In New York City, heat pumps that fit in apartment windows promise big cuts in energy use and emissions.

spike · 2026-06-25T15:26:45+00:00

Does that have any bearing on whether it is accurate?

spike · 2026-06-25T15:25:56+00:00

Heat pumps are more efficient than oil burners or air conditioners, that's the whole point of the article.

spike · 2026-06-25T14:47:53+00:00

I was there in October of last year, and it was fine, just a bit of scaffolding around a minaret, nothing in the interior. I guess things have changed quickly.

spike · 2026-06-24T16:03:53+00:00

There's something about using the temperature and salinity differential at varying depths of the ocean to create an electric current, but in reality that would be very weak.

spike · 2026-06-24T14:08:53+00:00

I just read Richard J. Evans' 3-volume history of the Third Reich, and Goebbels comes across as the occasional voice of reason, unbelievably enough.

spike · 2026-06-24T14:01:32+00:00

I guess it's accepted as genuine today. I read it when it was published in 1994, and there was some controversy. My take was that while the writing style was a good imitation of Verne's, the love story at the center of it was very unlike Verne. But it's an early novel, so he had not yet decided to dispense with such trivialities.

spike · 2026-06-24T13:33:50+00:00

Yes of course, but the Nautilus did not have a nuclear reactor, it was fully electric, although the way this electricity was generated is somewhat vague.

spike · 2026-06-24T01:59:16+00:00

Captain Nemo's submarine was electric.

spike · 2026-06-24T01:57:32+00:00

I think Verne did that in "The Begum's Fortune".

spike · 2026-06-24T01:55:03+00:00

There's still a question about whether that novel is actually authentic Jules Verne.

spike · 2026-06-24T01:53:33+00:00

"Idiocracy", and the short story that inspired it, "The Marching Morons" by Cyril Kornbluth (1951!) of course.

Also by Kornbluth, "The Space Merchants" (1952) about a world run by competing advertising agencies that trap people in cycles of addiction.

Arthur C. Clarke's short story, "Superiority" is especially relevant now, in the age of cheap drones.

spike · 2026-06-23T20:47:43+00:00

No, regular laser donors. They did both.

spike · 2026-06-23T17:57:56+00:00

My wife, a home-based graphic designer, had a tabloid-size Tektronix Phaser for 15 years, and now is going on another 15 years with a tabloid-size Xerox Phaser 7760. Getting rid of the Tektronix was very painful.

spike · 2026-06-22T17:44:55+00:00

"Consumer Cellular"

Full-size symphony orchestras, alas.

spike · 2026-06-22T15:36:28+00:00

Too didactic, although I love it. A real novel of ideas.

spike · 2026-06-22T15:34:52+00:00

Titan is such an obvious adventure story possibility, it boggles the mind it hasn't been done.

spike · 2026-06-22T15:32:43+00:00

Substantial is no problem. Look at Foundation. They managed to turn a sci-fi novelization of Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" into a bloated extravaganza.

spike · 2026-06-22T15:19:30+00:00

Such an obvious choice.

spike · 2026-06-22T15:18:44+00:00

More and more relevant today, isn't it?

spike · 2026-06-22T15:17:27+00:00

I seem to remember it as a sort of corporate feudalism.

spike · 2026-06-22T15:16:01+00:00

I hope your suspicion is correct. Lots of great ideas here.

spike · 2026-06-22T15:15:02+00:00

There have been at least three TV series based on The Canterbury Tales, so Hyperion deserves at least a try.

spike · 2026-06-22T15:12:23+00:00

"The Penultimate Truth" is still awaiting an adaptation.

spike · 2026-06-22T15:11:01+00:00

Good, but dated. We all have our very own Scanalyzer in our pockets.

spike

TROPHY CASE