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troyunrau

@troyunrau@lemmy.ca

Centrist, progressive, radical optimist. Geophysicist, R&D, Planetary Scientist and general nerd in Winnipeg, Canada.

troyunrau.ca (personal)

lithogen.ca (business)

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. For a complete list of posts, browse on the original instance.

troyunrau ,
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There are many time-loop stories in speculative fiction. Hell, there's like a thousand episodes of sci fi TV with this premise.

But if you're looking for a good one, try Hyperion (and Fall of Hyperion). The first book can standalone, but the second book gives you a more satisfying answer to your question. It is told in a Canterbury Tales style, with multiple converging retrospectives. But the principle antagonist is time itself. Very fun read.

troyunrau ,
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I've heard it phrased: "once is never, twice is always"

troyunrau ,
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A man who has big books... has a big... bookshelf.

troyunrau ,
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My third year thermodynamics course opened with a similar quip by the lecturer. Entropy is actually depressing. You can't fight it. You can't not fight it. It just wins.

troyunrau ,
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NSFW, but the next obvious thing to do is...

https://www.xnxx.com/search/Josephine+Jackson

troyunrau ,
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Early computer aided art and programs I've written, dating back decades.

In the mid 1990s I used ImpulseTracker to create music. The music sucks. But losing the original source .IT files would be heartbreaking.

Likewise, my first programs, written as a child in MS DOS batch files circa 1991 -- basic menu driven interfaces that facilitated launching my installed sharware... I don't have the games the program points to anymore, but that isn't the point ;)

troyunrau ,
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Fourth panel. AI trained on all the above, floods it all with generated content rendering the signal-to-noise ratio too terrible to tolerate, even for corporations.

troyunrau ,
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Air Bud 22

troyunrau ,
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Plot twist. The raccoons are aliens in costume trying to learn about park rangers.

troyunrau ,
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If I'm a foreign bad actor, I look at this and go: how do we do this to the other networks?

If I'm a defender of democracy, I go: how do we undo this, or prevent it from happening elsewhere.

troyunrau ,
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In conclusion -- one well placed impact crater in Florida can make this joke timeless.

troyunrau ,
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"The Transporter Refueled". Living in a smaller city in Northern Canada with three screens... We had a Tuesday night cheap movie night group that would go to whatever was playing, then to the pub afterwards. Small city -- something to do. We had seen a lot of bad movies as a result, but this was the worst. At the end of the movie, everyone had left except our small group. We're masochists, apparently.

troyunrau ,
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Do it with leaves next! Or macaroni!

troyunrau ,
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I'm not rich. But I was born poor and am no longer poor. The Birth Lottery blessed me with a brain, and with that as my only asset, I learned esoteric skills which I can parley into a niche career.

But more importantly, the social safety net in my country allowed me to get an education without becoming a wage slave for the rest of my life. Without that, I couldn't have pulled this escape from poverty off.

I now run my own business. We have no employees -- only owners who have self-invested. Our business is growing and I anticipate a comfortable retirement. Haven't got rich off the working class either.

So, thank you Canada for the opportunities. I've tried to make the most of them.

troyunrau ,
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No. I was pumping socialism as an alternative to birth lottery. Enjoy your day :)

troyunrau , (edited )
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It's a specialized scientific equipment business. I build some equipment, do some customization and repairs on their party equipment, loan other equipment, train users... A high capital business where I wagered everything on my own success. It was six months between my first two customers, and now I average about six hours.

No Mary Kay ponzi shit.

E: should add, I started it because my previous employer owned the intellectual property on my prior device. I wanted to own my future work. Seizing the means of production (by quitting and going solo).

troyunrau ,
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Cryochamber test . Patient still dead.

troyunrau ,
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BOFH vibes haha

troyunrau ,
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I had a null result for my MSc thesis. My supervisor lost interest immediately, and my funding went away. No interest in publishing a failure on his side, because the premise was flawed and he provided the premise. I dropped out and went to industry rather than be student poor with no funding.

troyunrau ,
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I still go to Reddit for some communities that don't have critical mass on Lemmy. Sure you can talk about programming or Linux here, but the more niche ones (like specific mods for specific games) are entirely absent.

But when I want to post something or create content, it goes here.

troyunrau ,
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And losses in the inverter.

troyunrau ,
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Wildass hypothesis I just pulled out of my ass with an undergraduate degree in applied physics: maybe interaction with particles emerging from quantum vacuum?

Okay, that sounds like great technobabble. I'm going to watch star trek now ;)

Doxxing and callouts on Beehaw politics

Hey folks. I just want to check in with the community about a post that was recently removed. My intention is absolutely not to create drama or stir anything up, but I'd like to make sure you all understand my reasoning for removing the post. Also, I'm aware that I'm not as good at articulating these kinds of things as some of...

troyunrau ,
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I like this :)

troyunrau ,
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Anyone who has read the books want to chime in? I read the books and they had a "painting in a museum" type quality to them, where each chapter was a well described static scene. Fun concepts (in particular, the Dark Forest concept), but really dry prose...

troyunrau ,
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I'm eating pineapple on pizza right now!

BBQ chicken, pineapple, green pepper, BBQ sauce base.

Somewhere in Italy, a collective groan was heard.

troyunrau ,
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4D conspriacy theory: was actually killed by Airbus, because the negative press for Boeing will push the Airbus stock price up...

I feel bad for the guy. This is going to put a wet blanket on future whistleblowers, regardless of the actual cause.

troyunrau ,
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It has such low bioavailability...

troyunrau ,
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I wonder what secondary compounds this was creating. Elemental mercury is pretty much fine, but if it was reacting with other things to create wacky fun times...

troyunrau ,
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We need a federated RNA solution. This tyranny has gone on way too long!

troyunrau ,
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I just love this word. It has a great claw-feel.

troyunrau ,
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Pro que no los dos

troyunrau ,
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Easy. If you can afford to be a space tourist, you can afford to put $5M in escrow for your future medical expenses.

Let's take risks people!

troyunrau ,
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Not bells either ;)

troyunrau ,
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A half dozen years ago, or thereabouts, I entered the Canadian version of this competition, just to see how I'd fare, and to look at the process. Made it through the first couple levels of screening (from 3200 applicants, I was still in the hunt at 300 remaining) but then got filtered.

Some interesting bullet points if you're thinking of applying, assuming the NASA questions are similar to the CSA ones:

(1) ham radio, morse code, or other amateur radio operator experience is an asset.

(2) Anything aviation or amateur rocketry is an asset, but in particular a pilot's license. Anything aviation adjacent is still useful.

(3) Russian language (this might be changing in the current political environment)

(4) Experience in an "operational environment" -- I suspect this is military jargon, but if you'd don't field research as a scientist out of wilderness camps, or anything like that where you're in a small group for work/adventure might apply here.

(5) Medical degrees, or advanced science degrees.

(6) Physical fitness and perfect vision

When I applied, my Russian sucked, my aviation experience was tangential (but copious), and I was a grad school dropout (from a planetary science program), so I didn't float to the top. But it was enough to make it through the first layers.

There person who ended up winning was a medical-degree air force pilot. Hard to compete haha.

troyunrau ,
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Fire control is going to be a major engineering challenge on a civilization scale in the upcoming centuries if we want to preserve our carbon sink forests. Should be an interesting challenge, politically, to direct money into it. It's large scale geoengineering...

troyunrau ,
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So, basically, it's mad to be outdoors collecting data and not in the lab. Got it ;)

troyunrau OP ,
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I'm not saying it makes sense...

troyunrau OP ,
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There is a realistic scenario where Mali starts reclaiming domains who are using their TLD to mean Marxist-Leninist.

troyunrau OP ,
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Mali had a ten year period where they were allowing free registration. That doesn't exist anymore.

They also keep getting classified documents due to typos in army.mil email addresses and similar ;)

troyunrau OP ,
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Yeah, that's how I found out I was banned. Tried to reply to a reply.

troyunrau OP ,
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_democracy

Western world, western democracy, is largely a term referencing a style of government, not physical location.

"contrasted with illiberal democracies and with dictatorships"

troyunrau OP ,
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You use these words, but you don't know what they mean...

troyunrau OP ,
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Yes. And Australia. And often South Korea, although one can debate their inclusion in this group.

troyunrau OP ,
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Based on your tone here, I checked the modlog for your username (Lemmy is great for this! How did we ever survive on Reddit) and my suspicions were confirmed...

troyunrau OP ,
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I mean, it's right in the wikipedia article. Wikipedia didn't make it up. This is largely the consensus use for this term in political circles.

Other potential candidates for inclusion might be Indonesia or Mongolia, but they are not usually included for economic reasons.

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