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Cake day: March 3rd, 2024

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  • A quote attributed to a few people, Heinlein and Pournelle for two, “If you can get your ship into orbit, you’re halfway to anywhere.” Both space and planets have shared and their separate problems to solve. In my head I prefer the image of most populations moving into habitats in space, customized to their preferences, with smaller settlements on various bodies for their own purposes. In my realistic view I don’t see us getting that far before we get bogged down with all the problems we’ve created on this planet. The window to a permanent space civilization might have already shut. A sad thing, as a 70s kid I grew up convinced we were full speed into some version of what scifi had sold to me.




  • Steve Rogers: Big man in a suit of armour. Take that off, what are you?

    Tony Stark: Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.

    Tony was being snarky, but he’s not wrong about the suit being just an extension. Yes, it’s important to his abilities, otherwise he wouldn’t have needed it from the beginning in the cave. But it’s also not a crutch, as Ironman 3 showed and taught him, and he’s trying to show Peter that it begins with the person.

    Also keep in mind what he said to Peter in this same scene - when Peter said he just wanted to be like Tony, Tony comes back and says yeah, and I wanted you to be better. Tony knows that Peter truly doesn’t need the suit because he is that powerful, it’s just once again an extension that enhances those abilities, and if Peter thought it was the suit that made him special he wouldn’t grow.











  • My favorite feature was how the air conditioner had a condensation collection tray that would fill with water as it operated.

    That seemed to be a thing for that time period of cars, as I can recall others that did the same thing. How was that better than just a tube to the outside? Why?

    Also a feature of cars then, having the vent to recirculate air close from the inside. Why is that a problem? Well, it isn’t until the car is moving fast, and then air pressure from the outside pushes the door open just enough to whistle. Again, was money saved by doing it wrong?



  • I owned a Ford Escort that ran with a similar program of trade between Ford and Mazda (I think it was 96 or so). So the engine and such was Mazda in a Ford body. It was worn down from past abuse, but it ran a long time regardless before it gave up. Apparently the flip side of Mazdas in Japan that got the Ford mechanics were terrible, so I count my blessings.