yofuckreddit
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User ID: 646
yofuckreddit
4mo ago
I just finished the 4th Culture novel, "The State of the Art".
Easily the worst entry so far, and it's not close. It started with a couple of vignettes that shifted both tone and setting from the previous novels, and then the back half was back to a more typical entry.
It just wasn't interesting. Basically, yet another screed about how communism would work if it wasn't for those capitalist dirty tricks. How awful the earth would seem to an advanced, egalitarian race in a post-scarcity economy. Ian Bank's superiority complex barely shrouded through fiction. The only connection to other books was a one-character cameo.
Despite its shortness compared to the other entries, I'm frustrated because it seems like it was a waste of time. So far, the fifth book is starting off much better.
yofuckreddit
4mo ago
What stopped you? Just not your thing? I really dug almost everything I read in the compendium I read back in high school.
yofuckreddit
4mo ago
Had this happen in a personal group chat as well and had to slap it down. I've had enough.
TDS continues to be one of the most insane and embarrassing diseases to contract that I've seen in my lifetime.
yofuckreddit
4mo ago
My approach to my wife's thrillers has always been closer to yours. She's gotten laughing-annoyed enough at me guessing right through raw trope assumptions that I prefer to hold who I'm thinking in until she finishes.
Your genre requirements are pretty tight. A ton of these thrillers have women becoming investigators through necessity or interest instead of being a professional to kick things off. Have you dipped into the wider pool at all, or do you find it insufferable?
I have an upcoming multi-week sabbatical as part of one of my job benefits.
I am obsessed with bikepacking / touring, and am fairly experienced in the former. I'm also obsessed with accomplishing multiple things at a time. In particular, I love visiting Europe. I'm less interested in pushing boundaries the way most Bikepackers do by surviving through South America (friendly people but crappy food) or Africa (the same, but with less water and bike parts) or Magnolia (even less people and less bike parts).
After visiting the UK, I'm tempted to confine my trip to that island. No language barrier, Scotland is fucking amazing, and I'll have ample opportunity to stop at a hotel instead of a tent or swing by a distillery to relax. The only downside here is... I've been. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to escape my white-collar drudgery and family obligations for more than 4 days. It seems like a cop-out.
It will more likely be a collection of 1-2 other central/eastern European countries, using the train as a band-aid. I'd like to mix in 70% off-roading and 30% relaxation and tooling around urban centers. Good cycling infrastructure to support that is ++. I'm interested in Germany, Italy, and maybe dipping into the Czech Republic since I have people in each place.
The final and biggest challenge would be that I'm very comfortable being on my own for long periods of time and enjoy it. But having another person along for at least part of the journey would be an upgrade. Not many people can physically hang for the type of riding I want to do, and then fewer would be able to invest ~2 weeks of time to do it. At a minimum, I'd like to organize checkpoints where I'm meeting with someone I kinda know at a few locations.
Any opinions from the peanut gallery? Are any Euro mottziens open to grabbing a beer or training up to come along?
yofuckreddit
4mo ago
No moral framework can justify the dregs of our society incurring $350/day in costs. It's absolutely unmitigated cost disease through unions and regulatory capture.
Perhaps most importantly, the Californian prison system doesn't even give us anything for those costs. They have all the same problems with rape and overcrowding as any other US prison system, even if it's not at the same scale as the worst of them.
yofuckreddit
4mo ago
Sounds like the American built camps for former German soldiers.
Jesus, TIL. Fascinating and horrible.
yofuckreddit
4mo ago
Sounds like a feature, not a bug.
yofuckreddit
4mo ago
Truman had a small national profile but was popular in 1944 for investigating army contractor waste.
I've always considered the MI-complex's fraud and corruption one of the things they are really careful to skip over in public school. America's wars are always cleanly fought with the best in equipment, and nobody makes a killing through back alley deals!
While reading about the small arms of WWII I was reminded that all these things cost money, and there were opportunities for grift in hundreds of different ways, even in our most "Righteous" war. Most people are totally ignorant about how much money was corruptly set on fire in WWI and the civil war.
Anyway, thanks for reminding me. I found this link to read about Truman's efforts, but am wondering if you have more?
yofuckreddit
4mo ago
It's a first-person screed from the perspective of an "Alpha Male". There's very little plot, it's more poking holes in the lies we tell ourselves as a civilized society. What's meant seriously vs satirically is going to be different for everyone and that's part of what makes it interesting. Essentially bemoaning the state of the world and perhaps suggesting we should burn it all down.
It's unthinkably transgressive in 2024, but not far off from a 2008 LAN Party (Xbox, not PC). I can't imagine a woman really enjoying it, either. It's pure masculinity, toxic and otherwise.
yofuckreddit
4mo ago
I finished up Harassment Architecture the other day.
In summary, it's a book I would only have a paper copy of and only recommend to very few people that I know very intimately - since high school at a minimum.
It's plotless, written by a 20-something, and printed somewhere kind of random in SC. It's satirical, hateful, aggressive, and could be in some ways more subversive than something like The Anarchist's Cookbook. I was recommended it on Amazon I think after reading a linked blog post here (which worries me) and only saw it discussed directly here once by @Etw0.
I was reading it while on a train in Europe during pride month, which was probably the best possible situation for getting value out of it. I may expand on it this Friday, but the main themes of the book were underlined by, to borrow the author's framing, being in a land full of gluten-intolerant LGBTQIA+ cucks surrounded by meaningful architecture created hundreds of years ago.
If you're here, you may like it, though I'll stop short of recommending it as I mentioned to start. A good mix of catharsis and humor. I don't imagine a centrist moderate, much less a leftist would be able to stomach it at all.
The downside of having finished it is realizing I probably won't be able to talk to anyone about it face to face. Anyone who'd agree with parts of it may not process it as deeply, and anyone else maybe capable of doing so would be too disgusted by it to finish. So a general feeling of loneliness and frustration afterwards.
yofuckreddit
4mo ago
I can vouch, secondhand, for @pigeonburger 's point here. Most of the folks I know who powered through the jargon really enjoyed the whole series.
yofuckreddit
4mo ago
I have to agree with this. You can and should spend political capital to say "no" clearly every once in a while. But if a superior asks you to do something super stupid or wasteful, you can do it slowly or not at all. Especially if you stay busy doing useful things.
yofuckreddit
4mo ago
I doubt that the DNC are sitting around in a smoke-filled room, twirling their mustaches.
I doubt any cigars are in play, but the DNC has a history of executing conspiracies at this level far more effectively than the GOP. They own the "Debates" - whether you're talking about leaked emails lining up softballs or the rules updates this year to favor their desired outcome.
They struggle to control their idealogical upstarts in the party every once in a while, but they are in absolute lockstep with the mainstream media. Command and control here doesn't have to get everyone in a room. It's a couple texts here and there, conversations over cocktails in Manhattan, DC, and LA.
I've been wondering if they were just going to hurtle headlong into disaster, keep trying to hide Biden indefinitely, or what. I'll pick a side of the fence here and say the pressure on him to back down is going to be ENORMOUS, and he'll do so in the next few months.
Can Kamala or Harris save the election? Maybe. It has to be very difficult for anyone to look another human being in the eyes and say that Biden at this stage is worse than Trump. There is such a thing as mentally and physically unfit for office. I was filled this morning with, honestly, just pity. I've been extremely angry at Biden the past few years, but I think if you were to look at his whole career, he isn't even close to the worst politician in this country, and it feels like the dems are just riding his miserable corpse into the grave.
yofuckreddit
4mo ago
More visible than the fricking President of the United States?
...Yes.
The president's "visibility" was limited in every possible way by the leftist media apparatus. I mean, cmon - he was banned from twitter.
When CNN couldn't avoid covering him at all, they showed spliced single-digit-second clips sandwiched in between minutes of talking-head diatribes.
Fox's power as a sympathetic outlet is minimal. It's been unpalatable to anyone in the moderate space forever. Even if you agree with some of the points, it's not any better. The diatribes are far rougher around the edges - they feel simultaneously more hateful and pandering. And when you're done with those you have to sit through ads for adult diapers.
The bully pulpit became far less bully in those Unprecedented Times.
yofuckreddit
4mo ago
Oh I definitely saw the similarities and agree it felt like improv took a heavier role.
There's a chance that the characters would have gotten funnier the longer it went, I still may dig into it if I'm high and bored.
yofuckreddit
4mo ago
Update: You were right. I did 3 episodes and then bounced, just wasn't as good.
yofuckreddit
4mo ago
The disconnect here is believing that I am exclusively saying that people need to care more about cars. My post is about driving. By maintaining your car, being aware, and putting your phone down, you're at what I consider a reasonable minimum of giving a shit in a vehicular society. I know we're on this forum to discuss and, therefore, argue, but my sense of superiority is primarily reserved for the masses of swerving dentmobiles without hubcaps and trailing vape clouds.
But yeah, I still believe you're leaving many things on the table with a Prius. Efficient cars are harsh vomit comets, and nobody would accuse them of winning beauty contests. The sacrifice of fuel economy and long-term peace of mind is worth what I get in spades.
yofuckreddit
4mo ago
everyone has something which is a major component of their life, but they aren't putting conscious thought into
Everyone has that but.... should they?
For me it's my yard, which I've discussed previously. I know I should care about it but can't. It falls lower on the priority pole, but at least I still know that I'm putting myself at a disadvantage.
It's not like my life will be saved by how fast I can accelerate, or how well the steering performs under high stress
I actually think it could and I believe that mine has. You're showing a little about what I'm talking about. Braking is another aspect of performance, and the stopping distance difference between low and high-end tires is enormous. It is precisely what the layman disregards that can easily be life or death. Just check the stats on TireRack between the worst and best tires for common sizes.
The fact that not every sticky driving situation can be avoided through braking is one of the reasons I care about other aspects like acceleration and general handling.
I've been trying to find a balance between protesting too much on a Friday fun-thread and really trying to outline where y'all are wrong here. @sarker talking about a Pillow Case is still just... so wrong, so let's dive in.
First, I disagree that you can safely disregard things you do a lot. I don't care about pillowcases as much as I do cars, but I know enough to understand that a lumpy yellow-stained sack on my bedframe is going to hurt my sleep and disgust anyone else coming into my bedroom. No, you can't care about everything all the time, but you should absolutely be investing your conscious thought into the major components of your life. It really doesn't matter what it is.
There's a bit of a strawman argument going on here about caring. Caring about cars isn't just status symbolism, the sensory experience, or even how good it can be to drive. I care about how I load my dishwasher because I have to do it every day. I care about how my keyboard feels because I press it hundreds of thousands of times a year. I care about driving efficiently because catching ten red lights a week means I've spent that much less time idling at a stoplight in my life.
Second, the attitude of "Well it works for me, and it's not important" gets to the heart of my annoyance. People have collectively lost their fucking minds about dangerous cars are. They're completely desensitized to the responsibility they wield when driving it. If I don't care about my pillows, I may not get laid or wake up grumpy. If I run my tires down to the belt, I run the risk of at least making a ton of people late to work next time it rains, but also kill someone else.
Maybe many people (here and otherwise) don't care about cars but keep them well-maintained. That sounds like a purple squirrel to me, but let's say that's the case. I still believe that purchasing a vehicle with poor performance characteristics sucks. I don't get into situations where I need them often, but I once again don't understand thinking "YAGNI" when it comes to controlling your own fate on public roads. It's the same reason I have a shotgun locked in my closet and frequently train with firearms. I'm not interested in rolling the dice with police response times when it matters.
yofuckreddit
4mo ago
There's already a response below suggesting what is admittedly the most common reason for a new exhaust - crappy ricer subculture signaling. There's more to it than that:
- The default exhaust setup on a vehicle, especially in Europe, makes enormous compromises in performance to meet sound and emissions laws. Engines are better than they've ever been, and also more neutered from the factory.
- It should be reasonable to experience the machine you've purchased through more than one sense. The difference between low and high end dining is often the presentation.
My car's engine is considered one of the best ever made, but the default mufflers make it inaudible. Some people simply cut the mufflers off to overwhelm the generous soundproofing of the car, but I spent some extra money on a dedicated replacement with still-strong mufflers. I can control how much sound it makes by how I drive, because when I'm cruising on the highway or slinking out in the morning there's no need for it.
yofuckreddit
4mo ago
I think your grandma is the exception. Most of the folks I know around that age are precisely like the people whose estate sale you attended.
My grandma-in-law's house is filled with shit whose retail value is less than the diminished utility they provide her through additional surface areas for dust. The upper floor of her beautiful house isn't inhabitable because nobody has vacuumed in years. But nobody in the family has the backbone to throw it all out.
yofuckreddit
5mo ago
and most importantly, doesn't scare off the hoes
I think women may care slightly about supercars, but I think they actually care about something that is kept clean both inside and out. I would also throw out that an older, more uncommon car that's not a shade of greyscale would have some sexual market value. Plus, if she breaks up with you and sees something like it, she'll get a nice ping of remorse. If you drive a black camry there's no opportunity for long-distance, indirect emotional warfare.
I think some people just don't have the driving "gene" and that's OK, but I also suspect there are many people who do have it and don't realize it. If you haven't pushed a machine to its limits before then you won't know if you enjoy it. Even an afternoon at a high-end go-kart track can let you know if you have the bug or not.
Not every drive can be enjoyed for the same reasons. I love the utility of my minivan for long-haul interstate travel, where the compliant suspension, sliding doors, and infotainment system pay far more dividends than my sport sedan.
yofuckreddit
5mo ago
I love the way S40s look and have had a soft spot for them visually. Haven't had the pleasure of driving one.
Your feelings around maintenance and how it stacks up against your other responsibilities closely track mine.
The NYT has dropped a list of the 100 best books of the 21st Century. According to them.
I find the list to be vapid beyond words. The inclusion of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow alone, even in the upper 70s, disqualifies it from being anything except for a circlejerk of the rag. Trash like The Fifth Season cements it.
You can walk through the list and see the same themes being hammered over, and over, and over, and over. It is exactly what you'd expect from the culture war, and the percentage of books written in the last 10 years (much less the last 20) is absurdly high.
A couple years ago I collected what I think are the best hundred songs of all time. A friend's python visualization of my Spotify playlist illuminated that, despite all the deep cuts, I didn't have a single entry from before I was born. My musical blind spots are enormous, and I think most old music just fucking sucks. At least I can admit it's because I'm susceptible to the level of manufacturing that modern music goes through, along with a huge obsession with sick beats. My list is "wrong" for most people.
I can't imagine having this level of navel-gazing weakness in self-reflection. Did nobody look at this list and realize how stupid the title is? Did anyone over 25 contribute to it?
In any case as the number got higher there were at least some decent books listed that you could read without hating yourself. They're all still liberal, by default, but at least have significant redeeming qualities.
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