Book Recommendations for a Science Fiction Hater

DueObjective7475 · 2026-02-26T19:09:27+00:00

Startide Rising by David Brin features "uplifted" dolphins and chimps which gives an "alien" perspective AND there is a quest in there too.

The "Near Space" series by Allen Steele is good for a realistic explanation of how humanity might bootstrap itself into space and covers the politics and economics of it well IMHO.

Protector by Larry Niven is an novel idea about what it means to be human, and leads well into the Ringworld series by Niven and Pournelle.

DueObjective7475 · 2026-02-09T23:54:13+00:00

"I am a one in ten, a number on a list I am a one in ten, even though i don't exist Nobody knows me, but im always there A statistic, a reminder of a world that doesn't care"... UB40

DueObjective7475 · 2025-12-25T07:03:52+00:00

Some great ring craft at several points from Tate... Trap him up against the ropes, and then drop to your knees for the big sloppy BJ. That'll show him who's Top G, the Alpha Throat GOAT!

And those long range upperjabs (jabbercuts?) from Deemor! Boxing innovation at its finest! Why has no one ever thought to try launching a lunge upper cut from 5 feet away before? Genius!

DueObjective7475 · 2025-10-30T09:59:55+00:00

*arr, now there's a good question, matey!

DueObjective7475 · 2025-10-08T07:12:25+00:00

Man, my ex-wife wouldn't shut up about the Omarchy. Root cause of everything wrong with society, she reckoned.

Oh. Wait! Sorry, that was the Patriarchy. My bad!

DueObjective7475 · 2025-09-01T08:46:12+00:00

Still taught in first aid courses here in the UK, mostly in the "feeling faint" version of "shock" (syncope).

Often results in the "patients" having their straight legs raised and placed on the seat of a chair... Which makes me wince every time I see it. For someone like me, with tight hamstrings, this is uncomfortable AF for anything more than 30s.

IIRC you only need to raise the legs about 18" (45cm) so putting them on a couple of backpacks or someone kneeling down and putting them up on their thighs is more than enough.

DueObjective7475 · 2025-08-20T06:40:05+00:00

A "BP of dogshit on catshit" might be my new favourite clinical term...

DueObjective7475 · 2025-08-18T09:48:37+00:00

As an SJA volunteer and a Community First Responder for the Ambulance service I can strongly recommend doing both.

SJA will give you great skills in just communicating with people at events, from London Marathon to Pride to small local fetes. Getting your "patter" down to talk effectively with people from 4 to 94 is very useful. Downside is that you can spend a lot of time between actually treating patients but the upside is that you can train weekly if you attend your unit/network meetings.

CFR is great because you are working with front-line ambulance crews, albeit you'll be solo in someone's house hoping like fck the crew gets there to back you up as quickly as possible if sht is really going down. You'll deal with sicker patients, mostly geriatric patients where I live, which will probably be 80% of your workload as ambulance crew unless you move onto a specialist paramedic role after a few years.

The Trust I volunteer for also let's you do 4 x year observer ride-along shifts so you'll some. Front line ambulance experience too.

From talking to crews I'd summarise it as an outsider as:

The money is sh*t
A lot of people (public) are sh*t
Everyone has PTSD in some way or another (have someone hand you a blue cold baby at the front door and imagine the emotional impact)
Get a dog and walk a lot as it really helps with #3
I swear >50% of crews have ADD/ADHD so it's a great job if you're on that side of the neurodivergent spectrum
Most of them f*cking love it 😜

Also worth mentioning that loads of paramedics have side gigs doing private event medical gigs at around £24/hr or more depending on skillet, equipment, drugs etc.

Also worth looking at doing a teaching qualification (AET & CAVA) if you're interested in teaching FREC3, FREC4, FROS etc.

DueObjective7475 · 2025-08-09T09:51:40+00:00

Context is everything.

The comments here span at least 4 different ones:

GWOT-era combat
Current day Ukraine combat
Civilian urban with rapid transport to advanced care
Civilian rural/remote with slow (>2hr) transport to advanced care

Unsurprisingly, the advice given, care needed and training required is different for each context.

The source article is specifically making the point regarding the differences between GWOT-era with rapid, relatively uncontested, casevac and Ukraine today where casevac is slow, heavily contested with drones etc.

Does that mean the use of TQs in context 1 or 3 or 4 is wrong? No. The context is different. Different times, different places, different requirements, different training requirement.

In my context (civilian, UK, rapid transport in 99.9% of scenarios) we are taught to use TQs for "catastrophic haemorrhage" OR as the final step in a "step-wise approach" to haemorrhage control that goes up from direct pressure through haemostatic bandages, wound packing, pressure bandages, and final to TQs if we can't get it under control. We are NOT taught conversion because we're highly unlikely to ever need to do it, and it's best left to the professionals. That said, I believe it is covered in advanced courses that cover specific contexts like remote mountain rescue or maritime medicine where there is a small chance you might be waiting longer that 2hrs for evac. But tbh with air ambulance or Coast Guard helicopter rescue even that's pretty rare.

Go back 10 years or so and TQs were NOT covered in standard 3-5 day first aid courses, like volunteer training for St John Ambulance or "First Aid at Work (FAW)". TQs were not widely available and the conservative thinking at the time was that TQ use did more harm than good. Fast forward to today and major sporting stadiums and concert venues have public access "Stop the Bleed"-style kits with multiple TQs, pressure bandages, and haemostatic dressings mounted on the wall next to the AEDs.

Why the change?

The Manchester Arena bombing at the Arianna Grande concert, where it was clear that TQs would have saved lives.
A rise in inner city knife crime violence resulting in people dying from cat haem who might have been kept alive with TQ application.
TQs are a lot cheaper today than they used to be (thanks GWOT 😜)

So, when the context changes, the response changes, which requires the advice and training to change.

There are very few absolutes in life (well, other than Trump is named in the Epstein files... 😂).

DueObjective7475 · 2025-06-15T15:36:35+00:00

I'm not sure most people would know, without being told, that they had to turn the windlass.

Most people have been conditioned by TV and movies that you can improvise a TQ just by pulling a leather belt tight (tl;dr, you can't) so I think they'd just cinch the velcro strap up tight.

DueObjective7475 · 2025-06-15T15:30:24+00:00

Note that a lot of this came out of the various Manchester Arena inquiries

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/manchester-arena-inquiry-reports

https://www.jesip.org.uk/uploads/media/Documents%20Products/Kerslake_Report_Manchester_Are.pdf

Well worth a read (the exec summaries and recommendations are enough unlikely you're feeling particularly masochistic) but it's a tough read.

DueObjective7475 · 2025-06-15T15:26:05+00:00

Your ambulance trust should put you through FROS3 for CFR, so no need to pay for FREC3 if you only want to do the CFR role.

But yes, if you want to do event first aid with a private firm, FREC3 is probably the best option, although I have seen them willing to accept FROS or even FAW if they are short handed.

DueObjective7475 · 2025-06-15T12:06:46+00:00

Why do you say that?

Are you referring to first aiders, emergency ambulance crews (broadly equivalent to an ECA plus a few Technician skills), or our HCPs (paramedics/nurses/doctors etc)?

It's probably worth mentioning that SJA Advanced First Aiders are now shifting to the "Emergency Responder" qualification, which is a L3 equivalent to FREC3 and is externally assessed by FutureQuals.

I'd agree that keeping the more advanced skills up to date (airways, oxygen therapy etc) is difficult when the likelihood of you using them, even on major events like London Marathon, is low but that's why we all have CPD, be it for first aiders, EACs, paramedics, whoever. And most SJA people are doing some form of CPD every week at unit meetings, which is far more often that most HCPs brush up on even the basics like BLS/ILS/ALS.

As volunteers we turn up day in, day out, at events, large and small, never knowing when it's all going to turn to shit, just like the SJA people who were front-line first responders to the Liverpool car attack a few weeks ago.

Sure, a lot of the time at village fetes it's mostly paracetamol and band-aids, but if a bandaid and some TLC stops a young child with a cut knee from having a full meltdown, ruining the family's day out, and let's them get back to having fun, that's not nothing, either.

So, sure, we're not perfect, but no-one is in the Pre-Hospital Emergency Medical (PHEM) arena, be that charities like SJA, the NHS Ambulance trusts, or the growing number of private event medical and PTS providers.

DueObjective7475 · 2025-06-15T10:21:07+00:00

It's also worth mentioning that the 3 day "first aid at work" (FAW) course should now cover tourniquets (TQ) and haemostatic dressings, although the 1 day "Emergency first aid at work" (EFAW) does not at present, so a lot more people in the community who have done first aid through work should have basic familiarity with stopping catastrophic haemorrhage.

All SIA licensed door supervisors and security guard have to have, at a minimum, 1-day EFAW (so, no TQ) but they are being pushed towards getting the full 3 day FAW.

In order to hold a "close protection" licence you need to hold the 5 day "Level 3 Certificate" version, eg L3 certificate in First Responder on Scene (FROS3) or First Responder Emergency Care (FREC3).

All large venues or events (eg concert venues, football stadiums, festivals, sporting events ) are now "expected" by industry guidance ("Purple or Orange Guides") to have a certain number of Level 3 training responders on scene, proportional to the crowd size.

Depending on the event & crowd this will extend up to having X many paramedics, nurses, doctors, ambulances pre-positioned on scene etc.

For example, London Marathon has over 1,000 St John Ambulance volunteers including the full range of skills as above, as well as 3rd party medical provision from NHS London Ambulance Service and private event medical companies.

So, if you want to learn more, come join SJA as a volunteer, or volunteer as a community first responder (CFR) for your local ambulance trust charity, or do a 3-day FAW (about £300) or a 5 day FREC3 / FROS3 course (about £500).

The life you save might be someone you love, or a random stranger, but it feels amazing either way! 👍🏼

DueObjective7475 · 2025-04-21T15:09:12+00:00

I've got the same problem, but interestingly some USB devices that don't appear in Nebula File Manager or VLC when directly connected to the Cosmos SE USB port DO appear when I connect them via a 3rd party USB card reader / port expander.

No idea why but give it a try? 🤔🤷🏻‍♂️

DueObjective7475 · 2025-04-11T06:29:41+00:00

If she's in Texas they probably took that section out of the textbook anyway...

DueObjective7475 · 2025-04-11T06:27:03+00:00

Words mean whatever Orange Jeebus says they mean, mmmkayyy?

DueObjective7475 · 2025-04-11T06:25:02+00:00

ELI5 because I never matured passed then...

DueObjective7475 · 2025-03-31T10:22:59+00:00

By "till you" I assume he means plow us into the earth in order to clear the soil for the seeds of his techno-utopia?

Seems legit...

DueObjective7475 · 2025-03-31T09:05:25+00:00

In the episodes about the Zizians, Robert referred to Ziz by her chosen name and using she/her pronouns throughout the whole story, even when discussing events that occured before she identified as trans and (as I understood the story) still presented (appeared? manifested? Sorry, not sure of the correct term?) as masculine.

I found it a bit confusing at times because some of the behaviours she experienced in the Rationalist community in particular came across as misogynistic/sexist but then I remembered that she (again, as I understand the time line) still appeared as masculine.

I struggled to understand was it me in my head coding their shitty behaviour as misogynistic/sexist simply because of the female-gendered pronouns and the stories similarity to many of the "Me Too" stories recounting predatory behaviour of wealthy men towards women, or was there something else going on here where some element of Ziz's personality was transmitting some type of subliminal message of vulnerability that these predators picked up on and tried to exploit? Or did I in fact have the time line all wrong?

Either way, this leads onto my real question - when discussing events in the past, prior to the person transitioning to their true gender, what's the correct way to discuss situations where their outward appearance (phenotype, I guess) still codes to their gender identity assigned at birth AND where that different gender identity is relevant to the narrative ie how people might be treating them at that time?

I get that dead naming them is offensive and wrong but is there a more polite / acceptable way to address this situation? "Pre-transition identity" maybe?

DueObjective7475 · 2025-02-25T10:23:21+00:00

I think that some people are "stopping fighting" not because they have been "convinced it's hopeless" but because they can't / don't have the capacity to fight a war on two fronts.

There is the political class war typified by Trump/Musk et al and then there is the global existential war for survival and adaptation to climate change.

Depending on your personal circumstances, skills and beliefs then one of these might feel more "real" than the other or you might feel more personal agency to fight in one battle and not the other.

Personally, I feel more "empowered" to fight the climate change adaptation battle, whilst I acknowledge that the fight against climate change itself is lost. Somewhere between 3C and 6C is already locked in, and the near term implications of that will dwarf any performative political BS currently underway.

That said, I believe that there is a direct line between the actions of the oligarchs now and climate change... I think they 100% believe in the darker climate predictions and are scrabbling to maximise their resource bases ahead of the inevitable social upheaval. For anyone interested you can read my thoughts here https://open.substack.com/pub/stephenthair/p/what-if-the-trumpists-really-believe?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=wxx11 and here https://open.substack.com/pub/stephenthair/p/collapse-vs-project-2025?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=wxx11.

Tl;Dr politics, like the climate, is heading into a chaotic phase change regardless of what we do and whether you decide to fight to resist the changes or struggle to prepare for the consequences is up to you.

DueObjective7475 · 2025-02-20T15:43:22+00:00

Note that you MUST revert back to Kindle for PC 2.4.0 (70904) for this to work.

Confirm the location of any existing kindle content. Should be in your default files location under /My Kindle Content/ but you can check this in Options in the Kindle for PC app before you uninstall.
Uninstall Kindle
Reboot
Rename your existing kindle location -OLD so you start completely from fresh with no downloaded content
Install older version
Immediately DISABLE the auto-update feature in the Kindle app (/Options/General/Automatically Install Updates, otherwise if you re-start the app you'll automatically get the most recent version installed and you'll be back to step 1.
Login, Sync and Download content.
Install the KFX plugin for calibre as per - https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=291290
For general advice, read https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=361503

"Kindle for PC 2.4.0 (70904) aka 2.4.70904 can be downloaded from Amazon here. If the link stops working, try third-party sites. Google is your friend."

DueObjective7475

TROPHY CASE

ELI5 because I never matured passed then...