I read book #1 (Revelation Space) and am one chapter into #2 but the RS world building is dramatic and has stuck with me. I haven’t read Dune and can’t compare (and doubt it’s comparable), but I I’d say it’s comparable to the ~2021 movie where there’s desolate landscapes that aren’t irrelevant, technologies that are demonatrated, not explained, and converging story arcs between multiple characters and times. I find it enjoyable because for the most part, it’s grounded in known physics. Near-light speeds and no wormholes. Interstellar voyages, but they’re still so slow they rely on refrigerated sleep.

The books have reviews that get more mixed as the progress but yet, people keep reading through. I’m mentioning it because there is a wiki that seems pretty detailed, though I have done much to keep it unspoiled. There’s the original 00s trilogy plus a 2021 4th main book, a separate trilogy, a support book, and over a dozen smaller works from as far back as 1990 with half being short stories and half being novellas, where the author was finding his footing and filling arcs.

Generally, the problem readers have is that the author introduces promising story arcs and dilemma solutions, only to abandon them and never mention them again. Then the endings feel rushed and anti climactic. But I’m someone who thoroughly enjoys playing Elite Dangerous, a space sim that’s “a puddle a mile wide but an inch deep” because I simply love the immersion and use my imagination. Elite is to sound design what Reynolds is to world building.

I’d buy 20 knockoff security bits before ever intentionally adding a flat head screw to a car

I mean, it was what, 4 years ago that a pro-oil lobby/marketing group made an actual “CO2 is life” commercial saying CO2 is good?

Nobody is mentioning Vietnam? That’s the source of boomer complaints IME. France “abandoned” the US and the industrial war machine convinced the American veterans that it was France’s fault that the greatest military in the world couldn’t defeat communist Vietnam.

Lead pipes are fine. Step 1: Install. Step 2: ignore one generation of aggressive residents. Step 3: never touch the pipes again

Honda goldwings use the starter motor run backwards and engage to the transmission directly for a reverse gear

I just wanna get this straight. OP posited that e-bikes are motorcycles. Your argument is they are not motorcycles because your local ordinances prohibit them.

JFC

No, I’m talking about non-registerable electric bicycles with pedals as intended by the post. I’m not talking about highway-legal electric motorcycles like Zero. Yes, you can buy illegal vehicles. People do. The laws are not enforced in the US. So if a law bans highway-speed bicycles but no one is around to enforce it and users continually break this unenforced law, then the distinction about the safe versions of e-bikes being woefully slower than regulated motorcycles is moot. The actual e-bike user base has demonstrable overlap with highway-legal motorcycles.

I’d bet a dollar it saves one traffic light and I’d bet a second dollar she lives within a quarter mile of the south end of the road. Opened for the relief of the most minor of conveniences.

You can buy e-bikes on amazon that weigh more and travel faster than a Honda Cub, a registerable motorcycle. They’re in Grom territory. This idea, at least in the US market, that they’re fitting into the two classes of safe e-bike is disproven with 30 seconds of observation in any city or adjacent suburb. The only riders pedaling are the leisure riders in parks.

Fortnine has two videos on the topic, one of the 60mph e-bike and one of converting a Cub to EV, making it faster than stock.

You win on drug count, but still tie on “doing all the drugs available” with multiple other mammals

Remotes need to stop being wobbly little things with slick matte surfaces. Flat bottoms, glossy grips. I’m not trying to do a full claw game simulation

You lose focus on boring things that don’t have mental stimulation such as information or pleasure. You are distracted, therefore you are squirrel. Parrots have been recorded making tools, not just using tools. Therefore, they are human.

Humans are the only ones writing it down, spreading the most thorough forms of communication the planet has ever seen. That’s your superpower.

Most of these names are equally vague. The year starting with 1 or 2 was pretty notable for changes in technology. For western countries, very particularly the US, pre/post 2001/09/11 is a very significant divide for public settings, regulated travel, and politics.

Gen X’s name refers to the frequent use of “X” in pop culture and was coined in a book. The Boomer’s experience is being born together in a large cohort. Gen Z means they came after Y, the initial name for millenials, trailing X. Alpha just restarts the alphabet, but in Greek. They’re all vague.

I take it you’ve probably never used isopropyl and definitely have never played with isopropyl fire. Few flammable things are safer than isopropyl. You should avoid paper with that mindset because at least the alcohol evaporates at a far, far lower temperature than that that causes autoignition. Even when I’ve lit pools of it on fire, it’s easy to blow it out. It’s a short-lived flame because, again, it evaporates as fast as it burns. It doesn’t get used as fuel for any normal heat source.

You realize IPA is used in all kinds of cleaners for both household and medical needs, right?

Thank you for bringing the detail and tone I was going to type. You covered so many good points. It’s nice to see someone outside the tech-heavy, privacy-hyperaware echo chamber.

It’s on the internet forever, but whatever the regular user needs is lost behind poor content indexing and incompetent search functions

It’s fine. To add to it, I couldn’t edit my own comment yesterday to highlight why I went in a different direction. Now I have. It’s not the first time I’ve been called AI because I write lengthy things about topics in which I’m knowledgeable. Xkcd.com/3126

They slowly ditched better services for convenience. The account/login struggle is the barrier to entry that myspace/facebook/discord “solved”. A unique login for each forum, a different set of rules between each, some auto-deletion of supposedly inactive accounts, no photo hosting capability until death bed, yet another set of credentials for the latest photo host, and so on. Nothing was immediate because it took time to build the replacement communities and libraries. The problem is, it took years to realize how inaccessible the information became.

It’s fine to highlight it’s correlation, but your guess is a theory of causation. It’s likely either some genetic combo that drives the desire for coffee or some lifestyle arrangement that drives the need.

Even the idea that an inactive mind leads to deterioration isn’t definitively causation. Correlation goes both ways. Are they mentally healthy because they’re mentally active? Or are they mentally active because they’re mentally healthy? The degree of mental deterioration goes up as you age, which is also when you can retire, when you don’t have to support your family, when you’re physically incapacitated, and when you slow down overall. So yeah, I plan to stay active because I’ll take my chances that it helps, but at some point, something will simply break. Maybe I’ll inherit the dimentia. Maybe I’ll inherit the neuropathy. Maybe both. Maybe neither.