Wednesday Night Ashen Stars

Only the fact my character is a cheerful cyborg is keeping him from rounding up the five surviving plutocrats and 0.01%ers on the wrecked/sabotaged space luxury cruiser and spacing the lot of them.

At least there's the prospect of a doomsday device to keep him distracted.

Is the anonymous spam rate on LJ creeping up

Or am I just lucky enough to attract an increasing number of spammers?

The deadly menace of a lack of a menace

Near-Earth object surveys have found (we think) 98% of the largest objects that present the most risk, reducing the actuarial risk due to asteroid impacts from 250 fatalities per year to 64 per year. Based on past discovery rates and projecting forward through proposed future projects, over the next 16 years, we should achieve 90% completion of discovery of asteroids larger than 140 meters in diameter. The effect of this 16 years of work -- at a cost of roughly a billion dollars -- will be to reduce the actuarial risk to 33 fatalities per year. If you see asteroid surveys as a form of insurance, then you're spending about two million dollars per fatality avoided. From the point of view of insurance, this is a relatively expensive effort. Harris' point: "The hazard stuff might sell the program," but in fact, the benefit is questionable; the real value of survey programs is in the science they produce. "The scientific value of deep surveys is such a treasure trove that it's worth it right there."

"Scientific value". There's a vote winner.

Alleged Would-be Cannibal Cop Arrested in NYC

A New York City police officer was charged Thursday in a ghoulish plot to kidnap and torture women and then cook and eat their body parts.

I fear I am going to be a disappointing guest for ConFusion

They keep offering me perks I then decline.

On the exgf's new cats

Never have I seen cats so unfamiliar with the concept of edges. Rufus managed to adjust himself in his sleep *just* enough so that over the next five minutes he slid off the edge of the couch, slowly at first and then very rapidly.