u/curiousscribbler

I have a feeling that wasn't the ice cream shop's real name, but what my family called it. Anyone out there remember it?

Rellie remembers this and nothing else. Thriller? Horror? What a scene!

I've been poking around in glossaries online, but there doesn't seem to be a formal or technical term used in library and information services for a single item, regardless of format.

With Nord VPN uninstalled, Youtube tabs in Firefox *sometimes* freeze and won't respond.

With Nord VPN running, YouTube tabs in Firefox freeze with a hideous metallic noise, and then Windows 11 restarts!

Anyone experienced anything similar? Can I change settings to prevent this? I'd like to have Nord VPN running at all times, but with this recurring problem, I simply can't.

So far, the longest-lasting information human beings have produced is writing carved in stone.* Lots of thought has gone into how to preserve information so that people in the far future will be able to understand it.

But is there some limit to how long a piece of information can possibly be preserved? And is that limit different for different amounts of information?

* There must be some sequences of human DNA that have been around for far longer than any Egyptian temple...

I was thinking about Larry Niven's short story "The Fourth Profession", and the alien traders who, if you don't happen to have the technology to launch their spaceship to the next system, will detonate your star and sail onwards. I'm pretty sure (have to dig out the book) it's not explained exactly how they could do that.

Which got me thinking: there must a lot of science fiction in which stars get made to supernova with technology. The only example I can think of, off the top of my head, is Doctor Who!