"The fantasy—and it is a fantasy—isn't one of space travel and exploration and some bright Star Trek future for humanity, but one of winnowing and eugenics, of cold actuarial lifeboat logic, of ever greater reallocation from the dwindling many to the thriving few. That's the world as Elon Musk and his cohort want it; Mars colonization is just a pretext."
Mars does not have a magnetosphere. Any discussion of humans ever settling the red planet can stop right there, but of course it never does. Do you have a low-cost plan for, uh, creating a gigantic active dynamo at Mars’s dead core? No? Well.
Also this: "Distribution patterns of lichens were compared with elevational patterns shown by a wide range of taxonomic groups of plants along the Nepalese Himalayan elevational gradient between 200–7400m" cambridge.org/core/journals/li…
On one hand it has very good points, about radiation and all the other issues with Mars.
But on the other hand, I cannot stop thinking about that one article stating that humans will never fly, published a year before the Wright brothers proved otherwise.
And on the third hand, I'm thinking of how Kim Stanley Robinson described the terraforming of Mars in his books.
Unfortunately, the "beautifully written rant" thing is exactly what's wrong with it imo: It's not a balanced assessment of the upsides and downsides of Mars colonization (which it mixes up with Mars terraforming), but an emotional rant written by someone who obviously doesn't know much about the science behind these projects. It doesn't mention any non-strawman pros (like scientific research or mineral resources on Mars), exaggerates problems that are easily solvable (for instance, the radiation on Mars can be solved with radiation shielding or by digging into Martian soil), and, funnily enough, leaves out some actually pretty grave problems Martian colonization would face - most prominently the high perchlorate concentration in Martian soil which makes it highly toxic to humans and would probably require us to genetically re-engineer ourselves.
When Scots come to England, they stuff the cats and the dogs and the other pets with spicy oats and roast them. That's what they do! They call it Karmala Haggis.
I'm going to England today, but I'm Irish, so I chop pets up and boil them with spuds.
The ability to extract huge sums from party benefactors tells us nothing about the candidates' ability to be prime minister or leader of the opposition.
But it ensures they'll begin their leadership in thrall to wealthy donors.
“We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time."
- T.S. Eliot, from “Little Gidding,” Four Quartets, 1943
After 20 years, I am back in Washington, DC to work on science policy in the U.S. Senate. In the very same building, on the very same floor where my journey began.
Progynova tablets (Oestradiol 2mg) are used for transgender hormone therapy and menopausal symptom relief. Buy quality medication from InhousePharmacy.vu.
James Darren, the actor behind Star Trek's crooning hologram, passed away this week—but the warmth and light he brought to Deep Space Nine at its darkest hour will never be forgotten.
🥰 So fulfilling! 🥰 A friend just brought their little daughter over to my place, because she had a journal with a 3 wheel combination lock on it, and she'd forgotten the combo.
I showed her how to decode it, and eventually she got it open! We changed the combo and locked it again so she could practice more.
After a bit, she was asking about other kinds of locks, so I happily brought out an assortment of antique and miniature locks from my collection.
A couple hours later they had to leave, and she was beaming! Today she had picked 2 warded locks, a pair of police cuffs, raked open a 4-pin tumbler, and decoded a combination lock!
I sent her off with a smiley yellow binder clip and a minuscule warded lock to practice on.
They asked to come back next week to learn more. 💜
I feel like the Yoda of lock-sport. 🙂
---
Update: Friend just texted me to say their daughter is thinking of starting a YouTube channel to document her growth in lock-sport, and wanted advice on gear/setup stuff.
---
#
... show more
🥰 So fulfilling! 🥰 A friend just brought their little daughter over to my place, because she had a journal with a 3 wheel combination lock on it, and she'd forgotten the combo.
I showed her how to decode it, and eventually she got it open! We changed the combo and locked it again so she could practice more.
After a bit, she was asking about other kinds of locks, so I happily brought out an assortment of antique and miniature locks from my collection.
A couple hours later they had to leave, and she was beaming! Today she had picked 2 warded locks, a pair of police cuffs, raked open a 4-pin tumbler, and decoded a combination lock!
I sent her off with a smiley yellow binder clip and a minuscule warded lock to practice on.
They asked to come back next week to learn more. 💜
I feel like the Yoda of lock-sport. 🙂
---
Update: Friend just texted me to say their daughter is thinking of starting a YouTube channel to document her growth in lock-sport, and wanted advice on gear/setup stuff.
the best! Went to Japan and it exceeded my expectations. I love it for so many reasons. The people are so considerate and kind, everything is designed thoughtfully for function as well as aesthetics, and there is just so much adorable stuff. Cats or cute animé on everything, although saw very few real life cats. And I love that in Japan it is just acceptable for adults to be fun and a little childish if they want
it was so much fun. You could probably moonlight as a paid lock picker in hotels 😀 Got the feeling it happened a lot. On both occasions staff were unsurprised and had bolt cutters within easy reach. One concierge offered to open the zip without removing the lock 😧
love that abis. I am happy but also disappointed there isn't a masterlock. I mean gotta start with easy.... but then again... maybe too easy as a masterlock can be unlocked with another masterlock
Another version of this photo taken at Edmonton Green. The bus station has canopy covers that resemble angel wings. So here's Andreya posing as an angel with a big bus roundel halo above her.
Haven't boasted about it yet on these social media parts, so I shall toot/skeet my own trumpet a bit. I got my OU Family Law module result yesterday, and it's another distinction, to add to the ones in Criminal, Civil, and Public law. Next up is Contract Law!
I know it's only a date and in fact it's quite a nice warm day out there, but I'm kind of sad that it's the first day of meterological Autumn. It feels as if I've lost the summer somehow amidst tiredness and sadness, and not been able to make the most of it for all sorts of random reasons. Worldcon was a massive highlight and perhaps I've got a bit of comedown from that and am feeling sad because I'm still fighting post-Covid tiredness. I dunno. Maybe it's just depression or hormones.
I wrote about "Past Tense, parts 1 & 2", aka the Bell Riots episodes, from Star Trek Deep Space 9, and how their version of San Francisco in late August 2024 compares to the one we're living through today: cohost.org/vectorpoem/post/711…
Rewatched these two episodes and gosh, I simultaneously think the writers deserve a lot of credit for the swings they took, and that they're a great example of the limits inherent in Trek as an ongoing examination of the liberal political imagination…
One of my favorite things is responding with only file names of memes, like, "Palpatine_DEW_IT.mp4" — there's *NO* actual video or photo being posted, and there's no need for one.
A lot of accidents happen to the Children of Tama because the translation for "watch out!" is "Herett, his attention was low and the threat was very high."
The ruination of Twitter is hitting crowdfunding projects hard. Which is lousy because that's where so much innovative and interesting writing can be found these days. Do take a look, support if you choose to, and boost the signal, please and thank you.
Over on my blog, details of the latest ZNBLLC Kickstarter to give you 3 new great anthologies AMPYRIUM: MERCHANT WAR, SKULL X BONES and WERE-2
I mentioned my Ampyrium short story a while ago. I’m thrilled to say I’ll be returning to this fascinating shared world with one of this year’s ZNB anthology projects. As regular readers will know,…
I appear to have a file in my downloads folder on how to operate a Solent Fort. (For the purposes of living there or running a hotel or something, rather than defending against Napoleon, which is probably now frowned upon.)
This is great and actually explains a few things that I sort of knew but often figured out by trial and error.
I especially like "[USB] has the huge upside that you can generally plug a USB device into your computer without having to spend a lot of time thinking about the details of the interconnect.
Fortunately, USB-C, Thunderbolt, and Lightning have come along to fix that."
In May this year, Peter Hendy pressured my now-former employer Systra to sack me by threatening them.
Why did he do this? Because I'd highlighted safety and accessibility issues at Euston station. He is unfit for office and should resign. politico.eu/article/uk-rail-mi…
I remember the last government was keen that organisations toe the official line and keep awkward questions or opinions to themselves if they wanted any public work, so that bit isn’t shocking. But I am surprised that Lord Hendy was so wounded by accusations that Euston is unsuitable (😮) that he personally intervened to follow this up multiple times.
Best of luck to you Gareth, it's mad to see someone so high up reaching down to get a specific person fired like this at all, let alone for daring to talk about an obvious safety issue. Talk about inability to take criticism!
your clapping has more weight BECAUSE you also mention the flaws. Sucks that that shit happened but given the respect I'm convinced enough people have in you, you'll be fine.
@AngleseyStick maybe financial services is a special case as it's heavily regulated, but there we were told that to be protected legally as a whistleblower you had to go through specific procedures. It's not enough to simply blow the whistle in the press. The company I worked for contracted a third party to manage the procedure so as to help ensure anonymity etc and the contact details were advertised all over the building.
A career in politics was my dream, but the pressures were too great. Quitting was best for me and for those I was there to serve, says author Kimberly McIntosh
What a good article I did 10 years of public service as a Councillor while trying to work and be a good dad and husband and it took its toil on me. We need to make the role into something working people can afford to do.
@Zoë O'Connell In an ideal world the party would be a valuable resource and support mechanism for helping campaigners and councillors deal with the load. In practice it can be the source of a lot of the pressure. Perhaps unthinkingly, perhaps because the sort of people drawn to public service are the sort of people who find it hard to say no to just one more thing.
So if you’ve ever picked out paint, you know that every infinitesimally
different shade of blue, beige, and gray has its own descriptive, attractive
name.
I did actually ask ChatGPT this and it did indeed do this. Here's the prompt: "Provide a third-person narrative of someone watching a chef making a Béchamel sauce."
What I got back indicates ChatGPT has been reading too many Mills & Boon novels.
A soft sigh escaped Evelyn’s lips as she inhaled the subtle, comforting aroma of butter and flour blending with the richness of the milk....
Evelyn’s gaze lingered on the chef’s hands as they worked with practiced ease, never hurried, always deliberate. He tasted the sauce, nodded in quiet satisfaction, and Evelyn knew—without a word being spoken—that the Béchamel had been brought to perfection.
Ya know what? I'm gonna toot my own horn today On Here Specifically.
I have already received at least a dozen thankful comments/replies for letting people know they can slow down door closers. A lot of people have been living with irritating bangs in apartment buildings and whatnot.
And thanks to watching a YouTube video, their life is now better. I didn't sell anything to them, I just decided to share some knowledge in my own (hopefully entertaining) way.
this post has been sitting in my head for a while because, like,, fuck yeah!! knowing that someone out there found your work useful and being able to truly enjoy that and be unabashedly proud of yourself for that is based!! being able to unironically, truly take pride in your work is great, actually!! :>
you are doing great videos, and I am glad you are here. You are also absolutely right that you shouldn't have to endure the hate you get on here. I have no idea what's wrong with some people.
I have learned many things I didn't know about 99% invisible technology by watching your videos, and anyone that wants to be a dink about you making them knows where they can cram it.
And especially when it comes to "things that people can do themself that they haven't realized they can do themself," a video does a much better job of showing that you can, in fact, do it yourself.
Things have a way of always sounding a little more technical when they are written down.
Reasons to have the Swing Speed fast: It's the front door to my house and I don't want to have to wait to lock the door. Yes it's a fire door. It's the GOD of fire doors that is also automatically secured by bolts at 6 positions. I loved that door. I don't live there anymore.
have you considered doing one about washing machines, and how to do washing? There is a lot of mixed information out there about things like separating colours from whites, whether and how to do delicates, what happens with elasticated clothing in these machines, and so on, and an authoritative video a la your dishwasher one would be highly appreciated…
This is one of those things that annoys me about the world. Things could be a lot better if someone had just put in a little thought and effort, rather than just slapping the closer on and knocking off for lunch.
Putin, after 10 days of Kursk catastrophe, summons Stalin’s ghost: Stalin: “What’s happened?” Putin: “Nazis are at Kursk! My army is beaten! What should I do?” Stalin: “Do like me 1943. Send best Ukrainian troops to the front, and ask the US for arms!”
So in a root cause analysis sense, I'm having trouble deciding if the root cause is (a) invading Ukraine or (b) consulting Necromantic Stalin for advice.
There's a delightful variant of the double team where two or more reviewers review *consecutive* PRs to the same code, each with a different opinion on what the correct style is, so each one insists on changing things that were added at a previous reviewer's behest. I've experienced this when I've been the only contributor to a module, so I'm forced to beg different teams to do my code reviews.
@tuftyindigo both this and my version of the Double Team put me in mind of two people who are in a sulk and Not Talking to each other, conducting their argument via an unwilling third party!
'I'm blocking this and all your other MRs because I feel some sort of animosity to you, I don't want you working on my project and anyway all my solutions are the pinnacle of beauty and elegance and as such unimprovable'
@wolf480pl I think in that situation the senior dev's responsibility is to use a light touch. Certainly teaching is one of the purposes of a code review in that case, but don't try to teach too much in one go, and don't insist on iterating until the patch is every bit as good as your own would be - only good *enough*. The junior dev will reach your skill level when they have all your experience; trying to rush it won't improve things.
Glenn
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •KanaMauna
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •"I hope he dies on Mars."
Clear and concise.
Cliff'sEsportCorner
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •Cliff'sEsportCorner
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •The elevation gradient of lichen species richness in Nepal | The Lichenologist | Cambridge Core
Cambridge CoreJohn Mastodon
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •Michael Busch
Unknown parent • • •@llamasoft_ox @BillyGlennHoya There have been suggestions of sending goats along as part of a spacecraft ecology.
@sundogplanets would be well prepared.
(But nobody has yet actually done a closed-cycled life support system like that.)
Ainsley Lowbeer
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •Snigdha
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •stfn
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •I'm having mixed feelings about this article.
On one hand it has very good points, about radiation and all the other issues with Mars.
But on the other hand, I cannot stop thinking about that one article stating that humans will never fly, published a year before the Wright brothers proved otherwise.
And on the third hand, I'm thinking of how Kim Stanley Robinson described the terraforming of Mars in his books.
Vanessa
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •