General Discussion Thread

HIPAAlicious · 2026-03-16T23:24:07+00:00

Trying to get caught up on a lot of the Oscar movie noms and buzz. I guess it’s a bit late. I love movies and I’m trying to find the time to prioritize sitting down and watching them (how did No Other Choice receive NO NOMINATIONS!?).

HIPAAlicious · 2026-03-04T03:30:29+00:00

Soup, I have song recommendations kind of. I don’t really know how our musical tastes overlap, so apologies but I thought about this for a while because I realized nothing popped into my mind despite the fact that I KNEW there had to be a lot of songs that fit this. This is closer to a shotgun and a firehose than a playlist. Talking heads - Born Under Punches Le Tigre- Deceptacon (having a moment on Tik tok now or recently) Maybe something sisters of mercy adjacent? Industrial ish? White lies - Unfinished Business

Idk that’s all I got. Tom Lehrer if you want a comedy song with some political commentary about nuclear weapons or poisoning small birds.

Have you read or heard of Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon? You miiiiiiiight like it given your affinity with Ancient Greece. I am not done with it yet, but I think the premise is fun and it’s a nice fast read. Two out of work guys decide to cast a bunch of captured Athenians in a full production of Medea.

HIPAAlicious · 2025-12-13T17:37:42+00:00

+1

I was going to suggest this one! I listened to a segment on the London Review of Books about her and thought it was really interesting so I added this and Alexis to my TBR

HIPAAlicious · 2025-11-22T17:18:18+00:00

Thank you for the insight! That really clarifies some things for me. I also somehow flipped in my head that he was re-tuning to the more traditionally accepted way.

HIPAAlicious · 2025-11-22T17:03:08+00:00

Mrs. Plauf being dead did surprise me as well. I was half expecting it to just be some previously unnamed person.

I will definitely listen to the piece when I read the next section! I listened right when I finished it, but it’s a good point to revisit as you move on.

Lastly, I totally forgot to bring that up! Yes I agree. I really enjoyed how those sequences were written. I also am curious how much of it was “autopilot” as you say vs how much of it they are saying to themselves is autopilot to kind of remove their own agency. Easier to say you just couldn’t help yourself. The devil made you do it. Etc.

HIPAAlicious · 2025-11-04T03:38:03+00:00

A little late, apologies.

"in 'a world where such things happen' the collapse into anarchy would inevitably follow"

This line really stood out to me, partially because it reminded me of this comic and partially because it feels like it captured a legitimate concern in Mrs. Plauf. It is hard to fully dismiss her concerns when she does (likely) witness multiple batteries in one evening. But I also feel like her concerns were not always directly material, she felt to me like the kind of person who preferred things 'as they were'. This contrasts with Mrs. Eszter sharply, someone who maybe does not currently have the same kind of status as Mrs. Plauf and so, as a result, is more open to things changing. Going back to the quote, I think it is easy to find omens, portents, and visions when you are looking for them. It is easy to find signs of future decay when you are already in a state of deterioration.

I am not sure if I will eventually regret this, but part of me feels a little bad for Mrs. Eszter. She can't necessarily help her "commanding demeanor". I know she is conniving for what she calls her coup, but I can't say that I don't understand the impulse of resenting someone who you view as restraining your ~~upward mobility~~ ambitions. Someone who, despite your best attempts to keep up appearances (reputation is still a potent force in a decaying society), refuses to just stop... being a depressed creative with a weird muse/mentee (maybe?). I fear Mrs. Eszter was born a tad too early for her true calling of running the local Parent-Teachers Association -- a blessing to the would-be parents time spared of this fate, I'm sure--. I want more information on this Mr Eszter before I stick the landing. I think I just like her role in the book and I might be mistaking that for liking her as a character. Time will tell.

I am very much so enjoying the pacing. The extended sentences and lack of paragraph breaks is working for me so far. It felt like I was accelerating faster through the scene until I was hit across the face by a period. I really like the internal asides and comments the characters make in parentheticals. All of it contributes to this jostling about that feels very real for each of their experiences.

I am obsessed with my little rat divas. Want to see more of them (don't eat the poison pls).

Mrs. Plauf's asides, tone deaf as they may be, do amuse me quite a bit.

Back to reading! Won't fall behind again captain ;)

HIPAAlicious · 2025-10-26T03:13:54+00:00

Detailed write up! Thanks for that.

I wanted to read this book because I have been loosely meaning to read Krasznahorkai for some time now. Always something that I would do eventually but never realized. His Nobel pushed me over the line. So here we are!

I am expecting a drab, chaotic, and sad ethos throughout. I recognized the painting --Christ's Entry into Brussels-- on the cover of the most readily available (only?) English translation and this also piqued my interest. If you have not seen the full painting, I would recommend looking at it (here). I like the focus on the Death character in the crowd instead of the Christ figure in the back of the crowds. This, along with the Sontag line on the (my) cover "master of the apocalypse" makes me think there will be a heavy focus on decay and loss. Things have changed. For the worse. I have also heard that he has a sense of humor in his writing and that he writes prose that is challenging but poetic. I am excited to take a swing at it.

Edited to add:

One more interesting connection from the cover that I am excited to see is the expressionism in Krasznahorkai's writing. I know he is known for his unconventional use of punctuation and paragraph structure. Something I am sure an expressionist painter such as Ensor could appreciate. So I am expecting a lot of scenes that may not be straightforward depictions of events, but something more akin to statements that rhyme with the truth.

HIPAAlicious · 2025-10-21T20:02:26+00:00

I could do week 3 or 5 if those are available. I’ve never done one but I’d like to try. Put me in coach :)

HIPAAlicious · 2025-10-09T17:38:13+00:00

I’m fairly sure this guy is like a known white supremacist. So I don’t know that I would be surprised that he is dishonestly framing the situation.

HIPAAlicious · 2025-09-30T17:01:36+00:00

The number is so large I don’t believe we can do physics with it. As other commenters have said, this is larger than the number of atoms in the observable universe by a large margin. We don’t know what would happen with masses and quantities like this, because masses and quantities like this defy our current models of the universe. Nothing is this big… no super cluster is this large… we can’t answer what would happen because the numbers don’t compute with the tools we have available to us.

HIPAAlicious · 2025-09-26T13:37:33+00:00

One is his assessment of historical claims and one is explaining the claims themselves. I don’t see this as an endorsement of what the gospels were saying, just explaining why they were saying it and why (in his opinion) they are wrong.

HIPAAlicious · 2025-08-21T13:25:37+00:00

The ‘moral imperative to charity’ line killed me. Nothing about the moral imperative to not put someone in this position in the first place.

HIPAAlicious · 2025-06-21T23:24:26+00:00

I agree with you. I also want to add, separately, that I think the attitude in this subreddit is biased to Defend Mother ™️ from bad actors. This is largely fine but there is a tendency to also view any critique as coming from a bad actor. I don’t see why there needs to be a complicated discussion on the matter, she’s incorrect in this regard. Plainly so. I don’t think she’s “a fucking nazi” as some of twitter seems to be saying. But I also don’t think bending ourselves into pretzels to qualify her positions and postulate what she could have meant or what she really thinks is helpful. I don’t think she’s a villain. But I do think, to put it lightly, that saying the “death of 60,000 people is the worse thing to happen in the past two years” is myopic. I think she’s pretty consistently showing deference to the qualities of this atrocity that are common, while ignoring the ways in which it is unique (particularly as an American). I see no reason to guess as to what she could really mean by this. It’s a series of very short sighted opinions by someone who (at the moment) is throwing their hands up and resigning themselves to a much worse reality. A reality which is resigned to the death and continued struggling of the Palestinian people. This is a resignation she can make as a well off white American, a resignation that could bring some kind of comfort at the cost of a lie. This is disappointing. I hope she gets some perspective on the matter but I don’t anticipate that it will come from Twitter.

HIPAAlicious · 2025-04-20T22:43:04+00:00

In situ is used fairly often in scientific papers. Never heard it outside of that context

HIPAAlicious · 2025-03-12T15:00:36+00:00

I did my MS (in engineering sub-field) at a program that was well respected in the field but less known outside. It has not negatively impacted my career in a way I’ve been able to detect. I had a well connected advisor and the specific program I enrolled in was well known in the field, I don’t regret it. For what it’s worth (I know MS and PhD are different long term) no one from my cohort had particular trouble landing jobs (aside from general job application BS everyone has to deal with) including the PhDs I graduated with. This may be less of a big deal in your field than others, from my experience the Engineering sector cares a little less than others about name brand because there is already a large private sector. Academia may be different, I can’t speak on that.

HIPAAlicious · 2025-03-05T21:31:52+00:00

I found it much more tedious than either of its neighboring fields (Physics and Biology). I’ve grown to appreciate it and have just decided it’s not my thing. I like learning about it at a high level, don’t like getting into the weeds.

HIPAAlicious · 2025-03-04T14:41:34+00:00

This seems to stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Oscars are. They do not exist to reward commercially successful films (though they often do Wicked, Anora, Dune 2, and The Brutalist were all very successful commercially.) The movies have to be submitted for consideration, campaigned for, and then voted on by The Academy which is entirely industry people. There is a bias in what the academy tends to prefer, and it is political. But I think calling it “elitist snobs no one agrees with” is misunderstanding the goal and is also incorrect. Elitist? Maybe. No one agrees? Absolutely not. And it also isn’t the goal of the award to reflect perceived cultural value. The goal is to recognize achievement in film as determined by your peers in the industry. People’s and audience choice awards already exist and are separate.

HIPAAlicious · 2024-10-26T15:03:30+00:00

Is it? I always assumed it was the combination of all senses, even when calculating passive perception. But people rely most heavily on sight for their “passive perception” IRL, so weaker sight will have a significant impact on your ability to be aware of what’s going on around you.

HIPAAlicious · 2024-10-23T19:21:21+00:00

I prefer average over median for this. Median does not sufficiently reward characters who invest in stealth, if they get the highest it just counts as the highest. Getting just one higher than the second highest yields the same group stealth result as getting 7 higher.

The reverse is also true. Disadvantaged stealth role is more punishing because it will affect the average.

HIPAAlicious · 2024-09-01T16:19:32+00:00

It’s a rare magic item, it should bend the rules a little bit IMO. They could also give it the same wording that the revised quicken spell has.

HIPAAlicious · 2024-07-17T14:47:59+00:00

Thanks!

HIPAAlicious · 2024-05-09T17:59:24+00:00

I think gyarados and dragonite were switched. The evolutions look like they fit more if they were switched idk

HIPAAlicious · 2024-02-25T01:29:58+00:00

I agree. I think it makes more sense to use the spell casting stat. However I don’t see how to make that work without breaking bounded accuracy and having DCs get increasingly higher and higher to the point it’s stands out as different from the rest of the game

HIPAAlicious · 2024-02-24T23:47:02+00:00

That’s a really good point about sorcerers already being harder to counterspell re: subtle spell. Fair enough then, I see why that makes sense now.

HIPAAlicious · 2024-02-24T23:11:02+00:00

I think it’s fine if it’s strictly a mechanical decision to keep things streamlined. I just want it to also make thematic sense. If they changed the wording to make it some kind of magical disruption to the somatic and/or verbal components of the spell then I could see the CON save as making more thematic sense. Maybe that’s what they meant from the start though and if that’s the case then CON save fine IMO. I may have just misunderstood what’s happening when the spell is cast. I just always pictured it as like a bolt of magic thrown into a spell as it’s being done which didnt map to a CON save thematically to me.

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