blackanvil

Recent Actions

• Commented on Bad news day
  "So asking "is there some form of expertise that could defat(sic) capitalism"... I don't know, and I can see no reason why such a thing must exist. It might exist, but it doesn't have to, and if it does exist...
• Commented on Bad news day
  "How exactly did deer become a reservior for Covid? Almost certainly via humans. There must be some channel which has allowed that into the deer population." Once you get out of the cities and towns, and onto farmsteads, they don't...
• Commented on Invisible Sun: Themes and Nightmares
  "Considering the density of government agencies in the DC area, there must be a lot of parents who aren't allowed to talk about what they do at the office with their kids. So I'd expect the scouts and girl scouts...
• Commented on Fossil fuels are dead (and here's why)
  If you're looking for books to translate, don't waste your time on college text books, long rambling explanations of things, or pretty picture books showing simple mechanisms; the people who need that sort of exposition are not those who are...
• Commented on Fossil fuels are dead (and here's why)
  " --The nickel alloy chosen isn't valuable, except for the information on it. The only reason to melt it down is spite." I had written a rant about how valuable nickel actually is, but doing more research to figure out...
• Commented on Fossil fuels are dead (and here's why)
  "Habitable, but not arable. When permafrost and glaciers melt you don't get farmland, you get rocks and marshland." Fortunately, I understand in this scenario there will be a lot of topsoil sitting around unused just a bit south, just waiting...
• Commented on Fossil fuels are dead (and here's why)
  If someone is broadcasting power at the antenna farm next-door, and I'm in a "spillover" area where there is lower-levels of power aimed at my property, would I be allowed to set up my own antennas and harvest power? There...
• Commented on Fossil fuels are dead (and here's why)
  "Anyway, point is, it's almost impossible to start a Kessler cascade in GEO. It's like the difference between plinking at supertankers in the Straits of Hormuz to block a shipping lane (that'd be LEO) and trying to blockade the Pacific...
• Commented on On inappropriate reactions to COVID19
  It is the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, and the entirety of the Mississippi delta and much of the lower river is facing Hurricane Ida, already with winds of 100mph and with several hours to go in the overheated Gulf...
• Commented on On inappropriate reactions to COVID19
  "Shame they don't say anything about how. They say only that it's endothermic so you have to put energy in, but that's not an explanation, it's just a statement of the problem. With enough energy about the reaction can go...
• Commented on Dead plots
  Speaking as someone who lived in a group-home back in my youngish-professional days, if you don't think the power company can shut off your power pretty arbitrarily in the US, just try not paying your power bill for a couple...
• Commented on Dead plots
  RE: y2k, I was the manager of a group of engineers at a large ISP back in 1999, and worked with another team who literally tested every single piece of gear we had on the network, identifying which ones could...
• Commented on No comment necessary
  Despite (or probably because) of a governor's executive order mandating face covering masks in all public places, I'd say based on the last week's shopping expeditions that only about 75% of people actually wear masks in any position, despite kiosks...
• Commented on Roll the dice
  I've played off and on for (gah) 40ish years, in a number of groups. I have to say it vastly depends on the GM and the players: using the same rules (usually some variant of D&D 3.5/Pathfinder) I've seen everything...
• Commented on Cough Cough
  Meanwhile, my VP of an investment bank brother has announced that he intends to visit my 80 year old mother with his wife and child in the next few weeks and wants to meet with me as well on his...
• Commented on I ain't dead
  Having studied nuclear physics in my college days, considering how easy it would be to make a world-burner type doomsday device (just build a hydrogen bomb then surround that with a bunch of additional 3rd stage capsules of lithium deuteride...
• Commented on Yet another novel I will no longer write
  I was in college during the very end of the Cold War (we watched the Berlin Wall come down while taking a class on "Soviet Political Systems"), but a semester before the end I took a class called "War in...
• Commented on Update to Public Appearances in a time of pandemic
  Shopping update in Virginia: no eggs, no flour left in the markets, but otherwise pretty good levels of supplies now. Many (25%) people are wearing masks or bandanas. Both the regular supermarket and the government-owned liquor store had marked out...
• Commented on Public appearances in a time of pandemic
  Ran out for a few staples (milk, tomato paste, fruit), and wow, even in an affluent western DC suburb the shelves were surprisingly empty. No eggs other than a just-restocked supply of $5/dozen yuppie eggs, nothing in the paper goods...
• Commented on CASE NIGHTMARE BLONDE, Part 2
  Greg Tingey @ 905 Which just shows how totally fucking INSANE the US system is. "Soil & Water concervation director" SHOULD NOT be a voted-in-office, any more than police chief or District Attorneys should be ... Not to worry, Greg,...
• Commented on CASE NIGHTMARE BLONDE, Part 2
  I'm doing research for voting tomorrow here in Virginia, and I see from the sample ballots that there are two local races where neither candidate chose to identify with a party at all, both running as independents in both races....
• Commented on CASE NIGHTMARE BLONDE, Part 2
  To spread a new geas-based control scheme wouldn't take much, just an offer of power to those who accept the geas. While I'm not sure that Urucks can use Alfar-style magical power, if they could I could easily see a...
• Commented on The Pivot
  "Wrought iron is MUCH more corrosion-resistant than almost all steels, but it's also softer than bronze. And, while the process you are describing doesn't require much chemistry, it's complex and needs a fairly large industrial base." I'm a practicing blacksmith/knifemaker/archeaometallurgist,...
• Commented on Happy 21st Century!
  "The other significant component of the leftovers is carbon monoxide, you probably don't want to use the output of the air miner without doing something about that..." Carbon monoxide is exactly what your want in order to reduce iron oxide,...
• Commented on Some notes on the worst-case scenario
  'Total world wealth is estimated to be in the region of 250 trillion. Claiming that a full quarter of all wealth is just fossile fuel infrastructure seems fishy unless you are misleadingly permissive with what you'll consider part of "infrastructure...
• Commented on Policy change: future US visits
  "And here's the problem in a nutshell: because (a) "roving cannibals from the cities" is unavoidably and blatantly racist in a US cultural context (hint: white suburban flight), and (b) in general, in disasters, almost everybody pulls together: see for...
• Commented on Free ebooks! Get 'em while they're hot!
  I bought the paperbacks back when, but was traveling when I decided to buy the omnibus ebook versions and re-read before starting the new series. So I literally just bought this. Oh, well, more money for our host to spend....
• Commented on Empire Games sneak peek
  Charlie, are you going to see any financial impact from TOR UK publishing paperback instead of hardcover?...
• Commented on Just plain icky
  In your original post, you state "An austere, low-energy biosphere—think of the high Arctic, with months of total darkness every year and little insolation—can't support anything like as much life as a tropical biome. High energy means more active biomass,...
• Commented on What are you reading this summer?
  So far this summer, I started off with Stephenson's Interface, to get ready for the election cycle. New reads include Our Host's latest, plus Dad's Nuke, a take on the post-apocalypse, and "The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred,...