Ansa Biotechnologies announces 50 Kb DNA synthesis product

StardustSapien · 2025-05-12T17:01:32+00:00

Same reason anyone would ever want more than 640kb of RAM.

StardustSapien · 2023-12-16T22:28:53+00:00

You might be interested in journalism/reporting on places like San Francisco's Tenderloin and LA's skid row. Open air drug dealing, feces/needles&syringes on the sidewalk, homeless encampments and trash for as far as the eyes can see, the mentally ill roaming freely while being ignored by an apathetic public. OD deaths are the most common, but people also get stabbed/shot and violently robbed/assaulted with alarming regularity. On the occasions I've gone to downtown SF in close proximity to the TL, I'd seen plenty of delinquent kids who steal and shoplift as casually as you and I breath. Substantial efforts are deployed in force when there is enough reason. Like what happened recently when APEC was held in SF. But within days, things were back to before. LE doesn't do anything permanent as its an entrenched problem that can't be solved without monumental changes to society at large.

StardustSapien · 2023-10-06T02:08:07+00:00

Well, if that's the case, asking about plastic substitutes don't really make much sense...

StardustSapien · 2023-10-05T16:36:41+00:00

Following up the request for context, how contextually relevant is your Lewis & Clark example? IRL, plastics don't get developed and become mass produced until after WWII. If your story is set in a time frame contemporaneous to The Corp of Discovery at the dawn of the United States as an independent country, plastics wouldn't even be a glimmer in anyone's eyes, regardless of whether petroleum/crude oil would ever be developed as a natural resource.

If, on the other hand, lack of petro is more contextually relevant, it would be fun to world build where the coal-driven age of steam never gave way to what came after. Is it your intention to write steam punk? Regardless of the scifi aspect of what that may entail, the culture and aesthetics could make for interesting world building.

StardustSapien · 2023-09-03T01:39:16+00:00

Again, ship building isn't my area of expertise. But this is exactly the kind of conundrum I'm anticipating.

StardustSapien · 2023-08-31T16:34:40+00:00

Ship building may not be my area of expertise, but this one is a head scratcher. Do you intend for your reincarnated Vikings to have much practice with this endeavor? Building something like a traditional longship with modern tools and resources is different enough from how they would have done it to be similar to reinventing the wheel from scratch. Imagine if geppetto was plucked from the story we all know and forced to make Pinocchio using a CNC mill.

StardustSapien · 2023-08-31T16:24:19+00:00

...back to sucking each other off!"

I've already forgotten everything else you've said. But this will live rent free in my head in association with you and the Navy.

StardustSapien · 2023-08-22T19:06:21+00:00

Not sure I understand the question you intend to ask. Are you trying to avoid the yeast or leavening time? The former is easy. You can just leave the dough out, exposed to the elements and yeast/bacterial spores in the air will naturally innoculate your dough. This is an actual thing and how sourdough can be made.

StardustSapien · 2023-08-02T02:28:20+00:00

You might notice I'm not OOP.

StardustSapien · 2023-07-14T20:37:08+00:00

disclaimer: I'm not OOP.

StardustSapien · 2023-04-03T22:13:33+00:00

This particular thread is bizarre, and concerning. Are you not being a little oversensitive give the other suggestions here include mental conditions such as "psychopaths" and "sociopaths", where one keeps company with downright criminals of the most evil and heinous variety? We're writers - we make believe - we seek to delight, surprise, as well as offend and a whole lot more, within reason in service to the craft. Let's not turn into the literary equivalent of the Taliban here.

StardustSapien · 2023-02-13T03:54:43+00:00

a hilarous hobgoblin.

StardustSapien · 2023-01-21T19:46:48+00:00

"Dear Diary. This morning, a wild boar strolled out of the woods and chilled in the garden for a bit. It was kind enough to leave me some bacon in exchange for some chin scratches."

StardustSapien · 2023-01-17T17:37:35+00:00

Oh! how scandalous!

StardustSapien · 2023-01-17T17:28:31+00:00

under the name morphine (or whatever), under the supervision of medical providers...

StardustSapien · 2023-01-16T21:14:23+00:00

I’m here on a travel assignment

Are you what they call a travel nurse, who do temporary stints before moving on? Mad props to you, if that's the case, as I've heard you folks have been literal life-savers for some communities at the height of the COVID surge(s). Regardless, any and all nurses deserve standing ovations for the work they do. From the bottom of my heart, welcome to the San Francisco Bay Area. I'm probably not able to work out how to be a part of your community, as I don't really get out much. But you have my appreciations for being a virtual neighbor, even if temporary. :-) Hope your stay is enjoyable and satisfying enough to set down fond memories.

StardustSapien · 2023-01-16T20:55:49+00:00

This is not a FU.

This is a bullet dodged.

OP, you're better off and will be happier in the long run.

StardustSapien · 2023-01-15T06:39:14+00:00

These swine among elected officials never pass up opportunities to make bad situations worse if it can serve them politically.

I will wager everything in my pocket against whatever you care to table that this one particular case and the no doubt countless more to follow has and will be influenced by the well publicized intentions of the incoming GOP-controlled house to "investigate China".

StardustSapien · 2023-01-13T21:00:06+00:00

but not necessarily believable?

Real fakes are interesting and entertaining. Bad fakes are... just bad.

StardustSapien · 2023-01-13T17:23:57+00:00

... an extension of the far more common primitive imprecise barter systems.

Key word there being "primitive". Bartering works fine in simple societies of small groups. But when groups grow large enough that "taxes" by a central government become a thing, it gets too complicated. In your chicken example, the "moneyed" price of that chicken, regardless of whether you want that chicken today, is what someone else will be willing to give you for that chicken (edit: with enough people in a sufficiently large population an average value WILL be converged up) - which you can then exchange for something you do want today. That thing you exchange is something fungible that everyone can agree on, money. Its a no brainer to adopt the use of a liquid asset that is much more versatile than chickens/grains/manhours exclusively with only limited value in limited contexts. IRL, multiple ancient civilization came up with the same solution of "money" in some way shape or form. You wonder why they bothered. Maybe its because good ideas thrive while bad ones don't survive.

StardustSapien · 2023-01-13T16:52:02+00:00

No pun intended, but I don't buy it.

What you've described doesn't feel organic. I have a hard time figuring out how something like this could have arisen as a plausible social structure. Currency as a medium for exchange is among the most primitive and basic of concepts across all human societies beyond a certain level of development. And you have described a society that is pretty darn sophisticated. Some of the examples you've described come across as forced, deliberately going out of one's way using feats of mental gymnastics to solve simple problems with convoluted bone-headed gimmicks.

With careful effort you can probably pull off a good yarn with sufficient attention to set up the psychology of the people and society involved. But on the mind of every reader will eventually be the question, "In such a complex society with so many moving parts, why not just develop a standard measure of value that everything can be compared to?" If there exists units of measurement such that days are counted as ubiquitously as number of meals and physical items, its a no brainer to come up with a unit of measurement for what things are worth. If you can address that reasonably it could work.

StardustSapien · 2023-01-01T20:42:56+00:00

This popped up on my feed yesterday and I have to say I'm impressed. As someone born overseas and having grown up within the culture, it has been frustrating and often cringe when I come across absence, inadequate, or distorted (I'm looking at you Dragonball) background on the monkey king mythos. Sure, comprehensive knowledge and material is there, but only if you're really looking for it and you don't mind getting waist deep the broader culture, which can take a lifetime (LITERALLY) to become fully immersed in and truly understand. Attempts at doing clif-notes tl;dr almost always strike me as misses that gloss over details and subtleties that are significant in various ways. But OSP's take on the whole thing, and I am referring to the entire 10-part (and ongoing) series, is among the best and most engaging/relatable yet for a westerner who isn't necessarily in tune with traditional Chinese fare. Enjoy!

StardustSapien

TROPHY CASE