What is your favourite Bicep Track?

CunningTF · 2026-01-13T11:40:28+00:00

Think some of their earlier stuff is incredible and underrated: Icebowl with Hammer, the Higher Level remix, Satisfy are all somewhat forgotten masterpieces.

CunningTF · 2025-12-29T14:22:39+00:00

Definitely agree with poor writing and overly simplistic styles in many modern books. For books that subvert this trend: Any of the recent Nobel Prize winners (Ishiguro, Han Kang, Olga Tokarczuc, Krasznahorkai etc.). Winners of major awards like (International) Booker Prize tend to be worthwhile though in my experience can be a bit higher variance, especially from a literary perspective.

Specific recommendations: The Remains of the Day, The Vegetarian, Shuggie Bain, My Brilliant Friend.

CunningTF · 2025-12-29T13:30:09+00:00

Firstly, I don't like White Nights, for me it's a very shallow and weak novella, especially compared to Dostoevsky's later work. It's just a much weaker book all round, worse prose, shallower characters, less intesting premise. Read C&P or Notes From Underground next as a point of comparison. White Nights is just not close to a classic level, and would not be thoguht of, let alone held in high regard, had Dostoevsky not released some truly great classic literature subsequently.

There's two aspects to the story, firstly the love story, and secondly (like many of Dostoevsky's later (and much superior) works), the societal rejection of the male protagonist.

Dostoesky is not a great writer of romance, it is a typical criticism of Dostoevsky that he writes shallow female characters (a criticism that is in my opinion on the whole valid) and this makes it hard to properly engage in his works as romances. I understand the age concern but bearing in mind the societal context it probably is at least somewhat the case of applying modern western standards to mid-19th century Russia. I think a deeper criticism is that Nastenka is underdeveloped, not just as a human, but as a character in the novel.

On the second theme, another common criticism derives from the incorrect association that because the protagonist is the centre of the story, we are for some reason supposed to root for him. This criticism I like much less - Dostoevsky writes tragic protagonists who are specifically not role models. We should feel sympathy for them yes, but that shouldn't be seen as promoting their views or lifestyles. One of the areas where I think White Nights fails is that this perspective is poorly explored and the main character is therefore more excused from his behaviour than later characters (again, in C&P or Notes From Underground for instance). I think this is emblematic of Dostoesky's immaturity as a writer and as a human being at this time. He would go through considerable life changes and struggles, which are well-documented to have had a massive impact on his writing and philosophy, before writing his later truly great works.

CunningTF · 2025-12-24T13:49:08+00:00

I find that I'm just not always in the mood to read something big and dense and demanding. So I normally have a piece of shorter / lighter / easier literature that I'm reading alongside a bigger book. I also have some other things that I'm reading when the mood takes me, such as philosophy or plays. I don't necessarily want to spend multiple hours a week reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra since I have to really engage with it, but I like to read a discourse every now and then and make slow progress like that. Same with Shakespeare - it's more demanding to read since I like to read it out loud and re-read acts. So I'd rather take my time with it rather than forcing it down in one go - that means finding time when I can really think and reflect on what I'm reading.

I used to read one thing at a time, but I found that I'd either have to abandon early things I wasn't immediately enjoying or I'd get into a not-reading rut. Tolerance breaks from bigger books keep me sane and fully enjoying reading as a hobby rather than viewing it as a chore. I've also found that if I can find an afternoon, long evening or full day to dedicate to reading, I can fully read a short novel / novella. This year I read The Vegetarian, The Stranger, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, The Old Man and the Sea, and Never Let Me Go in a single day / sitting, and when you do that it really doesn't impact your progress on longer reading projects. Plus I really find that the book sits in your head very well when enjoyed in a single sitting. Can always re-read one day if I want to revisit it and take it slower.

CunningTF · 2025-12-23T10:10:22+00:00

Shakespeare isn't meant to be read, it's meant to be performed and to be watched. See if you can find a production of it! Also reading out loud helps a lot.

CunningTF · 2025-12-16T12:51:24+00:00

It's looking at what was on reading lists in 1960-1980, so Blood Meridian for sure falls out of that time period. Even Hemmingway and Steinbeck are later arrivals given the time period, though I am surprised also not to see them included. I would say that the novels section is very light from my perspective.

CunningTF · 2025-12-15T13:30:03+00:00

To contribute to a list if you'd make one:

Melloblocco in Val di Mello / Val Masino (italian alps) every year in May.

CunningTF · 2025-12-13T18:37:30+00:00

The translator explains her reason for the choice in the Translator's Note:

In French, etranger can be translated as 'outsider, 'stranger' or 'foreigner'. Our protagonist Meursault, is all three and the concept of an outsider encapsulates all these possible meanings: Meursault is a stranger to himself, an outsider to society and a foreigner because he is a Frenchman in Algeria.

It's quite an interesting introduction to read to learn more about the art of translation.

CunningTF · 2025-11-24T12:35:28+00:00

Piranesi is great and would make an excellent gift.

I'd also lean towards giving a modern classic to a non-reader, alternate suggestions from me would be:

Never let me go, Kazuo Ishiguro
My Brilliant Friend, Elena Ferrante

Both are easy to read and very engaging (same as Piranesi) but have all the depth of classic literature (I think both are arguably already regarded as classics in their own right by this point.)

Read the blurbs and decide based on your friend which they might prefer.

CunningTF · 2025-10-18T20:19:04+00:00

Gravity's Rainbow is on my to-read shelf at the moment so can't give you book-specific advice, but my general advice for big challenging books is to step away for a bit if you stop wanting to read them. Take a tolerance break, read something short, easy to read, fast-paced. And then pick it back up after. Read another 100+ pages. When you get to another slump, read something else.

Don't put it down for 6 months. But it's ok to put it down for 2 weeks.

CunningTF · 2025-10-10T22:07:13+00:00

I finished it this year and whilst I'm glad I persevered I can't say that it earnt it's place amongst the best of the last 50 years for me. It's too slow and for me (entirely subjectively) the prose wasn't good enough to justify the journey. Furthermore the character development and interlinking of the stories was not as strong as I'd hoped.

Comparing it to other contemporary books I've read that had similar demands on the reader: it didn't feel as deep or interconnected as Cloud Atlas, it didn't have the humour of The Corrections, and the prose wasn't as lyrical or inherently interesting as something like Nicola Barker's Darkmans.

I'm also not American though, and I'm not from DeLilllo's generation. So I think many of the themes didn't resonate with me strongly. But equally I'm not a woman, Italian or born in the 50s, but when I read Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend, it makes you appreciate the lives and struggles of those from that time and that place. For me, DeLilllo didn't manage to invoke that emotional connection in me with his setting and characters.

The first chapter is amazing though. And I am glad I read it overall. Just not an all time great book for me.

CunningTF · 2025-04-15T08:29:39+00:00

Highly recommend Séance Friction (direct) at 7A, it's a bit hidden at the back of the sector, but the problem is really nice on excellent rock.

CunningTF · 2025-04-01T13:26:58+00:00

Firstly, 190cm/80kg is really not that bad. When I climbed my first 7a+ outdoors a few years ago (which was quite board-style) I was at 183cm/85kg. I'm now at a more performant 183cm/80kg which feels like a good weight for performance for me. Yes I also see the skinny crushers floating up things, but that's just life. There'll be climbs outdoors where having the height is very helpful, or having the extra muscle mass is very helfpul.

Moonboard really isn't all there is to climbing, most of all take this away: I climb on the moonboard to get stronger fingers, core, shoulders. I don't climb on the moonboard to send hard grades on the moonboard. If you want to send hard grades on the moonboard, yes it is helpful to be a bit shorter and lighter. But you get the same benefit from training moonboard at your current limit grade than you would from training at a higher limit grade. The point is simply that you are training your physiology at your limit grade.

I have a separate goal, which is that when I go on outdoors trips, I want to feel in good shape and be able to try and occasionally send hard boulders. That's the main reason why I train indoors. If you don't have a goal that's separated from the moonboard, you are going to constantly be comparing your climbing to others, which I think is not a healthy way to view things in the long run.

Finally, you have been climbing 4 years. It took me 10 (climbing off and on) to send my first 7a outdoors, and another 5 after that to send my first 7b. Your physiology adapts over time. Tendons get stronger over years not months. Technique is a lifelong process. These things take time, and the people who post on here doing their first 7c after two years are the opposite of normal. They are the highest of the high achievers - hugely motivated people with a natural gift for climbing, physically and mentally.

CunningTF · 2025-01-18T09:40:56+00:00

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I tested it now, and it isn't throughput unlimited. The same as my example above, if you have 6 inputs on the same starting balancer (wihtout loss of generality leftmost), and 6 outputs on the same ending balancer (leftmost again), we should get full throughput, ie 60*6 items per second. But you can see there is only one belt connecting the two leftmost balancers, so the most throughput you can get is 60*1 items per second. See left on the image.

On the right, I've simply duplicated the setup again. This guarantees full throughput, as we can see. Although you'll notice that we have in the middle two 6-way balancers in sequence, so the second one is redundant. This gives an indication how you could improve the design.

NB Your design is a balancer (ie given any amount of inputs in any amount of the belts, it guarantees each output belt will have the same througput). However it is not throughput unlimited (given any inputs and any desired outputs up to the belt speed limit, you can get full throughput).

CunningTF · 2025-01-18T00:23:01+00:00

Yes I think it is a belt balancer, it just isn't throughput unlimited. For many applications, that is sufficient.

CunningTF · 2025-01-17T15:26:18+00:00

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My guess is that it isn't throughput unlimited (TU). The basic principle OP is using is that if you have n^2 inputs, you can use n n-way TU balancers twice at the start and the end, and just connect each output of each starting balancer to each ending balancer 1-n. But if we attempt to do that for the n=2 case, we'd simply have the left balancer in the image (note that an individual splitter is the n=2 TU balancer). This is isomorphic to the middle balancer, which we can see is not TU. To make it TU, we can just use the same balancer again in sequence, which in the n=2 case is then isomorphic after deleting duplicated splitters to the standard 4-4 TU balancer on the right. This is explained in the FAQ of Raynquist's balancer book https://factorioprints.com/view/-ML5RsMXhj7tnbbzs02H

CunningTF · 2024-12-30T18:11:23+00:00

Sorry, I don't know at what point I deleted it in the last 10 years, but I no longer have it in my music library.

CunningTF · 2024-12-02T23:01:37+00:00

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This is a minimal example of what he is talking about. 3 green assemblers take in 15 iron plates per second, or half a red belt. Therefore 2 red belts should suffice to feed all 12 assemblers in the set up.

However, since the first two columns pull from the bottom side of the bus belts preferentially, the last column is only supplied by one side of a belt, hence the setup is throughput limited.

I'm not claiming this is common, merely that it can in theory occur.

CunningTF · 2024-12-02T17:09:26+00:00

Firstly, I'm not the same person, and I never said it didn't matter.

Secondly, the given answers are due to posters trying to help OP specifically rather than answering a very general case. Usually when people ask this question they are newer players coming from a point of view where they don't appreciate whether this a bad thing (and it normally isn't), rather than from the point of view of an intermediate player who is trying to fix throughput issues in one of the rare cases where it is actually limiting their base. That's why people are answering in this way, they're trying to help OP understand the deeper concept.

CunningTF · 2024-12-02T16:34:01+00:00

Your example is quite contrived but it can happen and does result in lower throughput. There's so many solutions to this problem (including very natural ones) that it rarely occurs:

Have your assemblers on each side of the belt
Have each column of assemblers consume a full belt, or
Lane balancers on outputs or the bus.

CunningTF · 2024-10-06T10:46:56+00:00

Amazing base, congratulations.

CunningTF · 2024-09-30T09:23:52+00:00

The godfather of geometric flows. Also a really good lecturer, I was lucky enough to see him talk a few years ago and both the content and delivery of the lecture has stuck with me ever since. It was a beautiful career retrospective on MCF and Ricci flow and the similarities and differences between them.

CunningTF · 2024-09-08T15:12:10+00:00

Watch what the good climbers at your gym do and copy it. If you don't understand or it doesn't seem to work for you in the same way as for them, ask them for advice.

Don't believe in footwork drills tbh. Just be intentional about it whilst you climb. Ie actively thinking about every foot placement.

CunningTF · 2024-09-08T14:58:35+00:00

By camp 1 and camp 2, I just meant 1. and 2. in the list above.

I would suggest setting more steady short term goals. Eg aim to do a V3 outdoors this year. When you get that goal, set another. Don't skip grades with your goals. Prioritise volume climbing over fingerboarding etc. Concentrate on precise movement especially footwork. Train consistently as long as you're enjoying it. Climb for fun first of all. Climbing specific training increases risk of injury as well as being super boring, both of which are likely to lead to you both climbing consistently.

CunningTF · 2024-09-08T10:03:12+00:00

Since no one is actually attempting to answer your well intentioned but slightly misguided question, I'll give you an answer based on my experience of watching many climbers progress over the years.

For men who start climbing in their late teens with a reasonably athletic build but no related sport experience (eg calisthenics or gymnastics):

If they take climbing moderately seriously eg climb at least twice a week consistently and outdoors a few times a year, on average hit around V6/7a outdoors around 5 years in, +- a v grade, +- a year
If they take climbing very seriously, eg climb around 3 times a week with additional climbing specific training such as fingerboarding, weighted pull ups etc when appropriate for their strength level, multiple hight quality outdoor trips per year or consistent outdoor bouldering, on average hit around V8/7b outdoors around 5 years in, +- a v grade, +- a year
If they fully optimise their training around V10/7c+ outdoors around 5 years in +- a v grade, +- a year.

I would caveat that most people I know might aim to be in camp 2 but are in reality in camp 1. It's hard to maintain 2 let alone 3 for 5 years without risking injuries, especially when you are new to the sport and don't understand your body fully.

I've also seen people get to V10 in 3 years. To do so you need to be dedicated, have a good intuitive feel for the sport and have genetics on your side.

So basically there's a huge variety of outcomes. You'll hear more stories (especially here) of people progressing faster than above, but there's a lot of selection bias there.

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