zipwitch

42 ms·

301.
by zipwitch 9y ago
Sooo... mass and composition are irrelevant? Because Pluto (and its fellows, like Eris) are smaller than a half-dozen moons. Pluto has less than _five percent_ of the mass of the smallest planet, Mercury. It is also mostly _ice_ unlike the
302.
by zipwitch 9y ago
And there you've hit the nail on the head. Too many people running currently powerful/profitable businesses think they have a right to have their business model be profitable.
303.
by zipwitch 9y ago
I've found BotR an invaluable inspiration for RPG characters of the less-serious sort. I wish all my wizards could have that ancient weapon known to the Elves as a Browning semi-automatic.
304.
by zipwitch 9y ago
I wonder if we allow enough for this in our search for alien life? Are their other life-forms out there somewhere whose timescales are radically different from ours? How would we find or communicate with them if there were?
305.
by zipwitch 9y ago
I recall seeing a navigation app a few years back that copied almost perfectly the navigation views from Standalone Complex. Never did get the name of it.
306.
by zipwitch 9y ago
Senator Mark Warner publicly commented today that this is not the full extent of Russian attacks. She has succeeded in opening national high-profile public discussion on another aspect of Russian attacks on our election.
307.
by zipwitch 9y ago
Should we terraform Mars is well on its way to being an irrelevant question. Launch costs keep getting cheaper, and there are low-energy (if long) paths between Earth and Mars. The only question is how long before some person or small group
308.
by zipwitch 9y ago
Tolkien seems to have had a hard time actually finishing things. He would go back to tinker or re-write rather than producing a single final draft. (That's intended only as an observation, not a criticism. I sympathize with the tendenc
309.
by zipwitch 9y ago
3% in recent years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mount_Everest_death_st... 6.5% overall. https://www.thoughtco.com/death-on-mount-everest-755907
310.
How Social Media is Built for Addiction(vice.com)
164 points by zipwitch 9y ago|105 comments
311.
by zipwitch 9y ago
If they do, it's almost certainly never been put into orbit. The guys who track satellites as a hobby are good .
312.
by zipwitch 9y ago
Sunken warships vanished from the ocean floor... The Earth facing an environmental crisis... Has anyone checked on the IJN Yamato lately?
313.
by zipwitch 9y ago
Wish I could award more points to this comment. After getting a counterfeit power bank recently, I realized that the due diligence I was going to need to do when buying some small additions and replacements to my camping gear was eating so
314.
by zipwitch 9y ago
They could always try to more dirctly monetize gmail.
315.
by zipwitch 9y ago
A murder destroys a single life, or handful of lives, directly. Is a bank executive who wilfully commits fraud that damages million of lives better or far worse? Regardless of how bad it is (and I do think there are arguments to be made bot
316.
by zipwitch 9y ago
I wonder if there will be job offers from a certain large country in Asia?
317.
by zipwitch 9y ago
The big problem with hiring older workers is that they're better at knowing what they're actually worth. They also tend to avoid personal sacrifices (mainly time and health) that are of net benefit to the company but not to themse
318.
by zipwitch 10y ago
Do not underestimate the American corporation's ability to believe they have a right to a profitable business model. This is a nation where municipalities are regularly stopped from building their own broadband.
319.
by zipwitch 10y ago
This is merely the inevitable outcome of what we've known has been coming for a while, even if many haven't wanted to acknowledge that the corals were effectively already dead. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07&#
320.
by zipwitch 10y ago
The problem with the "humanity will survive... somehow" is that without a great deal of work now in order to direct the future, we are abdicating our control of the how part. When the specifics are left up to circumstance, the d
321.
by zipwitch 10y ago
Are there numbers behind that reasoning? I ask, because that doesn't match up well with my (anecdotal) experience as an end user. When I'm searching for software to either replace something I'm currently using but dissatisfie
322.
by zipwitch 10y ago
There is quality content out there, much of it for free. It's just hard to find, particularly via search engine.
323.
by zipwitch 10y ago
Obligatory _Snow Crash_ reference along with the increasingly redundant observation that we really are living in a cyberpunk dystopia.
324.
by zipwitch 10y ago
What are the chances that the access pass from the foreign government to actors you don't want spying on you: criminals or your own government's intel agencies?
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NASA explores crew on SLS first flight(buzzfeed.com)
1 points by zipwitch 10y ago|0 comments
326.
by zipwitch 10y ago
Careful there. If you start really thinking about long-term tradeoffs and the real costs of externalities you might fall into a bottomless pit of despair and rage. (And not just at Uber.)
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by zipwitch 10y ago
Or the sunken microcontinent in the Southern Indian Ocean: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerguelen_Plateau
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by zipwitch 10y ago
When certain groups are exempt from the force of the law, while others feel its full weight, it is not justice, but rather a mockery of it.
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Cicada 3301 – it's time again (maybe)(en.wikipedia.org)
1 points by zipwitch 10y ago|0 comments
330.
by zipwitch 10y ago
I read _Against A Dark Background_ as a teen an thought of it as a pretty fun sf, almost space-opera adventure story. Then I read it again as an adult and... wow. Bank's SF work is very good, but the quiet existential horror that lurks

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