The Pod Bay

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fyrepenguin

07:54

@ErinAnne around 1999 there was a game released for PC called Lego Rock Raiders, and what you said there heavily reminded me of it. Small and Large mobile laser-equipped vehicles going around lasering a planet, fun times

5 hours later…

uhoh

12:24

oh great, an "Air raid Alert" I hate it when that happens

2 hours later…

TheMatrix Equation-balance

14:37

@uhoh - we are all at war, one way or another. 70 years of quiet is too much Darwin's evolution

2 hours later…

Rory Alsop

16:13

@TheMatrixEquation-balance now see that's just talking nonsense. All our current wars across the globe are for one of two things: greed or religion. Nothing to do with Darwin. Nothing to do with evolution.

TheMatrix Equation-balance

16:51

@RoryAlsop - I think you are oversimplifying. 'greed and religion' - are just a tools to drive Hegel's "Absolute Idea" marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hl/hlabsolu.htm But WARs - are the main tool of Darwin's evolution for humans.

Rory Alsop

@TheMatrixEquation-balance no. Absolutely not. Not sure where you keep coming up with these Q-like theories.

I reckon you should take them to philosophy.SE's chat - that might be eye-opening for you

TheMatrix Equation-balance

17:04

@RoryAlsop - I remember reading a science fiction novel where on one of the planets populated by humans there were strict rules on specialized professional trades/groups. Mathematicians, philosophers, engineers lived separately and even spoke different languages. But a mathematician boy and a philosopher girl fell in love and were prosecuted. Similar to Romeo and Juliet

Rory Alsop

@TheMatrixEquation-balance okay

2 hours later…

Erin Anne

18:42

@fyrepenguin that sounds really fun. I never played any of tbe LEGO games. I remember feeling a little surprised they got made; iirc LEGO had expressed they preferred to stay physical, then they changed their minds. They all sound fun though. I think a fan recently patched LEGO Island to work on modern Windows

@uhoh I hope everything will be ok. War is obviously good for absolutely nothin. I keep telling myself that saber-rattling is a ploy for both internal and international politics. But I don't trust anyone to be sensible anymore

1 hour later…

uhoh

20:11

@TheMatrixEquation-balance the problem here is that the English translation is seriously faulty. This was a routine orbital launch from Sichuan (far in the West of China) of an X-ray telescope observatory, not a "missile" nor an "air raid".

@ErinAnne thanks, but ditto

Rory Alsop

@uhoh definitely reassuring that it's a false alarm, but still not great to have alarms like that!

geoffc

I guess Taiwan is sort of like CUba in that regard? A lot of launches, from Florida, may overfly Cuba, just as launches out of China may overfly Taiwan.

If you fly high enough it is ok... :)

(I mean eventually a normal orbit will overfly most of the Earth at some point).

uhoh

@RoryAlsop yes it was a little startling, but th more expected scenario starts with a maratime blockade of Taiwan to cut off food and fuel, not a Putin-style missile onslaught.

Rory Alsop

@uhoh And I assume during the posturing exercises that happen in that sort of area, everyone is aware of the planned launches and so they don't cause alarm?

uhoh

@RoryAlsop so I already expected that a single event must be at worst a stunt, one week before the Taiwan presidential election - a sort of "Who's your daddy" statement.

Rory Alsop

20:24

@uhoh wonder if this launch served as a dual purpose launch then :-)

uhoh

@RoryAlsop China doesn't announce stuff it's going to do usually.

Rory Alsop

Or is it on a normal trajectory?

@uhoh fair enough

uhoh

@RoryAlsop Sichuan to Taiwan is like 1800 kilometers. I think the alert in Taiwan could be called the stunt by the current TW government, and the launch completely innocuous.

I can't read Chinese but I've read that it is not so scary. Just showing that the alert system is paying attention. It's the English translation that is at fault from what I've read.

TheMatrix Equation-balance

@uhoh - both China and Russia are going through midlife crisis. There will be a lot of repercussions in the world.

uhoh

The presdiential election is this weekend. It's a real nail-biter for them because there's a viable third-party candidate this year.

2024 Taiwanese presidential election

The 8th direct presidential election in Taiwan is scheduled to be held on 13 January 2024 as part of the 2024 general election. Incumbent President Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is ineligible for reelection due to term limits. The ruling DPP nominated Vice President Lai Ching-te, who had secured the party chairmanship by acclamation in March 2023. He selected Hsiao Bi-khim, the then-Representative to the United States, as his running mate. The opposition Kuomintang (KMT) nominated the incumbent New Taipei mayor Hou Yu-ih as their candidate for president in May 2023. In...

Erin Anne

20:33

China would have to issue NOTVIs, Notice to Villages

expect rocket parts

uhoh

@ErinAnne Ha! :-)

Rory Alsop

@ErinAnne that's definitely not what you'd want to hear if you live downrange...

Erin Anne

people learn to live with the oddest things

Rory Alsop

@ErinAnne true

Erin Anne

@uhoh you've been there a while, right? do you have a vote?

uhoh

20:37

@ErinAnne I've been here over 16 years, but I'm still a US citizen.

It's a very friendly place for foreigners (expats) to stay for extended periods as long as you have something to contribute.

It's an incredibly nice place to live. Clean, safe, calm, friendly, free speech, low-cost national healthcare, public transportation, incredible natural beauty and convenient cities...

Erin Anne

dang that does sound good

uhoh

And so many interesting nearby countries to visit for low-cost vacations. Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Japan...

Erin Anne

I've just had a look at True Size Of. for some reason my brain tells me that Taiwan, being an island but not Australia, must be small. But it's really quite big

uhoh

Malaysia, Vietnam...

Erin Anne

too bad they don't have a space program. I don't think I could pivot to semiconductors

uhoh

20:42

@ErinAnne ya It's like one average-sized US state.

Erin Anne

oh right, that's what was tickling my brain. I was so sure that I'd seen a country roughly that size before. So sure that I was thinking "well, maybe I've checked the size of Taiwan"

uhoh

@ErinAnne They DO have a space program! Their first 100$ home-made earth observation satellite was put into orbit recently, and the outgoing president announced plans for a launch complex and 100% TW-built launch vehicle program.

Erin Anne

turns out it's very very similar in size to Netherlands, which I was considering trying to move to

oh well that's interesting

uhoh

Taiwan Space Agency

Taiwan Space Agency (short as TASA), formerly the National Space Organization (NSPO), is the national civilian space agency of the Republic of China (Taiwan), under the auspices of the National Science and Technology Council. TASA is involved in the development of space technologies and related research. == Organization == TASA headquarters and the main ground control station are in Hsinchu. The TASA is organized as follows: In April 2022, the Legislative Yuan passed a bill that upgraded the NSPO to a directly affiliated agency of the Ministry of Science and Technology, and renamed Taiwan Space...

Erin Anne

uhoh

20:46

@ErinAnne :-)

Erin Anne

huh that wiki page...were the payloads for SR-II and SR-III really just TMA?

uhoh

@ErinAnne I don't know, I'll have a look. I think the FORMOSAT series is where I started paying attention. (Formosa is the name given to Taiwan by the Portuguese during their "pillage Asia" era)

This is the one that's 100% TW built: space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/formosat-7r.htm

Erin Anne

Taiwan is the preferred local nomenclature, right? I know there's also ROC but I hardly ever hear that used outside of military stuff

uhoh

which wasn't as bad as the Dutch's "pillage Asia" era.

Ya "Taiwan" is now the preferred. "ROC" has fallen by the wayside.

Erin Anne

colonisation: bad, actually

uhoh

20:55

Japan's "pillage Asia" was brutal in China, but actually relatively gentle in Taiwan. They built a ton of infrastructure (to make pillaging easier) and made everyone learn Japanese, but they also fought Malaria, built roads, railroads, safe drinking water....

There are Dutch and Portugese fort remants in Taiwan, but no real leftovers of colonization that I know of, except perhaps a bit of religion. There were also missionaries.

The most famous missionary is en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Leslie_Mackay who's work led to a series of hospitals en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mackay_Memorial_Hospital

Basically when foreigners come here, they seem to behave nicer than they do when they go to other places in Asia. Maybe it's the beauty and the nice people, or something in the water :-)

I guess it's the "island mentality" - we're al in this together.

OK folks, time to fall back asleep...

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