Thoughts on the Labour Party leadership.

There is a growing fascist menace in this country, and with the Leave victory, they now have the upper hand. The rest of us have to realise that it's no longer business as usual. We are a minority. A large, powerful minority. But a minority. We have to put aside …

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Earth II

core

Expanded article on Earth system.

Earth (1719 A877A7C-B, pop=30b)

Until recently, Earth was dominated by a vast computer network called the "Virtuality". Over the centuries, hundreds of billions of people uploaded their minds into this "life after death". Eventually, living people came to be a minority who were largely …

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QS Supplies. Avoid these spamming pests.

Months ago, I bought several bathroom furniture items from QS Supplies. Ever since, they have bombarded me with unwanted e-mails. They have ignored repeated requests to remove me from their mailing lists. There are plenty of more professional suppliers out there, I strongly urge you to use one of them …

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Procyon II

1919 A767957-C, pop=3b, F5IV white subgiant

Expanded details about Procyon.

Procyon-Ac is a rocky planet in the habitable zone of Procyon-A, about 2AU from its star. Its oceans are home to cyanobacteria which have given the world an oxygen atmosphere, but there are no higher forms of native life …

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Can we power electric cars?

There were 240.0 billion car miles driven in the UK in 2013. That's 386.2 billion car kilometres. [source]

If electric motoring costs 0.34 kWh per kilometre (from your 4 year old link), then that requires (386.2 × 0.34 =) 131.3 TWh of extra electrical energy.

Total …

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What are the chances of rolling "snake eyes"?

We were play testing my friend Sam's board game this weekend. It features "annihilator towers" - you build up N levels of tower, and then roll N 6-sided dice to determine the damage dealt. Here's the wrinkle though: If you roll two or more ones, then the tower explodes and the …

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Spacecraft - Low Tech

Ad Astra space travellers are forced to use somewhat more realistic space drives than in "traditional" Traveller. Even with antimatter, high-tech interstellar craft typically take a week to travel to or from the jump point. Without antimatter, travel times stretch into months.

I've updated my Traveller ship design spreadsheet to …

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