AFK BRB Chocolate (CA version)

I wasn’t a big fan of goat

When they said he was forming one, I assumed it would be that

Those at the top of government aren’t following the rules anymore. Why should states still be bound to do so?

Republicans are ignoring the laws applied to themselves, but not the ones applied to other groups, and they’re in control. They will for sure use the law against states that do this. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t do it though.

We had two dogs, a cat, and a bird, so the house was always full of animal silliness. My wife left me a couple months ago and took the dogs with her. I’ve become so thankful for the cat. She just wants to be where I am, constantly: on my lap if I’m sitting, or on my chest if I’m laying down. It’s made a very hard time just a little less hard.

Favorite “all time” would have me looking through a lot of titles, but I’ve really been enjoying Adrian Tchaikovsky lately, and some of his is hard SF. Probably Children of Time would be the one I’d start with.

If you like hard SF, you’ve probably read Weir (The Martian, Project Hail Mary, others), but he’s great.

I could go on a lot, but maybe I’ll keep it there unless you want more.

Hmm, yeah, that one’s maybe not as strong, though I kind of look at Network Effect and System Collapse as one story (confusing because there’s a book in between them, but that one chronologically comes before Network Effect). I liked it, but agree it’s not as strong.

I understand how you feel like that’s a satisfying portrayal, I’m just saying that’s not how it was portrayed in the books. And that’s okay, the director has to make decisions when a book is adapted to the screen. Stanley Kubrick decided that, with the state of the art of special effects at the time, the hedge maze in The Shining would have looked stupid, so he got rid of it for the movie. People were upset that it wasn’t there, but it was probably the right decision.

Well, yes, they’re following the storyline of the books, so the show is going to give away what happens in the books. The books are richer (as is typical), with more going on than they cover in the show, but the basic story is the same.

Which did you feel was the clunker?

In the books, Murderbot is aggressively no gendered. It gets upset at any suggestions that it has sex characteristics. That was enough for me to form a mental image of androgyny.

I mean, it’s fine. They had to go with someone, and that someone was going to have a body, it’s just different from what I pictured.

I’m enjoying it. Some of the decisions are a little odd. The thing that’s most distracting to me is that, in my head, Murderbot appears much more androgynous. That might have been hard to pull off, but Skarsgard is definitely male (even without genitalia). Some of the other characters are goofier than in the books, but I kind of understand the choice.

I hope the show gets people to read the books, but the show is entertaining.

The show is good, the books are fantastic!

I know it’s a month old, but I just saw this post and wanted to add some comments.

First of all, I agree with the recommendation on Leckie, especially the Imperial Radch series. It’s space opera - not funny like Murderbot - but it’s a pretty interesting take on an artificial consciousness.

Second, Wells has written other stuff besides Murderbot that’s good. I’m also more of a hard SF reader, but I did enjoy her Tales of the Raksura series, which is straight up fantasy, with people who can turn into dragon-like things.

Third, John Scalzi is also really good at clever/witty dialog. Some of his stuff is more serious, but he’s got a few that are both funny and moving. Maybe check out Redshirts, which is kind of the Star Trek situation, from the point of view of the away team members who tend to die while the main characters always survive. Very silly concept, done very well.

I read kind of a ridiculous amount of SF. If you want any recommendations for hard SF, or anything else in the genre, I’d be happy to give my thoughts.

This is a great guide. The only quibble I have with it is the part about choosing an instance. There’s one aspect where it does matter: not every instance federates with every other. It’s good to be aware of any significant defederation vs what you care about when selecting an instance.

Anyone have a non-paywall link to the video?

Both supporters and detractors will buy them, someone’s going to get rich.

You can’t arrest me for pretending to be a diplomat, I have diplomatic immunity!

I think we might be agreeing, it’s just that “mediocre” means different things to each of us. My team supports human spaceflight, and no one we have is crummy. The “mediocre” people have pretty decent technical skills if you’re looking across all software development domains.

Personally, I’ve found the decent technical skills to be easier to come by than the other ones, and having all of them in one package is a real discriminator.

People have those things in spectrums, not all or nothing. You have to have at least some of all of them, but I’d argue that mediocre competency with really good communication and accountability is a better combination that really good competency with one of the others being mediocre.

I’m halfway through scrolling this long thread, and this is the first comment I’ve seen that isn’t overly cynical. It’s also correct.

I’ve been working for 38 years, and I’ve been someone who makes promotion decisions for 15 of them. The third one is helpful, not essential, but the others are super important. The people who rise to leadership positions aren’t necessarily the top technical people, they’re the ones who do those things with a good attitude.

The other thing I’d add is that they’re people who are able to see the big picture and how the details relate to it, which is part of strategic thinking.