murican_Jeff

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• Commented on Default Option
  Boston is still getting hammered (I'm downtown right now; flew in Sunday, flying out Saturday... I should be Ok). It's supposed to taper off today. They've already got plows out. Everything should be back to normal tomorrow....
• Commented on On the lack of cultural estrangement in SF
  I suspect Gandi was being particularly clever with that comment. I think he meant both possible parsings....
• Commented on On the lack of cultural estrangement in SF
  Whoops. Missed a sentence. I really did mean to write "I just read The Picture of Dorian Gray." in the obvious spot. Oh well, should be clear from later context....
• Commented on On the lack of cultural estrangement in SF
  As an American living in the San Francisco Bay Area, much of the future you just described is already unevenly distributed into my back yard. ;-) Yes, there are still arguments, and not everyone out here is on board with...
• Commented on The Curse of Laundry
  In the USA, at least, our tax laws cover that. Box 21 on the 1040 is for "Other Income". Not paying income tax on ill-gotten gains is a traditional way of taking down gangsters over here....
• Commented on The Ferguson Question
  My current understanding of American Individualism is a bit darker. I feel any more that its current, aggressive form cropped up in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Essentially, the hypothesis is that the...
• Commented on The Ferguson Question
  Not really. Charlie has discussed this in the past. There's been a re-urbanization movement lately. White people have been moving back into the cities and pushing minorities out (due to rising prices, since wealthy white people drive up rent and...
• Commented on So ...
  Congratulations! Those are an excellent set of results. (I may have ranked Equoid and Neptune's Brood as my #1 for their respective categories. /fanboi) (Also: Ancillary Justice is excellent, and I'm totally happy to see it win. Congratulations to Ann...
• Commented on Checking in
  Congratulations on the short listings! I bought my first Worldcon supporting membership in no small part because of those short listings. There's a couple books in Best Novel that I haven't read, but Neptune's Brood is penciled in as my...
• Commented on Yet another bad idea
  Yeah. Probably best you took this one out back and dealt with it. I don't think you went nearly far enough to avoid running afoul of Poe's Law....
• Commented on Over-Extended Metaphor for the day
  The thing about analogizing the history of Unix with that of Christianity is that Christianity was dominant in its society for millenia, and I'm not sure Unix ever was. At least outside of academia, through the end of the 20th...
• Commented on CMAP: "Why do you use Microsoft Word?"
  You've missed the Killer Feature problem, and that is that openness isn't a killer feature for publishing. A ubiquitous editor and a format with comments and basic revision control are the killer features. The publishers have one tool to point...
• Commented on A deceptively simple question
  9. Your bicycle is toast. At least until you haul out a toolkit and unbolt that nify mobile phone connected anti-theft device that's designed to fail safe and lock the wheels when you take your phone more than two...
• Commented on Commercial interlude
  I definitely caught the Iris reference. The second paragraph came with this horrible sinking feeling. I love that you went back to the Iris period after "The Fuller Memorandum", that was excellent. The whole sending Bob in half-cocked bit does...
• Commented on Blogging for Orbit
  OGH donned his red cape and goggles for this one....
• Commented on Bit Rot
  I thought OGH did a great job explaining it. Given how radiation damage actually happens, and how these androids are constructed, I thought it followed perfectly well....
• Commented on Crib Sheet: Glasshouse
  (I'd also love for you to write the sequel to Glasshouse. Given the financial constraints and how awesome your 5 year road map is right now, I really cannot complain if you don't.)...
• Commented on Crib Sheet: Glasshouse
  I think this was the third book of yours I read, and I gave it a re-read a couple months ago, because I was one of those folks who didn't know the slang term "Glasshouse". It was definitely better the...
• Commented on Press Release: Stross Uncloaks Secret Media Project
  This is not the day to be jet lagged and sleep deprived while reading the internet. I flew from the West Coast to the East Coast (US), and thanks to a delayed flight, landed slight after midnight EDT. Thanks to...
• Commented on The jet lag game
  Then there was the engineer whose work I was trying to document, who didn't answer voice mail, or the phone at a reasonable office hour on his land mass, or reply to email. In the end I had to convince...
• Commented on Sitrep
  Water and steam radiators aren't unknown over here (US). My current and previous apartments both have steam radiators. Although, I think it is found mainly in older (1940s) apartment buildings. Anyway, I hope coming months have you feeling better. I'll...