JohnGillnitz

JohnGillnitz t1_iy9vcu7 wrote

Nitrogen was a limiting factor in human civilization since it started. You can only feed so many people on the same soil even with farm animal poop. Guano was an way around that limiting factor. It was a valuable natural resource like oil or rare earth metals are today. Civilizations like the Incas had it and thrived. Those that didn't couldn't stay in one place for too long. It was set to be the cause of the first world war, but the Haber-Bosch process was invented in 1906. That allowed energy from oil to grow crops in depleted soil. It prevented war, but is also the single greatest contributor to climate disaster since agriculture itself.

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JohnGillnitz t1_iy9d4pe wrote

Not in London I'm afraid. There wasn't much in the way of security back then and every workstation had a real IP address. Even though Windows 3.1 didn't have an IP stack (Trumpet Winsock to the rescue!). I found a web server that ran on Windows (limited to short file names) and turned my office desktop into one. We would also do DOOM II LAN parties and see who could find the most disgusting pornographic picture (before Netscape was a thing). My supervisors, 40-something ladies who were mostly former school teachers, were instigating the whole thing. It was nuts.

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JohnGillnitz t1_ixtik2m wrote

I was coming out of The Matrix and heard a bunch of tween boys who had seen the movie too. They were hung up on the flying part and how would you ever know if you could fly if you never tried? Then they wondered why they had to start from the top of the building and not just from the ground. Then one did a Superman jump dive and landed face first in the grass by the sidewalk. It was good commitment to a joke.

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