Alex Besogonov

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• Commented on Why I barely read SF these days
  Try Greg Egan's books. It's about as hard SF as you can get, which is really refreshing....
• Commented on Houston: what are the long-term consequences?
  I'd like to challenge the post's assumptions. Houston is not going to be lost. The pictures in the news are somewhat misleading - there are many flooded buildings but MOST buildings are not flooded (yet). Heck, most buildings still have...
• Commented on Reality is broken
  Please, please, publish your current version of the book. Some time in future, perhaps. Or as a bonus for new book purchasers....
• Commented on Empire Games
  Are you going to blow up New York or at least Chicago with a nuclear bomb?...
• Commented on Cyberpunk 2.0: Political economy, energy, and the future US
  Why do people keep inventing some grandiose scenarios that will transform the world in 20 years because the water runs out? We can desalinate water for residential use easily. That's NOT a problem. The grand sprawling LA won't go away,...
• Commented on We'll all go together when we go
  Sulfur-reducing bacteria is a BS. There's not enough sulfur in the water to produce enough hydrogen sulfide. And anyway, H2S is easily oxidized so it won't accumulate in significant quantities until most of atmospheric oxygen is depleted. Also, sulfur reduction...
• Commented on The sky's gone dark
  Kessler will make it more difficult to access orbits, but we're nowhere near close to being an impenetrable curtain. The most problematic is the geosync orbit, but it's the easiest to clean up since pretty much everything is close to...
• Commented on Why we're not going to see sub-orbital airliners
  Right now I'm seeing flights for $3800 for the first class from SFO to HKG on Expedia. For example: https://www.expedia.com/Details?action=UnifiedDetailsWidget@showDetails&rfrr=&c=2c3ec08c-14ca-4cc6-9ab3-e518a89d56ad&udpDisplayMode=normal I saw even cheaper prices earlier. Last year I flew roundtrip on that route in the first class for about...
• Commented on Why we're not going to see sub-orbital airliners
  I think you're mistaken. There's a healthy niche of not-extremely-über-wealthy people who would like to minimize the "air time". Just look at the first class tickets between LA and Hong Kong - they are in the $2000-$5000 range. That's certainly...
• Commented on Not a Manifesto
  Ugh. I hated the Gladstone's book exactly because worldbuilding was so vague. Sure, a phone is a magic mirror, but we know its fundamental limits. It can't grow scales and transform into a Space Shuttle Dragon (conservation of energy and...