Thrawn

I feel this. Both in terms of driver engagement safety and in how much I loathe traditional automatic transmissions. Still stuck owning one in one of the two vehicles I have at the moment but only because it was all I could afford for the second of two vehicles large enough to fit all my kids.

I have had several manual transmission vehicles and the other current one is a PHEV and one of the rare models that is a series hybrid so it drives like a true EV.

While you are most definitely correct his parents wouldn't do that; schools back then absolutely did enforce that and he clearly did still go through school.

Ok that is one of the most adorable things I have ever seen.

Sadly I don't but would also like to see it if it is available.

Sounds like we would have to build satellites with shades that would be selectively turned off and on as needed and only for specific parts of the globe like the overheating cities. Might be able to have some interesting effects forcing weather patterns that way.

However as you say none of that helps the ocean acidification and that is terrifying.

Right you are I missed that. So comets at least aren't workable.

Yea I agree.

I can't remember if the Brian Herbert books or just my own trying to resolve that in my own head but I feel like I ran across an attempt at resolving that saying that even world sized computer systems of the thinking machines still had worse results than the guild navigators since the navigators weren't actually computing routes so much as using dune's bizarre mental abilities like telepathy etc. to directly reach out and connect to the destination.

Actually that could even be from one of the movies and TV. Blurry memory on it.

Love Dune overall and very glad it is in the world of well known stories now with things like the warnings against charismatic leaders etc. but it still definitely has its flaws.

Both agree but have to remember there are a couple other things in play.

One is that afterwards they have mentats so the ultra wealthy have access to something at least somewhat equivalent in function.

Second, while general AI (and arguably even general purpose CPUs) are banned they clearly have ultra advanced fixed function computing devices at ultra low prices everywhere. The Freman make still suits in their cave cities that are basically magic by modern standards so access to advanced fixed function computing and materials science is clearly essentially universal.

Kinda. The exact quote for it being lowered down without heating up from reentry is "the added ice would cool the water down by only about a millionth of a degree" But yea essentially useless in the big scheme of things.

The ice would be massively better used in space habitats or terraforming other places.

In a strictly technical sense if you source ice in space from something like a comet and bring it down slowly with something like a space elevator it would help a tiny bit. However the amount of effort would be much better spent on either fixing things we are doing or going for one of the crazier but valid options like building satellites that shade something like 1-2% of sunlight etc.

Absolutely agree. Love the movie so much and in a world that loves incredible scales for sci-fi tech I haven't ever seen anything else like the Titans function in anything else.

That is actually a very valid reason why it wouldn't be an in use commercial product at this point.

I'm still fairly sure that can be solved but it is a much higher bar to clear especially to do so and keep it within a cost that isn't insane.

We get high power electronics in things like rockets and jets and tanks etc. so again I'm sure it is possible eventually. It could easily be a price so high that it doesn't happen without government mandates or that artificial fuels from bio or carbon capture end up still lower priced than what it takes to make the tougher electronics.