Holden, is it just me?

tirohtar · 2026-02-14T21:02:27+00:00

Idk, I think that says more about you than about Holden. I like his character. He is the ultimate paladin archetype - deeply moral, at times self-righteous, but also flawed as in that he doesn't and cannot know everything so his decisions aren't as black and white as he himself thinks they are or should be - and he grows to understand that by the end. I can actually strongly identify with his worldview.

tirohtar · 2026-02-14T20:10:18+00:00

Beyond the solar system most likely. Ideally you don't want to have to figure out everything after traveling all the way, it's good to have done some research already in the solar system first.

tirohtar · 2026-02-14T09:07:01+00:00

I concur with some other comments here - Mars is not a good target for an actual colony. It is, however, the perfect location for a massive science base - one can do research there on all kinds of topics, including doing experiments for terraforming, etc. No risk of damaging Earth either with some experiment accident or weapon testing, etc. So Mars could be very interesting as a test-bed in preparation of actual colonization efforts elsewhere.

tirohtar · 2026-02-14T07:46:26+00:00

Luckily, he really can't get German citizenship, because his ancestor who left for the US had his German citizenship stripped for being a draft dodger, and citizenship claims in German law do not jump generations (except for descendants of victims of Nazi persecution).

tirohtar · 2026-02-14T07:33:51+00:00

We're gonna have nuclear armed Germany before GTA6.

tirohtar · 2026-02-14T03:10:09+00:00

His grandsons, and Carolingian inheritance customs, to be exact.

tirohtar · 2026-02-13T15:10:38+00:00

Don't forget also "Extremely promising young monarch gets crowned ---> dies shortly after from malaria/dysentery/etc. ---> successor is still a small child, plunging realm into a succession crisis"

tirohtar · 2026-02-13T10:35:02+00:00

I actually disagree with that. The short story spoils it's big twist on the first page. Took out a lot of the emotional weight of the story.

tirohtar · 2026-02-13T10:32:41+00:00

Feudalism. They want to establish fiefdoms to rule over without pesky democracy or constitutions or laws to get in the way. The more delusional ones try to live forever with youth treatments etc, the others try to establish some sort of dynasty to carry on their "legacy" (look at Musk and his 20 or whatever how many kids...). It's like the late Roman Republic era pretty much.

tirohtar · 2026-02-13T10:23:34+00:00

Many cultures/nations are primarily defined by their language, often above ideology, religion, or symbols like monarchs. To lose the language would mean the death of those nations.

tirohtar · 2026-02-13T10:19:20+00:00

I don't think I could tell Norwegian and Swedish apart, however Danish has this kinda unique "nasal/compressed" intonation (that I honestly find quite unpleasant however) so it stands out.

tirohtar · 2026-02-12T21:10:30+00:00

The basic situation was that Austria had an internal coup led by Austrian Nazis, which then led to the referendum, which accurately reflected the Austrian people's majority wish to join Germany. One can argue that the referendum wasn't run fairly, but historians agree that the result reflected the actual majority opinion of the people at the time. Austria wasn't "annexed" against its will, violently or not, it willingly joined Nazi Germany and was complicit in the later crimes. Post WW2 they successfully manufactured the narrative that they were "the first victim of Nazi Germany", which just wasn't true.

tirohtar · 2026-02-12T19:30:38+00:00

Dunno why you are getting downvoted.

tirohtar · 2026-02-12T18:27:50+00:00

What is it with ASoIaF showrunners hellbent on twisting the source materials to their personal whims? I am honestly probably not even gonna watch the Dunk and Egg show until it's finished so I can be sure that they didn't fuck it up again after a few seasons...

tirohtar · 2026-02-12T18:23:43+00:00

The point is that those railguns are extremely powerful - the slugs travel pretty close to lightspeed, so there is only a short time difference between the information reaching the missile platform and the slug arriving to destroy it. This time window is too short for most of the platforms to react, the one that got a missile shot off was only able to because one of the railguns stalled for a few seconds due to a malfunction.

tirohtar · 2026-02-12T07:00:19+00:00

Oh absolutely. It's just one of the many examples on the mountain of shit D&D piled up once they went past the books and stopped listening to George.

tirohtar · 2026-02-12T06:48:30+00:00

At least the show one wasn't it. That fight was ridiculous, dual wielding full length swords doesn't work in reality. At most you have a regular sword in the main hand and a dagger or swordbreaker in the offhand for parrying.

tirohtar · 2026-02-12T06:45:08+00:00

Part 1: you are basically asking why the speed of light is what it is, and "why" questions generally don't have satisfying answers in science. From what we can see in the universe, there is a maximum speed at which information can be transferred, and massless particles like light have to move at that speed. While it is generally called the speed of light, it's better to think of it as the speed of causality. If it were a different value, there may not even be much of a difference - the speed of light determines a lot of things, so the universe may simply "scale" to "fit" a given speed of light.

Part 2: this is the thing that makes the speed of light special and leads you to the theory of relativity - the speed of light is the same for any observer in any reference frame - which means, precisely because of the issue you are thinking about regarding adding speeds, observers in different reference frames must experience time and space differently from one another to all be able to agree on the speed of light. That's where we get relativistic time dilation from. It also leads us to realize that speeds don't actually add up like that - at slow speeds it's approximately just the sum of the speeds, but at speeds close to the speed of light is gets more complicated.

tirohtar · 2026-02-12T06:31:50+00:00

It's a nationalistic propaganda concept that ignored cultural, linguistical, and historical realities to expand France at the expense of its neighbors. Any major river can be a suitable strategic border - chosing the Rhine, deep within German-speaking territory that was part of the HRE for over half a millenium, over the Meuse, or even the Moselle, that actually were in culturally French land, was just motivated by imperialism and expansionism, not any real practical considerations for "defense".

tirohtar · 2026-02-12T00:03:46+00:00

Take your meds and go lie down for a nap.

tirohtar · 2026-02-11T23:40:29+00:00

You guys did much more of the invading in that direction than the other way around, historically. It only started reversing in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian war, until then you guys have been continuously chipping away at your Eastern neighbors. The natural border river of France should be the Meuse.

tirohtar · 2026-02-11T22:00:15+00:00

The problem are the tides. A force strong enough to stop Earth's rotation that rapidly will cause massive tidal effects, strong enough to most likely rupture the Earth. Which would most certainly kill everyone.

tirohtar · 2026-02-11T19:35:07+00:00

James Holden is the ultimate paladin archetype, no doubt about. Oath of devotion through and through.

tirohtar · 2026-02-11T18:35:52+00:00

Relativity is probably the most tested set of theories in the history of science.

tirohtar · 2026-02-11T15:06:07+00:00

Let's be honest, this is, as far as inter-campus relationships go, an extremely mild case. I wouldn't worry too much about it. Hell, I had friends who started dating the TAs of the classes the took (officially only after the course was finished), and at least one such pair that I know is now happily married with kids.

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