Science fiction is in it’s essence the exploration of a situation when all the confounding factors have been magicked/scienced away.

Not uncommonly it explores the requirements of the technical solution, what would the machine need to do for this to work out? And/or What happens if it doesn’t?

Take for example “Do androids dream of electric sheep” by Philip K Dick, it’s about finding androids advanced enough not to know they’re artificial and how to identify and relate to them when the only diagnostic is slow, clumsy, and suspect. It’s more an exploration of what makes a person than it’s around the marvels of The Machine™.

During the 1900s the vehicle for science to magick with had been machines, computers and AI. Remember that space travel, fission power, psychology, modern medicine were all new, hope inducing breakthroughs just this same period.

There’s also the issue that the definition of the genre came after it becoming large enough to matter. The edges between scifi, punk/cyberpunk, speculative fiction, isekai and even to fantasy are all made after the fact, meaning modern machines go into scifi, old machines go into steam-/diesel-/etc-punk. The main difference between Science, Magick, and Eldritch horror is how detailed the mechanics of the solution are described, and speak to different people.

But on the topic of the story not being centered around a machine: try the Hyperion series by Dan Simmons.

Or go the entirely other way with Ring World by Larry Niven. There’s plenty of machines-did-it in the fringes, but the central theme is to figure out what would be needed for a Ring World to exist, what would happen on it, and how would it be managed. It’s an exploration of physics more than anything - more “what is the machine” than “machines-did-it”.

And the Foundation series (Asimov) famously explore the premise “what if sociology works”, and the other details solved by throwing machines at them.

You also have The Culture (Iain Banks) series that center on/around post-scarcity society and explore that.

A conceivable way could be to disrupt the nuclear force of the target atoms, maybe like an anti-Pion/Gluon ray that self-propagates the reaction through the released energy.

(As we might remember, splitting the atom yields a bunch of energy, and uncontrolled such reactions go Hiroshima)

It might be controlled by sub-particle lensing, probably some kind of magnetic field, to be active at a specific distance.

For the reaction to be contained, either there’s a radially limiting component (air is not particle dense enough to propagate the reaction, or atoms not energy dense enough) or it’s a cascade triggered by the beam which stops when the beam stops (or the reaction gets too far away from it)

As I believe Pions and Gluons are their own anti-particles, I don’t know how we would go about doing this, but hey, that’s for Science!™ to solve.

At least once you can

And in case your brain works in a way that needs steps, for a practice trip I’d suggest these steps:

0. Prepare everything you need according to your boat, waters, weather, safety needs and trip. Make sure to double check that you have everything you need before casting off.

… Get out on the water, prepare the rig you want to practice, etc…

1. Pick a direction you want to go in, note a landmark, buoy, or something stationary to steer towards. If you don’t pick a direction straight against or with the wind, the rest will be easier.

2. Try adjusting your sails to give you some speed. If you have a common Bermuda rig, start with your foresail, it’s going to be easier to see when it’s good, and it will give you speed enough to steer. I usually teach it as: take the sail in until it gets that nice billowed curve, and then let it out again until it just about can’t keep it. Then do the same with the mainsail.

Note that if the boat changes angle against the wind, you’ll have to adjust the sails and/or start over. When you’re starting out, you’ll have no chance to keep the boat going straight for long enough to both hit your landmark and trim your sails.

3. Check your course against your goal, try to adjust course a bit (10-15 degrees) and adjust the sails as needed.

4. Now try keeping course against the wind rather than the landmark. Can you sail with the wind straight from the side? How do you adjust the sails for that? How does that affect what you need to do with the tiller to keep straight?

5. Repeat for different wind angles. Also, note that winds change around obstacles, sails, and with time of day. Typically not a deal breaker, but enough to be confusing if you’re not aware.

This is probably enough for the first dozen trips. Remember to save energy to be able to get back, moor, and set everything ship shape again.

As you get more comfortable, you can try doing tacks (same sail adjustment procedure), then try doing a tack so that you only need to adjust the foresail, then maybe trying deliberate listing, sailing donuts (with continuous sail adjusting) with a gybe, and then onto maneuvering tasks like stopping at a buoy, doing a figure of eight Man-overboard maneuver, picking up something out of the water.

And somewhere along this you start doing actual boating, learning to moor, anchoring, cooking, planning your days, routes, planning for weather, etiquette with other boats, etc.

You’re (almost) book right, but sailing wasn’t made by or for people reading/writing about it.

Most seamanship is actually about managing poor conditions, poor weather, poor alertness, lack of judgement due to weather fatigue/boredom/hangovers, but also changes in weather, wind, currents, equipment failure etc.

I would suggest you start from the opposite direction, see your boat as a tool, and explore what you can do with it.

Try what happens if you pull in your sail or not in the current wind, where is a nice sweet spot?

Do you know how to find the wind direction without your instruments? How precise can you get?

How does the tiller respond, what happens if you turn fast or slow or in between? Is there a difference up against the wind or down? Is there a difference to port or starboard?

How straight can you steer? How straight does the boat go when you steer straight? How does this change over different winds?

If you don’t try this with a comfortable/skilled sailor, you might want to avoid some things with risk of injury, like:

keep to low to moderate winds, with mild gusts, when practicing (or the forces and noise will make things unhelpfully harder),

only do tacks/turning against the wind for now (turning with the wind behind you can have the boom launch you off the boat, and wind you or even knock you out), and

Do have backup emergency equipment, if something goes bad you do want to be rescued even if your SRC got wet, mobile lost signal, and you fell overboard. Prepare according to your size boat and waters, signal whistles, flares, or automated beacons can be good. Also make sure that someone will look for you, leave a plan with check-in times with someone on land.

(A plan with check-in can be as simple as: I’m going out thereabouts over the weekend, I’ll send you a text on where I anchor in the evening, and I’m expected back late Sunday night. Here’s my number, here’s the number for the rescue service)

It already has?

Assuming the same density, about three times as much gravity.

Gravity scales linearly with volume which scales with the cube of the width, (3/2)³ is about 3,4.

But price increases of cereals ( bread, pasta, grains, etc.) increased by about 7,5 % last year alone, which is more than the inflation, and more than the increase after inflation.

That’s where people might complain. They still can’t afford food, as food prices increase faster than overall inflation

I appreciate a data supported argument, and love that you actually linked sources.

One thing that I feel is missing in most of the linked analyses is that inflation has also hit unevenly, and the price of basic goods has increased significantly more than overall inflation. Which would explain why households still have less disposable income, also the mean debt burden is much higher leading to loan costs being more common.

Or brought up by a neurodivergent parent, or sibling, or have an ND partner

Have you seen the numbers? Could you link them?

The only thing I’ve been able to find is 2,2 million “encounters” in a high year, over the whole country.

Germany takes in a million immigrants per year by itself, and has at least a handful of encounters per immigrant to process them. Also has a bunch of encounters with illegal immigrants.

Germany is smaller than Texas.

To be fair, those $46 million will buy quite a few avocodo toasts and lattes

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Ah, but you’re just saying that as a professional troll.

Now compare that to: I think you’re mistaken, intent matters, and I believe extending trust that both parties want to convey something, rather than just dismiss others, is necessary for a discussion, and also for a communal discourse. If we’re just shouting into the void, no trust is needed, but for interactions and building a sense of community, we will need both trust and norms of collaboration.

Baselessly ascribing malicious intent is moreso a way to sow distrust and kill off discussion.

And besides, unless local regulations expressly forbid it, the income statements of those companies are after any fines and after any profit reducing measures (e.g. Amazon famously use investment schemes to reduce taxation), they do make the money to cover them in the shorter interval, or even shorter.

Oh no, with Amazon only having a 3,5 % margin (after fines), it would take them all of 48 hours to make up the losses.

The point still stands: the fines are ridiculously low for these companies, and they have no incentive to change based on current fines.

Oh, that’s easy, for Russia it’s crucial for reasons… it was something about de-nazification, or was it to stop NATO expanding? No, no, it’s to defend against the aggression of The West!

That’s why Russia has to occupy Ukraine!

For Ukraine, they mostly seem to have a bee up their butt about Russian troops occupying, torturing, kidnapping, displacing and murdering Ukrainians on Ukrainian soil.

From the video it seems they were spotted by drones on the way to the deployment site and were under drone surveillance during setup, during which artillery hit.

I have a hard time imagining that the observation drones are that sneaky, so I’d guess it’s another issue of poor battlefield command structure forcing the compromised position

Shh, they’re trying to catch up

Also quite useful for places short on water, or daylight, or clement weather, or low-value ecosystems, or where transportation is unfeasible due to accessibility, environmental conditions, market access.

Also quite good to alleviate food deserts, securing strategic supply chains, and supporting urbanisation for greenification, food supply, lowering transport and food security (with growing food also having positive mental and psychosocial effects).