Eq0

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Eq0,

The two things are actually often related: junk food is faster, more accessible, stores longer, and is cheaper per calorie. So you can be hungry, skip a salad meal (that would need to be bought fresh and prepared) while having “mcdonalds”/microwave meal/high calorie meal for your leftover meal. Third has been the pattern, following US, where it is very common for the poor to eat more calories than the rich, while eating less healthy meals.

Eq0,

The Netherlands has Tikkie, same thing. And my bank has instantaneous transfers all across the EU… I’ll never change bank

Eq0,

Same here!

Eq0,

Absolutely, and all the people that now have the artifacts benefit in keeping the status quo, so there is effectively little push to solve a very complex problem.

Eq0,

Thanks, I was also struggling with the weird INRI, and the original orientation makes more sense.

It’s a great piece of art, really punchy.

Eq0,

I personally feel represented in at least three categories, so I’d say it does!

Monsters of the road: what should the UK do about SUVs? [The Observer] (www.theguardian.com)

It’s midnight on the edge of Clapham Common in early September. The streets are eerily quiet as a shadowy figure in black shirt, shorts and baseball cap emerges from the common. He is wearing a red face mask, his features, except for some blond locks, hidden from view.

Eq0,

I’m glad to see this discussion starting gathering attention. In general, I think we should start looking more and more at car sharing over car owning: nobody needs an SUV every day, but you might enjoy a longer trip driving one. So short term rental should be incentivized to decrease the overall number of cars on the road and parking lots.

Small Gods: A masterful comic satire on Religious Institutions and Fundamentalism

Small Gods: A masterful comic satire on Religious Institutions and Fundamentalism Small Gods is a fantasy comic satire on religious institutions, religious fundamentalism, philosophy, and the weaponisation of religious fanaticism for political power set in the Discworld. It explores how religious beliefs and faith shift and...

Eq0,

Thanks for writing this, I loved that book but wouldn’t have been able to write something so on point.

Eq0,

That’s a great resolution, I encourage you to keep it up (for the sake of people like me and others that will be inspired)

What did you do to survive the night of/after a breakup?

Boyfriend of 2 years (best friend of 6) just told me he’s started seeing someone else. No discussion. Just ghosted me for a week and hit me with this news. Thought he was my soulmate, lmao. I feel like someone just ripped out my insides. Just turned 31 this year, this shit is not any easier than when I was a teenager....

Eq0,

My little piece of advice: you don’t have to think about the future, tomorrow, next week, they are all far off. Think about now, this hour, the next 5 minutes, or whatever stretch of time seems manageable. What do you do now? Cook dinner? Watch a show? Cry in the shower? The future might be scary and too much to manage now. You’ll handle it when you get to it. Now, you only have to think about right now.

Verbena tea is calming and soothing. Lavender is relaxing. Green tea for me is a calming ritual.

You got this. Maybe it doesn’t feel like it, but you only need to do one step, and you got that one step.

Eq0,

It’s already a day later! You got this, the hardest part is flowing by. How are you doing?

Eq0,

It’s a bit confusing: the big number is not the index but the world wide ranking if the country. It’s made extra confusing because a big index is good, but a bug ranking is not…

Eq0,

As others have pointed out, it’s also a way to replace the soul of the city with something more economically interesting: clean apartments.

Amsterdam has a problem with gentrification on one side and “cheap” tourism on the other. This move seems to want to solve the later by amplifying the former…

Eq0,

“Successful record attempts have employed a variety of tactics for evading traffic law enforcement.”

Eq0,

I know it’s a dumb meme… but girls acting weak to get hit on is a horrible mental construct!

Eq0,

Here is my assortment of recommendations.

The greatest classic of the genre: Ivanhoe. Written in the 1800s, it feel its age, but to some (i.e. me and hopefully others) it just add to the charm. So much adventure on a very romanticized medieval background.

The Arthurian cycles: if you are not looking for historical accuracy are are fine with a little magic sprinkled around. Many authors retold the legends, there are the old french novels (by Chrétien de Troyes - a bit stiff at times and formulaic) or the more modern ones. My personal favorite is the cycle by Mary Stewart, but “The Once and Future King”* is also really good.

An adventurous take on the fall of the Roman Empir: The last Legion by V M Manfredi*.

A view on the life of common people during the middle ages, developed around a compelling plot: the quadrilogy by Valeria Montaldi.

The ones you can’t overlook: Pillar of the Earth by Ken Follett and Cathedral of the Sea by Idelfonso Flacones. Flavor-wise I felt they were very similar, a broad cast of characters with strong emotions moving on the backdrop of the gothic revolution. Particularly good if you like architecture.

*: YA, all others are “adult” novels.

Eq0,

Glad to be of help!

Eq0,

Where are you located?

Eq0,

I saw some kids having themed Halloween parties, and in some small towns kids going door to door, but it’s very local, most places would not have that.

Eq0,

Good to know, next time ill go there for a party!

My thoughts on The Masters of Rome series by Colleen McCullough

A year ago, I read the Masters of Rome historical fiction series, written by Colleen McCullough. Before reading this series I only vaguely knew about Julius Caesar (thanks to Shakespeare) and had no idea about Roman history. These books introduced me to characters that felt like real flesh and blood people I know so well,...

Eq0,

Thanks, this is a great review!

Do you think it would be better suited for the non-fiction community?

Powell’s Essential List: 25 Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books of the 21st Century (So Far) (www.powells.com)

I’m not sure when it was written, but I ran across this list of the best science fiction and fantasy books this century, and I resonated with the ones I’ve read, so I thought I’d see what others thought of it. Have you read many of them?

Eq0,

I loved its depiction of a complete world, where elements are introduced only for the flavor. It made it feel so lively, while destructuring the usual “Chekov’s gun” expectation. Most of the side stories also tie back into the immigration/discrimination theme that runs through the book.

I would wholeheartedly recommend it.

Eq0,

As far as “best” go, I’m non plussed. Some of these I really liked, some… not so much.

Personal positive votes:

Perdido Street Station - absolutely loved it, great social commentary undertones while the story goes its own way in an incredibly vivid world

Fifth Season - great first book of a good series, good writing and good tension points

Saga - great art to match a great retelling of Romeo and Juliet in space, where all tropes are out the window

Personal “good but not great”: All Systems Red - fun light read, nothing more

Personal negative votes:

The Name of the Wind - it’s the archetypal fantasy story, with a lot of world building and little else, a Marie Sue as a main character and a love story with many many problems. I guess it’s there because it’s famous thus essential?

The Three Boby Problem - the writing is dry, the math is wrong, I can’t stand this book

American Goods - talking about dry writing style. And keeping the reader in the dark about completely arbitrary world rules. I did not enjoy it, often it feels Neil Gaiman writes to show you how much smarter he is than you. I will admit that Gaiman has been extremely influential, so I support it being on the list

Mistborn - page turner with little else to its name. The characters drop their life long ideals so easily to facilitate the plot, they are hardly believable

The other books in the list I haven’t read nor were on my reading list, most I hadn’t heard about before.

Eq0,

For hard sci-fi I agree, but for soft one the difference becomes more and more tenuous.

"Tale of the Necromancer" - dark fantasy/horror story

This is dark fantasy/horror story, stylized as an ancient oral legend, which tells the story of a simple man’s journey and gradual descent into darkness - and ascension to power. We tried to give our villain protagonist some psychological and philosophical deep, not just “HAHAHA I am evil and will rule the world!”....

Eq0,

The concept sounds cool as hell! I’ll give it a read asap.

Eq0,

Took me a while to finish it. I really liked it!

Eq0,

A more precise review, mainly because you asked for feedback:

I enjoyed the concept, and I think it was well explored. I really got a kick out of the precise changing of words, in particular the main character being referred to as “potter” at the beginning and “Necromancer” at the end, together with some other more subtle word developments.

I think the first paragraph could be more appealing, I was a bit put off by the lack of details coupled with plenty of suspension dots. I find it odd how some precise details (about the religion, the urns, the desert) are woven in a very general, almost parabolic, story line.

Some emotional components are also a bit unpolished, just given as facts. In particular his love for his family seems to be an “on-off” switch, and it appears only when needed but doesn’t affect his decisions otherwise. So the conclusion doesn’t hit as hard as it could, in my opinion. In a similar way, it is not really justified why he searches knowledge, or goes to the graveyard, while the previous steps are made extremely compelling.

Overall, really good! After the first paragraph, the story flows well, the main character is not only believable but compelling. I like how he does what needs to be done and hardly ever reconsiders his actions.

Eq0,

Absolutely! And as far as needle sizes take something relatively large. Not only it’s a bit easier, but you’ll see your progress and finish faster! Great moral boost

Eq0,

Oh no, not Enders Game! I loved it… but I understand the criticism. I felt that the main character not being very likable added to the story, but that’s personal opinion.

On the Da Vinci Code, it’s a lightweight page turner, I still thought it was enjoyable, but totally forgettable.

Eq0,

All GRR Martin. The writing is so dry I couldn’t get into it. Super word usage was just weird, like his insistence on “breaking the fast”, but most of it is still modern English, so this word choices stand out as sore thumbs.

After a while, it seemed to me that the white point of the books was to show how many plot twists the author could string one after the other. Still read the first four books, hoping it would get better.

Eq0,

I’m one of them, read it when I was 25 or older. I liked the “chosen one” rhetoric being used to exploit Ender. I liked the bleakness of it all. While it was clear what the plot twist was going to be, he didn’t know, and this hit a tragic note for me. The book conveys all sides (Ender’s, the government’s, the alien’s) letting the reader getting stuck between opposing ethics, and not solving the contraposition at any point. The acceptance of the final, horrible result just adds to the bleakness created by all the violence leading up to that point.

Eq0,

It also has quite some misogyny if you think that he is friend with the girl he “loves” just because he wants her to fall in love with him but, somehow, it’s not the right time yet. But if he keeps being there for her, she is going to fall for him! So sleazy.

Eq0,

Same. I don’t really know why, but the writing style did not do it for me. I couldn’t get invested in the story nor any of the characters.

Eq0,

Completely agree. I didn’t like Snow Crash either, but Anathem is also among my favorites ever.

Eq0,

Can you point to them? I’d be interested. Even if I read a lot of sci-fi, Enders Game is in my mind still unique in its themes.

What I felt after reading "All Systems Red" by Martha Wells

What an enjoyable cozy scifi adventure! The story centers around a security bot with a self-hacked governor module, who refers to itself privately as “Murderbot” and likes to watch serials and movies surreptitiously in it’s free time. The socially awkward bot repeatedly assures us that it definitely does not care about...

Eq0,

I never noticed that I also thought of “her”. I read the book a while ago, so I don’t remember your reference, but I remember finding it refreshing to find a robot that was “obviously female” instead of undefined therefore male.

Eq0,

I can’t get over Germany closing its existing nuclear power plants. The costly job of construction was done! But Fukushima panic struck and they never stepped down from that decision. And now they are all shocked pikachu face that they can’t make the climate goals…

Eq0,

My comment might have had quite some negative reactions, but the discussions were good. And I got the wrath of feddit, as expected!

Eq0,

Fossil fuel based solutions are significantly worse for climate change than nuclear. Saying that the other renewables are better is matter of discussion, but renewables without nuclear are not going to make the cut. Using both renewables and nuclear is best to cut emissions.

Eq0,

You talk as if benefiting the ruling class was an unwanted consequence of these laws. It’s not. The markets need to be free for the rich to benefit but restricted for the rich to benefit. And maybe some crumbs will fall of the table and the poors will think that the rich are so generous.

Eq0,

No, there should be rules to benefit the poor. But many of the laws now in effect in particular in the US are specifically not built for that. So many laws would better be dropped than enforced, and many are missing.

Eq0,

Is the generation of wealth really the end goal, though?

On top of that, yes I agree that there are various declinations and modifications of capitalism. And yes, democratic socialism is still a version of capitalism, but one where the harshest edges of capitalism have been significantly smoothed over. Looking at Europe, they are also under capitalism, but implemented significant socialist policies, and the problems there are less extreme than in US. And still, this meme would apply.

Eq0,

You can’t skim an audio file, you have to listen from the beginning to the end. Audio makes symbols that are often used in programming difficult to parse or confusing. I… really dislike this

Eq0,

I’m overthinking this.

If everyone gets the full mark, it’s not a random variable anymore, you would have a collapse of the probability distribution, that would tend to a Dirac delta function. In this case, the very definition of “quartiles” would fail. So, yeah, there would be no one there because it wouldn’t exist.

Eq0,

The Baron in the Trees is so good! (I disagree with the title translation to English, because the Italian title is less precise and can be interpreted as “the out of control baron” too)

Eq0,

Personally, my advice would be: don’t go to Tolstoj expecting something similar! He is so preachy compared to Dostoyevski, the characters don’t ring nearly as human and interesting.

On the other hand, everything I read of Dostoyevski is great, with Crime and Punishment and Brothers Karamazov being at the top. I also find Victor Hugo to be similar (minus the weird naming conventions).

I got advised to read Master and Margherita, but I couldn’t get over the first dizen pages, but maybe it does it for you.

Eq0,

I know nothing of Turganev, honestly. I have read The Idiot and felt it was a little “less” than usual Dostoyevski, but I can highly recommend White Nights, a collection of short stories. I usually think of Dostoyevski as shining in long descriptions, but in White Nights he goes the other way and etches scenes with a minimal amount of details and still hitting the nail on the head. Notes from the Underground doesn’t have a good translation in my mother tongue, so I did not read it yet. Now that my English knowledge is good enough, I could look for a good English translation, but there are just too many books to read… what to read next is always a tough choice.

Eq0,

I’ll look forward to your comments, positive and negative!

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