Erik V. Olson

Erik V. Olson

  • Commented on Dude, you broke the future!
    But in terms of time it probably costs me the equivalent of 20% of my writing revenue, so probably pushing over £10,000 a year in opportunity costs. Yay, someone pricing their time correctly! Bear in mind a lot of patches...
  • Commented on Houston: what are the long-term consequences?
    Houston and its suburbs have a population of 2.303 million persons. No. The City of Houston itself is the 4th largest city in the US after NYC, LA and Chicago. The defined Metro Status area (Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land,TX) is 6.772...
  • Commented on Book day!
    (And why should Bob be familiar with foreign armed forces?) Heck, why should he be particularly familiar with UK forces? He entered the Laundry as a hacker who'd poked the wrong memory location in reality. He's worked with one particular...
  • Commented on Book day!
    That's sort of a different usage, akin to "Yes! Yes! Yes!" at something happening that you want to happen. I think a better example is "No No! Don't do that!" and "Yes yes!" in that sense (an enhanced affirmative) isn't...
  • Commented on Crib Sheet: The Nightmare Stacks
    If the incursion had happened in, say, Death Valley, the USA might have found it considerably harder to muster up a timely response (before the unrefrigerated slaves intended to feed the Alfär magi all died of heat stroke, that is)....
  • Commented on The sudden eruption of news
    Apropos of the wind generator thread, on the way to the airport in St. Louis this morning, I saw a train loaded with wind generator blades. They were on 89' (27m) Flatbeds, which is the longest you can run on...
  • Commented on We get mail (contd.)
    The US Army fielded a fully-mechanised force on its entry to the European theatre in 1942, even though Patton was a Cavalry enthusiast... Cavalry officer, no less, designed the Model 1913 Cavalry Saber. Pershing almost transferred him to the Infantry...
  • Commented on Popcorn Time
    After the Chicago fire, 1871, a lot of that city was rebuilt by developers from Philly... and they used the same pattern. Not true. The 8 blocks to a mile, half blocks on the NS, major streets every half...
  • Commented on Popcorn Time
    It's the "Conservative and Unionist Party" name again. And Mayhem not having the twisted imagination to see how she could make it fly and pass the blame to somebody else. True. I'm just used to parties that will do whatever...
  • Commented on Popcorn Time
    Scotland out of the UK takes 50+ reliably Not Tory votes out of the pool? I'm kind of surprised May isn't actively trying to throw Scotland out of the UK....
  • Commented on The internet of decay
    Mediocre programmers are only employed because of the shortage of better programmers. Mediocre and bad programmers are employed because they are vastly cheaper than good programmers, and the software and hardware industries have made it so they're not responsible for...
  • Commented on The internet of decay
    Incidentally how many people posting to this site do not have a collection of old cables for now obsolete ports? I have done a major dethatching in the last year, and most of them are now gone. With infinite storage...
  • Commented on The internet of decay
    Electric cars aren't silent; a big component of auto noise is from the tyres, plus wind noise. (Source: have heard a few Teslas.) The problem isn't an electric car on the highway, the problem is an electric car at a...
  • Commented on Theme, Fiction, and Empire Games
    If you want to be timely and subversive, make Madam President be Tammy Duckworth. Second. She lost her legs flying a UH-60 when her side of the bird took an RPG. My favorite story from her -- that is, told...
  • Commented on And the Rabid Nazi Raccoons shall inherit the Earth
    it's more about how every cyclone or tropical storm is powered up by a thermal gradient, and the heat source — the surface — is going to be 10-30% hotter than it was a couple of centuries earlier. Interestingly enough,...
  • Commented on Things Can Only Get Better! (Part 1)
    >How much nuke could you fit into a standard shipping container? Probably a couple of gigawatts, thermal Mod cooling. Easy enough on a ship, you're soaking in coolant. But on a container that needs to move around? Usual rule of...
  • Commented on Things Can Only Get Better! (Part 1)
    If Savannah had been four times the capacity and designed around TEUs it might have been another story entirely. The thing is that the Savannah would have to be built to last to pay off, and that's very much not...
  • Commented on Things Can Only Get Better! (Part 1)
    A Constitutional Amendment DOES require 2/3 in both houses of Congress There are two ways to propose amendments, and two ways to ratify them. To propose an amendment for formal ratification, you can either... 1) Get 2/3rds supermajority votes of...
  • Commented on Things Can Only Get Better! (Part 1)
    some place where it never goes above 30 C getting a sustained 35 C heat wave kills people. Those thinking this is a joke? Chicago, USA, 1995.. Four days of unusually hot and humid heat over the northern Midwest, highs...
  • Commented on Facts of Life and Death
    A large percentage of the UK isn't suitable for crop, esp. high production crops. Between terrain and sunlight, much of the West, Ireland and Scotland are very hilly. Thus, livestock, which has much less problem climbing hills than a combine....
  • Commented on Reality is broken
    Someone just texted me that their fave nickname for His Trumpness is "Mein Furor," but I think Farage is far more successful than Trump will ever be. Really, Occam's Razor says Trump is a Democratic operative....
  • Commented on Reality is broken
    Since the 1930s I think.......
  • Commented on Reality is broken
    So, what you're saying is Nigel Farage is such a catastrophic fuckup that he managed to completely hash up two different universes? I can see that....
  • Commented on The iron law of development
    Nuclear subs are never totally silent because reactors are hot; even when they're not actively generating steam they need to run pumps to circulate coolant through the reactor core lest they melt. There's some evidence that the SSBN-720s can run...
  • Commented on Science-fictional shibboleths
    current full-tech capability is caseless ammo and cobalt alloy barrels and no one is deploying those One of the biggest issues with caseless ammo is that it turns out a significant amount of the heat from firing is soaked into...
  • Commented on The Scottish Political Singularity, Act Two
    There are certainly questions about how stable this would be, but the fixed term parliament act or whatever it's called changed the rules for votes of no confidence Not true, and was never true. A vote of no confidence that...
Subscribe to feed Recent Actions from Erik V. Olson

Following

Not following anyone

Specials

Merchandise

About This Page

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.

Propaganda