When you dont have own warships it does not matter for there is fleet above your head or just a small vessel. all that matters is that they want to talk and make a contract. Be careful about the small print, though. Usually states keep to contracts – pacta sunt servanda – contracts have to be followed is the rule for more than 2000 years. When a state breaks contracts it will have most of the others as enemys. Who will trust such a country? Just as russia today. It broke the helsinky act from 1974 about borders in europe, and the contract of 1994 where they acknowledge the existence of ukraine and guarantee the borders of ukraine. And they shit on the contract of 1997 where russia granted all european countries the full sovereignty to make contracts with whom and about whatever they seem fit. As result Finland, neutral since WW II and Sweden, neutral for 200 years aplied to join the north atlantic defense organisation.
Well, today is the big day. I am supposed to get my left eye worked
on today. Supposed to report @ 0730. With pre-op prep, surgery time
and approx 1.5 hours post-op I ought to be home around noon. I’ve
been looking forward for so long but now I’m kind of dreading it.
Wish me luck, all.
The dragonflies range is limited…..
Have the dragonflies do a “chain” search to extend
their range and relay their communications.
Have them form a group of, ohh…..say, three
(random workable small number to begin with).
Plus one to stay with Teresa.
All three *pop* out to the extent of
their communication range, and search.
If they find nothing, have one stay there in place,
and two *pop* out further, and search.
If they find nothing, one stays, one goes out farther.
If they find nothing, they all regroup at *base*
and chain search a different sector.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
“Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely,
mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way
down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
In other words: several thousand times
“limited range” might still be too limited.
(Even Earth alone can be a pretty huge place,
if you have to search the whole of it)
You can break up a copy/pasted sentence, it’s links you can’t.
I’ve forgotten all those lovely rules when HTML is written…
Sleep better for it too heh. Java was the worst, it was close
enough to C++ to mess me up back then.
Doesn’t help me much, if I’m just too scatterbrained to actually
DO it, though
Same thing with spelling. If you notice me spelling something
in a weird way, like using their instead of there (or even weirded
typos) – it’s not that I don’t know, it’s just that my way of
typing English text requires me to “internally monologue” in my
head… sometimes I type what I “hear” from these monologues,
not what I meant to say.
About programming languages:
Try python. Seriously, do try it. Once you get over the first
few gotchas it’s really the most fun language I know.
I’ve heard good things, I’m just getting too old to try and learn it.
Can’t remember things unless I use it often. Like the CAD design
programs, I have to keep going back over things if I need a function
I don’t use often.
I started using python like maybe 5 years ago, aged fifty-something.
As for having to re-read things you don’t need every other day –
that’s what documentation is for.
Did I mention that python has a real cute feature for that?
Every class, every function, every anything usually has a “doc-string”.
(You’re strongly encouraged to write your own doc-strings for your own
stuff, too)
So, if you want to know the parameters of the “max” function, you can
just type “help(max)”, if you want to know what to with a int object
you can just type “help(int)” or even “help(1)” in the python interpreter.
(There’s also excellent online documentation for everything …)
I have the memory of a gold fish, I was tested several times, and
can’t remember a single word stated 5 mins earlier It’s weird,
I can remember back when I was 3 and my mother was helping
me get dressed, but not a small shopping list my wife told me in
the store parking lot.
It runs in the family, my mother and grandmother had early-onset
senility. I had hoped it was just a woman thing. It comes and goes
though, some days I feel normal and have little trouble.
I’m guessing a missing Legionnaire, Teresa does have a strong
connection with them. I just hope it’s just dream-induced worry
and the poor guy isn’t being that badly abused! He could be
anywhere within 500 square miles (800km). I seriously doubt
it’d be that far out, but you get the idea.
My best guess would be covert recon into the CSA.
We’ve already seen Sgt Squirrel doing the same
thing into Waukanda. No (known) reason to do
Hawaii (yet).
Could be, there are a lot of players out there that don’t
play fair or are willing to just talk, they get their jollies
from hurting people. The size of the country means there
is space for hundreds of small kingdoms dotted everywhere.
And most of them go by prison rules, the strongest and
the meanest rule.
Long term cooperation always trumps individual strength.
That’s why there’s 8 billion humans all over the globe and
our closest brethren (chimps) are facing extinction.
(Individually chimps are much stronger than humans, and
very well suited to solve pretty complex problems. They’re
utterly unable to cooperate, though)
The problem after the fall is there are no more major countries left.
They’ve all broken up into small kingdoms struggling to survive.
Waukanda was an example of it, the leader was determined by
who won in a challenge. Not by who was most qualified, or
intelligent/educated. Jerico was the exception, not the rule…
There has to be some kind of global trade/cooperation
that either survived the fall or has been reestablished.
Otherwise the Empire would’ve regressed by now.
Or anybody else without access to space-buddies.
21th century type technology can not be maintained
without the cooperation of hundreds of millions of
people working on it.
You need folks mining for raw material, you need someone
to produce the highly specialized parts used everywhere,
you need the plans and schemata and have to run the
factories.
It’s easiest to see with electronics, but the same
principles apply with “simpler” stuff like weapons
engines – and even food.
An example:
You can not create your favorite type of microwave
dinner or candy at home in your own kitchen. You can
create something better and healthier, if you’re willing
to invest the time, sure – but even then you’d need
ingredients from places you can’t even name (like
spices).
That’s just food. We’ve always been very adaptive and
inventive when it comes to feeding ourselves. Of course
we would find alternatives, grow our own cattle and fruit
and even spices (salt would become a problem again;
you either live on a coastline or you have to dig the stuff
out of some mine – or trade it over hundreds of miles).
The less basic the stuff is we’re trying to build the more
cooperation is needed to produce it.
Everybody can build a slingshot from scratch. You need
some kind of rope or leather strap and a few pebbles.
The rope might pose a problem – but it’s solvable.
A simple gun is harder. A missile launcher harder yet.
But maybe you know people who claim to be able to build
military-grade equipment “from scratch”.
Really? Do the dig for like twenty different ores they’d need
with their own bare hands? Do they melt and extract and
purify and who-knows-what-else until they have the high
quality steel and brass and uranium-enriched-whatever
needed for the gun and the bullets? Do they have the machines
and tools needed to create the parts and the ammo with the
level of perfection and reliability that’s needed to fulfill that claim?
Look around you. Pick one of your possessions at random
and try to imagine to build it *from scratch* without anybody
helping you, without using anything that anybody but you
has produced, without trading for raw materials.
Without mass production and today’s level of specialization
nothing we use on a daily basis, nothing we can buy in a
supermarket, would be possible.
And that only works because you can produce everything
in large numbers and because there’s so many people and
companies and factories specializing on so many different
things.
The stone age isn’t that long ago. We’re not really more intelligent
than the we were then. We have more time on our hands, more
knowledge.
And we coordinate better on larger scales.
THAT is the real difference between 21th century tech and hunting
and gathering tribes.
Co-operation depends on organization, not the biggest taking all the
food for themselves. We are just a step from the stone age, and the
fall put most people right back there, looking for the remains of the
old world rather than making new.
There are some kingdoms that have reached a level of normalcy,
some of those have joined the Empire, most are just asking for
hand-outs rather than putting in the effort. The majority are
raider gangs, cannibals, and scavengers.
Small communities couldn’t maintain our current level of
technology.
Do you personally know someone who could produce a micro
chip at a competitive price? An uranium rod? A top shelf
military grade bullet?
Most of the stuff in our daily life we use without giving it a
thought require supply lines spanning the globe. And not just
because work in Bangladesh is so much cheaper or the resources
are only found in China.
Usually someone has the resources, others the refineries and
processing plants for the raw materials, others the tools and
knowledge to build small, intermediate parts and yet another
group knows how to built the final product.
Eliminate one stage of the process and the rest doesn’t no the
first thing about how to cope without it.
You can make do for a while by scavenging/recycling but
eventually you’d need an alternative source.
(FUN FACT: a few years ago we reached a weird switching point in
time: since then, we do have more different types of man-made
things than there are biological species on this planet – that’s
how complex our current economy/civilization has become)
actually yes i could,, except the micro-chip.. but,, i know of 2 possibly
3 locals that could if i gave them the parts.. see ALL of those parts were
(at one time) were made locally, BUT were out sourced to cheaper suppliers.
see you are comparing global prices , when you don’t have access. everything
you mentioned was made locally, but had to be out sourced, when you would
not pay for the local made,. because it was .01 more expensive..
and before you say it (“not just you”) . i know of at least 10 cities that
have nerd, dweeb, dork,’s. just like me,. and if they are not killed off in
the first wave. then might have a chance..
FYI: (personal experience) when i was OTR, Orange Juice; is NOT locally made.
i picked up oranges in Florida, drove em to California, then picked up the
pulp, then drove that to Georga, to be packaged, then drove the packages back
to Florida, to be shipped elsewhere.. how that saved money in the long run,
I have no idea..
I really doubt that you have a local (however expensive)
source for copper and tin ores, or zinc or uranium.
Or even just salt or pepper.
People have been trading stuff like copper, tin, salt, pepper
and silk long distance for thousand of years.
I really doubt that you know someone you could give
uranium ore and has the skill and tools required to turn
it into fuel or weapon grade enriched uranium.
It’s not just about money. If what we consider a “normal”
life requires us to use thousand of little things like knives
and lightbulbs and cables and bricks and chairs and
toothbrushes …
Nobody could built all these by themselves.
Our way of life requires extreme specialization.
I have a (vague) memory of other dragonfly-aligned people, one of
whom had a kind of connection to her …. and there was some kind
of trouble because of that? Is that guy gone missing maybe?
panel 4, did the rendering forget a holster,
or is that pistol just hanging from a belt loop?
A fleet of unknown protectors would be somewhat awkward.
But their (in)actions towards the surface, while patrolling outward,
can be a good showing of intent.
That, or a belt clip mod stuck into her jeans pocket. Not a good idea!
It really depends on the Prime Alpha’s feelings, if he’s paranoid,
then he might insist everyone leave. If not then then it should help
relieve some of their concerns.
I zoomed in, yeah it’s a glitch in the rendering. I’ve had that
a few times when I render a CAD file, really frustrating when
you go to print it and the printer is just making spaghetti, the
entire lower part is missing etc.
My son is a lefty, he’s always complaining (understandably) about
having his brass hit him in the face or chest. He has a few left
handed guns but really pays extra to get them.
He just got this really nice shotgun that has 3 mags built in that
gives him 18 rounds and it’s semi-auto, he always gets a red mark
on his forehead from it. Wear a welders cap ya dunce! Or at least
a sock cap. Sorry I don’t remember the brand name of the gun.
Yeah, only those are gold plated, I seen a pimp back in the
day with a WWII 1911 he had gold plated, looked like crap…
I kinda doubt the bolt action was worth a damn.
Hmm. Having warships of people you don’t really know yet
hovering in your sky while you’re negotiating with them.
Yeah. Surely sound comforting.
Well, there is that. Regardless of the locals,
the Head Alpha coming has only hearsay.
When you dont have own warships it does not matter for there is fleet above your head or just a small vessel. all that matters is that they want to talk and make a contract. Be careful about the small print, though. Usually states keep to contracts – pacta sunt servanda – contracts have to be followed is the rule for more than 2000 years. When a state breaks contracts it will have most of the others as enemys. Who will trust such a country? Just as russia today. It broke the helsinky act from 1974 about borders in europe, and the contract of 1994 where they acknowledge the existence of ukraine and guarantee the borders of ukraine. And they shit on the contract of 1997 where russia granted all european countries the full sovereignty to make contracts with whom and about whatever they seem fit. As result Finland, neutral since WW II and Sweden, neutral for 200 years aplied to join the north atlantic defense organisation.
Well, today is the big day. I am supposed to get my left eye worked
on today. Supposed to report @ 0730. With pre-op prep, surgery time
and approx 1.5 hours post-op I ought to be home around noon. I’ve
been looking forward for so long but now I’m kind of dreading it.
Wish me luck, all.
Best of lucks to you. Wish you a quick and full recovery, too.
Good luck Bill, It won’t be too bad, like having
a hair stuck in your eye all the time for a week
or so. Just use the drops and don’t rub!
luck
Good luck, Bill. You are brave. Next to my heart,
I dread needing my eyes worked on the most.
Okay I came through the procedure without
incident. Now all I have to do is heal.
Good to hear! Cool compress helps,
just limit it to 20 mins.
Great news.
Don’t stress your eyes in the sun.
Dark glasses etc.
Best wishes.
The dragonflies range is limited…..
Have the dragonflies do a “chain” search to extend
their range and relay their communications.
Have them form a group of, ohh…..say, three
(random workable small number to begin with).
Plus one to stay with Teresa.
All three *pop* out to the extent of
their communication range, and search.
If they find nothing, have one stay there in place,
and two *pop* out further, and search.
If they find nothing, one stays, one goes out farther.
If they find nothing, they all regroup at *base*
and chain search a different sector.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
“Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely,
mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way
down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
In other words: several thousand times
“limited range” might still be too limited.
(Even Earth alone can be a pretty huge place,
if you have to search the whole of it)
sorry for not word-wrapping (I used cut&paste for the quote)
You can break up a copy/pasted sentence, it’s links you can’t.
I’ve forgotten all those lovely rules when HTML is written…
Sleep better for it too heh. Java was the worst, it was close
enough to C++ to mess me up back then.
Yeah. I know I can.
Doesn’t help me much, if I’m just too scatterbrained to actually
DO it, though
Same thing with spelling. If you notice me spelling something
in a weird way, like using their instead of there (or even weirded
typos) – it’s not that I don’t know, it’s just that my way of
typing English text requires me to “internally monologue” in my
head… sometimes I type what I “hear” from these monologues,
not what I meant to say.
About programming languages:
Try python. Seriously, do try it. Once you get over the first
few gotchas it’s really the most fun language I know.
I’ve heard good things, I’m just getting too old to try and learn it.
Can’t remember things unless I use it often. Like the CAD design
programs, I have to keep going back over things if I need a function
I don’t use often.
I started using python like maybe 5 years ago, aged fifty-something.
As for having to re-read things you don’t need every other day –
that’s what documentation is for.
Did I mention that python has a real cute feature for that?
Every class, every function, every anything usually has a “doc-string”.
(You’re strongly encouraged to write your own doc-strings for your own
stuff, too)
So, if you want to know the parameters of the “max” function, you can
just type “help(max)”, if you want to know what to with a int object
you can just type “help(int)” or even “help(1)” in the python interpreter.
(There’s also excellent online documentation for everything …)
I have the memory of a gold fish, I was tested several times, and
It’s weird,
can’t remember a single word stated 5 mins earlier
I can remember back when I was 3 and my mother was helping
me get dressed, but not a small shopping list my wife told me in
the store parking lot.
It runs in the family, my mother and grandmother had early-onset
senility. I had hoped it was just a woman thing. It comes and goes
though, some days I feel normal and have little trouble.
It’s why I re-read TGW so much, I’m on my 8th re-read. For some
strange reason it takes longer each time… not sure why HEH!
or.. you could leave it a run on sentence,.
and let me break it down…
Or that
(Thank you very much)
I’m guessing a missing Legionnaire, Teresa does have a strong
connection with them. I just hope it’s just dream-induced worry
and the poor guy isn’t being that badly abused! He could be
anywhere within 500 square miles (800km). I seriously doubt
it’d be that far out, but you get the idea.
My best guess would be covert recon into the CSA.
We’ve already seen Sgt Squirrel doing the same
thing into Waukanda. No (known) reason to do
Hawaii (yet).
Could be, there are a lot of players out there that don’t
play fair or are willing to just talk, they get their jollies
from hurting people. The size of the country means there
is space for hundreds of small kingdoms dotted everywhere.
And most of them go by prison rules, the strongest and
the meanest rule.
Long term cooperation always trumps individual strength.
That’s why there’s 8 billion humans all over the globe and
our closest brethren (chimps) are facing extinction.
(Individually chimps are much stronger than humans, and
very well suited to solve pretty complex problems. They’re
utterly unable to cooperate, though)
The problem after the fall is there are no more major countries left.
They’ve all broken up into small kingdoms struggling to survive.
Waukanda was an example of it, the leader was determined by
who won in a challenge. Not by who was most qualified, or
intelligent/educated. Jerico was the exception, not the rule…
There has to be some kind of global trade/cooperation
that either survived the fall or has been reestablished.
Otherwise the Empire would’ve regressed by now.
Or anybody else without access to space-buddies.
21th century type technology can not be maintained
without the cooperation of hundreds of millions of
people working on it.
You need folks mining for raw material, you need someone
to produce the highly specialized parts used everywhere,
you need the plans and schemata and have to run the
factories.
It’s easiest to see with electronics, but the same
principles apply with “simpler” stuff like weapons
engines – and even food.
An example:
You can not create your favorite type of microwave
dinner or candy at home in your own kitchen. You can
create something better and healthier, if you’re willing
to invest the time, sure – but even then you’d need
ingredients from places you can’t even name (like
spices).
That’s just food. We’ve always been very adaptive and
inventive when it comes to feeding ourselves. Of course
we would find alternatives, grow our own cattle and fruit
and even spices (salt would become a problem again;
you either live on a coastline or you have to dig the stuff
out of some mine – or trade it over hundreds of miles).
The less basic the stuff is we’re trying to build the more
cooperation is needed to produce it.
Everybody can build a slingshot from scratch. You need
some kind of rope or leather strap and a few pebbles.
The rope might pose a problem – but it’s solvable.
A simple gun is harder. A missile launcher harder yet.
But maybe you know people who claim to be able to build
military-grade equipment “from scratch”.
Really? Do the dig for like twenty different ores they’d need
with their own bare hands? Do they melt and extract and
purify and who-knows-what-else until they have the high
quality steel and brass and uranium-enriched-whatever
needed for the gun and the bullets? Do they have the machines
and tools needed to create the parts and the ammo with the
level of perfection and reliability that’s needed to fulfill that claim?
Look around you. Pick one of your possessions at random
and try to imagine to build it *from scratch* without anybody
helping you, without using anything that anybody but you
has produced, without trading for raw materials.
Without mass production and today’s level of specialization
nothing we use on a daily basis, nothing we can buy in a
supermarket, would be possible.
And that only works because you can produce everything
in large numbers and because there’s so many people and
companies and factories specializing on so many different
things.
The stone age isn’t that long ago. We’re not really more intelligent
than the we were then. We have more time on our hands, more
knowledge.
And we coordinate better on larger scales.
THAT is the real difference between 21th century tech and hunting
and gathering tribes.
Co-operation depends on organization, not the biggest taking all the
food for themselves. We are just a step from the stone age, and the
fall put most people right back there, looking for the remains of the
old world rather than making new.
There are some kingdoms that have reached a level of normalcy,
some of those have joined the Empire, most are just asking for
hand-outs rather than putting in the effort. The majority are
raider gangs, cannibals, and scavengers.
Small communities couldn’t maintain our current level of
technology.
Do you personally know someone who could produce a micro
chip at a competitive price? An uranium rod? A top shelf
military grade bullet?
Most of the stuff in our daily life we use without giving it a
thought require supply lines spanning the globe. And not just
because work in Bangladesh is so much cheaper or the resources
are only found in China.
Usually someone has the resources, others the refineries and
processing plants for the raw materials, others the tools and
knowledge to build small, intermediate parts and yet another
group knows how to built the final product.
Eliminate one stage of the process and the rest doesn’t no the
first thing about how to cope without it.
You can make do for a while by scavenging/recycling but
eventually you’d need an alternative source.
(FUN FACT: a few years ago we reached a weird switching point in
time: since then, we do have more different types of man-made
things than there are biological species on this planet – that’s
how complex our current economy/civilization has become)
actually yes i could,, except the micro-chip.. but,, i know of 2 possibly
3 locals that could if i gave them the parts.. see ALL of those parts were
(at one time) were made locally, BUT were out sourced to cheaper suppliers.
see you are comparing global prices , when you don’t have access. everything
you mentioned was made locally, but had to be out sourced, when you would
not pay for the local made,. because it was .01 more expensive..
and before you say it (“not just you”) . i know of at least 10 cities that
have nerd, dweeb, dork,’s. just like me,. and if they are not killed off in
the first wave. then might have a chance..
FYI: (personal experience) when i was OTR, Orange Juice; is NOT locally made.
i picked up oranges in Florida, drove em to California, then picked up the
pulp, then drove that to Georga, to be packaged, then drove the packages back
to Florida, to be shipped elsewhere.. how that saved money in the long run,
I have no idea..
No, it’s not just about cheaper sources.
I really doubt that you have a local (however expensive)
source for copper and tin ores, or zinc or uranium.
Or even just salt or pepper.
People have been trading stuff like copper, tin, salt, pepper
and silk long distance for thousand of years.
I really doubt that you know someone you could give
uranium ore and has the skill and tools required to turn
it into fuel or weapon grade enriched uranium.
It’s not just about money. If what we consider a “normal”
life requires us to use thousand of little things like knives
and lightbulbs and cables and bricks and chairs and
toothbrushes …
Nobody could built all these by themselves.
Our way of life requires extreme specialization.
I have a (vague) memory of other dragonfly-aligned people, one of
whom had a kind of connection to her …. and there was some kind
of trouble because of that? Is that guy gone missing maybe?
panel 4, did the rendering forget a holster,
or is that pistol just hanging from a belt loop?
A fleet of unknown protectors would be somewhat awkward.
But their (in)actions towards the surface, while patrolling outward,
can be a good showing of intent.
Probably a brand new grav tech link thingy.
That, or a belt clip mod stuck into her jeans pocket. Not a good idea!
It really depends on the Prime Alpha’s feelings, if he’s paranoid,
then he might insist everyone leave. If not then then it should help
relieve some of their concerns.
Panel 4 – and it appears to be a left-eject 1911.
I’m going with a rendering issue.
I zoomed in, yeah it’s a glitch in the rendering. I’ve had that
a few times when I render a CAD file, really frustrating when
you go to print it and the printer is just making spaghetti, the
entire lower part is missing etc.
left eject 1911’s already in use..
now going to look em up..
found it. TGW-207 3rd panel..
My son is a lefty, he’s always complaining (understandably) about
having his brass hit him in the face or chest. He has a few left
handed guns but really pays extra to get them.
He just got this really nice shotgun that has 3 mags built in that
gives him 18 rounds and it’s semi-auto, he always gets a red mark
on his forehead from it. Wear a welders cap ya dunce! Or at least
a sock cap. Sorry I don’t remember the brand name of the gun.
18? i must really know what brand.! or what type of round..
my IWI Tavor ts12 holds 15+1 (standard rounds)
my Saiga 12g (drum) holds 30 rounds..
Yeah, only those are gold plated, I seen a pimp back in the
day with a WWII 1911 he had gold plated, looked like crap…
I kinda doubt the bolt action was worth a damn.
“bolt action”???
Wrong term, I know, slide action then.
I’m not as well versed in gun lore, I
didn’t need one until I got old and
out in the sticks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnR3Tyrg_10
That’s about how much I know about weapon lore.