fridgepunk

Website: fridgepunk.livejournal.com/

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Commented on The prospects of the Space and Freedom Party reconsidered in light of the crisis of 21st century capitalism
No, it's because eradicating the last pockets of polio is not that easy when there's significant portions of the world that simply haven't had access to the vaccine - that combined with the switch from oral vaccines to the safer...
Commented on A nation of slaves
You didn't read to the bit where the land in london is valued at an amount of money that exceeds several multiples of the GLOBAL GDP. That's the difference between London prices and Hebredean prices for housing - london prices...
Commented on A nation of slaves
I thought up a solution to that problem actually, based off of Google's business model; Governments possess massive quantities of personal data relating to their citizens, and it seems sensible that governments can sensibly argue that they are best placed...
Commented on A hypothesis
Wasn't the justification for NASA's whole X-33/VentureStar SSTO space plane to install the sort of satellite phone network you'd need to handle the sort of dataload you're talking about? I think you may have squared the... not-entirely-equilateral-sided-tetragon between the Muh...
Commented on Why I want Bitcoin to die in a fire
Comparing the french & german empires to the british is problematic for the simple reason that the british empire evolved around one very simple plan: Step 1: Make sure a fuck ton of trade was constantly moving to and through...
Commented on Why I want Bitcoin to die in a fire
That puts it on par pricewise with uncut cocaine m8, so you may need to recalibrate what "rare" constitutes....
Commented on Why I want Bitcoin to die in a fire
Corporate capture of regulators happens at whatever level is cheapest for the corporations involved - in the context of europe's many multinational agricorps, that's at the EU level. Of course having said that... Westminster can still pass legislature to allow...
Commented on Why I want Bitcoin to die in a fire
A good example of how the principle of commensiality works in relation to the EU and its memberstates is here: EU makes laws detrimental to allotment owners and beneficial to agricorps. If westminster wants to protect allotment owners, Westminster is...
Commented on Why I want Bitcoin to die in a fire
Did the bank BUY the bitcoins off him or something? The problem, from an investor's standpoint, with bitcoins is that you can only "turn" it into real money by convincing someone to buy your bitcoins FOR real money. It's why...
Commented on Why I want Bitcoin to die in a fire
The real fun with bitcoins is once you get over the whole "it's a new currency!" sham and get to the meat of it: it's a commodity. Made of a hash-string. That can only be "sold" and converted to actual...
Commented on Lies, damned lies, and popular beliefs
Unfortunately, the EU has become a classic bureaucracy and IS interfering in areas that are none of its’ concern. That'd be true if it was, but it isn't; The EU was founded on the principle of Subsidiarity, which basically means...

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Nojay commented on The prospects of the Space and Freedom Party reconsidered in light of the crisis of 21st century capitalism
No, the LK-60s may be the last big icebreakers they build but they still have river ice to deal with to maintain navigation and keep the northern coastal ports open. Fresh water freezes a lot easier than open seawater with its salt content. The LK-60s are meant for riverine duty as well as open-ocean work with shallower draughts than classic seagoing icebreakers but up till now the riverine breakers have been mostly conventionally powered since they could always refuel and resupply locally. There's also the tourist business... It costs about $12,000 to sail to the North Pole on board the...
Jay commented on The prospects of the Space and Freedom Party reconsidered in light of the crisis of 21st century capitalism
So they argue that even if you get rid of one master, the next master might likely be worse so why bother. It has happened that way often enough in human history. After a few decades of Stalin's rule, the Tsars didn't seem so bad. Now, a few decades into the post-Soviet era, a majority of Russians claim they like the old system better. Personally, I think the Iron Law of Oligarchy is probably right. Either there are a few people in charge, or there's nobody in charge, and the second case is even worse than the first....
Justin commented on The prospects of the Space and Freedom Party reconsidered in light of the crisis of 21st century capitalism
I think it's important to mention focus fusion. This method of fusion has gotten some money from NASA to study it's viability as both a power plant and propulsion source in space. This type of fusion requires no steam apparatus and therefore could be made small enough to fit in a shipping container. For the same reason it could be decentralized easily and taken out of the hands of the oligarchs and placed into the hands of the 3rd world and delivered directly into disaster areas. Not only that but they plan on burninig proton boron fuel which will make...
Bellinghman commented on The prospects of the Space and Freedom Party reconsidered in light of the crisis of 21st century capitalism
It is indeed important to mention such, as examples of probable woo. Fusion research (and energy research in general) is plagued by both wishful thinking and outright fraud, so I wouldn't be too hopeful when someone comes along who denies the accepted models of the Universe and profers an apparent miracle machine....
axel.fosse commented on The prospects of the Space and Freedom Party reconsidered in light of the crisis of 21st century capitalism
True. There's a private venture effort by something called Tri-Alpha Inc. to create an aneutronic fusion reactor, that looks somewhat credible. They atleast have published some papers for their process in physics letters B and stuff, and have seemingly capable people on board. Here's the notes for a talk by Henry Weller (Duke): http://www.int.washington.edu/talks/WorkShops/int_12_3/People/Weller_H/Weller.pdf...

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Common Misconceptions About Publishing—a series of essays about the industry I work in.
How I Got Here In The End —my non-writing autobiography, or what I did before becoming a full-time writer.
Unwirer—an experiment in weblog mediated collaborative fiction.
Shaping the Future—a talk I gave on the social implications of Moore's Law.
Japan: first impressions — or, what I did on my holidays
Inside the MIT Media Lab—what it’s like to spend a day wandering around the Media Lab.
The High Frontier, Redux — space colonization: feasible or futile?
“Nothing like this will be built again”—inside a nuclear reactor complex.
Old blog—2003-2006 (RIP)

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