waldo

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• Commented on Announcement time!
  Worth remembering that Warsaw Pact did not expect to have spare jet engines lying around, as they intended to use the time-expired ones for NBC decontamination of vehicles - just mount the jet on the back of a truck, run...
• Commented on Same bullshit, new tin
  They just haven't invented hostile-environment suits yet....
• Commented on Same bullshit, new tin
  We're past 300, so I'm going to put this up. It appears that someone has found (what they claim to be) an entirely new for of terrestrial life. Not yet peer-reviewed, but even the possibility wasn't on my bingo card...
• Commented on The coming storm
  If that comment is too US-oriented for this journal entry, apologies. I forgot, and the journal title fits neatly....
• Commented on The coming storm
  Are people paying attention to the situation in and around Texas? Reports suggest Steve Bannon is trying for Jan 6th Part II. https://www.wired.com/story/extremists-far-right-armed-convoy-texas-border/...
• Commented on Crib Sheet: Season of Skulls
  And into the wrong ocean, at that......
• Commented on Crib Sheet: Season of Skulls
  Relevance to OGH's work is left as an exercise for the reader. https://theconversation.com/kush-what-is-this-dangerous-new-west-african-drug-that-supposedly-contains-human-bones-220608...
• Commented on Crib Sheet: Season of Skulls
  Thanks to everyone who responded. It will take me a little while to digest some of that. One thing which does come to mind is that we can expect more tsunamis later this century, especially where the ice retreat is...
• Commented on Crib Sheet: Season of Skulls
  Thanks, but does that not assume that the whole lump of ice (whichever lump it is) melts in a year or so, and that the sea level rise is near-instantly distributed across the globe? There's a trillion-ton iceberg in the...
• Commented on Crib Sheet: Season of Skulls
  What does "rather sudden" mean in this context? How long will the melting take to push up the sea level a thousand km away? I'm guessing that the rise will take quite a long time - several years. A one-metre...
• Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
  I found this, and thought that the community here would be interested, from both computing and fiction aspects. The way it pushes computing forward (into, say, sensor hardware) seems to suggest that (for instance) attack surfaces could be reduced. But...
• Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
  Possibly of interest to OGH and the membership, though I have grave doubts: https://thewalrus.ca/will-new-tech-end-the-need-for-human-pregnancy/?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-gb...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  If bamboo finds its way into anything I write, it will be as an invasive menace. We may be at the point where invasive menaces are the best tactic we've got left, though....
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  I would imagine that there would be an off switch for use by maintenance and for when the aircraft is sitting stationary at a terminal. I'd also guess that faulty systems can be switched off....
• Commented on Do my Laundry
  "The presence of these two species is yet another reason why I think Cthulhu's stated plan to process the Earth into a Matrioshka Brain is vaporware and at best a cover for some other space-based project." Or perhaps the presence...
• Commented on Do my Laundry
  Re "the stars coming right", the obvious and not very satisfying meaning would be that the distance to somewhere else also potentially with a CN problem becomes small enough to arrive/escape. I'm thinking escape, personally, since there is a definite...
• Commented on Pushing it back
  This might be a handy detail, at some point. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-chilling-tale-flies-self-amputation-survival.html...
• Commented on Pushing it back
  "Another reality of rural life is that you spend a lot of time in your car, so that talk radio becomes a habit for many people." And because it's in the car, it's not that easily checked, even if the...
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  "Disingenuous"?...
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  A query for OGH: You're currently working on a Narnia crossover. Have you read John Braine's 'The Pious Agent'? I wondered at the time we first met Persephone Hazard whether that was on your list. (That was the point where...
• Commented on Do my Laundry
  Re the Sleeper in the Pyramid, maybe "freeing Nyarlathotep" hasn't actually occurred yet. The New Management may just be an early stage of that process....
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  Heteromeles at 834: That is - loosely - how the Traveller 2300 stutterwarp drive works, but using quantum teleportation. (also significantly faster, for playability reasons.)...
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  AFAICT even if it does, it's self-limiting: it relies on the coils to generate the magnetic field to contain and fuse the plasma, and any mass big enough to escape will inevitably damage the coils to the point where they...
• Commented on Summer webcomics
  What happens if you go via the Gocomics site? https://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury...
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  Re Mr Prigozhin, I think Wagner is the main target. Prigozhin is secondary. Otherwise, the hit would be on Prigozhin, rather than on the Wagner top brass. So I suspect it's a bit of private enterprise - probably by one...
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  "Peter Watts explores the former, in Starfish and Rifters, arguing that intelligence is an evolutionary dead end waiting to be replaced by something more power-efficient. Maybe interesting as we grapple with A"I" and what we actually want." There is also...
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  I assume you've read Kim Newman's 'Life's Lottery'? If not, do....
• Commented on Summer webcomics
  Maybe some sort of phased-array antenna. Though that would beg the question of why it's only humans. Probably the same thing which allows them to do magic. Hm. BLUE HADES were-squid?...
• Commented on Pass or Fail
  Norway Maple: Coppered nails? No idea if this works (might need a lot of them) but I have heard of it being done....
• Commented on Pass or Fail
  Thank you. I did find it suspect, though I am not entirely sure why. Tone of voice, perhaps....