It might be a case that the author has actually stated "no fanfictions based on my works". You'd be amazed at how well that actually works. Especially when the author then contacts sites that act as fanfiction repositories and informs them of the decree.
Or the fanfiction for it has been lost to the pre-internet times and the fanzines. The existing Spellsinger fanfiction (although there's not much of it) as well as the lack of a note of disallowment of fanfiction on ADF's official site or his forum indicates your hypothetical is not true.
As I said, it was glorious. Being able to quickly and easily find and open files without knowing the DOS commands was a godsend.
That's what Norton Commander was for.
 
So quick question. What the heck is Spintronics? Both IRL and in the terms of the fic here?

All i sorta gather is it supposedly is better then Quantum set up's for computing power.

Is this the new Scifi fodder? Since some guys decided to see if Q-based CPU's could be a real thing and pulled it off? Not space magic if it's real now.
 
I mean, it definitely wasn't a virtual machine in the strictest sense, because it does not run on any virtual hardware. I think I may need to read up on this some more, though, because that both kind of reminds of chrooting and kind of not. Got any resources at hand?

It's essentially a bit of terminology drift, as the core concept of a virtual machine is about virtualization of resources, exposing a "virtual machine" to the end-user that it can treat as if it was the one and only. One of the early examples of that was process separation, where each individual process has its own virtual environment and doesn't see or interact with other code except through explicit APIs. With the introduction of IBM VM (with its companion, IBM CP), an idea of virtualizing enough of the environment that you could run unmodified software that expected raw hardware was introduced, and that's what most people recognize as virtual machine these days. But the concept spans everything that abstracts the physical reality with a virtual one, including even components of runtimes of natively compiled programming languages (as they provide common services that abstract/virtualize the external world).

That was a big change for the majority of Windows users with Windows 95, as previously all windows applications were essentially loaded into memory without any separation, linked with few DLLs (KERNEL.DLL most importantly), and had to cooperate by calling specific routines in KERNEL.DLL that switched to the next application. With Windows 95 the preemptive VM model of processes that already was present in other Microsoft OSes (Xenix, WinNT) was introduced to the wider user base, though a stripped-down variant was provided as an extension for Windows 3.11 in the form of Win32s.

Generally, Operating System textbooks are a good place to start looking, as well as older computer science literature that focused on areas of operating systems. It used to be more explained in older books, these days it often feels that the actual concepts behind processes, threads etc are bypassed unless one takes an operating-system focused course :(
 
Although, nowadays I use Total Commander 'cause NC just isn't up to the task anymore.
I use it all the time on my Linux VMs, although I think Krusader is the better tool as a general thing.

It's essentially a bit of terminology drift, as the core concept of a virtual machine is about virtualization of resources, exposing a "virtual machine" to the end-user that it can treat as if it was the one and only. One of the early examples of that was process separation, where each individual process has its own virtual environment and doesn't see or interact with other code except through explicit APIs. With the introduction of IBM VM (with its companion, IBM CP), an idea of virtualizing enough of the environment that you could run unmodified software that expected raw hardware was introduced, and that's what most people recognize as virtual machine these days. But the concept spans everything that abstracts the physical reality with a virtual one, including even components of runtimes of natively compiled programming languages (as they provide common services that abstract/virtualize the external world).
Fascinating, and I do mean that. So it's more a VM in the sense that the Java Virtual Machine interpreter is a VM? It's not really a simulated hardware environment, but it's so encapsulated and isolated that there really is no contact between the OS layers at all. That is actually really cool and I am suddenly very impressed with the Windows 3.1 development team, thank you for taking the time to write this up. I owe you one, feel free to call it in anytime.
 
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So quick question. What the heck is Spintronics?
(...)
Not space magic if it's real now.
Well, Wikipedia has a page on it:

Spintronics - Wikipedia


But while not directly related as far as my very limited understanding of either can see, the latest news on quantum computing is actually quite exciting:
phys.org

In surprise breakthrough, scientists create quantum states in everyday electronics

After decades of miniaturization, the electronic components we've relied on for computers and modern technologies are now starting to reach fundamental limits. Faced with this challenge, engineers and scientists around the world are turning toward a radically new paradigm: quantum information...

Why? Because it looks like it works with hardware that can be made and used with conventional silicon fabrication tech and operating conditions, rather than the Winnebago-sized, cryogenically cooled monsters of previous quantum computing experimental units.
 
Seeing as I am willing and have put that saying to practice. Have lost limbs and nearly died multiple times during my service in the Marine Corps. I refute your opinion. You've the right to state them because soldiers died to ensure you have that right civilian.
L oh fucking L. If you're a Marine, then I'm the mothership that carried the Chpatisk Fithp to Winterhome. You have alternatively claimed to have served for 27, 30, 42, and even 60 years in the Marine Corps. Even at the minimum, 27 years is an awfully long time to only become an O-4, considering that most people in the service for that long would be eligible to become a colonel, which is an O-6.

You have also been inconsistent on the number of limbs you have lost, your age, and even your branch of service. I mean seriously, how the fuck would you become an O-4 in the USMC without realizing that the USMC is its own fucking branch.

There is a reason why you were banned and labeled a pretend veteran, Arimai. People who know me know that I have a lot of beef with the US military's role in world politics, but even I find stolen valor like this disgusting, especially when you use it to assert authority in arguments.
 
Was I the only one who saw Leyzenzuzex really upsetting the apple cart by some bit of weird multi-race tech engineering? Say, looking at three different race's tech (human/thranx/ME) and spotting an interesting gap? Maybe building the start of a new tech tree? That looks weird to everyone?

No? OK, maybe it was just me. :)

("You see, if you look at the biotics effects, and model them with the math from thranx WIMP tech and human AI work, focusing on the informational-theoretic side of things..." "Do you think 'octarine' would be a good name for the colour these crystal glow?")
 
Interst thing about the Asari, cannon is that they appear to be attractive females to all of the other species to the point that no non Asari, has ever seen a male Asari. This is aparently, a function of their inbuilt E0 powers.

The Fan based Theory for this is that one of their Passive E0 powers is a perception filter, and everyone sees what ever their own species finds attractive. So Take it with a bit of salt, but if the lack of Eezzo in the Humanx "Nopes" out some of the Passive effects, then it would cause some interesting miscues in social reactions.

Human to Thranx: I think I was just propositioned by a Squid....
Thranx to Human: Be polite, just tell it that you are not interested in dating a Mollusk at this time .

Human: "Hot damn! A gorgeous blue space babe wants to have sex with me!"
Thranx: "It is also likely to explode during intercourse if someone needs to make a phone call from your ship."
Human: "I didn't think of that! Thanks, buddy! That makes it even more exciting!"
Thranx: "Maybe we should have left this weird species alone..."
 
:)

("You see, if you look at the biotics effects, and model them with the math from thranx WIMP tech and human AI work, focusing on the informational-theoretic side of things..." "Do you think 'octarine' would be a good name for the colour these crystal glow?")
Fun fact: with the right kind of forced-visual-input equipment, it is entirely possible to see "forbidden" colors such as a reddish green or yellowish blue, even if it is impossible to describe them using human language. I have made that experience. Let me say that it is fucking weird to look at something and think that it looks orange and green at the same time and that you cannot explain how that could possibly be.
 
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Many real world Ion Drive designs use electron guns to dump static charge, because we can't break charge conservation law. It's actually pretty simlple to do that, scale well, and works in complete vacuum.

If you can somehow create static charge from nothing, then you can use it as free 'fuel' to accelerate your ship, or boost fusion torches.
 
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I think there's a lot to be said for the hopefully expanding change from 'three-score-and-ten' being an expected limit, and I'd hope that people's 'health-span' expands as well. The smooth way this is done in this story is one of the things I like - too much science fiction gives super-science, but little if any health-span increase. I do find senolytic work interesting...
There is a recent breakthrough in genetics research that was recently published. Apparently there is a new way to read DNA that discards the previous assumptions about telomeres and genes. They have successfully managed to extend the lifespan of lab rats by ten percent withing two generations. I wonder if it will carry over into humans.
 
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As a potential plot thread thought experiment I would like to point out that while it is against citadel law to blindly open a mass relay, it it to our knowledge not against the law to point your ship that way and just go exploring. Be it for resources or to plot out where the other end of the relay is so you CAN legally open it.

With trillions of sentients in the galaxy there has to be at least a ships worth who think this is a good idea/ fine adventure/the thing they need to save their backwater colony/ going to make them rich when they finally get out of cryo sleep from the long journey/ some combination of above plus give time for tempers to cool and statutes of limitations expire from the incident/insert motivation here.

Edit:I know if i was staring a potential long term stint in a cryo prison for upsetting the wrong person I would be tempted grab my ship and do some long term exploration. I would be back in around the same timeframe if not sooner and unlike prison I would be wealthier than before I started. I would also be more respected when I got back. While the original incedent would have faded with time. Plus with all the cryo sleep I would still be young enough to enjoy that wealth. Though this may matter less to Asari or Krogan.
A private long term exploration mission is certainly feasible, but it wouldn't be trivial. Considering how often they need to stop at a planet and have a damn good discharge all over it, pushing into unknown space is going to be a slow and expensive, as well as somewhat dangerous, process. A single person, or a handful of people, might well find it extremely difficult past a certain point.

Doesn't mean they wouldn't try of course. People are nothing if not a little nuts at times.

Yes. Exactly. That is why Humanx needed to step in and rescue them... :)
 
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Absolutely. It's called a relativistic kinetic kill vehicle. Their biggest problem is that relativistic time dilation makes them a bit difficult to aim. Once they get going, they stay going. Course correcting is a thing they don't.
The issue with that program in the Humanx universe is that a K-K Posigrav Drive makes a much more effective weapon in that sense - you just drive it THROUGH your target planet, and it all goes to hell in a handbasket quite happily.

After all, the Posigrav drive creates a near-black hole pseudo-mass that can be turned on and off easily. However, once a certain amount of matter accumulates into it, it's no longer a pseudo-mass. That's pretty much about how a SCCAM missile works.
 
The issue with that program in the Humanx universe is that a K-K Posigrav Drive makes a much more effective weapon in that sense - you just drive it THROUGH your target planet, and it all goes to hell in a handbasket quite happily.

After all, the Posigrav drive creates a near-black hole pseudo-mass that can be turned on and off easily. However, once a certain amount of matter accumulates into it, it's no longer a pseudo-mass. That's pretty much about how a SCCAM missile works.
I do not know that much about the Humanx novels, but hey, when you think about it, that really just makes it an even better kinetic kill vehicle, just as you said yourself. Not sure I see how that's an issue, per se.
 
It really wouldn't. Dark Matter is weakly interacting mass that still produces enough gravity to hold the universe together even where detected visible mass really shouldn't. Anti-mass would literally do the opposite of everything that it purportedly does.
But isn't Dark Matter/Energy causing the Universe to expand faster than otherwise possible?
Expanding space would be a property of Anti-mass...
 
But isn't Dark Matter/Energy causing the Universe to expand faster than otherwise possible?
Expanding space would be a property of Anti-mass...
The biggest thing about Dark Matter (and the biggest argument for its existence) is that there is a large number of galaxies that should not be able to exist as observed if there wasn't an invisible thing somewhere within them that somehow holds them together, with gravity from a source that cannot be seen but must clearly exist.

Think of it as more like a balloon that is filled with more air than you thought you put in there. It keeps getting bigger, faster than you think it should, but that doesn't make any of the air in it some kind of anti-air. You just have no idea where it came from and can't find it when you look.
 
I'm quite pleased with my idea for planium, as it seems to me to fit the observed facts about canon eezo fairly accurately but extends it in all sorts of interesting ways ;)
Hmm. I think I'm missing something; wouldn't this still have the issue of "you can't exceed 1g*c2​ per gram"? (About 9TJ/g.) Binding energy still contributes to mass, as does dark matter and dark energy.
 
The biggest thing about Dark Matter (and the biggest argument for its existence) is that there is a large number of galaxies that should not be able to exist as observed if there wasn't an invisible thing somewhere within them that somehow holds them together, with gravity from a source that cannot be seen but must clearly exist.

Think of it as more like a balloon that is filled with more air than you thought you put in there. It keeps getting bigger, faster than you think it should, but that doesn't make any of the air in it some kind of anti-air. You just have no idea where it came from and can't find it when you look.
I guess I just have the wrong idea of what it does - the story Wizards at War talks about it expanding space, which is what made me think of it like Anti-mass.
Positive Mass 'pinches' space (look at how a Black Hole bends light traveling nearby, so Negative Mass would make the space Balloon...
 
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