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PaperclipPerfector  8d ago (text post)   1741 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for February 28, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I'm 4 episodes into Pantheon, and I think it's really good. It's not a real spoiler to say that it's about a girl whose dad (a programmer) died of a terminal illness a few years back, but it turns out that his 'failed' mind upload did in fact work.

What I found particularly hilarious was the clear Ambani-analogue in the form of a particularly unscrupulous telecom billionaire from India who owns a massive personal skyscraper with a helipad next to slums in Mumbai. Yeah, there are so many people who fit that description. I'm surprised he didn't get it banned outright in India, given how many distribution channels the real Reliance owns.

That being said, it's obvious that this was a product of a pre-GPT age. We've made minimal progress in mind uploading any organism, even nematodes. We've got connectomes, but that's like having an LLM with parameters but no weights. It seems clear to me that it'll be entirely artificial AGI unlocking human mind uploads, and not the other way around. Still a good watch, and I've only heard good things about the second season.

Pantheon is the rare show that is actually smart, not Hollywood smart - where clever people are not wizards but merely people with a greater degree of intelligence than the average bear. This extends to the uploaded intelligences as well - they are powerful, but still bound by hard limits like computational bandwidth.

One thing I love the show for most is that it asks the hard questions. Where as most shows would stop short of depicting or even discussing the implications of such a technology, Pantheon lets it play out, to the hilt. It's concerned with big ideas and real questions, and how the characters, companies and governments respond and react to that technology. Of course it got crickets.

I'm glad we got an ending, at least.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=7RYyMd6pjzI&t=46

How to open a doughball into a phyllo sheet ... it is always a pleasure to watch skilled person work.

I have a silly rant that's 10 years out of date...

You know how, in Game of Thrones, everyone is so scared of the Dothraki? Why? The Dothraki have no ships, no armor, no siege weapons, no ranged weapons except small bows, no heavy infantry... nothing. They can't stay organized, and they're economy consists entirely of horses. They live only in the dry empty plains where noone else wants to live. When they tried to attack one of the cities, they got wrecked by just a small group of Unsullied. They're basically just bandits who sprung up after the collapse of the Valyrians. Posers.

On the hand there's Braavos. Now there's something to be scared of! Supposedly just a city, but they were strong enough to defy the Valyrians at the peak of their power. They've got a bank with more money than all the seven kingdoms of Westeros, and enough manpower to send mercenaries that will easily (supposedly) overpower all of the seven kingdoms' armies. They cannot be attacked, because their island is protected by an invincible fleet of high technology. Man-for-man, they're also the best fighters, with Arya's Braavos"dancing teacher" easily taking down a large group of attackers with just a wooden sword. And their economy is so advanced that, unlike apparently everyone else in the world, they eschew slavery and won't touch it no matter how profitable it is.

Then of course there's the faceless men. This crazy magical death-cult who can kill anyone, anywhere. The only catch is that the fee is so high that noone in Westeros can afford it. But that won't stop the Braavosi, because they're so rich! Don't you dare get on the wrong side of a Braavosi, they have at least 5 different ways they can kill you.

In the end, the icewalkers were just stupid zombies, and the dragons weren't so tough- you can just shoot them down with a big ranged weapon. Even the Iron Islanders with their shitty economy of "we do not sew" managed to figure it out. The Braavosi definitely would have. But how the hell do you stop the Braavosi? The rest of the world should be working together, building a big coalition against them, much more afraid of them than some stupid slow zombies from beyond the wall.

Dothraki are feared for the same reason that similar nomads wrecked Eurasia from the taming of horses up to 19th century. Mounted warriors are very powerful both with bow and melee weapons and in nomadic tribal social structure almost every man can take on that role if needed.

Braavos is clearly modeled on Italian merchant republics, specifically Venice and to a lesser extent Genoa. I would recommend Roger Crowley's "City of Fortune: How Venice Won and Lost a Naval Empire" to see many problems that rich navally dominant city with mercenary military can have in maintaining its dominance. In short enemies can build fleet too, you are reliant on your trade partners and it's not always easy to translate your wealth into military power.

The Mongols did have armor, siege weapons and ranged weapons though.

Dothraki are feared for the same reason that similar nomads wrecked Eurasia from the taming of horses up to 19th century.

You mean up to the 14th century? Tamerlane was the last successful nomadic conqueror.

Yeah that was typo, but I meant to write 18th century mostly relating to Dzungars and some other lesser scale nomadic activity. I think while Tamerlane truly was the last one to really "wreck" Eurasia singlehandedly, nomads as a whole still did enormous damage all around for a long time afterwards. Crimean khanate for example was still at large and commencing massive raids for much of 18th century.

Well sure, I do get that Dothraki are based on the Mongols while Braavos is based on Venice. But the way its portrayed in the books and especially the show is... not great. ACOUP has a whole series about the Dothraki: https://acoup.blog/2020/12/04/collections-that-dothraki-horde-part-i-barbarian-couture/ saying that "The complex patterns of a war-shirt becomes a simple vest (which then becomes a collection of crude leather belly-straps that have more in common with bondage gear than with clothing." I can't recall a single scene from the shows of them using a bow. They certainly never use gunpowder or siege engines like the mongols did. mostly they use whips which just... LOL.

Venice seems cool but, like you said they were limited in their power. Braavos seems to have unlimited weath and mercenary manpower in addition to technology and actual magic.

90% sure they use bows in the loot train attack

You're right, they do use bows occasionally. But so what, everyone else has bows too.

Yeah obviously they are flanderized version of the real life cultures, but I don't think that authentic clothing matters that much. They do commonly use bows in the books. And while ACOUP has pedantic in its name it's still too nitpicky, not to mention ideologically captured to be a good source of critique. Like can you imagine there is no description of Dothraki art and music, that means that Martin is racist and/or ignorant, not that it just isn't very interesting thing to focus on.

I recommend every book and movie in my reviews. I remember a lady who would post weekly reviews here, which is also why I intermittently leave them here too. I recommend all the things here very much.

  • Book review - Masters of Doom

My second memorable FPS experience was Doom. 2007 or 8, I was in third grade, my school would organize a carnival on the large green pastures of its premises and all the stalls were run by students and teachers of a respective class (every grade had multiple sections, which I am referring to as a class here). My older cousin was in town, I won this cd with the title Doom 2 and we went back home and fired up the pirated game inside of a 700 mb cd. It fucked me up and I never went back to the game ever again after a few weeks but with some luck I also encountered wolfesntein 3d, previous flaghsip game by id software and got to experience the changes fps saw as a genre at an appropriate age where I could stil enjoy them

The book is about two Johns, Carmack, the ace craftsman who cares about solving problems more than he does about breathing and Romero, the ultimate gamer rockstar of the 90s, whose rags to riches stories oversaw him single-handedly play a part in shaping two genres. The book is extremely easy to read and it's just an account of how these two met, what they did together, their feud and ends with both being cordial with each other again. Carmack became too focused and judgemental to see how Romero was important, and Romero got too big of an ego to see how things were leaving him behind. Both Romero and Carmack express regret over what they did, both wish that they could stick together in various podcast appearances.

Carmack is a bonafide legend, and programmers hail him as a paragon of virtue for good reason. Here is a guy who would bang out code with full intensity till his brain shut down for 12 hours a day (not including bathroom breaks), bench 250, do judo and inhabit the focus one associates with a craftsman. Carmack not being distracted by porn playing in the background or with topless strippers delivering him pizza are impressive exmaples of how he was wierd. Romero on the other hand understood games. For all his criticisms, his work post quake was far better than Carmack in terms of impact as he fought his way to get Deus Ex released under his new banner.

I recommend the book to everyone, when I read, I hated Carmack a lot by the end but now that I have thought about it, I cannot blame either of them for much here. Also, it is quite funny that a lot of stuff there was personally relatable to me since I did spend a year at my own failed startup.

  • Movie review - Kill

Kill is Indian John Wick in a train, and it does not offer anything earth-shattering. It is set in India, it has Indian actors, yet it is quite western in how it is set up. Closer to Punisher than John Wick, it is quite bleak, the love of the protagonist's life is killed off by halftime, and it is just him slaughtering people till there is no one breathing. Much like Doom, it is the criminals stuck inside a train with him rather than him stuck inside the train with a bunch of criminals. It does its action set pieces and worldbuilding fairly well for an action movie, and I recommend it since I want more people making movies that are good.

  • Movie review - The Northman

Aryan as fuck, the movie screams the word Aryan so hard that it tingles my sacred thread. Eggers does a great job with the cinematography. Northman, like LOTR, is a capsule that leaves with a sense of pride for atavistic values. Values from times that will never come back. I personally liked it a lot, I was brought into Hinduism after my agnostic beliefs due to my interactions with Curwen Ares Rolinson of aryakasha.com whose blog covers his interpretations of the similarities between Aryan cultures. Ancestor worship, especially survives very strongly within my caste and in the specific area that I am in far more than most places on Earth.

Despite what I wrote, it is still not a rosy movie like LOTR. I watched it on NYE, not thinking I would like it as much. The movie is very Indo-European.

  • Moview review - Babygirl

Halfway through the movie I was convinced that it was directed or written by a woman since no man who is not a pick-up artist can know the subtle details of female sexuality as much as this movie. Nicole Kidman is Milf of the week and gets erotically dicked down by her junior. As a recovering beta male who has spent way too much time on trying to get laid, the depictions of things up until the end were highly accurate. It is an erotic piece of film best enjoyed with a girl by your side. The ending is cucked ofc because a hypersexual chick directed it but it's still pretty good. The actors are extremely hot in the movie, Kidman, and they somehow make Banderas do well as a cuck. I could not recognise him in the movie since my image of him is that of a Spanish-speaking womanizer.

  • Miscellaneous

Spring is gonna end in Jaipur soon as Holi marks the beginning of summer. It is a few days away and polo is gonna stop soon so I won't have my weekly interaction with the outside world on Sundays anymore. Beyond that, I am reading the now habit as suggested by a mottizen here. Have a great weekend!

Gonna check out Masters of Doom. Carmack seems brilliant. I read an interview with him in some Dallas business journal (iirc) a couple of years ago. He's working on creating AGI now. His thesis is that it will take a few tens of thousands of lines of code. Not millions. I think he could be right.

Aryan as fuck, the movie screams the word Aryan so hard that it tingles my sacred thread

The Northman is ahistorical subversive garbage. I got 15 minutes into that film and it was looking pretty based and redpilled and then ^^^Anya Taylor-Joy^^^ showed up. So now we have to take a historically accurate film set in Scandinavia in the Eighth Century AD on Earth and cram an ayylmao actress into it in the name of “diversity”

—inb4 some onions boy is like “weeell ACKSHUALLY there were ayylmao minority populations living in Scandinavia back then, look at this article from ^^^Barbra Xorlon-Stygggaszzzt^^^ from the history department at ^^^University of New Mexico, Roswell^^^

I don’t care. One blurry UFO in one Viking woodcut doesn’t mean we have to take work away from human actresses and give it to ayys. This is human erasure.

True, I too was pissed of seeing a White african playing the role of a Slavic person. Imagine the horror!

What are you even saying? You don't like how she looks so she shouldn't have been cast? That's fine I think but maybe I'm parsing it wrong.

It’s an old copypasta. On 4chan /tv/ fans of Anya Taylor Joy have a running joke that she’s actually a space alien. So whenever there was a thread about the Northman, one of them would always show up and start pretending to complain that it was actually a woke DEI movie because they cast a space alien in a movie about Vikings.

Thanks for the explanation. What a weird feeling to be out of the loop. Not the first time I've been out of the loop but it's not Twitter or TikTok based which I don't follow by choice but 4chan which I know makes it sting in some way.

She do be tingling my AYYY LMAO senses doe

I second the recommendation for Masters of Doom. It is a really interesting book. I also recommend the author's similar book on GTA, called "Jacked" if memory serves.

will check out cc @Turniper

I wanted to read masters of doom since I wasted all my life knowing nothing, the story of a master craftsman and the proper use that tech felt really appealing. Video games seem dead now though compared to how they seemed 15 years ago. Not sure what changed. Game devs are some of the best craftsman you can find even today.

Have you lot found any good demos during steam next fest? There's a couple of days left so here are some demos to check out and a few toys avoid -

Void War is probably the demo I've played most so far - it's basically FTL in the 40k universe. My favourite run so far I got this thing that put out nigh endless machine slaves, so I could flood my enemies with boarding parties of the useless bastards. I can't wait for the full game to come out, but the demo already has a good chunk of content.

Stygian: Outer Gods is the first person sequel to Stygian Reign of The Old Ones, so there is no way I'm buying it (Reign of the old ones was a pretty decent crpg, but it wasn't finished) which is a pity because the demo plays pretty well. Of course the other mark against it is its a first person game set in the Cthulhu mythos, and there has never been a good one of those.

Startron is a star colony sim with a staggering amount of depth, and it's all done in ascii! It desperately needs a decent tutorial, but you can figure out how to play just by fucking around for a bit, and it's a lot of fun to fuck around in.

He is coming reminds me a lot of Loop Hero, aptly as it is also an auto-battler although you have direct control over your character. You basically run around an 8 bit map fighting monsters and grabbing loot for 3 days, then the boss attacks you and hopefully you gained enough strength to survive.

Write warz is presented as collaborative storytelling, but the gamification makes it feel more like a directionless cards against humanity - and the last thing that game needs is less direction. I assume it will evolve into a sex thing whatever the developers have planned though, since that's what happens when you let people on the internet write whatever they like.

Emberfall technically isn't part of next fest, but if you ever wanted to know if a survivors type game would work as a side scroller, it has the answer. And that answer is... I guess? Normal survivors games are about positioning yourself in time with your attacks, but it's a shit load more difficult when you can primarily only move in two directions, moving up seizes control as gravity kicks in, and moving down is just not an option.

Blood Typers is another that technically isn't in the next fest, but the demo is awesome. It's basically a mashup of those multiplayer horror games where you and your friends stumble around some haunted place killing ghosts and trying to survive and Typing of the Dead. You do everything by typing - you attack, move, manage your inventory and use consumables all by typing out words, it's great. Don't play it with zoomers though, it turns out they can't type for shit.

Also this isn't a demo, but Skald Against the Black Priory is on special at the moment and more people should play it, you can grab it for less than $10 and it is worth thrice that. Imagine an old goldbox rpg with more detailed (but equally crappy) graphics, set in a cosmic horror universe where death is often the best end a person can expect. It is brilliant.

Not a demo, but the sequel to one of my favourite survival games was released yesterday.

Card Survival Fantasy Forest currently doesn't hold a candle to its predecessor Card Survival Tropical Island. The original took a couple of years to make it to 1.0 so it not really fair to judge it by that standard. Still, there are many steps backward in terms of the quest system (meant to introduce recipes and game elements to the player) and the exploration system.

I'm sure these will be ironed out over early access and I trust the devs won't abandon the game. Unfortunately in the meantime, the Chinese playerbase are review bombing the game because it doesn't reach the quality of a full release.

Interesting, would 'book of hours but with more direction and depth' be an accurate way to describe these games? That's the impression I get. Ordinarily that style plus your effusive recommendation would be enough for me to at least try out one of these but God damn are they expensive!

Book of Hours and Cultist Simulator are different games, but there is overlap in the 'discover what happens if you combine these two cards' mechanic. There are a lot of intuitive interactions between cards. The survival drive aspect becomes very very obvious when you are new to the game, first thirst, then hunger then disease and finally mental illness.

If you'd like to try these two out, I'd start with Tropical Island. There is a free demo of the first days here on Steam. You should know if the gameplay is for you by the end of the free content.

Edit: I should say that while they seem expensive for indie games, there is so much complexity under the hood that keeps things entertaining. I've got 450 hours in Tropical Island.

I played a few.

  • Orbi Universo II: It looks like Democracy but mixed with Civ/GSG. The content in the demo was a little thin and the systems don't seem particularly balanced, tooltips could use some work, etc, but I'll probably pick up the full game when it comes out as it has some interesting ideas.
  • Icaria: Factorio + programmable bots (with a visual scripting language). I understand this is a bit of a mini-genre of its own; I haven't played any of the other program-bots-to-build-a-base games. It seemed neat, but the demo ends just as it starts to get interesting. Could be a solid foundation, so long as there's enough content in the full version.
  • Machine Mind: A cute little top-down tower defense-esque driving/shooter with customizable vehicles and resource gathering. My only concern is there doesn't seem to be much depth (no production chains) and it's rather casual. Full game will probably include a series of campaign missions that trickle out new mechanics which is not a design I'm fond of, unless it's handled well e.g., Thronefall.
  • Private Military Manager: Tactical Auto Battler: I wanted to like this more than I did. I really want someone to make "Football Manager" but with PMCs. This is not that, it seems very linear and the decisions you make are not interesting.
  • Outworld Station: I liked this a lot. Factory automation in space. Demo sadly ends just as it gets interesting, teasing you with ship-based logistics and then not letting you play with them. It's polished -- zipping around your starbase feels smooth, hauling asteroids back to your forge is satisfying, though combat is a little too trivial but could be fleshed out with e.g., more enemies, allied ships, co-op, etc. If they deliver on the mid & endgame then it could be really good.
  • Terminal One: Airport simulator, like Airport CEO & SimAirport (both reasonably fun). Terminal One is 3D, which sets it apart. Except it's utterly unfinished, so much so I couldn't evaluate it; I placed my stands in the wrong direction and couldn't figure out how to delete them (maybe I was still in tutorial mode?); would not recommend the demo, but I like management games so I will probably give it another shot when it's out in EA.

Not part of Next Fest, but recent releases I've played:

  • Microtopia: Factorio-like with robot ants. The neat thing is it inverts the logistics system you typically see in factory games: everything is delivered by your ants. Your ants also expire, so your base has to be designed around your queen, who poops out larva -- then you hatch them into workers and send them along a defined "trail" with branches based on logical conditions. They grow old and die, but you can merge and evolve your basic workers into more advanced types which resets their lifespan. So your entire factory ends up being a big loop, which is very satisfying to set up and watch in motion. It's cool, though the progression continually unlocks new features that have major implications for your base design, so if you need everything to be 'perfect' at every stage you're going to be in for a rough time.
  • Heart of the Machine: I like Arcen Games, they're always interesting but tend to fall down on the execution. HotM is more polished than I was expecting (thanks Hooded Horse?) but it's probably best described as a sort of visual-novel with a strategy/management wrapper: the actual mechanics are not challenging and mostly serve as a framework to deliver the writing, but the writing itself and some of the story branches are decent enough. I'm also a fan of the nested game loop structure where "new game+" is actually a coherent part of the design and the content updates have been hitting nonstop since the EA launch. Hard to evaluate. I wish there were more systems and less narrative but I like the theme and the concept.

If anyone browsed through the Small-Scale Question Sunday question thread a few weeks ago, I was talking about ChatGPT voice mode and how it was somewhat awkward and felt like an extension of the normal text-based chat with some text-to-speech grafted on it.

This just got released yesterday, and it's breathtaking - https://www.sesame.com/research/crossing_the_uncanny_valley_of_voice#demo

The amazement I feel now about the capabilities of this voice engine is similar to how I felt when GPT-3 first came out.

I've followed the recommendation of someone in HN to ask it to be my dungeon master and I only stopped 20 minutes later because my wife came home. I had a false start with Miles and a proper session with the female voice. Can recommend.

The voice itself is really good. The underlying model didn't strike me as particularly intelligent, but the former is obviously the point of the demonstration.

Wow, this is incredible. I've been waiting for real conversational TTS. Particularly, too, if they come through on this

We believe that advancing conversational AI should be a collaborative effort. To that end, we’re committed to open-sourcing key components of our research, enabling the community to experiment, build upon, and improve our approach. Our models will be available under an Apache 2.0 license.

A little plug for the Star Wars fan-fic Sublight Drive which somehow doesn't read like a fan-fic at all. It's just a few weeks shy of hitting chapter 100 and fully ending. You know how Ender's Game had that awesome feeling of space battles and strategy done in an interesting way? Tons of that. The main character has merely casual familiarity with the plot, and is, of all things, a separatist fleet commander just before the start of the clone wars. The quality is great.

As per @self_made_human's recommendation, I have started reading Reverend Insanity and got past the first 170-ish chapters, which is slightly less than 10% of the work.

tldr: It is a better way to fill subway rides than doomscrolling, but as the alleged gem of the xianxia, it disappointed me.

  • Smart protagonist cred: 2/5. It might be intended that Fang Yuan doesn't come off as particularly smart, but rather experienced, lucky to have achieved the heights he had once despite his disadvantage in natural talent and then lucky once more to get another chance. The protagonist begins the story with the massive advantage of 500 years of foreknowledge along with a prestige boon that boosts his progress massively on top of the information he has. He does not make glaring unforced mistakes, but that is not to the credit of the story when I have never seen him learn, but instead was told how "Fang Yuan was entirely clear on X" and "Fang Yuan was utterly calm like a still lake because of his 500 years of experience". On top of that, the "Fang Yuan transmigrated from Earth" part was criminally wasted. You isekai into medieval ages from modernity and don't even consider in your internal thoughts to invent gunpowder and kickstart the industrial evolution combined with the existing magical system? Some "Chinese scholar", he is!

  • General characterization: 4/5. Surprisingly decent. Although the author does not provide the protagonist with any sort of intellectual or ethical challenge or growth, this is compensated by surrounding him with a cast of people who are not so zero-dimensional, and the reader can observe them work towards their own interests and ambitions.

  • Narration quality: 3/5. Even if it's the fault of jank translation, the narration of Reverend Insanity is aiming for entirely different standards than those we've come to expect from Western novels. It is simplistic and repetitive to nauseation (I bet the massive length of the novel could be cut in half just by removing the redundant descriptions of Gu abilities the primary characters wield), mixes crude dialogue with profound stereotypically-Chinese epithets about the beauty of nature, jumps around from third-person omniscient narrator to some sort of weird "teaching moments" between the author and the reader, with the "morals? hehe, don't be so naive" excerpts (I couldn't tell if those were supposed to be Fang Yuan's thoughts or the author's) being especially grating. On the bright side, some of the flowery descriptions are really fitting, and the constant repetition and remindings does help the reader to remember the various characters' powers and goals.

  • Worldbuilding and magical system coolness: 5/5. I'd like to play a videogame based on this setting, perhaps something akin to Tale of Immortal. It is remarkably consistent and shows the author has given thought to how powers interact, the political interplay in the clans, how trade works etc.

It is a better way to fill subway rides than doomscrolling, but...it disappointed me.

May I suggest the Power of Ten series? It's a solid 4/5 through all 3M words I've read so far, and I assume the other 2M will be similar.

EDIT: And instead of 170 chapters, you should be able to decide by the end of chapter 7. The first four are abnormal, and the rest are typical enough to judge it on. It does improve as it goes on, but it doesn't transform into some other kind of work.

The very rough plot summary for all of the books is (no real spoilers IMO): The world runs on Pen and Paper RPG physics (closest to D&D), and the main character has been incarnated from Earth and is familiar with the system. Using their (absurdly powerful) knowledge of the system and (honestly pretty decent, but completely overshadowed) starting buff, they make their way into the world, find a terrible problem, and spoiler redacted.

It's also very much an action story in the XKCD sense.

The setting for Book 1 is very, very strongly based on Dungeons and Dragons, with only a few of the serial numbers filed off.

Book 2 is Warhammer 40k.

Book 3 is Urban Fantasy.

Book 4 is Marvel comics.

I haven't read books 5 or 6.

I enjoyed that series, but I've almost never recommended it. There is a level of autism on display that is truly mind boggling.

Book 4 was my definite favorite. Book 5 was a setting I didn't really know, but still enjoyed heavily. Book 6 I couldn't keep reading after finishing two others in a row.

I enjoyed that series, but I've almost never recommended it. There is a level of autism on display that is truly mind boggling.

Yeah, I don't foresee a second opportunity any time soon. "You wanted plot in this chapter? Nah, here's a character sheet along with how the bonuses are calculated. Isn't it awesome?" (Yes, it is)

I don't think I'll be looking for another power progression novel for a while after I'm done with Reverend Insanity. It really is like the fentanyl of books, or perhaps the Heartstopper Burger: incredibly easy to consume, but leaves me with something like post-nut depression as described by people on the internet.

as the alleged gem of the xianxia

This is clearly heresy, for there can only be one: Beware of Chicken (not least because it's a parody of the generally mindblowingly stupid genre)

Full version can be found with fairly trivial googling.

As a preface, I'm someone who has read a lot of Chinese xianxia, dozens of different stories, most for at least 500 chapters and have come to the conclusion that most English authors completely misunderstand xianxia.

Xianxia is a low brow genre, on the same level as litrpgs and light novels, but it is extremely fun to read. The issue is that most xianxia writers get paid by word, so the more they write, the more they make. In turn this has resulted in a number of common tropes that exist solely to pad the word count. Extremely easily offended young masters are the most common example. And these are also the novels most English authors read, and are inspired by.

But the issue is, those stories aren't well constructed, and if you try to create another story off of it, it will be also be built on shaky foundations. Like it's easy to poke holes in common tropes, but while you can write one book about it, it just doesn't work in the long form structure that webnovels are written in.

All in all, xianxia is a great genre, that offers something you will never find in the West, but also is hard to understand without reading enough of it/or just growing up in China.

Maybe I just heavily dislike comedies.

As much as it physically pains me, I have to upvote you despite you coming away with a tepid review so far.

170 chapters is enough to give even Xianxia a fair-shot, in my opinion.

Smart protagonist cred: 2/5. It might be intended that Fang Yuan doesn't come off as particularly smart, but rather experienced, lucky to have achieved the heights he had once despite his disadvantage in natural talent and then lucky once more to get another chance. The protagonist begins the story with the massive advantage of 500 years of foreknowledge along with a prestige boon that boosts his progress massively on top of the information he has. He does not make glaring unforced mistakes, but that is not to the credit of the story when I have never seen him learn, but instead was told how "Fang Yuan was entirely clear on X" and "Fang Yuan was utterly calm like a still lake because of his 500 years of experience". On top of that, the "Fang Yuan transmigrated from Earth" part was criminally wasted. You isekai into medieval ages from modernity and don't even consider in your internal thoughts to invent gunpowder and kickstart the industrial evolution combined with the existing magical system? Some "Chinese scholar", he is!

Unfortunately, this is the one place where I actually do have to say the cliched line: Wait a bit longer.

Eventually you will see the galaxy brain shenanigans, and FY outsmarting the competition. At the risk of mild spoilers, as time goes by, FY can rely less and less on his knowledge of future events, his actions have butterfly effects, and he's forced to figure out new solutions and use even more of his brains.

On top of that, the "Fang Yuan transmigrated from Earth" part was criminally wasted. You isekai into medieval ages from modernity and don't even consider in your internal thoughts to invent gunpowder and kickstart the industrial evolution combined with the existing magical system? Some "Chinese scholar", he is!

We don't know for a fact that he hasn't at least considered it, but in his defense I'll say that the Gu world is very unfriendly to technology. Outposts of civilization exist separated by wilderness teeming with magical beasts. Cultivating Gu provides guaranteed and easy power ups, and reduces the impetus for technological development.

FY probably couldn't manage the industrial chain necessary to use gunpowder as a mortal, and by the time he has the power to do so, why democratize things when he can get his way with his cultivation? At higher levels, as in most Xianxia settings, mundane weaponry shorts of MOABs and nukes won't make a deny against upper level Cultivators.

He reincarnated 500 years ago, so I wouldn't be surprised if most traces of his original personality and life have faded. It will become quite clear that he's changed considerably over time, but I don't want to spoil things.

And as far as I can recall, the author never claimed that he was the reincarnation of a modern Chinese scholar! All we know is that he had an extensive knowledge of classical Chinese literature and poetry, so he could well have been alive hundreds or even a thousand years before the present day.

jumps around from third-person omniscient narrator to some sort of weird "teaching moments" between the author and the reader, with the "morals?

The Legend of Gu Zhen Ren is polarizing, and I can honestly say I'm not a fan of it. But it does have relevance to the setting, both as something the denizens personally know about, and later on for reasons I won't spoil.

Thanks for giving the book a go! I do hope you continue reading further, and I think quite a few of your critiques are valid.

And as far as I can recall, the author never claimed that he was the reincarnation of a modern Chinese scholar!

At one point Fang Yuan compared something to a neon lamp. I'm pretty sure that was his own internal narration and not the author's notes. Mao was also mentioned.

The Legend of Gu Zhen Ren is polarizing, and I can honestly say I'm not a fan of it.

The parts with the mythical guy who was the progenitor of cultivators are actually pretty cool. It's the paternalistic attitude that the narrator himself adopts at other times that irks me.

At one point Fang Yuan compared something to a neon lamp. I'm pretty sure that was his own internal narration and not the author's notes. Mao was also mentioned.

I stand corrected, and I'm actively trying not to remember because I want my memory to fade so I can re-read it with pleasure.

I do think that an industrial revolution is unlikely even with determined effort, because it would undermine the powers of the Cultivators (who can get any modern amenity they want through Gu), and because the world is far too hostile to build even modern medieval trade networks.

True, but since the narration constantly explains everything, I'd expect it to at least mention why Fang Yuan can't use any knowledge from Earth other than reciting poems and vague "business acumen".

The US state of New J*rsey is infamous for (1) having sky-high property taxes and (2) being an industrial wasteland. This court opinion offers a daring synthesis of those two concepts.

Are casks of nuclear waste subject to property tax? The answer is "yes". In theory, they are just temporarily in their current locations, and will be moved to a federal storage facility soon. But, since the feds have failed to create such a facility for the past fifty years (Yucca Mountain et cetera), in practice they count as permanent fixtures (just like your home's bathtub and kitchen sink), which are part of "real property" that is subject to property tax.

In this comment, @VecGS differentiates between options B and B’ (B&rsquo ; without the space). Please note that the latter symbol actually is supposed to be B′ (B&prime ; without the space).

  • Apostrophe ' ≠ single quotation mark ‘ ’ ≠ prime ′

  • Double apostrophe " ≠ double quotation mark “ ” ≠ double prime ″

I wonder if we could solve the issue of nuclear waste by assigning them negative value, I'm pretty sure your property will depreciate in value for having a cask of radioactive waste buried under the floorboards.

Then we could have people bidding to buy them, knowing they'd save a lot of money in taxes (people are irrationally afraid of it, hence would pay much less for the land). My genius frightens me.

A very Coaseian solution! This would certainly be my starting point.

I did know there was a fancy term for it, it just didn't come up off the top of my head, thank you.

Honestly, I wish more people even considered the possibility of trying to price in externalities and let them be paid for.

This particular court opinion addresses only the concrete-and-steel casks themselves, not the plutonium-etc. waste within the casks. (See footnote 5 on page 11.) It is entirely possible that your solution will be adopted in future proceedings in this case.

The concrete-and-steel casks themselves

Shouldn't these casks also have negative value, at least he occupied ones? Even if you empty them, presumably the cask has been neutron activated and would have to be disposed of as low-level waste. Or is the value positive, because if you transfer the waste out you could reuse the cask for new waste?

I now have checked the court filings. It appears that, so far, absolutely zero mention has been made of the actual value of the casks or of the nuclear waste. The complaint alleges only that the assessed value of the entire parcel (a defunct nuclear power plant that is being decommissioned; 40 M$ for land and 70 M$ for improvements) is too high. Presumably, the parties will not start arguing over the actual value until after this court opinion regarding taxability has finished the entire appeals process.

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