leicsmac

Another fantastic piece of work from NASA. Hopefully we'll get a much better idea of how the interior of Sol works which will in turn lead us to better understanding of how it affects us here on Earth.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj30234e0djo South Korea has voted to impeach its acting president Han Duck-soo, two weeks after parliament voted to impeach its President Yoon Suk Yeol. A total of 192 lawmakers voted for his impeachment, more than the 151 votes needed for it to succeed. Prime minister Han took over the role after President Yoon was impeached by parliament following his failed attempt to impose martial law on 3 December. Han was supposed to lead the country out of its political turmoil, but opposition MPs argued that he was refusing demands to complete Yoon's impeachment process. The Korean opposition not messing about then. Not confirming the judges we need to run the impeachment case against your former leader? We'll throw you out on your ear too and get someone in who will. The US might want to take notes on how a system of checks and balances really works.

Alexa, play "Entry of the Gladiators" by Julius Fucik.

Certain parts of the Cold War was a lot more unstable than the current situation, and the weapons didn't fly then. That's encouraging. Of course, put enough strain on vital resources and all bets are off.

I may not have been clear enough myself In any case, long and the short of it is that we'd better get better at maintaining the living space we have or there will be rather less of it, with unpleasant consequences.

Well, assuming that you're not in favour of a cataclysmic population crash and you mean 300 pop per sq km to allow for agriculture and the like rather than a drop to 300 million people ... That's roughly 28 million sq km, or the size of Russia and the US put together. Again possible, but not easy.

If we go full Coruscant and use Singapore figures (roughly 8000 people/sq km, then NZ's land area of approximately 268,000 sq km gives us a total of 2,144,000,000 people - around a quarter of the world's population. Of course, that doesn't take into account the rather large lot of mountains you'd have to bulldoze to access all of the available area. To expand, the required area to live Singapore-style would be roughly 8,000,000,000/8,000 = 1 million sq km, roughly the size of Bolivia or Ethiopia, but rather small when compared to the overall land area of the Earth.

In terms of WMDs being used, it would likely remain regional, yeah (if matters concerning nations that host fully one third of the world's population can be considered regional). However, both sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, being equatorial, would likely have similar issues and similar results with conventional warfare too.

Nah, the "best" is very much yet to come on the above matter. Wait until it's impossible to grow food or source potable water in places where a billion or more people live.

Second that. Near perfect combination of nods to the originals and new creativity.

Basic moral of that episode: International Rescue or otherwise, always have a contingency plan. Or several.

Not sure how much faith I have in the justice system to see him off, given the current disposition of both the incoming administration and the Supreme Court.

It's gratifying to have your opinion of a person confirmed by an ethics committee after so many years of reasonable suspicion.

The Ethics Committee report on Matt Gaetz seems to make for very interesting reading.

Moving fast and slow then So do I.

Good grief, it's an absolute biological-and-chemical-weapons testing ground out there right now. With lots of Ward-shaped strawmen being napalmed. Merry Christmas indeed.

Well, he does have skill at moving out of the way of flying objects going fast...

That seems to be the current plan at the moment. Here's hoping that focus on substance over style can win the day in this heavily image-obsessed era.

Yeah, things moving apace isn't always good either. However, the current UK government need something to offset the current attacks (baseless and otherwise) in both traditional and social media that are having an effect on public perception - as ridiculous as it is that so many people vote based on perception over facts.

I guess we'll find out in roughly four years. The good news is that a lot can happen between here and there.

Yeah, but they're "bad guys" and the US, even when headed up by Trump, are "good guys", so it's all OK... right? I'm trying to decide whether enshittification of the democratic process by bigoted social media dudebros and the consequences of it or Danny Ward currently merit more personal stress right now.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c98l9wj67jgo President-elect Donald Trump has demanded Panama reduce fees on the Panama Canal or return it to US control, accusing the central American country of charging "exorbitant prices" to American shipping and naval vessels. Well, Reagan had his little imperialist adventure in Panama too, right?

A long watch, but this lady does science and society communication very very well, which is pretty damn rare. Something for SciComm exponents to aspire to.

Bringing this back to the fore. It's not even about the morality of booing for me, it's about the complete lack of positive utility that it has. I can understand why people do it and it's their right to do so, but let's not pretend that it makes things better for anyone but themselves.

Judging by this, I think you're absolutely right tbh.