site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   3009 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 25, 2026

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.

1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Is there a better option for storing cash for 9-12 months than a HYSA right now? I'd like to stash money for my 2027 Roth IRA contribution away in somewhere with better returns than my savings account.

It looks like CDs can get marginally better rates, and SGOV slightly beats the savings account yield. If those are my options, I'm not upset, but I'd rather not miss out on returns just because I didn't ask questions.

Not worth it. I just use Vanguard’s default VMFXX and dump it into my portfolio every January.

Someone made a big spreadsheet that compares MMFs/HYSAs/ETFs. You can put in your tax bracket and compare ATY.

CDs are generally less tax efficient than SGOV, especially for high-earners in high-earning states. The gross return difference on SGOV vs. CDs on $7,500 over a year will likely literally be at most a few dozen bucks. Why not just frontload and put it all in now? It’s already 2026.

I had a typo. I meant 2027.

Thanks for the advice though.

Why discontinue an actively working service?

I ask this and I know the answer, but it still frustrates me.

Amazon just sent me a message that their "palm" services will stop working in June. It is just a palm scan print. Why is this hard to maintain?

Facebook portal used to be a go to easy video chat service and have other things that easily tied in like Spotify. They've discontinued it and Spotify is no longer a supported app. I dont even know how much longer the video chat portion will even work.

I'm looking for video replacement options if anyone knows of any good ones. The stuff I see on search is ass. Some of the senior service crap is more than the price of a cheap laptop for basically a webcam service.

It may be cheap on the scale of Amazon/Facebook, but it's usually not how it works. It's on somebody's budget, that somebody is a middle manager, and he should show how much money his work is bringing to the company, to earn bonus and promotion. Telling his boss "Shut down this service and save $X/month" is one way to do it. And any service that is not championed by somebody important and not producing cash is always under the sword of Damocles. Google is doing that all the time, shutting down very popular services, just because.

It's even worse, both managers and ICs are given bonuses and promotions for doing something important; "kept the lights on in a mildly unpopular service with no growth potential" is not a career-boosting result. This means everyone flees the team maintaining this service like rats flee a sinking ship. It's a vicious cycle, and even if at some point the service ends up with a stable skeleton team that is happy to just keep it working, from a mile-high perspective it still looks like "a mildly unpopular service with no growth potential managed by a team of C's", which translates to "nuke the service, dissolve the team and put everyone involved on PIPs".

Unglamorous jobs have their audience too. I am pretty close in my career to the point where taking a boring, well-paid job would suit me just fine. I am not there yet, but likely in another 5 years I will be. I mean, I am not averse to glamorous and exciting ones, just it's not the only acceptable option for me anymore. Of course, it has to be worth it - if it's boring and pays peanuts, no thank you. So maintaining legacy system is not that hard, if you are willing to pay for it. Of course, top management in BigTech Inc. wouldn't want to, why would they.

This is something doable in a large non-tech company. You won't be safe for life, but when another long, painful, expensive project to replace the system you're maintaining finally looks like it has a chance to succeed, you will still have enough time to move to a different position by the time it finishes.

I see this all the time as a Principal/Agent variant. Something very useful that gets cut because it has no champion. Either that, or a load-bearing pillar of long term profitability gets cut for short term gains and some shark's KPI bonus. They then ghost before the long term consequences hit the company.

I live in Illinois, but I suddenly have an urge to buy a semi-automatic rifle in an intermediate caliber. No political reason, I'm just a guncel at heart even though I only have 4 guns (pump shotgun, striker fired 9mm, and rimfire pistol + rifle) and my friend activated my wallet-emptying instincts by sending me too many gun auction links.

The best semi-auto rifle is the AR-15. I feel comfortable asserting this. Parts are everywhere, gun does not have many malfunctions, .223 is cheap, 30 round capacity, great accuracy, not very heavy, simple barrel swap to run .300 blackout. AR-15 is preferred, but we'll look at some other options too.

But for Illinois, we have a problem: PICA! Scroll to the bottom for a flow chart. In a more readable form, see this post.

Naturally, we want to get around this. For options you can buy, the go-to is the Mini-14. The "ranch" model has none of the banned features. However... it sucks. It's not as accurate, it takes only proprietary magazines, and worst of all, it's not even cheap, the MSRP is like $1300. I bet an FFL could maybe sell them a bit cheaper, and I found one for $887 on gun.deals, but, yeah.

Another option is the SKS. The good, un-bubba'd, non-Chinese kind have fixed magazines with 10 rounds and are super duper aesthetic. Actually it's incredibly aesthetic. So is the Mini-14, now that you mention it. However, it fires 7.62x39mm cartridges, and ever since the import bans on Russian stuff, those are expensive. Ballistically, they're not as good as .223 in general, though the increased diameter makes them better for hunting medium game, it seems, which is something I want to try someday. And it's difficult to overstate how much the fixed 10 round magazine is not ideal. Also they got expensive too. Everyone wants these bad boys because most ban states (and ban countries, in Canada's case) still let you have them.

Last one I'm considering is the a neutered atrocity AR. The Fightlite SCR is the candidate for that because I'm 100% sure that it's legal. But the price! $1300!! It seems obscure enough that I doubt that a dealer would be able to offer anything lower than that. Everything else about it seems basically fine to me, save that it's pretty ugly. But ARs are already kinda ugly. Sorry, oper8ors of the forum.

Now for the actual question. PICA states the following makes a gun an assault weapon:

(iii) a folding, telescoping, thumbhole, or detachable stock, or a stock that is otherwise foldable or adjustable in a manner that operates to reduce the length, size, or any other dimension, or otherwise enhances the concealability of, the weapon;

This seems like the major sticking point that excludes a workaround I am thinking of: you could theoretically leave the state, build out a lower from an 85%, get it serialized, and then take it back into the state. It's not an AR-15 by name, because you're the manufacturer and you're calling it the Mickey Mouse (Steamboat Willie Version Only)'s Problem Solver Mark I. The only problem is that I don't know what the hell a detachable stock is. What is it? Because you can unscrew the stock from an SKS and pull it off of the receiver. Does that mean it's detachable? SKSes are legal despite this fact. I guess I don't know if the pistol grip would be a problem either:

(i) a pistol grip or thumbhole stock;

Help me out, legal eagles. But only help me out by answering the legal question, because it's mostly a hypothetical. Sounds like a bunch of work.

I own an SKS and would recommend it. Mine is a Norinco in Bakelite. It came with a folding bayonet, which I used to defend my house once. I upgraded it with a 20-round Chinese “Star” fixed magazine. It is otherwise stock. Stripper clips are fun. I have several thousand spare rounds of steel case 7.62 I bought before Covid that I could spot a portion for you, but I don’t like the opsec here.

I also prefer the Mini-14 to the AR15. Mine was not that expensive but it may have been in the same ballpark. You can buy a very cool after-market folding stock right out of the A-Team from Samson. It also is more reliable than the AR15 last I checked. https://gunmagwarehouse.com/blog/samsons-a-team-mini-14-folding-stock-as-good-as-the-original/

I only buy aesthetic guns and never bother drilling with them so take my advice with a grain of salt.

I don't see any AR18/180 on their list -- granted they consider an SKS with detachable mag to be an 'AK-type', so this is definitely not legal advice -- but if you sawed the pistol grip off one of those and glued some compliant palm-grip abomination on there it might pass? (unless that's an "AR type" for having "AR" in the name -- totally different action from an AR15 tho...)

Wasn't Rittenhouse from Illinois? Why was a PICA-compliant AR-15 good enough for him, but not for you?

As I recall it wasn't actually the case that he "crossed state lines" with the rifle -- it was stored by his buddy in Wisconsin or something?

Maybe this is why, it was a pretty normal basic-bitch AR IIRC.

The short version it's not something I would mess around with. You are probably just screwed. But that's easy to say for someone that doesn't have this problem.

A few thoughts:

  • I think there are buffer tubes with fixed or integral stocks. I have no idea if this qualifies
  • Have you considered a M1A, I mean if you can't get a good deal on a Mini-14, why not go for it's full grown brother. Longer effective range than an AR-15. Closely related to the "Greatest Battle Implement Ever Devised." I assume that means it doesn't suck
  • For your use case maybe a pistol caliber carbine. There must be a qualified model somewhere. Cheaper to shoot and less ammo to stock if you go for 9mm

Definitely no on the M1A. I would much sooner spring for the Mini-14. .308 is expensive and Too Much. $887 for a Mini-14 actually is something I can visualize paying for a rifle. I think M1As run for like $2100, right? Ouch. As the for Mini-14, it's Good Enough in most respects. It's just too expensive for how many weaknesses it has. A Fightlite FCR lower is about $300 more than it should be, too, but it's basically an AR in every other respect. Too bad it's out of stock. I think between the two... I dunno, you could take everything off of the lower of the Fightlite once the ban gets repealed and just get a regular AR lower. Whereas the Mini-14 will always be a Mini-14.

Pistol caliber carbine is also something I was thinking about. I've shot one before, they're incredibly fun. A 10 round limit on it makes it kind of goofy, though. The 9mm pistol I have is 15 rounds, but apparently putting it into rifle form makes that verboten. Ruger makes one; at $800 MSRP, it's a lot more affordable. I partly want one for hunting hogs, though, and 9mm is no good for that. That's also why the .300 blackout barrel swap would be a good deal.

Definitely no on the M1A. I would much sooner spring for the Mini-14.

Have you considered an M1 Garand? Expert grades with excellent barrels are currently available for under 1200 bucks from the CMP, your choice of .30-06 or .308. Then commit heresy and replace the rear sight with a 3x or 5x micro-prism (it's the only scope you can mount that isn't a meme like scout mounts are, and you can still load the gun like normal). You can probably get one for cheaper; it looks like they only have Experts in stock at the moment.

The biggest problem here's going to be the cost of ammunition, especially if you pick .30-06 (there really isn't much of a reason to other than historical propriety, so how much you care is up to you). But it's arguably the most cost-effective rifle outside of the SKS (or the Rasheed, if you can find one for a reasonable price), and the SKS is slower to run, just as heavy, has a worse trigger and sights, and Yugos are the most affected by corrosive surplus. An SVT-40 would also work, has cheap ammunition, but is absurdly expensive for no reason and has accuracy issues.

You could also go M1 Carbine, but those are kind of overpriced for what they are and you'd probably still have to pin your magazines to 10. You could go Model 8/81 in .35 Rem (or .300 Savage), or some other WW1/2-era fighting rifle, but that creates ammunition cost problems. You could go Ruger Deerfield (which is the only Mini-14 derivative worth owning, by the way), but .44 Magnum is still more expensive than 5.56 is and mags larger than 4 rounds are very expensive.

You could also go Mini-30; 7.62x39 is cheaper than .300 Blackout is and is more effective ballistically. You'd have to clean it, but it's still better than the SKS, and unlike the SKS you can put an optic on it with little difficulty.

That aside, I'm going to second the Fightlite for reasons beyond "it's the only thing that's legal", and into "it's the only rifle in its class, period". If you can't have a threaded barrel, you might as well go with a larger caliber than .300, and you have very few semi-automatic options outside of the AR-15 platform when it comes to those.

.350/.400 Legend, .450 Bushmaster, and .458 SOCOM are arguably better candidates than .300 Blackout is for solving hogs. Of those, .350 and .450 are the most available, and Faxon makes a couple of pencil barrels for .350 (though they are threaded; I'm not sure whether your law accepts tacking a cover on as a mitigation for that, but you can always just get the 20" and have it cut down for you). .458 SOCOM magazines have a hidden advantage- that they're not-so-secretly just 5.56 magazines (just used in a different way; the reason you take such a haircut on capacity is because those rounds stack single-file in that magazine)- though whether you and your drop-shipper are comfortable with that property is another matter.

One of those, a carbon-fiber handguard, and a standard upper will still run you 1300 after all is said and done, yes, but if you're not happy about spending a bunch of money on just a bog-standard rifle then this might at least make you feel a little better about it.

Note also that the Fightlite can be used itself as a PCC, and there are 2 ways to effectively do this (Glock magazine adapter block sold separately = you get 15 rounds AIUI): a bufferless CMMG upper and a Glock magazine adapter block, or build with their delayed blowback kit that doesn't require a bespoke bolt carrier (though in that case I'd advise you get something with the fixed extractor unless you like replacing ejector springs).

If you know you're already planning to buy 2 rifles the cost delta for the SCR lower is muted (the PC Carbine is OK but overpriced).

Very good post! Thank you for writing all of that up.

I like the idea of M1 Garands and such things, but I'm trying to maximize utility in the guns I own, so I have already considered it and discounted it. I really can't think of any real need for anything in .308. I don't have any desire to shoot out super far, I have a shotgun already for hunting large game like deer if I ever wanted to do that, and it wouldn't even give me the satisfaction of working a bolt-action. It's a cool gun! But not really what I am looking for. It'll be similarly expensive. That goes for the M1 Carbine, too. Mini-30 was something I considered, too, but the same downsides for the Mini-14 still apply. In addition, I watched the Paul Harrell video comparing the Mini-14 to the AR-15 and found the most vexing thing would be that you have to rock the magazine in, meaning I would much prefer an AR-15.

Most of all I am interested in those alternate calibers, though I had heard .300 Blackout would be fine for hogs. Which of those calibers are the cheapest? You don't need to buy different mags for .458 SOCOM? That would be a legal use of those magazines, so that's something worth considering. My friend likes 6.5 Grendel. Any opinions on that one? Why do you think those calibers are better candidates than .300 Blackout?

So if you got the Fightlite, you'd get just the lower? What are some respected .223 uppers? Honestly $700 for a Frankenstein lower isn't that bad, is it? How much does a normal lower cost?

Another rifle, someday, maybe. Thanks for letting me know the Ruger PCC is overpriced.

My friend likes hammer fired pistols, so that's mostly what's been on my mind lately... I just can't justify it, though. Unless it was a real cheap 1911, maybe...

Mini-14

The problem with the Mini-14 is mostly that it's a design from the 1930s. It's the best the 1930s had to offer, mind you, but the design still hails from that period. The thing's just a more refined bolt-action conversion.

The AR-15 is the best the 1960s had to offer, and in some ways it does pretty clearly show its age (magazines were a compromise from the start for a magwell that wasn't made with 30-rounders in mind, the bolt's too small, the design doesn't lend itself to some important modern mass-manufacturing techniques... yet is very CNC-compatible, so you can make the entire gun on a single machine, which is part of why everyone and their dog makes one).

Thanks for letting me know the Ruger PCC is overpriced.

I'm kind of unfairly hard on this gun because it's basically a heavy pistol on a stick, and most PCCs being just Sten guns in a different form factor. If it's all you can buy (and this is true of the Mini-14 as well) it's not necessarily overpriced, since Ruger knows that, and it's what the market will bear... but that thing can't cost more than a couple hundred to make. And yeah, being able to get 15 round mags for it makes it a bit better.

Honestly $700 for a Frankenstein lower isn't that bad, is it?

It is if you're looking at 150-dollar PSA complete lowers, but you're also buying a 100-dollar unique bolt carrier with the lower set (which you'd have to replace in whatever upper you buy, unless it's bufferless in which case it doesn't matter).

But any upper, even the PSA ones, would be fine for this. Even better is if you can get the ones without charging handle or bolt carrier, since you can buy the bolt separately and you'll want an upgraded charging handle anyway, and the 350 bucks it'd cost will go a bit further.

I've been doing some more thinking. I took the Mini-14 out of the running, and put the Ruger PCC in, ditching the idea that it could be a hog gun, too. But does a full-length "rifle" even make sense in 9mm? It has more recoil than .223 and it's a lot worse ballistically, otherwise.

Otherwise, the Sig MCX Regulator is on sale at PSA for $1300, though that's still twice as much as the PCC. What's your input on that? Any better than a Fightlite?

One more thing I'm considering is a lever-action, but it seems like it would be strictly worse than a lot of options simply for not being semi-auto. I've already got a pump shotgun, anyway.

With the Mini-14 being the best of 1930s tech and the AR15 being the best of 1960s tech, what equivalent rifle should I be looking at for the best of post-2000 tech?

For an individual rifleman, the Beretta ARX-160 (ARX-100).

All plastic, toolless disassembly, modern ergonomics (firing hand can close or lock bolt back without releasing grip), charging handle and ejection live on whichever side you please without disassembly (let alone buying new parts), pencil barrel (you don't need anything else), and is lighter than every other AR-18-derived rifle on the market (6 3/4 pounds- not quite as light as an M16A1 or M4, but it comes pretty close).

Beretta passed the savings on to the US consumer but few bought them even then. There are a few for under 2K on Gunbroker. The only problem with them is that spending 2000 dollars on an AR-15 can buy you a plastic and carbon fiber rifle that weighs as much with an optic as the ARX does, and they also won't take specifically Gen 3 Pmags.

None of the extruded-aluminum guns qualify as "best rifle". The Bren 2 is "best light support weapon", though, because with the extra weight comes greater sustained fire capability (in a way that would damage an ARX or M16). The SCAR is significantly better than the Bren 2 in the weight department, but it also breaks optics, has stupid warranty policies, has/had a reciprocating charging handle, and is absurdly overpriced whereas the Bren 2 has none of those problems.

A while back, I would have said there wasn't one; small arms technology arguably peaked at the ar-15. In terms of form factor and general operation, I'd say that's still roughly the correct answer. Lately though, we're seeing more and more experiments with extremely high chamber-pressure cartridges and special bullet constructions that allow significant increases in performance, particularly against hard armor. I'm skeptical whether that increase is significant enough to represent the sort of improvement one sees between the 30s and 60s, but if you're looking for edge in terms of weapons, that'd probably be your best bet.

More generally, drones are legitimately revolutionary.

What's the best bang for your buck (in terms of QOL) purchase you've ever made? The cheaper the better.

I'd say in-ear earphones with solid ANC are up there. I'm sitting outside the arrivals section of a busy international airport, and I felt mildly annoyed by the honking and general noise with earphones on and ANC engaged. Then I took them off to check and was practically deafened. Yup, they're cutting down 90% of the cacophony.

I own a pair of Galaxy Buds 3 Pros, purchased at about £130. I think they sound great, the ANC isn't quite as good as the Airpods I bought my brother on his birthday, but it's clearly a cut above my older Buds 2 Pro (Plus?). I happen to prefer the sound quality, and unless you've got an iPhone, they're about the best you can get on an Android device that isn't rooted and running Libre Pods. In fact, good ANC tends to improve sound quality overall in my experience, as it preserves bass by changing the acoustic impedance.

(The default Android kernel has a buggy, non-compliant Bluetooth stack. Until Google upstreams a patch, you need the root to get actual standards compliance and the ability to make use of all the Airpods' features.)

As a single man currently lacking access to female fingernails, my $4 bamboo back scratcher. No longer do I have to rub up against a door frame like a bear when my back itches.

That and my wireless bbq thermometer with multiple probes. If you know how to work your vents, it gives you all the precise control you'd ever need to run circles around the rich boys with their automated pellet poopers.

My fiancee would say her liter canteen. She gets great mileage out of it.

Easily our cast iron skillet

Have you tried carbon steel? I switched out my cast iron skillet for one of those and I wouldn't go back. It gets rip roaring hot and lasts forever like cast iron, and it's much easier to cook with because it's so much lighter (though admittedly that does mean it retains less heat). I highly recommend them to anyone who hasn't tried one, as to me they more or less are a straight upgrade from cast iron.

I have a carbon steel wok, and it seems like the ideal material for that (light enough for wok tossing, quick temperature changes when I need them), but I can't see why I'd want it for a skillet. My wok doesn't season as nicely as my cast iron skillet, I don't move my skillet around while cooking so I don't care about light weight, and I do care about heavy weight - retaining as much heat as possible when we (sometimes over-...) load it with steaks is like 90% of the point of that skillet! For anything that doesn't need a long sear, what's the advantage of a carbon steel skillet over (thick, quality) stainless?

If you're interested, Chris Young has a video about different pan materials.

Cast iron retains heat but doesn't move it very quickly, so the pan directly under your steak gets cold, and the heat in other parts of the pan is slow to move in. Thick, quality, (sandwiched around aluminum) stainless is his ultimate recommendation.

Not that that stops me from cooking in cast iron, but I found it interesting.

If you don't care about light weight, there is none. Personally I hated using my cast iron skillet because it was so damn heavy. But you said that doesn't bother you (and like you said it can be an asset because of the thermal mass), so carbon steel doesn't have anything to offer in that case IMO.

I'd say in-ear earphones with solid ANC are up there

Haha, I read your first line, settled on my Quietcomfort 2 Bose Earpods and then came back to see I was 'right'.

The sound is awesome, but I found it degrades to take calls as perhaps it needs bandwidth for the microphone.

Anyway, they had a pretty big QoL impact for things like commuting on public transport, or other environments where I could afford to sacrifice some situational awareness. The noise cancelling really allows for moments of peace (although I've had a girlfriend have to punch me on the arm to get my attention when I'm using them before sleep).

Edit: Some honorable mentions -

  • BPA free 2 Liter handled water bottle to carry around the house with me to stay hydrated.
  • Kindle Paperwhite is an amazing ebook reader that eliminated a lot of eyestrain. Its backlight lets me read in the dark without disturbing others. It finally sold me on ebooks over paper (although I recently read a hardcover when I was on holiday and I kind of miss it).

My interest in active noise cancelling earbuds/headphones is very much piqued. I can't stand airports and planes and so on. I think the noise plays a significant part in that.

What are the 'best' ones? If you don't mind paying another 50 or 100.

Not sure whether the Apple air pods are the best option for an Android phone user like me.

I don't usually enjoy having earphones or earplugs inserted for more than an hour or so. Are the super fancy, expensive ANC ones more comfortable? Or should I go for over-ear headphones (though these are much less portable).

I'm not an expert, so you'll have to do your own research with reviews unless someone chimes in here that they've gone through a few different brands.

I don't have a reference point for what is more comfortable. I would presume its just normal earbud vs over ear headphones.

Something I do like is that I can tolerate earbuds in bed with audio books before sleep if I'm on my back and for short periods on my side.

That's me though. I'm not ultra sensitive to physical discomfort.

The sound is awesome, but I found it degrades to take calls as perhaps it needs bandwidth for the microphone.

If it makes you feel any better, all Bose and Sony noise cancelling headphones do this (I'm pretty sure even AirPods do it too). It's quite a negative impact when you're trying to talk with friends and play a game when the equipment is linked to a computer- while it's possible to disable the "hands free" mode to force high quality but sacrifice the ability to take calls on it unless re-enabled, certain games will force themselves into this mode anyway and end up sounding like absolute garbage until fixed in the settings (or are completely unfixable, as the case may be).

Which means a 500-dollar pair of headphones don't work unless accompanied by a 10-dollar desk mic. Such is life, apparently.

The root cause is Bluetooth, not the headphones. The only (partial) solutions to the problem require licensed codecs that must be supported on both sides of the connection and many prominent phone manufacturers are not interested in doing that (not least because to get benefit, all the headphones would have to support the same codec).

Yep, I'm having all of the issues you've described, including problems with receiving audio from discord and games at the same time (even in 'AG' hands free mode).

I've made my peace with it. Pure noise cancelled audio with no comms is worth all of the problems.

I haven't found in-ears that I can tolerate yet, but my QOL while in flights rose significantly when I started using noise-cancelling over-ear headphones (mine is Bose). They really filter out all the annoyance of the flight (and the airport). I just put an audiobook up, relax and my flight experience now is pretty low-stress. My only regret is I didn't start doing it earlier, using non-noise-cancelling headphones or just toughing it out. It's absolutely different experience (at least for me) when I don't have to deal with the noise.

Use case is a little different but I hate in-ears and ended up buying some Powerbeats Pro 2s for my commute and they've been great and don't really irritate my ears the way most in-ears do (by virtue of not actually being in-ear).

I'm really happy with this soldering iron. Yes, I also have a standard weller rework station for serious work (which cost nearly three times used what this did new), but 95% of the stuff I do it's completely sufficient, the thing's easily luggable, I've ended up needing to solder in the field more often than I'd like to admit, and it's just an absolute joy to work with. There's still occasional situations where everything's so tightly spaced that I needed to haul out the old benzomatics, so I wouldn't complain if someone manufactured a version with a built-in battery, but being able to switch from wall power to a cheap usb battery pack and back is way more convenient most of the time.

These toolkits. They're not good -- the magnet inside the driver is held in by hope and prayer, the spadgers are about as strong as toothpicks, and the suction cup is aspirational -- but they cover pretty much any small electronics situation you're going to run into, and when someone inevitably loses the 5.5mm or the tweezers, it's just not that big a deal.

A good, quality, canvas satchel ('messenger bag') or hard-shell briefcase. Daily usage sorta thing, and extremely high-variance: I've seen mediocre bags in the 300+USD range, and 'classy' ones can get ridiculous (and I don't trust real leather to survive what I put mine through), but the low-end is crap that falls apart into plastic flakes in months if not weeks. And then there's also surprisingly good options in the 40-80 USD space. The ones I've been happiest with so far are Rothcos. They're not perfect. As you'd expect from a Chinese clone brand, there's some awkward design decisions, and I'd recommend hitting the shoulder straps with some reinforcement stitching. But compared to how floppy anything cheaper and canvas gets, or how quickly anything pleather degrades, it's a great sweet spot.

Do you carry a notebook in your satchel?

Both of the pen-and-paper type and the small laptop definitions. Although the pen-and-paper side is a little aspirational: I tend to end up giving up the paper notepads nearly as often as people ‘borrow’ usb chargers permanently.

Does the bottom of the back protect the laptop when you're putting it down? Are you pretty gentle with the bag when you put it down? How do you generally handle it?

I'm pretty rough on carry bags, but I don't hurl it like a discus, either. Haven't had any damage to my laptop yet... but it's one of the last good ThinkPad models. The only real padding is more intended as reinforcement material, so I don't think it's enough I'd be comfortable using the thing to carry a laptop when bicycling or something where a completely uncontrolled impact is plausible, and I don't think any of the other variants are much better there. The best I've seen from them is the B-15 Pilot variant, and it's still only fairly thin 'leather' padding with some reinforcement.

Unfortunately, I don't know of any good inexpensive ones that are much better.

Thanks for this. The impact on a laptop is probably the primary concern I have of buying this style of bag. I've got this weird association between carrying bags and dumping them down, probably from bad habits picked up back in high school. Which is more of a problem with 'me' as compared to the bag.

A down comforter! They work so much better for temperature regulation in sleep than anything else.

Darn Tough Socks. I have returned my used socks for replacements 4 times now. They just keep sending me more. As long as you don't lose it or have your house burn down, it's 10 bucks for a pair of socks for life.

Thanks! I was just looking for a new set of skiing socks. My favorite ones are very close to turning into gauze. They have pretty generous return policy for an online clothing manufacturer, I'll try them out.

Unironically, my wooden spoons. They cost me something like $10-20 for the 4 I have, and I've had them for something like 17 years now. They aren't flashy but I use them all the time and the cost per time is insanely low.

I'll counter with "(heat-safe) silicone cooking utensils", the ideal material for a house full of semi-competent cooks. All my stuff is 15 or 20 years old, and over that length of time everything eventually gets accidentally left on a hot pan, where wood surfaces turn to char, nylon and other plastics turn to goo and poison-smoke, and good silicone just shrugs it off and stays good-as-new.

Plus I'm too lazy to hand-wash (much less oil) wooden spoons like I do with my wooden cutting board, and I've noticed that wood tends to get gradually ruined by automatic dishwashing.

Oh trust me, I don't hand wash my wooden spoons. They go in the dishwasher with everything else. They're still going strong (honestly, people baby wooden spoons too much from what I've seen online), but even if they got ruined one of these days I'm not going to be upset. They were cheap as hell, so I'll just go buy another $20 pack of spoons that will last me for a decade or more.

I do have silicone spatulas and I agree they are excellent. My only complaint is that they have no rigidity at all so they don't pick stuff up or scrape particularly well. But I have other tools for that (including some metal and plastic utensils for the right situation).

What's the best bang for your buck (in terms of QOL) purchase you've ever made? The cheaper the better.

IDK about best of all time, but my best recent lifestyle upgrade was a Bio-Bidet BB-1000.

I own a pair of Galaxy Buds 3 Pros, purchased at about £130. I think they sound great, the ANC isn't quite as good as the Airpods I bought my brother on his birthday, but it's clearly a cut above my older Buds 2 Pro (Plus?).

For whatever reason, the Galaxy Buds 3 Pros actually weren't quite up to the Galaxy Buds 2 Pros in terms of ANC. They were pretty widely knocked in for worse ANC at low frequency levels compared to the Buds 2 Pro, which was something that kept me from upgrading to them.

Father in law gave us a bidet for Christmas. Kids immediately learned how to turn it into a squirt gun. We had to return it.

Eh? I've used both back to back, and I can assure you the ANC is miles ahead on the old model. I haven't seen that claim made in a professional review so far, and I did check quite a few before purchase. I didn't see much of a problem on the lows, but the most annoying noise you want to cancel is usually mid frequencies or higher in my experience.

Weird, I tend to go with the audiophile reviews, and several different reviewers talked about this issue with the Buds 3 pro, but to each their own.

A "shiatsu" massage pillow I paid 20$ for. I hurt my back in a coughing fit during Covid and couldn't even sit up in bed without sharp pain for a few weeks. A single session with the pillow unpinched something and fixed 90% of the problem.

Even though it was $5k, I'm tempted to say my cooling tempurpedic mattress. That thing is amazing.

Best bang for my buck purchase I've ever made: a house.

Rents around my area have more than doubled since I bought it.

Best cheap bange for my buck: a Victorinox fibrox bread knife.

Not sure if it's the absolute best but it sure is bang for buck: A good led headlamp bought directly from the Chinese specialist manufacturer. Much better quality than almost anything sold in Western stores for a much cheaper price (I paid 50e because I wanted fancy red light mode and high CRI but you can get good ones for just 30e). I hadn't realized just how useful it would be for everything from tinkering with small things to reading tiny text to trying to see the notes in the low contrast sheet music my guitar teacher had given me and how much more pleasant a good one is to use.

A good bed. That's gotta be up there. Even though it's a high cost:high reward thing.

Can't think of anything exciting that's both inexpensive and fantastic right now.

it's a high cost:high reward thing

It doesn't even have to be that high cost.

When I bought mine I was lucky that a local magazine (well regarded for their comparative tests) had done a large comparative review just a year or two earlier. The top two were fancy high end beds costing 5000e or more. The third winner was the highest end model Ikea sold (for around 1000e back then). No points for guessing which one I bought and have been happy with since.

I got mine for around 1000 too. Which is perfectly reasonable for a bed, but a lot higher than the price of what OP brought up.

Wide, convex rear-view mirrors for a car

I am vaguely aware of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but haven't ever read the source material or a good translation.

Anyone have any suggestions? As I've declaimed and disclamed before, my Chinese is limited to nihao-ing at some fine ABGs. A solid translation, or visual media would be fine. Subs or dubs, don't care. It just has to be faithful to the source

I've been hunting for the version my own ABG told me to get long ago: the AsiaPac books graphic novel version. I've never been able to find it. It's my white whale of used books. It's out of print. There's somehow exactly two volumes for sale on Amazon for the Kindle, but that's not terribly helpful since it's a ten volume set.

I read the very first English translation by Brewitt Taylor, which was perfectly readable even though it was Wade-Giles romanisation. Per Wikipedia, a 1991 translation by Moss Roberts largely superseded that one as the definitive English localization.

It's a very dense novel with thousands of named characters. Not something I'd recommend to someone that wasn't either a sinophile or familiar with the setting through video games or other media already.

If you want a simple introduction to the setting, it's hard to beat Dynasty Warriors 7 or 8 because they have a route for every major faction, including Jin. Everything else tends to focus more on chronological order which I think is way more confusing than just strictly following one side because there are a lot of characters.

There's also Team Ninja's Wu Long which is set in Three Kingdom and starts off with the Yellow Turban Rebellion. Team Ninja made Nioh 2 which is one of my favourite games of all time, and Wu Long is pretty similar except with more of a parry focus, I haven't played the game beyond the demo though.

I would also second the recommendation for the 2010 series, it is very long, at times dry, boring, especially the parts with Diaochan(Lu Bu is more like a bratty child in this show) but overall is really solid. Cao Cao is the best part, and he has a ton of great scenes.

I mean... it's really long, and really old, and really Chinese. It's not something you can just read casually. It's practically a whole field of study in itself.

I grew up playing Koei games like the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" series. If you're... a certain sort of nerd, you'll appreciate them. The downside is, they sort of assume you already know the story, so they can be confusing. But they'll still give you part of the story, and a good appreciation for the overall strategic situation and map.

"Dynasty Warriors" is more story based. It's pretty much nonsense, but it gives a good sense for the myths and legends, which is what most people remember it for anyway.

For a slightly more academic approach, I really enjoyed this blog series: Chinese history for white people. Still very limited and oversimplified, but it's a good read.

Beyond that, I think you just have to read Wikipedia articles about the specific people and battles involved. Or commit yourself to learning Chinese lol. I think it's still lacking in proper English-language material.

My introduction to romance of the 3 kingdoms was Dynasty Warriors (I think 3) and I learned beyond a shadow of doubt that Lu Bu is not to be trifled with.

Also my poor pronunciation means seeing Cao Pi's name (which I read as cow pie) always gets a giggle from me.

Cao Pi in mandarin sounds similar to fucking. People use it on the internet to avoid being censored.

See, for me, it was playing the strategy game "Romance of the 3 Kingdoms" series on NES. Which tells you absolutely nothing about these characters except their stats. You can recruit all of them, but there's a hidden loyalty stat for how the story is supposed to go. So I kept trying to recruit Lu Bu because he had the best combat stat, and he kept on betraying me XD. I suppose that's a very authentic experience to the story!

Thanks! I had a look at the Substack, and while it's a decent glossary and dramatis personae, I was looking for something less dry. But it's useful context.

Sadly the gameplay of Dynasty Warriors is the opposite of what I'm into. I know Total War Three Kingdoms is solid, but due to severe mismanagement, it barely gets into the actual meat of the Three Kingdoms period.

I'll keep hunting, while I think there's a real chance of a Chinese Century, learning Chinese from scratch sounds rather daunting. I've translated entire Xianxia novels with AI with excellent results, so in theory I could do that if I had to.

Thanks! I had a look at the Substack, and while it's a decent glossary and dramatis personae, I was looking for something less dry. But it's useful context.

Just to clarify that you're looking for the novel, Romance of the Three Kingdoms (三國演義 sanguo yanyi), rather than the actual history, Records of the Three Kingdoms (三國志 sanguozhi)?

I'm aware that the novel takes a few liberties and "romanticizes" historical events, but is still reasonably grounded. I'd honestly be fine with either, though if I had to choose it would be the Romance.

Much of the cultural relevance and memes (in the Dawkinsean sense) from the Three Kingdoms can be found from the Romance, so if getting a background on that is what you're after then the Romance is definitely a better fit, as the culmination of a thousand years of dramatised retellings of the period. You're not going to get things like Zhuge Liang borrowing ten thousand arrows from the actual history.

I'm not sure if there even is an English translation of the Records.

If you can’t read Chinese, there’s not much point in reading the actual history book. It is a great book, well written by Chinese history book standard, but it is a biography of a hundred different people, each presented in chronological order within their own lives. Without already knowing the broader historical timeline, it’s hard to connect them to one another. On top of that, it’s written in classical literary Chinese, which is hard even for native Chinese readers. Romance of the Three Kingdoms is written in vernacular Chinese and should be much more accessible, though I’m not sure how much that classical vs vernacular distinction survives in English translations.

Playing the games honestly sounds more reasonable. That said, with the games (and with romance of the three kingdom itself, since it’s a novel) it becomes hard to tell what’s actual history and what’s fictionalized. Not that it matters too much.

This video gives a good overview of your options as far as Three Kingdoms adaptations go.

Thanks!

I'll admit most of my Romance of the Three Kingdoms knowledge comes from 100%ing a few Dynasty Warriors games when I was growing up, but that does actually give you familiarity with the major players.

I'm aware of the franchise, but the gameplay isn't quite up my alley. I do already have passing familiarity with the major players, though I'm not sure I could name Lu Bu's horse (White Rabbit? Idk) haha. Maybe I'll check out a YouTuber who does cinematic play throughs, that might help. Thanks!

Red Hare

Honestly it's a weird one as well since it's such an extended saga. I know the first half of the story but the bits after the first generation get very vague.

Total War: Three Kingdoms also works.

The recent Chinese TV series from 2010 used to be available on Youtube with subtitles - it looks like it isn't for me anymore, but it may in your region. Needless to say, it's comically long but has entertainingly cheesy and mid-budget acting, and that gets the 'vibe' across well even if it's not the most artistically accomplished.

Thanks! It doesn't seem to be available here either, though the 1994 series is. Is that any good or should I go hunting?

The 1994 version, from what I hear, is the most faithful to the original novel, but suffers occasionally from pacing issues.

(I haven’t seen any of the TV series as I read it in text)

The 2010 version is receiving mockery and dismissal on Chinese social media constantly. One of the biggest meme generators actually. I think the show itself is ok, if you treat it as a story on its own unrelated to the actual history and the novel.

The 1994 version is fantastic, a perfect balance between the director’s own interpretation and the material it based itself on. Music is great, casting is legendary, but it’s filmed three decades ago.

Out of curiosity what did they do to the story to make the 2010 show such a meme?

https://youtube.com/watch?v=nYpJ37ulsnk

A couple of reasons.

  1. The casting was terrible. The actors themselves are mostly fine but they’re badly miscast. You end up with what feels like a Lu Su playing Liu Bei, a Yuan Shu playing Cao Cao, etc. When the core characters, Cao Cao, Liu Bei, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Zhuge Liang are all miscast at the same time, the entire show collapses.

  2. The script writing was very bad. The 1994 version used a classical vernacular script that preserved historical immersion, the 2010 version uses modern vernacular Chinese. On top of that, the dialogue is constantly trying to sound clever, punchy, and “memorable.” You get lines engineered for quotability and trying too hard to sound deep but without gravitas. That left the audiences with too many lines that can be turned into memes when the time is ripe.

  3. It was made during a period obsessed with “reinterpretations” of classics. I don’t know how closely you follow mainland media, but this show came after Yi Zhongtian’s hugely popular reinterpretation of RoTK. He had a very cynical view of the history (not his invention), Liu Bei as hypocritical, Cao Cao as selfish but pragmatically “real” (in his own words 真小人>伪君子), and everyone stripped of moral elevation. That clearly influenced the show’s script writing and acting.

The end result is that no one really respects the show. Compared to the 1994 version, it’s obvious that the newer one completely lacks 形 意 神. Add in the often silly dialogue and awkward acting, and what you get is a meme generator.

Well, maybe we've had enough about European-American relations for the past week. Let's talk about European-European relations!

We know a lot about gender imbalances in China, hikikomori in Japan, 4B in Korea, and Americans screeching in existential terror at every element of the opposite sex on social media. It seems like many of the most developed parts of the world are struggling to maintain stable relationship norms, and men and women are opting out of relationships altogether at unprecedented rates. That obviously prompts the question: what about Europe?

Europeans: how do you feel about the dating and marriage situation in your part of the world? Do men and women generally couple up ok? Have dating apps caused damage? Are people isolated and on social media, or do romantic connections and friendships form more easily? More philosophically, do men and women in your country generally feel the opposite sex is trustworthy, or do they see them as more dangerous than helpful? Are there tensions over gender norms, or have people where you're from settled on a new accommodation for the relationship between men and women?

Anecdotally, most of my old friends from Ireland (all late 20s/early 30s) are geared towards settling down now.

Some are single due to recent breakups, some (like me) who didn't become programmers have to make some decent money before getting married. Out of around 15 people in the last 2 years: 3 marriages (all have had kids or are currently pregnant), 2 engagements, 4 in long term relationships.

The weddings are great fun and since we're scattered across Europe and America now it's basically the only time the whole friend group can get together. We even helped set up the 30 year old virgin gamer with the bride's sister last year and that relationship seems to be going well.

I live in France now. The dating scene is insanely easy for a guy compared to Ireland, especially if you learn the language. Bigger cities probably account for a lot of it, but French people are more likely to make friends with strangers than stick to their friends from secondary school (like I did). They still do the latter but it's less of a barrier than in Ireland.

If you want to just hookup it's not hard, but my French friends seem to be as into committed relationships as the Irish. My girlfriend is French and judging by her friends they're the same with one difference. A lot of young French couples will get Pacs before getting married. I don't know what it entails exactly but it seems like it just covers some legal and financial stuff and the celebration is a lot smaller than a wedding. I'll have to see for myself what this leads to but it seems like it'll add a few years of delay to marriage and children.

Bigger cities probably account for a lot of it, but French people are more likely to make friends with strangers than stick to their friends from secondary school (like I did). They still do the latter but it's less of a barrier than in Ireland.

That's interesting - growing up in the UK it was generally understood that the Irish were generally more social and more open to chatting with strangers on a night out than ourselves.

That is also true, you can still make friends for a night easily enough even if you're not going to follow up and try to see them next week.

There's a phrase along the lines of "quick to be friendly, slow to be friends" that describes it. Of course if an Irish person moves abroad they're likely also going to try and make some actual new friends.

some (like me) who didn't become programmers have to make some decent money before getting married

Why?

I'm working as a chef not making much money and I don't have the hang of the language yet. I've got a purely French speaking job lined up in April and a network of chefs who'd give me better work if I can prove myself some more but for now it's too precarious. I'd want to at least be able to promise that I will stay in the country instead of going back to Ireland to look for work after all.

My girlfriend works in nuclear physics where they have 2 year contracts, she couldn't really follow me to Ireland anytime soon.

My girlfriend works in nuclear physics

Like in a power plant? Have ye seen this film? Highly recommended.

No I haven't, thanks for the recommendation.

She's not working in a power plant, more research/engineering on detecting subatomic particles. I never studied physics so a lot of it is beyond me, but the projects seem more on the practical side. Stuff like building reliable detectors for different particles with limited resources, helping the Japanese with Fukushima etc. There was one person there who figured out how to use phone screens to triage radiation doses in a nuclear accident or attack.

Wow, so she's a genius? Fair play.

For gen Z, the situation is increasingly hookup centered. Some people are well suited for that and are thriving with an abundance of willing partners. Many pretend to be fine with it, but seem like they would be doing much better in a culture where the purpose of going out was to find a life long partner. You have to practice a degree of detachment. Sex is supposed to be an enjoyable activity that does not necessarily mean anything in the long run, and you are not supposed to fall for someone who you have only spent a single night with. That someone chose to sleep with you does not at all indicate that they won't spend next Friday night with someone else, and you should be able to mostly shrug it off. Expectations of exclusivity easily take a few weeks to months to develop.

Since sex often comes before love, being sexually attractive is extremely important. You sleep with each other and then you see if something develops. This is important, because it runs contrary to what one might otherwise expect: That you find someone with good husband/wife qualities, and then date them to see if attraction develops over time.

This heavily favors the charismatic, outgoing, and self confident people who are good at emotional decoupling. It also helps explain why going to the gym is so popular. Those whose attractive qualities are less immediately obvious, or who want to build a closer connection before sex, tend to stay single for quite a long time even if they are actively looking. Admittedly, I have no idea if this was always the case.

I am not sure if dating apps have done damage. The main issue is the lack of places for young people to organically meet and pair up. Apps, parties, and night clubs are the most common avenues. If you for some reason do not like those, then your options are extremely limited. To the point where even those who dislike going out to party will still do so, as they perceive it as the main way of partnering up.

Tensions over gender norms mostly exist online, or in very left wing environments. Showing distaste for the opposite gender in public is usually frowned upon, especially in social gatherings. Like self-made-human says, this is considered normal. It is something most people accept and deal with, even if they privately prefer things to be different.

"Alexa, describe my personal romantic hellscape, be sure to tailor it to demand the exact opposite of my personal preferences as the price for entrance."

The main issue is the lack of places for young people to organically meet and pair up.

Interesting that this isn't just a problem in the U.S. For some reason I assumed that the social scene for 20 and 30 somethings was still somewhat hopping in Europe. They seem to brag about walkable communities and friendlier social norms. At least parts of it.

I have bent over backwards to try and host spaces for people to hang out casually and meet without much expectations but also clearance to flirt, and somehow I virtually NEVER (like, once or twice in the past year?) get invited to spaces hosted by other people.

So maybe a combination of fewer 'third spaces,' (or the third spaces being too costly for young folk!) people not having spaces large enough to host others, AND a generalized decline in 'hosting' as a skill people develop at all?

They seem to brag about walkable communities

A lot of problems urbanist types attribute to a lack of "walkable" communities are not fixed by making communities "walkable".

I have bent over backwards to try and host spaces for people to hang out casually and meet without much expectations but also clearance to flirt, and somehow I virtually NEVER (like, once or twice in the past year?) get invited to spaces hosted by other people.

Where do you even find single people to invite to these things? Every party I've been to in the past five years has been couples plus a few sad single dudes.

Hahahahahahaaa oh its a challenge.

The core group of people I invite go to my gym, which is a mix of single and coupled people, and I try to invite the most agreeable sorts to come and leverage that to get some of the flightier ones to show. I find mediocre success.

You seem to notice the same trend I have. It is very hard to cajole any decently attractive single lady out to an event unless they have reassurances there are other ladies there. And that becomes a Catch-22.

So when I try to play mastermind, I invite out the couples who are friends with the single ladies so I can then invite the single ladies and reassure them "Oh X and Y are coming too!"

I begin to pick up on certain dynamics. As in Abby won't show up unless Britney is also there, but Britney only shows up if Charlie is going, and Charlie and Derek are best friends so if Charlie's there then Derek is likely to show, and Derek is a bit of a loser so he kinda deters others from coming but you gotta invite Charlie so Britney will so show Abby will show, and risk Derek being there too.

I give up on trying to orchestrate things precisely, but just be as strong a 'center of gravity' as I can so hopefully I can pull people into my orbit through pleasant but persistent pressure.

Anyway, all of this has led me to realize why Club Promoters have such an 'important' job. Keeping a roster of hotties who will actually show up if you text them so you can reliably promise attractive women will be at your event, which instantly raises the profile because now its more appealing for other attractive single ladies to arrive, and of course men will flock there if they can be in the presence of pretty women.

Hot single ladies are an ideal nucleus to build an event around, I'd wager, but they're also not the type to lift a damn finger themselves, and they have options so its always finicky to get even one to show, let alone 6 or more.

I thought though that playing matchmaker has traditionally been a social role assumed by older women, not by men like you.

Me I'm just trying to promote an environment where connections can happen.

I don't really try to suggest who should pair off with whom, although I'll sometimes nudge a guy to shoot a shot if I think he's in the clear.

Its important for more than just romantic connections anyway. Gotta have people rubbing elbows and talking to figure out if there's beneficial arrangements to be made.

I have bent over backwards to try and host spaces for people to hang out casually and meet without much expectations but also clearance to flirt, and somehow I virtually NEVER (like, once or twice in the past year?) get invited to spaces hosted by other people.

Just want to say, you're doing god's work and you'll get your reward in heaven (but probably not in this life).

I get small rewards in this life. I don't claim to be completely altruistic when I do this.

The event I hosted this past Saturday (UFC 324 watch party) was a success overall, and I have a decent number of leftover snacks to munch on for the week. People love to bring beer to the event (even though I supply plenty) so I have a beer fridge that literally never runs dry and a couple stacks of various beverages on standby.

I am Quixotically DEFYING the new social order that arose Post-Covid. There WAS a time when people would just host small gatherings spontaneously on regular enough basis that you could usually have one to go to every other weekend. After Covid nuked this and people got used to food delivery and vidya at home, everyone's energy level for both hosting and going out seemed cut in half and they haven't even tried to recover it?

But to the extent my goal is to re-awaken the local social life and inspire others to also host in their spaces, I'm clearly not making much progress.

In the friend group's main chat, people like to semi-obviously hint when they would like to do some event or other, which then falls on me to make the actual plan and demand others' commitments to it so it actually happens. I do some operant conditioning and lavish praise on anyone who actually puts forth and executes on event ideas themselves, and I make SURE to show up to those and raise the energy level.

I will not go quietly into the night. At the very least, give people the experience of socializing so those skills don't devolve.

Interesting that this isn't just a problem in the U.S. For some reason I assumed that the social scene for 20 and 30 somethings was still somewhat hopping in Europe. The seem to brag about walkable communities and friendlier social norms. At least parts of it.

It depends a lot on your age. 20 somethings and 30 somethings don't mix all that much. What I described above mostly holds true for those in their mid twenties and younger, with more options for those between 30 and 50. For some reason, young people are just not that interested in doing stuff organized by people much older than them, or in hobbies that require them to follow a set schedule. Older folks will happily invite younger people into their spaces, but when mostly everyone is at least 10 years older than you (or the activity is dominated by one gender), there isn't a lot of room for romance.

That said, you can still find mixed-gender activites with room for socializing, even if you are young. However, they can be few and far between, require more initiative to find, or are specific to certain hobbies. And even then, the hookup-centered nature of things persists.

So maybe a combination of fewer 'third spaces,' people not having spaces large enough to host others, AND a generalized decline in 'hosting' as a skill people develop at all?

This sounds about right. I am not sure people necessarily perceive the value in developing hosting skills, and those who do, might be disappointed with how hard it can be to get people to commit. It is a shame though, as good hosts are generally pretty popular within their communities.

For some reason, young people are just not that interested in doing stuff organized by people much older than them, or in hobbies that require them to follow a set schedule.

I call this the “magical internet box” phenomenon. Much easier to just hang out at home than to sign up for something. Much as I’m critical of the attitude, I know that I’m shaped by it, as an introverted zoomer.

Your account lines up uncannily well with my experience in the US, as do most of the other responses. It seems like the social effects of modernity and the internet are broadly similar everywhere.

It seems like the social effects of modernity and the internet are broadly similar everywhere.

Yeah. I just significantly updated my priors on the "problem" with current social norms stemming primarily from the phones, the apps, and the algorithms.

Still reserving a lot of space for Covid just nuking people's social skills in general, though. The phones might just be what is 'locking' them into a bad equilibrium.

For some reason, young people are just not that interested in doing stuff organized by people much older than them, or in hobbies that require them to follow a set schedule

I've seen a bit of this. Millenials could be flakey but generally apologetic if they miss something they said they'd go to.

Gen Z just goes radio silent.

I am not sure people necessarily perceive the value in developing hosting skills, and those who do, might be disappointed with how hard it can be to get people to commit.

YES.

For whatever reason (especially for the young) they want to maintain optionality all the way up to the last minute.

If I were a less disciplined (and stubborn) person I'd have given up hosting anyone but immediate friends like a year ago.

And hell, the reason I'm willing to host is to make it cheap enough that younger folks don't have to worry about coming out and running up a tab!

I'm never completely sure if my competition are events hosted by others or literally just watching streaming shows at home and Doordash.

Depends a lot on where you look.

Urban academic is depressing, mostly because of the combination of the gender mismatch (almost 2x as many women as men nowadays AFAIK, certainly at least at my medically oriented university) and most women nevertheless expecting their partner to be university educated as a bare minimum, and there is also aggressive political filtering. There are still plenty of well-adjusted couples of course, but also just many clearly unhappy single women, often with blatant dysfunctional coping behaviour. A lot of hostility/resentment towards men in general, too. Gender norms around kids are also a bit drama-heavy; The women all want to theoretically continue their career while simultaneously in practice staying home with the kids as long as possible. And when it predictably doesn't work out, somehow the man is at fault. All very typically western cosmopolitan, I guess. The men aren't perfect, either, of course; but what strikes me is that the worst are primarily egotistical (sleeping around, generally doing stuff with no concern for their partner), while the worst women are self-hurting dysfunctional.

The urban poor, of course, are awful, but they're awful in every other way as well, so it's not particularly surprising.

Rural middle class, at least where I'm from and from what I heard from a few acquaintances' country background, is doing well. Dating is still mostly from work, partying or extended friend groups; App is the option of last resort and not held in high regard. For an example, my main old school clique is 15 people, of which 2 seem headed for permanent bachelorhood (one of which almost surely is a closeted gay, why he doesn't come out is a mystery to us all, we really don't mind), 1 has had relationship but I'm not sure currently, everyone else is in a stable relationship (well, one is an incorrigible philanderer, but his current relationship has been a few years now, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt). We have 12 kids now afaik, as usual mostly the girls but the guys are also moving after. We're early thirties, so no worries from me that we'll hit 2+ TFR. In my second old school clique, 4 people, everyone has been in stable relationships for ages now and two of the others just now had their first child, too. They also intend to have more so again no worries. I've lost contact with most of my acquaintances from school of course, but if I randomly see them they almost always have a partner and often have kids, too. Gender norms are pretty easy here, women can do what they want, but when the kids come they want to be mom anyway.

But this is millenials. I have little idea how gen z is doing, to be honest.

Is such a lopsided sex ratio usual for a medical university?

It is so bad that some disciplines (ex: Peds) have an explicit and public pro male affirmative action for residency

Yes. It's almost universal at this point. Even when I entered med school (ten years ago? What the fuck), it was already 45:55 in favor of women in India. I recall seeing something like 40:60 in the States today, and even higher in the UK.

I'm not sure how much of it is affirmative action (it's too common to be the decisive factor), and how much of it is women just being better at maintaining good grades and grinding at exams. In some fields like gynecology, younger male doctors are on the verge of being endangered. Only a few branches, like orthopedics, remain solidly male. I don't know a single female urologist, though I'm sure they exist.

At least in germany, medicine as a whole has been 60%+ female, tendency upwards. Specialty study programs tend to be similarly, or even more lopsided: I studied a special "applied math in biology and medicine" course, which was around 20 women to 4 guys (admittedly partially due to many guys dropping out in the first semester). Women don't like math, but at least a few are good at it, and if you give it a focus on something they actually do like... The same goes for several specialty courses we have here on medical / biophysics or -informatics, even engineering, all of which naively may sound male-dominated, but from my impression were also 60%+ female. Just attach "medical" (or "media", for that matter) to any course name, and the women will flock to you, apparently.

Then you have the degrees which used to be Ausbildung, such as midwifery, and some other such as nutritional biology, which combine very low standards and a lopsided gender ratio.

I have a small friend group in Germany and it's not too different from USA. One lucky guy, that found his match in university, proposed at 27 and is on track for decent family life. The rest are a mix of being completely given up on dating (not actively looking) to perpetually being in short term relationships. One difference from Americans is disdain for dating apps. My german friends see use of them as a signal of promiscuity, so women on there are completely discarded from being long term relationship candidates (short term is fine though). I don't know if this view is unique to just the people I know, but it's an interesting distinction.

Does Scotland count? I can tell you that the social fabric is scuffed, dude.

While the actual numbers are probably lower, it feels like a third of the women there around my age are single moms, and another half unmarried even if they're in longterm relationships.

(I've learned the hard way to never assume that anyone with kids is necessarily married, or ever married, which is a safe assumption to make in India)

That being said, I haven't noticed any obvious tension between the sexes. This is the new normal, even if it strikes me as dysfunctional. The women are generally not afraid of the men, and vice versa. I haven't really seen much of a dedicated incel community, presuming there's anywhere that actually exists. Most people seem content with things.

Edit:

It's worth noting the stark class differences. The middle class usually does things the conventional way. But I seem to rub shoulders most commonly with people living in council housing (or at least they're the people most likely to invite a daft but friendly foreign doctor home from a pub) and oh boy.

It's worth noting the stark class differences. The middle class usually does things the conventional way. But I seem to rub shoulders most commonly with people living in council housing (or at least they're the people most likely to invite a daft but friendly foreign doctor home from a pub) and oh boy.

But that has been the case for decades, if not centuries (or ever?), and is the same in every developed country I'm aware of. Poors be trouble.

Oh boy? What craziness do you see there?

Where do I begin? People starting fist fights after a bit of Bolivian Nose Candy, someone showing off his Thai girlfriend from a village without electricity about half an hour before his actual Scottish girlfriend (likely underage) showed up to pick his drunk ass up, someone telling me about his lengthy run-ins with the law, and then telling me he's the good'un, since his dad literally murdered people with grenades over football fandom disputes.

I've been in a stranger's apartment at 6 am, desperately chugging coffee to stay awake, because I didn't trust them enough to pass out in front of them. Some schizo guy telling me about his fervent patriotism for India (it was the dude with the Thai girlfriend) and general distaste for Islam. He offered to volunteer for the Indian Army if war broke out with Pakistan, and I had to gently dissuade him, telling him that if there's one thing the country doesn't lack, it's manpower.

I have stories. I've written some of them up, but I'm sitting on them for a retirement memoir, or because the GMC might dislike my openness to experience. Good times, as long as you know where the exit is.

since his dad literally murdered people with grenades over football fandom disputes.

Go big or go home!

There isn't an 'incel' community anywhere, because that would entail the incels being a 'community', which they aren't.

There are at least two incel communities of non-negligible popularity: incels.is (discussion) and 4chan's /r9k/ board.

I'll keep that in mind when I stop by the local Warhammer outlet. Maybe I finally have the money for plastic crack...

I can't in good conscience advise you to play Warhammer. The game system itself isn't very good, and it'll put you in contact with...low-quality people. The only way to play Warhammer is to already have friends who play and join them, ideally 20+ years ago.

That's a shame, but I suppose the stigma around the hobby is there for a reason. I'm perfectly content reading the lore and playing the odd good video game that comes out.

It's an unfortunance that also applies to Magic, the Gathering. Expensive, and you'll probably be the coolest person in the room, which is not good.

I'd expected you to be a DIY enthusiast who'd sooner splurge on a high-precision 3D printer and pirated .STLs.

I've been tempted in the past, but back then, I didn't have the money. Now I do have the money, but I live in a shared apartment and I can't justify the hassle of setup and proper ventilation etc. Maybe a Bambu Labs at some point when I've got the room, it's probably cheaper than buying a full Knight Lance or a Forgeworld Titan.

Hell, my preferred way to play 40k would be something like Tabletop Simulator if I wanted to stick to the original rules, or even better, the upcoming Total War: Warhammer 40k game. It's one thing to 3D print the minis, it's another to paint them (how many coats? And how much does that cost?) and then find people to play with. Some GW stores tend to take a hardline stance against third party miniatures, or people hanging around in their stores without ever buying anything.

Don't do it, man. That way leads to homelessness and giving out handjobs to people in exchange for a squad of space marines.

Hey, I presume that providing handjobs at least fixes the incel problem? I'll jizz for AdMech with jezzails any day.

I understand. The Omnissiah's work is demanding, but rewarding. Just make sure to apply the sacred unguents so there's no chafing when you give out the handjobs!

Are online communities a thing? Are we a community?

I'd say so. I've met one Mottizen IRL, and would happily stop by and say hi to others should our paths cross.

For Russia, the traditional issue is low male quality. It's a vicious cycle of men doing "stupid men stuff" like drinking, fighting, committing crimes and working dangerous jobs, creating a scarcity of men that allows the survivors to get away with doing more stupid men stuff.

For decades, the solution to this problem was "women settling for less and/or looksmaxxing". You know, the "average Russian couple" meme with Shrek and a sex doll. These days women just don't settle down. They have as many kids as they can afford to raise alone since the divorce rate is too high (zero to one), so if they cannot afford children, they just don't marry anyone. They date around (earning the derogatory title of "plateress" from the men they eat out with), just in case there's someone worthy on the dating market, but no longer think they have to settle down by any due date.

This generally seems to be one case where the sex ratio is severely distorted in one direction or the other; women’s general willingness to marry is eroded as a consequence either way. One Manosphere blogger described it thus:

“Why should I think about marriage? All guys are available.”

“Why should I think about marriage? No guys are available.”

They're all psychological colonies of whatever the US PMC thinks. Fuck's sake, Finland holds BLM rallies. You're all living in America.

Just found this in an older discussion that was linked to in the current thread.

@JTarrou

That guy sounds like he has his finger on it. Also sounds angry and arrogant, which is par for the course.

Is the US dollar collapsing?

Compared to silver, yes. Compared to the yen or euro, no. Compared to stocks, complicated. In the short term? Definitely no. In the long term? Maybe a tiny bit. In general? Mostly no.

If you have savings and need liquidity, there's still not really any other game in town. If you have savings and don't, stocks, real estate, precious metals, and crypto will all probably outperform it long term.

Compared to what?

Goods and services

So what you mean is 'are we looking at high long term inflation'? And that's sadly baked in.

But I mean are we looking at a hyper inflationary spiral in just a couple of years or less.

How would your 2016 self have reacted to the subsequent changes in the discursive landscape? If someone told me, “the wealthiest man in the world bought Twitter and posts photos of ‘MechaHitler’ in a bikini while the President gives Europa soundbytes at Davos and the DHS posts vaporwave Moonman edits”, I would tell them to take their meds.

Wow, Grok is doing mechahitler images again. I put 'mechahitler in a bikini' in to check and certainly got a result (NSFW)

2016 was the happiest year of my life. I'm really glad I didn't know all this was coming.

The Haredi are to my knowledge, virtually unique in that they've largely retained their traditional way of life in the middle of an ultra-modern society without going the way of the Amish. Not only are they not shrinking, they're actually increasing their share of the population, to the point that it has become a significant political issue. I'm deeply curious about this. Can anyone a) recommend good scholarship on the Haredi or b) point me towards any other similar modernity-defying groups?

other similar modernity-defying groups?

The Mennonites who are growing at brisk pace and actively spreading around the world. Most of their growth is in Latin America, but lately they are coming to Africa too.

Unlike the Orthodox Jews, they managed to keep low profile (so far). If you know who Mennonites are, you are either their immediate neighbor, serious theology nerd, 16th century history nerd or demography nerd.

Hey, Chaplain Shipman/Tappman was one! As are both members of Music Go Music. But I guess I count as a serious theology nerd since I nearly became one after going through every Christian denomination set of beliefs.

After Yiddish and Pennsylvania Dutch, the language with the highest TFR in America is Somali. Also, you can probably find a study on urban-dwelling Salafist families in the Middle East who have huge families, ie there are fundamentalist families in Riyadh working oil & gas who will have 5+ kids.

there are fundamentalist families in Riyadh working oil & gas who will have 5+ kids.

Working is frequently a very strong word for what the native members of big Oil & Gas companies do in societies like Saudi.

I'm curious about these numbers- do you have a source collecting by language? Just want to check a bunch of stuff out, not doubting.

For Yiddish-speaking households: https://www.niussp.org/fertility-and-reproduction/fertility-and-nuptiality-of-ultra-orthodox-jews-in-the-united-states/

In the American Community Survey 2021, looking at spoken language at home, Somali sits at 5.2 https://x.com/BirthGauge/status/1583095374654283776

https://data.census.gov/app/mdat/ACSPUMS1Y2024

You just said so- the Amish. They retain their trad way of life in the middle of an ultra-modern society.

For a much more tech-y example, try the hutterites.

In Russia, there's the Anastasianists. They don't seem to be lindy, but they're living a traditional peasant lifestyle.

In Russia, there's the Anastasianists. They don't seem to be lindy, but they're living a traditional peasant lifestyle.

They haven't proven their multigenerational longevity yet.

I don't want to shove this into the CW thread because it's stale news at this point with all the hot news coming out of Minnesota, but is it possible that Trump got what he wanted out of the whole Greenland thing? That is, kicked Europe/NATO up the backside to start taking responsibility for Artic security and got them to commit to spending money and manpower there?

How much manpower did Europe commit? Last I heard, there were enough soldiers sent over to make for a decent sitcom, or to wave the flag valiantly while being obliterated by a cruise missile.

Almost certainly.

Trump did what he always does - say a bunch of shit that causes people to freak out and in the process gets something done.

It's pretty clear his complaints are real (re: China, Russia), so......

Who knows? (You can certainly tell yourself that as you watch Kier Starmer's state visit to China this week.)

I don't think this was his primary goal (i.e. I think he really does want Greenland) but at the very least, he's made the EU put their money where their mouth is. How sustainable "we'll handle Artic security" is, or how soon until it devolves into squabbling over who sent how many troops versus who paid how much, I have no idea.

But you have to admit, he certainly got Greenland put on the agenda!

So what are you reading?

Got two more sections of Capital to finish, which I will be very glad to be done with. Hoping to write up an effort post here and on my blog after I finish. I think it will generate an interesting discussion not only because Marx presents a convincing critique of capitalism (although I think his central premise of the labor theory of value is wrong, or at least incomplete) but also because it's been illuminating to see how the leftist group I've been reading it with has gone from worshiping Marx to understanding him as the flawed, snarky philosopher that he is.

Also planning on finishing up Outlive by Peter Attia today. Also going to write-up an effort post on this for Wellness Wednesday. Think it's a fantastic book, but I disagree slightly with his prescriptions and want to add a few of my own.

Also working on Harry Potter 7 in Italian.

Currently reading the core book of Exalted 2nd ed, a TTRPG about badass demigod heroes where the selling point is that they are badass demigods straight from square one.

If you are into such things, might I recommend Genius: The Transgression?

A Game of Forbidden Science:

Break the rules and you get in trouble. Break the law and you go to jail. Mouth off to your boss and lose your job. Jump off a building and...But it doesn't have to be that way, says that little voice in the back of your head, your personal genius. You ignore it, but you can't silence it. But a genius gives in to that voice, becomes that rules-breaking thing, that maker-trickster-savior, and begins a life of pain and glory unimaginable to mere mortals.

The genius sees the truth, but she cannot get there. In her heart she knows, but she cannot explain why. She flouts social convention, ignores the sneering voice of authority and dogma, and casts aside the ethical concerns of her peers. She breaks the rules of the universe we know to glimpse the truth of the universe as it must be. But there's a price. There always is. She is not just isolated from the "common man," but from the very discipline that birthed her. In her heart, she knows that what she does is not science, which is ultimately about systems and about cooperation. Alone, she walks a new path, wearing the trappings of her old life but no longer capable of touching its essence.

Genius: The Transgression takes place in the World of Darkness, a world like ours but with darker nights and deeper stains. People don't connect to one-another as they do in our world. They live in the shadows of ancient conspiracies and the shadows cast by old things, and this infects the geniuses: for every mad scientist working in silicon and plastic, another labors with greasy cogs and steam pumps, while another never left behind the gleaming chrome and atomic dreams of the 1950s. For one of the Inspired, there is no escape from the fetters of superstition and occult dread, the lurking horrors at the edge of consciousness. Though cobbling together elements from our past, the genius ultimately belongs to no place and no time, and walks alone into the future.

Theme: Transgression

A little knowledge is a hideous thing and it will drive you mad.

The genius is a rule-breaker, a trickster, a liar, a thief of wonders, and a maker of false dreams. Tenuous threads bind him to the mortal world, and every wonder is a violation of the rules of the universe. On the one hand, Obligation binds a genius to humanity; on the other hand, Inspiration tells him to do things that no sane person would ever want to do. The genius can be humanity's damned savior, destroying himself to safeguard a society that will never know his name and would hate him if they knew what he had done to preserve them. A genius is never entirely in control. His inventions are always one step away from freeing themselves and rampaging through his lab, or his city. The ideas and dreams come too fast for him to write down, let alone study and examine. The deadlines are constant, the pressure to find equipment, money, and research time mind-breaking, and humiliation is a constant companion. Mad scientists burn with a passion for their work, and though that passion is glorious and often contagious, the hunger to know and to control consumes them from the inside-out. They cannot obey the rules that normal society has set down for its members. They can only choose what laws they will break, and how they will look at themselves afterward.

Mood: Bitter Disappointment

The hideous freedom of transgression is matched by the choke-chain of necessity. A genius finds herself surrounded by failure and broken dreams. For every wonder that lurches, blasphemously, beautifully, to life, another turns to smoking scrap in the testing phase, or lies forgotten in a corner, half-made, because the genius couldn't pay for the right permits or find the right materials. This juxtaposition of Inspired triumph and mundane failure defines a genius' life.

And even if the genius succeeds more often than he fails, he sees dead dreams all around him. Once-great geniuses, their radiance reduced to cinders from a lifetime of crushing defeat and humiliation, stock the shelves at the electronics store in the mall, too ashamed to take up the wrench again. Those Inspired who provide a genius with the supplies he needs are hollow, miserable people, chewed apart by the failure of their philosophies to gain acceptance. And in the end, rare is the genius who makes a measurable impact on the world: no matter how successful a genius might be, his wonders still crumble when exposed to the light of day, reduced to malfunctioning piles of components. Many of the Inspired, after that initial burst of delight, feel the circle of possibilities shrinking around them, until they are little different from before, except that now people who once respected them now snicker behind their back at the "maniac" who cracked under the stress.

I have an epub of The Practical Guide to Evil staring at me in my e-reader app. I only got a few dozen pages into it before my eyes started glazing over.

First impressions are poor. It's written like YA webfic slop, with a frisky and pugnacious teenage female protagonist who we are introduced to in the process of beating up a man thrice her size in a fistfight. I get the impression that there's a diegetic explanation, something to do with some people being "archetypes" and thus imbued with narrativium powers, recognized in-universe. But come on, surely we can do better than that. The story also tries the "what if Orks were misunderstood and not evil" trick, but at this point in the fantasy ecosystem, the deconstructions are probably more common than efforts to play things straight.

Maybe I'm being harsh, and it'll pick up. Some swear by it. But I find it hard to motivate myself to push deeper.

Truly, the double standards are beoynd belief. When glorious Fang Yuan in a teenage body beats up 30 fellow students in a row, there is no complaint, but a female protagonist?

He's just built different 💪

He's got "500 years of experience" and was an expert in CQC combat. A bunch of 13 year olds who can't throw a punch didn't have a chance, especially when their ego stopped them from piling onto him

PGTE has a very slow start and I dropped it like three times before getting into it. Once she's recruited by Black it gets better.

Also, the entire premise of the story is based on capital Good vs capital Evil and narrative around it, with Cat and Black standing somewhere in-between. You do get to see characters that are actually Evil, but Cat isn't a part of that faction.

Since you've read xianxia, I'd say they're closer compared to Orthodox vs Demonic, with Good being Orthodox, aka do plenty of bad things in the background but cover it up as actually good, or shove it under the rug, while Good is Demonic, and at times openly evil, but also less likely to stab you if you make them look bad.

Personally, the narrative framing is the element I like the least, and it's also why I stopped reading it later on, but if you enjoy meta elements in storytelling you might like it. Although from your comment it seems like you're not a fan.

I'm not against meta elements, if they're done well. That's easier said than done, the best example that comes to mind is Worth The Candle, which is actually elevated by the main character being a self-insert struggling against the constraints of the Random Omnipotent Being, who is also a self-insert of sorts.

I'll give PTGE another try, God knows I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel for books that appeal to my tastes.

If you have read a reasonable amount of webserials then it's hard to imagine you won't enjoy PGtE. I feel like the general consensus is that it's one of the 'big three' alongside Worm and Mother of Learning in terms of quality and popularity

The Map and the Territory by Hollaback. Author hate-inserts himself literally. Still waiting for something to actually happen.

Have you read other Houellebecq (lol Hollaback)? I think Submission and The Elementary Particles are better than the Map and the Territory.

I’ve read two, The Elementary Particles and another one I can’t remember anymore (edit: it was “Whatever”). Yes I agree they were more engaging. Have not read Submission yet but I have it on my nightstand shelf next to a hardback reprint of The Camp of Saints(1); I’ll read them both as a double-feature.

(1) https://vaubanbooks.com/books/the_camp_of_the_saints_hardcover.php

Camp of the Saints is on my reading list too.

I actually really disliked Whatever. I found it be a worse version of The Elementary Particles.

Same, I read Whatever right after reading The Elementary Particles, which I really enjoyed, and it was so boring I haven't read any of his books since.

Every other one of his books I’ve read (submission, platform, annihilation) has been really good. Would recommend giving him more of a chance.

Whatever was his debut novel, and Elementary Particles was the refined second try. It makes total sense that one is a worse version of the other.

Finishing up Twelve Months: Dresden Files Book 18 by Jim Butcher. I expected to be finished with it by now but, fuck, some of its themes just hit too close to home right now for me to be able to devour it in my usual fashion. I'm finding myself having to take breaks and deal with my own feelings frequently, which is probably a good thing, but it also reminds me that despite having more good days than bad, it's going to be A While before I find whatever my latest new Normal is.

Wait, that's out? Damn, I've been slipping.

Eh, it's been out all of eight days now so I wouldn't worry too much about it were I in your shoes.

I enjoyed it though felt that it didn't do enough to advance the metaplot considering the 5 year wait between books.

Yeah, as I was reading it I was also surprised to find that, for the most part, it was only advancing a few larger plot threads. Finishing it left me hungrier than usual for the next Dresden files, which really isn't saying that much but still.

Yeah he's indicated he's gonna try to go back to a yearly cadence but after the last 2 books took 5 years each it's hard to be super bullish.

Agree, if he can pull of a book every two years I'll be happy! Regardless, I hope his Troubles are behind him or at least mostly behind him at this point.

Any idea if we are getting more Cinder Spires? Last I heard he was going to decide based off sales.

The sword moment in the last book was peak and I want more.

I'm afraid not, the drawn-out development of Peace Talks and Battle Ground pretty much habituated me to waiting indefinitely for my next dose of Butcher, but FWIW, I also found the sword moment deeply satisfying even as it called to mind another series that had one of the best subversions of Chekhov's Gun that I've ever seen.

WoT?

More comments

I was pleasantly surprised by this one. I thought he had written himself into a corner and I had no idea how he was going to make this work, and seeing how long it took to come out I bet he had the same problems, but he made it work and made it believable.

So yeah, good book!

I'm on #8 now. It is a bit dark (and from what I heard about it, is going to get darker) but I am liking it so far. Getting to the end will likely take me a couple of years though, as I need to take breaks for other things.

Glad that you're enjoying them! The Dresden files quickly went from decent enough read to one of my all-time favorite series, and I got the first eight books at a cheap price, but Grave Peril was the one that hooked me. They do get darker, but for me, they also get deeper and more poignant as they progress.

I'm looking forward to that one! I'm in the middle of other stuff right now so I haven't bought it yet, but hopefully next month I'll get to it. I'm glad to get another fix of Harry Dresden suffering porn.

I'm glad to get another fix of Harry Dresden suffering porn.

It definitely delivers the goods, though that'd pretty much be a given after the last book. I was lucky enough to be finishing my last book the day that it came out so I'm fortunate in that particular department!

I'm committing to finishing up my first read of Wildbow's Worm, and I am up to the point where Taylor becomes Weaver.

[Spoilers]

Okay, I think I hit my limit of disbelief on "actually, insect control is OP" writing. You have one of the most overall indestructible Capes, who is also a tactical genius w/photographic memory on top of it, and she's somehow not able to defend against "insects jammed into your mouth" attack.

A tactic that Taylor has used ample times anyway.

I accept the premise that getting foreign matter lodged in her lungs (or drowning) would be a killing stroke, I accept that Alexandria was trying to goad this precise reaction from her... but its both hard to believe that Alexandria wouldn't think of "close your mouth and nose" as a defense, or that standard-issue bugs would actually be able to force themselves down her airway.

I was barely hanging on as Taylor is using bugs to dial telephones and manipulate the wiring in the walls to get doors opened, but "I stuffed her lungs full of roaches and spiders" was seemingly a different level entirely.

It works for the plot, and I'll keep reading, but that was the first time I groaned at Taylor being able to punch far above her nominal weight class through creative insect usage. It didn't even have the 'rule of cool' justification like when she's in a drawn out fight.

[/Spoilers]

Still beats most mainstream stories that are out these days.

(Spoilers) I think the canonical/fanonical explanation is that Alexandria totally didn't see it coming because she was expecting Taylor to micro-react before flipping out and murdering everything. Taylor offloads her emotions into the swarm, so from Alexandria's perspective it went from "Taylor's perfectly chill, I need to push harder" to "I'm drowning in bugs" in the amount of time it takes for bugs to deploy from the ceiling. Agree it's weird that she hasn't died from this weakness earlier (Leviathan certainly tried), but accepting that she didn't have time to react, I could totally see her ingesting enough bugs in the first instant before she closes her mouth for it to be fatal. I don't think she's got microcontrol over her body to be able to expel the bugs from her airways or anything like that so once the bugs are in she's probably screwed.

Having said that she could totally have [spoilers for later arcs] to escape but I imagine she wasn't quite thinking rationally at the time.

Well, that and she wasn't present in the room to see Taylor's reaction to the body bag, might have had a couple seconds warning if she saw Taylor.

And hey, props to both Alexandria and Tagg for pulling off a convincing enough act. I was half expecting Taylor to cling to the possibility that it was someone else who was dead, rather than reasoning herself into it being one of her friends.

Still, a full flock of insects bee-lining (heh) for your face is going to give you enough warning to clamp your jaw shut and try to cover your nose.

And if she is indeed vulnerable in this way, the way I would go about trying to kill her (which I literally thought of just now) would be getting a shot of containment foam down her throat. Yes I know its breathable, I'm saying it would probable seal the protective flap shut when it expanded.

Everything I read about this webnovel reminds me so much of Phenomena, I do wonder if the writer ever saw this movie? Jennifer Connolly in a Dario Argento movie, it's going to be stylised and have all kinds of twists and "going back to the first thing you thought you saw, you missed this clue" scenes!

In spite of how insightful and relevant I'm finding it (and how short it is), my progress on The True Believer has been slow.

Still on the Vorkosigan Saga. I'm now on Brothers in Arms, which is like book 9 or something. The series is definitely falling off, but I'm still having fun with it.

The next ones IMHO are much more fun. Except for Gentleman Jole which I recommend skipping and finishing with Cryoburn or Captain Vorpatril's Alliance, depending on in which order you want to go.

Have you tried the fantasy series? (Chalion books and Penric novellas.) They can be kind of slow and sometimes low stakes, but are occasionally very beautiful in their portrayal of genuine spirituality. I waffle between thinking that a religious Bujold is showing us what belief can offer or that an atheist Bujold is showing us the material conditions (e.g., genuine and unmistakeable interactions by gods) needed for religion itself to be genuine.

Love Chalion, have not read Penric. I really enjoyed the Sharing Knife though.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats