cstross

17 ms·

151.
by cstross 5y ago
Internally, every large corporation in a capitalist system is a miniature Stalinist centrally-planned economy. The key differences are that (a) corporations are generally several orders of magnitude smaller than a state (hence, easier to pl
152.
by cstross 5y ago
Note this is specific to England . Other countries in the UK are following their own course -- the Scottish government agreed in principle to introduce vaccine passports as of a week ago and will require them for entry to large venues from
153.
by cstross 5y ago
And de facto suicide missions were totally a thing in event of a 1950s-70s nuclear war. B-52s didn't have enough fuel to get home after delivering their payloads. Best they could hope for was to reach neutral territory before they ha
154.
by cstross 5y ago
TBF the 100Mt variant probably wasn't a viable weapon. As it is, Tsar Bomba was air-dropped from a specially modified Tu-95 Bear, the Tu-95V, which had its engines, bomb bay, suspension and release mechanisms redesigned and fuel tanks
155.
by cstross 5y ago
Existentialism aside, it's impossible for a modern viewpoint to make sense of "Peter and Wendy" without knowing that at the turn of the 19th/20th century in the UK, infant mortality before age 5 was around 20%, and this
156.
Fossil fuels are dead (and here's why)(antipope.org)
3 points by cstross 5y ago|5 comments
157.
by cstross 5y ago
The irony here is that the real , original SCO (or rather, the Santa Cruz Operation) sold their IP and Unix business to a company called Caldera -- who had already successfully sued Microsoft over the DR-DOS/Windows 95 lawsuit started
158.
by cstross 5y ago
> It's not like a visit to the dentist either, it's a major surgery. My father had a pacemaker, and for long enough to receive a battery swap. The battery for that particular model was implanted under his shoulder blade; the sw
159.
by cstross 5y ago
You misunderstood. Astronauts in Mars orbit need radiation shielding. So: dig their spacecraft/habitat into one of the Moons. Humanoid robots: put them on Mars, instead of landing astronauts. That way, you don't need to bring them
160.
by cstross 5y ago
Yes, yes I am. (Failure is always an option!) However, I think digging holes for radiation shielding in a smallish asteroid-like body -- especially if it's a gravel pile similar to 101955 Bennu -- may prove easier than landing, provi
161.
by cstross 5y ago
One foreseeable use: Sending astronauts to Mars surface and bringing them home is energetically horrific. It's not so much the getting to Mars orbit bit that's hard work (at least, from Earth orbit), as descending into a gravi
162.
by cstross 5y ago
NIF, remember, is funded by the DoD. It's not a civilian reactor research program: it's a device for testing fusion reactions in the lab now that the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty means that they're not allowed to test H-bomb
163.
by cstross 5y ago
It's worth looking into the history of textile production prior to the invention of the spinning jenny and the industrial revolution (the first impact of which was to trigger an exponential drop in the cost of cloth). From a modern per
164.
by cstross 5y ago
See also this TED talk by the late Hans Rosling: https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_the_magic_washing_mac... Traditional washing, by beating cloth on stones beside a river, can take 10-20 person-hours a week for a
165.
On the origin of inappropriate reactions to COVID19(antipope.org)
1 points by cstross 5y ago|0 comments
166.
by cstross 5y ago
Get back to me on 3He fuel mining in the regolith after (a) demonstrating a working 3He cycle aneutronic fusion reactor (hint: it's much harder than the D-T fusion cycle that we haven't got working yet, although ITER is supposed
167.
by cstross 5y ago
In Scottish law -- and in English/Welsh law in parallel (the legal systems are different) -- there is no absolute right of free speech, like the US first amendment. Consequently, exposing the identity of witnesses (and in some cases th
168.
by cstross 5y ago
It was banned in the UK almost as soon as BSE was identified as a prion disease. Even before they culled the entire beef herd. (Source: I live here, I'm old enough to remember it dominating the news cycle for months.)
169.
by cstross 5y ago
Bear in mind that eating muscle tissue from infected animals is a much lower risk than innoculating yourself directly with brain matter from an infected animal. The prion protein is expressed in the central nervous system, which isn't
170.
by cstross 5y ago
Get back to me when you've got it running on a dead badger: https://www.abyssapexzine.com/2021/04/dead-badger/ /humor, in case you were wondering. (More seriously: this is great stuff, but it's
171.
by cstross 5y ago
ARM was originally Acorn RISC Machines, a spin-out from British computer firm Acorn, who set it up in conjunction with Apple (who wanted a low-power RISC cpu for the Newton): Acorn produced the RISC PC as a successor to the BBC Model "
172.
by cstross 5y ago
There was a proposal to build a freighter version of the A380, but no buyers. Proximate reasons: the A380 is a triple-decker, with two floors designed to support the weight of seats and passengers, not cargo containers. Some reinforcement w
173.
by cstross 5y ago
The structures in biological samples are often very delicate, their structures ruined by all of those treatments: think soap bubbles rather than bones. It doesn't matter how small the structures you can observe are if you can't be
174.
by cstross 5y ago
Electron microscopy has drawbacks when it comes to studying biological samples. The sample has to be prepared for examination in a vacuum chamber using ionizing radiation and using fixating processes and reagents that kill the cells and may
175.
by cstross 5y ago
Can confirm: have used Scrivener more or less exclusively for books since 2008, in which time I've written and sold about 15 novels. Scriv is a bit gnarly and bloated these days -- feature creep is a thing! -- but it still makes refac
176.
by cstross 5y ago
The key difference is that the A320 dated to the 1980s and was designed from the get-go for fly-by-wire and high-bypass turbofans. The 737 was in many respects an evolution of the 1950s-vintage Boeing 707, and was designed for low-bypass je
177.
by cstross 5y ago
A number of Chinese companies have colonized that form factor: GPD: https://www.gpd.hk/product One Netbook: https://1netbook.com/ Both companies typically launch new products with a kickstarter/promo o
178.
by cstross 5y ago
Youngsters these days! Back in the 1980s and 90s, the differences between MacOS and Windows were as day and night. (Windows 1 didn't even support overlapping windows. Windows 3 had weird stuff like icons that didn't map to underly
179.
by cstross 6y ago
Note that Planet Computers are currently developing the Cosmo Communicator, which kinda-sorta resembles the Pro1X layout, except with the (vastly superior) Psion-descended keyboard design of the earlier PC machines: https://www.i
180.
by cstross 6y ago
Not if it relates to a superinjunction in effect: it could potentially render Reddit and/or Conde Nast liable for criminal sanctions/contempt of court proceedings.

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