Murphy's Lawyer

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• Commented on Worldcon in the news
  People might be surprised at how disorganised a 'professional' conference can be! And some might not. I still have unpleasant dreams about a Board conference in the late 90s my team had to set up comms for, at which the...
• Commented on Summer webcomics
  Jeph Jacques of Questionable Content fame also did a post-Singularity story called Alice Grove. It's complete. MegaTokyo started out as two US gamers taking a spontaneous trip to Japan and rapidly descended into one of the strangest metagames ever. It's...
• Commented on Finding true love in the cosmos
  "Crustacea are aquatic arthropods, occupying the niche that insects monopolize on land: it turns out that a key enzyme required for hardening chitin—insect carapaces—doesn't operate efficiently in seawater, so crustaceans use heavier, denser, calcium carbonate crystals to stiffen their shells....
• Commented on Oh, 2022!
  Using lampposts as a charging solution is a great idea which needs a little extra thought in some places. Such as how to stop people living in Kensington from using the road next to it as a permanent parking space...
• Commented on So you say you want a revolution
  What would she do if shit got so bad it actually threatened the existence of the Monarchy? It won't, precisely because she's been fanatically single-minded about staying out of day-to-day politics. It's one of the few British institutions that nobody...
• Commented on So you say you want a revolution
  Yevgeny Lebedev was granted the title of "Baron Lebedev of Hampton and Siberia". That wouldn't have happened without a nod from Uncle Vlad....
• Commented on Countdown to Crazy
  I got tipsy last night. I don't often do that. Got into a barney with a good friend over this op-ed: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/election-result-trump-biden-president-pardon-b1600867.html. I can understand the desire to draw a line under the last four years, hold out a hand...
• Commented on Countdown to Crazy
  My uninformed take: Biden will get a clear majority of the popular vote. Trump will do anything to make sure the votes aren't properly counted, and make sure the electoral College delivers for him. Irrespective of who wins, there will...
• Commented on Dead plots
  There's a publishing house which specialises in Mil SF and Mil quasi-SF, and has had good sales of stories where Rugged Individualists band together against government thugs and eventually right the country's wrongs after a number of heroic deaths and...
• Commented on Cough Cough
  As dead cats go, Cummings flouting the quarantine regulations, at least twice, is hard to beat. For now. Next week we'll all go "Cor - this makes Cummings' road trip look positively benign!" Meanwhile, Cummings' paymasters in the Taxpayers' Alliance...
• Commented on CASE NIGHTMARE BLONDE, Part 2
  The only opposition party that counts in the UK as a whole is Labour. The LibDems are still suffering from the Tory alliance, the Greens are Good but Smol, and UKIP and the like are hollow shells as most of...
• Commented on The Inevitable Brexit Thread (1)
  You will not be surprised to know that I have been shouted at at $WURK this week for Being Obstructive by saying I'm not inclined to approve a new IT project storing Personally Identifiable Information in Dublin, given the current...
• Commented on The Inevitable Brexit Thread (1)
  "What's going to happen?" asks OGH; along with an awful lot of people. The odds are on that we will crash out on Friday week. Having been told that she could ask for an extension to sort things out until...
• Commented on That sinking feeling
  "Work for the best, prepare for the worst." I'm currently poring over the slim volume "Getting ready together" at https://www.byline.com/column/67/article/2206 - it's written by an ex-copper with an axe to grind, but he's open about it. NeilW @112 - community...
• Commented on Houston: what are the long-term consequences?
  You mean Sandy in 2012 wasn't bad enough? Or Ike in 2008? The stand against the (highly likely, alas) disinformation campaign you posit has got to link all these and the rest together, with special notes as to their increasing...
• Commented on Rejection Letter
  ...and it looks like the hack's back on in the UK, thanks to the entertainment industry, as OGH has pointed out elsewhere. The British Phonographic Institute, the Motion Picture Assocation, and the Premier League are the names named in the...
• Commented on Laundry summer madness sale!
  Nothing technical about it. There are several reports of Kindle owners going abroad and finding their library has diminished....
• Commented on Some notes on the worst-case scenario
  It's not just plausible where brown foreigners are concerned. The plans to kill the Environmental Protection Acency, backed by recent EOs such as coal mining operations not having to protect rivers and the water table by allowing them to dump...
• Commented on Policy change: future US visits
  Charlie, we've discussed securing phones before, and you don't need to be reminded of any of this, but it bears repeating to a wider audience. (Disclaimer: I'm an early Wileyfox adopter, bought a Storm, and the Swift2X would be on...
• Commented on Tanks! Why tank stories make great tech myths
  The price for the French might well have been their nation. Supposedly, there was a moment when a French tank unit stumbled on a weak flank and the Nazi blitzkrieg could - perhaps - have been brought to an abrupt...
• Commented on Second childhood?
  Wot I currently read that hasn't had too many votes yet: Yet Another Fantasy Game Comic - irregularly published (the author has a day job as an animator) and irreverent take on fantasy tropes, with possibly the dumbest chimera ever...
• Commented on The morning after
  What happens next? That's down to us. All of us. What I'll try to make happen, provided I can get enough to go along, is to keep the Three Wise Monkeys wearing brown trousers right up to next year's General...