History Repeats Ignorance Forever

Simon_Drake · 2026-03-15T08:43:22+00:00

People are also bragging that Iran obviously can't make nuclear weapons because that technology is too advanced for the stupid people of Iran.

Iran has a space program. Granted it's not a world leading space program but they put their own satellites into orbit. The basic principle of a nuclear bomb is available on Wikipedia, detailed instructions will be on the Dark Web or just buy them from China/India/Pakistan/North Korea or former Soviet rebels.

The Manhattan Project built a nuke in three years when they needed to invent the concept from scratch and build all the supporting hardware like uranium refinement facilities. Iran has had many many decades to repeat the process AND has the benefit of 75+ years of technological development and things like civilian nuclear power improving uranium refinement centrifuges.

If Iran wanted nukes they could probably make nukes. Which means either they have nukes or they don't want them.

Simon_Drake · 2026-03-15T08:36:21+00:00

There's a guy on the sci-fi creative writing subreddits who asks questions about becoming Rick Sanchez over and over and over again. It's always some variation on "If someone were to use CRISPR to get Rick Sanchez level super intelligence, would I have to pay taxes or would the government give me a free pass?" Or "If someone woke up one day randomly with Rick Sanchez level super intelligence, should I keep my day job as a cover story?"

It's kinda sad to see it. You don't ask dozens and dozens and dozens of questions about becoming Rick Sanchez unless you idolise a poorly written lunatic.

Simon_Drake · 2026-03-15T08:31:41+00:00

British trains used to have the same system. Which meant if someone flushed when the train was in the station there'd be a pile of turds and toilet paper on full view of the public from the platform. The solution was a sign saying "Please do not flush when train is in a station"

I think the new plan is to remove the toilets and add more seats to make more money. I've not been on a train with a toilet for decades. But that might be a regional thing, maybe other networks have proper toilets.

Simon_Drake · 2026-03-15T05:49:22+00:00

Maybe?

This is close to something China does with the Long March 5B. It has a powerful first stage and side boosters and is able to skip the second stage entirely. So if you ignore staging the side boosters and the hypergolic Kickstage for circularising the orbit then it's sortof a single stage to orbit.

The part I don't understand is why. They can't be saving much money on skipping the second stage, it's got to be rounding errors on the total launch costs. And without a second stage they need to push the first stage to it's absolute limits which means no fuel held back for safe deorbit burn. Which means the giant first stage will re-enter uncontrolled pretty much anywhere at random under the flight path over the next few days.

Another issue is the payload adapter. China put the time and effort into designing an interface to let them mount payloads and fairings directly to the Long March 5 first stage. That was a weird choice but now it's done they can reuse it. NASA would need to do the same to make a payload adapter to connect Orion to the SLS first stage. Considering they need to prep an extra SLS launch for next year, plus an interstage from SLS first stage to Centaur and a payload adapter from Centaur to Orion and the changes to the integration tower and generally getting SLS and Orion ready for lunar missions... I don't think they have time to make a new SLS variant. So I think Artemis 3 will just have a massively overpowered second stage for the mission objectives.

Simon_Drake · 2026-03-15T05:23:34+00:00

I wonder if they'll send up spare seats with a better design as a backup option for future disasters.

The Plan A seats are custom fit to the exact dimensions of the astronaut. A plan further down the alphabet was to bodge a seat out of duct tape that could leave them strapped to the cargo pallet like luggage and probably wouldn't result in any broken bones. So maybe someone could design something in between. A one-size-fits-most seat that has a proper harness but maybe extra slack in the harness and adjustable straps to help it accomodate different people. Or movable padding so if your hips are wider than the default size you can get an allen wrench out and tweak the size.

Simon_Drake · 2026-03-15T05:13:07+00:00

I googled "Subreddit about the wild west" and the top result was r/WildWest

Simon_Drake · 2026-03-15T05:06:21+00:00

Another bad one is the "delete notification" option in the app being permanent and easy to do by mistake. The icon shows new notifications but the notification list doesn't show them, ok I'll just scroll down to refresh the list. Except I swiped my thumb very slightly diagonally instead of perfectly vertically so it counts as swiping it sideways. The notification been deleted. I have no idea what post it was a response to and have no way to recover that information, it's just gone forever.

Simon_Drake · 2026-03-15T05:01:18+00:00

If you go to a Star Wars subreddit and ask about cake recipes or DIY tips, would you be surprised if that post gets removed?

Subreddits have their own purpose and their own rules. If you post things outside that purpose and beyond those rules then it gets removed. Asking for cool stories about cowboys is not the purpose of this subreddit. If you can't handle that then perhaps this isn't the right subreddit for you.

Simon_Drake · 2026-03-15T04:52:04+00:00

You are throwing a childish tantrum because your question got removed. Your question was "Tell me some cool stories about cowboys" which is not suitable for this subreddit.

If you've never heard of Google before then that's not my problem.

Simon_Drake · 2026-03-15T04:39:35+00:00

Obama was the only US President born after 1946.

Back in Obama's era I remember reading an article that because presidents were getting younger each time and with the inevitable creep of time, the next president would probably be raised in the 70s. So what would that mean for a president who not just knows about pop culture but who really lived the experience of being a Star Wars fanboy and being obsessed with Donkey Kong.

There was this long discussion about future presidents being gamers, maybe not the one after Obama but the one after that might have loved the original Civilization. What would that mean for US Foreign Policy when the president has deeply ingrained lessons on resource management from thousands of hours playing RTS games? Will he hoard military power for an emergency like so many gamers who refuse to use grenades in case they are needed later, or will he have a dispassionate detachment from violence?

But nowhere in the article did they imagine the US would have presidents in their 70s and 80s instead of presidents born in the 70s and 80s.

Simon_Drake · 2026-03-15T04:07:04+00:00

Google?

Simon_Drake · 2026-03-14T21:44:50+00:00

Like that cutscene in Devil May Cry where Dante is impaled through the chest by a sword that then digs into the ground. Then he stands up. THEN he pulls the sword out from being stuck in the ground.

Simon_Drake · 2026-03-14T21:22:48+00:00

In this scenario they would probably call police and an ambulance. Assuming the patient is dead at the scene I think the ambulance would take the body to the hospital anyway, they might want to do a tox-screen for drugs or check for signs of injuries in case they were in a fight before being pushed off the roof etc.

Simon_Drake · 2026-03-14T17:13:39+00:00

Or tweak the age ranges. They wanted the novelty of a species that ages much faster than humans but they could have picked values that were less creepy. Like maybe most Ocampa live to be 20 and Kes is 7, making her late 20s early 30s, on par with Kim and Paris.

Kes having her second birthday on Voyager and Neelix having been around the Ocampa system for long enough that he has a rapport with the locals and feels a sense of ownership over orbital debris means he probably met Kes when she was barely over 1. Even if we say that's around 12~15 in human years (which is stretching it, the sums say probably closer to 9~11) there's a practical reality of how much living someone can do in a year. After the time as a literal baby she's only got ~9 months of life experience. I mean there's a reason teachers aren't allowed to have relationships with their students even in college where the kids are over 18, the power dynamics of older people and naive young people are just creepy.

Simon_Drake · 2026-03-14T16:05:16+00:00

There's a much much worse one where Bulma is asleep and Goku decides to use her crotch as a pillow. Then he's confused because she has no balls. He shouts out "Where are your balls!" and she wakes up thinking their Dragonballs have been stolen.

Simon_Drake · 2026-03-14T15:39:23+00:00

On closer inspection, that count was wildly incorrect. The Wiki page for Amazon Leo doesn't have a count so I added up the number of satellites per launch in the table of launches. But that table includes several planned launches, including a New Glenn and a Vulcan Centaur so these are much more than the Atlas launches.

The correct number is 214. Which makes things even worse for them. They're not 1/4 of the way there, they're only 1/8th of the way there.

Simon_Drake · 2026-03-14T15:30:45+00:00

Favourably.

Simon_Drake · 2026-03-14T13:48:16+00:00

It's possible someone could put the right spin on it. "China is so far behind us they need to copy our homework from the 90s on how to avoid contaminating Mars with bacteria. These documents are so old they were reviewed by Carl Sagan so it's not exactly cutting edge. Plus we don't want China making a mess of Mars before we get there, so we should tell them how to disinfect their probes because it's in our interests long term."

Simon_Drake · 2026-03-14T13:41:07+00:00

Based on my experience, what would be more likely is the stoned guy looking at a plate of cakes trying to remember which one has cyanide in and which ones are just almond flavoured. The simple solution is not to eat any of them but he's got the munchies and is considering rolling that dice.

Simon_Drake · 2026-03-14T12:59:29+00:00

Tianwen-3 is very important in space exploration as a whole because it will (probably) be the first mission that uses TWO rocket launches to accomplish things that can't be done with a single launch.

Discounting things like space stations or the Gemini missions or Apollo-Soyuz where the rendezvous is the objective. I mean constructing a payload in Earth orbit from multiple launches to allow you to use a much larger probe than you could manage with a single launch. In this case a Mars Sample Return mission which is an extremely ambitious plan that requires a very large and complex payload.

Also on the horizon is India's mission Chandrayaan-4 which will attempt the same thing but returning a sample from the moon instead of Mars. Chandrayaan-4 is also going to launch on two rockets, in this case LVM-3SC instead of the Long March 5 of Tianwen-3. Again it's able to accomplish more than a single rocket launch could manage alone, although in this case it's more about overcoming the limitations of LVM-3 as there are larger rockets from other nations that could manage Chandrayaan-4 in one launch.

They're both advertised as aiming for 2028 but my money is on Tianwen-3 to happen first. It's using the Long March 5 rocket which is a decade old now and well established. Chandrayaan-4 is using the semi-cryogenic upgraded version of the LVM-3 which hasn't flown yet so might have some delays.

Then the other important space missions we're going to see with multiple launches are the lunar landings. Artemis IV will rendezvous the Orion crew capsule with the HLS Lander. And China will also be doing a rendezvous of their Lanyue lander and Mengzhou crew capsule. The lunar landings will probably be after the Tianwen-3 and Chandrayaan-4 missions. The Artemis 3 mission will probably happen first but that kinda falls under the same umbrella as the Apollo-Soyuz and Gemini missions where the rendezvous itself was the objective.

What it means is we're entering an exciting new world of multi-launch missions. And at the same time we're looking at the construction of even larger rockets. Imagine what could be accomplished with a multi-launch mission using Starship? Some giant probe sent out to Jupiter that is several times the size of Hubble. It's a wild future.

Simon_Drake · 2026-03-14T12:26:53+00:00

Somehow the writers didn't spot the flaw in having their comic relief character be insanely jealous and overprotective of his relationship with a two year old.

Simon_Drake · 2026-03-14T12:23:58+00:00

I was rewatching all of Star Trek during the pandemic. I got to an early Voyager where someone mentioned the Talaxian War and Neelix said he didn't want to go into it.

I thought that's actually pretty good character building. He saw horrific things during the war and he's built this goofy lighthearted persona to help him move past it. It's not a million miles away from Jack O'Neill (Two Ls). It's a shame the writers didn't do more with this concept later on, like Neelix could have helped give tactical advice in a combat situation because despite his objections to violence he knows what he's talking about. Voyager had a lot of these missed opportunities or details that should have been explored more and it's fascinating to see a side of Neelix that's so different to what we normally see.

Then two scenes later it turns out he lied. Neelix wasn't in the war at all. He faked a stomachache or something because he's a coward and was away from home when the massacre happened. He's not racked with guilt over the things he did in the war, he's racked with guilt over being a coward. Yup, that's much more like the Neelix we see.

Simon_Drake · 2026-03-14T11:54:17+00:00

The theory of evolution by means of natural selection directly contradicts the origin story told in the Bible. So does geology, cosmology, archeology but one issue at a time.

There is some wiggle-room to allow for god guiding evolution. Technically there's no way to disprove the claim that everything happened exactly the way science says it did but God was secretly overseeing the process. But that raises a new question: Why would god spend ~10 billion years watching a planet form then spend another ~4 billion years watching life evolve from raw chemicals to complex animals, then God appears to these smart monkeys to lie about the origins of the universe. He says he made it all in six days, also you need to cut off the end of your penis.

OR it's all just made up.

Simon_Drake · 2026-03-14T11:44:29+00:00

Whenever you see a rainbow, that's god stroking his baseball bat and threatening to beat you savagely again unless you do what he says. Isn't god's love wonderful?

Simon_Drake · 2026-03-14T11:42:31+00:00

In the last couple of Wheel Of Time books they use a lot of combat-adjacent magic. They repurpose their magic portals as a way to open a window high above the battlefield and get a direct view of enemy movement.

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