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randominality's comments
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randominality  ·  4037 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: While We're On The Subject Of First Lines...

Oxford (home of the Bodleian) is rather far away from Oxford street (in London) I assume you mean you went to Blackwells on Broad Street, Oxford?

randominality  ·  4178 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: A personal triumph in pizza

This is fantastic; hazardous fire and tasty pizza!

randominality  ·  4212 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: What odds and ends do you have in your music collection?

I'm not particularly into Grime, but a friend showed me this album and I love it:

Bowza - The Time is Now

randominality  ·  4215 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Science Will Save The Planet (If We Let It)

Eh, its pretty much the same article I'm sure you've read elsewhere:

tl;dr: Global population will increase by 2 billion by 2050. More people and more 3rd world development leads to a need for greater global agriculture and energy production. We can achieve this with GMOs and nuclear energy. Unfortunately these are controversial despite few scientific counter-arguments for their use.

randominality  ·  4215 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Exuma - Baal

Of the 4 albums I've listened to, Exuma I and Exuma II are definitely the best. I can also recommend Snake though.

These are some lovely chillout summer songs:

Morcheeba - The Sea

Chrome Sparks - Marijuana

Also can't have summer without some afrobeat in my opinion:

Orchestra Baobab - Liti Liti

randominality  ·  4227 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Kessler Syndrome

I would think that massive slabs of sticky foam could do a good job of absorbing high speed debris without also releasing particulate.

randominality  ·  4242 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: From Non-Life to Life

    Thermodynamics shows that a) RNA is the only pre-protein nucleotide that fulfill the thermodynamic bound for replicators, b) a random strand 'gas' population of RNA _will_ crystallize to a replicator within ~ 30 000 years in the phosphate activating environment of alkaline hydrothermal vents.

Could you link to any papers or discussions about this point? The work to establish this seems like it would be really interesting.

randominality  ·  4242 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: What are some *personal* essential readings?

I've only read Metamagical Themas by Hofstadter, is it worth reading GEB;EGB as well or does it just cover very similar thoughts.

randominality  ·  4242 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: 30 abandoned places that look truly beautiful

I'm from London actually but I just had no idea that any parts of Germany look like that. The only bits of Germany I've ever been to are mostly just rolling hills or forested. I might have to make a trip out to Bavaria though, seems like one could combine it with a trip to Vienna quite nicely.

randominality  ·  4242 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: 30 abandoned places that look truly beautiful

Does anyone know which bit of Germany has terrain like that in picture #6? That place looks beautiful.

randominality  ·  4307 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Sixth Weekly "Share Some Music You've Been Into Lately" Thread

The rest of that Safar Barlik EP is absolutely great as well, definitely give it a listen if you have the time and appropriate mood.

randominality  ·  4342 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pain of the New: The Hobbit at 48 fps

I think you probably hit on a great counter-argument with the mention of HDTV. I don't know anyone who was anti HDTV when it came out, everyone thought that it was simply better or at worst a pointless addition.

So when lelandbatey talks about the emotional connection to 24fps that was created by all the emotional moments that one has seen in that format, I'm not sure it actually holds up. If that was the case, why aren't we emotionally connected to SDTV in the same way?

randominality  ·  4343 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The Kraken wakes: first images of the Giant Squid

Do any of the photos come with scale bars or with some sort of size comparison superimposed? At the moment it just looks like a close up of a normal sized squid.

randominality  ·  4346 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Most viewed Wikipedia pages by language

Good spot. Somehow I completely missed this fact when writing the post title.

randominality  ·  4348 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Werner Herzog: On the Asolute, the Sublime and Ecstatic Truth

His opinion on damn near everything is usually brilliant. Even his views on chickens are great to listen to with his magnificent turn of phrase.

randominality  ·  4353 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: How do you discover new music?

r/listentous is a wonderful community that has a somewhat user-centric contribution system. Only people who have proven to have an interesting music taste in the 2-weekly elections are allowed to post content. It leads to a wonderful mix of good stuff.

randominality  ·  4515 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: How much Force power can Yoda output?
I really enjoyed how the end result was actually quite a small number. The Force is actually quite humble in its powers, it turns out.