EntropicalVacation @ EntropicalVacation @midwest.social

Central Illinois book lover, cat lover, CPA

---

Read more

Posts

6

Comments

51

Joined

2 yr. ago

1. They’re ugly as sin.
2. They’re scary as shit when you happen across one in the dark and it hisses at you with its pointy teeth and glowing eyes.
3. I left my car parked in a lot at work overnight, and in the morning it wouldn’t start. A possum had climbed up under the hood and chewed clean through a bundle of wires that apparently was most of the electrical system. It was so stupid that it wouldn’t leave even when I poked it with a stick. That car never ran again.

My sister had a long-haired tortie named Artemis! She was a little freak. Hope your Artemis is a little saner!

Maybe people would be more willing to fund science research if all experimental results were reported like this!

I hope Ned feels better soon!

I’m usually reading at least 3 books at any given time, so when I’ve finished one or two, I still have time to pick up the next one.

Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder. Not a collection, but an easy-to-read overview.

I didn’t loathe it, but I didn’t much care for it. It’s basically a polemic about the history and effects (racism, poverty, income inequity, classism) of colonialism and capitalism. Not that that would make a bad novel per se, but I was expecting something more fantastical. The promise of linguistic magic was a big draw for me, but I felt this book could have been written, and maybe should have been written, as straight-up historical fiction, instead of promising fantasy that it pretty much failed to deliver.

Third one from the end looks a little stretched.

The cats or the boxes?

To Kill a Mockingbird, of course.

Here’s a very technical paper that studied nose vs mouth vs combined nose-and-mouth breathing:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7455204/

I confess it was over my head and I just skimmed it. But the conclusion says, “The high filtration efficiency of the nasal cavity together with its efficient clearance mechanisms lead to the recommendation to prefer the nose breathing over combined or mouth breathing.”

The conclusion also says, “There is general scientific agreement that lower airways are more vulnerable to severe infections” and “From this point of view, the nasal inhalation is preferential because it significantly reduces the number of particles penetrating to lower airways.” I’d guess that means that shallow breaths are probably preferable, but you’d need to read the article to confirm that.

Heterosexual men want to look at boobs. If she thinks this is “weird,” I feel she needs something explained to her.

For SF, I recommend anything by Becky Chambers. The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is the first of her Wayfarers series.

Greebles. They’re often on the ceiling at our house.

“She had six strong legs and it frightened me. She had insect eyes but I could still see that the look she gave him you give to me.”

Why would he want to? The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

Enjoy what you enjoy—life’s too short and there are too many other books out there to waste time on what you don’t enjoy! I have no qualms about not finishing a book, no matter how far along I’ve gotten. I’ve been known to skip to the last chapter or last few pages just to see how it ends, then move on.

On the other hand, for books that you have to read (for school, e.g.) set a goal of X pages per day, and reward yourself when you make the goal. I also find it helps to read more interactively: take notes, argue with the author, think about what you read and whether it’s total b.s. or whether there was anything, however small, of value in it.

I love Becky Chambers. Psalm for the Wild Built was one of my favorites from 2022.

Dutch House was one of my favorite reads from 2022.

I actually split between reading and listening to the audiobook. It was long either way! I didn’t care for it as much as I thought I would. The first part took me a while to get into, I loved the second part, but after ::: spoiler spoiler Maidenhair dies ::: it was all downhill.