Zompist Bboard Again

But it's a vast expense - and at that point, you have to ask why we're doing this exactly, to live on a planet with no attractive features. It's like living on Phobos, only you have less water, dust storms, and you start down the bottom of a gravity well. All excellent points -- O'Neill colonies ne...

Yeah, that's what I thought. English doesn't like putting adverbs between a verb and a direct object. Ah, but it's not so simple as that! Note that I think we all agree that your two sentences are different sorts of wrong: the second is a "huh... that's not right!" mistake that might be e...

Except that in the UK we can't refer cases to the Ministry of Justice...

The company whose founder was forced to turn over data to the British parliament had not committed any crimes as far as I am aware. Rather, he was forced to turn over data for the purposes of investigating a third party, Facebook, from which they had originally obtained said data by decision of a U...

Or, you know, you could not commit crimes in foreign countries.

We really don't know about gravity, given that we only have data for microgravity and Earth gravity, and nothing else. The effects of Mars gravity on health are guesswork at this stage; we just don't know what healthy gravity would be (we only have data for microgravity and Earth gravity). Theoreti...

There's an interesting thing just happened! No, not Brext-related. Instead, it's in the realm of constitutional theory. You may remember that a couple of times I've noted that Parliament's been getting pissed off by the way corporations regularly ignore the demands of parliamentary committees - thes...

Yeah, we probably have to gloss over here the fact that colonies on Mars make no sense, even by the standards of space colonies. I'm not sure I see why. Mars is deadly and unattainable, sure, but less so, on the whole, than the rest of the solar system. We've been over this before, and no doubt wil...

OK, a quick word on lib dems and future parties. First off, the laws of party systems mean that, in general, there can't be third parties in simple plurality electoral systems. The survival of the Liberals is a freak of history, replicated in very few SP countries around the world. The Liberals surv...

Labour under Corbyn got a massive boost in voting intention during the election campaign period just prior to the 2017 election.This resulted in the best swing they've had in decades. This could be repeated in the next general election. Anything is possible. But that's not likely - Labour gained ab...

Mars is a hellhole, as Sal put it in another thread, and realistically it could only be settled with a huge degree of cooperation, and a very low tolerance for sociopathy. We don't run the International Space Station like we run a for-profit prison. Yeah, we probably have to gloss over here the fac...

That answer doesn't work, because you're conflating different senses of "money". Do you mean money as in currency, or money as in wealth, or money as in coinage? In the case of money as in coinage - no, coins (notes, bank statements, etc) aren't necessary in their own right, but only becau...

I'm not sure how to answer quite a few of these questions. Just a couple of examples, but I could highlight a lot more: No initial velar nasal What if your language has no velar nasal at all? Presumably you should tick, but if so this is not really a SAE feature at all. The majority of languages la...

If you object to any of my changes, say so. I also have some thoughts on how the phonology test could be improved Hello again. It was me who originally wrote that phonology test, but I did so off the top of my head without any research or planning, and I've always meant to go back and do it properl...

I don't think I disagree with any of that, although I might come back and say a bit more on future prospect possibilities later. For now, I'd just throw in three snippets. One is that the Lib Dems have a bizarre toxicity now: people hate them. This is because of the Coalition, and specifically the f...

A fun bit of polling from Youtube: what should we do now? 28% think we should abandon Brexit and remain in the EU 19% think we should abandon the deal and just leave the EU with no deal at all 16% think we should accept Theresa May's deal 11% think we should just negotiate a different deal 8% think ...

What's the chance that someone introduces a motion of no confidence at some time in the near future? I mean in the Commons, not in the Parliamentary Conservative Party. Depends on 'near future', I think. Immediately? Minimal. Longer term, could happen. Right now, nobody's going to want to be the on...

IME it's much broader in use than wiktionary suggests - I've heard it used for any stripping of bodily matter more substantial than flaying. For instance, systematically removing flesh from bone, particularly of other people. I know I've seen experts talking about the distinctive cuts on bone indica...

Realistically, I think the EU may have made a big mistake with the "perpetual servitude clause". Of course, the deal still may go through, but it's at best 50 - 50 I think. Leaving with no deal will almost certainly be far worse for the UK than the EU, but if there is no deal then the EU ...

Just for a bit of fun: how do British governments die? Let's start with Walpole... Walpole (Orford): unofficial VONC (on excluding some MPs), resignation; party kept power Compton (Wilmington): death Pelham: death Pelham-Holles (Newcastle): government collapse and internal coup (the PM was in seriou...