DDE

Yes, but they do so on their diesel-guzzling megayachts, which induces just a bit of dissonance and disbelief.

... King Roach? At least they have the ballpark timeframe right.

I understand your point, but I think you're barking up the wrong tree. The bottleneck isn't the insane degree of asabiyyah/sobornost' required, you first hit a stumbling block when you need the powers that be to embrace the issue, and they just can't do that without diluting it to the point of uselessness. https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/webmd-and-the-tragedy-of-legible

Not to mention that they already have their space western (Mando) and are now rolling out SW content at a ridiculous pace.

Maybe the real aliens was the Thomas Friedman we met along the way.

It can be discussed.

Specialized AI developed to decipher the handwriting of Peter the Great https://rg.ru/2020/12/23/iskusstvennyj-intellekt-rasshifroval-nerazborchivyj-pocherk-imperatora.html Doctors worldwide express grave concern.

Is that a Falcon 9 and a Shuttle in the same movie? Guy really, really liked Armageddon. The guy got cancelled years ago and only recently crawled out of the shadows in various supporting roles, and then this. Granted, I know people who think Whedon has had a very negative impact on the wider industry because his style of banter is getting mindlessly and poorly emulated by the entire generation of media creators.

Pick your poison. This seems to make sense. The desertification of the Middle East and the Levant is a major factor feeding the conflicts there. It's accelerated by the gradual decay of the ancient canal systems, so the region is essentially post-apocalyptic already, thousands of years of artifice being done.

It seems COP26 is going to be a flop. https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-59103425/page/4 A 2070 pledge with no concrete steps from India is as good as nothing, and "ungreened" economic growth of over a billion people is going to offset any efforts by the Global North bar cartoonishly radical intervention.

Emphatically. There are two ways to bypass this rule: through avoiding "placement" (e.g.. FOBS isn't permanently stationed in space) and through avoiding "WMD" (e.g. kinetic Rods from God). Russia and China presently want to close the WMD loophole by prohibiting the placement of any weapons into space. ASAT on the ground ready to launch at a moment's notice is fine tho /s

What is a bigger waste: the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, or JJ Abrams originally wanting to kill Oscar Isaac's character off in the first half of Star Wars Episode 7?

Very, very long ago. For example, swords with the inlaid inscription VLFBERHT were apparently a hot thing in late Viking-age Europe, and there are occasional cases of patently inferior swords with the same marking. Also on that note,

Earlier last week, Russia has gone into its first federal-level shutdown. This has made the end of the week rather hectic for all sort of retail and services. The library-goers in the notoriously cultured Saint-Petersburg have been reduced to pugilism. https://www.fontanka.ru/2021/10/27/70219484/

Somebody else has requested an authentication code for my WhatsApp for the second time in two days. They also tried to register my phone on Binance. Not sure if it's all nefarious or just someone with fat fingers. Enabled 2FA on WhatsApp just in case, but that won't protect me from an outright hack - or from a crooked employee of the cell operator selling a dupe of my sim card.

TIL Jupiter is made of lava.

Meanwhile some people play professionally:

This one isn't, it seems. A fascinating phenomenon, really: I assume it's an in-universe series. I rightly don't remember anything like that making it to the big screen.

Everyone flirts with enlightened authoritarianism at some point when they have a pet cause. It's only natural to pass through a phase where you think the world could be perfect if everyone just listened to you and obeyed (and agreed... at which point we're in the waters of full-fledged totalitarianism). Indeed, a flavor for an enlightened authoritarianism or epistocracy is the strawman version of the, for the lack of a better generic label, global Greens. I do believe a lot of people with a preachy and crusading inclination have found the climate agenda a good excuse to be insufferable and vile - the alarmist version provides an absolute and urgent moral imperative, an end go justify any means. However, I don't thing a nefarious New Green World Order is plausible, first and foremost because it's a dead horse trope that has already been kicked to death. Besides, Liu Cixin is a very interesting (by Western standards) character that's probably letting his political views seep into his books. Do look up his WaPo interview.

They say most of Eastern European kielbasa is soy and other mystery goo. It's therefore only fitting that this is a bit of a meme:

Problem is, the accepted approach of a sustainability omerta of sorts seems to get results, whereas leaving it to individual states to get onboard opens up the potential for regulatory arbitrage and a race to the bottom. Meme all you want about this autumn's energy crisis in Europe, but EU's planned carbon levies on imports (despite being somewhat dubious from the standpoint of WTO regulations, if not an explicit violation) have Russia bum-rushing to introduce its own cap-and-trade system and get it EU-certified. Dunno how it's going to go with China or the US - I hear the remnants of the Green New Deal are getting shafted in order to preserve the other big spending initiatuves - but this sets a precedent. Besides, much of the developing world shouldn't be a problem when the two big global hegemons - US and China - are both loudly in favor of emissions control. If anything, the local elites are more receptive to such rhetoric and will only be more zealous in promoting the agenda, to the detriment of their subjects if need be - especially with all the trillions in cheap funding that the Adepts of the Green talk about.