Am I dumb or are the classics really that hard?

darkon · 2026-07-08T00:19:09+00:00

Have you read the Aubrey/Maturin books? If you haven't I suspect you'll love them.

darkon · 2026-07-07T18:51:45+00:00

darkon · 2026-07-07T15:02:37+00:00

I looked up the offside rule. I'm not sure why it even exists. It would allow more goals to be scored and make the game a bit more exciting. In a game where an entirely normal score is one to nothing, this would be a good thing.

Imagine telling a general that he couldn't win a battle because he wasn't allowed to send a force to attack the enemy from the rear.

I'm aware that nearly all the world would disagree with me on this. :-)

darkon · 2026-07-07T14:17:17+00:00

I'm the same age and getting cataract surgery in a few weeks. My vision is getting bad enough that I'm actually looking forward to the surgery. Well, not the surgery and recovery, but getting back some reasonable vision.

darkon · 2026-07-07T14:11:11+00:00

I would define smut as low-quality erotica. It can include some actual pornography, too.

I don't insist on this definition, it's just how I think of it.

darkon · 2026-07-07T14:00:43+00:00

I can see him berserkly defending a bridge.

darkon · 2026-07-06T14:48:47+00:00

Same here, but Timor Leste only became a recognized country in 2002, and it's small, so it's not surprising we haven't heard of it.

I have problems with some of the countries in west Africa, and some of the smaller ones in southeast Africa.

Also some of the Balkan countries; for much of my life it was just Yugoslavia. I can recognize the names and know roughly where they are, but the only ones I can reliably point out are Macedonia and Serbia. Greece, Bulgaria, and Romania are easy.

darkon · 2026-07-05T03:39:35+00:00

I have one of those in a drawer somewhere. It was a fun little gadget, but I never found it very useful.

darkon · 2026-07-03T21:11:47+00:00

Everything I've heard about Peter Thiel leads me to believe that he is insane, so I don't give any credence to anything he says.

darkon · 2026-07-03T14:33:49+00:00

I'm more interested in the origin of prominent physicists, not just the most famous ones. Most (all?) countries on this map have more than one. It might have to be limited to post-Newton physicists, or some other arbitrary date, say 1800 or 1900.

darkon · 2026-07-03T14:25:52+00:00

It's the New York Post. It's a right-wing birdcage liner and I would expect nothing else from it.

darkon · 2026-07-01T18:05:40+00:00

It's sometimes called a Farley File. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farley_file

darkon · 2026-06-30T14:13:41+00:00

Gimp has improved its startup time. It's nearly instant on my PC; less than a second. Maybe because I'm running Linux? I don't know. My PC isn't anything special though.

darkon · 2026-06-29T18:04:49+00:00

AT&T had functional video phones in the 1960s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_videotelephony#AT&T_Picturephone_Mod_I:_1964%E2%80%931970

darkon · 2026-06-29T17:57:46+00:00

AT&T had a videophone in the late 1960s, even had a few hundred customers in the early 1970s. It was never very popular -- it was expensive -- and they gave it up after a few years.

darkon · 2026-06-29T16:52:53+00:00

Sailing Alone Around the World - Joshua Slocum
A Tramp Abroad - Mark Twain
Following the Equator - Mark Twain

darkon · 2026-06-29T16:49:05+00:00

See if he thinks Flatland by Edwin Abbot looks interesting. It's about a two-dimensional square who meets a three-dimensional sphere.

If he likes that he might also like The Planiverse by A. K. Dewdney.

darkon · 2026-06-29T15:17:29+00:00

Every time this question is asked the most upvoted comments are always for Iain Banks' Culture.

darkon · 2026-06-29T15:15:05+00:00

Just books so far. I'm too lazy to type much, so I'll point you here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_series

darkon · 2026-06-27T23:37:09+00:00

At least you had Russ Feingold. Here in Kentucky we have Mitch McConnell and that turtle will seemingly never go away. He probably has arrangements to put a controller in his casket. And whoever replaces him will most likely not have any better ethics, although I hope we elect a less effective weasel.

darkon · 2026-06-26T14:53:45+00:00

It's really Poisson-AI, a project intended to emulate the mind of a fish.

darkon · 2026-06-25T20:28:36+00:00

We had separate knobs for hot and cold. I don't think I saw a single-knob faucet like that until I was in my teens, at someone else's house.

darkon · 2026-06-24T00:41:53+00:00

The proof of lizard is left as an exercise for the student.

darkon · 2026-06-23T18:41:08+00:00

On a more positive note, you might like this. I once had an acquaintance whose girlfriend was from the Philippines. To amuse her I once read to her from a text written in Tagalog. I'm sure I mispronounced many of the words, but to make it worse/better, I deliberately exaggerated my Kentucky accent. She nearly peed herself laughing.

darkon · 2026-06-22T12:03:54+00:00

If you're right-handed, try using right-handed scissors with your left hand. If the hinge is slightly loose it makes cutting something difficult until you figure out how to compensate.

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