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cat botherer posted:Plasma stuff Whether or not there is plasma crystal life out there, it's interesting to think about. It has always seemed to me that if there is more life out there the odds of it being based on the same sort of carbon biochemistry as us are not great. There are other ways to store and replicate information, probably quite a few we haven't yet conceived of.
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Jun 12, 2023 22:27
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aniviron posted:Whether or not there is plasma crystal life out there, it's interesting to think about. It has always seemed to me that if there is more life out there the odds of it being based on the same sort of carbon biochemistry as us are not great. There are other ways to store and replicate information, probably quite a few we haven't yet conceived of. i disagree. it’s much more likely that if there is more life out there that it’s also carbon based, for all the same reasons: carbon is abundant, it works at temperatures with liquid water, it has all the demonstrated stabilities and redox reactions ready to go and most importantly we’ve found amino acids in asteroids. it seems dreadfully unlikely that those conditions won’t be elsewhere
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Jun 12, 2023 22:41
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I don't have much to add to the cool space plasma DNA chat which is really cool, but a thought occurs to me if an infinite field of rocks can be turing complete, maybe so can random space plasma?
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Jun 12, 2023 22:48
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cat botherer posted:Plasma life What is the timescale on these types of emergent plasma phenomena? Could a hypothetical dusty plasma based life take place on extremely fast timescales that would be hard for us to recognize or observe? I feel like I recall a novel by Stephen Baxter or someone about plasma life in the corona of a star or something.
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Jun 12, 2023 23:11
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DrSunshine posted:What is the timescale on these types of emergent plasma phenomena? Could a hypothetical dusty plasma based life take place on extremely fast timescales that would be hard for us to recognize or observe? his manifold stiff covers that don’t it one in a neutron star, one in a weak gravity universe, etc
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Jun 12, 2023 23:14
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Also, for  content - did anyone catch that interview with Grusch? I missed it. https://www.newsnationnow.com/space/ufo/we-are-not-alone-the-ufo-whistleblower-speaks/ Reading the summary of it, it... seems like a whole load of nothing. Pretty much like a rehash of every other whistleblower interview on this subject.  quote:“Well, naturally, when you recover something that’s either landed or crashed … sometimes you encounter dead pilots and, believe it or not, as fantastical as that sounds. It’s true,” Grusch said. Uhhhhhh-huh. I dunno, smells like a disinfo op to me.
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Jun 12, 2023 23:34
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DrSunshine posted:Reading the summary of it, it... seems like a whole load of nothing. It always is, and the UFO guys always fall for it, like Lucy with the football. I understand why; they desperately want it to be true, so they hold on tightly to any justification they can find. And to be clear it's not like this is some important moral or character failing on their part, I'm just trying to describe their mindset. You're not going to win a lot of friends among those types by dismissing their latest hullabaloo. But they hate skeptics for the same reason gamblers hate losing: the reality is, the odds are stacked against them in every sense.
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Jun 12, 2023 23:48
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i watched and enjoyed it. imo it hits differently than most of these sorts of things. i totally think he believes what he’s saying, to be honest. i’m confused as to why he’s do it otherwise. the grifting doesn’t pay as well as a defence job for a vet with a security clearance and a physics degree, if a bs (i assume). so either he’s telling things that are true, if absurdly difficult to swallow, or someone wants this interview out there, which i don’t really understand. we already don’t have problems spending functionally infinite dollars on the mic, and i feel like there are plenty of easier distractions to cook up (especially since this wasn’t even really picked up by most news places). i find ross coulthart to be more interesting. he says he was led to grusch by other government contracts, not the other way around. furthermore, he insists that people involved in this supposed recovery program are giving testimony to the igic (i.e., testimony that actually isn’t hearsay). i’m not saying he’s necessarily trustworthy, but i do find his push on this to be curious. anyway i figure worst case it’s as fun to watch and play what-if as much fun as it is to think about what i’d do with a star trek replicator, so
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Jun 13, 2023 00:01
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DrSunshine posted:What is the timescale on these types of emergent plasma phenomena? Could a hypothetical dusty plasma based life take place on extremely fast timescales that would be hard for us to recognize or observe? It doesn’t sound like the book you are talking about, but there’s a dry sci-fi read about intelligent life on a neutron star by the late physicist/tethers/laser sail guy Robert Forward, called Dragon’s Egg. quote:The star contains about half of a solar mass of matter, compressed into a diameter of about 20 kilometers (12 miles), making its surface gravity 67 billion times that of Earth. Its outer crust, compressed to about 7,000 kg per cubic centimeter, is mainly iron nuclei with a high concentration of neutrons,[1] overlaid with about 1 millimeter (0.039 inches) of white dwarf star material.[2] The atmosphere, mostly iron vapor, is about 5 centimeters (2.0 inches) thick. The star shrinks slightly as it cools, causes the crust to crack and produce mountains 5 to 100 millimeters (0.20 to 3.94 inches) high. Large volcanoes, formed by liquid material oozing from deep cracks, can be many centimeters high and hundred meters in diameter, and will eventually collapse, causing starquakes. The science is pretty spot on. For example, neutron stars do have very thin solid crusts, maybe complete with plate tectonics, or at least faults. Actual “starquakes” of these crusts have been detected by X-ray emissions. On the earth, quakes are caused by stress from mantle convection on the crust. On neutron stars, it’s apparently caused by flow of the interior material dragging field lines around. The changes in the extreme magnetic field then exert stress on the crust. The physics of a neutron star crust and atmosphere could potentially be complex enough to lead to life, but due to the crazy high temperatures, the timescales would be way shorter than a cold plasma whose dust might only be at a few kelvins - much lower than even carbon life. n.b.: Magnetic fields are “frozen” in conductors, of which plasma is a nearly perfect one. Fluid flow drags the field lines around, but the field lines impart stiffness in response - field lines are stiff in that they like to stay straight and not bend. Changes in the field can only slowly diffuse through the medium. This diffusion can actually be neglected for a lot of solar physics/solar wind stuff because the conductivity is high enough. In the case of superconductors, the field lines existing when a material first transitions into superconduction are totally frozen in. That’s why superconductors exclude magnetic fields they are subjected to, allowing for levitation. This is a big part of why MHD flow is so complex. cat botherer fucked around with this message at 00:32 on Jun 13, 2023 |
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Jun 13, 2023 00:11
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ashpanash posted:It always is, and the UFO guys always fall for it, like Lucy with the football. I understand why; they desperately want it to be true, so they hold on tightly to any justification they can find. And to be clear it's not like this is some important moral or character failing on their part, I'm just trying to describe their mindset. I read a summary and while it all sounds interesting, there's still the problem that there's no evidence being shown. I get why the guy can't just show us evidence, and I get that this time it's different(tm) because of such and such reason, but at the end of the day nothing tangible and new came out of this so IMO there just really isn't anything to talk about. e: I legit thought there would be some actual poo poo being dumped on us on Sunday but alas. Boris Galerkin fucked around with this message at 00:43 on Jun 13, 2023 |
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Jun 13, 2023 00:28
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mediaphage posted:i watched and enjoyed it. imo it hits differently than most of these sorts of things. i totally think he believes what he’s saying, to be honest. i’m confused as to why he’s do it otherwise. the grifting doesn’t pay as well as a defence job for a vet with a security clearance and a physics degree, if a bs (i assume). Is it as simple as somebody not wanting there to be an office that has oversight on contractor things and so discrediting the whole department? Where did grusch come from, anyway? I can’t imagine ever coming to believe that spacecraft from another civilization have crashed on Earth without actually seeing them and having actual scientists verify what I was looking at. Even then, the idea that I was being intentionally misinformed in some kind of conspiracy would occur to me way before I considered the possibility that aliens have crashed on Earth. Was this guy big into ufos before this? Do we know why he was appointed the ufo investigation guy?
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Jun 13, 2023 00:41
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Is it correct that nothing can be classified such that a senator doesn’t automatically have clearance to know about it? I’m sure that in practice, people just keep senators from knowing about things, but if it exists, they have clearance to see it?
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Jun 13, 2023 00:44
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I AM GRANDO posted:Is it correct that nothing can be classified such that a senator doesn’t automatically have clearance to know about it? I’m sure that in practice, people just keep senators from knowing about things, but if it exists, they have clearance to see it? i think you're limited to senators on specific committees, not all congress automatically has a ts/sci I AM GRANDO posted:Is it as simple as somebody not wanting there to be an office that has oversight on contractor things and so discrediting the whole department? there appears to be some connection to other ufo people but it seems to be recent - i.e., probably him looking for someone to blow his whistle on honestly the whole thing is very weird. i like reading about ufo poo poo sometimes but i've never put a lot of faith in any of it being real when there's so many more prosaic explanations at hand. but like i said, i felt this whole interview hits a little differently than some of these have in the past fifty years or so. coulthart swears there's more interviews coming, so i guess we'll see if any more information in either direction leaks out over the next few months
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Jun 13, 2023 01:02
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mediaphage posted:but like i said, i felt this whole interview hits a little differently than some of these have in the past fifty years or so. In a world where we currently have very vivid examples of entire communities of people making up and believing their own narratives despite ample evidence to the contrary, I really fail to see how more interviews without a shred of evidence will add to this, much less how any of this hits differently. Smart, respectable people are fully capable of falling for bullshit and/or sincerely believing in their own bullshit.
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Jun 13, 2023 01:12
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Yeah, like Bob Lazar was obviously a guy who came up with what seemed like a good story and tried to sell it. This guy seems like he’s just describing what other people told him and he’s totally credulous about it. The only way I can make sense of it is that he already believed in all that stuff.
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Jun 13, 2023 01:13
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I AM GRANDO posted:Yeah, like Bob Lazar was obviously a guy who came up with what seemed like a good story and tried to sell it. This guy seems like he’s just describing what other people told him and he’s totally credulous about it. The only way I can make sense of it is that he already believed in all that stuff. i mean, imo bob lazar has always seemed like a grifter who never had anyone backing up his story. this guy at least has some cred (which doesn't necessarily mean anything, obv - mike flynn had cred too, for example) and a number of mic affiliated folks coming out and talking him up. i agree though, he seems like he had to be into the subject at some level already ashpanash posted:In a world where we currently have very vivid examples of entire communities of people making up and believing their own narratives despite ample evidence to the contrary, I really fail to see how more interviews without a shred of evidence will add to this, much less how any of this hits differently. personally i think it feels differently in part because of how many other people seem to be going along with it in the media. note: i'm not saying omg aliens r here! - just that it feels different and weird
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Jun 13, 2023 01:19
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mediaphage posted:personally i think it feels differently in part because of how many other people seem to be going along with it in the media. note: i'm not saying omg aliens r here! - just that it feels different and weird Ah, ok, yes, I agree with you there. We have a more credulous media than before, that's certainly true. I suspect partially because hey, we've all seen some weird poo poo in the past few decades, media included. Partly because the current strong bifurcation of media along partisan lines probably means weaker, more diluted editorial feedback and control. But more likely it's because of reasons I am too ignorant to comprehend. ashpanash fucked around with this message at 01:31 on Jun 13, 2023 |
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Jun 13, 2023 01:28
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ashpanash posted:But more likely it's because of reasons I am too ignorant to comprehend. fluoride anyway, the house is promising hearings about this so if nothing else that should be interesting
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Jun 13, 2023 01:33
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mediaphage posted:fluoride Yeah I have no hope for house hearings because it’s always just someone talking for soundbites, asking questions and the interrupting them from answering to shout off more soundbites.
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Jun 13, 2023 01:57
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Boris Galerkin posted:Yeah I have no hope for house hearings because it’s always just someone talking for soundbites, asking questions and the interrupting them from answering to shout off more soundbites. oh thats fine, there's gonna be so many good gifs and soundbites about actual congresspeople asking about aliens which is hilarious
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Jun 13, 2023 01:59
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I want to know what Marjorie the Gathering thinks about space brothers. Abominations or grist for a polyamorous three-way between her and her husband?
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Jun 13, 2023 02:10
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I AM GRANDO posted:I want to know what Marjorie the Gathering thinks about space brothers. Abominations or grist for a polyamorous three-way between her and her husband? i don’t ever want to think about her sex life ever again go sit in the corner
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Jun 13, 2023 02:34
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Do we know which house committee would be doing the hearings? Depending on who’s sitting on it we could get crazy lmao questions like “where are the med beds?” to well researched questions from… i dont loving know, someone who isn’t crazy.
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Jun 13, 2023 03:10
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Boris Galerkin posted:Do we know which house committee would be doing the hearings? Depending on who’s sitting on it we could get crazy lmao questions like “where are the med beds?” to well researched questions from… i dont loving know, someone who isn’t crazy. Let’s put Santos on the committee since he is himself in fact an alien from outer space.
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Jun 13, 2023 03:34
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DrSunshine posted:Also, for I think Grusch is wholly sincere, but he seems to have either fooled himself or been fooled by the world's greatest prank. Given the very obvious red flags here, like the total lack of physical evidence and the sheer number of people and nations that would be involved in his belief, there's also something seriously wrong with his bullshit alarm. My take would be that he's just another of the slightly unhinged people that have been living on r/UFO for the last 6 years, but this one just happens to have a government job.
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Jun 13, 2023 08:29
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rl2ap0m6fGk Okay, this is just cringeworthy at this point. Instead of ooh and ahh-ing over being so incredibly lucky as to catch a big meteor like that on camera (even with sonic booms and break-apart sounds!!), everyone is crawling over themselves to scream about th' alieeums!  I went to watch the Geminids in the mountains this past winter and they looked absolutely the same. Same composition probably, because the fireballs I saw were greenish. It was fantastic, actually, one of the best and most cosmic things I'd ever seen in my life.
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Jun 16, 2023 15:12
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Calling it now, WW3 will be fought for control of non-existent alien tech each side is convinced the other has
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Jun 18, 2023 03:52
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Wafflecopper posted:Calling it now, WW3 will be fought for control of non-existent alien tech each side is convinced the other has Here's the thing, do we have any evidence that UFOs are a thing in either the FSU or China or Iran? I feel like being more closed as societies means instead of assuming the government is lying about UFOs its much more plausible to assume the government is lying about new military technology or secret police actions.
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Jun 18, 2023 14:20
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Raenir Salazar posted:Here's the thing, do we have any evidence that UFOs are a thing in either the FSU or China or Iran? I feel like being more closed as societies means instead of assuming the government is lying about UFOs its much more plausible to assume the government is lying about new military technology or secret police actions. Absolutely. I am a general skeptic on extraterrestrials (mainly because of physics and biology), but some of the most intriguing UFO encounters are similar reports from US and Soviet nuclear missile officers that UFOs appeared over their missile sites and intefered with the electronics in their missile systems. Reference data for a paper compiling US Air Force personnel testimony: https://inis.iaea.org/search/search.aspx?orig_q=RN:46130842 Soviet encounter summary: https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12318039.alien-encounter-sparked-soviet-missile-crisis/ Soviet equivalent to US Air Force project to study UFO phenomenon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_22 Doesn't mean anything on its own, but if similar things happen in the future I think it's worth beginning to consider whether something comprehensible is happening (some kind of entity/ies trying to interfere or intervene in matters of species or biosphere survival).
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Jun 21, 2023 16:44
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Lars! posted:Absolutely. I am a general skeptic on extraterrestrials (mainly because of physics and biology), but some of the most intriguing UFO encounters are similar reports from US and Soviet nuclear missile officers that UFOs appeared over their missile sites and intefered with the electronics in their missile systems. Perhaps it is more likely that both countries have continued to develop spy and electronic warfare systems and neither will admit it?
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Jun 21, 2023 16:53
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Lars! posted:Absolutely. I am a general skeptic on extraterrestrials (mainly because of physics and biology), but some of the most intriguing UFO encounters are similar reports from US and Soviet nuclear missile officers that UFOs appeared over their missile sites and intefered with the electronics in their missile systems. If so they’re doing a real bad job because the apes they’re messing with have been cooking the planet for 30 years and there aren’t going to be very many species or biospheres left after too much longer.
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Jun 21, 2023 17:27
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I personally welcome the aliens attempting to reverse biosphere collapse. Thank you.
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Jun 21, 2023 17:42
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I AM GRANDO posted:If so they’re doing a real bad job because the apes they’re messing with have been cooking the planet for 30 years and there aren’t going to be very many species or biospheres left after too much longer. Considering that the Soviet encounter is described as this... quote:Col Solokov said: ''On October 5, 1982, I was ordered to go immediately to the Ukraine. The reason for the urgency was a report from the base commander to the chief of the general staff. ... humanity's survival doesn't appear to be the direction they're leaning.
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Jun 21, 2023 17:47
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Sir Kodiak posted:Considering that the Soviet encounter is described as this... If they wanted to save the biosphere, they probably should have exterminated all humans like 100 years ago tbh.
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Jun 21, 2023 17:59
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The aliens built an observation post for the passive tech boost, obviously.
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Jun 21, 2023 18:08
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All that cattle mutilation is hardly passive, young man! Now I am mildly curious if RAND or some nerd like them ever did the numbers on that stuff, beef is expensive
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Jun 21, 2023 23:55
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Rappaport posted:All that cattle mutilation is hardly passive, young man! Do crop circles count as passive? Doesn't harm an animal, after all.
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Jun 22, 2023 01:44
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aniviron posted:Do crop circles count as passive? Doesn't harm an animal, after all.
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Jun 22, 2023 01:46
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cat botherer posted:Lotsa bugs get squished I think that was a plot point in Men in Black, that bugs are people too? Only they want to eat actual human beings, which is a bit of a down-side to being pals. Slightly more serious, haven't all crop circles been confirmed as pranks by drunk college students?
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Jun 22, 2023 05:48
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Little bit tangent to this but the trailer for the Three Body Problem Netflix adaptation dropped a few days ago. I just finished reading the series earlier this year, and I'm excited to see it come to a platform where I can actually stream it!
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Jun 22, 2023 17:57
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