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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   2000 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.

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.

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