Boyd Nation

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• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  For whatever it's worth, I get that behavior on both AT&T uVerse service (not fiber here yet, due to fallout from the Civil Rights Era [that's actually true, but it's a story for another day]) and on AT&T cellular service....
• Commented on Strong and Stable!
  I'll poke my head above the trench wall on a couple of topics. I have an MBA to go with my BS and CS in computer science. While there were some secondary career advancement goals involved in deciding to get...
• Commented on An update on the revolutionary experiment
  Paul, if this is actually keeping you up at night, this might help: Spare Transformer Equipment Program It's not a solved problem, necessarily, but it's an old one, and we're probably at the state where we're talking about nation-state levels...
• Commented on Empire Games (and Merchant Princes): the inevitable spoiler thread!
  As a data point on the number of US citizens with security clearances, I'm probably a reasonable example of the distinction between someone in intelligence and someone with a clearance. I've spent the last quarter century working in operational cyber...
• Commented on Invisible Sun: Themes and Nightmares
  The density of TLA Agencies in the DC area does have a big impact I think. Where else can you sit in a traffic jam and see, on the back of a bus, an advert for TS/Sci staff. Took...
• Commented on A death in the Firm
  Then there's the whole infowar/cyberwar angle, and apparently that's going on at a low level already. It's not a "yapping chihuahuas of cyberwar" scenario, it's that major institutions are getting attacked daily, and every once in a while one...
• Commented on Countdown to Crazy
  Unfortunately the UK does not have an electricity-rich country up close to it. So, the Danish solution is not practical for the UK. It depends on how close close is, I think; I get right at 1200km from nearest...
• Commented on Countdown to Crazy
  Sadly, no, it looks very unlikely at this point that the Democrats can get higher than 49 in the Senate, and even that would require an unlikely win in a runoff in Georgia in January. Getting to 50 would require...
• Commented on Dead plots
  I think this ("normal people sometimes end up fighting for evil governments") is more the tack taken in Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse books with "Vampire Bill" Compton. Compton was a typical Louisianian of moderate means, if I remember right from...
• Commented on No comment necessary
  I suppose this is as good a time as any to mention that my earliest specific memory of OGH is from an alt.peeves/alt.tasteless crosspost back when he was an IT guy who had committed fiction but not yet sold any...
• Commented on "It'll all be over by Christmas" (Part 2)
  While not exactly granting your premise - I suspect it's more a case that being willing to elect a female head of state matches well with a mindset that also allows for support of good virus control behavior as a...
• Commented on The obligatory general election discussion post
  Our flight experience going into Dubai was slightly different, and I'll share it because the contrast may be illustrative of varying risk profiles. On our outbound journey, we went in from Frankfurt, and our Lufthansa flight took a pronounced hook...
• Commented on Whoops Apocalypse!
  Since both sides are nicely wrong here but are both related to the truth, a little clarification: John Oliver's show Last Week Tonight is broadcast on Sky. However, one of his occasional sources of humor is John Bercow, and he...
• Commented on Lessons learned: writing really long fiction
  Memphis sits on the site of a high bluff, which is easy to defend - there was a population and trade center there at least 500 years before De Soto wandered through. It sits at the north end of the...
• Commented on Someone please cancel 2019 already?
  There's a reason that Q ratings are, essentially, a percentage of people who have heard of you. Since we've already had a Doonesbury reference, I'll point out that "Give Those Nymphs Some Hooters" was published in 1989, and Trudeau didn't...
• Commented on Houston: what are the long-term consequences?
  How salvageable are typical American (largely timber and wallboard) homes after total submergence? Because this is looking like a trillion dollar real estate bill to me on top of the $1.5Bn/day GDP loss while this event is ongoing. I'm...
• Commented on Paging Agent 007
  They (the Canadians) rely on geography rather than political borders, mostly. Quebec has its own DC-connected-only grid, Texas-style, and the Maritimes are a bit of a mess, but everything from Ontario west just connects to whatever's below it. There's a...
• Commented on Competition Time!
  Employee solved Traveling Salesman Problem in support of daughter's Girl Scout cookie sales campaign, resulting in sales of over 10,000 boxes but violating ministry policies on use of office computing equipment for personal business, higher level computational functions, and summoning...