keithmasterson@yahoo.com

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• Commented on Crawling from the wreckage
  "In comparison with the global political picture, my personal 2018 was all butterflies and rainbows." Good news, everyone! Charlie's emotional slump is only temporary. Evidence is found in the above statement, displaying the objectivity, perspective and sense of proportionality which...
• Commented on Peak Brexit
  Anyone have an explanation for why the U.N. hasn't gotten more agressive about climate change remediation? Lately I've been reading the Expanse series (recommendation from O.G.H. proudly displayed on front cover blurb), and much like Liu Cixin's trilogy it features...
• Commented on Peak Brexit
  Either that or the city from Blade Runner. No, just a thought experiment to gauge the realism of the 70 trillion figure. My original skepticism was based on the unlikely comparison by which a median income British family of five...
• Commented on Peak Brexit
  Half a billion, wikipedia says as of 2013 its construction cost was 435 million pounds. But the Shard has a preponderance of corporate offices as tenants. Charlie's number said 70 trillion for residential property, you could pay for 160,000 Shards...
• Commented on Peak Brexit
  " the UK housing stock has an estimated net real estate value of £70Tn," That seems overstated, 70 trillion divided by the U.K. population works out to around a million dollars for every man, woman and child, say maybe three...
• Commented on Peak Brexit
  I googled the two terms Krugman and Walmart together but only found an unrelated article from 2015. Do you happen to recall his title for the piece or other details I could use to narrow the search?...
• Commented on Typo Hunt: The Labyrinth Index
  @81 posts a link showing it, seemed kind of heavy on the grease. I suspect that within ten minutes I'd be 'poutine' to beat the band, not that that's necessarily a deal breaker if it tastes decent. Certainly the rice/corn/bean/spinach/onion/chicken...
• Commented on Typo Hunt: The Labyrinth Index
  U.S.hardcover p.197 halfway down, "the prospect of a Tupolev 160 dropping round for poutine is less preposterous than the truth." Unclear if you meant for routine or for Putin, either might fit....
• Commented on Typo Hunt: The Labyrinth Index
  typo on US hardcover page 100 just below mid-page: "the heads of a maintenance crew member just visible in the flight deck" could have been intended as "the head of a maintenance crew member" or "the heads of maintenance crew...
• Commented on Typo Hunt: The Labyrinth Index
  U.S. hardcover page 86 top line: "The elven waifu with fangs looks at me properly for the first time" I assume you meant elven WAIF. On the off chance waifu might be hentai comics slang I checked a Chinese dictionary...
• Commented on Do my Homework
  "wouldn't Jeff Bezos possibly object to parts" Some parts, yes. Still, I think Bezos would be pleased as punch to see a competitor like Matrix Mart under federal investigation, and surprised and delighted by the government's ensuing order to break...
• Commented on Do my Homework
  "2. If you can posit a completely new post-late-capitalist system that isn’t governed by either a version of the communist religion ( or any other religion ) & is not a dystopian collapse … then you deserve both the Economics...
• Commented on Dread of Heinleinism
  Memory does fail, sometimes spectacularly. Good thing eyewitness testimony gets so rigorously cross examined in court....
• Commented on Dread of Heinleinism
  "Why the ongoing critique of Heinlein?" or just ask why is he still relevant. After enjoying hundreds of hours playing Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas, I finally got curious about the origins of this hugely popular videogame series. Wikimedia...
• Commented on Taxonomy of story, or, why murder?
  d. So, people giving their lives to save others doesn't happen, eh? Happens all the time, in emergencies, wars, disasters, real altruistic heroism and self sacrifice aren't even that uncommon. I think it's built in to our instinctive nature, and...
• Commented on Taxonomy of story, or, why murder?
  "So, this book—why's it got to be about a murder?" While it's true that murder is hugely attention getting by virtue of its sheer rarity in everyday existence, that doesn't mean it's necessarily contrived or manipulative if an author features...
• Commented on Sitrep
  [3a] Let's not talk about "CSI: Cyber". Tried Netflix and the local library system for Derrick, S.O.K.O. and Im Angesicht des V.,no luck. But they had dvd & streaming of Engrenages first season, proved to be a real eye opener...
• Commented on Sitrep
  "Superpower? To spread enlightenment and universal compassion wherever I went, in at least a ten mile radius (to deal with potential snipers). After all, if everybody around me, including the supervillains, is overwhelmed by feelings of loving kindness for all...
• Commented on That sinking feeling
  "that's the question: do you think we should stay in the world we evolved in, or should we build a world that can take advantage of us despite whatever we do? I'm for the first choice. You?" Oh sure, I'll...
• Commented on Happy 21st Century!
  Seconded....will the motion carry?...all in favor say aye....opposed say nay...I move we table reading of the minutes....any old business...new business?...time to adjourn yet?......
• Commented on Not dead but dreaming
  Well that cracked me up, laughed so hard the pollen in the air threw me into a coughing fit. On the theme of Not Dead But Dreaming, attentions of Moz and Gasdive seem to be fully engaged elsewhere, tough winter...
• Commented on On hold
  "Hate to say it but Dennet and so on are... dinosaurs." I don't think that's true at all, the last chapter of Pinker's latest has a strong recommendation for Dennet along with Dawkins and Sam Harris as go-to guys for...
• Commented on On hold
  Or from an observer's hindsight view, fictional people are as real as the nonfiction ones, since all that either kind leave behind themselves in the realm of consciousness, aside from physical artifacts, is a quantity of information. Such info-dumps would...
• Commented on Server upgrade coming
  Yup, heartland of the prairie. Discounters here used to stack skids of canning jars in their patio sections through the garden season, and always featured little displays of pickling salt nearby. At long last I understand why they bothered with...
• Commented on Server upgrade coming
  Surprising to see how many in the above thread report using Chrome with win7, here I thought I was being a stingy, foot-dragging curmudgeon about sticking with my 2008 model. Possibly ten years ago was when everything people could imagine...
• Commented on Solarpunk rising, or how to turn boring bureaucratic meetings into creative fodder
  "We do minimize our resource demands, sort of. Look, for instance, at how much you can store on a small block of dirty silicon, rather than a shelf of cellulose fibers. " Pinker's latest, "Enlightenment Now" makes a related point,...
• Commented on The Nakamoto Variations
  I got a laugh out of the European response, it was like, oh you want to do something like that, here's how you do it oh unworthy adversary- they threatened added tariffs on bourbon exports (Mitch McConnel's state of Kentucky),...
• Commented on The Nakamoto Variations
  "You're saying Musk==Satoshi?" Now that I'm fortified with an evening's perusal of the David Deutsch opus 'Fabric of Reality', I can state with confidence that yes, he is. Fortunately his only interaction with our part of the multiverse would be...
• Commented on The Nakamoto Variations
  Before Elon Musk turned over a Tesla roadster for launch into solar orbit, he got in on the passenger side and fiddled with a dashboard USB port to the sound system, inserting a thumb drive that looked like it might...
• Commented on The Nakamoto Variations
  "What are the odds that the off-shoring/money laundering is a key driver of neo-nationalism" If a day arrives that big cuts in Medicare and Social Security are required to lighten the federal debt burden, that's when voters command the sovereign...