CanofWorms
3d ago
Different Seasons is one of King's best. If someone asked me which Stephen King book they should start with to get an idea of his style, I would recommend this one or Misery.
CanofWorms
16d ago
Interesting way of looking at it. Now with that said, don’t you think the president of Haiti or some other third world country would be an even more lethal job?
CanofWorms
17d ago
Fred Trump (Donald's father) live to 93 and Mary Trump (Donald's mother) lived to 88. Going back through the Trump family tree, many of his ancestors had higher than average lifespans. Considering Donald doesn't drink or smoke and that he walks and moves around very regularly, I find it highly doubtful that he kicks the bucket before his term is up.
CanofWorms
1mo ago
As a white man of Irish descent (in other words, very very white), growing up, I always liked darker girls more than whiter/paler girls. This was true as early on as elementary school when I was most attracted to a girl of latina descent. Even as I got older, I always felt more attracted to latina or middle eastern looking women, women who had a caramel skin, large dark eyes, and a curvy/muscular body. Don't get me wrong, I've dated and been with other types of women, but from a purely physical standpoint, it feels like my white freckly pasty skinny Irish genes are attracted to sunkissed tan curvy women.
CanofWorms
1mo ago
Does anyone know how to donate funds directly to Haitian citizens? I've been reading about all of the graft and waste for various charities donating to Haiti, and I literally just want to send individuals money. It wouldn't be much, maybe $200 a month, but I feel like even that small amount could help a family or two. Has anyone ever looked into sending money directly people in need?
CanofWorms
1mo ago
Gary Gilmore too. Subject of the (long-winded and overcooked) book The Executioner's Song.
CanofWorms
2mo ago
Cool. I can’t feel jealous of your salary now because computer science and machine learning is something I would never be able to do!
CanofWorms
2mo ago
What is your graduate degree in if you don't mind me asking?
CanofWorms
2mo ago
Awesome. Appreciate the rec. I'll check it out.
CanofWorms
2mo ago
Grid storage may not be economical without subsidies, but a ton of it is nevertheless being built in California and Texas.
CanofWorms
2mo ago
Interesting take. As a person who could also be described as clinically depressed and neurotic, I actually don't mind this part of his personality leaking into his writing. I don't mind depression or neuroticism leaking into anyone's writing so long as the writing is still entertaining or amusing. It's when you have the dull self-pitying storytelling that I get impatient and bored.
CanofWorms
2mo ago
Have you ever read A Supposedly Fun Thing I'd Never Do Again? It's vintage David Foster Wallace and is quite good.
https://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/HarpersMagazine-1996-01-0007859.pdf
CanofWorms
2mo ago
Not that I know of, but I thought there was a lot more overlap between the Motte and Astral Codex Ten than there is. I don't read much of Scott's stuff myself, but he seems to have a much larger following than The Motte does.
CanofWorms
2mo ago
I don’t have answers to most of your questions, but it’s possible he did not have a car and couldn’t use the drive thru. My guess for why he still had the gun/silencer was he wanted to keep them as a trophy. Either way, very stupid move on what was otherwise a nearly flawless assassination.
CanofWorms
2mo ago
I went to an in-person ACX meetup for the first time today. I didn't find it too awkward and actually really enjoyed the conversation. I was surprised that many of the attendees had either never heard of The Motte or only had a very passing familiarity with it.
CanofWorms
2mo ago
What’s an eight sleep mattress?
CanofWorms
3mo ago
Go on Spotify and look up beginning singing lessons and practice them in the car. 20 minutes a day and I promise you, you will see improvement.
Next step up is taking a singing class. You can usually find a 8 week program for around $300-400 and it’s a fun way to get out of the house and sing with a group.
Good luck.
CanofWorms
3mo ago
It’s not reconcilable with what happened in 2020. And that is because there was no election fraud. Those who believe there was have been duped.
CanofWorms
3mo ago
Seems like the polls were way off in Florida. Nate Silver had Republicans up by 5 - 6%, and it looks like they're going to win it by 13 points.
CanofWorms
3mo ago
Andromeda Strain is pretty boring. Crichton was just starting to figure out how to write novels with that one.
CanofWorms
4mo ago
Wish I would have read your edit. I'm not going back through that again.
CanofWorms
4mo ago
I read all of your posts on this site; I must admit I experience a bit of schadenfreude when reading your woe-is-me posts. But I'm not completely cruel. Reading your posts about living in Thailand made me feel very excited and happy for you. It sounded like you were having the time of your life over there. You put too much pressure on yourself to be successful. You hold yourself to this ideal of what you think you should be and as an outside observer it just seems so exhausting. My advice is to strongly consider going back to Thailand. Go back and continue to explore the social connections you made. Take a year; hell, take six months. It's not the end of the world or the end of your career to do it. And you might find that what you think really matters now doesn't actually matter all that much. You're a young guy, you have plenty of time to be miserable. Go back to Thailand and embrace that experience of feeling good that you so clearly had.
I know that you won't listen to this advice. But really, take a second and think about it.
CanofWorms
4mo ago
I don't know why a person would do this, but if he used his credit card to pull cash, that would be considered a "cash advance" which comes with its own set of fees and high interest rates. Only a truly desperate (or stupid) person would choose this option.
CanofWorms
5mo ago
I can’t speak authoritatively on the subject, but it seems like corruption in Haiti was simply unmatched anywhere else. That, coupled with the fact that Haiti was essentially a pariah nation from the time of the revolution (1800) until after the Civil War AND the incredible level of sovereign debt they agreed to, left Haiti an incomparably poor country.
Here is a good, quick podcast on the history of Haiti since the revolution. I recommend listening to the entire series, but this is a good, quick recap:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/4-19-the-history-of-haiti/id703889772?i=1000367035057
I have read the Dark Tower series. The first four books of the Dark Tower are awesome. Book 4, Wizard and Glass is actually my favorite Stephen King book. After book 4 though, things really fell off a cliff. SK was seriously injured in a car collision in 1999 and it feels like him coming face to face with his own mortality caused him to race to finish the series. He pushed out books 5, 6, and 7 in the span of like three years after it took him 20 years to release the first 4.
I'll never not recommend Stephen King, regardless of the book, but I'm not the biggest fan of how The Dark Tower ended up. The good news is that you can plow through those books in a couple months or less.
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