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The American voter openly and obviously said "wow. Despite the numerous management failures, more of that please?"

People didn't vote for change, they voted for the same thing they had 4 years ago that changed absolutely nothing.

To quote Vaas from Far Cry 3: Do you know what the definition of insanity is?


Exactly. They were so frustrated and disgusted by the status quo political mess that Don was still a viable choice. Twice!!!

And how did the system respond after the first win? It didn’t. It was same ol’ same ol’, and look what the led to.

Blaming Trump for the cluster fuck mess that gave him the opportunity to run and win… Sorry. Absolutely not his fault.

I don’t like the guy. But I’m not going to be foolish and blame him for winning. That’s not his fault.


"but China is worse!" is an excuse wearing well past paper thin at this point.

Because Cinnamon exists and has a delightful commitment to functional minimalism.

The biggest problem is it's spin rate: a Venus day is 116 days Earth days or so.

Being completely tidally locked would be better because near the transition zones the permanent sun would make solar power and plants quite productive.

But an ecosystem where the planet spends most of the year in darkness or dim light?

Basically it's relatively easy to redirect comets to provide gas and liquids for the surface of Mars: that's technically demonstrated technology now.

There's almost no plausible way we could add momentum to Venus to give it a more reasonable day night cycle (I have seen some suggestion that shearing asteroids into it might be possible, but just the magnitude of momentum you're trying to add is staggering).


If I remember correctly, the habitable-ish cloud layers have super-fast winds that circle the planet once every 4 days or so. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_super-rotation


> But an ecosystem where the planet spends most of the year in darkness or dim light?

If you're floating you don't have to track the ground.


Does the atmosphere itself track the ground? I'd expect the slow rotation to drive persistent winds, potentially keeping weather systems somewhat tidal-locked as well

True but you basically lose the benefits of being on a planet. The point at which you're just floating in atmosphere I would argue you might as well be in orbit for all the resupply complexities, but few of the benefits - I.e. an orbital structure without significant atmosphere around it means high Isp low thrust engines like ion drives are practical to come and go from it and a lot of the energy is free from solar.

> you might as well be in orbit for all the resupply complexities

The difference is in air pressure and gravity.

Gravity means comfort for astronauts. It also makes, I suspect, science and industry a bit easier.

I don’t know what air pressure means. Spacewalks probably get easier. But now your structures have to deal with aerodynamic forces, which is annoying. Making up for that, you’re suspended in a soup of precursors and reagents—that opens up ISRU possibilities. And you should be getting less radiation in atmosphere.

On the whole, if you’re doing planetary science, I think being in the atmosphere is hard to beat. If you’re doing any industry, being near raw materials beats shipping anything unprocessed out of a gravity well. So if you’re staying for a while, you dip in. If, on the other hand, you’re just visiting for a few days, yeah, take a lander and then get back out again.


There are other advantages versus orbital habitats, not least that your station doesn't have to be a pressure vessel - equal pressure within and without makes big structures a lot simpler.

The atmosphere would also block the majority of radiation, which is a huge concern for proposed orbital or Martian settlements.

Even better than just the atmosphere itself: Venus has an induced magnetosphere.

All right, but if outside is one atmosphere of sulfur dioxide, you still don't want any air leaks.

At the right height the pressure would be equalised, and so while a leak isn't great, they'd be slow and manageable.

Redirect comets? Technically demonstrated technology? What?

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/dart/

As in the mission has been flown and an asteroid deflection has been achieved.


The atmosphere has a perfectly reasonable 110 hour day/night cycle.

> But an ecosystem where the planet spends most of the year in darkness or dim light?

How would that work? Averaged over the planet, you get half the year in darkness and half the year in light. There's no other option.

We have that same ecosystem on Earth.


Ah enlightened centrism rears its head again. Remember folks: at all points both sides are exactly the same /s.

If you guilt me into voting, I'll probably vote for somebody you don't like.

Isn't it better that I don't vote?


There have been multiple times where the final vote count was the difference of a handful of votes. No one is guilting anyone to vote and some will say that neither party represents what they want and that sucks. But ultimately there has to be one side that even if you don't overall like them you would still rather they get elected. So vote for who you think might be best. And if they have policies you don't agree then contact your representative and say "I voted for you but do not want xyz policy". The more who speak up the better.

I'm not American. And surprise: regardless of your reasons you get judged by the government you put in power, since foreign policy is how the rest of us experience your choices.

And your choices are evidently you're completely okay with the current situation as well.


> Isn't it better that I don't vote?

Maybe. I'm not actually that invested in people voting. But that doesn't negate the hypocrisy of complaining when you're, through inaction, endorsing the status quo.


No. It is better that you vote. For at the end of the day you can:

1. know you tried to express your wishes

2. know that the outcome is because people expressed their wishes

3. realise the balance between 1. and 2. whether the outcome is as you hoped, and especially if it is not as you hoped.

This is important because hanging back and saying "Well I didn't vote for them!" is by default not supporting democracy as your country views it.


"better" for whom?

Everyone knows how the parties are different

Its valid to be more annoyed by the ways that they’re the same

your cause is not my cause, its better for the viability of your preferred party if you remember that


Its valid to say a lot of things. But it doesn't escape you from having to own those choices.

You are what you'll accept, and you looked at the choices given and said "I'm okay with either one".

Because the consequences of whatever mutual dissatisfaction you had still means one of them gained power and implemented their agenda anyway. And you were okay with that.

You don't get to not make a decision and then pretend you aren't culpable for your inaction.


the other person was talking about not making a decision, so you've transposed an idea not mentioned at all onto my comment

good luck out there

what to remember: the goal of the parties are to win friends and influence people, it's a weird meme that you aren't doing that and neither is the other party. time to re-evaluate the communication style yeah? proselytizing isn't working


The idea that nobody in American politics is trying to win friends nor influence people is indeed a very weird meme! As you say, that implies there's a big lane of persuasion that isn't being filled for some reason, even though everyone who's heard of Dale Carnegie knows it ought to be.

Have you considered the possibility that the meme might be false? That would explain neatly why it's so weird.


amusing.

parties are losing members and partisan’s methods are not effective

there is a big lane of persuasion that isn’t being filled


Except those are both done.

WhatsApp could not change for the next 50 years, and it would continue doing that just fine.


I add an autogen.sh script to all my repositories that does things like this as it's first action.

You can also set up a central git template repository, so hooks get automatically added into every repository you clone

Battery prices are still falling though, it's just demand is enormous. But I works fully expect China to start having "compatible replacement packs" being built once the volume is there to support it.

A logical future market is battery-refurbished EVs, just a question of where the crossover point is.


IMO you're fighting the wrong battle: there'll always be a new model.

But the broader concept of fake news and the manufactured nature of media and rhetoric is much more relevant - e.g. whether or not something's AI is almost immaterial to the fact that any filmed segment does not have to be real or attributed to the correct context.

Its an old internet classic just to grab an image and put a different caption on it, relying on the fact no one can discern context or has time to fact check.


Except DNA may not be present: the probabilities involved with partial DNA matches become very problematic.

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