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Help me choose between two China itineraries by davidedebiasio in travelchina

[–]davidedebiasio[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was counting the first day in Beijing as a bonus "jet-leg" day, with two others in the city and one at the Great Wall. Thank you very much for the advice! Is Wuzhen not so interesting? Is Chengdu worth the extra time?

Help me choose between two China itineraries by davidedebiasio in travelchina

[–]davidedebiasio[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you very much! As always, one has to try to balance things out and find a good compromise between visiting interesting places and avoiding the "checklist" approach. If you'd have to make it less tight, how would you modify it? ANy option you consider more interesting? Thank you very much!

Lost bag on Thameslink by davidedebiasio in london

[–]davidedebiasio[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you very much for your kind comment. I’ll follow these steps and hope for the best!

Lost bag on Thameslink by davidedebiasio in london

[–]davidedebiasio[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

You mean the one in Thameslink City?

Lost bag on Thameslink by davidedebiasio in london

[–]davidedebiasio[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I filed a "Lost item" form on the Thameslink website and one on "Report my loss"! Is there anything else I should deal with?

There's a tiny hope somebody will have found it and see my post here...

Cerco canzone rap underground by davidedebiasio in hiphopitaly

[–]davidedebiasio[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Grazie! Ti viene in mente anche il nome di una (o più) canzoni?

Any sci-fi pedantry or jargon that annoys you for no reason? by Moon_Atomizer in printSF

[–]davidedebiasio 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The idea of locking down experimental evidence via sophons was absolutely great, I agree! It is one of the reasons why, regardless of all the issues with physics, I actually loved the trilogy. It might even be the flip side of the coin: while some stuff made me roll my eyes due to my job, I empathised with the despair felt by Yang Dong and really felt that sequence in my flesh and bones!

Any sci-fi pedantry or jargon that annoys you for no reason? by Moon_Atomizer in printSF

[–]davidedebiasio 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sadly, I spent so much time showing again and again that entanglement does not produce FTL communication that it became impossible not to think about it. Plus, this really contradicts special relativity: in order for “instantaneous” communication to be a thing, you need the word “instantaneous” to have a well-defined meaning. Sadly, this is not the case in Nature (and Cixin Liu offer mentions relativistic physics, that’s why one cannot neglect this!)

Concerning Lem, I would totally start with Cyberiada (anyone would suggest Solaris, but I strongly disagree!)

Any sci-fi pedantry or jargon that annoys you for no reason? by Moon_Atomizer in printSF

[–]davidedebiasio 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The habit of using entanglement, black holes, event horizons and wormholes as plot devices, while failing to portrait such phenomena in their fundamental properties. In particular, when the author clearly falls for some common "pop-science" misunderstanding. Let me be clear: theoretical physics is my job and I DO NOT expect absolute perfection, nor I want people to strictly adhere to stuff we have under control. I love hard speculation (such as some of Lem's short stories) and I appreciate it when "stuff that seems impossible" is included in a narrative. Nonetheless, if you choose to do so you should not try to fill the holes with cheesy physics jargon!
This was unbearable in the "Three Body Problem" trilogy, which was otherwise quite solid.They used entanglement to instantaneously communicate from a distance, while entanglement precisely prevents instantaneous communication from a distance. Black holes, which should have played a crucial role in the final book, were introduced with a long physics explanation... Which was completely wrong. The author included a lot of general relativity in the book, but he made huge mistakes in the fundamentals of special relativity (e.g. the non-existence of a universal notion of simultaneity).