DavidK44

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• Commented on Decision Fatigue
  And the country's name is Ukraine, not the Ukraine. The latter is usually used by Russia and Russian-affiliated to emphasize their claim to the land as part of a larger 'Russian dominion', in much the same way mainland China views...
• Commented on Too Many Thoughts About Genre
  It all comes down to engagement by the reader - if the writer can get the reader to commit to the characters and their desires, then that engagement will carry everything forward, no matter the genre (or sub-genre). For most...
• Commented on Normal service will be resumed eventually
  My condolences. We lost my father-in-law a month ago after a long decline. Everyone faces these losses in life, but all of our paths through the pain are unique despite the universality of the experience. May your path be as...
• Commented on PSA: Please don't nominate the Laundry Files for a Best Series Hugo Award (this year)
  This post raises the issue that's been bugging me a bit about this new award - when exactly should a series that is ongoing be nominated? Another example that comes to mind for me is Steven Brust's Taltos series. He...
• Commented on Houston: what are the long-term consequences?
  Houston in 2017 may be history repeating itself - the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 (prior to the hurricane-naming procedure) completely devastated Galveston, with storm surges that completely over-washed the island and killed 6-8K people. It also completely rewrote the power...
• Commented on The internet of decay
  Reasonably designed LED and fluorescent lights have a flicker rate that's fast enough to be outside the detectable range, but faults can result in a consciously detectable or subconsciously detectable flicker. Infect IoT lights with malware that simulates such faults,...
• Commented on Cytological Utopia and the rapture of the eukaryotes
  Sure, the first simulation is likely to be as exact a reproduction of the original as possible, to verify that your simulation-generating process doesn't itself introduce novel elements. After that, if you are going to make more simulations, you'll do...
• Commented on Cytological Utopia and the rapture of the eukaryotes
  The first time I encountered the idea of the world being a simulation, it immediately occurred to me (and I'm sure that I'm not unique in this thought) that one does not run a simulation in order to identically recreate...
• Commented on Follow the money: Apple vs. the FBI
  "I see this as the first serious adversarial round of a technical attack/defense hardware arms race." I agree, and I suspect that Apple is not as concerned about the hard-but-eventually-crackable level as it is about easy exploits that could arise...
• Commented on Follow the money: Apple vs. the FBI
  I don't see how it does anything but benefit the FBI to make this claim, even if it isn't true. By claiming they've hacked the phone, they avoid a potentially crippling loss in court that sets a legal precedent that...
• Commented on Follow the money: Apple vs. the FBI
  Many of the arguments here and elsewhere take as granted the idea that the FBI actually did crack the iOS8 security running on the iPhone 5c. But why are we so willing to believe that to be the case? Lots...
• Commented on Long range forecast
  When I first read the reports about the much greater than expected water flows under the Greenland ice, the first thought I had was that a water layer sandwiched between two sheets makes for a near-perfect lubricant. I don't know...
• Commented on Science-fictional shibboleths
  For a reader, a higher level of expertise in a subject will likely result in a lower threshold of disbelief suspension. If you know more about a subject, it's harder to ignore the stuff that doesn't fit your knowledge base....
• Commented on The Biggest Little SF Publisher you never heard of pulls on the jackboots
  well no, not really...
• Commented on The Biggest Little SF Publisher you never heard of pulls on the jackboots
  I've been reading many of the posts on this topic, both here and on other blogs. I'm in agreement with the broad consensus that slates are a horrid concept with respect to the Hugo Award, and have no sympathy for...