Caro

Comment Threads

• Vulch commented on Books I will not write: BIGGLES!!
  I'm not clear on whether it gets up to orbital velocity or not Not. 4.5 km/s for a block IIA against ~7 km/s for LEO....
• Keithmasterson commented on Books I will not write: BIGGLES!!
  Charlie's decision was right, not to follow up on the story idea for Biggles with a sex change. It's been done to a fare-thee-well for lo this past quarter century, and her name is........Lara Croft. Biggles &Croft both traverse the globe shooting exotic species along with truculent indigenous peoples while looting cultural artifacts, how much wiggle room does that leave for new variation on the same old character? Indy Jones and Nate Drake follow this formula too. In some ways they're all retreads of pre-WWI yellow journalism, which boosted papers' circulation by exaggerating the exploits of publicity hungry explorers like...
• timrowledge commented on Books I will not write: BIGGLES!!
  The original sin of the USA is not slavery, it is treason. Slavery was was the purpose of that treason - possibly in both directions. As in wanting to maintain slavery for the benefit of the wealthy owners, and to escape the ersatz slavery of being subject to British rule....
• Heteromeles commented on Books I will not write: BIGGLES!!
  Beat me to it. While the 1500 km ceiling is nice, 4.5 km/sec is still slow compared with a bolide coming in between 10 and 70 km/sec. And its warhead is 1.5 tons, which is nice. This is where the rocket equation sprouts teeth, because each stage below it has to accelerate the mass of whatever it's carrying. I suspect that will get rather annoying. Still, if there's good stable solid rocket propellant, and we can use it to loft something the weight of a Mercury capsule into space...why aren't we?...
• Heteromeles commented on Books I will not write: BIGGLES!!
  This is what is tearing the US apart, that freedom is somehow compatible with slavery cannot be sustained. I think there's a simple explanation for this thinking: it's the idea that people are not equal. It's 'Freedom for us, slavery for them'. Since I periodically have to remind myself of this, the phrase "All men are created equal" is in the Declaration of Independence, not in the Constitution. There's apparently a fair amount of case law saying the Declaration isn't a legal document. One of the big causes of the Rebellion was the notion that the Northern Republicans were trumpeting...