I used to have a car with a back seat truly the size of a sofa, a 1960 Dodge Phoenix (2dr dart... before they shrunk it). But alas, although I actually was having sex regularly, the car had no working parking brake so I couldn't do it in the car. Haven't had a vehicle with a big enough back seat to get my freak on since. I may never lose that purity point.

Apparently a lot of writers have Wikis now, if he doesn't have an equivalent he's only fooling himself.

I imagine actually drawing the conflict out from early to late on a whiteboard if I were trying to construct a work of any kind of scope, so I could simply look up and see it any old time, taking pictures as I meddled with it so I could see where I'd been.

You get the bends from high levels of nitrogen dissolved in blood plasma under pressure. If you move to low pressure regions near the water's surface too fast, the nitrogen is able to separate out into bubbles that get stuck in tissues and blood vessels.

These things are "round" like gas bubbles, but they're more like some sort of fake dummy cells, with a fluid interior surrounded by something that looks like a lipid bilayer made of soap-like molecules that bind together by van der Waals forces and have charged tips that interface with the surrounding water. There is no gas.

It's a badly written article- "oooh bubbles!" People should try not to write stupid shit like this, especially about vaccines. I'm already blue in the face screaming at thick skulled idiots on #CDCwhistleblowers who post crap about how vaccines cause autism because Big Pharma stuffs them with disgusting crap like dihydrogen monoxide.

Brady Haran is neither, but he puts actual scientists on his YouTube channels, and they talk about honest science (and occasional amusing trivia), with no CGI or celebrity required. No politics, no manufactured quotes, many Nobel prizes.

I enjoyed the first few, but the latest book was rubbish and I've entirely lost interest in the story thanks to the pace of his writing. He doesn't seem to have much in the way of original plot ideas, so it's mostly about character moments, and you have to keep that sort of writing coming for me to stay interested in those characters.

The series, however, I rather enjoy. While it's probably the first series to ever make me say "there is such a thing as too much gratuitous nudity", the pacing is vastly better than the books, the important character moments are all there, and the gaps between seasons aren't so long that I forget who everyone is.

It doesn't really matter as it is outside any point made. 20 people, one person, or no one at all, it does not make someone a criminal but it doesn't mean the clerk or store owner can hate ski masks.

When we become a non free country, you would be able to take whatever you want from the rich, you will be able to demand they do not buy what you deem frivolous luxury items or that anyone produces them. When we become a non free country, you can invent things for scientists to solve.

But wait, no you cannot because the chances of you being the supreme dictator of this non free country would be about zero. What we will end up with is the same as every single other communist country- an elite few muddled with various levels of corruption and brutal enforcement of their demands to do what they decide is best for you. We may even end up killing thousands if not millions of people in order to make it happen just like in almost every other start of communist ruled countries. You may think, oh noes, couldn't be because this time we will get it right those with more will have less and it will all be unicorns shitting rainbows all over the place, and then they take your Iphone because a nokia flip phone is good enough and everything else is a luxury. Then they take your computer because it wastes electricity and they deemed you do not need it. But hey, that's an ideal world right? Someone making arbitrary decisions about who can purchase what, about who works on what and who can produce what, all based around the whims of someone who doesn't like people with more money than them.

That's not quite backed up by history. He was pretty darn fast for the first three books, but then it all kind of fell apart. Personally I would say that the first three are very equivalent in terms of quality and I (again, IMHO) continue to enjoy them over several rereads. I have not had any inclination to reread Feast or Dance, though I've had other people tell me that reading them back-to-back was more fulfilling than with a six year gap! My introduction to the series was through the Daenerys chapters from AGOT published as a Novella in Asimov's. I've been reading the other books as soon as they came out, so my perspective is perhaps different from someone who got their first read through in in larger chunks.

Book 1 (AGOT) -- 1996
Book 2 (ACOS) -- 1998 (2 yr)
Book 3 (ASOS) -- 2000 (2 yr)
Book 4 (AFFC) -- 2005 (5 yr)
Book 5 (ADWD) -- 2011 (6yr)
Book 6 (TWOW) -- ?? (at least 5yr)

I definitely agree that he's killed off most of his interesting and fun characters, introduced a bunch of boring plotlines ("I am Darkstar--and I am of the night--and I'm mysterious and cool!"), and written himself into an awkward place!

It's been years since I read the entire Dune series as a teenager (I've subsequently reread the first several times), but I remember enjoying God Emperor more than any book other than Dune. I can't say I remember much about it, but given your post, I'm inclined to go back and reread the rest.

That's pretty much exactly what Jordan did.

So that was at least five years ago. I'm not a big fan of the macabre speculation around his health and calculating the odds of his dying vs finishing the series first, but what does seem clear is that he has either written himsef into a wall and doesn't know where to go or he's just bored with writing the books. Can't say I blame him on either side. If I could build a turret on my house, buy a customized Tesla, and fly around the world to meet legions of fans, I would probably be doing that instead too!

There is no overwhelming evidence towards AGW. The models have all failed to predict the non-growth in GW over the last decade. Only people listening to appeals to authority actually believe the models are working. And worse, the predictions (no ice cap, bad hurricanes ....) all have failed. And when Sandy hits it is AGW, but when no hurricanes hit it is or worse when it is really cold "don't you know the difference between weather and climate" (apparently AGW proponents don't either).

And you have failed to prove that government can solve any problem.

"revenue-neutral carbon tax would be quite progressive"

That is impossible. First off, Government always gets its cut of the pie, so there is no such thing as "revenue-neutral" (first lie). Second, all taxes are regressive, as poor people cannot avoid them as well as rich people can.

And only liberals figure that taxing something is a right of government, and the "go to" game-plan for all progressive "solutions".