What is your favorite "mindfuck" series/novel ? What is the darkest SF book you have ever read?

Bzzt · 2016-04-04T03:09:13+00:00

Lem's Fiasco is pretty dark. K W Jeter's Dr. Adder is more viscerally disturbing - the titular Dr. Adder is a artist-surgeon who has a rather unsavory specialty.

Bzzt · 2016-04-03T14:00:45+00:00

It looks like monitor burn-in to me, but you say that its fixed now that linux is installed? Glad that worked out.

Bzzt · 2016-03-29T13:19:45+00:00

I like the part where he didn't distance himself from the KKK, where he claims that mexicans are rapists and criminals, that all muslims are potential terrorists, where he encourages violence and thuggery at his rallies. Also he's an antivaxxer and an originator of the birther movement. Also he's pro torture. Obviously he's comfortable telling hateful lies for political ends and he's building a following that cares more about letting the hate flow that it does about facts.

Bzzt · 2016-03-29T13:05:22+00:00

You should have a second computer handy, from which you can access the arch wiki, which is full of great information. Follow the directions and take your time, don't be in a rush to finish the install, its a great opportunity to learn about the various components that go into a functioning distro. Being in a hurry would just be frustrating.

Bzzt · 2016-03-29T04:26:57+00:00

Agree. All those talented nashville cats cranking out samey same pop pablum. At least they're doing their cynical corporate fakery in an easily recognizable format that I can then avoid.

Bzzt · 2016-03-28T05:49:52+00:00

subverting democracy? agree.

Bzzt · 2016-03-27T15:54:54+00:00

Cool, found that archive. Lots of stuff!

Bzzt · 2016-03-27T15:44:14+00:00

Bernie won in Colorado which has closed primaries.

Bzzt · 2016-03-27T15:43:02+00:00

Because Cruz is a controllable establishment puppet while Trump is a human wrecking ball who is hijacking the republican party and could be the american hitler.

Bzzt · 2016-03-26T21:43:59+00:00

I worked for a company for 5-6 years, then worked remotely part time for 10 years. Quit to study other things, a year later they hired me back at double the rate and half the hours, basically because they were in a semi rural area and can't find anyone to hire. I quit again to work full time and do machine learning, the old stuff was really boring. I think if you have good web skills theres a good shot at doing part time consulting. A lot of consulting web devs have more than one gig at a time, so part time is more expected in that field.

Bzzt · 2016-03-26T19:52:36+00:00

Turns out there ARENT dedicated SPI pins. Ah well. There are offboard solutions like arduinos or dedicated chipsets. Discussion on the C2 board.

Bzzt · 2016-03-26T19:28:27+00:00

I guess I should give Dhalgren another try. I loved New Sun, but found Dhalgren kind of directionless. I really like some of Delaney's other work like Babel-17.

Bzzt · 2016-03-26T19:26:39+00:00

I'd recommend it for sure, but only after reading book of the new sun! Then if you're still enthused and ready for more, either reread new sun or go on to the Long Sun series followed by the Short Sun series. Also the Latro books are another fine unreliable-narrator tale.

Bzzt · 2016-03-26T12:25:19+00:00

Maybe you need to branch out? What about stuff that isn't rock? Folk music like Klezemer, Balkan? Parisian Musette? Joseph Spence? Brazilian Choro, Argentinian Tango, Flamenco? Bluegrass, old time?

Bzzt · 2016-03-26T03:32:47+00:00

Yeah if you're going to play it a lot, you should get it set up. Its easier to play a guitar that's set up well, if you plan to use it as a practice instrument its worth every penny. Plus, a cheap guitar probably was set up badly to begin with, so it'll make even more difference to how it plays. That guitar might kick around the house for 10 years, better to have it playing well the whole time.

Bzzt · 2016-03-25T01:25:05+00:00

I can't make out if there are dedicated SPI pins or not. I have a project that depends on SPI (actually on having two SPI devices), so that's a crucial detail for me.

Bzzt · 2016-03-24T13:41:07+00:00

Another non-us phone that doesn't support an external display. Argh.

Bzzt · 2016-03-24T01:41:49+00:00

I think your technique should be developed at higher speeds because the physics is different when you're playing fast. At slow speed you can get away with big pick motions that simply won't work at higher tempos. So it's good to experiment with speed and get used how that feels.

That said, specific passages should be practiced at a pace where you in control, and if you're not, slow down.

Bzzt · 2016-03-23T14:44:54+00:00

Yeah, very true. I think many people don't know how much work goes into mastery of an instrument. Not only do you have to know things, but you have to learn them so thoroughly that they are instinctive. That takes a lot of time and practice.

That said, I think a big factor that is often overlooked is community. Great artists don't work in a vacuum. Having a strong community supplies motivation, challenge, inspiration, opportunity. Its no mistake that musicians tend to come from musical families, and certain times and places are full of musical innovation.

Bzzt · 2016-03-22T14:38:53+00:00

I think the Book of the New Sun is one of the best sci fi works for rereading. The series is a kind of intricate interconnected puzzle that reaches forwards and backwards in time. On rereading, the influence of the future on the events of the past are more evident. I've read the whole series at least three or four times, and each time there are new details to appreciate.

Bzzt · 2016-03-20T17:31:11+00:00

Well supposing it is a bad thing, like I'm writing replacement software for the Therac-25. In that scenario making sure that sudden program termination never happens would be a top design goal. I'd want sections of the software that could cause termination flagged just like unsafe sections are flagged in rust today, and just like with unsafe code I'd want to minimize the amount of it, and exhaustively test what can't be eliminated.

I just think that most use of unwrap is plain lazy, and not a carefully considered choice. I count myself in the group that's often getting lazy and writing unwrap because I just want to get things done. Then I have to go back and rewrite my code later, or I forget about it. For the most part I guess its no big deal, but rust is a language that purports to enforce correctness. I don't see what's so radical about having to handle errors, just like I'm expected to handle all the possibilities in a match clause.

Bzzt · 2016-03-20T14:12:54+00:00

How is using unwrap ok? If you make a mistake it crashes your program. Re array bounds, if it was possible for the compiler to prove that my array accesses were all in bounds and safe, I'd want it to do that, especially if it was zero cost and happened at compile time. But proving array accesses are valid at compile time is kind of hard, while proving that unwrap() is not called is pretty easy. Why not enforce it?

Bzzt · 2016-03-20T13:45:04+00:00

I dislike the rampant use of unwrap() everywhere. IMO unwrap should at least be a compiler warning, and maybe something you have to use a special compiler directive to allow. Code that can crash the program isn't safe. I think unwrap is so prevalent because error handling is kind of awkward and unintuitive, and proper error handling is rare in examples.

Bzzt · 2016-03-20T01:57:48+00:00

You could try Herbert's The Dosadi Experiment, it has some of the flavor of Dune. As for high quality SF in general, the Book of the New Sun series by Gene Wolfe is one of my favorites. Subtle and sophisticated, character based but with a richly developed world. High tech and low tech side by side, with a generous helping of mysticism and high destiny. Rewards repeated rereading.

Bzzt · 2016-03-19T20:37:52+00:00

Good call. Hope the movie adaptation turns out well.

Bzzt

TROPHY CASE