Centrist, progressive, radical optimist. Geophysicist, R&D, Planetary Scientist and general nerd in Winnipeg, Canada.
troyunrau.ca (personal)
lithogen.ca (business)
"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of magnetic tapes hurtling down the highway"
Technically published 2021-2023, but didn't start reading it until recently but: Adrian Tchaikovsky's The Final Architecture has grabbed me and pulled me in hard. It's popcorn sci fi (all flavour, minimal substance) at its finest. Scratches the epic space opera "ship and crew" found family itch.
Can tell it's him though -- having read some of his previous books: the aliens are insectoid and at least one character always has to have the author's obsession with fencing. ;)
Feels like Reynolds in parts (gothic horror), but equal parts The Expanse and Mass Effect. Popcorn 🍿
Fell completely off my radar. Into the queue with thee!
Full agree. As a geoscientist, I am of the strong opinion that we should use more rocks in decorative contexts ;)
I requested AOL floppies so I could wipe them and reuse them for shareware. Does that count? ;)
Not watching. Space elevator physics though.
Short answer: if the radial velocity of the ladder puts your perigee above the atmosphere, you will float. It'll be an elliptical orbit and you'll float away from theaddee unless you let go precisely at geosynchronous altitude, in which case you'll float next to the ladder.
What is the oldest you can be and still call yourself a millennial? Google says born in 1980s counts. I'm pretty sure I have all five.
Now excuse me while I avoid work while scrolling Lemmy. ;).
Even then, in that season they kept visiting Cardiff. Cause that's where their studio is ;)
It is a damned shame that racoons aren't properly domesticated. They're awesome.
Elon (for all of his modern failings) had a catchphrase a while back that went something like: "the best part is no part; the best process is no process". The problem is that this doesn't always scale, particularly once lawyers get involved. You have been lucky 😀
Doctor Who is Wales, not Scotland.
The "Why is this not part of Romania?" joke is actually less of a joke than you think. Russian backed populist figures in Romania use this rhetoric to destabilize.
Brittany is just pretty much wrong. They were never Brits, but I can see why the name would cause confusion (blame the Romans).
Honestly you could write "failed Empire" on pretty close to every spot on the map and be approximately correct. Except Ireland. ;)
Not surprising to anyone in planetary science. The chemistry always made it a certainty. The question was always about what phase the water would be in (solid ices, liquid, etc.).
Basically, you can't have a planet with that deep of a gravity well, surrounded in space by icy bodies... And not have had it capture a bunch of it during formation.
Also, "largest commercial space contract awarded" is a bit of a hair splitting thing. If Starlink and SpaceX were separate entities, that contract would dwarf this.
Omega is running now. It's probably the best "jump back in" point for returning players. Was a great experience.
1801 - Joseph Marie Jacquard uses punch cards to instruct a loom to weave "hello, world" into a tapestry. Redditers of the time are not imp...
Cozy sci fi recs?
I've read a lot of Becky Chambers over the years, and am particularly fond of "Record of a Spaceborn Few" in which almost nothing happens, but you get a good slice of life in a speculative civilization and environment. Any recs that scratch this itch?
‘Free goals’ have reached all-time highs, affecting everything from scoring races to contract negotiations.
Winnipeg Is Making Major Local Transit Bus Firm New Flyer More Likely To Fail | Clean Technica
Winnipeg is helping cripple transit manufacturer New Flyer, a major local employer. New Flyer needs tough love in order to survive, and Winnipeg is best positioned to provide it.
Youtube version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eRf__n7VPg
Apple version: https://music.apple.com/us/album/rain-temple/1131827990
The Night Watch (Rembrandt)
Higher res version available at wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_Watch
I fell in love with this painting due to the Ayreon Song: https://ayreon.bandcamp.com/track/the-shooting-company-of-captain-frans-b-cocq
Abomination Vaults first impressions
Hi folks, just acquired this module and had a flip through, reading the intros and some parts of the first two levels. Here's a quick overview in case you're interested. This is a Paizo-official 5E conversion of a Pathfinder 2E module -- I haven't played the Pathfinder version so cannot offer any comparisons.
TOC page:
The module goes from L1-L11. There's nice little starting town 20 minutes away from a megadungeon. The dungeon has 10 levels and you should level up after completing each level. The town exists as a home base you can return to as needed, and also to provide support NPCs and plot motivation. At first glance, it appears that there is at least one event triggering in town each time you complete the level, approximately.
BBEG is an undead sorcerer who was defeated 500 years ago and is slowly rebuilding their power. Very necromancer themed, but not a Lich per se.
I like the layout of the module. Each level spells out the expected loot on page one, gives you a decent synopsis, and gets underway with minimal hassle. I haven't read everything yet, but of the description blocks and such that I read, it is thoughtfully crafted but also leaves options for the DM. A good example is the "floor boss" on level 1 who you can convert into a useful NPC if you diplomacy them or let them live. Downside: it might lead to FOMO for the players as they provide a lot of written branches and consequences.
The Monsters are well constructed and have unique enough feel. What's interesting is that they borrowed a few monsters from other publications and copied them in whole-cloth (with credit given on the credit page). For example, the Froghemeth comes from Necromancer Games (via Frog God Games), so it seems like they're really leaning into reinforcing each other as publishers.
If you've run megadungeons before, this is probably nothing partcularly groundbreaking. But if you're looking for a well crafted 5E megadungeon, this looks like it has a lot of potential. My guess is you could easily spend a year on the module if you're meeting weekly :)
Youtube version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TrUxJfw_bI
Apple version: https://music.apple.com/in/album/under-a-trillion-suns-ep/1703157534
Expedition 2 redux (The Normandy Frigate) notes
Some thoughts. You can complete it in one sitting.
(1) You will need to earn about 15M credits to buy enough frigates so that you can complete the mission where you complete three frigate missions. I recommend putting some expensive sellable items into the expedition so you can get this started as soon as you finish the first milestone. This is the only timed element to the expedition.
(2) Completing the mission to visit 8 uncharted systems is harder than it sounds. Everyone is fanning out, so you'll have to jump a long way from the path to find uncharted systems. I recommend just stocking up on warp fuel and doing this last.
(3) The most annoying time consuming mission is fishing for 5 uncommon icy fish. Find someone's existing fishing outpost to speed this up once you have the fishing rod.
(4) At one point in the fifth phase, you're supposed to wait for community research. Except you can buy the item for quicksilver right away without waiting. The tooltips are a bit wrong here. Just go to the quicksilver synthesis companion on the space anomaly.
(5) Getting the Normandy is cool if you missed expedition 2 previously. Nice that the reward is a frigate and not just another ship for the collection. It has a special class, "Recon".
Overall, can be done in one sitting if you start the frigate missions as early as possible. Don't worry about the community research.