehow confused by the new tastes acquired by Bob after he, erm, fully acquires the power: during the bank visit, he nearly breaks his mental teeth on a vampire's soul, and at the end finds Mhari's mind somehow...
  • Commented on Amazon: malignant monopoly, or just plain evil?
    While not entirely on-topic, I must note that the publisher monopoly and love for DRM possibly did some good for publishers and authors. Nobody in the English-speaking world notices, but Russian book market effectively collapsed due to piracy. Notably, Russia...
  • Commented on Why AIs Won't Ascend in the Blink of an Eye - Some Math
    I have yet to see any area of research where progress is represented by a curve with smooth first derivative ;) Still, if producing AI was easy as the blue line, Singularity would have already happened. The closest process (in...
  • Commented on PSA: Why there won't be a third book in the Halting State trilogy
    The actual backdoor in elliptic curves math looks a lot funnier to me than breaking the keys using quantum computers. Anyway, QC isn't a magic wand, and there are many problems where it provides only sqrt(N) advantage. I have even...
  • Commented on The revolution will not be hand-stitched
    As a (possibly overconfident) material chemist I am not quite sure that the 3D printing of fibers can be so easily achieved. You cannot create a fiber by laying voxels of any material together, and creating a fiber from individual...
  • Commented on Why Microsoft Word must Die
    @ spacelem Zotero has an implentation of reference which can be ported (with some limitations) between LibreOffice and Word. But beware: two behemoths have many other incompatible features. In any case, all comes down to people using tools, not the...
  • Commented on Why Microsoft Word must Die
    @ spacelem Off-topic, but look up "Zotero". As a (very minor) contributor to the project I must say that it is currently a very good citation manager....
  • Commented on Why Microsoft Word must Die
    To me, all hate talk around Word is similar to the hate talk around Perl. You have a tool, which grew from simple and understandable by any user to one encompassing all possible uses, a Gatling gun on tracks shooting...
  • Commented on Marking time, more thoughts
    After I read the phrase "One that has been widely used is the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), which adjusts expenditure in 26 ways to account for social and environmental costs...." I understand that I do not want to discuss anything...
  • Commented on Crib Sheet: Saturn's Children
    No, there is no convincing VR-sex in Gibson's Neuromancer world, 'cos it costs very much to model tactile senses. The hacker ("cowboy") hero of Neuromancer is trapped in such simulation at some point, but for some time does not believe...
  • Commented on Crib Sheet: Saturn's Children
    In Gibson's world it is quite the opposite. The chipped prostitutes have a very detached view of the processes they participate in ("distant supernova explosions" for regular sex and "bad dreams" for things involving blood and murder). In any case...
  • Commented on Crib Sheet: Saturn's Children
    Well, if you have slaves with human intelligence, they ARE capable of rebelling. This is even discussed in Saturn's Children - after all, the template-matriach of Freya DID indeed kill her master....
  • Commented on Crib Sheet: Saturn's Children
    My main objection concerning the content of Saturn's children was the point that in this future nobody EVER gave a "robot" rights equal to a "fleshy" human. Most slave societies had a form of granting freedom to their slaves—it is...
  • Commented on Lies, damned lies, and popular beliefs
    Well most people are woefully misinformed on most scientific questions. Danger of dihydrogen monoxide anyone? Ok, this is American. But still... And good knowledge of statistics is hard. You just cannot deduce such knowledge from watching TV and reading newspapers,...
  • Commented on The language of alienation
    Well, my favorite 2012 headline of this kind, utterly incomprehensible even 5 years ago, is "Moscow Police Clear 'Occupy Abai' Encampment" 10 years ago there were neither Occupy movements nor police in Russia (police was called Militia), and Abai is...
  • Commented on Minor hiccup
    And non-classic Russian SF just never gets translated. Which is a shame, because it means that you never will be able to read the book "Look into the Monsters' Eyes", by Lazarchuk and Uspensky, which is basically a story set...
  • Commented on Minor hiccup
    Ever since reading the Fuller Memorandum I wanted to ask you where from did you learn about Baron von Ungern-Sternberg? I am Russian, and I have read his fascinating biography "Tsar of the desert" /Самодержец пустыни/ since it was quite...
  • Commented on PSA: Ignore the news
    Well, it is all a bit more complicated. The visa application requires you to describe your education in detail. And the university I have attended has a faculty which is considered the best place in Asia to study explosives and...
  • Commented on PSA: Ignore the news
    I am Caucasian and atheist, but I am a PhD in chemistry going to a conference. And believe it or not, the USA visa application form has a special question for us: "do you have any education or skills in...
  • Commented on PSA: Ignore the news
    While it is EXTREMELY obvious that, erm, Russians have nothing to do with this act, I am sure I will meet unusually cold welcome upon arrival in Dulles International from Sheremetyevo airport this Thursday. And I feel very sorry that...
  • Commented on The permanent revolution
    @ 65 & 66, Jocelyn Ireson-Paine The filter, skillet, kettle, and drill are useful, but if thrown back 30 years or whatever to a house without them, would it take you significantly longer to do your cooking and DIY? Since...
  • Commented on The permanent revolution
    @ 48 Jocelyn Ireson-Paine Well, I am fairly sure that the current generation of washing powders is both much more efficient and cheaper to produce than one used 75 years ago. I also happen to use a reverse-osmosis filter and,...
  • Commented on The permanent revolution
    @ 42, Greg. Tingey It seems that the main disagreement between our points of view (as expressed in the comments here) is the definition of the scientific term "Standard Model". Not going into fine details, "my" definition is simply more...
  • Commented on The permanent revolution
    @ 34, Greg. Tingey Yes, as far as I know, the Standard Model does not contradict any experimental results which can be derived from it. And recent years has shown one more such result. Of course, SM does not cover...
  • Commented on The permanent revolution
    As a scientist (physical/computational chemist) I must agree that the general development of science seems to slow down. It is mainly due to the fact that so much information about the world around us has been already established (our vision...
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