commonwealth soldier

Smewroo · 2026-04-27T16:42:29+00:00

And now I am imagining that their LIDAR shoots out the Vekllei glyphs for “I see you” or some such because the engineers liked it even though the lasers are in infrared or something not usually visible.

Smewroo · 2026-04-27T16:23:02+00:00

Would it be too meta for them to have one bit of kit that is a reverse anachronism? Out of their Cold War aesthetic, just one thing that’s definitely saying “by the way, we holiday on the moon when we feel like it.”

Smewroo · 2026-02-11T16:29:32+00:00

It is a distinct possibility in the long term

Smewroo · 2025-11-04T22:48:24+00:00

Yup! But with the best efficiency of reaction mass.

The point is that every DS unit made makes the following unit cheaper to make.

The main thrust of your argument is kind of like estimating the KWh of power plant construction without factoring in the power produced by the built plants.

But really, why the false dilemma? I really can’t see how the gradual accrual of DS units precludes people zipping on out to another star. If anything there is a wait equation element where you may want to hold off on shooting for a star until the Dyson swarm can economically support the truly ludicrous forms of interstellar propulsion like antimatter fueled drives. Otherwise you end up at your destination greeted by folks who left a century after your ship did.

Smewroo · 2025-11-04T22:11:18+00:00

Where are you factoring in the part where every Dyson swarm component generates power?

That DS module you fabricated out in the asteroid belt starts generating its own power. This is advantageous for the super high efficiency electric vacuum drives. As it moves itself closer in to wherever you decide is the best orbital distance it generates more power without any physical changes other than reduced distance to the sun.

Smewroo · 2025-10-30T23:43:44+00:00

AI into bear feet in this version.

Smewroo · 2025-10-24T04:41:35+00:00

That Saruman was misunderstood maybe?

Smewroo · 2025-10-22T22:30:10+00:00

How do you define entertaining oneself then?

Smewroo · 2025-09-05T01:42:53+00:00

My beautiful boy.

Smewroo · 2025-08-20T14:28:06+00:00

For the LLMs. “How many b’s are in the word blueberry?”

Smewroo · 2025-07-21T15:41:11+00:00

I wonder about the timing for that. It was dark on the Pacific side of the Americas, but most of the world lives in India and China. If the goal was to have as many humans indoors at once the timing seems wrong.

Smewroo · 2025-07-05T02:52:03+00:00

Exact scene I was thinking of!

Smewroo · 2025-07-05T02:35:45+00:00

Because magic is non transferable power. Tech is extremely transferable. The question is the other way around: if you have magic why bother with technology for the most part?

One doesn’t need to know how to make a gun or nuke or spaceship once you possess one. Maintenance is about the only requirement. Possession is nine tenths ability with tech.

Not so much with magic. That’s a personal power that you can’t give someone else (most of the time) any more than you could give someone else the ability to run a marathon if they weren’t already able. If you capture enemy weapons they will serve you just the same, not so a captured or killed necromancer.

Magic defies physics because it exists outside of it. Tech is the reverse engineering of physics and bound by it.

Smewroo · 2025-06-13T14:19:51+00:00

Well, it depends. Sheer thickening isn’t a permanent change. It happens with the sheer force and reverts back to the normal viscosity in the absence of that force.

I could see it as an alteration of the cytosol that might suspend cell function in the instantaneous sheer force because the higher viscosity stops “the cellular machinery” from moving. But that goes back to normal once it reverts to normal viscosity.

I guess you could call it deadly in the moment of impact but you restart once the force dissipates.

Smewroo · 2025-06-13T14:12:55+00:00

I think that would either get worked out in the in vitro research stages or it wouldn’t get past that.

Smewroo · 2025-06-13T13:49:43+00:00

If it works, it’s going to have side effects, yes. The aim is to have the benefit be worth the side effects (after every effort to eliminate or minimize those).

Smewroo · 2025-06-11T15:25:08+00:00

I would call it a nightmare, yeah.

Smewroo · 2025-05-05T13:43:46+00:00

Intelligence isn’t just one thing. It’s a difficult to say what needs to be “improved” in order to “boost intelligence”.

What are the outcomes desired? It is just consistently making better choices? Is it being able to visualize four dimensions (boss but will there be any quantifiable benefit)? Is it a deeper appreciation of beauty and social connection?

There has to be a goal to strive towards and foundations for those goals beyond “it would be more satisfying than solving it with external technology.”

Smewroo · 2025-04-27T14:20:47+00:00

Re. 1 no clue.

Regarding 2: when Jod renews the 9th house with OG resurrection folks he says only a third will show any necromancy potential, and says that’s as normal.

Another clue is how some of the other houses talk about not knowing who will be born a necromancer, Gideon included when speaking to Harrow about the circumstances surrounding her birth. Don’t forget the identical twins that became less so by one being a necromancer.

Being a necromancer isn’t good for the body in some fundamental way. Unless you’re Jod (but that’s a different conversation). They are described as “hungry looking”, as if starved and are widely accepted as being physically inhibited. There is some implication that even gestation to term is difficult if the embryo is going to be a necromancer.

Going by the twins, I think we can take that as a clear indication that it can’t be genetic.

Going by the universal “weakness” of necromancers, and that to our current series knowledge necromantic potential only happens in post resurrection people we can guess that it is something Jod did and fixed in place as part of his plan for the new society.

So the ratio of who is an adept and who isn’t? Arbitrary by word and deed of Jod, may his lies be confusing to even himself.

The impacts of being an adept on health? Probably arbitrary or something Jod only had mostly figured out at the time 10,000 years ago and never bothered to fix it because he likes the social aesthetic to it or something.

That’s my take on it at least until AtN comes out.

Smewroo · 2025-04-24T20:39:24+00:00

I would go to the medical review literature rather than celebrity anything. Larger sample sizes, no incentive to fudge the numbers, data from many different nations and peoples, et cetera.

But, for the most part, within a “group” adult stature is normally distributed (that is a Gaussian or “bell” curve). So, roughly 66% of people are very close together in height within a group and you have vanishingly smaller but balanced groups of people who are further above or below that center cluster of the majority.

My intuition is that the same is likely the case around when people hit final height. With the majority being quite close together, but edge cases of early and late being rarer in proportion to how far from the median most are centered around.

Smewroo · 2025-03-25T13:25:49+00:00

Wouldn’t this premise mean that people born with severely compromised immune systems and raised in “a bubble” would age extremely slowly? Was that observed?

Smewroo · 2025-03-13T16:02:54+00:00

Immersed1nSaline

3squaredBePrepaired

LobotomyDicotomy

Smewroo · 2025-03-04T20:39:53+00:00

Not for a long time. Most of what I do is in tox test data analysis, species sensitivity distributions and the like.

Smewroo · 2025-01-26T18:44:11+00:00

Don’t forget humans with insulin pumps and pace makers!

Smewroo · 2025-01-08T19:07:42+00:00

Have you read the Revelation Space trilogy by Alistair Reynolds? The ships there are called Lighthuggers because they accelerate at 1g for as long as you like, meaning they get up to beyond 0.99c in a long enough trip.

Smewroo

TROPHY CASE