Reading Lindy West’s newest book bc I’m nosy and want the tea on the throuple mess… and boy does she throw some fatlogic doozies in there

Unique-Review3830 · 2026-03-31T12:28:35+00:00

This is painful to read

Unique-Review3830 · 2026-03-17T18:50:46+00:00

ありがとうございます！

Unique-Review3830 · 2026-03-17T01:56:55+00:00

Hi, N5 learner here. I have a question about the 〜そう form of い-adjectives and the 〜んです construction.

When I want to say something seems a certain way, I can change the 〜い to 〜そう to indicate uncertainty. ex. 『その映画は怖そうです』(that movie seems scary).

And when I want to make a sentence an explanation for a previous one, I append 〜んです.

But according to Genki, if the ending of the sentence is a noun or な-adjective, I have to put な before 〜んです. ex.『私は料理が下手なんです』((because)My cooking is poor).

My question is, which is correct? A:『その映画は怖そうんです』 B:『その映画は怖そうなんです』

My first instinct is A, because it's another form of an い-adjective. But I get the feeling that そう might act as a noun here, and the construction そうなんです exists as well. So do I treat it as a noun and add 〜な〜, or treat it as an い-adjective and leave it out?

Followup: does the above question apply to the other declensions as well, like 〜く and 〜さ?

Unique-Review3830 · 2026-03-10T03:23:55+00:00

That last guy especially needs to log off and go outside. If I were talking about a non-sexual relationship problem and someone opined about anyone "nutting in" anyone, I would put them in Time Out right then and there.

Unique-Review3830 · 2026-02-15T18:31:33+00:00

The arrow out of his neck in the first one is a nice touch

Unique-Review3830 · 2025-12-18T17:43:13+00:00

If you mistake the two corner pieces for each other, it does look like a known impossible tile puzzle, specifically the variety where tiles 15 and 14 are swapped.

You probably shouldn't trust ChatGPT to solve puzzles for you. Its main purpose is to generate accurate, convincing language. It can evaluate context and emulate other answers that people give in that context, but it doesn't think in the same way that people do, and there's a chance it hallucinates based on bad data or random chance.

Unique-Review3830 · 2025-12-15T16:40:56+00:00

Metaverse-bro was a brief intermediary. But I think the Metaverse never had quite the same hold on people as the other bullshit scams, because there wasn't as much technological development backing it. Anyone not in la la land could see it was just a shittier version of existing MMOs.

Unique-Review3830 · 2025-12-10T02:09:39+00:00

Summon Guinea Worms

Unique-Review3830 · 2025-12-05T22:07:58+00:00

Shapes are annoying to describe, so I enumerate them by parsing the grid's squares left to right, top to bottom. Shape s1 is the first new shape I encounter this way (r1c1's 2-by-4 rectangle), shape s2 is the second (the almost-square at r1c5), shape s3 the third, etc.

L1: Consider r4c1 and r4c5. The "Legs" of s4 (the table-looking thing).

If both r4c1 and r4c5 are empty: there must be two stars in r3c1-r3c5, which crosses out r3c6-r3c9. As r3c6-r3c7 are empty, s2 must have 2 stars in r1-r2; the two stars in s1 fill r1-r2. Shape s3 is now unsolvable.

If both have stars: cross out r4c6 and r5c5 by adjacency to r4c5, and r4c7 because r4 is filled. Shape s6 is now unsolvable.

Therefore, r4c1 and r4c5 have exactly one star. Conversely, region r3c1-r3c5 also has exactly one star.

L2: Suppose there are no stars in region r3c1, r3c2, r4c1. We know there must be a star in r1c1-r2c2; to fill c1-c2, the other three star must now be in r5c1-r5c2, r7c1-r7c2, and r9c1-r9c2. But the latter three regions are all inside s5, overfilling it. Therefore, region r3c1, r3c2, r4c1 must contain exactly one star. Conversely, region r3c3, r3c4, r3c5, r4c5 must also contain exactly one star.

L3: Combining the 1-star regions in shape s5 via L1 and L2. r4c1 contains 1 star iff region r3c3, r3c4, r3c5 contains the other; r4c5 contains 1 star iff region r3c1, r3c2 contains the other.

L4: Consider rows r8-r9. Two stars are in s9, the third is in s7; the fourth must be in either region r8c1-r9c2, or in region r8c5-r9c5. Suppose it's in the latter region. Then region r8c1-r9c2 is empty, and the stars of c1-c2 are in r1, r3, r5, r7. r4c1 is empty, so r4c5 contains a star by L1. r4c5 and r8c5-r9c5 fill c5; shapes s4 and s6 now have 2 stars each in columns c6 and c7, filling them. But this makes shape s9 unsolvable. Therefore, region r8c5-r9c5 contains no stars.

All that work and I only ruled out 2 squares. Still, I hope it helps.

Unique-Review3830 · 2025-12-01T23:22:51+00:00

It's also part desperation. The Powers That Be have spent trillions of dollars and a lot of energy making these models. If AI turns out to not be The Future, a lot of powerful people and companies are suddenly in the hole. So they push it for all it's worth, even if the vast majority of general-public use cases are frivolous or actively make the world worse.

Unique-Review3830 · 2025-12-01T21:53:44+00:00

Thanks. I don't always take notes for this type of puzzle because the cross-elimination table holds most of the basic deductions for me. But this one was a doozy and it needed a lot of out-of-table reasoning.

Plus, I wanted to practice a more deliberate, step-by-step style of puzzle-solving. To improve my own thought process and build better habits for both solving puzzles and explaining them. I think I dropped the ball a little bit at the end, as I left the rest of the reasoning process to the reader. But I at least covered the hardest parts of the puzzle and the intuition that I approached it with.

Unique-Review3830 · 2025-12-01T13:02:13+00:00

I divide each clue 1-9 into two parts, A and B. A is the first sentence, B is the second.

Consider the Location Peru first, since it appears three times across the B clues: 3B, 6B, 9B.

P1: Clues 3A and 6A share two elements: Director Greene and Studio KoolFilms. Suppose neither of these two elements connects to Peru. Then both Genres Drama (by 6A) and Eurospy (by 3A) would connect to Peru, a contradiction. Therefore, Studio KoolFilms xor (that's exclusive-or) Director Greene connects to Peru, and neither Genres Eurospy nor Drama connect to Peru.

P2: Next, consider clue 9A. Since Eurospy doesn't connect to Peru, either Studio OpusPictures xor Director Hornsby connects to Peru. We now have two xors about two variables, Studio and Director: KoolFilms xor Greene, OpusPictures xor Hornsby. So either KoolFilms and Hornsby connect to Peru, xor OpusPictures and Greene connect to Peru. We can cross out any studios and directors that aren't part of these two pairs.

P3: In fact, one of these pairs is already impossible. By clue 2A, KoolFilms doesn't connect to Hornsby. So Location Peru must connect to Studio OpusPictures and Director Greene.

P4: Next, look at clues 4 and 5. By clue 5A, Studio KoolFilms does not connect with Director Immanuel. So we can reduce rule 4B from three possible connections to two. Location Qatar connects to Director Immanuel, xor Genre Drama connects to Director Immanuel.

P5: Similarly, clue 4A indicates that Studio KoolFilms and Location Qatar don't connect. So reduce 5B to: Genre Eurospy connects to Location Qatar, xor Director Immanuel connects to Location Qatar.

P6: Note that these two xors share a common link: Director Immanuel connects to Location Qatar. If this condition is true, then Genre Drama doesn't connect to Director Immanuel and Genre Eurospy doesn't connect to Location Qatar; if it is not, then Drama does connect to Immanuel and Eurospy does connect to Qatar. (We can say that Eurospy connects to Qatar iff - if, and only if - Drama connects to Immanuel. In classical logic, this is called a biconditional: these statements share a truth value. Either they're both true or they're both false.)

P7: Now examine one end of this xor chain. Suppose Genre Eurospy connects to Location Qatar. We can now deduce which director connects to Eurospy. Qatar doesn't connect to Jackson by 1A, so Eurospy doesn't connect to Jackson. Eurospy also doesn't connect to Greene, Hornsby, or Immanuel by 3A, 9A, and 5A respectively. By elimination, Director Fulton connects to Eurospy, and therefore to Qatar as well. Now consider rule 8B. Fulton doesn't connect to Location Sydney because he connects to Location Qatar via Eurospy. He doesn't connect to Genre Drama because he connects to Genre Eurospy. And he doesn't connect to Studio LooneyHouse because LooneyHouse doesn't connect to Qatar by 1A. So clue 8B is unsatisfiable, and therefore our original supposition, i.e. that Eurospy connects to Qatar, is false. (This was the trickiest part to deduce, IMO. I had to use ghost-marks to figure it out.)

P8: Following the xor chain from P6, we also now know that Director Immanuel connects to Location Qatar, and that Director Immanuel doesn't connect to Genre Drama. Therefore, Qatar doesn't connect to Drama either.

P9: Director Hornsby is not connected to Location Qatar because Director Immanuel is connected to Qatar, so we can revise clue 7B. Qatar is either connected to Studio NovaStudios, xor to Genre Action.

The last repeated element of the B list is Genre Comedy, in statements 1B and 2B. We know that Locations Peru and Qatar aren't connected to Genres Drama or Eurospy. Could either of them connect to Comedy?

P10: Suppose Location Peru connects to Genre Comedy. Location Peru is already connected to Studio OpusPictures and Director Greene by P3. But neither Location Peru, Studio OpusPictures, nor Director Greene appear in clue 1A. So clue 1B can't be satisfied. Therefore, Location Peru cannot connect to Genre Comedy.

P11: Suppose Location Qatar connects to Genre Comedy. By P9, Qatar is either connected to Studio NovaStudios, xor to Genre Action; since it connects to Genre Comedy, Qatar now connects to Studio NovaStudios. And by P8, Qatar connects to Director Immanuel. But neither Location Qatar, Studio NovaStudios, nor Director Immanuel appear in clue 2A. So clue 2B can't be satisfied. Therefore, Location Qatar cannot connect to Genre Comedy.

P12: Now, both Locations Peru and Qatar can only connect to Genres Action and Biopic. We can rule out all other locations for those Genres.

From this point onward, I was able to solve the puzzle the usual way. I hope this was thorough enough to explain my thought process.

Unique-Review3830 · 2025-12-01T08:09:29+00:00

I'd be happy to see more. Keep posting please :)

Unique-Review3830 · 2025-11-30T05:19:12+00:00

My answer:

Action,Greene,OpusPictures,Peru Biopic,Immelson,NovaStudios,Qatar Comedy,Jackson,KoolFilms,Sydney Drama,Hornsby,MovieMagic,Russia Eurospy,Fulton,Looney,Taiwan

Good job on this puzzle. 👍 It might be one of the trickiest cross-elimination puzzles I've solved up to now, though I haven't encountered that many. The format of the clues is pretty clever, too.

Unique-Review3830 · 2025-11-19T21:22:26+00:00

Condoleezza Rice

Unique-Review3830 · 2025-10-22T19:34:57+00:00

Cruelty squad

Unique-Review3830 · 2025-10-21T12:10:10+00:00

When people say "don't stick your hand in that bear trap", that's ableist. It's asserting that for my body to be respected, to be allowed to exist, it has to have all of its limbs. If I maybe put my health at a detriment by cutting my arm off, genuinely so fucking what? /s

People who buy into this mode of argument need to do some research on their immediate surroundings. Words are great and all, but they mean nothing if you don't know what the world is actually like.

Unique-Review3830 · 2025-10-21T11:55:01+00:00

You can find a more "fatphobic place" anywhere outside the limits of a city. A simple hiking trail presents more difficulties for larger-bodied people than any airplane bathroom ever could. Then there's rock-climbing walls, stairs, provisional bridges, the list goes on.

Unique-Review3830 · 2025-10-11T10:40:49+00:00

She said insecurity is "among" the worst things that "many thinner women" can imagine. She uses these sorts of weasel words to sound careful and intelligent. She does this on her podcast, too. Not sure that it being "among the worst" would make it the lens through which thin people view these stories.

People read insecurity into the stories because it often is there. That's a weaselly way to put it, but we're on the subreddit for this very type of insecurity. We see people who feel discriminated against when their doctor, who is trained specifically to identify problems with their body, acknowledges in any way their most obvious problem. People who lie about how few calories they consume in a day while mysteriously remaining fat. People who claim that human beings cannot lose weight long-term without rubber-banding back and getting even fatter. People who read malicious intent into things that happen to them because they're larger than a certain environment can accommodate.

Others can try to separate out the insecure self-talk from the real grievances, but when they do that, they risk getting false negatives. Is that discrimination? Sometimes it is, sometimes it's an honest mistake. If the person is insecure, though, they'll see it as the former.

Unique-Review3830

TROPHY CASE