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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: August 9th, 2023

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  • Back when the Alcubierre drive was in the news, and it was revealed that the drive might be used as a very effective planet killer, I had a thought.

    Suppose one or more civilizations in our galaxy developed this already eons ago. Suppose they peppered probes throughout the galaxy to report back when any such drive was detected in use. Suppose they were fearful and paranoid. They could send an automated ship to destroy any system where drive use was newly detected. This is why we see no signs of civilization in the rest of the galaxy.

    We build the Alcubierre drive (which apparently is not possible because anti-matter falls the wrong way?), and minutes after the first time we fire it up, the entire system is destroyed. If there were anyone left to place blame, we’d blame ourselves.




  • I have a lot of things over thirty years old, but I can’t say they’ve been in daily use.

    For electronics, and daily use, I have a 13-year-old Toshiba 55" TV. It’s basically a big, dumb monitor. Still works perfectly.

    I have several nightlights I bought about ten years ago, maybe 12 years ago. They all still work and have been in the same sockets around the house since I bought them. They’re the flat, greenish glowing disc kind.

    I’ve had my coffee mug for at least 25 years, it gets daily use.

    This may be cheating on the daily use, but I have two brown glass horse bookends. They’ve been in constant use since I was a kid. I don’t know where they came from, they were probably my dad’s, as he had a large book collection. So, at least 60 years.