SJ_Edwards commented on All Systems Go For Large Hadron Collider - Stay Tuned for Collisions!

"I have huge love for the LHC, but I can't help thinking everytime I see it, that it contains all the essential components of the largest circular mass driver [en.wikipedia.org] we could ever conceive of building. For the love of G.K.O'Neill [en.wikipedia.org] (and Carl Sagan), why haven't we been able to get an international consortium together to build that? For merely half of the cost of the LHC (or 25% of it, if it had been built in parallel with the LHC), we'd have a facility capable of launching several hundred tonnes of cargo into low earth orbit, all day, every day, for mere dollars-a-pound, for ever!"

SJ_Edwards commented on Father Teaches his Son Klingon as a First Language

"@vinylrake: My father (that's why I put my piece-of-shit brother in brackets). What my brother's excuse for 'joining in' was (or is), I haven't a clue."

SJ_Edwards commented on Greatest Swashbuckling Heroes From 100+ Years Of SF Books

"@blackoak: And here he is! Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future [en.wikipedia.org] Mike Resnick [en.wikipedia.org]"

SJ_Edwards commented on One Of Your Crucial Characters Isn't Working. What Do You Do?

"@Charlie Jane Anders: Thanks! Another good reason to read these authors :) [Still like to know if they'd ever used a gender switch 'as', or 'as the start of' the solution to this 'problem'."

SJ_Edwards commented on Greatest Swashbuckling Heroes From 100+ Years Of SF Books

"@blackoak: "That's it!" *sound of memory floodgates opening* "Thank you!"

SJ_Edwards commented on Get Ready for the Next Generation of Painkillers

"@Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.: Yep, the first time I was prescribed an opiate, I was all "Wow, so this is what it's like to be without pain!"

SJ_Edwards commented on Get Ready for the Next Generation of Painkillers

"@palmsix000: Evolution doesn't give a damn about us, after we've served our purpose of selecting a mate with 'good' genes and combining with their genes to create a new gene exemplar. If you're a man, you are then surplus to requirements (other than to do this again as many times as possible, 'The Ghenghis Khan Effect'), if you are a woman you're needed a bit longer to raise the offspring til they can protect themselves (that's why, all things being equal, women live longer than men). If you plan on living longer than a 'generation' (and who doesn't?) [en.wikipedia.org] [25.2 years in the US, from the mother's first child to the daughter's first child] you are going to pick up injuries as you go along (and get older and slower and more vulnerable to their causes) and are just going to get 'old' (which is, as my mother once told me "Just one damn thing after another"). You could of course just volunteer for 'The Carousel' from Logan's Run at 30, but most won't. But you're right, modern medicine (and pharmacology) at the moment, is designed to mitigate, relieve and control, not cure."

SJ_Edwards commented on Get Ready for the Next Generation of Painkillers

"@Kitradu: The first time you get intermittent Tinnitus or any other symptom of peripheral neuropathy ....."