amalgamy

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• Commented on Crib Sheet: Season of Skulls
  Maybe someone who has some actual domain knowledge (i.e. not me) could critique the "Meltwater Pulse event" estimates from the related links and references to the wikipedia article Early Holocene sea level rise", including the articles on Meltwater pulse 1A...
• Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
  An update to Torment Nexus conference quotes in comment 1061, one of the end quotes included a policy analogue of the Murderbot governor module (cyborg brain-destroying control implant): Reinerman-Jones was ready with a follow up. “So if you do these...
• Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
  Also, see Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells...
• Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
  Sometimes the set of options which are legal and the options which are survivable do not overlap. Oh Well Anyway, deterrence (communicating costly consequences) exists as a potential alternative both to passive/pacifist surrender AND to preemptive criminal assault. Anecdote: between...
• Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
  More Torment Nexus news: Pentagon Scientists Discuss Cybernetic 'Super Soldiers' That Feel Nothing While Killing In Dystopian Presentation Early in the conversation, Walcutt talked about synthetic blood and replacing night vision goggles with eye drops (two things the Pentagon is...
• Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
  I agree, it's not good. However, obeying the law is another social structure Peace Treaty. If/when justice systems break down, or when people feel excluded from them, or when the mechanisms of a justice system are unavailable (e.g. US urban/rural...
• Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
  Also, not to advocate for premature aggression/violence However, violence can be a valid and moral part of communicating an emphatic "NO!" to someone else's aggressive behavior (e.g. timrowledge's self-defense experiences)....
• Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
  I like this statement (see source below): "Tolerance is not a moral absolute; it is a peace treaty." Pacifism tends to rely upon the moral restraint of the opposition - or on the threat that some Other Party might intervene...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  No, Hamas does not have the capability to destroy Israel. Nor do their patrons and allies. Quote was in reply to whether "wholesale genocide of the jews" remains as "Hamas' agenda". Yahya Sinwar is the head of the current Hamas...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  This current conflict is a rage-fueled mess, in which many people have been killed, and many more will be killed. Note: One of the current Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip since 2017, Yahya Sinwar, is quoted as advocating the...
• Commented on Announcement: 2nd edition Laundry Files RPG is coming
  An US Department of Energy description of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory begins with the following statement: "Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL) primary mission is research and development in support of national security. As a nuclear weapons design laboratory, LLNL has...
• Commented on Pass or Fail
  The United States also did more intrusive things than balloon overflights... e.g. Sneaking into Soviet territory to tap underwater communication cables. "We" Murricans resent other nations doing to us what "we" have done to them. Territorial incursions and aggressive aircraft...
• Commented on Place your bets
  Picture caption from an article linked to co-editor's wikipedia page Amy-Jill Levine meets with Pope Francis at the Vatican on March 27, 2019. He was presented with a copy of "The Jewish Annotated New Testament," co-edited by Levine and Marc...
• Commented on Place your bets
  Regarding Jewish commentary on the New Testament... An associate editor of The New Oxford Annotated Bible, 5th Edition also edited two editions of this compilation: The Jewish Annotated New Testament Description: "First published in 2011, The Jewish Annotated New Testament...
• Commented on An AI app walks into a writers room
  I read Moz's reply as a very short summary of the Krugman article you linked....
• Commented on Make Up a Guy
  tl;dr If one perceives their enemy credibly threatens to exterminate one's nation, then the mass murder of their population centers and infrastructure shifts from unthinkable (war) crime against humanity to "justifiable" vengeance. Nothing about that matches what I would consider...
• Commented on Make Up a Guy
  Personally, I would expect solar power plants on the ocean surface to be wrecked and sunk by storm-driven waves, but the BBC had an article this week on ocean-based "floatovoltaics" projects: Could floating solar farms survive out at sea? I...
• Commented on Make Up a Guy
  Note: The first link in 314 is an open access paper in Nature Energy, here are some relevant excerpts: Rapid battery cost declines accelerate the prospects of all-electric interregional container shipping Published: 18 July 2022 Jessica Kersey, Natalie D. Popovich...
• Commented on Make Up a Guy
  Paul, I agree: Shipping battery power is almost certainly not the most energy efficient, nor the most cost efficient method. Long distance HVDC likely would transport energy more cheaply, quickly, and efficiently. And, aside from cable cuts/embargoes, HVDC probably would...
• Commented on Make Up a Guy
  My personal pipe dream would be circular flows of supertankers moving rechargeable flow battery energy between areas with high sun / wind energy sources and locations with low / intermittent renewable energy sources....
• Commented on Make Up a Guy
  Some more links to battery electric container shipping: Rapid battery cost declines accelerate the prospects of all-electric interregional container shipping Snippets from article: At battery prices of US$100 kWh−1, the TCP of a battery-electric container ship is lower than that...
• Commented on Books I will not write: BIGGLES!!
  I remember hearing a couple of first-hand ParcPlace Systems rumors in the late 80s: Lost sale on bundling ParcPlace Smalltalk on every Sun SPARCstation, allegedly refused by management for fear support costs would outweigh benefits of the sales revenue (so...
• Commented on Books I will not write: BIGGLES!!
  Abstract I stumbled across in May: Why do Bedouins wear black robes in hot deserts? Amiram Shkolnik, C. Richard Taylor, Virginia Finch & Arieh Borut Nature volume 283, pages 373–375 (1980) Published: 24 January 1980 Abstract Survival in hot deserts...
• Commented on Books I will not write: BIGGLES!!
  At a prior employer (corporate research center), for a while... one of the popular ad hoc "version control systems" for managers was to send their MS Office documents to each other as email attachments. Used more mail server space than...
• Commented on The impotence of the long-distance trillionaire
  The osmand free android app (and paid upgrade osmand+) includes a Truck profile and allows custom vehicle parameter limits for navigation (weight, height, length, and min/default/max speed). The free version has limited map region downloads, but that might be enough...