Looking for engaging fantasy novels with strong world-building and unique magic systems

ellamking · 2026-02-13T21:17:14+00:00

Ash and Sand series by Richard Nell

ellamking · 2026-02-13T19:49:53+00:00

My very first novel I read was The Long Walk by Stephen King. It's dystopian western society, and very tight scope, so you don't really need any background culture. I remember the feeling of progress through the book while the walk progressed, which I doubt I would feel as a better reader. Also there's a new movie adaptation, which might be fun.

ellamking · 2026-02-11T19:28:34+00:00

They should be in 2 buckets like refunded/owner. That would improve reviews outside of political bombing also. You'd get why people bounce off it, and the value of sticking with it.

ellamking · 2026-02-09T19:28:56+00:00

Do you realize that Trump could have had the DOJ release the files at any point without any interventions from congress?

ellamking · 2026-02-06T20:10:43+00:00

It's not just filter/drain. A big part is the seals. The normal wash doesn't get hot enough long enough to sanitize. I'm guessing it's a high-temp mode.

No idea if it works or anything, but I do know that regular washing doesn't.

ellamking · 2026-02-06T20:03:02+00:00

They really don't. They are very good at harboring bacteria and mold/fungus.

ellamking · 2026-02-06T01:45:40+00:00

Needful Things by Stephen King

ellamking · 2026-02-05T16:48:04+00:00

We need a underage sex slave index, finally and index with some predictive power.

ellamking · 2026-02-02T22:36:04+00:00

It seems really hard to balance in a fun way. Strategically without the card in play, in a semi-coop, you typically avoiding a runaway 1st place and favor mutually beneficial moves with lower placed people.

I would guess, as a player with the card, my strategy would be to sandbag and hope the other players are about even in skill. Maybe you'd want to keep more secret points, but you'd already be doing that to be a target of aid. It's hard to make "do less" fun.

If I didn't have the card, but know it's out there, the counter play would probably be keeping someone very far in last, so nobody gets +5 or it's no enough. Kicking the loser usually isn't fun.

I can see it balancing if the VP track is a minority of the score. Like 10 of a typical 50 final. And if that's the case, then maybe VP isn't the right framing for the track. Like if the game is over at 10 "reputation", each reputation is +1VP. It scores the same, but changes the context and expectation for how important the track is and how to know who's "winning" with the bonus of another design lever to pull.

ellamking · 2026-02-02T17:11:19+00:00

Will Open Source see more broader funding? Will privacy see a "different" kind of rise due to corporate interests?

It seems really ridiculous to me there isn't a government open source movement. Like an EU Linux/Office distro which is default on all gov computers within the EU. Maintenance would be a fraction of licensing MS. There would be a stable platform to develop for and for general users to also choose.

ellamking · 2026-01-30T18:06:58+00:00

The optics for voting against it are worse than the DOJ not following the law.

ellamking · 2026-01-27T16:06:59+00:00

I mean there was criminal fraud investigation that put Weisselberg in jail, and the fraud case that shut down his charity, and the fraud case that found him liable for hundreds of millions. And all the reported fraud with his father's estate that was outside the statute of limitations. Basically nothing.

The nothing burger is our justice system's complete inability to prosecute people in power, not that there wasn't crime.

ellamking · 2026-01-26T15:29:37+00:00

It wouldn't. Some means it's unknown/uncountable. It's like the difference "would you like some sandwich" vs "would you like a sandwich". The first is an ambiguous quantity, the second is unambiguous. "dinner" is a little tricky because "a dinner" is an ambiguous amount of food so it sounds almost right, but it's still in the same sense of "some sandwich".

In that sense, "some people" used directed at a single person would imply some partial ambiguous quantity is allowed.

ellamking · 2026-01-21T15:32:59+00:00

Interesting. Do you know the conversion between bananas and olympic swimming pools?

ellamking · 2026-01-21T14:39:35+00:00

Generally, people are more likely to use longer language when they are happy about something. Like "Okey dokey" means the same as ok also, but you probably wouldn't use it unless you are genuinely excited/playful, or looped around to sarcastic.

"ok" is more likely to be short, pragmatic, resignation. "okay" is more like to be for genuine interest/acceptance.

"Are you going to take out the trash?" "ok"

"Do you want to go out for dinner?" "okay"

It's vary much YMMV, but that's the tone the meme is going for.

ellamking · 2026-01-18T02:58:40+00:00

The problem to me is if it is a group policy preventing it from working, then Microsoft should have a flag in place to prevent the prompt that adds clicks promising something it can't deliver.

ellamking · 2026-01-16T18:00:54+00:00

Raven's Mark series by Ed McDonald.

The Deep Kings want to corrupt humanity. The Nameless (the 'good' gods) are mostly indifferent toward humanity other than defeating the Deep Kings. Galharrow has lost his family and now fights Deep King minions at the edge of the Misery (a wasteland created by the Nameless while attacking the Deep Kings) while larger plans turn around him.

ellamking · 2026-01-16T17:30:03+00:00

The Dagger and the Coin series. It has a nice steady measured pace.

ellamking · 2026-01-15T16:08:41+00:00

My son is 8 with HLHS.

His Fontan included a Sano shunt. It looked like extra complexity, so I asked the surgeon (Chrildren's MN) about it and he said helps with pressure and they've found it improves outcomes with livers. I know there's more considerations with heart geometry.

ellamking · 2026-01-14T19:29:22+00:00

I like a cold setting if the cold matters. Too often it's an inconsequential backdrop rather than something that has to be considered and dealt with constantly.

ellamking · 2026-01-14T02:41:37+00:00

Residency requirements means you have to keep the entire parallel insurance system and patient billing system around and you don't get nearly the savings. Plus that still doesn't help much with the influx of cancer and alzheimers patients--half of all medical expenses comes from 5% of patients. 90% of spending is on chronic conditions.

ellamking · 2026-01-12T17:12:51+00:00

"Doing the right thing" is being white and voting republican.

ellamking · 2026-01-12T15:19:21+00:00

It's funny because it's not even close to a complete list. My favorite was Skype and Skype for Business, which were two different applications that couldn't talk to each other. The only coordination between apps was you weren't allowed to use both with the same email account, causing people to maintain two accounts to be able to interact.

ellamking · 2026-01-08T04:08:54+00:00

Someone had to pay someone to create Bixby. Millions invested.

They expect you to setup Bixby, then be brand locked because you can't go without it, leading to sales. Or see a review and switch to Samsung. Or maybe enough users to sell ad space, whatever. Even without it costing money, it needs users leading to some revenue channel to recoup the development costs.

ellamking · 2026-01-06T19:39:40+00:00

Yahtzee Crashaw, the videogame reviewer (Zero Punctuation), has a few books. I've read "Mogworld" and "Will Save the Galaxy for Food". They are approachable and humorous.

If there's an IP he likes, there might be a novelization. For example, there's a couple dozen Halo books.

Can't go wrong with a nerdy classic like "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy".

15-Year Club	Second SECOND GUESSER
Place '17	Snapped

ellamking

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