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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2486 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 21, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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So, what are you reading?

I'm going through Al-Ghazali's The Principles of the Creed. Still trudging through The Dawn of Everything.

Looks like there's a book thread below, but no-one bit.

Crystal Society (trilogy?)

I just started it. I originally put in my Kindle library a few years ago and then forgot about it. I don't even remember what attracted me to it.

Written from the perspective of an AI embodied in a robot coming online for the first time. The book is ostensibly about a society with no privacy and how it leads to dysfunction, but I haven't gotten there yet.

I'm Starting To Worry About This Black Box Of Doom by Jason Pargin, after it got mentioned on ACX. This was just a delightfully fun book. I read the entire thing in one go on a flight. Would that every novel could strike the same balance of lighthearted adventure and philosophical dialogue. It gets pretty carried away by the end, but still good.

HMS Surprise by Patrick O'Brian (Aubrey-Maturin #3). I was all set to deride this as merely being a bunch of things that happen in sequence, but on reflection, there is a real tragic arc through it (for one character, at least), and a running theme of futility.

Pargin is hilarious. I didn't realize I was a fan of his until I connected him to some articles he had written for Cracked, originally under an Asian sounding pseudonym.

Favorite: 6 Harsh Truths That Will Make You a Better Person

I would love to send this link to mopey crybaby friends who complain about The System or society or whatever but I don't have the balls.

So, what are you reading?

"Project Hail Mary" by Andy Weir. It's pretty good! Lonely, nerdy, interesting. I'd give it an easy 9/10. I'm intentionally not giving a detailed review because it's impossible to talk about the book without major spoilers.

Reading it too, right now, since it was mentioned here and I liked the Martian film.

That said, I find the book...mediocre, as far as literature goes. I appreciate the elaborate nerd adventure that's laid out in there, but at the same time so much of it requires fantastically unlikely coincidence or outright localized stupidity to happen that it's just too transparently designed to deliver a sequence of set-piece action, tension and camraderie scenes. At the same time all the characters seem very cartoonish and unlifelike. The writing itself is competent, but artistically uninteresting.

I'm reading it. I'll finish it. It nerd-sniped me as effectively as any hard-ish sci-fi book can. But at the same time it feels immensely overrated. In sum, it's just the author presenting a bunch of contrived science problems cobbled together into a makeshift story.

Public Service Announcement for anyone who might want to read Project Hail Mary (the book) and hasn't yet: the trailers for Project Hail Mary (the movie) contain major spoilers, for something like a quarter of the most interesting plot developments in the book, without the context that made those developments as interesting as they were.

My kids and I had already read the book, but I feel bad for anyone who would have wanted to read it but didn't know about it or just didn't get to it yet.

Anyone who was a fan of The Martian and would also enjoy something a little less dry (at the cost of being less grounded; this time there's a vital plot device that's a much bigger stretch than "implausibly strong dust storm") should read Project Hail Mary ... and if somehow you've also avoided seeing any of the movie trailers yet, you should read Project Hail Mary quickly, and until you're at least halfway through the book you shouldn't see Ryan Gosling's face (possibly disguised by a beard - don't be fooled!) pop up on a screen without immediately closing your eyes, covering your ears with your hands, and loudly saying "La la la la" for the next three minutes.

Empire: Unbound Book 10 By Nicoli Gonnella.

Ended up finishing The Karamazov Brothers (Avsey translation, hence the word order in the title). Not much to add to every review of the book from the last 100 years, but after reading it and Demons, I have to say I'm quite impressed with his prophetic talents. Ol' Fyodor really saw the 20th century coming.

Now working on Shadow Ticket by Pynchon.

Almost exactly two-thirds of the way through Cryptonomicon. It might well be the funniest book I've read all year, aside from Rejection. If I can read 35 pages a day I'll be finished before the new year.

Edit: said "one-third". Meant two-thirds.

What's the funniest part? I could use the nostalgia!

I read a bunch of his books like 25 years ago. I recently re-read Snow Crash and chuckled pretty regularly. Hiro was my favorite first read through, but now that I'm older and wiser, it's Uncle Enzo that speaks to me the most.

The scene where Randy's family divvy up his grandmother's heirlooms by plotting their perceived financial value on the X-axis (north-south of a carpark) and perceived emotional value on the Y-axis (east-west) had me doubled over laughing.

Likewise the chapter describing how the mechanics of orgasm clouds Lawrence's thinking and his ensuing courtship of Mary Smith.

lol

I just remembered that part with the Van Eck phreaking (spying on someone else's screen through radiation) and they end up exfiltrating an excessively detailed document about the guy's leggings fetish.

My personal favorite from that book is the baroque, multi-page detailed account of one of Randy's eating rituals in the Philippines. Pure gold!

The Cap'n Crunch bit?

That'd be the one!

I recently started Tom's Crossing by Mark Z. Danielewski. After his last book, it's not what I was expecting.

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