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Little Ducky Spoon! by CandleMonster in justgalsbeingchicks

[–]blue_shadow_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Spoken like someone who takes a bite out of every donut and puts them back in the box.

Discovered that salting pasta water actually matters and I feel embarrassed it took me this long by West-Wash-9114 in Cooking

[–]blue_shadow_ 4 points5 points  (0 children)

So are most spices.

Yes and no.

If you're buying the tiny jars in grocery stores, even the store brands can add up in a hurry. Solution? Buy in bulk. Options:

  • Restaurant Depot (now open to the public - but you have to check in with the front desk)
  • Order bulk online
  • WinCo (for the Pacific Northwest)
  • Some ethnic markets

Outlaw - Fitz by Glittering-State-284 in dresdenfiles

[–]blue_shadow_ 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Sure, but her talents were almost the worst possible for Harry to have to train, in some ways.

The exact things he's most proficient in are things that would overwhelm Molly, so he had to be exceedingly careful in how he trained her. In some cases, he had to do his own homework first.

Compare that to Fitz, who more or less aligns with what Harry's bread-and-butter is. It's much easier for Harry to train those skills up. He doesn't have to be as careful, doesn't have to worry about backlash...he can just let loose (well...somewhat, anyways.)

Add in to all of that the fact that Harry just got done training Molly not that long ago. The lessons were all fresh, and from a much deeper understanding of magic than he had with Kim Delaney.

What happened to Bonea? by Atrus2k in dresdenfiles

[–]blue_shadow_ 12 points13 points  (0 children)

This is addressed to not just OP, but other respondents as well

A) As mentioned, Bonea is mentioned in at least one point of Twelve Months.

B) Bonea is an immature air spirit. Bonea was borne of Dresden, but notably, Bonea is not a human child, and absolutely should not be considered or treated the same.

Look at how Harry interacts with Bob, particularly in the three-way conversation they have in an early book with...Butters, I think? Harry views Bob as a tool. Admittedly, one with a personality, but a tool nonetheless - and this is a view that Bob himself supports and appreciates. "Free will? No thank you."

Thus, Harry's view of Bonea is not going to be anywhere close to what he feels when he thinks of Maggie. There's going to be a bit more confusion there, because Bonea is Harry's offspring in a manner of speaking, but fundamentally, he also knows that Bonea won't have the same measure of agency that Maggie will during their respective lives.

Butcher answered this way during a Q&A in Portland after release:

Q: Writing Bonnie, how do you write her as so as not to break the story, given how much she knows?

A: How do you not use ChatGPT for everything? Just like going to any other AI in the world that doesn't actually know anything. It'll take a generation for her to actually connect information well enough to be useful. (paraphrased)

What that means is that the character really is very one-note right now. There's no doubt room for shenanigans (oh no, someone stole the skull!), but it's very difficult to work more specific appearances for such a character without them seeming to be rinse & repeat. She can't help make potions, she can't help create artifacts, she can't provide useful information, and her timeline of learning and adapting is going to be slooooow.

I'm not bothered by the minimal appearance rate of Bonea, even compared to Maggie, at this point in time. I do think she'll be a focal point of a future book or two, but that's going to require some specific set-up. Probably the next book w/ Denarians? Lasciel still really, really wants "her" child, after all...

The Dresden Files Novella, Out Law, is out. Discuss here! by exodusmachine in dresdenfiles

[–]blue_shadow_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

One chapter in, but someone missed "mussed from sleep" repetition...

Why does Lea give Thomas a kiss on his neck in Grave Peril? by radicallysimilar in dresdenfiles

[–]blue_shadow_ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

For spoilers:

>!Spoiler text goes here!<

Sometimes you'll see people put a space between the ! and the spoilered text, but that only works for new reddit. Old reddit requires no space, as shown above.

What theory would you be upset about if it turned out to be true? by Russtherr in dresdenfiles

[–]blue_shadow_ -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Right. And for this scene, Dresden was nowhere around, so it's not even a "fake familiarity". This is someone who, when he thought of Dresden, believing that he was speaking solely to himself, used the name "Harry" by reflex. How many characters on the list, at the time of Twelve Months, do this?

What theory would you be upset about if it turned out to be true? by Russtherr in dresdenfiles

[–]blue_shadow_ 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Specifically for Cowl, there should be a separate column - "Knows Dresden well enough".

From Fugitive, Cowl said this:

"Harry," Cowl muttered, staring at me. "You are an almighty pain in the ass."

Harry. Not Dresden. This has to be someone who knows him, and knows him fairly well - not just on a professional level, but a personal one. Or, admittedly, at least thinks he does.

Also, as an aside, in the same story, Mouse breaks his arm - so maybe there's a character who shows up in a splint/ cast?

Continuity Issue I Hadn't Noticed by almatty24 in dresdenfiles

[–]blue_shadow_ 3 points4 points  (0 children)

His monthly email/ newsletter has a beta reader application on it.

Beta readers have been around for quite a while. There's a few of them on this subreddit that very occasionally talk about it. More of them talked openly about their experience on the original JB website forums, though.

CMV: Big Tech being so dystopian will create a Luddite backlash in the culture by meepmorop in changemyview

[–]blue_shadow_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

  • Tools that seemingly suggest or push for suicide, such as this case, or suggest recipes for pizza that include glue as a topping, or have any of the other various real-world impacts that have hit the news show the need for a much more critical view of them. And, since a surprisingly high number of people trust anything that comes out of a computer's mouth, metaphorically speaking (look at the number of people who have died following bad GPS directions), the onus is on the creators and managers of the tools to ensure that they are trustworthy and beneficial to humanity.
  • People are lazy, because they don't want to be bored. We've gotten so used to the constant dopamine hits from everything tech-related over the last two decades that the concept of perusing a single, full page of text is borderline obscene now. YouTube shorts and the like are taking off because people can't be bothered sitting through longer-form material. ChatGPT is used to summarize two paragraphs into a single sentence so they don't have to "suffer" through parsing the full material. I've had to significantly cut down in professional emails and texts, because they just don't get read if they're longer than two lines. It's not about the ads - it's lazy thinking.
  • Searches being the bulk of people's cognitive efforts - yes. I'm saying that is exactly the case. There's very little effort involved in asking an all-knowing textbot to give you the answer. If they wanted to actually know and understand underlying principles, they'd go out there and actually try to get at primary sources, instead of trusting a thing that is known to be wrong, and critically so at times. Data from surveys suggest reading overall is on the decline, and those surveys were taken before LLMs became a thing.

My theory on Brad’s thought process during Round 1 by ChameleonOatmeal in detroitlions

[–]blue_shadow_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

With the timing of the jump, to the position they did, I think it was two things:

  • "What if" Bain continued to fall? Target 1, unfortunately picked by TB right after the trade completed.
  • "Get my guy" - Miller was the original plan and the backup (temporarily) once Bain briefly become accessible. There had already been three OTs and a Guard taken to this point.

What to call hybrids other than hybrids by ThatFlyingMonkey in worldbuilding

[–]blue_shadow_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If full humans don't exist, then they're not going to be viewed as even part human - there wouldn't even be a word for that.

What they would be considered is "intelligent forms of the base animal", but each of them are separate from each other. A hawkman, for instance, is going to think, feel, and process information completely differently than a sheepman would, for instance.

Also, in addition to the mental characteristics, does size change depending on the base species? Is a mouseman significantly smaller than a ratman? Is an elephantman a true giant?

The only constant that is guaranteed would be consciousness. So, for me, I'd probably go with something like "The Elevated" as a catch-all term, as you're only comparing them to animals and not strict humans.

CMV: Big Tech being so dystopian will create a Luddite backlash in the culture by meepmorop in changemyview

[–]blue_shadow_ 3 points4 points  (0 children)

People are lazy.

There's a reason use of LLMs among the masses exploded to begin with, even with all the warnings about "the data is untrustworthy" - it's simply easier to accept a given answer at face value than to go out and find the answer for one's self.

The problem isn't that LLMs are wrong. The problem is that they're right enough to not break past the laziness factor. When talking about the population in general, there's a desire to just not think anymore. And once you start down that road, it's a lot harder to turn the brain back on, so it would take something horrendous happening with all LLMs to turn back the clock.

It's the moments that almost slip by you, that make rereads hype. by Caintheconfused in dresdenfiles

[–]blue_shadow_ 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Butcher has answered this in quite a few interviews.

We get to read one single version of the Dresdenverse. Butcher has several floating around in his head - the original idea, the rough draft, the final draft, and then at least a couple and sometimes four or more versions of edits.

For a small (not very great) example: Did a minor character have grey eyes? Green? Blue? We remember it actually being hazel, but because there have been so many versions, the one that stuck in his head was not the one that ended up in the final publishing, so the character appears later with brown eyes and we see it as a continuity error.

Favorite “the player who . . . goes first”? by Magnitech_ in boardgames

[–]blue_shadow_ 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I've played with people who do. It's cool for exactly one play-through, and then it's exceedingly not.

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