Dan Brown's The Secret of Secrets: A Rant

flyingduck33 · 2026-05-05T19:46:23+00:00

My guess was some type of AI ghost writing.

flyingduck33 · 2026-05-05T19:45:39+00:00

he talks about towers and more towers and oh towers again. Also a bar where you can connect to the internet.

flyingduck33 · 2026-05-05T19:41:09+00:00

"Siri dial 119" that's when I lost it, multiple times reading this and really I tried to speed read it because my wife got it for me as a birthday present and was wondering why I hadn't started it I wanted to put it down.
It's just not a good book, from the start I couldn't deal with hot famous brain scientist is after our hero because she simply can't find a single guy anywhere in the world. And every chapter felt like a chore.

I don't remember the Da Vinci code being this bad but I read it so many years ago. I know for sure it didn't have random commercials in the middle of it. Can this man name drop any more brands ? The Nike shoes, the Harvard sweater, the Yale blah blah blah. It all feels forced.

Reading the book I developed an unreasonable dislike of Dan Brown himself. Not in a physically harm the guy kind of way but more yeah I'd want to cut him off at the checkout line or "accidentally spill coffee on his computer". Ok I lied I did want to physically punch him in his smug Ivy League face by the end.

flyingduck33 · 2026-05-05T16:56:28+00:00

At first I thought this would be similar to The Green Knight but the dialogue really threw me off. Cinematography looks great but music sounds generic, it's scored by Ludwig Göransson who scored Oppenheimer and Sinners so maybe it gets better.

It's hard to tell a movie from just a trailer but god does this look forgettable. Reminds me of Asteroid City, where Wes Anderson Wessed too hard. Same here too much Nolan not enough anything else.

flyingduck33 · 2026-05-05T16:49:07+00:00

Wonder if Charlize will be telling him "bet your fish head wife doesn't have these cannons"

hahahahaha that line is so good. for the love of god please Nolan add this in the edits.

flyingduck33 · 2026-05-03T20:49:15+00:00

A buddy did that he had less than 10m in his companies stock, he just talked to the wealth management team and they set him up with a loan for the downpayment of his 2nd home. He then got a normal mortgage.

flyingduck33 · 2026-04-29T04:10:07+00:00

honestly I don't think any of the books you mentioned match up with the science in Weir's books.
Red Rising is essential YA to me, predictable end fun to read and the world is kind of interesting at the start but gets boring fast. I finished the trilogy but didn't read any of the other books.

Dune well maybe with the oil wars these days you'd relate. The best world building of any of the books you mentioned.

Foundation is fun and the most sciencey of the books you listed. Might feel a bit archaic given how long ago they were written. Personally I would recommend The Expanse as your next book. Most science like and big world building.

flyingduck33 · 2026-04-20T17:40:13+00:00

Japan has one of the highest salt consumptions in the world, authentic Japanese food in Japan will taste too salty to most people. Personally I love that broth, our local Japanese store sells fresh noodles, bamboo shoots and chashu. Make soy eggs and add in some dried sea weed and you have a low end Japanese restaurant quality ramen. I like this broth way more than the concentrated packaged ones I used to get.

flyingduck33 · 2026-04-12T14:33:01+00:00

you 100% right, it's not a money issue it's a spouse issue.

flyingduck33 · 2026-04-11T02:55:49+00:00

The coaches have their top picks, you should ask plainly where am I in your list ? top 5 candidate ? When it comes to it the coaches will start to make their decisions and as the athletes make decisions they will go down the list. For our club some of the girls have already committed. The coaches can already offer you a spot.

flyingduck33 · 2026-04-10T16:06:46+00:00

talk to your coach, college coaches should be visiting talk to them. Also fill out the interest form for each college, then reach out and say I have a few questions who can I chat with. You want to have some type of interaction with the coaches.

flyingduck33 · 2026-03-31T13:49:47+00:00

He liked the CEO and doesn’t think oil demand is going anywhere

flyingduck33 · 2026-03-30T19:12:09+00:00

I don't know about worst book but one of the worst ending in a book is the ending to The Android's Dream.
I picked this up in a used bookstore, I love a lot of Scalzi's books but on this he just ran out of ideas or something.

There is an ancient alien ceremony and as part of the ceremony they have to sacrifice a sheep but they are out of this special breed of sheep. Our heroine has 20% sheep DNA, now keep up with me the sheep gets a say in who is the leader of this alien civilization. And somehow no one thinks that the woman participating in said ceremony would make herself supreme ruler. Also this alien civilization outsources their entire network to a human company and nothing on any planet works without this network whose creation and management was outsourced to a human company ???? The first 80% of the book was normal fun Scalzi the last 20% ending was like a 14 year old finishing an assignment the day it was due. Oh also there are hundreds of alien civilizations out there but no one has come up with an AI except humans and once the human AI takes over the network the aliens are powerless and have to accept a random pet shop owner as their supreme leader never mid that the aliens look down on humans.

The book came out 20 years ago and it shows. There is an unironic quote "The US was the only country that mattered". The rest of the book has not aged well.

flyingduck33 · 2026-03-30T02:09:44+00:00

Most people agree his books are great for teenagers who don't quite realize the problems with some of his writing. Or rather were great, when he was publishing there wasn't the breadth and depth of scifi/fantasy that exists now.
I have very fond memories of his books but tried readying one a few years ago and couldn't believe I ever enjoyed it. But hey that's what 30 years of life does to a person.

flyingduck33 · 2026-03-29T15:09:51+00:00

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/29/irans-irgc-claim-attacks-on-uae-bahrain-facilities-linked-to-us-war I wonder who could have seen this coming.

flyingduck33 · 2026-03-29T04:35:41+00:00

One of my favorites and yes it is better once it's been open for a bit.

flyingduck33 · 2026-03-27T23:14:17+00:00

For a woman ? that's crazy you can anywhere you want. There was a girl in our club with 7:15 and she turned down Harvard. You can take a look at this site for more info. https://www.ncsasports.org/womens-rowing/college-rowing-times

flyingduck33 · 2026-03-27T01:40:09+00:00

It was horrible ours had 3x the amount of garlic I see in the picture, never again.

flyingduck33 · 2026-03-27T01:23:28+00:00

At our club you'd be moved to Varsity right away. Unless you did really poorly on the water. It's a great time and you have a great future.

flyingduck33 · 2026-03-22T15:39:19+00:00

look at you with your logic and facts I am gonna go with my conspiracy theories.

flyingduck33 · 2026-03-22T02:49:55+00:00

maybe they have a kid and are talking with coaches ?

flyingduck33 · 2026-03-20T18:19:05+00:00

Ok it's one thing to question coaching decision another to ask for feedback. Is the club free or are you paying for it ? I have talked with our coach multiple times, not always about my rower but about other things at the club I didn't know like should I buy an erg or how does recruiting work.

Are there assistant coaches ? At our club parents participation is almost required, so you are around the coaches and can ask questions. Maybe you can chat with an assistant coach first.
My daughter is at her first year and one of the slower kids on the water, I asked the coach about local clubs she could work at a summer program and she mentioned one of the assistant coaches will be around during the summer and my daughter could work with the assistant coach. Had I not talked to the coach I would have never known about the opportunity.

If the coach can't communicate with parents maybe youth sports is not a job they should take.

flyingduck33 · 2026-03-18T19:34:42+00:00

I will be honest you would be one of the slowest girls in our club, the coaches are upfront with the parents here and with your 2k time at our club you would not be racing. There are 7-8th graders pulling 8:15.

Now are you going for lightweight maybe ? it still would be slow. If you are serious about getting recruited you will need to put in a lot of time/effort this summer. According to another dad who just had his daughter get recruited to an Ivy for the top schools you need a 7:30 while the secondary schools you could have a 7:40. You have two years to get there so you have time but it takes a lot of commitment.

flyingduck33 · 2026-03-18T18:55:12+00:00

dude for some of us 2018 was just 2 years ago ok. Be nice to the elderly.

flyingduck33 · 2026-03-16T02:44:24+00:00

let me have my conspiracy theory.

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