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There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

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Re: There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

#241
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of when November 2019 came and went (the date that Blade Runner is set in)

Off the top of my head, events in popular science fiction that have "already occurred": First Laughing Man Incident - Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (2024) Third Impact - Neon Genesis Evangelion (2015) Fourth Corporate War - Cyberpunk (2022) Geisel Library Walk - Rainbows End (2025) 2020 Tokyo Olympics - Akira (2020)

Events of Back to the Future II (2015-10-21)

Re: There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

#242
post #233
post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IoT works just fine with Zigbee that can be 100% local.

Most of which you don't need IMO. When a bunch of stuff had to be redone after a kitchen fire, I told my electrician that I wanted everything to be dumb.

Did IoT cause the fire?

Re: There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

#243
It impressive how prescient the technology feels. I mean in 2020 I would have thought the fully automated kitchen and the voice that asks which poem one wants to hear as fanciful, now it's kinda tech demo level.

Re: There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

#245

Born in 1968 I missed “duck and cover” but rode the wave of Reagan brinkmanship with my skater friends until 1990, watching all the broadcast TV PSAs and songs and art about nuclear war. It was real. It pervaded daily life: the notion that two old white men were having a pissing contest with every human as disposable bargaining chips. And as always, 25% of the US population cheered for purification of the planet beca…

Born a bit earlier. I remember growing up in the shadow of possible nuclear war and remember having nightmares about it.

And it would have happened for real if not for one man's refusal to push the button: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov

That overhanging fear has been replaced by climate change and political instability but the foundations for it still remain.

Re: There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would necessarily let heat leak in

I wonder if you could use two sheets of glass, and have a double-paned system. Maybe even with vacuum or some gas that's an even poorer conductor of heat than air in it.

Bars, restaurants and supermarkets have glass fronted refrigerators and freezers the world over, and yes, most are double glazed.

They're just less efficient and more likely to break. In a commercial environment that's worth it to show off the contents, but the trade off is different in a domestic setting.

Re: There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

#247
post #96

USSR animated version (1984): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oxP3TyuQx0

Where'd the Turkey dinner come from if it's a nuclear wasteland? All joking aside; an excellent animation

I'd be more interested why there seem to be fresh charred bodies in the morning.

Re: There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you see there that 25% of the U.S. population cheered for nuclear annihilation?

> Where do you see there that 25% of the U.S. population cheered for nuclear annihilation? Anecdotally; Growing up in the NorthWest USA, I knew entirely too many (crazy to my mind yet considered perfectly "normal" by most "average" folk back then) people in the 1980s who genuinely believed that Revelations' "rain fire from the Heavens" in the bible meant "Nuclear War" and Jesus would arrive momentarily thereafter "le…

If you’re talking about Pete Hegseth, he I think is CREC, and they are post-millenialists, which means they think more so that the earth will get better and better and should build things that last to welcome in Christ when he returns.

Re: There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

#250

Born in 1968 I missed “duck and cover” but rode the wave of Reagan brinkmanship with my skater friends until 1990, watching all the broadcast TV PSAs and songs and art about nuclear war. It was real. It pervaded daily life: the notion that two old white men were having a pissing contest with every human as disposable bargaining chips. And as always, 25% of the US population cheered for purification of the planet beca…

If only it was as low as 25% today.

Some members of the Trump administration / military say a specific goal is to bring about Armageddon, and have not been fired for it:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/03/us-israel-iran...

Other religious fanatics outside the gov’t take a more circumspect public stand on this particular holy war, but aim to use the Supreme Court to convert the US into a religious dictatorship.

Here’s a primary source; an interview with the defense secretary’s pastor:

https://www.npr.org/2026/07/06/nx-s1-5822558/pastor-doug-wil...

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