Dale Allen

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• Commented on A Wonky Experience
  I have unfortunately come to the realization to my absolute dread that I now currently live in Gilead, that being that state of Texas. The Texas anti-abortion law, banning gender affirming medical care for minors, and banning of books in...
• Commented on Made of lies (and more lies)
  "I have to wonder if some of what was generated was taken from movie or book plots?" You may have something there, like from a Clive Cussler novel....
• Commented on Made of lies (and more lies)
  I nearly spewed some cashews I was snacking on while reading this post about some of the fun facts that Google Bard came up with for you. Especially “Accelerando” and “Rule 34” being non-fiction books on mathematics; “Stross is a...
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  Just had to share this. Texas Paid a Bitcoin Miner $31.7 Million to Use Less Electricity During the State’s Hottest Month: https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/texas-bitcoin-miner-riot-31-million-energy-credits/...
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  I use miso soup as a broth base for all the soups I make: lentil, split pea, potato, and vegetable soups. Just add a tablespoon or two of miso paste to two cups of hot water and you have instant...
• Commented on Summer webcomics
  With the decline of local newspapers in recent decades syndicated and political cartoonists have been struggling. I subscribe to: https://www.cagle.com/cartoons/...
• Commented on Finding true love in the cosmos
  This all reminds me of a short story, “Roadside Rescue” by Pat Cadigan I read in Omni magazine back in 1985. And just so happens to be collected in an anthology called Alien Sex: 19 Tales by the Masters of...
• Commented on Decision Fatigue
  Cool, I think I'll join Mastodon. I don't have any social media apps on my phone and never joined Twitter. I do have a Facebook account, but only check-in on a web browser every other week or so these days....
• Commented on Decision Fatigue
  “While second tier platforms (think Mastodon) are nowhere near to providing a refuge yet …” Out of curiosity I took a look at the Mastodon site and noticed that Neil Gaiman and Robert Reich (former US Secretary of Labor) have...
• Commented on Crimes against Transhumanity
  Lena reminds me of the controversies surrounding human cloning. Is a clone the same person they were cloned from? No, they are genetically the same but are not the same person they were cloned from, they are a new separate...
• Commented on Books I will not write: BIGGLES!!
  This all so corny it sort of reminds of that movie IRON SKY with Nazis on the moon: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1034314/...
• Commented on The impotence of the long-distance trillionaire
  Here's a critique on Vox of Bill Gates's new book: The major blind spot in Bill Gates’s pandemic prevention plan/The billionaire’s new book shows why we can’t expect the 1% to come up with solutions for the rest of us....
• Commented on Bad news day
  This Russian invasion of Ukraine is being compared to Hitler’s Blitzkrieg (simultaneous air and land attack) style invasion of Poland and Czechoslovakia in 1939. Very brutal and nasty. You would think that such wars would be unnecessary and counterproductive this...
• Commented on Omicron
  Got my 3rd booster shot of Pfizer three weeks ago and my annual flu shot the week before that. Took sick leave the next day after getting the booster, felt muzzy headed and fatigued, with an aching shoulder (Uh, why...
• Commented on An update on the revolutionary experiment
  I have been operating a 30 Watt EPILOG Laser engraver for the past 15 years as part of my job duties, engraving plastic signs and door nameplates. It was decided that since I was the departments graphics guy producing and...
• Commented on Invisible Sun: signed copies and author events
  Just retrieved my hardcover copy of Invisible Sun from the Amazon Hub Locker (UTexas). Excitement!...
• Commented on Central Banking on Mars!
  Reporting from Austin, Texas (whilst the power is still on). Woke up this morning to the sound of a tree limb crashing on roof due to freezing rain. Discovered my internet came back on after being off since Monday morning....
• Commented on Cough Cough
  George W. Bush used Blackwater USA in New Orleans after Katrina: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/blackwater-down/...
• Commented on "It'll all be over by Christmas"
  I wonder if vaping was inspired by that DREDD movie where they vape Slo-Mo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKtad9DGxrw...
• Commented on Yet another novel I will no longer write
  Terry Gross/Fresh Air interviews Stephen King. Here's a highlight on rethinking writing set in 2020 because of the pandemic: "I set [the book I'm working on] in the year 2020 because I thought, "OK, when I publish it, if it's...
• Commented on COVID-19
  WHO declares that COVID-19 crisis is now a pandemic: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/who-declares-that-virus-crisis-is-now-a-pandemic?utm_source=Devices&utm_medium=Notification&utm_campaign=Push+Notification&utm_content=2020311-news...
• Commented on COVID-19
  John Oliver, host of “Last Week Tonight” (HBO) explains the COVID-19 crisis with a combination of satire, humor, and seriousness. I found it very educational: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c09m5f7Gnic&feature=emb_logo...
• Commented on COVID-19
  SXSW 2020 Canceled. Austin Mayor Steve Adler and Travis County Judge Sarah Eckhardt both announced disaster declarations in response to the expanding coronavirus. https://www.npr.org/2020/03/06/813023174/the-show-will-not-go-on-sxsw-cancelled-because-of-coronavirus...
• Commented on COVID-19
  The annual SXSW conference in Austin, Texas, scheduled for March 13 to 22, are still on (as of today). However, there is an online petition asking SXSW to cancel this year's event, as of Thursday afternoon, there are more than...
• Commented on So you think you can be a reality TV producer
  “Deer. In Texas, they're actually mostly small -” Have you seen the deer in Bexar County (San Antonio, Texas)? I nearly ran into a very large buck with an enormous rack at a low water crossing in northwest San Antonio,...
• Commented on So you think you can be a reality TV producer
  @ 55: “Actually Dale’s suggestion should be disqualified since it was already done, more or less. Remember the ‘Brit to Mir’ project from circa 1991?” I do vaguely remember something about a civilian going to Mir back in the early...
• Commented on So you think you can be a reality TV producer
  I WANT TO BE AN ASTRONAUT: Each season 6 trainees compete for a seat on a SpaceX Dragon into LEO/visit to ISS. Each episode would highlight an aspect of training, physical and psychological testing, SCUBA qualification, jet piloting, EVA training,...
• Commented on Artificial Intelligence: Threat or Menace?
  My dad and his buddies as kids watched Sherman M4 Tanks come off the assembly line at the Fisher Body Tank Arsenal in Grand Blanc, Michigan during WWII. They would spy from a perch among the bushes on the other...
• Commented on Sucker bet (a thought experiment)
  Where would I live? Reykjavík, Iceland; Vancouver, Canada; and Wellington, New Zealand: I would start buying apartment buildings and turn them into co-operative housing, retrofitted with renewable energy and sustainable gardening. What would I invest in? Wind and solar farms:...
• Commented on CASE NIGHTMARE BLONDE, Part 2
  Speaking of Trump ignoring the "emoluments" clause thanks in part to the GOP letting him get away with it (and much, much more) for the first two years of his shit-show administration … I’m sure you’ve been following the US...