Quote from: RE on Jun 24, 2023, 07:38 PMYou are exactly the kind of parent I had the most trouble with during my years coaching, convinced they know it all and who kept their kids from putting in the time and commitment necessary to do high level gymnastics. 

Well, I can't speak to your experience as a teacher any more than you can speak to mine as a parent. Sorry you had trouble with parents, but hardly a surprise I suppose when someone as smart as you, and lacking any and all experience in the parenting realm, decided that your brain power could be substituted for their judgement and responsibility that you had no experience with.

Quote from: REAt least the bubble towns are out in international waters and would be pretty hard to get to.

Well, for most indivuduals anyway. A single gunboat would likely make pretty short work of not only getting to it, but towing it back to where the proper people could use it however they might wish. Did you mention the defenses these floating bubble cities would have? I don't recall a list of anti submarine, surface or air defense you envisioned.

Quote from: RESorry I didn't grow up with your character building history of going to bed hungry on the nights you couldn't find a raccoon to brain and boil up into granma's secret recipe raccoon stew.

No need to apologize. And character building is a decent description. More importantly, because it happened in my formative years, it launched me onto a path that will not end until I do.

Quote from: REI still don't see this as a prerequisite for living in a floating egg the size of a couple of nuclear powered aircraft carriers and submarines though.The fact you wouldn't try such an adventure isn't of much matter, since you wouldn't pass the psych eval anyhow.  You don't have the mindset for it.

Maybe. Maybe not. Because of your intellect you have always assumed you know things by reading about them, and presto, you could do brain surgery if you really wanted to. I don't even think I would argue that you COULDN'T have become a brain surgeon. But I do know that someone who thinks that reading on a topic makes them as experienced as someone who has done it for years couldn't get their RV started after it was stored, even with your claimed experience with electronics from all your electronic fiddling and welding and whatnot over the years. Once you left the labs, you didn't appear to launch a career path worthy of your mind. Maybe worthy of your gymnastic experience...a practical skill...but you weren't paid for your mind, but rather your actual experience. You weren't paid for your mind once you got into teaching, you were paid for what you knew when you were 10 years old. And teaching doesn't give you parenting skills, it is a daytime babysitter position shoving the minimum level of rote memorization requied by the state into their minds. The parents teach them how to become adults worthy of their family name.

Quote from: REI look at the floating town idea as a modernized version of those seagoing catamarans.  They have to last long enough that the people who stayed behind on land mostly kill each other off and the land and wildlife gradually recovers.  Maybe a century or two. 

Any reason when you were spending all your money on SUN you didn't mention these ideas? Wendy thought you were setting up a hobby farm showing folks how people lived in the old'in times. You have been bursting with ideas your entire life I imagine. Have you ever felt they have overwhelmed your ability to do the actual accomplishing that itself is the end?

Quote from: REAnyhow, I wish you good luck in your raccoon hunting.

Why? I won't ever go back because personal doom will get us both before the world ends. Think of the difference between how we both tackled the world like this. You were born with a 900HP Ferrari Formula 1 engine of a mind. Most of us weren't. I was born with a fairly above average mind, but not like yours. Call me a run of the mill 300 HP Corvette mind. The problem is that your mind was hooked up to 4 bicycle tires. Mine was mounted with 20" wide state of the art racing slicks. Your mind can race into the realm of genius all it likes, but can't get traction, can't accelerate, brake, or corner at the level of the engine. Mine is as efficient as getting my 300HP to the ground as anything known in the caging world.