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I dream quite a bit, but I'm not normally one to talk much about my dreams. Other peoples' dreams bore me, and I don't really think there's much wisdom or insight to be gained from studying them so I don't generally see a reason to share mine.

However this dream I had last night affected me somehow, and I wanted to get it off my chest. It was one of those long epic dreams that seems to last for days, even though in realtime it probably lasted only a few minutes or hours.

In my dream I was going about my normal business for a few days, and as is often the case when I've got a lot on I can go a few days without catching any real news. However I kept seeing headlines and short clips of news, which showed a weird red wibbly thing enclosed by some kind of space station, and footage of an astronaut aboard the ISS. I knew that something big was going on in space, because it was all over the mainstream news and space doesn't normally get much coverage. I gradually pieced more and more together until I finally thought I had the whole story, and then had time to sit down and watch a proper news report, to confirm my suspicions.

Turns out the Americans had either found or built (they weren't admitting either) some kind of device in close orbit around the sun that enabled instant access to any other star system in the galaxy. Somehow it also managed to teleport an astronaut from the ground to the ISS and back again. I remember watching the report in complete amazement, alternating between "this is impossible" and "this is awesome" for ages. In the meantime, all the people around me were entirely unimpressed, writing it off as boring nerdy space stuff.

By the end of the dream, there were adverts on TV selling land on distant planets, all of which appeared to be sparse rocky deserts with a little or no greenery. None of the planets had any animal life. There didn't seem to be any talk of infrastructure of any kind being built or artists impressions of how it might look in the future, just real footage of featureless land on uninhabited planets. There were also suggestions in the news that many countries were thinking of dumping all their incoming migrants onto one of these planets, where they would almost certainly starve. Footage of one planet showed evidence that the Americans had been there for some time, with a big military base / outpost of some kind built in the sea.

Weird, meaningless and probably dull I know, but the thing that got me was the profound sense of disappointment when I woke up and reality gradually asserted itself, and as the moment of confusion passed I realised that FTL exploration and settlement of the galaxy will never happen.

It did get me thinking though - if cheap and instantaneous access to the rest of the galaxy did suddenly magically appear overnight, how would humanity handle it? With resources and living space suddenly abundant would war disappear overnight, or would someone try to somehow hoard and control it all? Would the influx of cheap resources and materials from other worlds usher in a techno-utopia on Earth, or would it be too much for our environment to assimilate?

Lobbyists, in Strategy Session, Conclude That Refugee Crisis “Helps Us” Defeat Regulations

In an audio recording of a strategy session obtained by The Intercept, major trade association lobbyists discussed how the refugee crisis has changed the political dynamics in Washington to their advantage.

In the conference call held last week, lobbyists representing a number of high-polluting industries agreed that the battle between Congress and President Obama on refugee policy will give them the cover they need to attach a legislative rider to the omnibus budget bill that rolls back newly expanded clean water regulation.

“I think that probably helps us,” one participant said, referring to the coming confrontation over refugee policy.

[...] “We’re suddenly not the big issue,” said one call participant. “I mean, this is all going to turn on refugees.”

“I think that helps us,” said another call participant. “I think it helps us with the White House being on defense,” another legislative strategist on the call said.

The remarks were made during a political strategy call hosted last week by energy utility industry lobbyists. A recording was sent to The Intercept by someone on the call.

Coal CEO Thanks Lamar Smith, Asks Him to Expand Probe of Climate Scientists

Koch "Alliance" on Criminal Justice Reform Exposed as Trojan Horse

How the Gates Foundation Reflects the Good and the Bad of "Hacker Philanthropy"

Black Friday 2015

Laptops

• $99: 11.6 inch Chromebook, Best Buy
• $300: Core i3, 15.6 inch, Best Buy
• $140: Celeron, 15.6 inch, Best Buy

Storage

• $100: 4 TB Western Digital My Book external hard drive, Best Buy
• $100: 4 TB Toshiba Canvio external hard drive, Office Max and Office Depot
• $120: 5 TB Seagate external hard drive, Costco
• $120: 5 TB Toshiba Canvio external hard drive, Office Max and Office Depot
• $40: 1 TB Seagate portable hard drive, Staples
• $200: SanDisk Ultra II 2.5" SSD 960GB, Newegg

Consoles

• $300: Dell Home & Office Black Friday: Xbox One Gears of War: Ultimate Edition Bundle Plus Fallout 4 & Extra Controller
• $300: Target Black Friday: 500GB Xbox One Console w/ Gears of War Digital Download Code + $60 Target Gift Card

Categories

• Blank Media (CDs, DVDs)
• USB Flash Drives
• Hard Drives

Articles

Best Laptops: Holiday 2015
Best SSDs: Holiday 2015

Didn't watch this time. Ben Carson sure is popular isn't he?

Wikipedia
Fireworks Fly In Unruly Third GOP Presidential Debate
Four Republicans Battle For Attention At Undercard Debate
PolitiFact

Bizarre, campy song explains China's 13th 5-year plan
Song (low information content)

Five-year plans of China
Timeline

Uses of Force Abroad 1798-2015, and More from CRS

A newly updated tabulation of U.S. military actions has been prepared by the Congressional Research Service, up to and including the October 14, 2015 deployment of 90 U.S. troops to Cameroon. The CRS listing does not include covert actions, disaster relief operations or training exercises. See Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2015, October 15, 2015.

[other CRS reports listed at source]

The PDF is 38 pages.

Congressional Research Service

Previously:

• August 6, 2015: U.S. Republican Primary Debate #1
• September 16, 2015: U.S. Republican Primary Debate #2

The candidates participating in the debate are Lincoln Chafee, Hillary Clinton, Martin O'Malley, Bernie Sanders, and Jim Webb. Larry Lessig did not make the cut. CNN coverage begins at 8:30 PM EDT, the debate begins at 9 PM EDT and ends at 11 PM EDT.

Links:

• Democratic Party presidential debates, 2016

The first debate is scheduled for October 13, 2015, at the Wynn hotel in Las Vegas, beginning at 9 p.m. Eastern time. It will air on CNN, and will also be broadcast on radio by Westwood One [AUDIO-only should be available online via CBS Radio]. Anderson Cooper will be the moderator of the debate, with Dana Bash and Juan Carlos Lopez asking additional questions and Don Lemon presenting questions submitted by voters via Facebook.

To be invited to the debate, a candidate must have achieved an average of at least 1% in three recognized national polls released between August 1 and October 10. In addition, a candidate must either have filed a statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission or declare that one will be filed by October 14, the day after the debate. The latter criterion would accommodate Vice President Joe Biden if he decided to enter the presidential race as late as the day of the debate.

• 2016 Democratic Presidential Nomination Polls
• The Endorsement Primary
• CNN Will Live Stream Democratic Debate in Virtual Reality and SoylentNews
• Single page candidate comparison
• OnTheIssues: Sanders, Clinton, O'Malley, Chafee, Webb
• Template at Wikipedia linking to candidate position pages
• CNN releases Democratic debate podium order

Should Vice President Biden decide to enter the race and take part in the debate, there would be a podium placed on the stage for him as well.

• #DemDebate Top and Live on Twitter
• Journal: Left/Right American Election Predictions
• A Guide to the Hillary-Bernie Showdown at Tonight's Democratic Debate
• Obama's Trade Deal Is Making Things Awkward for Democrats in Tonight's Debate

Journals: Soylent controversial topic containment zone?

Google's .bro file format changed to .br after gender politics worries

In late September, Google released a compression algorithm called Brotli and gave files it makes the extension “.bro”.

But last week the extension was changed to “.br”.

The reason for the change is threads like this one, in which posters suggest that “'bro' has a gender problem” and “comes of[f] misogynistic and unprofessional due to the world it lives in.”

[...]

Wikipedia

BBC Trending: Is this manga cartoon of a six-year-old Syrian girl racist?

"I want to live a safe and clean life, eat gourmet food, go out, wear pretty things, and live a luxurious life… all at the expense of someone else," reads the text on the illustration above. "I have an idea. I'll become a refugee."

The image and caption were posted by a right-wing Japanese artist last month. Now, more than 10,000 people have signed a Change.org petition in Japanese urging Facebook to take it down. The petition, posted by an account calling itself the "Don't Allow Racism Group", claims that several people have reported the illustration and demands that "Facebook must recognize an illustration insulting Syrian refugees as racism."

Although the Japan Times reported that Facebook did not take the picture down, saying it did not go against community guidelines, the artist herself removed the picture. But she remains defiant about her motivations for posting it in the first place. Toshiko Hasumi told BBC Trending that she believed the people signing the petition were left-wing activists. "I draw many political mangas [Japanese comics] which are not favourable to them," she said. "This is why they targeted me."

The Barrett Brown Review of Arts and Letters and Prison: Stop Sending Me Jonathan Franzen Novels

Another fun piece written by Barrett Brown from federal prison, this time about Purity.

Here are some older articles along similar lines.