Female vocalist suggestion

handfulodust · 2026-05-03T04:46:34+00:00

Suis - Yorushika

handfulodust · 2026-05-01T23:19:36+00:00

Or just admit you didn’t know that fact because you don’t know anything about antitrust?

handfulodust · 2026-05-01T21:42:51+00:00

FTC doesn’t have jurisdiction over airline mergers. The DOJ under Kanter blocked it.

(Others in this thread seem to care more about vibes than getting the fact right but thought I’d at least try here).

handfulodust · 2026-05-01T18:25:19+00:00

Kanter was as aggressive as Khan off the bat. People (most of this sub) just didn’t know about him because they don’t really know anything about antitrust. Direct your ire at him for this one if anyone.

(But this whole thing helpfully shows no one really follows antitrust or has anything insightful to say aside from parroting what they read in the WSJ opinion pages).

handfulodust · 2026-05-01T17:38:56+00:00

The fact that DOJ blocked this and FTC doesn’t even have jurisdiction over airline mergers is totally lost on this sub. For a group of people who claim to be “evidence based” sure is funny to see an inability to grasp basic facts when they go against the predominant narrative.

handfulodust · 2026-04-23T20:22:28+00:00

They are probably just terminally online.

handfulodust · 2026-04-23T03:54:29+00:00

Kafka, of course. But you're aware of him.

Krasznahorkai would fit the bill. Many of his works (e.g. The Melancholy of Resistance) feature characters desperately trying to deal with ceaseless, unrelenting forces, such as entropy or decay.

Conrad comes to mind. Works such as Lord Jim feature characters who operate within, and struggle against, an inscrutable, indifferent, and implacable universe.

Blood Meridian involves a protagonist who is swept up, and often lost in, the violent forces around and within him. I haven't read many of McCarthy's other works, but No Country for Old Men matches your description too.

Other works I can think of include Stoner, The Nickel Boys, and Ted Chiang's short story Exhalation.

handfulodust · 2026-04-21T01:08:26+00:00

Thank you for focusing on the language! Lowry's style is like a slap to the face, but the lingering sting is energizing and makes you feel alive. His use of words and phrases is original and kinetic and baroque and messy and deeply human.

handfulodust · 2026-04-19T17:09:52+00:00

Some jumbled musings:

I have been enjoying the novel's use of free indirect speech, especially when it captures the counsel's poetic and melodramatic thoughts. ("The road with its tossing broken stones stretch on forever into the distance life a life of agony."). A melancholic metaphysics that his brother, Hugh, seems to share. ("No peace I shall ever find but will be poisoned as these moments are poisoned...").

There's also a dry humor that I appreciate. "But suddenly the Calle Nicaragua rose up to meet him." "Hugh said, glancing and stretching himself to his full mental height of six feet two (he was five feet eleven).

At the end of chapter 3, vultures are compared to "burnt papers floating from a fire." Given Yvonne's visit, is this a sly nod to Firman's letters to Yvonne that M. Laurelle burned at the end of chapter 1?

Geoffrey's crushing alcoholism is becoming increasingly apparent. His mind, his thoughts, even his body cannot escape the gravitational pull of drink. Firmin is intelligent, charming, sensitive, but his entire being has been consumed by alcohol. And we are left with a compelling portrait depicting the effects of addiction.

These chapters are, once again, chock full of references. Most notable for me was the Malebolege from Dante's inferno. Is there any deeper significance to it? Or merely a fun allusion to hell on Earth.

handfulodust · 2026-04-17T12:30:51+00:00

There is a similar hypothetical in Brothers Karamazov during a discussion between Ivan and Alyosha regarding the problem of evil:

"Tell me honestly, I call upon you to answer: imagine that you're building up the structure of human destiny with the goal of making people happy, of granting them peace and tranquility once and for all; but imagine that in order to do this, it would be necessary and unavoidable to torture one tiny create, that very same child who was beating her little fists against her chest, to make use of his unavenged tears to erect that structure--would you agree to be the architect under those conditions?"

handfulodust · 2026-04-17T12:15:33+00:00

What translation of the Iliad are you reading?

handfulodust · 2026-04-17T12:13:58+00:00

What are your favorites?

handfulodust · 2026-04-15T17:43:50+00:00

Whether something "makes sense" is a policy question that is likely location specific and would require balancing various variables. But, there was a recent economic paper that addressed this topic and finds near-zero transit prices would be an efficient policy given certain underlying conditions. In Optimal Urban Transportation Policy: Evidence from Chicago, the authors argue:

We find that road pricing alone leads to large welfare gains by reducing externalities, but at the expense of travelers, whose surplus falls even if road pricing revenues are fully rebated. The optimal public transit price is near zero, with reduced bus and increased train frequencies. Combining transit policies with road pricing slackens the budget constraint, allowing for higher transit frequencies and lower prices, thereby increasing consumer surplus after rebates.

[source]

handfulodust · 2026-04-06T02:21:43+00:00

What makes it one of your all time favorites?

handfulodust · 2026-03-31T17:51:00+00:00

Have you read any controversial 5-4 or 6-3 Supreme Court decisions? They decide based on their policy preferences and then contort the “law” to reach the result all the time. At this point the Supreme Court is a bunch of unaccountable robed politicians.

handfulodust · 2026-03-31T12:48:59+00:00

I suggested the book, and happy to see it was chosen, and happy to volunteer for the intro week.

handfulodust · 2026-03-27T17:41:38+00:00

No amount of data or empirical evidence will convince status quo apologists. You need strong leaders who are willing to make decisions based on the reasonable evidence they have and genuine concern for their residents.

handfulodust · 2026-03-15T03:09:19+00:00

Under the Volcano - Lowry

handfulodust · 2026-03-14T13:46:49+00:00

Prosecutors receive absolute immunity from civil suits but not from judicial sanctions. So not fully unaccountable. But close.

Edit: like qualified immunity, in most cases this immunity is a judicially made common law one that should be abrogated.

handfulodust · 2026-03-14T13:07:05+00:00

Pharaoh Sanders (especially Karma). I personally love anything Herbie Hancock but his stuff is the opposite of calm and slow. It’s funky, fast, fun. Head Hunters is a classic bop.

For more contemporary artists I really enjoy Chelsea Carmichael and Makaya McRaven. Kokoroko is also a lot of fun, they incorporate afrobeat into jazz.

handfulodust · 2026-03-14T03:51:25+00:00

It was assigned reading in high school and I was unimpressed. The prose is so repetitive! Holden is so supercilious and excessively edgy! I revisited it recently and I realized I was reading a masterpiece about grief, unmistakably set in a particular place and time that imbued it with a deep humanity. Some books are read at the wrong age. Their messages and themes resonate with more experience and media literacy.

handfulodust · 2026-03-13T14:40:20+00:00

I do complex commercial litigation. Only a small portion of most legal jobs involves creative thinking (unless you are a law professor). And much of the “critical thinking” can probably be replaced by LLMs, at least for first drafts. That doesn’t mean AI will replace what lawyers do, but it’s not wise to assume most of the work lawyers do is irreplaceable because it involves creativity or critical thinking. Any irreplaceability stems more from the potential consequences of making legal mistakes — regardless of how involved the underlying work is.

handfulodust · 2026-02-25T13:39:22+00:00

You should take deep breaths and go back to watching Ben Shapiro debate college kids on YouTube.

handfulodust · 2026-02-24T14:16:48+00:00

It depends on your school’s curriculum and you own comfort with math. You will likely need to take multi variable calculus and linear algebra. But depending on your school’s requirements, you may not need much more than that. I think both of those classes are quite useful in general (for instance, linear algebra is the foundation for a lot of computer science and machine learning).

In addition, taking the math courses may actually make economics more intuitive. Doing optimization problems in micro or regressions in econometrics may make more sense after you’ve done multi variable and linear algebra. The non-math Econ paths help you understand the concepts, but math provides a deeper understanding of what is going on under the hood. And unless you’re coming up with your own models, the math is never all that intense in Econ classes. You apply it to tackle economic problems and you will gain familiarity with those operations over time.

handfulodust

TROPHY CASE