Finished Anathem by Neal Stephenson, my first Stephenson read since dropping out halfway through the Baroque cycle. Set in another world suspiciously analogous to our own except that most intellectuals live in cloistered atheist monasteries, with a gimmick where different subgroups only communicate with the outside world every 1/10/100/1000 years. Conceptually it's basically (concept spoilers)
The book combines fun world-building at the start with gripping thriller action towards the end, enough that I got through the 900+ pages in a week despite a sagging middle devoted to lectures on a tired mix of real and fake/pop science (quantum computers don't work like that!).
Published in 2008 it already feels a bit dated, especially the parts expressing a Bush-era fear and disdain of ~Protestant fundamentalists. Still I really enjoyed it overall and unlike Stephenson's earlier works it even features a proper denouement.
Incanto
1yr ago
It may not have hard power, but to the extent that it influences the thinking of people who do, that seems like an important kind of soft power.
Incanto
1yr ago
If centralisation and dependence was the goal they would ban at-home solar instead of (sometimes) subsidising it.
I've seen them in Chinese junk shops. The one I bought exploded the glass off the connector (in one piece at least...) pretty quickly though.
Just finished The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro, a classic novel about an overly reserved* English butler and his tsundere housekeeper failing to fall in love in the 20s and 30s. Also appeasement. Well written and overall enjoyable. Since the story plays out as a kind of soft tragedy I was surprised that the very ending is cute and a bit optimistic.
*bordering on autistic in the 4chan sense of the word.
Incanto
1yr ago
I think he meant 'modifications' not 'moderators', when speaking of paid game mods - there's been some controversy around attempts at that.
The Less Wrong sequence on Fake Beliefs goes into detail on this topic (the focus is more on religious belief but I think it's basically the same concept).
Incanto
1yr ago
Have almost finished that myself. Some really beautiful writing and occasional interesting philosophy, maybe a tad repetitive at times.
Incanto
1yr ago
I think you're underestimating how many unique possible combinations of words there are.
Incanto
1yr ago
n(.[i1l].)g+(.e.)r
RIP Nigerians. But good point about bubbles vs mainstream.
I think the middle path here is to wait to see if OP's friend is actually serious about not going out anymore or was just expressing their feelings in the moment.
Incanto
2yr ago
If your main goal is Rimworld performance, AMD's 5800x3D CPU is going to be the best value you can buy (or the 7800x3D when it comes out next year) because its huge cache makes a big difference (up to 40%) for complex sim games with lots of entities.
Incanto
2yr ago
I'd guess it's not just about confidence/commitment but also preventing downright scams. Theranos-style fake businesses would be a lot more common if it was easy to cash out before the fraud gets uncovered.
Incanto
2yr ago
US is suggesting that it probably wasn't Russian (https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1592700234295119877) which would presumably mean a Ukrainian miss-fire.
Incanto
2yr ago
Risk-averse people usually aren't the ones getting this rich in the first place.
Also, trying to diversify out of your own company looks bad to investors and risks a crash by itself.
Incanto
2yr ago
He gambled with his customer's funds without asking or telling them, which is big time fraud.
That cat already seems well out of the bag with widespread postal voting.
In other Musk-Twitter news, these tweets give the impression that Musk is quickly backing off any idea of actual free speech in favour of kowtowing to the usual left wing orgs. I guess we'll see how tokenistic vs. serious this is.
Incanto
2yr ago
Most people here seem to want the show to fail, and I haven't even bothered watching it myself, but is there any strong evidence that it's underperforming expectations to a significant degree?
What's up with the apparent Israeli attack on Iranian military facilities? Surely that's an act of war? Any chance of retaliation/escalation?
More options
Context Copy link