Oldmandan @ Oldmandan @lemmy.ca

Formerly Aonar, on reddit and other platforms. Engineering undergrad, dnd p

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2 yr. ago

Possibly one of my favourite series, period. The first book is objectively hard to get into. (The writing is a little rougher than the later novels, and the in media res start + Erikson's... anthropological(?) approach to world building (where history and culture are complicated, everyone disagrees about everything, anyone who can tell you something about the world with certainty either refuses, or is lying) leaves you needing to work hard to understand what's going on while not being sure if the effort is worth it.)

And then book two shares almost no characters and takes place on an entirely different continent, only tangentially connecting to the main plot. :P But if you can get over the shock of that (and get through the first book to get here to begin with) Deadhouse Gates and Memories of Ice (books two and three) are genuine works of art, and the rest of the series is of similar quality.

Realistically, this is a complicated issue. I can understand wanting to modernize older works (wanting to share something you enjoyed, but struggling because said thing has not aged well), but part of the value of those works is in the view they give of the past.

The important part if this is going to become commonplace, I think, is making sure the process is transparent and the originals preserved; EG, if a book is going to be edited, it needs to be explicit (in the new version) that it was editied, what was edited, and why it was changed. It's one thing to tweak something so that it can still be enjoyed, it's another to try to forget it was problematic in the first place.

That all said, I find I agree with Pullman, here; I doubt the publisher is motivated to do this by anything other than sales. Let new authors find their place, instead of whitewashing the works of dead men to turn a quick buck. /shurg

I find it curious, sometimes (not a direct comment on anything here, just reminded my of an observation I often have, when foriegn interference is a topic) how amero-centric we tend to be. If a forign country is going to interfere, nine times out of ten it's going to be about ensuring their own wealth and power. Political party and ideology doesn't matter, it's about who they figure they can sweet talk into a better deal. Am I a little surprised Beijing figures that's the Liberals and not the Conservatives? Yes. But only a little. :P It tracks either way. :P

The Royal Tyrell is a great stop, I remember going there when I was about that age to visit my great grandmother. The Alberta badlands in general are neat, worth stoping by some hoodoos or other similar formations if you get the chance.

As far as other stuff goes:

The Fraser River and Hell's Gate in particular is worth a stop, when you get to BC. (Also a good menory from that trip.)

And while (as an Ontarian) I fully understand the desire to drive though the province as fast as possible, there are lots of great scenic spots in the western half of the province, along Huron and Superior. (As you get into the Sudbury>Thunder Bay stretch, in particular.) There are also some beautiful spots more in my neck of the woods (Thunder Bay>Manitoba border stretch) but by and large those are further from the highway and more of a trek to visit. :P

Layoffs happen, stock goes up, bonuses go out, services suffer; while profits stay basically the same, because the other options are doing the same thing, and we no longer live in a world where these services are optional. Such is the cycle of modern capitalism. >>

I told myself I wouldn't read unrelated papers at work, but here we are. :P Yeah, as expected, the actual paper is way more informative about the structural properties, and about the limitations. (Difficulty fabricating larger samples without voids, said voids resulting in much lower strengths and much less plasticity, uncertain tensile strength, etc.) Fascinatingly though, (at least to me, not having known the details about DNA based metamaterials :P) the details of the properties should be tunable by way of changing the DNA lattice structure. Which makes it a two-part engineering problem, figuring out how to manufacture it at scale, and determining optimal lattice structures for different applications. Definitely exciting, and will be big once we figure these things out.

But that's not really what I was talking about. While I get that this is an article geared to laymen/the general public, I do think we should be holding science communication to a higher standard. What was discovered is exciting, but we don't know how it can be used yet, or if it will ever be practical to do so. Overview is fine, I'd just like some more qualifiers and less speculation. Maybe it's just me, but I feel like some more care would do a lot to improve overall scientific literacy and trust in the scientific community. /shurg

Always a little annoyed at articles like this; "strength" doesn't tell me anything. If this is 5x more resistant than steel to deformation, but then shatters catastrophically, that limits its use cases substantially. Likewise, compressive, tensile and shear strength are all different properties, only one of which is referenced at all. Still very cool, and I look forward to seeing how it develops and learning more details about its capabilities (when I have more time I'll read the paper), but vague terminology like this has a bad habit of making stuff sound way more revolutionary than it actually is. /shurg

IIRC, there is a bit more complexity than that to the Pirahã understanding of numeracy. Relative quantity is something they're just fine at understanding, (with words for single/less, plural/more and same) it's abstraction of quantities to tokenized values where they struggle. Which, I suppose, also interestingly lines up with the study results; the initial training period resulted in nodes associated with quantity, but those nodes were separate/unrelated to numeracy systems that developed with additional training.

It got more questionable the further I scrolled. /shurg Perhaps it's just marketing (thumbnails decrying feminism/diversity/etc) but bare minimum he gives off vibes like he's trying to cater to a far-right crowd.

"Right" is "capitalism is a good economic system" (degree of acknowledgement of current problems variable), and "traditional values have value, so care and caution should be taken before change is made." IE, the modus operandi of most (American) parties that brand themselves as left wing. :P It shouldn't be fucking screaming about things being "woke" or too feminine or too diverse. As soon as it's about hate, instead of policy, it's alt-right. The problem is that nowadays, that's all there seems to be.

I'm not terribly keen on watching any of the vids on his second channel; maybe the titles and thumbnails are just click bait and the actual content is more level-headed, but I've got better things to do. /shurg

Malazan is one of the all-time greats, IMO. Took me a couple years to get through, (had to take breaks with lighter books every now and again, especially in the back half) but what a ride, holy crap. Memories of Ice in particular was amazing. Itkovian remains one of the most compelling characters for me.

Slowly working my way through Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary on breaks at work. Not far enough in yet to have a firm opinion on it.

In terms of stuff I have opinions on, I just recently finished Robert Jackson Bennett's Locklands. The Founders Trilogy was overall was a fascinating read. Not 100% sure how I feel about the ending, but I loved the world, characters, and language/definitions as magic. (Kind of hard not to, as an engineer specializing in how tech and software interface with biological systems. :P)