And if this kind of thing excites you, just wait for his tin-eared dialogue, to say nothing of his disquisitions on women ("Now, no one who's had any degree of intelligent seasoning doubts that thick women are the highest life-form"). I'm sure I could say more, but I DNFed after two chapters.
This book had starred reviews from Kirkus, PW, and Booklist.
Now hold on, lets hear the man out...
Is De La Pava just railing against a straw-man of the apparently universally attractive anorexic model, or composing a sonnet to those women who's material substrate extends beyond the mortal three you and I might recognise? Those rare individuals whose information packed densities both briefly illuminate those sparcer's lives with the feint glow of an extra-dimensional event horizon, the brief hint of escaping hawking radiation glimpsed across a crowded room, and yet inevitably plunge us all into shadow with their passing? Leaving us leaves dancing in the undertow of a whale diving into a hypercubic ocean.
I just got Absolution, the 4th book in the Southern Reach trilogy. I know that series was popular here, but I haven't seen anyone talk about this one yet.
I've only just started, so I can't say whether it's good or not, but dang I love how he writes. He's got such a strong style, I'm a dozen pages in and it just feels good.
Finished Black Sun, by Rebecca Roanhorse. Sometimes I really do not understand how books end up on the Hugo nominee list. This book has a neat enough precolumbian fantasy setting and plot concept, but it's more fantasy and less culturally specific or interesting. The writing is really very bad. It's 450 pages and needs to be like 200; it's written in a particular close 3rd person that is perhaps inspired by light reads of various types, so you get a lot of (superficial, repetitive) emotions without interesting thoughts, psychology, or descriptions. Everyone comes out about the same personalitywise, they're all reasonably plucky but scared when things are scary. There are a lot of very long scenes in which nothing much happens (e.g., walking through the city) and the descriptions are not all that interesting either, and the sentences on a word by word level are often kind of unpleasant and awkward to read.
A few of the action scenes are decent, and the romance plot is also pretty good; I liked it once it got going. Although even then, the pacing is off and a lot of beats are repeated too many times. The scenes of the crow guy's violent and tragic past are also pretty good.
It's possible the author wanted to write a romance instead of a fantasy epic with political intrigue; or rather, it's possible the author ought to have written a romance, but she wanted to write a trilogy instead. The book ends on a cliffhanger and nothing much is resolved (how, after 450 pages....) and I will certainly not be reading the next one to see what happens.
What kind of person forget a stage in KSP? The correct mistake is to have all the stages together, in a single stage. Including things that should not be staged.
The correct mistake is to have all the stages, but fire them in the wrong order.
I just got Absolution, the 4th book in the Southern Reach trilogy. I know that series was popular here, but I haven't seen anyone talk about this one yet.
I've only just started, so I can't say whether it's good or not, but dang I love how he writes. He's got such a strong style, I'm a dozen pages in and it just feels good.
I mentioned it's coming the day before it's release but didn't see anyone else had picked it up. I had the benefit of finishing the trilogy about two weeks before it came out so the earlier books were fresh on my mind. It was so nice to have more of something I thought was over.
It takes the weirdness from 10 to 11. Enjoy.
I'm kind of bummed that the Annihilation movie we got is so far divorced from its source. Southern Reach would have made a great series, real s1 of True Detective vibes.
Quetzi on
The dictum that truth always triumphs over persecution is one of the pleasant falsehoods which men repeat after one another till they pass into commonplaces, but which all experience refutes.
-John Stuart Mill
Good to hear from members of two awesome defunct tech/death bands, Spawn of Possession and Decrepit Birth (actually not sure if they are defunct). They've got a new band, coming in a couple months, sounds great!
I do really like the Annihilation movie, and I'd love a long-form adaptation. But it is a great work of adaptation and I'm not sure that a "true to the page" version would have worked half as well
Adaptations that stray from the source material are fine as long as they're successful in their own right and Annihilation managed that. I dunno if faithful screen adaptations of the Southern Reach trilogy would even work.
I many ways I prefer adaptations that take books on that way. Faithful adaptations can end in stultifying bores that add nothing to the original work except unconvincing effects and uninspired acting. Stephen King wouldn't shut up about getting a more faithful adaptation to the screen for years and when it arrived it was boring af. Kubrick's film is the definitive screen adaptation even if it's not the most faithful.
I think she's a producer. She's always saying she makes them eat terrible things
...could you ask her to stop?
...
Me today:
<reads title of new power hour: "Every Oreo"> NOOOOOOOO!
I know they film them way in advance. Still not happy.
Quetzi on
"Let's take a look at the scores! The girls are at the square root of Pi, while the boys are still at a crudely drawn picture of a duck. Clearly, it's anybody's game!"
+1
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
edited April 15
An amazing realization I had last game session, working my way through Garbage.
Stalker 2 Garbage is, with a bit of massaging, Stalker 1 Garbage + Dark Valley (plus padded out). It suddenly struck me when you go to visit
Varan and his kingpin "not at all a bandit" camp
is exactly the Factory compound at the north end of Stalker 1 Dark Valley.
Like, the sense memory when it hit me was so strong, I immediately stared at the map for a minute, then at my surroundings, and suddenly knew and felt exactly where I was standing in the world.
I've literally never had that kind of experience in a game before. Goddamn what a rush.
I'm contemplating wrapping my entire basement in foamboard before I start work on finishing some rooms down there. I want a storage room that's not just wide open to basement stuff.
I also kind of want to build a small exercise room and server room downstairs as well.
I feel like foamboard + framing is the way to go for this.
I glued up XPS foamboard and then did framing and batt insulation and it is quite comfy down there now
It's been delayed. The announcement will be at the game awards (12th december) and Infested Liches have been delayed until 2025.
Quetzi on
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
As for the date, hopefully it's going to be a "and you can play it RIGHT NOW" announcement on the 12th.
The next week would raise serious concerns, because DE goes on extended holiday after that, and after what happened with Railjack nobody is eager to recreate it.
Amazon has an HF96 thermal camera from HSFTools for $130 for Prime members. Which can make it $130 or $145 if you need to get a month of Prime. For the price, it works and is very neat, although less useful outdoors or from long distances. I couldnt resist the opportunity to stare at things in Predator vision. Although the rainbow pallete is probably the least useful option on the thing.
It arrived this weekend, coincidentally on a day when my furnace decided to crap out when it was 5 °F / -15 °C outside. So I did get to test it by watching my basement temperatures slowly creep to freezing and then keep going down in some places. The HVAC call said it was a dirty pressure sensing tube preventing it from lighting.
My strategic purchase of space heaters months ago seems to have paid off but we'll see what my electric charges look like.
I've got that one in black and it is an extremely nice coat. I went for black because I aimed for more of the DMC 5 look and it makes the coat a little less obvious so I can use it for other things. I've got a few things from Volante and they're all incredible. I wish I could justify more but I don't have a real job and when I'm home I never go anywhere fancy.
I've got that one in black and it is an extremely nice coat. I went for black because I aimed for more of the DMC 5 look and it makes the coat a little less obvious so I can use it for other things. I've got a few things from Volante and they're all incredible. I wish I could justify more but I don't have a real job and when I'm home I never go anywhere fancy.
I still have their original Dante inspired one, i think it was called Demon Hunter, in red. Had it about 10 years now and still looks great. Very much worth the money. Unfortunately almost all of their newer stuff features some sort of asymmetry and i can't stand that in my clothes at all. Every time they drop a new vest or whatever i go look and they look awesome except for the asymmetry.
Hawks on the verge of a 4-game winning streak after Cavs-Cavs-Hornets Ws and now up 11 heading into the fourth against the 4-17 Pelicans.
I am sure we will find an interesting way to still lose the game but the two Wizards losses make less and less sense as the season goes on. I guess its all part of the joy of rooting for a Trae Young led team.
I sprung for League Pass this year since I figured my hometown Hawks would be awful. A little bummed it's so hard to watch them locally but I have been LOVING having League Pass.
Hawks always seem to be a wild card kinda team. They get their ass beat as expected but then go off on stretches (or even a single game) where they beat an opponent clearly better than them. Pretty amusing.
In other news, the Celtics 3 point attempt numbers never cease to amaze me. They took 55 3s against the Heat, with FOUR guys attempting 11-12 3s. FOUR! Insane times we are living.
Speaking of heaters, our current situation is all-electric. Which is exactly what I want for most days, but does leave me wanting an option for if the power goes out that isn't "run away to a hotel".
We are *way* more insulated than I thought before we moved in, which I suppose would help, but only for so long.
There was a run on Ecoflow and Jackery power banks for BF (and the fanboy debates that followed). Rough numbers based on what I saw: you could outfit (during that period) a whole home battery backup for about $5k US and then pay to get it connected.
We grabbed an Ecoflow pack with connections on it so we could specifically plug in a fridge or other equipment.
I just got Absolution, the 4th book in the Southern Reach trilogy. I know that series was popular here, but I haven't seen anyone talk about this one yet.
I've only just started, so I can't say whether it's good or not, but dang I love how he writes. He's got such a strong style, I'm a dozen pages in and it just feels good.
I mentioned it's coming the day before it's release but didn't see anyone else had picked it up. I had the benefit of finishing the trilogy about two weeks before it came out so the earlier books were fresh on my mind. It was so nice to have more of something I thought was over.
It takes the weirdness from 10 to 11. Enjoy.
I'm kind of bummed that the Annihilation movie we got is so far divorced from its source. Southern Reach would have made a great series, real s1 of True Detective vibes.
I just got the first book from the library, I figured I’d do a reread of the series before jumping into the new one.
Quetzi on
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
Our garage is (mostly) insulated but we weren't able to get a heater in there before winter hit. This is a bit of a problem as there's a combo fridge freezer and it doesn't like it when the temp drops below freezing let alone into the single digits ℉
So my solution was to find an electric space heater that's rated for about the size of the garage with multiple safety features, that's programmable with multiple different wattage settings and timers, and can sit on a bare patch of concrete just in case.
My roommate's solution was to buy a 68000 BTU propane jet heater that has lots of features like a high, medium, and low setting. Ok, so three features.
at our Thanksgiving potluck I made a bunch of different sauces in little bottles for the fried rice I brought. One of our friends is very much into extreme spice, so I made her a special sauce with all the spicy stuff I could find blended together. Chili crisp, sambal, gochujang, sriracha, chili bean paste, plus a little vinegar and soy sauce to tie it together.
An update on my thanksgiving weekend warframe progress:
I'm still super behind (the last time I played I did the quest that unlocked your '5' ability, to give you an idea of where I'm catching up from).
I found a finished Octavia and Limbo in my foundry, and I have mastered both of them. Octavia is very fun, but I need more manachord songs because I have already gotten all 3 of the ones I've created stuck in my head. Limbo was a little less fun to play as it's a pretty complex ability set, but I managed to master it inside of 20 minutes or so because of the missions I took it to and the free affinity booster from the devstream.
I had most of the parts for some other frames, so between side quests, relic cracking, and some trading I have started cooking Atlas, Inaros prime, Octavia prime, Saryn, Saryn prime, Wukong, and Xaku prime.
I did the warframe quests for Atlas, Mirage, Protea, and Sevagoth, and I also did something for Koumei. I'm building Atlas now, and I have the Mirage blueprints but I don't have any more Argon crystals left. I don't think I have the part bps for Protea yet, and Sevagoth I already had in my inbox from a twitch thing.
I did the main story quests for railjack, harrow, excalibur umbra, and the new war prolog, but I still have several more main quests to do (as well as a few more warframe quests, and some important sounding side quests like the Duviri one).
Doing the harrow and excal quests made me realize that I really need to do something about my '5' ability, but I haven't gotten any of the focus points to spend and I don't seem to be earning any, and the equipment mastery level for my amp is very low and doesn't seem to go up either (unless I use it I guess, but it's so underwhelming it's hard to find a time where it makes sense to use it right now). I have some lenses that are supposed to help convert excess affinity into focus, but I can't actually use them.
That's probably the next area I really need to focus on, but it seems like a pain and I also don't know what to do for it, so I put that on the back burner and instead fell down a rabbit hole breeding new pets, and I'm working on an all mutagen/antigen panzer vulpaphyla and pharo predacyte.
The current thermia fracture event made me realize I'm still only part way through to getting my vandal from that, but man that sure is a badly designed system. I found two groups working on it in the open world, but both ended prematurely because someone else not working on the fracture left for fortuna without leaving the squad.
Found a puddle of water under our water heater this morning. So that's fun. The water heater is from 2009 so I guess it's time to replace. Those with tankless heaters, do you feel it was worth the extra upfront cost? What's the delay like when you open a faucet for hot water to start flowing?
You sure it's not just the relief valve on the heater doing its job? Or maybe the valve needs replaced
do simaris' sanctuary onslaught missions with gear with focus lenses on it and go as long as you feel like it's easy, you get a focus orb automatically at the start of each round and it doing the mission involves mostly annihilating things as fast as they spawn with a very high spawn rate so you get tons of affinity and thus focus from them. Elite sanctuary onslaught even more than normal, if you have good guns. Pretty easy to cap out your focus gains for the day in a few runs of ESO.
e: oh, and to clarify, focus lenses are the main way you gain focus, especially in sanctuary onslaught, if you don't have them you should farm a few up for the school you want to raise. The higher tier lenses also increase the gains a lot. You also gain a bit of focus without lenses whenever you pick up one of those yellow orbs, and a decent amount of focus for each thrax type enemy your group kills in the circuit mode in duviri.
Posts
Now hold on, lets hear the man out...
Is De La Pava just railing against a straw-man of the apparently universally attractive anorexic model, or composing a sonnet to those women who's material substrate extends beyond the mortal three you and I might recognise? Those rare individuals whose information packed densities both briefly illuminate those sparcer's lives with the feint glow of an extra-dimensional event horizon, the brief hint of escaping hawking radiation glimpsed across a crowded room, and yet inevitably plunge us all into shadow with their passing? Leaving us leaves dancing in the undertow of a whale diving into a hypercubic ocean.
How thick are we talking?
I've only just started, so I can't say whether it's good or not, but dang I love how he writes. He's got such a strong style, I'm a dozen pages in and it just feels good.
A few of the action scenes are decent, and the romance plot is also pretty good; I liked it once it got going. Although even then, the pacing is off and a lot of beats are repeated too many times. The scenes of the crow guy's violent and tragic past are also pretty good.
It's possible the author wanted to write a romance instead of a fantasy epic with political intrigue; or rather, it's possible the author ought to have written a romance, but she wanted to write a trilogy instead. The book ends on a cliffhanger and nothing much is resolved (how, after 450 pages....) and I will certainly not be reading the next one to see what happens.
The correct mistake is to have all the stages, but fire them in the wrong order.
I mentioned it's coming the day before it's release but didn't see anyone else had picked it up. I had the benefit of finishing the trilogy about two weeks before it came out so the earlier books were fresh on my mind. It was so nice to have more of something I thought was over.
It takes the weirdness from 10 to 11. Enjoy.
I'm kind of bummed that the Annihilation movie we got is so far divorced from its source. Southern Reach would have made a great series, real s1 of True Detective vibes.
-John Stuart Mill
This band fuckin' rules, holy shit.
Also really enjoyed this.
I many ways I prefer adaptations that take books on that way. Faithful adaptations can end in stultifying bores that add nothing to the original work except unconvincing effects and uninspired acting. Stephen King wouldn't shut up about getting a more faithful adaptation to the screen for years and when it arrived it was boring af. Kubrick's film is the definitive screen adaptation even if it's not the most faithful.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
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ARISE
CHILE
GUILE
Me today:
<reads title of new power hour: "Every Oreo"> NOOOOOOOO!
Stalker 2 Garbage is, with a bit of massaging, Stalker 1 Garbage + Dark Valley (plus padded out). It suddenly struck me when you go to visit
Like, the sense memory when it hit me was so strong, I immediately stared at the map for a minute, then at my surroundings, and suddenly knew and felt exactly where I was standing in the world.
I've literally never had that kind of experience in a game before. Goddamn what a rush.
I glued up XPS foamboard and then did framing and batt insulation and it is quite comfy down there now
That’s how it works right
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Isn't that just the Technocyte Coda fights?
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Correct.
PSN: ShogunGunshow
Origin: ShogunGunshow
The next week would raise serious concerns, because DE goes on extended holiday after that, and after what happened with Railjack nobody is eager to recreate it.
PSN: ShogunGunshow
Origin: ShogunGunshow
It arrived this weekend, coincidentally on a day when my furnace decided to crap out when it was 5 °F / -15 °C outside. So I did get to test it by watching my basement temperatures slowly creep to freezing and then keep going down in some places. The HVAC call said it was a dirty pressure sensing tube preventing it from lighting.
My strategic purchase of space heaters months ago seems to have paid off but we'll see what my electric charges look like.
I've got that one in black and it is an extremely nice coat. I went for black because I aimed for more of the DMC 5 look and it makes the coat a little less obvious so I can use it for other things. I've got a few things from Volante and they're all incredible. I wish I could justify more but I don't have a real job and when I'm home I never go anywhere fancy.
I still have their original Dante inspired one, i think it was called Demon Hunter, in red. Had it about 10 years now and still looks great. Very much worth the money. Unfortunately almost all of their newer stuff features some sort of asymmetry and i can't stand that in my clothes at all. Every time they drop a new vest or whatever i go look and they look awesome except for the asymmetry.
PSN:Furlion
Hawks always seem to be a wild card kinda team. They get their ass beat as expected but then go off on stretches (or even a single game) where they beat an opponent clearly better than them. Pretty amusing.
In other news, the Celtics 3 point attempt numbers never cease to amaze me. They took 55 3s against the Heat, with FOUR guys attempting 11-12 3s. FOUR! Insane times we are living.
Will produce jam
There was a run on Ecoflow and Jackery power banks for BF (and the fanboy debates that followed). Rough numbers based on what I saw: you could outfit (during that period) a whole home battery backup for about $5k US and then pay to get it connected.
We grabbed an Ecoflow pack with connections on it so we could specifically plug in a fridge or other equipment.
Another option is obviously a generator.
I just got the first book from the library, I figured I’d do a reread of the series before jumping into the new one.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
That sounds like a good way to get CO poisoning
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SALON
STACK
SHAKY
I couldn't handle it, but she loved it.
I'm still super behind (the last time I played I did the quest that unlocked your '5' ability, to give you an idea of where I'm catching up from).
I found a finished Octavia and Limbo in my foundry, and I have mastered both of them. Octavia is very fun, but I need more manachord songs because I have already gotten all 3 of the ones I've created stuck in my head. Limbo was a little less fun to play as it's a pretty complex ability set, but I managed to master it inside of 20 minutes or so because of the missions I took it to and the free affinity booster from the devstream.
I had most of the parts for some other frames, so between side quests, relic cracking, and some trading I have started cooking Atlas, Inaros prime, Octavia prime, Saryn, Saryn prime, Wukong, and Xaku prime.
I did the warframe quests for Atlas, Mirage, Protea, and Sevagoth, and I also did something for Koumei. I'm building Atlas now, and I have the Mirage blueprints but I don't have any more Argon crystals left. I don't think I have the part bps for Protea yet, and Sevagoth I already had in my inbox from a twitch thing.
I did the main story quests for railjack, harrow, excalibur umbra, and the new war prolog, but I still have several more main quests to do (as well as a few more warframe quests, and some important sounding side quests like the Duviri one).
Doing the harrow and excal quests made me realize that I really need to do something about my '5' ability, but I haven't gotten any of the focus points to spend and I don't seem to be earning any, and the equipment mastery level for my amp is very low and doesn't seem to go up either (unless I use it I guess, but it's so underwhelming it's hard to find a time where it makes sense to use it right now). I have some lenses that are supposed to help convert excess affinity into focus, but I can't actually use them.
That's probably the next area I really need to focus on, but it seems like a pain and I also don't know what to do for it, so I put that on the back burner and instead fell down a rabbit hole breeding new pets, and I'm working on an all mutagen/antigen panzer vulpaphyla and pharo predacyte.
The current thermia fracture event made me realize I'm still only part way through to getting my vandal from that, but man that sure is a badly designed system. I found two groups working on it in the open world, but both ended prematurely because someone else not working on the fracture left for fortuna without leaving the squad.
You sure it's not just the relief valve on the heater doing its job? Or maybe the valve needs replaced
I can check that out after work. Do you know what I should be looking for?
e: oh, and to clarify, focus lenses are the main way you gain focus, especially in sanctuary onslaught, if you don't have them you should farm a few up for the school you want to raise. The higher tier lenses also increase the gains a lot. You also gain a bit of focus without lenses whenever you pick up one of those yellow orbs, and a decent amount of focus for each thrax type enemy your group kills in the circuit mode in duviri.