Space-ically feat. Cory Doctorow

Doesn’t everyone apologize to furniture when walking into them?

“Wet Sacking” sounds like the Visigoths showing up in Seattle.

It's funny how Musks antics sound more and more like something you'd see in a Bond movie 🙄

Lithium ion batteries can go in the overhead, but not in your checked bags since they're inaccessible if something happens

Just use the kimchi jars to propel a datacenter to space. Nutrition and propulsion. Easy.

Ummmm akshually ethanol is regular alcohol I think Nate meant methanol

Regarding the in-orbit manufacturing idea, this is probably referring to https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/macguffinite.php#id--MacGuffinite--Manufacturing , which says "well IF there was some product that for some reason could ONLY be manufactured in free fall, and IF that hypothetical product was so useful or important that we just couldn't find an alternative or do without (even though we have until now), well then that would justify the monumental costs of putting anything up there." And yeah, sure, IF. But serious space nerds like the ones behind the Atomic Rockets site are well aware that there is neither currently nor forseeably ANY profit-based or survival-based reason to go to space. Any colonization of the solar system would require the invention of fully autonomous self-replicating robot factories, and extremely hypothetical launch structures measuring thousands to tens of thousands of kilometers in size, because doing it by rocket is like trying to replace all freight currently moved by container ship and rail with just planes and helicopters

Regarding spacecraft thermal management systems, yes you can keep it cool with radiators, and yes there are ideas for radiators that can handle more heat for less weight. The problem is, much like the wire vs radio comparison, that this can only ever be a MUCH worse version of the normal ground equivalent. The only problem putting data centers in orbit could ever "solve" is needing to invent more demand for SpaceX launches, the same as Starlink. Designing and placing something in orbit is never cheaper than land rights and construction on the ground.

Talking about middle Eastern goddesses. Astarott/Astarte was Canaanite goddess that could shift between a male or female presentation. When the Hebrews turned her into the demon she was misgendered and referred to as only in the masculine and this continued into the medieval period but was worshiped by women in the middle ages who were seeking knowledge that was forbidden to them by the church.

Why do I listen to this podcast so I can get angry about things I can't affect

AI Satellite is something from Factorio. I hate when our decision makers start to talk like they're in Factorio

As the guy who works maintenance in the big marijuana factory; the "WiFi water pipe via humidifier and dehumidifier" exists and it's a maintenance nightmare. I've seen molds that would make lesser men weep Oh it dries the weed btw that's what the WiFi water pipe does

I'm generally very adamant that just because something is bad, doesn't mean it's gen AI. Some people are just bad at writing. There are no tells.

God this story reminds me of A Spear Cuts through Water; like these words are individually lovely but put together they are just fog

Hussein- go to a winemaker/beerbrewer shop and buy a damn bubbler cork, I beg you

Ending up on a list because you keep forgetting to burp your kimchi.

Cory has such insightful things to say about a wide variety of topics, he's a top-tier guest

To the tune of " MacArthur Park"

The writing... it's like if Ocean Vuong had a TBI

umm actually CalPERS is for CA State employees (CalFires, CDT, Caltrans, ect), while teachers in CA are technically employed by the districts and have a similar pension system called CalSTRS

The Granta piece reminds me of the writing of Olivia Nuzzi but at least I didn't have to think about anyone dry-humping RFK Jr's denim-clad crotch.

I will never stop using em dashes

For November, most haunting line in literature that sticks with me and by Australian author Peter Carey: A man who is tasked to look after horses drowns them when promised a holiday "They bumped softly together like bad dreams in a basin" Can't ai that but also track down the short story - 'life and death in the southside pavilion"

The difference between the SpaceX IPO and the WeWork IPO is that every investor in the SpaceX IPO will subsequently give birth to a child of Elon Musk, whereas every investor in the WeWork IPO ended up getting an abortion.

I love that Riley went "A." and then followed it up with "second of all"

They filled Blue Origin with kimchi

In all the talk about the data centers in space, nobody talks about the other big problem: radiation. They have to send laptops to the ISS by the dozen because the radiation they get even in the habitable shielded environment of the station, they get cooked by ionizing and particle radiation. Most of the flagship rovers on mars and shit run on the equivalent of a late 90’s PC because of all the extra stuff they have to do to make the processors work in an environment with radiation. One of those ways is literally to make the transistors larger so it takes more charge to flip a bit, and they last longer before the particles literally destroy the parts of the transistors. Even if they could cool the data centers in space, whatever 3 nm top-of-the-line GPUs the send up there are going to be destroyed in a matter of months.

It's ironic hearing this discussion of a government potentially having to bail out an industry not just one time but on an ongoing basis because it likes its service too much, happening as it is adjacent to an IPO for SpaceX, because it immediately makes me think of 1991's Iridium Inc. -- and if you know that example, what happens is not a "bailout", it's that a group of government interests shows up on the last day of the bankruptcy auction and buys the thing for three tenths of a cent on the original investors' dollar to run primarily for their own use

Find a Way to Hate It is such a banger album!! everyone should get it!! it's kinda like indie electronic rock from the late 2000s grew up and got more mature and more talented

As an astrophysicist who's been to conferences with sessions about What The Heck Do We Do About Starlink, that section was cathartic... thanks gang

My favorite podcast, Treacherous Fermentation

November needs to step away from the Lathe with that bit about how elon is gonna be the only one with launch capability remaining

Reading that kind of AI prose makes me sympathise with the Scramblers.

I fear im the cheap cousin

50:00~ what's the difference between a cutlass and a machete? as far as I'm aware it's just the handguard; idk seems like nitpicking;

May I introduce the critique group to (alleged) ai extravaganza 'Shy Girl'? An allegation so strong the book got it's trad publishing deal cancelled weeks before release.

"Come with us....or you can say goodbye to courage's cheap cousin"

Someone forgot to burb the kimchi on New Glen last night.

Cory is an amazing writing teacher. I was privileged to be his student at Clarion (an astonishing 21 years ago this summer)

The hilarious part being that Space-X's actual rocketry division is the only part of Musk's whole empire that actually makes sense and provides any utility to society. The Falcon-9 is genuinely an impressive and useful piece of launch hardware, and Starship is a gamble, but closer than this podcast gives it credit for to actually being viable for at least taking large payloads to orbit... I'm not giving Musk credit, but the engineers employed at Space-X's aerospace and propulsion divisions absolutely deserve recognition for serious leaps and bounds in spaceflight technology. They're delusional if they wanna get a million people on mars in the next couple decades. At best you maybe get a manned mission to visit Mars in my lifetime maybe. And thats a big maybe. There are still massive engineering problems to solve if you want to do that.

I've seen SO many articles discussing the concept of data centers in space that never once mention the thermodynamics of how moving heat into a vacuum is literally the least efficient method of heat dissipation imaginable. Never gonna happen, but billions and billions of dollars will change hands pretending it's even remotely viable.

among my rolls of tinfoil is the idea that the USSR had developed information technologies which were discretely privatized and folded into the 90s tech boom narrative of End of History and techno capitalist optimism. If this notion, this intuition, of mine is true, could it be that amongst those techne which were made to build this cyberspace and social media, was a sort of poison pill to capitalism. an algorithm which some 1980s chainsmoking scientist imagined that would unravel capitalism, but it needed to be disguised, hidden into the union's central planning. It would, he knew, unravel the ussr too, but the union was not the workers, the worker would survive and rediscover socialism. Tetris, he'd call it.

i think kim stanley robinson should be allowed to beat elon musk with lightweight magnesium alloy hammers

It's beautiful how the episode about a failing space company drops on the same day that an Amazon rocket explodes on launch.

kimchi fermentation too strong, swag too different

I’m interested in the motivation of the Granta author. He seems to be an AI true believer but this is basically plagiarism which typically has a psychological dimension. My advice would be to claim it’s a hoax to expose the low standards of the Commonwealth Writers Prize.

I'm always shocked that the Internet providers in Canada, a pair of monopolies price fixing and are general trash, are not even close to the bottom the barrel.

Wet sacking ALWAYS understands the assignment

48:00 The tail end of the USSR was even funnier when you could start a private business, buying materials from the state-owned enterprises for the state-guaranteed prices and then sell them internationally. Then you buy cheap consumer goods overseas and sell them for premium in the USSR.

Happy birthday to me

Re kimchigate: i do sauerkraut in mason jars with pickle pipes. No bangs, it sometimes bubbles over, but nothing kitchen roll on the surface can't handle.

Wanting to hear November & Cory banter was wot got me to hit the Patreon thingo

ChatGPT and 12 year old me who got really into pirates share one common obsession with cutlasses

Cory got me reading that homeopathic shit that makes you feel well, nothing

To the Brent Cross shopping center Rode a stranger one fine day Hardly spoke to folks around him Didn't have too much to say No one dares to ask his business No one dared to make a slip For the stranger there among them Had a big jar in his fridge Big jar in his friiidge It was early in the morning When he rode into the town He came through Mark's and Spencer's Slowly looking all around "There's some guy in lingerie" Came the whisper from each lip And he's here to do some business With a big jar in his fridge Big jar in his friiiiidge

This week I saw a guy get stabbed, was woken up by two hundred pro-war 'Iranian' 'monarchists' protesting outside the library using speeches copied verbatim from those made to American Mormon/Evangelical college students up to and including hailing Trump and liberty on campus (baffling the bystanders), colesworths tripled the price of iced tea, I can't get biltong, I met an Asian Mancunian who happily paid three hundred dollars to see Jimmy Carr live because he's so edgy and humble but has never heard of Milo and thinks Nish Kumar is a bit bougie and full of himself, and there are four Trashfuture podcasts none of which have Milo And Milo now comes in smaller cans. The drink, presumably not the man, I neither know nor want to his preferences re:cans

Bonus