StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Highlight of the movie: moving square of light from the window on the crew quarters that rotated for gravity.

No film or tv producers seem interested in dealing with the potential weirdness of a real post-Singularity world because questioning cliched narratives about human cognition and social orders just isn't done. Partly for trite ideological or crass commercial reasons, and partly because, I think, film...

The "expose every joint and don't try too hard to fit the braces into some sort of smooth monolithic architectural finish" functionalist aesthetic isn't for everyone or everywhere. This isn't even that bad of an example of it, either in isolation or context, though it doesn't compare to Re...

The conservatives on Facebook are all weeping and praising her, and of course offended that she might be criticized now that she's dead.

Joint ownership of real property is also possible; there's no legal reason I can think of that there couldn't be thousands of corporate co owners of a single piece of real property.

All you math folks, have you a favorite introductory text or author for Number Theory or any of its sub-fields? Inquiring people want to know (and order online)!

For me personally, the 2000's by far, especially from the middle of the decade on. The 80's and 90's, comfortable as they were, were filled with guilt, suicidal depression, and religiously imposed ignorance and isolation. Adulthood, on the other hand, has been filled with freedom, self acceptance, k...

It looks so appropriate to me. I hope it isn't changed.

"Thank you father, goodbye mother, and congratulations to all the children!" I know. These aren't absolutes, just general trends that I notice. It also has something of a media divide, where it is possible to explore much stranger stuff coherently in books and written fiction in general th...

It's more than just a simple matter of looking to what people believed was possible in the 1950's and 60's. The phenomenon (if you want to call it) has its roots elsewhere. Exampli gratia, mankind has believed in supernatural beings for its entire recorded history. There hasn't been a period of tim...

Any idea what distinguishes that group of men?

They are declining in numbers, if slowly. But they make quite a political prize. It's no wonder that so many politicians want to cut education and other programs that could diminish or break up that group. They're being tended like a political crop.

California is still really backwards when it comes to anything that mentions sex.

Interesting local stuff in Los Angeles. Measure J was passed, extending the Measure R tax increase another 30 years to 2069, ostensibly to fund public transit. I'm not sure how effective it will be, but the enthusiasm of the voters is heartening. Measure B will require condom use in all adult films ...

I would probably commission Basil Poledouris to compose an epic theme for bottle washing and diaper changing.

It's not a battle between species, you idiot. It is humans out of equilibrium with our environment. Treating other species (perhaps aside from viruses and their ilk) as enemies is a self defeating holdover attitude from a misinterpretation of our primitive past. Other species aren't competitors for ...

While we're sort of on the topic, Alyrium, do you consider yourself an abolitionist? I lean that way tentatively.

A lot of evangelicals will consider the possibility that the old testament genealogies were telescoped a little, omitting some generations where nothing of note occurred, therefore possibly getting past the 6000 year limit imposed by a direct reading of scripture, but definitely not more than about ...

YES! This is exactly correct. I really have nothing wrong with Gehry "In principal". If he had been born 50 or 60 years ago, he would have been considered an 'eccentric' architect and ended up building a few small buildings that would not have caused anyone much harm... Now, we see him be...

Good point. It's obvious that space "fighters" aren't going to be exact analogues to contemporary fighter planes; mixing elements from other existing vessel types such as submarines or manned bombers would give increased realism while drawing from existing sources for experience.

I did say relatively. Going with something like Batman's proposal, it could be advantageous to make the thing as massive and massively armed as possible too, though. I was just pointing out a possibility if mass is a serious issue in the setting.

If your supercarriers aren't going to be doing a lot of realspace maneuvering, they could be relatively light and flimsy. They might be hugely bulky, perhaps carrying small manufacturing facilities and large repair bays in addition to supplies and a command/communication center, but it could be larg...

I'm all in favor of building as art, but the concerns of making a building a work of art must be greater than the concerns of making a piece of crumpled paper into art, if you have any intention of the building being used and appreciated.

Exactly! Please do! I should also mention that this plays into my love of colossal engineering structures and infrastructural projects. It also highlights the scale of what's being done, which constantly seems missed or underplayed in a lot of fiction.

I like the idea of FTL being limited to a few major capital ships for several reasons. First, it helps highlight the vastness of space if FTL is a difficult thing to do. If every dirt farmer can hop a half day trip across the galaxy when getting water is a difficult task, it really cheapens the sens...