David Johnson's Comments
Page 1 of 2  first | prev | next 
Jun 5, 2008 | rating: 10 | comments: 1
David Johnson Jun 30, 2008, 8:47pm EDT
Interesting. Heck, I may "steal" bits of it to bolster my rather shaky TW foundations .

Couple of things occur though. One is that electricity in this TL is more likely to be competing with gas lighting than kerosene. They're both lighting systems that require a fairly extensive infrastructure. Kerosene would remain the lighting of choice for rural areas and portable light sources.

If electricity cuts into gas's market big enough and fast enough, you might put a crimp in the advancement of chemistry. AIUS, a lot of early "better lives through chemistry" products were the result of companies being desperate to find something to do with all the waste from coal-gas plants - aspirin, dyes, etc. - less of that, less incentive for big chemical industries. You might butterfly away the Haber–Bosch process - which means if there's a WWI, Germany runs out of explosives. It also means chemical fertilizers are at best delayed, with all the winged insects that could cause.

Assuming electric competes successfully with gas (the battle might go on quite a bit longer in this ATL), you might affect some interesting things. On OTL, gas stoves really didn't start to hit it big until the 1880s. Obviously, such required a pre-existing gas infrastructure. Electrics came in the 1890s, but didn't catch on (at first) due to the relative lack of their infrastructure. So on your TL here, it might very well be the other way around.

Or it might go into a BluRay/HD-DVD situation, with folks sitting around waiting for who "wins" and just sticking with wood/coal in the meantime.

You may just have eliminated the whole invention of the gas mantle...since by the time it came around on this TL, the electric/gas battle may be more or less over. Coleman may well go to battery lanterns a lot sooner than on this TL.

Speaking of coal, coal-fired heat is probably going to stay widespread much longer on this ATL. You've put a crimp in the petroleum and gas industries, and electricity is going to be much more expensive for heating (just like on OTL), so coal is going to be the way to go. Ditto for producing that electricity. Ironically, we may have an "All Electric" timeline where the sort of killer smogs London used to have are a lot more common and widespread.

Speaking of coal, unless you're shoveling it into your steam engine cars (and tractors and such - which is unlikely), they're probably using something like kerosene to fire their boilers. Oh, they could use alcohol, but if electricity is really catching on as a light source, even your smaller petroleum companies are going to start hunting around for other customers for their product (other major markets for them are lubrication and asphalt, of course) and, quite frankly, they can produce a cheaper, better fuel than the alcohol producers (as all the boosters of ethanol are now finding out...).

I'd like to think that battery technology would be higher on this ATL...but I suspect that it's contingent on way too many other factors (chemistry, physics, manufacturing, etc.) to be advanced much simply because they need better batteries sooner. You might shave a decade off development by the time the 21st century rolls around on this ATL, but honestly, there's always been a big need/market for better batteries on this world, so I don't think your ATL can (usefully) throw enough extra resources at the problem to speed things up more than a few years.

Hmmm, that's what occurs to me at the moment. I'll probably think of more things later.

David
Mar 1, 2008 | rating: 10 | comments: 5
David Johnson Mar 3, 2008, 11:00pm EST
re "Gravity Lamp": I saw this on Digg - and read a bunch of comments (400+ and still going) there as well. A lot of them boiled down to this:

"Genuis? The guy can't even do basic physics.

This thing has a 23kg weight, falling 4ft, which gives an output of 270J, assuming 100% efficiency (!)

270J is 1W for just over 4 minutes. One watt for 600 lumens is also really, really generous. The best are in the region of 150 lumens/watt...

Even using their calculations you have to lift a 23kg weight 4 ft every 4 hours"

At best, it's pretty much a "toy" - though a cool-looking one.
Dec 13, 2007 | rating: 9.6 | comments: 301
David Johnson Dec 27, 2007, 8:22pm EST
Next stop - Round Three!

And it's cool that I finally know what's "wrong" with Char's footprints.
Nov 11, 2007 | rating: 9.6 | comments: 144
David Johnson Nov 29, 2007, 6:44pm EST
My, it's been a while since I've seen the first chapter of "Char".

Given that - as a mystery - it's difficult for me to see how well it works since I've already "turned to the last page of the book" my comments are going to be somewhat generic. But what the heck.

First thing: "Mud stuck to his boot, and made them heavy" I think you mean "boots" here, not boot...;)

Anywho, it reads a _lot_ better than I remember it reading the first time. You set up the characters (and some of their more basic characteristics) nicely without being overly (and unrealistically) "talky." Ken, fer example, comes across nicely as an asshole. And we see some of Char's...special features nicely integrated with the story. For those reading for the first time, they'll be a nice "Oh!" later as things are revealed.

So, hope you make the next round - and that this thing gets published already!
Sep 3, 2007 | rating: 9.8 | comments: 7
David Johnson Sep 18, 2007, 10:40pm EDT
"It will be interesting to see who will be the new Doctor when he does leave, and how the show will get around the restrictions on regenerations once a few more Doctors go by."

They may just ignore it and hope no one remembers back to the fifth Doctor when they said Time Lords got only 13 regens...which of course everyone will. Or they bang together some sort of strangely rational-sounding explanation (after all, they've got the Master on, what, his fifteenth, sixteenth regeneration?).

They'll come up with something. After all, this _is_ the show that managed to get around having the actor playing their _title character_ change seven times!

BTW, you'll probably like these two comics:

http://www.homeonthestrange.com/view.php?ID=211
http://www.homeonthestrange.com/view.php?ID=212
Sep 3, 2007 | rating: 9.8 | comments: 7
David Johnson Sep 13, 2007, 7:35pm EDT
*SIGH*

Well, at least it's a smaller gap than after Sylvester McCoy. Met him and Sophie Aldred at a Gallifrey convention way back when. He plays an excellent pair of spoons.
Jun 12, 2007 | rating: 9.3 | comments: 42
David Johnson Jun 18, 2007, 9:51pm EDT
"Your view is exactly why many people struggle with the question. Hate speech causes harm and even death upon others."

And _any_ restriction you can possibly come up with that will stop hate speech will _also_ cause harm and even death upon others - I guarentee it. I'll also guarentee that the definition of "hate speech" will change to match whatever those in power think is most useful to them - which of course leads back to my first guarentee...

"It is wrong and shouldn't be tolerated in society."

So is religion - but you can't ban that either.

"You don't have a right to say what you want. You have the freedom of expression - that doesn't mean that it's all right to promote the death and destruction of another human being."

ex·pres·sion [ik-spresh-uhn]

–noun 1. the act of expressing or setting forth in words

Now, tell me how you can do that without "say[ing] what you want"?

Oh right...you can't.

And it may not be right "to promote the death and destruction of another human being" - but it's not something you can stop someone _speaking_ about either.
Jun 12, 2007 | rating: 9.3 | comments: 42
David Johnson Jun 12, 2007, 6:23pm EDT
"But where do you draw the line between freedom of speech and hate?"

You don't.

Freedom of Speech means just that - you can say whatever you want to. Yes, hate speech is wrong, evil, and I wish it didn't exist – but if you give the government (or anyone) the right/ability to regulate speech you don't like, you give them the right/ability to regulate speech you do...including yours. And history has shown that eventually, that right/ability will be used – and then used more and more.

So if you want to go on saying what you want, then you're going to have to resign yourself to the fact that others will say what they want, even if you don't like it. As far as you're concerned, if don't like hate speech, then don't use it – that's what I (and most people) do. It's not only the only thing you can do that actually does reduce such speech, it's the only one the preserves your right to say what you want...

...of course, I'll guarantee that someone will be offended by whatever you say, no matter how innocuous.
May 28, 2007 | rating: 9 | comments: 46
David Johnson May 29, 2007, 9:43am EDT
I've heard of people who'd lose their head if it wasn't fastened on...but feet?
May 28, 2007 | rating: 8 | comments: 5
David Johnson May 29, 2007, 9:40am EDT
"but you have to add in insurance, and depreciation, and you quickly jump to 40 cents per mile before you add in maintenence, and new tires, and then you jump to 40 to 60 cents per mile"

Of course, some of that happens irregardless of the miles driven - insurance and depreciation, for example. Even maintenence to a certain degree (there's a reason batteries are sold as "n month batteries" as their lifespan is more affected by simple age than number of times used).

Mind you, it still is a savings over commuting.*

On the "telework center" idea, though, I can't see this as a big factor in the business world. It really seems to be too much of a niche market, dependant on tapping the small percentage of (the already small percentage) of people who can telecommute yet don't mind driving to "work," even if it's a shorter drive.

Mind you, this still might be an idea for, say, a company like Kinko's (who already operate a lot of features for users like a telework center) to look into. For them, it would be more an expanding of already existent services than a full start-from-scratch new business.

David

* Though not much for me, what with only a fifteen mile commute and a car that gets thirty-five mpg - that at nineteen years and three-hundred thousand plus miles is about as depreciated as it's going to get!
May 20, 2007 | rating: 9 | comments: 3
David Johnson May 23, 2007, 11:53pm EDT
"Some day, son, all this will be yours..."
Apr 12, 2007 | rating: 10 | comments: 3
David Johnson Apr 17, 2007, 10:00pm EDT
Yep - though it's more been through Baghdad then anything else...;)

As for Amboy - http://www.gather.com/viewImage.jsp?fileId=3096224744070394
Apr 12, 2007 | comments: 2
David Johnson Apr 13, 2007, 12:08am EDT
Fifty odd years ago, my wife's mom found these growing at a house they'd just moved to, and she's been taking it (well, daughters of it) from house to house ever since. Now we have a copy too (and should break it up and repot it into more than one pot - it's grown several daughters).
Apr 12, 2007 | rating: 10 | comments: 3
David Johnson Apr 12, 2007, 11:59pm EDT
The section in California is reasonably intact...if you don't mind bypassing the odd missing piece. In Arizona, from the California border to Seligman is intact and almost unchanged - east of there large chunks are still there, but much of it is under Interstate 40. The same can be said for New Mexico.
Apr 12, 2007 | rating: 9 | comments: 2
David Johnson Apr 12, 2007, 11:55pm EDT
I fully believe in Douglas Adams's comment "Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
Apr 12, 2007 | rating: 10 | comments: 12
David Johnson Apr 12, 2007, 11:55pm EDT
Somehow, if asked "what does Dale Cozort look like," this wouldn't have been my choice...;)
Apr 12, 2007 | rating: 8 | comments: 2
David Johnson Apr 12, 2007, 11:44pm EDT
"One member wrote about two-thirds of a story called, Trolleyworld, set in an alternate version of California. I would dearly love to see a finished manuscript of it, but unfortunately the author hit a writer's block that he has never been able to fight through." Yeah, yeah. yeah. I'll get to it...

This summer, for sure (at least a chapter, anyway)
Apr 12, 2007 | rating: 9 | comments: 10
David Johnson Apr 12, 2007, 11:42pm EDT
"As decent CG gets less expensive you'll see more science fiction and less cop shows" and as the price of cgi declines even more, those cop shows will come back (crime drama has always been more popular than SF), but with the whole thing done cgi. Another decade, and the computer will do the voices as well, and even more actors will be out of work than usual (though then or now, the exact percent unemployed is still a question of digits to the right of a decimal point and a big "99"...).

A decade after that, writers will basically drop a script in a computer and get the completed show (or "movie" or whatever) emailed to them when the computer's finished with it. Five more years...and you won't need the writer...
Mar 28, 2007 | rating: 9 | comments: 2
David Johnson Apr 12, 2007, 10:04pm EDT
It's actually right at the Arizona/New Mexican border - I took the shot from the rest stop there.
Apr 12, 2007 | rating: 10 | comments: 5
David Johnson Apr 12, 2007, 10:01pm EDT
And the building's 301 years old (http://www.churchstreetcafe.com/). I can recommend both the Navajo Tacos and the Chile Rellenos
Page 1 of 2  first | prev | next 
 
David Johnson
Pasadena, California
Gather | Friends | Groups | Share
About Gather | Engagement Marketing | Make New Friends | Gather Points | Advertise on Gather | Gather Press | Privacy | Terms of Service | Community Guidelines
Books | Celebs | Entertainment | Family | Food | Health | Moms | Money | News | Politics | Spirituality | Sports | Travel | Writing
Version 16811, "Oz"; Copyright © 2009 Gather Inc. All rights reserved.