tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post6391382110685330580..comments2024-03-29T06:22:47.638-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: Sci Fi news - some of it great stuff!David Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger36125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-75990455778863114462020-12-13T17:24:50.992-08:002020-12-13T17:24:50.992-08:00onward
onwardonward<br /><br />onwardDavid Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-277347501970261442020-12-13T09:07:31.179-08:002020-12-13T09:07:31.179-08:00From the Sunday Mailbag on www.electoral-vote.com:...From the Sunday Mailbag on www.electoral-vote.com:<br /><br />https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2020/Pres/Maps/Dec13.html#item-1<br /><i><br />...<br /><b>A.R.S. in West Chester, PA, writes:</b> By my count, 17 of the 126 Republicans who signed onto the ill-fated Ken Paxton lawsuit claiming four states violated the Constitution with election law changes actually represent those four states (Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin). Seems only logical that their election to the House is equally tainted and they should stand down and insist a "clean" election be held.<br /><br /><br /><b>C.W. in Carlsbad, CA, writes:</b> Honestly, I feel shot through the heart to see 126 Congresspersons from across the country signing on to Texas's ill-fated suit. These people took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution, and here they are wasting their reputations in an attempt to bypass that very same document, just so that they can put their man back in the White House. How are we supposed to trust these representatives to do what is best for their constituents? I know there are good people in each of the states that signed on to this, but I'm getting a sinking feeling like the damage is irreparable—that we are better off as two distinct nations. If the 18 states that are in on this suit want to leave, form their own country and install the Trumps as dictators for life, then I really don't care. They can lie to their citizens about how dangerous COVID is. They can build walls. They can kick out immigrants (we will take them). They can abuse their working class, deny birth control, whatever! Just stop taking the rest of the country down with them.<br /><br /><b>R.R. in Santa Fe, NM, writes:</b> So we have Mo in the House and Ron in the Senate threatening to dispute the electoral votes. Team them up and we get:<br /><br />MORON<br /></i><br />Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-70307597772761472512020-12-13T08:12:52.957-08:002020-12-13T08:12:52.957-08:00seen on Twitter:
Joe Biden has now won Michigan ...seen on Twitter:<br /><br /><i><br />Joe Biden has now won Michigan so many times that he's legally required to change his name to "Ohio State".<br /></i>Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-21939446400312453362020-12-13T01:45:35.836-08:002020-12-13T01:45:35.836-08:00Larry Hart
" I wonder if they realized the ra...Larry Hart<br />" I wonder if they realized the ramifications of the fact that they can't unseat them either."<br /><br />There is another aspect to this, that I'm sure Trump doesn't realise but some of his appointees do. In a dictatorship only one person has power. The power and value of the Supreme Court disappears in a dictatorship. Being the highest court in the land only matters if there is the rule of law. (I'm sure that this has influenced Barr as well).reasonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09488435543492412991noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-46089341537731343722020-12-12T17:20:45.614-08:002020-12-12T17:20:45.614-08:00Thanks, Scidata. I'll check out your site.
Yo...Thanks, Scidata. I'll check out your site. <br />You are polite, considerate, and a supporter of the Enlightenment...EXTERMINATE!!<br /><br />Happy Holidays,<br />KHKeith Halperinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09841504651752178493noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-17070234461551464172020-12-12T14:39:24.186-08:002020-12-12T14:39:24.186-08:00Scidata: "This is Dr. Brin's blog, and I&...Scidata: "This is Dr. Brin's blog, and I'm a very grateful guest only." <br /><br />Yes, well, we've all seen visitors who were less well-raised than you. Whose parents let us all down, by not teaching how to be decent visitors and guests... e.g. not screaming a "right" to shit on your host's carpet.<br /><br />Once every three months or so I open the auto-spam-filter and see what obsessive hysteria goes on, down there. I come away thankful for pattern recognition technology!David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-70196739808809294522020-12-12T14:32:36.701-08:002020-12-12T14:32:36.701-08:00" I suggested Elon offer to orbit it over Mar..." I suggested Elon offer to orbit it over Mars -aimed DOWN, as designed - if NASA just builds it."<br /><br />An even better idea would be for Elon to largely bypass NASA and the half-built KH-11 and approach NRO about simply moving one of their 'retired and obsolete" KH-11s from its current parking orbit to Mars.<br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-88990085073992524802020-12-12T13:40:53.817-08:002020-12-12T13:40:53.817-08:00@Keith Halperin
This is Dr. Brin's blog, and ...@Keith Halperin<br /><br />This is Dr. Brin's blog, and I'm a very grateful guest only. I maintain www.scidata.ca which has some of my notes/history including the "Future Psychohistory" article from 2011 and some associated links. Dr. Brin wrote the only post-Asimov FOUNDATION book that seriously discusses computation and psychohistory. His 'competing agents' model of AI is darn close to my own. I've spent most of my life soldering boards and exploring computation at a very low level (think evolution in silico). My main interest now is citizen science. I regard polemics and grass-roots as a pincer movement to save the Enlightenment. I can't do polemics.scidatahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04992209167553267488noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-53006310333022671212020-12-12T12:51:32.253-08:002020-12-12T12:51:32.253-08:00TDB (Thanks, Dr. Brin):
Another layperson's t...TDB (Thanks, Dr. Brin): <br />Another layperson's thought from me- <br />Perhaps there is a demonstrable periodicity which can be linked to an external object, but as was discussed/implied in the Wikipedia article (or one that it's linked to), a mass extinction requires the "stars to line up just WRONG"- <br />there need to be additional terrestrial factors (geological, environmental, climatic, oceanic, etc.) for a mass extinction to occur. <br />As you might have put it: <br />"Gaia's a tough old gal- she can take one for the team, but two, three, or more are too much for her."<br />....Back to the "Galactic Death Ray as Industrial Project" Scenario-<br />Based on your and other's calculations, do you have any rough estimates of how many many planets/systems get zapped/million years or so? <br />(The point is that the Type II civilization doing this regards a certain number of mass extinctions as a better, cheaper cost of doing business than preventing it would be. Is this point too '70s or'80s for now? Maybe somebody already wrote this, but I haven't been able to find it in TV-Tropes.)<br />Keith Halperinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09841504651752178493noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-1764860760238848782020-12-12T12:16:27.805-08:002020-12-12T12:16:27.805-08:00Scidata; Would you be open to talk more about your...Scidata; Would you be open to talk more about your psychohistory research?<br />(ISTM, what Asimov et cie. called "psychohistory" would be better called "Applied Sociology" but that doesn't sound particularly exciting....)<br />Keith Halperinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09841504651752178493noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-54402112650970896412020-12-12T12:16:08.500-08:002020-12-12T12:16:08.500-08:00"Do you suppose NASA still has those surplus ..."Do you suppose NASA still has those surplus spysats in mothballs?"<br /><br />One was turned into the Roman Telescope (WFIRST) soon to launch. The other is less complete and would take a while. I suggested Elon offer to orbit it over Mars -aimed DOWN, as designed - if NASA just builds it.<br /><br />----<br /><br />KH good thoughts. But the article says the.next comet drop isn't due for 20 million years. But track from the end of the Cretacous - 63 million years ago, if the cycle really was 27 M.y, then we would be 9 away from the next.<br /><br />I've looked at the pattern currently listed here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinction_events and I don't think the 27M.y thing works at all, except as an average that posits a SINGLE cause. Especially, it doesn't look like a good fit for when our solar system plunges through the galactic "skirt."<br /><br />But what if the trigger objects number more than one? Say TWO or THREE, each with longer periodicity... AND SOMETIMES THEY MISS, failing to leave a trace in the fossil record?<br /><br />Moreover, Suppose that the two - or 3 or 4 - trigger objects have somewhat different phases? <br /><br />I have to wonder if someone out there can program a fit to the listed extinctions with two or three different periodic triggers that sometimes fail to leave a trace. Including that latter element could be tricky. But it already looks to me as if some of the sums of adjacent intervals might show better periodicity.<br /><br />My 'lapping" process could then be several causal objects in Galactic orbit or possible dwarves in far solar orbit. In the former case, they'd be farther out from Galactic center than my 1st paper supposed, and thus pass sometimes much closer to us.<br /><br />Of course, some of the extinctions may not have had a forign cause... and the datings of the intervals gets foggier, farther back in time.<br /><br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-32871828882608936452020-12-12T09:15:01.042-08:002020-12-12T09:15:01.042-08:00Re: Deadly Thing: "You can’t do much with two...Re: Deadly Thing: "You can’t do much with two data points"<br /><br />Reminds me of something I came across in my computational psychohistory research in 2011:<br /><br /><i>The gamma ray astronomer does not want to know how an observation of a gamma-ray burst would compare with thousands of other observations of that burst; the burst is a unique event which can be observed only once, and the astronomer wants to know what confidence should be placed in conclusions drawn from the one data set that actually exists</i><br />- Loredo, T. J. (1990). From Laplace to Supernova SN 1987A: Bayesian Inference in Astrophysics. In P. Fougère (Ed.), Maximum Entropy and Bayesian Methods(pp. 81-142). Dordrecht, NE: Kluwer Academic Publishers<br /><br /><br /><br />Of course, if we have many millions more years, we might be able to gather more Frequentist data :)scidatahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04992209167553267488noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-59510017182179563542020-12-12T09:06:42.326-08:002020-12-12T09:06:42.326-08:00@Dr. Brin: Re: "The Deadly Thing at 2.4 Kilop...@Dr. Brin: Re: "The Deadly Thing at 2.4 Kiloparsecs"- <br />I'm dubious that there's a tight enough correlation between extinction events (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinction_events) and this hypothetical object, but I'm open to evidence as may come up. <br />HOWEVER, let's say it's true for now. <br />Here's a story idea for you (either stand alone or part of a series Uplift or Coss)-"The Deadly Thing at 2.4 Kiloparsecs" is found to exist AND IT'S ARTIFICIAL: <br />1) It's a weapon- a sort of slow, repeating Beserker or Species Culler/Weed Killer.<br />2) It's a big industrial project with inadequate pollution controls.<br /><br />Cheers,<br />KeithKeith Halperinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09841504651752178493noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-84839356224464014222020-12-12T08:54:50.766-08:002020-12-12T08:54:50.766-08:00Daniel Duffy:
Impeachment is a political process,...Daniel Duffy:<br /><i><br />Impeachment is a political process, not a legal one. The Dems just have to grow a pair<br /></i><br /><br />It also requires 2/3 of the Senate to go along. If they weren't going to accede to removing a treasonous criminal from office, what makes you think they'd do so for the ideologues that treasonous criminal appointed?Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-56286464278811877962020-12-12T07:34:05.499-08:002020-12-12T07:34:05.499-08:00Regarding "The Deadly Thing at 2.4 Kiloparsec... Regarding "The Deadly Thing at 2.4 Kiloparsecs", a brown dwarf companion star in an eccentric orbit might be a possible suspect, might be a reasonable excuse for a "New Horizons' follow up, or a survey of objects that periodically intersect the plane of the ecliptic. Do you suppose NASA still has those surplus spysats in mothballs?Tim H.https://www.blogger.com/profile/12380916635831994159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-55239024521102885702020-12-12T02:41:23.900-08:002020-12-12T02:41:23.900-08:00Larry: "stack the court with ideologues who D...Larry: "stack the court with ideologues who Democrats couldn't unseat"<br /><br />Who says? Impeachment is a political process, not a legal one. The Dems just have to grow a pair.DPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07087941506162882852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-24578366047856152862020-12-11T21:56:37.045-08:002020-12-11T21:56:37.045-08:00Trump need only look to see what happened when Hen...Trump need only look to see what happened when Henry II tried to appoint his lackey Thomas Beckett to be Archbishop of Canterbury.<br /><br />Texas AG Paxton's call for SCOTUS to overturn the results of four other states was possibly prompted by a sudden need for Paxton to find pardonable favour. However, 17 AGs and 126 GOP legislators backed him, which clearly shows how extensive the GOP's contempt for democracy has become.<br /><br />Now that SCOTUS has rejected the request, they're being forced to move to the next step: secession. Alfred's already pointed out what bridges they're burning.<br /><br />At one level, this whole thing has been as farcical as what happened after the Gunpowder Plot was revealed. At another, norms have been upended.Tony Fiskhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14578160528746657971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-51779979325446151952020-12-11T21:25:54.175-08:002020-12-11T21:25:54.175-08:00In 2015 I re-posted my 1980s era article in Analog...In 2015 I re-posted my 1980s era article in Analog: "The Deadly Thing at 2.4 Kiloparsecs" along with updates, referring to theories for what might explain periodicity in Earth's major and intermediate extinctions.<br /><br />Compare that to this report of an article led by Michael Rampino of New York University, narrowing down the periodicity to roughly 26 million years. http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-deadly-thing-at-24-kiloparsecs-are.html<br /><br />Thoughts?David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-91491202725726408172020-12-11T19:14:42.350-08:002020-12-11T19:14:42.350-08:00The point of Republicans holding open a supreme co...The point of Republicans holding open a supreme court seat and then rushing to fill seats was to stack the court with ideologues who Democrats couldn't unseat. I wonder if they realized the ramifications of the fact that <b>they</b> can't unseat them either.<br /><br />https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/11/us/politics/supreme-court-election-texas.html<br /><i><br />...<br />Mr. Trump has said he expected to prevail in the Supreme Court, after rushing the confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett in October in part in the hope that she would vote in Mr. Trump’s favor in election disputes.<br /><br />“I think this will end up in the Supreme Court,” Mr. Trump said of the election a few days after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death in September. “And I think it’s very important that we have nine justices.”<br /><br />He was right that an election dispute would end up in the Supreme Court. But he was quite wrong to think the court, even after he appointed a third of its members, would do his bidding. <br />...<br /></i>Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-68599575660212986312020-12-11T17:28:48.006-08:002020-12-11T17:28:48.006-08:00And here is an even deeper mystery than mere monol...And here is an even deeper mystery than mere monoliths:<br /><br />https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/toynbee-tiles<br />DPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07087941506162882852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-38335375580710863492020-12-11T17:25:19.674-08:002020-12-11T17:25:19.674-08:00So they are finding these monoliths all over the w...So they are finding these monoliths all over the world.<br /><br />https://www.insider.com/monolith-timeline-appearances-disappearances-californai-utah-romania-2020-12<br /><br />Here is my favorite solution:<br /><br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHWs3c3YNs4<br />DPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07087941506162882852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-88700974391252128352020-12-11T17:11:06.518-08:002020-12-11T17:11:06.518-08:00Forget about the 2020s, go back 100 years and try ...Forget about the 2020s, go back 100 years and try the SF of the 1920s when all the great SF concepts were conceived:<br /><br />Books:<br /><br />A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay<br />We by Yevgeny Zamiatin<br />Metropolis by Thea von Harbou<br />Deluge by S. Fowler Wright<br /><br />Movies:<br /><br />The Lost World<br />Woman in the Moon<br />Metropolis<br /><br />DPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07087941506162882852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-40946117639339451862020-12-11T17:03:06.122-08:002020-12-11T17:03:06.122-08:00"This would manifest in the development of a ..."This would manifest in the development of a “Peace Room” to rival the technology and scale of the War Room."<br /><br />Revised Dr. Strangelove:<br /><br />"You can't hug in here, this is the peace room!"<br /><br />On second thought, I prefer the original:<br /><br />"You can't fight in here, this is the war room!"<br />DPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07087941506162882852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-62417821092685362252020-12-11T15:09:37.708-08:002020-12-11T15:09:37.708-08:00Amendment #14
Section 3. No person shall be a Sen...Amendment #14<br /><br />Section 3. <b>No person shall be a</b> Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, <b>having previously taken an oath</b>, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, <b>shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same</b>, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.<br /><br />_________________________<br /><br />Emphasis mine of course.<br /><br />What do you all think about people who are aiding these court cases to overturn the election in a number of states? Does it qualify for disqualification to serve as a federal elected official? Imagine you were on a jury. Would you consider these events as possibly disqualifying?Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-47314449861402849642020-12-11T15:04:23.250-08:002020-12-11T15:04:23.250-08:00The Mormons of Utah and Nevada ARE less hypocritic...The Mormons of Utah and Nevada ARE less hypocritical about certain things. For example, they know a thing or two about what it is like to be persecuted and deprived of religious freedom. Many others are just wanna-be's compared to them.<br /><br />They are also astonishingly blind to their hypocrisy on other fronts. In that blindness, they harm their adolescents struggling through puberty.<br /><br />As cultural groups go, I give them credit for getting a few things right, but I also understand why others are very unwilling to give them credit for anything. I know more than one person who was deeply traumatized.<br /><br />I used to live in Vegas. Finished up high school there and did my college years at UNLV. Made short trips to Utah occasionally, but there was no need for that to find large numbers of Mormons. There are many more of them than many people realize and they run a lot of places out there. Quietly run them, mostly. Pretty easy to tolerate for most of us too, but not necessarily for some of their former church members.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.com