alantyson

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• Commented on The Radiant Future! (Of 1995)
  I went down a somewhat different path than HowardNYC re: Pixar. John Lasseter is taken to court in 1994 for sexual harassment and assault. He is found guilty and Pixar, already courting Disney, cuts him loose rather than risk such...
• Commented on A message from our sponsors: New Book coming!
  Re: EV charging for non-homeowners. You don't really even need Level 2 charging stations installed in parking areas, just regular outlets! Every EV ships with a charger you can plug into any standard outlet. My 2020 Bolt gets back about...
• Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
  Believe it or not, until a couple months ago, I was actually feeling pretty optimistic about the next election. Biden's critics on the left were very much of the "he's not our guy but we'll hold our noses" variety, and...
• Commented on Announcement: 2nd edition Laundry Files RPG is coming
  Agreed, I think that's VERY cool....
• Commented on Announcement: 2nd edition Laundry Files RPG is coming
  Blades in the Dark/Forged in the Dark could work really nicely for Laundry Files, I think! I just bought Band of Blades (same system, different genre), whose setting is sort of like Glen Cook's Black Company novels with the serial...
• Commented on Announcement: 2nd edition Laundry Files RPG is coming
  That's great news! I'll be keeping a close eye on developments, especially to see what sort of system it runs on. I know a few folks who adapt Night's Black Agents (spies vs. vampires, with a focus on investigation and...
• Commented on Fuck the Monarchy
  I reread the books last summer, and ran into a lot of the same things. The thing about Tolkien (and here I'm cadging from my rogue-scholar wife's opinions about Oscar Wilde, her primary subject of study and critique) is that...
• Commented on An AI app walks into a writers room
  The inside window problem is the biggest issue I have with my EV. The only time I ever turn the heater on, no matter how cold it is, is to defrost the windshield. I've tried cleaning the windows with alcohol...
• Commented on Make Up a Guy
  I doubt corporate agriculture or the grocery chains are behind restricting the scope of government food assistance. It's against their interests. They want people to buy MORE food, not less. Yeah no, that's a good point. I'll admit I'm predisposed...
• Commented on Make Up a Guy
  My fear is that somebody really competent gets to the president's seat and manages to reform the systems so that they work better than they have done so far. Getting rid of corruption (or most of it), figuring out a...
• Commented on Make Up a Guy
  It's deeply cruel, paternalistic, and apathetic, but I suspect the main push for that legislature is from both the factory farms and the biggest grocery chains (I'm thinking specifically of Hy-Vee, which looks like a plucky underdog next to Wal-Mart...
• Commented on Make Up a Guy
  From what I can see, plenty's being done about it. Just in the wrong direction. Here in Iowa during the 2022 election, there was a ballot measure to include the "right to own and bear firearms to the Iowa Constitution...
• Commented on Make Up a Guy
  My wife's parents raise chickens (Barred Rocks, for you fowl fanciers out there). Two generations back, they discovered that one of the hens was both very aggressive (even for a chicken) and sneaky. She'd disappear for days at a time,...
• Commented on Strong and Stable!
  One other consideration for Discord (which, for my own two cents, is really the only form of social media I use because it's just so much nicer, more functional, and honestly safer than all the others) is that it is...
• Commented on Strong and Stable!
  I'm starting to think, between the added complexity and the risk of piracy, the largest failure point for the Great Stinkin' Boat is the cargo itself. Therefore, if I might take Heteromeles' impact sail concept just a step further, I...
• Commented on Strong and Stable!
  For a brief, beautiful moment I assumed you were protesting on grounds that stopping the Great Ship would be bad for an operating nuclear reactor... Having now read the full reply and come to my senses, I have only one...
• Commented on Strong and Stable!
  individual containers into short range seaworthy units that get dropped off as the Megaboat passes near a suitable port. That would help solve the problem of docking at an older port that hasn't the means (or the geometry) (or the...
• Commented on Strong and Stable!
  Depending on how silly you want to get, or how much fun you want to have with murder mystery tropes, there's the occasional passengers that cargo ships take on. My wife and I gave this some serious consideration, since she...
• Commented on Strong and Stable!
  Armed merchantmen, and/or the big shipping companies hiring their own private navies because, who's going to stop them, the government navies that for whatever reason aren't patrolling blue water anymore? Which goes from colorful to kaleidoscopic if we throw some...
• Commented on Strong and Stable!
  My wife and I looked through those and played a fun game of "which couple do we aspire to be." We settled on the lady with the purple petticoat and her mad-scientist husband having coffee. Also I appear to have...
• Commented on Strong and Stable!
  Re: political nicknames: Speaking as one of the new kids, I certainly understand the instinct to give the supervillains screwing up our communities and the planet at large the finger in any way we can... but I will admit I...
• Commented on Strong and Stable!
  It's a fair point! For your sake, I don't think Tesla will go anywhere anytime soon, and to be fair to them, they've beaten the odds before simply by coming into existence in the first place. How's this: I'll rejigger...
• Commented on Strong and Stable!
  I'd almost be willing to blow up Tesla if it took Twitter with it. (IMHO Twitter is a major obstacle to having a rational dialogue.) I would be thrilled if this one stone happened to take out those two birds...
• Commented on Strong and Stable!
  539 - Added bonus, the skin's where all the flavor is! That reminds me to dig up my potatoes and see if any of them survived the drought. 557 - I'll see your breakfast cereal, and raise you the "typical"...
• Commented on Strong and Stable!
  She'd have to move to some place like Des Moines and establish her voting residency there to actually RUN for President. I will throw myself out onto the tarmac to keep that plane from landing! We've got enough problems with...
• Commented on Strong and Stable!
  To be fair, if the New Madrid fault goes kablooey (a scenario that the USGS does not seem incredibly worried about, based on their 2014 report), there will be bigger, more immediate problems, like a big chunk of the underground...
• Commented on I can't even
  I mean, that's a case of the truth not only being "out there," but it being documented by multiple reputable sources both before and after Guantanamo Bay because a household name. The trouble is "documented by multiple reputable sources" not...
• Commented on I can't even
  For what it's worth, I agree with yours and Mailer's point that one of the reasons a lot of people reach for conspiracies is that it's so hard to imagine a figure so huge that he's practically a work of...
• Commented on I can't even
  Which will be a lot more feasible as batteries/power supply systems get better. My Bolt is front-wheel drive only, which I never mind until I need to go down an icy hill -- having independent axial motors, or even independent...
• Commented on I can't even
  In the USA, pointing your wheels at the kerb while parked on a hill is part of standard drivers' education. Mostly true -- though I was also taught that if you park on top of ice (which at the time...