JW
I picked up a refurbed Kindle Paperwhite recently, so I’m actually reading something, other than the articles in Playboy. I took it with me on vacation and started “Leviathan Wakes”, by James S.A. Corey; book 1 of what “The Expanse” is based on. I enjoyed the series greatly, so I thought it would be fun to see how much it differs from the book. Short answer, if you go by the show’s seasons, quite a bit. None of the gubmint characters who figured prominently in the show’s early episodes have been introduced as yet. No Mars-Belt war in the show either.
But, it’s solidly enjoyable read and good for the show’s background material, as I like punishing myself with that kind of minutia.
Who knows, now that I have a Kindle just lying around, maybe I’ll finally start reading regularly again. Maybe.
jesse.in.mb
Finally finished The Last Policeman. It should’ve been an enjoyable procedural set just before the world ends, but I had too much going on to read it in a single siting and it suffered by being broken up into little bits and pieces. I’m currently working on Anne Corlett’s The Space Between the Stars because it was available in the local public library’s audiobook section and it had name recognition from io9’s review of it. It’s actually pretty enjoyable. A plague wipes out everyone but a handful of people were isolated for various reasons spread across Earth’s far-flung colonial system. The government is made up of assholes and the main character just wants to be left alone.
mexican sharpshooter
I ain’t got nothin…I’ll pick something up for next time around.
OMWC
Most of my reading time has been with such fascinating places as LinkedIn and Monster. But I did pull down an old favorite off the shelf, Charles Coulson’s Valence. One of my long-time geekeries and the thing in college that sidetracked me from an original career aim of engineering to becoming a chemist was an inordinate fascination with what holds molecules together and why they have the shape they do. This book and Pauling’s Nature of the Chemical Bond were almost fetish objects to Young Man With Candy. Did I mention I was a geek? If you were always itching to have a really lucid comparison of the molecular orbital and valence bond approaches to understanding molecular structure and dynamics, you have found Nirvana. The math level is low enough that even old and rusty guys like me can deal with it- basic differential equations and linear algebra.
Side note: Coulson was also a religious author and coined the phrase “God of the Gaps.” He was the PhD adviser to Peter Higgs of the Higgs Boson fame, and an early advocate of using science to improve food production in the Third World- I would not be surprised to find that he was an inspiration for Norman Borlaug.
SugarFree
I’m rereading The Expanse series, including all the prequels and interstitial stories. It is some really solid science fiction, something rare these days. I hope Amazon doesn’t screw the pooch with the new season.
As a side note: Another Life, on Netflix, may be the worst science fiction television of the decade. The plot is derivative–a mash-up of a few other things and done poorly, relies on the “everyone’s an asshole!” model of character development to create drama, the science is laughably bad (why in the fuck would you need to do a gravity slingshot around a sun if you have FTL drive?) and it is seemingly produced and written by people who hate science fiction.
Brett L
I went and picked up one of The Expanse novellas, this one the back-story on Amos. Had I read it before the particular book that dealt with Amos’s return to Baltimore (still a shithole, OMWC!, even in 2250) I might have liked it more. It really didn’t add much. As an aside, I binge watched the first three seasons of The Expanse. Although the character playing Amos is too young and thin, the guy playing him does a great job of capturing Amos’s core character as a nice guy who thinks kids should be protected and all other human life is completely worthless. It is a strange, friendly, dead-eyed psychopathy that the actor pretty much nails.
I also read the first book of Larry Correia’s Monster Hunter series. I give it a solid B. It breaks no new ground, the characters are fine, and the story moves along. It does kind of feel like the Koch brothers funded vision of The Laundry Files.
For business, I picked up Effective Azure DevOps, because while I’m not drinking the devops Flavor-Aid, I did just lose a senior resource, and anything I can do to standardize and automate our build and deploy process will help me deliver a more consistent product and not have to do as much rework, which I no longer have the resources to indulge in where avoidable. Like any other set of IT practices, one should always be aware that your business is not necessarily the one the authors had when they created the process.
Comments
239 responses to “What Are We Reading – August 2019”
None of the gubmint characters who figured prominently in the show’s early episodes have been introduced as yet.
But if they weren’t you wouldn’t have been listening to Shohreh Aghdashloo’s voice for a season. A terrible loss for civilization. Business idea: A series of children’s audiobooks with Shohreh Aghdashloo reading bedtime stories.
I do love listening to her curse.
Hmm, so we should start with Go the Fuck to Sleep?
I am listening to “Great Battles of the Ancient World”. The guy has an Irish or near-Irish accent, and keeps mispronouncing both ancient names and common English words. It’s “Tut-Moses” not “Tut-mo-zay”. After a previous audiobook on this history of ancient egypt, that one bugged me the most.
I am writing “On Unknown Shores” as I’ve already paid for cover art. I’m shy of 30k words so far because the day job interrupts.
I finished:
– Guy Deutscher’s “Through the Language Glass”.
– “Tom Swift and his Polar-Ray Dynasphere.”
– Matt Ridley’s “The Rational Optimist.”
I just started “Tom Swift and His Sonic Boom Trap.”
I read Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle, and I had a hard time trudging through the writing style. I don’t remember what didn’t work, but it may have been my occasional fits of apoplexy at the wildly inaccurate engineering and ignorance of basic physics.
I probably have 60% or so of the original Tom Swift series.
I collected them with my grandfather as we went around to various antique and yard sales as a kid. Fun memories.
I believe the first of the series is “Tom Swift and His Motorcycle”.
Bless my hat and spectacles!
“spectacles”
*shakes head sadly, adjusts monocle*
Oh my, I’d forgotten that!
My mom used to pick up old books at thrift stores. She picked up most of both series in what I think are original editions.
As her eyes started failing, I received a bunch of her old books including all of the Tom Swift books she had. I’m just about done reading all the ones she gave me.
Yes, the first in the series is “Tom Swift and His Motorcycle.” It was a fun read.
I believe the first of the series is “Tom Swift and His Motorcycle”.
… he said with a start.
I got started on UCS’s new book and so far I’m enjoying it a lot.
My reading over the last month has been really light. I blame all the podcasts, the nice weather, and the superb content here. Winter is coming, though.
Brett, I thought the subsequent MH books were waaaaaay better than the first. Like most authors, he gets better with practice.
I’m glad you’re enjoying it. How far along are you?
Maybe a third?
I’ll buckle down and get it done.
I’m not pressuring you, I’m just curious.
Oh, I know. I just don’t normally take more than a couple days to finish a book.
It’s been entertaining to recognize where some of your questions here ended up!
Well, if it’s not to do with something in real life, it’s typically for something I’m writing.
Or just some errant thought that bugged me.
I had the same thoughts when I read it.
Will definitely buy the sequel if UCS ever finds his writing gloves and finishes it.
Well, if I don’t find them by November, I took the first week of that month off from the day job as a writing break, and can get a new pair.
I had a room made into a library for the wife. She was organizing the books so they look pretty instead of efficiently like a public library. She made one shelf featuring UCS’s books because the cover art looked interesting. I too enjoyed the latest work and the great revolt by Todd & Zito. My one complaint was it was a collection of anecdotes.
on a whim i reread 3 foundation books. i read a lot of Asimov as a kid. as an adult it aint very good.
#ditto
Nothing now. I am finished convalescing and so I am either on my feet catching up on work or dead tired and sleeping.
just occurred to me…what is the over/ under on how many Republican Never-Trumpers actively endorse whichever raging Commie/ Fascist the Dems nominate?
All of them. They will support anyone, anyone at all, who opposes OrangeManBad.
Remember David Evan McMullin for president in 2016? He was the bipartisan-suitable third alternative to HRC and DLT. Wasn’t technically third PARTY because his entire base was invented from scratch.
bipartisan-establishment-suitable
Is there an approved list of “Republican Never-Trumpers?” Otherwise, the terms of such a hypothetical bet prima facia appears to lack sufficiently ‘bright lines’ to pay off one way or the other.
Its tautological. Never Trump means what it says – never support Trump, always support his enemies. If anyone supports Trump in 2020, they ain’t NeverTrumpers no mo.
Suthenboy: “actively endorse whichever raging Commie/ Fascist the Dems nominate”
Not whether or not they would endorse the incumbent for re-election
#Deeznuts
What’s chamois cream got to do with this?
I’m reading The Door to Saturn by Clark Ashton Smith. I’m digging it.
I didn’t think I was in the mood for a collection of short stories, but I was wrong. I hadn’t read his stuff before, and picked this one up at a discount book store. I’ll definitely be buying the rest of the series collection.
The Nightshade Books edition?
I got the whole series via subscription when they first put it together. It’s a good series.
Yup. That’s the one.
Getting the whole series is a good idea.
Since re-discovering a love of reading this year, I’ve bought a bunch of books from Amazon. It’s starting to intrude on my bourbon budget.
I’m thinking about getting a library card again.
LinkedIn and Monster
see also ZipRecruiter
I read all the time, but nothing long form any more: I’m on here and twitter and MSN and Reuters figuring out what’s going on, but I’m not moved by anything any more; I’m not dead inside, but I’m very, very unmotivated.
I already get sons and fathers, politics, bait and switch, Asian adventures, crime, punishment, war, peace. The new economy bores me; Newtonian notions are good enough approximations for 99% of everything I will see in what’s left of this life. I’m getting very “we know where this one is going” and “heard it all before.” Same with music: almost nothing since Watergate interests me.
“The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself.” Well, that is exactly correct: I can’t stay at Yale, and I can’t go home, either; I knew that was true the first time I read it; four decades on, the needle hasn’t moved.
But I’m glad others still read.
Welcome to the club.
See my profile. What I enjoy in life now most is cooking for my wife.
I’ve been making some stir fry with a spicy schezwan sauce. Shitake, portobello, and white mushrooms, baby corn, water chestnuts, zucchini, snow peas, roasted red peppers, garlic, and shrimp. Made it last night for dinner and wife ask for it again today.
I’m with you two. I seldom read for pleasure any more. It seems like I’ve run out of plots after so many books. Thousands and thousands of books. I still read every night as a sleep aid but my trips to the library have dwindled to nothing.
I’ve found Glassdoor and Indeed more useful.
Too much IT stuff, I didn’t get a single useful lead from them in over a month of following. Hey guys, I DON’T DO CRM OR IT.
Well, not with that attitude.
How much to change your mind about CRM?
more Dick Francis novels… up to the 80s material. I noticed – with many authors – that books in this time period got longer and longer. Some of my favorite writers – Donald Hamilton, for example – wrote crisp ~60k novellas. But even his work in the 80s got bloated; as if the publishers were asking for thicker tomes. I blame Stephen King.
Oh and I read James M. McPherson – Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam which is a good overview of the battle and the politics, both national and international, that surrounded it.
The riddle that is McClellan – so much success as a civilian but a timid leader in war.
He was good at logistics, not a lead from the front kind of General. Great guy to have as your second in command but his overweening pride sunk him.
Continuing to re-read long-ago favorites.
I have a First Edition copy of The Treasury of Science Fiction Classics from 1954. Large collections of excerpts, novellas and short stories such as “The Time Machine”, “Edison Conquers The Martians”, even a tale of cometary destruction from E. A. Poe.
On my phone I’m flying through the original Tarzan series, deep into the fourth book.
Since it’s been too hot to work lately I’ve just been reading. I’ll read a chapter in the Classics, then read a chapter in Tarzan, then see if there are new posts up on the Glibertarians, then start over again.
I just started on UCS’s Beyond the Edge of the Map, and so far I like it a lot.
I’m glad.
How far along have you gotten?
Not very far, started just last night and fell asleep, but looking forward to getting back to it this afternoon when I’m less drowsy.
Ok.
I’ll get back to working on the sequel after I get out of the day job. Dug’s in [Redacted] with [Redacted] and [Redacted] trying to [Redacted].
*begins impatient foot tapping*
Wife read a couple of his works and enjoyed. She said it isn’t exactly her genre but she did finish them. She said his writing style is good.
I’m taking a break from reading my Kant book and I’m looking at hosting a campaign with for a table-top role playing game called Call of Cthulhu with some friends. I got about 12-13 bits of Lovecraft I’ll be rereading to get my mindset/mood ready and since the campaign is themed on a journey of the Orient Express during the Roaring 20s, I’ll be reading some stuff on the train car layouts/designs, the mood/makeup of the other travelers, and gun laws in Post-WW1 Europe.
NERD!
j/k That’s really cool.
Read some Arthur Machen if you can as well. He was one of Lovecraft’s primary influences, and since most of his fiction was based in Europe instead of New England, it may help get the setting down correctly.
“Horror on the Orient Express”? I bought that adventure set for Call of Cthulhu but never ran it. I still have it somewhere around here.
The Rape of Nanking – a biased account where, even if only 10% of it is true, looks really fucking bad for the Japanese of WWII and of recent history. Good read, but I’d like to find a more dispassionate source to weigh in.
1776 – Good read, learned a lot that wasn’t covered in primary school. As a man of faith, I saw quite a bit of Providence in the occurrences of 1776.
UCS’s Tarnished Sterling series – a well-crafted mix of light airiness and emotional depth that had me buying each new rendition immediately after finishing the predecessor.
Gettysburg: Voices from the Front – I’m not sure what I expected out of this, but I got a play in audiobook form. I’m guessing this was firsthand source material from diaries and the like, but it was over acted and hard to follow.
Black Rednecks and White Liberals by Thomas Sowell – it put to word a lot of concepts that I had subconsciously noticed. Do I like it because it confirms my biases or because Sowell hit it out of the park yet again? I don’t know, but I do recommend reading the boom.
Craig Alanson’s Armageddon – The series is quickly losing steam, but I’m giving it one last chance. After spending the first 15% of the book sitting in space dock, I about gave it up. Now, about a quarter of the way through, some actual interesting plot hooks emerge. Why couldn’t this have happened 40 pages ago?
Rape of Nanking was one of the most mentally taxing books I’ve ever read and Chang’s personal story is tragic, too. A few years later I read Mao, The Unknown Story and had similar reactions.
Oops.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao:_The_Unknown_Story
I like “Black Rednecks and White Liberals”.
I’m actually re-reading Cato’s Letters.
You should do an article…
Might could.
Lol
Just finished: Normandy ’44: D-Day and the Epic 77-Day Battle for France by James Holland. Very good.
Working my way through the Percy Jackson books with my 9yo, they’re not bad.
I’m about 2/3 of the way through the audiobook of Fall: or, Dodge in Hell by Neal Stephenson. He needs an editor. I considered bailing somewhere around the middle where it started turning into Stephenson’s version of The Silmarillion, but he seems to be past that now, so I’ll probably force myself to slog the rest of the way through it.
I binged on his books a few years ago. The dude does not understand denouement. He’s an autist chasing the next swirly thing.
I thought I’ve finished the Dresden Files series then realized I missed one. Halfway through Blood Rites. Ian Banks’ Consider Phlebas is on deck.
Consider Phlebas is good, but… when he gets to the island, I recommend skipping ahead to where he leaves the island.
Ian Banks’ Consider Phlebas is on deck.
Excellent pick.
Just finished Cold, Dark Ground. Not a fan of genre fiction but it was very good for what it was. It was also free.
You are about to experience the literary equivalent of missing a gear while shifting.
Banks’ Consider Phlebas was the first of his sci-fi stuff I ever read over 30 years ago, and it blew my mind. I’ve read all of his sci-fi and liked most everything, but could never get into his contemporary fiction. I’m sorry the guy died the way he did — messy, ugly end to an interesting mind and life.
Same here, but it’s so different from the Dresden Files that it might as well be a different language.
Blood Rites is #6 of.. 19 or so. They’re all fun reads but going back to before Winter knighthood and other significant developments would be tough for me.
Finished – Jack Higgins’ Rain on the Dead
Brad Thor – Backlash
In Process – The Daily Stoic, Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
Deep Work, Cal Newport
Writing a Novel with Scrivener, David Hewson
Reading The Law, still fitting for today. Going to give it to my 13 y/o to read as well.
After that on to Mitch Stokes: How to Be an Atheist (Why Many Skeptics Aren’t Skeptical Enough). It is being gone through on Cave to the Cross Apologetics podcast.
How to be an atheist? Mind your own business and don’t be a bother to others about their beliefs, forget the supernatural and go about living your life?
There it is in one sentence. Someone wrote a whole book about it? Huh.
I read a book about hedonism once and it was just railing against the Catholic Church. To be fair I think the dude had a bad experience in the church, but I didn’t buy a book titled “why I hate the Catholic Church”.
Gonna do a terrible overview job here, bear with me.
It’s when you try to come up with the meaning of life through physics and science as some atheists are prone to do. Those fields of study aren’t meant for such things but people over estimate what science can tell them and put to much faith in science.
Atheism, whatever it once was, has morphed into a religion with the same ‘my religion is holier than yours’ type of mentality that a lot of religions seem prone to.
I was an atheist for a while. I think a lot of people become atheists because they’re mad at someone they associate with religion, or because they want to be edgy, or they went to Catholic school. That last one is not me being facetious, by the way, I know several atheists who’ve told me it was their experience with religion via Catholic school that convinced them it was all bad.
For my part I just wasn’t convinced in anything, had no faith, and wasn’t interested. Just deciding to believe something wasn’t working for me, and no religions really spoke to me. My mind has since changed on the topic, but that’s beside the point.
I consider myself agnostic. Because I really do freaking love science. IOW, no one knows. I can say ‘I never saw this invisible sky god’, so he doesn’t exist and never has existed. But that does not pass the test. Just because I haven’t seen something is not proof that it doesn’t exist. So some people can say ‘I never saw this god, doesn’t exist’ and some people can say ‘I just know this god exists, because reasons’. And they would both be wrong, dishonest, or just doing what people do and believe what they want to, facts in existence, or not. The universe is too old and too vast for us to know much of anything of what is to be known. We don’t know jackshit.
When I was an atheist it was because my outlook was that I didn’t want to “believe” in anything, I wanted to know, and if a thing can’t be known then it’s irrelevant. So, if there’s a God, then prove it to me. Until I see proof, I will operate under the assumption that God doesn’t exist. Not that God can’t exist, just that God doesn’t exist. For the same reason that I don’t “believe” there’s an ax murderer in the next room, or that the house is on fire. Either there is or it is, in which case I don’t need to believe because I can just see and act accordingly, or there isn’t or it isn’t, in which case belief would be stupid.
My outlook changed when the more I considered life, the universe, matter, time, etc., the more I started thinking to myself, “It would be kind of strange if there wasn’t a God, or something beyond what we can observe and measure.” Like the details and the finer points might be wrong, but if there’s something else going on in a metaphysical sense then, to a certain extent, knowing the details isn’t as important as trying to find the details. The journey is the destination, type of thing.
That makes sense, and I think you’re a lot like me and that you ponder things and consider what might be. It’s a great mystery. Like I said, so much to know, so little we do know as of now. Right now we have a collective of luddites and progledytes trying to take us back to the dark ages, but hopefully we survive it and continue on the journey of discovery.
or they went to Catholic school. That last one is not me being facetious, by the way, I know several atheists who’ve told me it was their experience with religion via Catholic school that convinced them it was all bad.
Like me.
I think that’s mostly confined to the younger cohort. People that are pushing back. I’ve found that as I get older that I don’t give two shit-stained dimes about other peoples’ beliefs so long as they don’t conflict with my freedom.
“I don’t give two shit-stained dimes about other peoples’ beliefs so long as they don’t conflict with my freedom.”
So what you’re saying, basically, is that you’re libertarian or libertarian like.
Why yes. Yes I am. Omifuckingod I’m a Libertarian! *plans coming out party for family and non-existent friends*
Don’t forget the dancing naked fat guys.
But that would be me!
Passes the colloidal silver syrup to Festus
How do you carry around your change?
^ already mentioned above.
I don’t give two shit-stained dimes about other peoples’ beliefs so long as they don’t conflict with my freedom.
I can definitely see that coming for somebody coming from an agnostic view. When I was agnostic, I was more or less the same way. Live and let live, as long as you leave me out of it. Some of that mentality has stuck around as I became religious (again).
However, as I’ve written in articles here, my mentality shifted after becoming religious. Instead of “live and let live”, which implies an acceptance (or at least a disaffected ambivalence) of things that I find wrong, I frame it in terms of authority, effectiveness, and greater evil versus lesser evil.
I don’t think that government has the authority to impose individual morals on folks. I also don’t think that browbeating people into submitting to a religion saves their souls. Personally, I hope that everybody accepts the gift of salvation, but I think that God is pretty dang respectful of free will, and I’m not convinced that He approves of more heavy handed approaches from mere mortals. In other words, I’m a MYOFB libertarian, not a live and let live libertarian.
I forgot that I’m still reading Snow Crash, because playing Rebel Galaxy Outlaw. Blowing up stuff and explosions in space is fun.
“A silent flash filled the viewscreen, while out the window, a tiny, distant speck of light briefly flared, then was gone.” /Explosion in space.
My ship not only hauls garbage, it is garbage.
And I doubt getting much reading in soon, with Rebel Galaxy Outlaw, and Greedfall releasing in about a week, my free time is sunk for a while.
I also need to rebuild my grill, needs new burners, new grates, new igniter, etc. It still works, but it’s sort of on it’s deathbed until rebuild.
Still haven’t read Snow Crash. It’s been awhile, maybe I should give Stephenson one more kick at the cat.
Just got back from vacation, so I haven’t read much lately.
Tried to keep up with this site, but there is so much great content so that proved impossible. I am currently a week behind.
For the fans of Uhtred, son of Uhtred, there is another Saxon Tales book coming in November, so I am starting a rereading of those books.
Heh. Read them all up until about two years ago.
Reading? Code, Database queries and the results they return, an testcases. No time for anything more
Listening to – Tim Pool, Sargon, and The Quartering as well as a fair amount of Viking Folk, Celtic Folk, and Filk music along with a band I have no idea how to describe, something between Bluegrass, Outlaw Country, and Rock called The Dead South
Here’s a sample of their stuff
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKSu7RT2wN0
If I had a dollar for every line of T-SQL code I wrote in the last week… 4 SSRS reports… That’s not counting all the app coding. I’m so freaking glad to be out of there for 4 days, I was really starting to hate all my co-workers, clients, etc. Not that they did anything wrong, sometimes you just need a break.
SSRS sucks. You should hate everyone involved with that. The people who designed it, the people in your organization who picked it, the people who want the reports, the people who sit near you. Its all their fault.
I like it, after I got used to it. Took quite a while after making the switch from Crystal Reports.
I will cut off my arm, or more likely murder my boss, rather than ever be a “reports guy” again. But yes, it was a step up from CR. Which is a lot like saying getting kicked in the dick is less painful than sticking it in a blender.
Be careful with The Dead South.
I heard them here and kind of liked them, the wfe and I got hooked on their YouTube videos, and now I have both of their CD’s and we are going to see them live in January.
My wife keeps saying”shouldn’t we be tired of this by now?”, but so far the answer is no.
Saw them live last year, they were fantastic. Sound perfect and bring even more energy than the album. Band called the Hooten Hallers opened for them and were just as good.
yeah I’m kind of insulated from it because apparently everyone in my house hates them 🙁
Say it ain’t so Joe!
This summer I read Dear Reader, The New Right by Michael Malice, A Renegade History of the United States by Thaddeus Russell, Counter-Economics by SEK3. For a change of pace, I decided to try my first sci-fi novel. So I chose The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. With school starting this week, I don’t plan to read much over the next few months. The next book I plan to read will be Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist by Alexander Berkman.
Exactly what Tulpa would read.
The moon is a harsh mistress was the first heinlein book I read and I think the most accessible. At least I don’t remember too much incest.
SF found me a digital copy of it, almost impossible to find. I love that one.
I think it was the first I read too. It is excellent. I don’t remember any incest, but there are group marriages.
Sorry for OT but going back to my bear story from the previous thread, Bruin the Seed Stealer left a zig-zag pattern across the street when he absconded with the bag. Wifey got a photo but I won’t be able to upload it until tonight (if I can figure out how).
I mean…
Inoright?
Does this narrator sound too clueless?
The stars around “Lugnerstrom” is a notation to check the spelling of the name. It appears in other stories, and I need to make sure it’s consistant.
What are you concerned that the narrator is overlooking?
When I was writing it, I got the impression the scene had him more or less looking up and going “Wait, am I on a battlefield?”
We were actually planning to fight them.
The impression I got from this was “oh shit, this is real, not training”.
I see where you’re coming from.
This is supposed to be the opener of a story where the civil war in Zanthas is more of a backdrop than the primary focus. Though getting stuck in between warlords does cause problems for the narrator.
At any rate, you convinced me to be interested in what comes next.
In this case, a battle scene.
I have to establish the baseline of Ewald’s combat ability. He’s not supposed to be a ‘tear through the enemy ranks like a titan’ kind of protagonist. (That’s Kord and Kord the Younger.) However fun that can be sometimes.
That didn’t jar me at all. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of foot soldiers in those kinds of armies, especially the “impressed” non-professionals, were kept totally in the dark and had no clue that a battle was in the offing until very late in the game.
Noted.
I appreciate the willingness of people here to provide this sort of feedback on sometimes random seeming snippets. – thank you.
Another thought: a lot of armies in more or less feudal societies had uniforms based on who their lord was (to the extent they had uniforms at all), not who the king was, so a given army would have uniforms all over the map. Seeing a bunch of guys dressed differently than your guys wouldn’t necessarily, or even often, mean “enemy”. Could just be some other baron’s guys who are on your side (this time).
The inspiration for Zanthas draws a lot on elements from the pre-islamic Near East, with some more fantasy embellishments.
This particular set of enemy combatants are actually mercenaries, but the narrator hasn’t seen them before.
And a lot of levies are lacking ‘uniforms’ of any sort save perhaps banners.
So “Huh, who are those guys” would be a natural reaction, with “Oh, shit, we’re all gonna die” coming rather later being quite plausible.
uniforms all over the map
+1 Irish Tigers
I’d go so far as to speculate that the CSA was fairly split twixt gray and butternut
Second this. I get the impression that the narrator is “some guy” who has found himself in a place he doesn’t know with people he doesn’t know about do do something he doesn’t know how to do or why (other than “they’ll kill me if I don’t”).
Kind of Arthur Dent with less cowardice.
In the 1st few sentences: “almost immediately…almost immediately”
I wanted to read the Jack Reacher novels because, hey, they made a movie about it. Had to be a good book, right? Wow, what a load of crap. The fetish of a shotgun killing everything in a 10 swath was just too ridiculous. I will read no more of this trash.
So, he doesn’t know how shotguns work.
It may be a pet peeve of mine, but I was encouraged to abandon a work because the author used the terms ‘rifle’ and ‘shotgun’ interchangably. It was a last straw situation, because the narrator was so unlikable, I couldn’t keep going.
For context, the narrator’s paternal figure died due to NHS incompetence (Okay, cancer, but they were in the UK) and bequeathed the narrator a distillery they’d owned for a decade. For that time, said narrator has shown no interest in the business, focusing on their journalmalism career. When the first employee of the place she bothered to speak to expresses misgivings about her ability to run the place, before even asking why there were misgivings she ‘shuts down the mysogyny’ and flounces off. Note, said narrator has zero experience with distilling, business management, or even just drinking. I tried to hope that the author was going to have the narrator learn a lesson about jumping to conclusions about other people’s motivations. But from the tone, it kept looking less probable.
So, yeah, I couldn’t finish that book.
That was longer than I expected, sorry Poodle.
That’s like using “dog” and “cat” interchangeably. It’s not just inaccurate, it’s incredibly confusing.
How big are Jack Reacher’s hands?
Man, that good. Got lost in the comments.
“How much do you work out?”
“I don’t,” he said. “It’s genetic.” Which it was. Puberty had brought him many things unbidden, including height and weight and an extreme mesomorph physique, with a six-pack like a cobbled city street, and a chest like a suit of NFL armor, and biceps like basketballs, and subcutaneous fat like a Kleenex tissue. He had never messed with any of it. No diets. No weights. No gym time. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, was his attitude.”
It’s a funny thread, but christ does the guy who started it look like an insufferable asshole.
So is Jack Reacher this generation’s Mack Bolan?
Fun fact: The actor who plays Amos, Wes Chatman, is married to the beautiful and very fitJenn Brown. I am also a fan of the show, and I am very glad legendary cocksman Jeff Bezos is bringing it back.
I finally got around to read Norm MacDonald’s “Based on a True Story.” I’m a norm mark so I course I like it.
Reading:
– The Bible (still) (NKJV) : I’m at Isaiah. It’s interesting to start seeing references to a messiah alongside mentions of the Assyrians curbstomping Israel for not listening to God.
– The Quick and The Dead by Pavel Tsatsouline: It’s an exercise book. I already do a few routines from other books he’s written, and I’m using the routine he outlines here for the days in between heavier lifting. The general idea is quick sets of explosive movements with lengthy rests between. He incorporates some variation by randomizing how many sets and how the sets are broken down, but the longest session winds up at 100 reps in 20 minutes, and the shortest is 20 reps in 8 minutes. It’s a nice break from slow, heavy lifts, and even after two weeks I’ve noticed improvement in lifting and endurance.
– Deadhouse Gates, Steven Erikson: Continues in the fine tradition of the first book in the Malazan series, which is to say it throws a bunch of characters, locations, and events at you with whackadoo names and not much context and you hopefully figure it out as you go, but somehow remains compelling enough to stick with. Not much to say about it other than it’s grimdark fantasy.
– The Civil War: A Narrative: Volume 1: Fort Sumter to Perryville, Shelby Foote: It’s easy to see how this series established Foote as a pre-eminent historical author. His style is conversational without losing focus or detail and he presents the events of the war with a genuine appreciation for the humanity of all involved. It’s an even-handed, at some times almost generous treatment of the players.
Listening to:
– Hardcore History: Blueprint for Armageddon, Dan Carlin: WWI. If you’re familiar with Hardcore History, it’s pretty typical, although at six separate episodes it might be his magnum opus. I think the appeal for me is that it’s just listening to a history nerd talk about history. He wanders off track at times but the digressions are usually pretty interesting in their own right. Typical of my experience with other series of his I’m always finding something new and interesting I didn’t know about, or hearing some new analysis that had never occurred to me.
“Reading:
– The Bible (still) (NKJV) ”
6 times for me, last time I was in my 20s. A couple of those books are very difficult to get through, Deuteronomy and Leviticus if I recall, sort of like having 12 hours of root canal with no anesthetic while having a foot itch that you can’t scratch.
But I still find Revelations the most interesting one. Any modern scifi writer would have a hard time topping that.
I’m quite the fan of Job (the biblical one, not the Heinlein throwaway about washing dishes). Yahweh really comes across as a major dick, but anti-heroes can be fun. There’s some great poetry which even the idiot translators couldn’t fuck up.
Didn’t he wind up getting a daughter out of all that suffering? Gee thanks, I went through all that for my faith and now you’re giving me a teenage daughter who has my credit card and my car.
Yeah, those were rough. Honestly, it’s the pages and pages of who’s related to who that kill me dead. Don’t get me wrong, the detailed specifications for a suitable tabernacle are literary Unisom, too.
Person who never gets mentioned again begat another person who never gets mentioned again begat another person who never gets mentioned again…
They were going to get their own show but then some patriarch got cancelled that season.
I read that and was like all “Aww, where were my begats?”
Shelby Foote
He was a sweet little old man (I was not his first wife, of course) whose daily exercise consisted of walking around the park and past my office. He weighed maybe 120 pounds and entirely disappeared in his gray sweat suit which he wore 300 days a year. He huffed and puffed and shuffled and couldn’t run as fast as most men walk.
But he was kind. His number was in the phone book, and, if you passed the sniff test, he would answer questions and chat for a polite minute even if a total stranger called.
Mr Foote quoted these apt lines often: “For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two oclock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it’s all in the balance, it hasn’t happened yet, it hasn’t even begun yet, it not only hasn’t begun yet but there is stll time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armstead and Wilcox look grave yet it’s going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn’t need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think This time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose and all this much to gain: Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the golden dome of Washington itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the cast made two years ago….” -William Faulkner, Intruder in the Dust
Foote is easy to read because he wasn’t a historian by trade, he was a novelist.
Just finished Civil War 1 by Foote – on to Vol 2!
Alistair MacLean Where Eagles Dare ****, You’ve seen the movie it’s pretty much that, In fact believe this was the first time he wrote the screenplay first and then turned it into a novel.
Stuart MacBride All That’s Dead *** Stu may have flogged this horse one to many time, still very well written put the characters and stories are starting to feel forced and a bit repetitve.
Various authors Happy Birthday Cards ***** Just ton and tons of birthday cards from my many, many friends and admirers.
Not a book, well is, but wife and I recently watched John Carter again. I love that film, John Carter of Mars, heh.
I finished my binge on Discworld a few years ago. I have been unable to get interested in any other author since then.
I’ve finished a few of Neal Stephenson’s books, but don’t feel compelled to go find them all.
That, and I now have too many hobbies, so I don’t really set aside any time for reading. I need to fix that.
This is a good hit of comedy in the line of Pratchett.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34431692-kill-the-farm-boy
Oh, and since we’re talking about books, I’ll take this opportunity to promote this:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32451736-the-secret-of-ventriloquism
It’s horror. Boy howdy is it horror. I think it’s the best horror I’ve read in twenty years.
The only thing I’ve read close to horror, and it wasn’t really horror at all, just by horror authors, is Clive Barker and Stephen King stuff, but only the fantasy stuff. I really can’t get into horror, too morbid for me.
OT: A story many of you gun nuts with sooooo much ammunition will find outrageous, and a Tweet threat sharing that outrage.
Linking is hard. The story is in the Tweet thread! Also, never have kids – they will rat on you.
“Inert grenades”
Oh, you mean a fucking paperweight?
NBC sucks.
that’s to be expected.
2,000 ROUNDS AND 39 GUNZZZZOMG!!!!!!!!!!11111111111
they pull this shit on depressed 72-year old men now and we become desensitized. in a few years it’ll creep to pulling this shit on regular folk.
I was explaining to one of our fainting-couch squishy libs that 1,000 rounds of ammo isn’t really that much at all. Basically, I walked them through the math on a session at the range. Shooting a handgun with a 10 round magazine, with deliberate aimed fire, you’ll easily empty two magazines in a minute. Reloading two mags shouldn’t take more than another minute or so, so call it 300 rounds an hour. Conservatively.
Now, if someone says they are going to burn 1,000 rounds at the range this week or month, and to the uninformed they sound like some kind of gun nut with full auto and a thing that is absolutely going up. Break it down, and it gets to sound pretty meh.
1,000 is usually my minimum purchase quantity.
Red flags you and red flags you, and red flags you.
I generally buy 2 cases of practice rounds at a time from SG Ammo.
Defensive rounds I will buy less than a case at a time.
Of course, you get free shipping when ordering by the case.
I drive to the range, sign in, hang targets, fire 20 rounds through the Sig, change targets, fire 100 rounds through the CZ (changing targets as necessary depending on the drill), pick up my casings, sign out and drive home.
Elapsed time: under one hour.
Rockwellautomation literature for the past week or so. I’m trying to figure out how to get all the firmware revisions from a loop of about 20 VFDs uploaded and stored in the Cpu so that when one fails, the CPU will automatically put the correct firmware in the new VFD without I having to be manually changed.
Also, Rockwell software engineers can all go die in a fire for making it this complicated in the first place.
RSLogix?
What fails so often that it’s worth all this trouble?
We have had trouble with Powerflex 755 drives. In the area where I’m doing this, there is about 20 drives connected to a controllogix processor on an ethernet network. In the past year or so, we have had a half dozen failures. A couple of times it was due to fires that burned up the motor wiring and the when it shorted together it took out the power transistors. The other few times, the drive failed with no identifiable cause.
For a drive to run on the ethernet network, the replacement has to be an exact match with the file in the processor. Generally, the replacement drives will have a newer firmware revision on them than the old being replaced. That means I either have to make an offline change to the PLC program and then redownload the whole thing, or I have to go get the correct firmware for the drive and manually upload it directly into the drive before putting it in the network.
Either way, it’s a pain in the ass and time consuming. There is also a limited number of people who actually know how to do this. I have had to drive my happy ass to the plant in the middle of the night on my off day more than once to fix this kind of problem.
middle of the night
Like the debt thread here, I get it but have given up on managing the future. Somehow my best-laid plans never quite worked out. Said another way: I end up going in anyway because some little thing didn’t work out, and seems like it’s my Saturday burned over some 5% detail.
I’ve made the loop from NotKnowing >>>> Knowing >>>> KnowingAndTrying >>>> KnowingAndNotWorryingAboutItAnymore
This is very similar to my loop with HR and the required Annual Professional Improvement Plans: ObeyingAndAchieving >>>> WillGetPromotedBeforeItMatters >>>> BossWillBeGoneBeforeItMatters >>> CompanyWillCancelFundingBeforeItMatters >>>> It’sNotLikeThey’reGivingRaisesAnymore
If everything I write seems pessimistic, sour, and jaundiced, you got me, baby!
They must have trained with the Garmin guys.
They always feel like somebody’s watching them.
My Allen-Bradly engineer was the biggest guy I have ever met. He had to be over 400 lbs. He broke every chair he sat on when he came to help me with something. He had to duck his head and shimmy through a standard 36″ door frame.
He knew his shit through.
Coming up on fall. Might have to re-read some Tolkien and Lovecraft. The Fellowship is perfect for a crisp, September day.
I keep thinking I’m going to read some Mencken, he grew up right down the road here from where I live.
Huh-Lol!
From The Fatherland With Love by the Other Murakami.
I’m reading into all your souls right now.
And it’s….
Shocklingly wholesome.
Who knew?
The muppet IS ceiling cat!
Yeah, we just play degenerates on the internet. Mostly.
Speak for yourself!
That’s why he fell asleep.
Almost forgot. Burned through Lucifer’s Hammer by Niven/Pournelle. Fun read that still holds up after the years.
Really dug Inferno when I was wee.
That’s a good one.
Ah, Larry Niven. His Known Space stuff played a big role in my childhood sci-fi fetish.
OT: I’m deciding whether it makes sense to Refi my student loans and what kind of loan to get.
I refi’d once a couple years ago to a 7 year hybrid loan.. 5 years fixed at 4.7%, 2 years variable. Now, 2 years later, we’re looking at another 24 to 28 months until it’s completely paid off at the pace we’re paying.
I just did a rate estimate and I can get 3.53% fixed for 5 years and 2.53% variable for 5 years. Given that we’re committed to pay this loan off in the next ~2 years, is the variable rate worth it? Refi’ing to the fixed rate shaves a month and $2000 off of our repayment. Refi’ing to the variable rate shaves off another few hundred dollars but doesn’t improve the payoff time from the fixed rate loan.
I’m not a big fan of a variable rate loan, but for such a short period of time, I’m not sure if the reward outweighs the risk.
I think the risk of rates going up very much at all in the next couple of years is low.
That said, I personally would go with the new fixed rate just so I don’t have to worry about it. I have never in my life gotten a variable rate loan.
you could run the spreadsheet on when the breakeven is and then ask yourself what are the odds that you’ll still be carrying the debt at that point
I think every mortgage I’ve had has been 15 year fixed. I’ve never bought a house with the intention of only being in it a relatively short time, so in my mind its always been “carry this loan until its paid off”. With that mindset, the risk that a variable rate would run on me and force me to refi or pay more interest just wasn’t one I wanted to have.
Six years into my current mortgage, the interest payments are getting really small, and the principal paydown is pretty sweet. If I wasn’t committed to funding a retirement tax shelter, I could probably pay it off in less than two years.
Payoff dates are around12 days apart. We’re paying ~$4500/month on this loan, and the differential is $1777 between the fixed rate and the variable rate.
I think I’m gonna eat the $1700 and go with the sure thing.
other thing I forgot
there’s probably a ceiling on the adjustment: 2% per year or something like that, so you still would have some certainty on the variable
Aren’t mortgage rates at an all time low right now? I hope they stay low since we’re looking to buy.
Pretty close. No way would I take a variable rate mortgage – the interest rate is only going to go up from here.
“No way would I take a variable rate mortgage”
Same. No way, never.
ugh: wasn’t done
but I don’t do variables either, but, then again, I don’t do debt except for mortgages
I’ve arm-wrestled with guys here before about debt, but this example is interesting in another way because there’s the question of forecasting: it’s one thing to know what your obligations will be in the future and say that you accept them (and are therefore happy with the debt) and another to say that you know what your cashflow will be in those same days. So I’ll say it again: even at zero percent, just because someone can carry that car note today doesn’t mean that their employer will even be open in four years.
So I’ll say it again: even at zero percent, just because someone can carry that car note today doesn’t mean that their employer will even be open in four years.
Ding ding.
Debt is leverage. Leverage is risk. And the main risk for all debt, personal or corporate, is that revenue won’t be able to support it.
One of our major competitors, a large national hospital chain, is going down right now because they are overleveraged. We are circling their local hospital like a starving buzzard. If they don’t sell it to cover debt payments, we’ll buy it out of their bankruptcy.
Any transactional charges? What’s the fixed cost of getting into it? I don’t know who student loans work (thank the dear fluffy lord), but every other loan I’ve worked with has some sort of cost associated with refinancing. If its going to cost you $800 to do it, is it really worth a month and $1200 plus whatever time you spend executing? Don’t overoptimize is all I’m saying.
Last student loan Refi I did didn’t cost a penny, and supposedly this one would have a $0 origination fee, too.
Just vote for Bernie and you wont have to worry about it.
Aren’t all the dems giving away free
collegeeverything? And no one has to pay for it.Don’t gamble
Gambling is bad
Go with the fixed rate
With your financial health never count on luck
I keep thinking I’m going to read some Mencken
Do it.
I keep saying I will, and then I don’t, mostly because gaming instead.
“Pot, ass sex, and Mencken”
Recently re-read “The Hot Zone” and “Economics in One Lesson”. Currently in between books, so just reading the latest issue of Firearms News.
Oh, I also recently read “In 50 Years, We’ll All Be Chicks” by Adam Carolla. It was very funny.
I would say looking at the guys on college campuses these days, it won’t be 50 years, but it won’t exactly be chicks either, more like feminized androgynous with scruffy neck beard.
I’m reading Elements of Accounting and Principles of Marketing.
*fashions a noose out of a bedsheet for no particular purpose*
MikeS must have dirt on the Clintons.
UR WASISSSSS
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/08/the_character_assassination_of_amy_wax_and_her_response_.html
she’s a full-throated defender of Western Culture so obviously i’m biased but damn i like her.
SCIENCE!
https://www.sciencealert.com/some-of-the-world-s-most-cited-scientists-have-a-secret-that-s-just-been-exposed
My self-citations are about 10% of the total. 25% or more is pretty high, but could occur naturally in a field that has a small number of researchers.
As much as I continue to think that battery cars are bullshit, I’d MUCH rather own a Porsche than a shitty Tesla.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/transportation/efficiency/porsche-claims-it-can-double-teslas-fastcharging-rate
Oh fuck off!
Goddammit, I’m blind now because my eyes rolled out of my head.
Fuck. Off. Again.
I still don’t understand how this is possible. The speeds they’re talking about require batteries with virtually zero internal resistance, or using much higher voltages than the cells’ nominal value to recharge, which just dramatically heats the battery pack and shortens the cells’ lives. Who the Hell wants to replace 20 grand worth of cells every couple of years (or even less time)?
Can’t afford a personal vehicle once I.C.E.s are outlawed?
Feature, not bug.
Just because we both own Teslas does not mean we’re friends.
As much as I continue to think that battery cars are bullshit,
For certain applications, I think current gen is actually fine. For example, daily commutes and in-town errands would pose no problem, and that’s about all we use my car for.
Except, and this is the rub, of course, longer trips. I wouldn’t even attempt to go to Phoenix and back in one day with an electric car, much less actual cross-country driving. But, for a two-car household, you could have another car for that. But that’s the main thing keeps them from displacing I.C.E, and will until there is a serious breakthrough in battery technology.
The other challenge is really starting to show – you have to do a complete battery swap every so many years (I think its around 8?). As cars approach this expensive propositions (call it $10K), their resale value tanks and the owner is in a real bind – suck up a big maintenance bill, or dump the car for pennies.
Hrm, my toxic waste dump is 10-15 years and only $3500.
But it’s a hybrid rather than corded.
The Last Policeman sounds cool, I’d never heard of it before.
Just finished reading a Conan omnibus. It had been years since I ready any R.E. Howard, and it really struck me this time how visual his writing was, almost cinematic in quality. Damn shame he offed himself before reaching his full potential.
Just started Blood Meridian. First Cormac McCarthy book for me. Not nearly as violent as I was expecting so far, but I suppose that’s coming later.
Yes.
Well, they might as well shut Twitter down. I think we have reached the theoretical maximum for Twitter trolling. “Galactic-level trolling” is just . . . inadequate.