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  I was listening to a true crime show that had a 911 call. Not sure of the context before this particular part, but I heard: Dispatcher: "Is it a male or female?" Me, listening to the show: "Why would someone care about the size of someone's gametes?" I have spent far too long on the fringe of academic biology. Why do people think that gender or even secondary sex features equate sex?

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  I think I might have found a bug in the PHP standard library function `class_exists()`. No security implications that I can see... but... Well... this means that in the unlikely case that I'm right and there is a bug, I'll have to reactivate the Github account that I abandoned 8 years ago. Damnit.

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  There are two genres that I like, that have taught me a very important lesson. Sci-fi (sans Heinlein; though he does make a good exception that proves the rule) and Isekai Anime. The lesson? Listen to (and believe) the people who have less privilege than you. (That often includes women. And THAT also includes trans women.)

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  The US Army has a very long history of punching literal Nazis and literal Confederates, as well as other overtly racist groups. I am surprised that more veterans don't understand the assignment here.

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  @coleens_ Other option: Training it but not consuming it.

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  Took a quick social media break... wasn't worth it. I'm going back to reconciling the differences between Winsock and Berkeley sockets, and fighting with both poll() and std::vector. That's at least frustration that I know I can do something about. Yes, I write my nazi sympathizing senators and rep. Yes, I point out that I'm a veteran and that they're making themselves threats to the document that I swore to protect. But if they were able to listen, they...

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  @JessTheUnstill Canon: Stardate is affected by how far away a ship is from the central beacon along subspace. Subspace is faster than light, but still has twists which means a ship might warp somewhere and have to change their clocks to the local stardate. Meta: Writers were given a stardate for their scripts at the beginning of the season. Some scripts were out of order when airing them, usually due to episodes being filmed and aired later than expected, so they came up with a "wibb...

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  @nyrath Re: Space hotels/Starfleet vessels. The last few episodes of Star Trek: Picard have me thinking about carpeting... Specifically the quote: "It wasn't until this moment, reunited with all of you, I realize what I miss most. The carpet." Looking at the walls of the Enterprise 1701-D makes me think that the walls look somewhat padded as well. In the spirit of good improv—saying "Yes, and..."—I'm re-examining the possibility that the e...

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  Alright, I've long been stuck on the idea that people on spacecraft won't be sucked (or more accurately, blown) out of an airlock nearly as dramatically as Hollywood would make us believe. (For the curious, from the time the hatch opens? You'll probably die within 30 seconds, but with most airlocks that humans design, it might be a few weeks before your body makes its way out the hatch...) Anyways, I think I might have a new topic to mull over when it comes to crewed sp...

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  @nyrath I'm working on a story that includes a sleeper torchship. Back of the napkin thrust at 1G puts 35 days of accelerating, 300 years of drifting, and 35 days of accelerating as a reasonable way to not need to pack a large moon's worth of argon as reaction mass in order to travel 20 ly. I'm thinking of a hull number of NRV-95-NEP as the story's main ship's designation... A Shelley class ship, with the class named after NRV-1, The Mary Shelley, with...