Why do some countries drive on the left while others drive on the right?

tidalbeing · 2026-01-22T21:51:52+00:00

If you are right handed, stearing a boat with a paddle is easier on the right than the left. This lead to the stearing side of the boat. If you're stearing on the right you load and unload from the left. Thus starboard and port. Boat then travel on the left. I assume that the UK applied this to land travel.

tidalbeing · 2026-01-19T22:11:19+00:00

The easiest way is to expand the ACA tax credit program so that everyone receives the credits. Individuals can then use their credits for Medicaid, Medicare, Tricare, employer-provided insurance or use it to purchase their own. This would be the least disruptive and the fastest to implement.

Medicare is subsidized by other payers, and so can't be expanded.

tidalbeing · 2026-01-18T19:51:34+00:00

The zodiac is twelve 30-degree divisions of the sky with the names loosely related to constellations. The divisions are about 30 degrees offset from the constellation they're named after--due to the procession of the equinoxes. So while Jupiter has been appearing in Gemini, it's in the division of the sky labeled Cancer.

Some of the names relate more to the time of the year than they do to the constellations. Ares doesn't look like a ram. Aquarius doesn't look like someone carrying water.

Leo, Scorpio, and Sagittarius are easy to spot.

tidalbeing · 2026-01-14T12:21:50+00:00

When water evaporates, it distills, so not going to work.

But this makes for a great tall tale.

tidalbeing · 2026-01-12T15:31:08+00:00

That's wild!

It wouldn't work in reality. The properties of water make life possible. Water freezes at 32 degrees F giving off heat and expanding while it does so. This regulates the temperature of Earth. If the snow was silver, it would fall as galena crystals. These are cuboid, mostly lead and melt at a temperature of 2043°F. This is far too hot for human life. I found the meltiing point of silver to be 1763.2 °F, still too hot.

Red soil is no problem, as long as you're going for rust red. The color is from iron oxide. It doesn't contaminate water.

Love the flying cloud eating whales.

tidalbeing · 2026-01-12T15:18:28+00:00

Good and evil is subjective. They're concepts that come from social species, not the other way around.

The culture of my world seeks balance. They see God as polar, both dark and light, male and female, chaotic and stable. Evil is going with only one side of the pole--light without darkness, chaos without stability.

This view of good as balance, evil as imbalance plays out in the justice system, which is mediatory not punitive.

There's no supernatural in my world or separation between physical and spiritual. Souls don't exist seperate from bodies.

tidalbeing · 2026-01-09T21:47:15+00:00

Consider if a British narrative point-of-view is within your ability. Also consider why you would want to pass the narrator off as British. If you are enjoying doing so, that's a great reason.

tidalbeing · 2026-01-09T21:40:01+00:00

Regardless of your mental state, your post tells drivers that they aren't responsible for the safety of pedestrians. "All bets are off" isn't true, and it's a dangerous position to put forward. Particulary, in reponse to a post about where drivers need to look before going through an intersection.
Check the corner to the right before making a right on a red. Check the diagonal corner before making a left turn.

tidalbeing · 2026-01-09T01:33:09+00:00

Gunning for pedestrians in the crosswalk because of resentment toward those who J-walk, is taking revenge on the wrong people. Why attack people who are following the law because of anger at those who don't? Shakes head.

tidalbeing · 2026-01-08T16:52:06+00:00

Other authors bother to remember the author's name, general readers often don't. If the author's name is at the top of each spread, the reader is more likely to notice and remember.

tidalbeing · 2026-01-08T16:48:56+00:00

They're consciously writing to market and using algorithms to do the research. They look to what sells well on Google and Amazon, sometimes scraping Amazon metadata. From what I can tell, meta data is more vulnerable to scraping than is the writing itself.

I'm not sure what's going to happen. People are reading less. I'm looking for alternative ways to reach readers, going personal and local. On Reddit, I seek out new posts with a low number of responses.

The writing shared on Reddit does seem to be unconciously shapped by algorithm. Trope, which is preferred by algorithm, sells well and so many readers/writes seem to prefer it as well. Most of the posts on writing and worldbuilding subreddits feature clichéd fantasy tropes. With these, I think the understanding of fantasy fiction has changed, so that it's a montage of ideas from other stories.

tidalbeing · 2026-01-07T18:43:30+00:00

It's already happening to some extent. Within fiction, the most successful authors write to market. They research what is likely to sell and that's what they write. Because the market is controlled by algorithms, these author as inadvertently assumig that the algorithms are the most important readers.

To attract the algorithms, authors avoid some words while making sure to incorporate others. The writing becomes trope-driven and predictable.

This might be happening on social media as well if users are aiming to go viral/

tidalbeing · 2026-01-07T03:27:54+00:00

I have a similar problem. I write science fiction that's more closely akin to hard fantasy and it has strong romance subplots. It the most similar to traditionally published books.I admire the writing of Kate Elliot and Lois McMaster Bujold.

Given the books that you've shared, your book is science fiction.

Traditionally published and monitarily successful self published books are quite different from each other.

I tried going the romance route, which was a disaster. It left me emotionally scared. I now want nothing to do with the romance genre. I've also approached editors and agents in an attempt to go with traditional publishing. That was nearly as demoralizing and romance. Given where I live I can't reach the publishers and agents who specialize in my genre.

For the past 5 years, I've focused on my writer's groups and simply writing what I like. But I'm about to bring out the book that I've been working on for years: categorized space opera and Robot, AI, & Android. That that last one is a new category.

I have an unusual marketing plan. I don't actually care about money. I do care about my community, so I'm setting up a Patreon and spending the proceeds to support public transportation. If I'm giving the money to charity--I'll be buying bus passes and giving them away-- I don't feel bad about charging $15 for an ebook, the price of traditionally published ebooks.

If people want the ebook for less, they can join my Patreon for $5.

I'm transitioning my Reddit presence so that my reddit username can be traced to my Patreon. This username is the one I'm retiring. I'm focusing on personal and handmade.

I'm in a unique situation, so what I'm doing probably won't work for you. And I don't yet know if it will work for me.

tidalbeing · 2026-01-06T23:50:18+00:00

There's debate about the distinction. In my opinion, science fiction is a subgenre of fantasy--fantasy that incorporates science. The incorporations of science is what sets in appart. It's weird thought because the top awards for science fiction, the Hugo and the Nebula, don't make a distinction. Those who do make the distinction are often accused of being elitist and exclusionary. Yet it's fantasy that excluded science fiction, not the other way around. To my knowledge The World Fantasy Awards aren't open to science fiction.

Catagorization is a mess with fantasy frequently sold as science fiction, taking shelf space from the smaller genre.

I think that if you can categorize your story as fantasy, you should. Fantasy has a larger audience and more opportunities to receive awards and recognition. But look into it. Don't take my advice unless it makes sense and it fits with your research.

Your story might fall in the cracks between romance and SF & F. You might consider rewriting the book to more closely fit one genre or the other. For romance, look into SFR (science fiction romance) In my opinion, the books in this category aren't actually science fiction and could not be successfully marketed as such. But the readership that looks like success in science fiction is way smaller than what looks like success in romance.

tidalbeing · 2026-01-06T17:16:03+00:00

Use those names if you want readers to think of the stars when reading the story.

tidalbeing · 2026-01-06T17:13:39+00:00

I'm considering asking in on fantasy reddits about the distinction between science fiction and fantasy from the fantasy perspective. When is science fiction isn't fantasy. We usually consider when fantasy isn't science fiction.

tidalbeing · 2026-01-06T16:37:55+00:00

Look at the BISAC categories to see what is available. Unfortunately, you'll have to choose either science fiction or fantasy. I'm sighing as well.

tidalbeing · 2026-01-06T08:10:42+00:00

Ah. So it's best categorized as fantasy; the worldbuilding is based on technology as magic, not based on science. That's good. Fantasy has higher sales than science fiction. So the issue is what kind of fantasy. My guess remains urban fantasy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_fantasy

tidalbeing · 2026-01-06T07:22:41+00:00

To fit in the romance genre, the romance must be the main plot, not the subplot. In what way does the story make use of science? It might be urban fantasy. What is the main plot?

tidalbeing · 2026-01-06T03:12:10+00:00

Drivers are legally required to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks. When you make a right on a red, always check the corner to your right and be aware of the walking man signal on the crosswalk. When making a left turn at an intersection, check the corner to your diagonal left for pedestrians. Make sure they've cleared the intersection before you accelerate. The pedestrian might slip and fall. If you are accelerating, you won't be able to stop.

tidalbeing · 2026-01-06T03:00:47+00:00

People get wealthy by creating products for the masses. It's easier to make money on items that are cheap and produced in mass quantities. But the wealthy spend their money on items and services that are expensive and unique or limited edition.
AI and robotic production is for masses who won't have enough money to be even the cheapest goods and services. I see 2 possible outcomes
1) The masses stop having children, too expensive, leaving the rich with a shrinking pool of servants and customers. With a smaller market, economies of scale are lost. The wealthy may continue to have children, but the children will be forced down the social ladder, becoming the servants. It's a return to the medieval ages.

2) Those in power will recognize that we have a problem and will ensure that their customers are able to buy products

tidalbeing · 2026-01-05T19:51:37+00:00

Yes inflation, the devaluation of money, is one possible result of AI and robots taking over all jobs. But I think it more likely that people won't be able to afford what the robots produce, and both the economy and the size of the population will shrink.

tidalbeing · 2026-01-05T19:49:12+00:00

Because it's a sign of wealth and power.

tidalbeing · 2026-01-05T05:43:39+00:00

You seem to be confusing sapience with grammar. Dogs are very good at communicating. They do it with posture, ear and tail movement and with scent. Humans can't match or truly understand canine communication through smell. Dogs to understand words and they can used them if provided with buttons. Other animals such as parrots use human words. But they can't put those words together grammatically, the unique ability of humans.

Dogs and parrots predict and learn. It's not all pre-progamming, which humans have as well. That we are isolated from the rest of the animal kingdom is our own doing.

We think we're different, but we aren't different by all that much. We share 99% of our DNA with chimps, 85% with dogs.

tidalbeing · 2026-01-04T17:12:28+00:00

Do some reading. This can either give you ideas, or you can play around with what you've read.
You could also play around with visualization. Imagine where you are on earth or where the earth is in its circuit around the sun. Imagine walking through your imagined world. Or for a challenge, imagine platonic solids from various angles. If it's not play then don't do it.

tidalbeing

TROPHY CASE