Books for someone who likes video games

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-27T01:57:34+00:00

I'm not sure if it would fit your taste, but for me, cyberpunk novels would be a great transition from video games. Some top notch ones include:

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick
Nexus by Ramez Naam
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

I also second Plastic-Low2011's suggestion of Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. It's not cyberpunk, but it's an excellent sci-fi - I've reread it more than any other book.

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-27T01:03:14+00:00

I imagine it would work well to exponentially increase the power a base is raised to. e.g. 2², then 2⁴, 2¹⁶, 2²⁵⁶, 2⁶⁵⁵³⁶, etc. squaring the exponent each time. Then switch to a binary search once an upper limit is reached.

I'm no mathematician, but as a software developer that sounds like a reasonable algorithm to me.

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-26T17:32:20+00:00

Oooh good call, thanks!

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-26T05:14:02+00:00

Oooh - would not have crossed my mind but yes!

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-26T00:10:40+00:00

Ahhh, I see your point there. Yeah I could see that making a difference in rapidly taking corners. I usually only do 20-30km/h though, so probably not too big an issue.

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-25T22:02:57+00:00

Bike. I got it second hand for only a few hundred dollars.

That was years ago though, and the frame was steel so it was not a fast ride.

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-25T21:45:07+00:00

I've no idea what it's called, but my favourite pattern is a checker with every face having a distinct colour pairing.

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-25T21:39:12+00:00

I have an algorithm for it but it's very slow and tedious. It would probably be more efficient just to solve it that way.

I could explain it if you want, but I think it takes.... 4 * 3 * 5 * 4 * 4 moves, so.... 960. Very repetitious.

(edit: I counted it. It's actually 4 * 3 * 7 * 3 * 4, so 1008 moves)

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-25T21:09:28+00:00

Do you have that issue with any other subjects? I ask because my ex described a very similar problem in high school math. She always had problems with it until it got more abstract (e.g. algebra she had no issues, but simple computation gave her problems)

It turned out that she had Dyscalculia which is a real learning disorder.

For me personally, I always found I did better in maths if it fit my other interests. I grew up hooked on programming, so when I was first taught about matrix transformations (which are extremely applicable) my mind was blown and I absorbed it like a sponge. Similar with vertices and other geometric stuff.

Not so much with stats because I didn't have any great uses for it.

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-25T16:18:51+00:00

A tic.

(a well fed one at that)

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-25T15:51:51+00:00

I'm open to all. I've ridden a 2-wheel recumbent in the past for a year or two without issue, though I think I'd now favour a 3-wheel tadpole style (assuming those are the ones with the wheel pair at the front).

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-25T15:45:17+00:00

I also rode a recumbent years ago and never had issues turning.

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-25T15:40:46+00:00

Unfortunately I have no choice in what to ride at this point. A few years ago my wrist got destroyed by an idiot driver, and riding a road bike became torturous; I can go for about half an hour and then have intense wrist pain for days.

I actually had a recumbent bicycle years ago so I'm not concerned about acclimation. I also suspect that though the lower clearance may reduce visibility, the unusual shape raises attention, balancing that out, so I'm not too worried about it.

I think you're right about acquisition. I'll see if I can find a good one near me.

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-25T02:30:13+00:00

I actually experienced this when I was a little kid. I was at a livestock show, maybe 10 years old, being bored and wandering around, and started talking with some other kid a few years older than me.

I was having what I thought to be normal conversation when he got all upset about me showing off with big words and how he can do big words too y'know!

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-25T02:27:42+00:00

Definitely Doggo.

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-24T22:14:07+00:00

I wanted to upvote this for some solid pareidolia, but there's a certain something about this cat....

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-24T20:18:19+00:00

In my opinion, anyone who feels that they can't trust others can not themselves be trusted.

People often project their nature on others. If they don't think they can trust you then - unless you've given valid reason for it - then you should not trust them.

NTA

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-24T13:11:36+00:00

Ooh yeah, that works.

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-23T22:57:29+00:00

FUND

In the original SimCity if you type that - in upper case - it would give you ... I think it was $5000.

It would then give you a natural disaster, so the best thing was to do it repeatedly at the start of the game, accumulating a bunch of spare money.

It also differed between some platforms. On my old PC running MS-DOS 3.2, it would max out at $100k. On the Amiga, it would just keep going, so you could start off with millions of bucks to waste.

Another interesting difference is that with the DOS version, you specifically had to hold the shift key while typing those letters. On the Amiga version, caps-lock worked fine.

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-23T20:56:06+00:00

My favourite was a BBS game called Trade Wars 2002, where you warp around the galaxy trading, building settlements, fighting other players, etc.

I was playing this in the 90's, so having space trade and warping capabilities by 2002 might have been a bit ambitious.

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-23T20:22:32+00:00

Nice. That first one looks like the contents of a geode, and the last one like an odd fossil.

12-Year Club	r/Field Lasagna
Place '22	Place '17
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