I can’t fathom the mind that would even want to divide people up this way.

What about All of the Above?

Do it again for “only Siths deal in absolutes”.

There’s an argument that ghosts can pop up from underneath it. The exact wording is “around and above you”; it doesn’t specify below.

I played a game once where this issue popped up, and the ultimate decision of the DM was that it does block from below as well. Which I think is a reasonable take of the intent of the spell, but a more rules lawyery DM could say otherwise.

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It pops up in countries that were historical targets of colonialism. Usually by the dictators who took over when the European power was kicked out.

The company owes $300B on $245B of assets. Unsecured creditors are among the last on the list to be paid back, and at least some of those are contractors who did work for the company and haven’t been paid yet.

First they came for the Nazis, and I said nothing. Because fuck Nazis.

The End

The other guy was the Philippines’ version of Trump, so it tracks.

They’d just be replaced by soft woods to be cut down every 20 or 30 years. Trees are nice, but North America’s old growth forests are what they are at this point. They’re not a great carbon sink, either.

IMHO, trees got stuck in the mind of the environmentalist movement in the 1970s, and it distracted from a bunch of things that were way more important. I’d almost call it controlled opposition.

Don’t even bother sending the Army to defend it. The locals are armed to the teeth, and the terrain is mountainous–perfect for guerrilla warfare. Let the first wave of landings go uncontested, then have the Navy pick off all the reinforcements and supply boats.

A while back, some nut in the Duma said they should reclaim all former Russian territory, including Alaska. It would amuse me greatly to see them try.

Better batteries do happen. Every headline you’ve read is only a part of the solution. Battery research advances by trying ten things, but only one of them pans out.

That’s because its GDP growth has been hit hard in that same time period. Lifting Covid restrictions didn’t make it come back.

It may not crash, per se, but Japan went through an era of general malaise, and that might be what China gets.

Might be an unpopular opinion, but I’m all for offering them cushy gilded cages to live out the rest of their lives. If that’s what it takes to end the regime, then go for it.

It’s not like there’s a long list of would-be dictators who are emboldened by the idea that they might land a sweet western mansion one day. There are so many other factors in taking over a country’s political system that this doesn’t register.

One of the things I learned reading Three Body Problem is that their police problems mirror the US a lot more than either country might realize. One of the characters is a cop who knows he’s supposed to act a certain way in investigations, but doesn’t give a shit. In other words, there’s an expectation that their police respect certain civil liberties, but they often don’t. Which is basically what happens in the US.

That book was originally published in 2008, though, and since then, Xi Jinping has been pushing things back to being more explicitly authoritarian. Oh, and the author has made some statements in support of that, so that’s great.

Focusing on the GPS jammer would require some hardware for direction finding; it’s not just software. Still, it’s not a huge design change.

To add to that, this war has shown the importance of shoot-and-scoot. Towed artillery with long setup and teardown times are too vulnerable to drones. Might be the end of an era for towed artillery.

Switching is a big, complicated mess for maglevs. Traditional rail is simple here, and has been solved for over a century.

Maglev could be good for city to city, provided those cities are far enough apart and you make no stops in between. Problem is, we often want to give service to cities in between. Forcing maglevs to accelerate and decelerate all the time kills their advantage.

The project started 10 years ago. Renewables were about to burst open and hit some incredible cost reductions.

This project looked good at the time.