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• Commented on Do my Laundry
  Was the bit in The Fuller Memorandum when something woke up in ensign Burdokovskii's body and asked what year it was intended as a hint of mental time travel? If it was, it's another loose end to be tidied up....
• Commented on Do my Laundry
  I keep reading words from the ends inwards and consequently thinking people are talking about pterodactylism in cats. Winged cats! No bird is safe anywhere. Able to knock ornaments off even higher shelves for a more satisfying crash. Access to...
• Commented on Do my Laundry
  Polydactylism in cats isn't necessarily significant. There are thumbs and there are opposable thumbs, which give the fine manipulation control. Without them, even polydactyl cats can't operate a can opener and there is still a reason for them to keep...
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  Come to think of it, why does SF normally focus on the high and mighty elites (a star fleet captain, John Scalzi did the lowly and doomed star fleet minions thing in Redshirts....
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  Ah "sausages" in Scotland, did you find Lorne Sauasge - also called "Square Slice"? Delicious & probably bad for you ... No probably about it. It's Scottish cuisine. It is going to be bad for you. Available at the works...
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  A couple of things to think about with colonization stories. The big one is that European colonization is a really problematic model. In all cases in the last 500 years, conquerors took lands that had been settled for over 10,000...
• Commented on Shrinking the world
  Yes, but don't believe that it wasn't a problem for the super-rich. They tended to live in large, stone-built near-castles with large rooms, and those do NOT heat well with open fires. Comfort always took second place to conspicuous displays...
• Commented on Shrinking the world
  Wouldn't it be easier to just use a mosquito net? We used them in Iraq and I bought a good one from Amazon after we got home; works great with the four poster (I think that's what the four posts...
• Commented on Shrinking the world
  The railway builders would also use the canal to help in the construction, allowing easy movement of material. In the Standedge tunnel example you linked to, the spoil digging the railway tunnels was dropped straight in to canal boats in...
• Commented on Shrinking the world
  Were Roman roads and roadways reused and upgraded by the improved British roads of the 17th - 19th centuries? The alignment often carried on being used. Many Roman settlements carried on after the empire left and the direct routes between...
• Commented on Fuck the Monarchy
  And I didn't even spot the actual typo!...
• Commented on Fuck the Monarchy
  An archaic form, rather than a typo. Holiday, being derived from holy day (hāligdæg in old English). A day off from serfing in the fields used to be associated with a religious festival of some sort....
• Commented on Fuck the Monarchy
  Hence Terry Pratchett making the words to the second verse of the Ankh Moorpork anthem consist of "ner ner ner ner", except for the last line, since only some one very dodgy actually remembers beyond the first verse of their...
• Commented on Fuck the Monarchy
  You can also have a ceremonial head of state that isn't alive. There is the Eternal President of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, Kim Il Sung. Makes it a bit awkward to bring them out to shake hands with...
• Commented on WTF
  The most famous UK wallaby related location is of course 62 West Wallaby Street....
• Commented on WTF
  I'd heard that the wallaby colony around the Staffordshire Roaches were wiped out by another cold winter in '97, but a quick search of newspaper and BBC reports just now suggests more recent sightings. I've kept an eye out when...
• Commented on WTF
  There are further opportunities that the BBB do not appear to be exploiting that are available to the suitably ethically challenged. Relic futures, or living people, as they are sometimes called. Purchase of and trading in options on a person...
• Commented on WTF
  A disruptive business, able to revitalise the relic industry in territories lost by the Catholic church since the reformation. Definitely not NFT's, but "decentralized ownership network technology, we we are able to keep a publicly held, real time verifiable record...
• Commented on Decision Fatigue
  Good point. A private UK prison isn't a direct equivalent of a private US prison (yet) and I'm guessing there is a fair bit variety between different private providers in the US. The trend towards pile 'em high and using...
• Commented on Decision Fatigue
  "apparently the plan is not divert high risk teenagers from the streets into reading in libraries and additional training/education/athletics but rather be ready to arrest them upon committing crimes... does the UK have private prisons like the USA?" Yes they...
• Commented on Decision Fatigue
  "In the UK, a lot of cycle lanes are a lot narrower than that, with no inner lane to move into. There is no legal requirement to make a cycle lane fit for purpose, or even wide enough for a...
• Commented on Decision Fatigue
  "If your EV is charged by a coal or natgas burning power plant, what have you gained environmentally?" A noticable amount. In the UK, renewable, including nuclear, makes up to half of the grid electricity now. A huge increase over...
• Commented on Decision Fatigue
  "I use old school deep cycle lead/acid batteries for my offgrid solar and most off grid folks do. However the price gap between them and lithium is pretty narrow now, especially when you factor in the total lifetime and assume...
• Commented on Decision Fatigue
  You want a wafer fab with features a tiny fraction of the current size in five or six years time, then you need to start developing those technologies right now. You are describing improvements to existing technology, not the...
• Commented on Decision Fatigue
  Planning on technology that don't exist yet happens all the time. Unless you have a target of a non-existant technology that you want, you aren't going to get it. The semiconductor industry has been doing this for decades. You want...
• Commented on I can't even
  "In the UK, it's usually miles per gallon, but petrol is sold in litres and most people don't know how many litres there are in a gallon, let alone can convert values without electronic aid. While I can do both,...
• Commented on I can't even
  "In the US from WWII up into about 1980 cars just got huge. Watch any old TV show or movie from the 70s and you'll see the road covered by these land yachts." Yes, my perspective is very European. You'd...
• Commented on I can't even
  Crash safety, both perceived and real, is the main reason for car weights spiralling. Cars have got bigger in dimensions too, which adds weight, all else being equal. If you see a car designed in the '80's now, it looks...
• Commented on I can't even
  On vertical farming. This is very outside my area. How does the efficiency of photosynthesis in food crops per acre of agricultural land compare with using a vertical farm and the remaining acreage covered with PV panels (~20% efficient)? Feeding...
• Commented on I can't even
  "I have trouble seeing that region as having any 'old growth' forests at this time. Anything close to roads was logged decades ago, and is almost certainly second or third growth. The only true old growth remaining in the interior...