SpeakerToManagers

Website: Rumblingsfromthespeaker.blogspot.com

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Commented on The ends of education
I retired from professional software development 14 years ago, but I still get a laugh out of the monthly news articles about which computer languages a dev should know to make the most money. In my experience the answer is...
Commented on The ends of education
Rishi Sunak (the richest MP in parliament, a former Goldman Sachs employee and hedge-fund manager who married a billionaire) Seems like overkill to me. But then as we all know, money goes to money....
Commented on Deaths and Deadlines
Holy shit, what a string of disasters! I hope to hell thats the end of it and you can put your life back together now. With luck, in a couple of years you’ll be back on schedule and able to...
Commented on Book day!
"Vapire" is an interesting typo. So would that be someone who steals hits off everyone else's e-cigs, or a real nasty who inhales life force from their victims?...
Commented on Book day!
Well, crap, it's still Monday here, and Barnes and Nobbled won't even ship my pre-ordered hardback until Tuesday. After that it will take a week to get to me. All that being true, I will take any spoilers as a...
Commented on Empire Games
Link to my 5-star review of Empire Games on Amazon....
Commented on Empire Games
I reread the first 3 books in the omnibus form last fall, so I'm ready for Empire Games. UPS tracking shows it's arrived on this side of the continent; I'm hoping to have it in my hands by Thursday. Coincidentally,...
Commented on Gratuitous Self-Promotion: the US West Coast Remix
If you've not been to the Green Dragon before, I highly recommend it. A very good selection of local beers & ales, & the food is good. I'll try to be there Tuesday night....
Commented on Upcoming appearances, Amsterdam, Seattle and Spokane
No Portland this year? sob oh, well, have fun in Spokane & Seattle....
Commented on Any Sufficiently Advanced Technology Is Indistinguishable From Cthulhu
Yep, this is another aspect of the categorization problem: any set of categories imposed on a universe of discourse is not useful in describing the real world beyond a certain level of precision, and it becomes less useful more quickly...
Commented on Any Sufficiently Advanced Technology Is Indistinguishable From Cthulhu
Sounds like grad school....
Commented on Any Sufficiently Advanced Technology Is Indistinguishable From Cthulhu
The fundamental problem for humans in a universe very much bigger and more complex than ourselves is that we don't understand it now, and don't know for sure that we can. So if we meet near-godlike beings, we can't tell...
Commented on Any Sufficiently Advanced Technology Is Indistinguishable From Cthulhu
This sounds similar to a principle I came up with some years ago while working in the computer industry:Any sufficiently unreliable technology is indistinguishable from superstition.This principle supports the well-known Tech Support MaximsTo restore proper operation to a complex device,...
Commented on Second childhood?
Hmm ... a couple of comics I hadn't heard of; need to go check them out. Here are a few that haven't been mentioned yet. Dicebox by Jenn Manley Lee. A story about 2 itinerant workers in an interstellar post-scarcity...

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JohnS commented on The ends of education
paws4thot @ 997: Your NX Transport photo reminds me of the method used by BR Motorail until 1995 (aside from loading gauge). To me it looked like a way to make bulk delivery of new automobiles from manufacturing plants to regional distributions centers. It's not designed for individuals to use the way the EuroTunnel is. I looked into shipping my Jeep out to Arizona, thinking I might somehow reduct the carbon footprint of such a trip. I have a good friend in Phoenix and I would use his location as a hub for excursions to various National Parks in the...
ilya187 commented on The ends of education
https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2021-12-28/poll-a-third-of-americans-question-legitimacy-of-biden-victory-nearly-a-year-since-jan-6 A new University of Massachusetts Amherst poll released Tuesday highlights how partisanship has hardened in the year since the deadly Jan. 6 attack and the stark breakdown on how Democrats and Republicans view that day and the results of last November’s presidential race. Fifty-eight percent of respondents surveyed across the country believe Biden’s victory was legitimate, while 33% contend it was illegitimate – numbers that have held steady since the university’s last poll on the subject in April. Of Republicans polled, an overwhelming majority of them – 71% – still contest the 2020 election results. Only 21% believe Biden’s...
paws4thot commented on The ends of education
998 - We are in agreement then, at least other than issues of loading gauge, which we may as well ignore unless we're prepared to enlarge it and accept that whilst $line is being upgauged it will effectively still be the smaller gauge. 1000 - Nor in the UK. In fact the old Southern Railway (Grouping era company) used 3rd rail to electrify heavy rail lines from London to the South coast. That said, the rest of the UK does use pantograph + catenary electrification through tunnels, and so does most of Western Europe....
NecroMoz: deanimator of the undead commented on The ends of education
So we should just forget thinking about any possible solution that can't be completed yesterday? No, but we should build one before we commit to building a thousand of them. Doesn't matter whether that's fidget spinners or mars bases. You might think 25kV third rail systems are a good idea, but I don't have enough information to say. I am certain, though, that 500V DC third rail systems will not work for dozens of wagons per segment running short hops with the consequent high accelerations (acceleration = power). I'm not aware of a high speed rail system using third rail...
DeMarquis commented on The ends of education
Sure, but, a lot depends on how strongly they believe it. Most of that 38% do not believe that Biden stole the election very strongly--it's mostly a way to vent anger at the loss of employment security, and cultural privilege. Most of them would forget about it if they thought that their circumstances were changing for the better. The problem being that the Democrats know these people would never vote for them, and the Trump Republicans want to keep them angry. The only people who can push this back are Establishment Republicans, and for that to happen the Trumpists have...

Responses to Comments from SpeakerToManagers

Common Misconceptions About Publishing—a series of essays about the industry I work in.
How I Got Here In The End —my non-writing autobiography, or what I did before becoming a full-time writer.
Unwirer—an experiment in weblog mediated collaborative fiction.
Shaping the Future—a talk I gave on the social implications of Moore's Law.
Japan: first impressions — or, what I did on my holidays
Inside the MIT Media Lab—what it’s like to spend a day wandering around the Media Lab.
The High Frontier, Redux — space colonization: feasible or futile?
“Nothing like this will be built again”—inside a nuclear reactor complex.
Old blog—2003-2006 (RIP)

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