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• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  Cuban author Yoss explored a similar theme in his book "Planet for Rent". The book is a satire about the tourism industry and how it affects society and individuals in modern day Cuba. In the book, the alien federation forced...
• Commented on Fuck the Monarchy
  I have been reading the discussion and I'm a bit puzzled by the stance that republic must involve having a president. I realize that most (all?) republics these days have them, but it is by no means given. And if...
• Commented on Make Up a Guy
  Would each of the expert forklift operator instances know that they had just been copied? Because if they did, each of them would know that they were a copy, possibly destined for oblivion. That could cause significant contrarian behavior. Maybe...
• Commented on WTF
  So, Kevin McCarthy has effectively given the far right a veto over everything to pass through the US House of Representatives. Meanwhile, the Democrats have been laughing their butts off, while pointing at the disarray of the Republicans. My question...
• Commented on WTF
  There's evidence that progressives and regressives also differ on which question comes first. Progressives tend to "where do we want to go" and regressives prefer "how do we want to get there". But the two questions are closely coupled. Solving...
• Commented on WTF
  [i]It's fairly unclear whether Marx's proposed solution actually works, though. I'll also point out that the progressive solution may not work either, at least in the long term. It's a nasty problem.[/i] The problem is (at least) two fold: "Where...
• Commented on WTF
  If there a competent and moderate Republican in the House of Representatives, maybe the Democrats could use their votes to break the stalemate and get that person elected as Speaker?...
• Commented on Decision Fatigue
  As a non-native English speaker, it is new to me that "the Ukraine" is not a courteous way to refer to the country, but the Wikipedia article states that the newly sovereign Ukrainian government already made the point in the...
• Commented on Decision Fatigue
  "What would happen if Scotland ignored the court and held a referendum anyway? And if it went the way you suggest (leave)?" We saw one option in Spain where the central government sent in the police to shut town the...
• Commented on Omicron
  Here in Denmark (population 5.8 mil) we carry out roughly 300,000 - 400,000 tests per day where all positive tests get sequenced. The first omicron case was detected on 22nd of November. Now, just over two weeks later, we have...
• Commented on Fossil fuels are dead (and here's why)
  The practical side of things tend to be forgotten but is crucial for our civilization. How do you build a mine that does not collapse? What are the signs of an imminent collapse? If the metal workers could not build...
• Commented on Fossil fuels are dead (and here's why)
  Has anyone in Denmark considered building their next wind turbine array off the Faroes? I think that the Next Big Thing is building on Dogger Bank. The Faroe Islands may be a good resource for wind power, but that would...
• Commented on Fossil fuels are dead (and here's why)
  Hearsay account - You also have the issue of people putting their heating on full "because it's free" and then also opening all the windows "because it's so hot in this house". Just to clear up a possible misconception: District...
• Commented on Fossil fuels are dead (and here's why)
  And the next thing trotted out by people seeking to push "100% renewables in Europe soon" fairy tale is "synthetic hydrogen/ammonia/methane/whatever" also won't work because the round trip efficiency is less than 40%, so it is tremendously lossy (for comparison,...
• Commented on Fossil fuels are dead (and here's why)
  No nuclear operator pays insurance. I think in the USA there's a figleaf amount paid into a fund, but it wouldn't come close to paying for the permanent abandonment of a city. The public picks up the risk. Another subsidy...
• Commented on Fossil fuels are dead (and here's why)
  Ah, I misunderstood you, then. As you wrote, most is verbal, because you need to start with verbal input if you want to be able to speak a language well. I suppose that you could enable the subtitles on the...
• Commented on Fossil fuels are dead (and here's why)
  The teacher uses a method called Comprehensible Input. I think similar channels exist for French, but I haven't checked them out, so I can't make any recommendation there....
• Commented on Fossil fuels are dead (and here's why)
  Someone mentioned watching foreign language TV news on the internet. I've tried that too, but I don't have enough rudimentary language to keep up, even with subtitles turned on. Unless you really can keep up, that is awful advice! When...
• Commented on Official Announcement: April Fools Day is Cancelled
  the anatomy of ladies (bone layout) means they throw and run a bit differently that the men. Now add to that that most don't play baseball (or football) while growing up and then you get really bad throwing motions unless...
• Commented on Official Announcement: April Fools Day is Cancelled
  Over the centuries, we have built significant resistance to influenza, partly because everyone has had it and partly because of selection pressure. I'm not convinced that influenza is less deadly than COVID 19 to a population that has not been...
• Commented on Official Announcement: April Fools Day is Cancelled
  I've been doing a style of qi gong which has the 70% rule as fundamental-- while you're learning, only do 70% of what you can, and much less than that if you're sick or injured. When running, I try very...
• Commented on Official Announcement: April Fools Day is Cancelled
  I was actually replying to that specific question. I probably should have added that roughly 0.3-0.5% test positive, and the vast majority being tested are not displaying any symptoms....
• Commented on Official Announcement: April Fools Day is Cancelled
  In this situation, if there's a common coronavirus mutant that rarely causes detectable illness and never puts people in the hospital, it's going to be hard to spot. Worse, going looking for it will be hard: how do you justify...
• Commented on A Quick Infomercial
  Second up, due out on September 28th in both the US and UK, is Invisible Sun, the last book in the Empire Games trilogy (and the last novel in the Merchant Princes setting). That little tidbit brought a smile to...
• Commented on What happens now?
  And yes, I was explicitly thinking of sie/Sie as an analog. The Germans have the courtesy of capitalizing one of the two to make the intent clear. And Sie is formal language for 2nd person singular, so the analogy is...
• Commented on What happens now?
  Thank you for the correction! Regarding grammatical gender of nouns, I suspect it is hard to determine the historical truth of baked in sexism of grammatical gender on the simple grounds that they (as far as I know) predate the...
• Commented on What happens now?
  How about just dropping the vowel at the end and just say "latin"? It has the advantage of also being pronounceable. As I remember Spanish, it is perfectly fine to say "una buen casa" instead of "una casa buena", though...
• Commented on Submarine coming through!
  They will fail to take power, and they will fail to stop Biden taking the presidency. But make no mistake. This is a major team-building moment for the US fascists, hardening their core. They are spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt....
• Commented on Submarine coming through!
  It takes more paperwork to certify the power-cable to a medical device, than it does to certify the software in it. No, it does not. EN62304 comes with significant requirements on "the paperwork" for software running on a medical device,...
• Commented on So you think you can be a reality TV producer
  This is a reality TV spoof by Dead Gentlemen Productions, and it would probably be really tricky to run, especially the second time around. But the idea is fun! Execution can be seen here, if interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvw0czLWrU4&list=PLYr8WAAV5TCWkePkWwMIRzEZo6g-hz_NZ House Rulez Nothing...