William Hyde <wthyde1953@gmail.com> writes:
>On Wednesday, July 21, 2021 at 5:01:02 AM UTC-4, Quadibloc wrote:
>> On Tuesday, July 20, 2021 at 5:38:17 AM UTC-6, J. Clarke wrote:
>>
>> > Be careful what you wish for. The Klingons don't have a Prime
>> > Directive.
>> But as Arthur C. Clarke has clearly explained, aggressive species
>> destroy themselves before going into space; any advanced race
>> that reaches Earth will be highly benevolent, morally ahead of us
>> as well as technologically!
>
>Where did he say this? I recall something of the kind as a speculation,
>or something that was likely. I do not recall his propounding it as
>a law.

Making it to space may not be the panacea it is made out to be,
at least not in time, absent handwavium.

https://escholarship.org/uc/energy_ambitions

In article <ff2520a8-c228-434e-a158-4762351470a7n@googlegroups.com>,
Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>On Thursday, July 22, 2021 at 8:45:16 AM UTC-6, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>
>> An airlock effect? Don't I wish. It's open at the near end, and
>> at the far end it has doors to the fiction room, a linen closet,
>> and the nonfiction and electronics room*.
>
>Well, if there were some way to close the narrow hallway at
>the near end, the problem would be solved. All you would have to do
>is add a door of some kind. Of course, that may be highly impractical
>for any number of reasons.

Let me count the ways!

>The biggest problem is that you can't just, say, slide a big box in
>front of the entrance to the hallway, since cats are good at jumping and
>climbing.

Ohhhhh yes. And I am unable to do either.

>Putting in something like a shower curtain would clearly
>be totally ineffective.
>
>But a shower curtain, unlike certain other types of barriers, would be a
>simple thing to put in; so is there any way to modify a shower curtain to
>make it an effective barrier to cats?

Are you serious?

No, there isn't.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
Www.kithrup.com/~djheydt/

On Thursday, July 22, 2021 at 2:00:08 PM UTC-4, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
> On 7/22/2021 10:12 AM, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> > In article <FjhKI.52360$h8....@fx47.iad>,
> > Scott Lurndal <sl...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> >> Christian Weisgerber <na...@mips.inka.de> writes:
> >>> On 2021-07-22, Jack Bohn <jack....@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> In this future, it's obvious that only socialist societies can
> >>>> survive and achieve spaceflight, and of course they could trust
> >>>> each other.
> >>>
> >>> As exemplified by, say, the mistrust between the Soviet Union and
> >>> China, between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, or the full-blown
> >>> war between the Khmer Rouge and Vietnam.
> >>
> >>
> >> I don't believe any of them qualify as 'socialist societies', as
> >> they were all dicatorships.
> >
> > Except that socialism is an economic system, and dictatorship is
> > a political system. You could have one and not the other.
> >
> Only if the dictatorship allows it. And since doing so would require
> reducing their own wealth, power and comfort....
>
> In theory it may be possible to separate economic system from political
> system but in practice I don't think it is.

China at the moment is 'socialist' in name only. It's capitalist, but a
dictatorship.

Pt

On Thursday, July 22, 2021 at 4:05:03 PM UTC-6, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:

> >But a shower curtain, unlike certain other types of barriers, would be a
> >simple thing to put in; so is there any way to modify a shower curtain to
> >make it an effective barrier to cats?

> Are you serious?

I wasn't claiming I knew of one offhand.

But possibly something along these lines would work:

1) The curtain itself would have to be longer than the typical shower curtain.
Not more than an inch could separate the bar from the ceiling, or the bottom of
the curtain from the floor, or the top of the curtain from the bar.

2) When the curtain is drawn, there would have to be fasteners on its sides,
so that it could be fixed to the walls - with enough force that it is also drawn
taut.

But even if that could be made to work, it wouldn't necessarily be the best
way to achieve the goal, and it might be unattractive in appearance.

What I don't know is the situation of the near end of the narrow hallway.

If there were a sizable blank and unused wall going off from it at right angles
at that side, it would be relatively easy for one of your children
to install something that could slide into place as a barrier.

But that favorable situation may not exist.

The next obvious alternative, which is even a relatively
conventional type of doorway used for closets, would be
some type of pleated door that unfolds:

basically, take an accordion door, such as is used
for a closet, and above it put a wooden panel
to reduce the hallway's height at that line to that
of a doorway.

Attention, of course, would need to be devoted to
arranging it so that the cats couldn't easily crawl
under the bottom of the door.

John Savard

On Thu, 22 Jul 2021 16:30:43 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
<jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:

>On Thursday, July 22, 2021 at 4:05:03 PM UTC-6, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>
>> >But a shower curtain, unlike certain other types of barriers, would be a
>> >simple thing to put in; so is there any way to modify a shower curtain to
>> >make it an effective barrier to cats?
>
>> Are you serious?
>
>I wasn't claiming I knew of one offhand.
>
>But possibly something along these lines would work:
>
>1) The curtain itself would have to be longer than the typical shower curtain.
>Not more than an inch could separate the bar from the ceiling, or the bottom of
>the curtain from the floor, or the top of the curtain from the bar.
>
>2) When the curtain is drawn, there would have to be fasteners on its sides,
>so that it could be fixed to the walls - with enough force that it is also drawn
>taut.
>
>But even if that could be made to work, it wouldn't necessarily be the best
>way to achieve the goal, and it might be unattractive in appearance.
>
>What I don't know is the situation of the near end of the narrow hallway.
>
>If there were a sizable blank and unused wall going off from it at right angles
>at that side, it would be relatively easy for one of your children
>to install something that could slide into place as a barrier.
>
>But that favorable situation may not exist.
>
>The next obvious alternative, which is even a relatively
>conventional type of doorway used for closets, would be
>some type of pleated door that unfolds:
>
>basically, take an accordion door, such as is used
>for a closet, and above it put a wooden panel
>to reduce the hallway's height at that line to that
>of a doorway.
>
>Attention, of course, would need to be devoted to
>arranging it so that the cats couldn't easily crawl
>under the bottom of the door.

I suspect you have little experience of cats.

I'm thinking that the best bet would be simply a piece of plywood with
a couple of hinges in a frame that could be put up with double-sided
foam tape. Might damage the paint when it came down but wouldn't
likely damage the wall itself.

It has to pretty much completely close the corridor and not be
flexible or susceptible to knife attack (nothing that most cats are
well equipped with knives or reasonable facsimiles thereof).

But at this point it's not going to be super cheap--wait for the
prices of construction materials to stabilize--construction grade
sheathing right now costs about the same as aircraft plywood.

In article <0c167bae-8c6d-4cf3-984b-3a6d1365b45dn@googlegroups.com>,
Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>On Thursday, July 22, 2021 at 4:05:03 PM UTC-6, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>
>> >But a shower curtain, unlike certain other types of barriers, would be a
>> >simple thing to put in; so is there any way to modify a shower curtain to
>> >make it an effective barrier to cats?
>
>> Are you serious?
>
>I wasn't claiming I knew of one offhand.
>
>But possibly something along these lines would work:
>
>1) The curtain itself would have to be longer than the typical shower curtain.
>Not more than an inch could separate the bar from the ceiling, or the bottom of
>the curtain from the floor, or the top of the curtain from the bar.
>
>2) When the curtain is drawn, there would have to be fasteners on its sides,
>so that it could be fixed to the walls - with enough force that it is also drawn
>taut.
>
>But even if that could be made to work, it wouldn't necessarily be the best
>way to achieve the goal, and it might be unattractive in appearance.
>
>What I don't know is the situation of the near end of the narrow hallway.
>
>If there were a sizable blank and unused wall going off from it at right angles
>at that side, it would be relatively easy for one of your children
>to install something that could slide into place as a barrier.
>
>But that favorable situation may not exist.
>
>The next obvious alternative, which is even a relatively
>conventional type of doorway used for closets, would be
>some type of pleated door that unfolds:
>
>basically, take an accordion door, such as is used
>for a closet, and above it put a wooden panel
>to reduce the hallway's height at that line to that
>of a doorway.
>
>Attention, of course, would need to be devoted to
>arranging it so that the cats couldn't easily crawl
>under the bottom of the door.

There's no way of attaching any of these things to the south wall,
which is lined with bookcases full of DVDs.

Also, it's a rented house. We have no idea how the landlord (who
lives about a hundred miles north of us, and who hasn't visited
us since well before the epidemic) would react to the
installation (however contrived) of a wall or door that will not
be needed once we move out, scheduled for summer 2022.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
Www.kithrup.com/~djheydt/

In article <c799292c-0eca-4959-88c9-eed16306a7f9n@googlegroups.com>,
pete...@gmail.com <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Thursday, July 22, 2021 at 2:00:08 PM UTC-4, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
>> On 7/22/2021 10:12 AM, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>> > In article <FjhKI.52360$h8....@fx47.iad>,
>> > Scott Lurndal <sl...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>> >> Christian Weisgerber <na...@mips.inka.de> writes:
>> >>> On 2021-07-22, Jack Bohn <jack....@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>>> In this future, it's obvious that only socialist societies can
>> >>>> survive and achieve spaceflight, and of course they could trust
>> >>>> each other.
>> >>>
>> >>> As exemplified by, say, the mistrust between the Soviet Union and
>> >>> China, between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, or the full-blown
>> >>> war between the Khmer Rouge and Vietnam.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> I don't believe any of them qualify as 'socialist societies', as
>> >> they were all dicatorships.
>> >
>> > Except that socialism is an economic system, and dictatorship is
>> > a political system. You could have one and not the other.
>> >
>> Only if the dictatorship allows it. And since doing so would require
>> reducing their own wealth, power and comfort....
>>
>> In theory it may be possible to separate economic system from political
>> system but in practice I don't think it is.
>
>China at the moment is 'socialist' in name only. It's capitalist, but a
>dictatorship.

Economic and political, respectively.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
Www.kithrup.com/~djheydt/

On 7/22/2021 5:39 PM, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> In article <c799292c-0eca-4959-88c9-eed16306a7f9n@googlegroups.com>,
> pete...@gmail.com <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Thursday, July 22, 2021 at 2:00:08 PM UTC-4, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
>>> On 7/22/2021 10:12 AM, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>>>> In article <FjhKI.52360$h8....@fx47.iad>,
>>>> Scott Lurndal <sl...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>>>>> Christian Weisgerber <na...@mips.inka.de> writes:
>>>>>> On 2021-07-22, Jack Bohn <jack....@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> In this future, it's obvious that only socialist societies can
>>>>>>> survive and achieve spaceflight, and of course they could trust
>>>>>>> each other.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> As exemplified by, say, the mistrust between the Soviet Union and
>>>>>> China, between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, or the full-blown
>>>>>> war between the Khmer Rouge and Vietnam.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I don't believe any of them qualify as 'socialist societies', as
>>>>> they were all dicatorships.
>>>>
>>>> Except that socialism is an economic system, and dictatorship is
>>>> a political system. You could have one and not the other.
>>>>
>>> Only if the dictatorship allows it. And since doing so would require
>>> reducing their own wealth, power and comfort....
>>>
>>> In theory it may be possible to separate economic system from political
>>> system but in practice I don't think it is.
>>
>> China at the moment is 'socialist' in name only. It's capitalist, but a
>> dictatorship.
>
> Economic and political, respectively.
>
Its more "State Capitalist" in that the government directly owns or
otherwise controls a number of critical companies and industries and
dictates requirements to the rest.

--
Troll, troll, troll your post gently down the thread
Angrily, angrily, angrily, the net's a nut's scream.

On 23/07/21 9:42 am, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Thursday, July 22, 2021 at 8:45:16 AM UTC-6, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>
>> An airlock effect? Don't I wish. It's open at the near end, and
>> at the far end it has doors to the fiction room, a linen closet,
>> and the nonfiction and electronics room*.
>
> Well, if there were some way to close the narrow hallway at
> the near end, the problem would be solved. All you would have to do
> is add a door of some kind. Of course, that may be highly impractical
> for any number of reasons.snip
Stop chattering and build Dorothy a small non-binary Vat dog.

On Thu, 22 Jul 2021 18:33:45 -0700, Dimensional Traveler
<dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:

>On 7/22/2021 5:39 PM, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>> In article <c799292c-0eca-4959-88c9-eed16306a7f9n@googlegroups.com>,
>> pete...@gmail.com <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Thursday, July 22, 2021 at 2:00:08 PM UTC-4, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
>>>> On 7/22/2021 10:12 AM, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>>>>> In article <FjhKI.52360$h8....@fx47.iad>,
>>>>> Scott Lurndal <sl...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>>>>>> Christian Weisgerber <na...@mips.inka.de> writes:
>>>>>>> On 2021-07-22, Jack Bohn <jack....@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> In this future, it's obvious that only socialist societies can
>>>>>>>> survive and achieve spaceflight, and of course they could trust
>>>>>>>> each other.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> As exemplified by, say, the mistrust between the Soviet Union and
>>>>>>> China, between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, or the full-blown
>>>>>>> war between the Khmer Rouge and Vietnam.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I don't believe any of them qualify as 'socialist societies', as
>>>>>> they were all dicatorships.
>>>>>
>>>>> Except that socialism is an economic system, and dictatorship is
>>>>> a political system. You could have one and not the other.
>>>>>
>>>> Only if the dictatorship allows it. And since doing so would require
>>>> reducing their own wealth, power and comfort....
>>>>
>>>> In theory it may be possible to separate economic system from political
>>>> system but in practice I don't think it is.
>>>
>>> China at the moment is 'socialist' in name only. It's capitalist, but a
>>> dictatorship.
>>
>> Economic and political, respectively.
>>
>Its more "State Capitalist" in that the government directly owns or
>otherwise controls a number of critical companies and industries and
>dictates requirements to the rest.

If they were actually dictating requirements one would expect the
quality of the goods produced to be higher. Japan was the place tht
dictated requirements.

On Thursday, 22 July 2021 at 21:55:35 UTC+1, William Hyde wrote:
> On Wednesday, July 21, 2021 at 5:01:02 AM UTC-4, Quadibloc wrote:
> > On Tuesday, July 20, 2021 at 5:38:17 AM UTC-6, J. Clarke wrote:
> >
> > > Be careful what you wish for. The Klingons don't have a Prime
> > > Directive.
> > But as Arthur C. Clarke has clearly explained, aggressive species
> > destroy themselves before going into space; any advanced race
> > that reaches Earth will be highly benevolent, morally ahead of us
> > as well as technologically!
> Where did he say this? I recall something of the kind as a speculation,
> or something that was likely. I do not recall his propounding it as
> a law.
>
> It is, of course, possible we're not remembering the same passage. He
> wrote a lot and his ideas evolved over time.

There's _Childhood's End_ of course.

But otherwise, if humans are meeting super advanced
aliens, then the aliens must be benevolent, because if
the aliens are not benevolent, then the humans will be
wiped out before they can finish forming the thought,
"Conceivably, these super advanced aliens are
not bene

On Friday, July 23, 2021 at 3:25:04 AM UTC-6, J. Clarke wrote:

> If they were actually dictating requirements one would expect the
> quality of the goods produced to be higher. Japan was the place tht
> dictated requirements.

Of course, Soviet Russia was the place well known for having quotas
of making X number of tons of alarm clocks, without much concern
about whether or not they worked.

Which was an ineffective way to run the economy, but presumably it
was only applied to consumer goods, not military items.

John Savard

On Thursday, July 22, 2021 at 1:56:47 PM UTC-4, Ahasuerus wrote:
> On Thursday, July 22, 2021 at 9:04:05 AM UTC-4, jack....@gmail.com wrote:
> > I only have a description to go by, but there was a Russian story,
> > "The Heart of the Serpent." (I can look it up, now, it's title should really
> > be "Cor Serpentis" (in Cyrillic)
> The original title was "Cor Serpentis (Сердце Змеи)", i.e. it used a mix
> of Latin and Russian -- see https://fantlab.ru/work13724
> > after the constellation, by Ivan Yefremov, and has had only one
> > English publication.) [snip]
>
> There were two English translations, one by R. Prokofieva (1961) and
> the other one by Doris Johnson (1963). Each one appeared in multiple
> publications -- see http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?925930 for
> details.

Ah, I see what I did wrong. Entering "heart of the serpent" as a Fiction Title took me to:
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?97913
Although out of curiosity I clicked through to the series of which it was a part, I didn't check the title it was a variant of.
How did the search decided not to take me to
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?97218
is something I confess I do not understand.

--
-Jack

Ahasuerus wrote:
> On Wednesday, July 21, 2021 at 6:05:04 PM UTC-4, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> >
> > And here's another question: How can I get ISFDB to search for
> > the Sturgeon story "The [Widget], the [Wadget], and Boff"? I
> > suspect the square brackets are throwing the software off.
> > Ahasuerus, are you around today?
> A "Fiction Titles" search on "The [Widget], the [Wadget], and Boff" should
> do the trick. "wadget" or "and boff" should work too since they are all
> sufficiently unique.

Wow! Even "widget" only returns nine possibilities, only five of which are not "The [Widget], the [Wadget], and Boff".

Presumably if I entered "the" the search engine will come as close to slapping me on the back of the head as The Three Laws allow.

--
-Jack

In article <sddhfn$uqo$1@dont-email.me>, Titus G <noone@nowhere.com> wrote:
>On 23/07/21 9:42 am, Quadibloc wrote:
>> On Thursday, July 22, 2021 at 8:45:16 AM UTC-6, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>>
>>> An airlock effect? Don't I wish. It's open at the near end, and
>>> at the far end it has doors to the fiction room, a linen closet,
>>> and the nonfiction and electronics room*.
>>
>> Well, if there were some way to close the narrow hallway at
>> the near end, the problem would be solved. All you would have to do
>> is add a door of some kind. Of course, that may be highly impractical
>> for any number of reasons.snip
>Stop chattering and build Dorothy a small non-binary Vat dog.

/snerk

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
Www.kithrup.com/~djheydt/

In article <333088f0-d53f-4318-8fc0-ad92d83d6360n@googlegroups.com>,
Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>On Friday, July 23, 2021 at 3:25:04 AM UTC-6, J. Clarke wrote:
>
>> If they were actually dictating requirements one would expect the
>> quality of the goods produced to be higher. Japan was the place tht
>> dictated requirements.
>
>Of course, Soviet Russia was the place well known for having quotas
>of making X number of tons of alarm clocks, without much concern
>about whether or not they worked.
>
>Which was an ineffective way to run the economy, but presumably it
>was only applied to consumer goods, not military items.

There was an old joke, from the fifties IIRC. A Russian is
hauled in by the police for buying and using imported, instead of
domestic, matches.

His defense: "It is true that I use foreign matches--but only to
light our People's matches!:

And let's not forget the Yablotchka.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
Www.kithrup.com/~djheydt/

Given that Dorothy lives in rental accomodations, I understand her
alternatives are limited.

But then, even a little Saran Wrap might work for a time...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJS4hYNngto

John Savard

On Fri, 23 Jul 2021 04:27:36 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
<jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:

>On Friday, July 23, 2021 at 3:25:04 AM UTC-6, J. Clarke wrote:
>
>> If they were actually dictating requirements one would expect the
>> quality of the goods produced to be higher. Japan was the place tht
>> dictated requirements.
>
>Of course, Soviet Russia was the place well known for having quotas
>of making X number of tons of alarm clocks, without much concern
>about whether or not they worked.
>
>Which was an ineffective way to run the economy, but presumably it
>was only applied to consumer goods, not military items.

Well, there was the famous case of the radar in the MiG-25, that was
cooled with vodka. Why was it cooled with issue vodka? Because the
alcohol provided for cooling it was better to drink than the vodka.

On Thu, 22 Jul 2021 20:26:25 -0400, J. Clarke
<jclarke.873638@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Thu, 22 Jul 2021 16:30:43 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
><jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>
>>On Thursday, July 22, 2021 at 4:05:03 PM UTC-6, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>>
>>> >But a shower curtain, unlike certain other types of barriers, would be a
>>> >simple thing to put in; so is there any way to modify a shower curtain to
>>> >make it an effective barrier to cats?
>>
>>> Are you serious?
>>
>>I wasn't claiming I knew of one offhand.
>>
>>But possibly something along these lines would work:
>>
>>1) The curtain itself would have to be longer than the typical shower curtain.
>>Not more than an inch could separate the bar from the ceiling, or the bottom of
>>the curtain from the floor, or the top of the curtain from the bar.
>>
>>2) When the curtain is drawn, there would have to be fasteners on its sides,
>>so that it could be fixed to the walls - with enough force that it is also drawn
>>taut.
>>
>>But even if that could be made to work, it wouldn't necessarily be the best
>>way to achieve the goal, and it might be unattractive in appearance.
>>
>>What I don't know is the situation of the near end of the narrow hallway.
>>
>>If there were a sizable blank and unused wall going off from it at right angles
>>at that side, it would be relatively easy for one of your children
>>to install something that could slide into place as a barrier.
>>
>>But that favorable situation may not exist.
>>
>>The next obvious alternative, which is even a relatively
>>conventional type of doorway used for closets, would be
>>some type of pleated door that unfolds:
>>
>>basically, take an accordion door, such as is used
>>for a closet, and above it put a wooden panel
>>to reduce the hallway's height at that line to that
>>of a doorway.
>>
>>Attention, of course, would need to be devoted to
>>arranging it so that the cats couldn't easily crawl
>>under the bottom of the door.
>
>I suspect you have little experience of cats.
>
>I'm thinking that the best bet would be simply a piece of plywood with
>a couple of hinges in a frame that could be put up with double-sided
>foam tape. Might damage the paint when it came down but wouldn't
>likely damage the wall itself.
>
>It has to pretty much completely close the corridor and not be
>flexible or susceptible to knife attack (nothing that most cats are
>well equipped with knives or reasonable facsimiles thereof).
>
>But at this point it's not going to be super cheap--wait for the
>prices of construction materials to stabilize--construction grade
>sheathing right now costs about the same as aircraft plywood.

The core problem here is not keeping the cats out. That can be done by
shutting the door, which (as I understand it) is currently working
quite well.

The core problem is keeping the cats out while a person enters the
room.

Theorem: any barrier sufficient to stop the cats will also stop the
person.

Proof is left as an exercise for the reader, who is under no
obligation to pursue it, as it may or may not exist, who can say?
--
"I begin to envy Petronius."
"I have envied him long since."

On Thu, 22 Jul 2021 18:33:45 -0700, Dimensional Traveler
<dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:

>On 7/22/2021 5:39 PM, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>> In article <c799292c-0eca-4959-88c9-eed16306a7f9n@googlegroups.com>,
>> pete...@gmail.com <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Thursday, July 22, 2021 at 2:00:08 PM UTC-4, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
>>>> On 7/22/2021 10:12 AM, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>>>>> In article <FjhKI.52360$h8....@fx47.iad>,
>>>>> Scott Lurndal <sl...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>>>>>> Christian Weisgerber <na...@mips.inka.de> writes:
>>>>>>> On 2021-07-22, Jack Bohn <jack....@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> In this future, it's obvious that only socialist societies can
>>>>>>>> survive and achieve spaceflight, and of course they could trust
>>>>>>>> each other.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> As exemplified by, say, the mistrust between the Soviet Union and
>>>>>>> China, between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, or the full-blown
>>>>>>> war between the Khmer Rouge and Vietnam.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I don't believe any of them qualify as 'socialist societies', as
>>>>>> they were all dicatorships.
>>>>>
>>>>> Except that socialism is an economic system, and dictatorship is
>>>>> a political system. You could have one and not the other.
>>>>>
>>>> Only if the dictatorship allows it. And since doing so would require
>>>> reducing their own wealth, power and comfort....
>>>>
>>>> In theory it may be possible to separate economic system from political
>>>> system but in practice I don't think it is.
>>>
>>> China at the moment is 'socialist' in name only. It's capitalist, but a
>>> dictatorship.
>>
>> Economic and political, respectively.
>>
>Its more "State Capitalist" in that the government directly owns or
>otherwise controls a number of critical companies and industries and
>dictates requirements to the rest.

Kind of like Fascist Syndicates, then.
--
"I begin to envy Petronius."
"I have envied him long since."

In article <156d5b9d-ea52-4439-921d-251b7e48d7den@googlegroups.com>,
Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>Given that Dorothy lives in rental accomodations, I understand her
>alternatives are limited.
>
>But then, even a little Saran Wrap might work for a time...
>
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJS4hYNngto

.... while also preventing the humans from reaching the doors.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
Www.kithrup.com/~djheydt/

On Fri, 23 Jul 2021 15:08:48 GMT, djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
Heydt) wrote:

>In article <156d5b9d-ea52-4439-921d-251b7e48d7den@googlegroups.com>,
>Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>>Given that Dorothy lives in rental accomodations, I understand her
>>alternatives are limited.
>>
>>But then, even a little Saran Wrap might work for a time...
>>
>>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJS4hYNngto
>
>... while also preventing the humans from reaching the doors.

And Tigger the Obnoxious Tomcat would have just shredded it all.
Unless he ate it.

Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net> writes:
>On 7/22/2021 5:39 PM, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>> In article <c799292c-0eca-4959-88c9-eed16306a7f9n@googlegroups.com>,
>> pete...@gmail.com <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Thursday, July 22, 2021 at 2:00:08 PM UTC-4, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
>>>> On 7/22/2021 10:12 AM, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>>>>> In article <FjhKI.52360$h8....@fx47.iad>,
>>>>> Scott Lurndal <sl...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>>>>>> Christian Weisgerber <na...@mips.inka.de> writes:
>>>>>>> On 2021-07-22, Jack Bohn <jack....@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> In this future, it's obvious that only socialist societies can
>>>>>>>> survive and achieve spaceflight, and of course they could trust
>>>>>>>> each other.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> As exemplified by, say, the mistrust between the Soviet Union and
>>>>>>> China, between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, or the full-blown
>>>>>>> war between the Khmer Rouge and Vietnam.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I don't believe any of them qualify as 'socialist societies', as
>>>>>> they were all dicatorships.
>>>>>
>>>>> Except that socialism is an economic system, and dictatorship is
>>>>> a political system. You could have one and not the other.
>>>>>
>>>> Only if the dictatorship allows it. And since doing so would require
>>>> reducing their own wealth, power and comfort....
>>>>
>>>> In theory it may be possible to separate economic system from political
>>>> system but in practice I don't think it is.
>>>
>>> China at the moment is 'socialist' in name only. It's capitalist, but a
>>> dictatorship.
>>
>> Economic and political, respectively.
>>
>Its more "State Capitalist" in that the government directly owns or
>otherwise controls a number of critical companies and industries and
>dictates requirements to the rest.

As opposed to "Capitalist State" where the rich companies and
industries dictate requirements to the rest?

On Thu, 22 Jul 2021 10:56:44 -0700 (PDT), Ahasuerus
<ahasuerus@email.com> wrote:

>On Thursday, July 22, 2021 at 9:04:05 AM UTC-4, jack....@gmail.com wrote:
>> Quadibloc wrote:
>> > On Tuesday, July 20, 2021 at 5:38:17 AM UTC-6, J. Clarke wrote:
>> >
>> > > Be careful what you wish for. The Klingons don't have a Prime
>> > > Directive.
>> > But as Arthur C. Clarke has clearly explained, aggressive species
>> > destroy themselves before going into space; any advanced race
>> > that reaches Earth will be highly benevolent, morally ahead of us
>> > as well as technologically!
>> I only have a description to go by, but there was a Russian story,
>> "The Heart of the Serpent." (I can look it up, now, it's title should really
>> be "Cor Serpentis" (in Cyrillic)
>
>The original title was "Cor Serpentis (?????? ????)", i.e. it used a mix
>of Latin and Russian -- see https://fantlab.ru/work13724

I found that confusing until I found this note in the link you give
below:

Note: The original Russian title, Cor Serpentis (?????? ????), reads
Cor Serpentis (Serdtse Zmei), "Cor Serpentis (The Snake's Heart)".

which clarifies what you are saying quite well.

>> after the constellation, by Ivan Yefremov, and has had only one
>> English publication.) [snip]
>
>There were two English translations, one by R. Prokofieva (1961) and
>the other one by Doris Johnson (1963). Each one appeared in multiple
>publications -- see http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?925930 for
>details.
--
"I begin to envy Petronius."
"I have envied him long since."

In article <r3olfghh85ml7gbbgqmvu7lhipnqtn9alp@4ax.com>,
J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Fri, 23 Jul 2021 15:08:48 GMT, djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
>Heydt) wrote:
>
>>In article <156d5b9d-ea52-4439-921d-251b7e48d7den@googlegroups.com>,
>>Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>>>Given that Dorothy lives in rental accomodations, I understand her
>>>alternatives are limited.
>>>
>>>But then, even a little Saran Wrap might work for a time...
>>>
>>>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJS4hYNngto
>>
>>... while also preventing the humans from reaching the doors.
>
>And Tigger the Obnoxious Tomcat would have just shredded it all.
>Unless he ate it.

I have yet to run an experiment on Misthlith and Stillfot versus
Saran Wrap. But they are young and energetic, and their claws
are very sharp.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
(Also I don't have any Saran Wrap to hand)
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
Www.kithrup.com/~djheydt/