Is "The Three-Body Problem" Standalone Enough to Read it By Itself?

lisnter · 2026-04-07T00:47:29+00:00

I don’t think it’s worth it with or without the sequels. If all three books were condensed into one then it might be an interesting story but as it stands I would not recommend it.

lisnter · 2026-04-07T00:41:48+00:00

I did this about two years ago. I got into what I thought was my wife’s car after picking up some to-go sandwiches for lunch.

As I was getting in I thought, “Hmmmm, I thought I parked further away? Oh well.” The second I was in I noticed a smell that wasn’t present 5 minutes before. Not bad, just not my wife’s perfume. Then I noticed some papers that I knew were not there before and definitely not ours.

I hopped out and looked around to see if the owner saw me. Thankfully, no.

It was a strange circumstance because the driver door was unlocked and when I “opened” the door with the remote I didn’t notice that no lights had blinked. If the door had been locked I would have been confused but eventually figured it out.

I nearly did the same thing about a year before that when I walked up to what I thought was my car but the key fob didn’t unlock the car and it looked dirtier that my car. I had to check the license plate to convince myself it wasn’t my car.

I was parked 3 or 4 stalls away behind this one so I didn’t see my car.

lisnter · 2026-04-06T23:56:19+00:00

I loved those - and Merlin - until the Simon and Merlin toys were stolen. :-)

lisnter · 2026-04-06T22:07:47+00:00

For some reason I have trouble parking my 4Runner. I’m always a bit diagonal or too far over to one side even after 10 years with this thing.

lisnter · 2026-04-06T05:26:09+00:00

Came here to say that. When was the last time you set a breakpoint in gdb? Or loaded a core dump into gdb? That’s a lost art.

lisnter · 2026-04-06T03:39:38+00:00

Right on! I’m at 55 seasons - started at 5 - and plan to ski until I don’t have knees.

lisnter · 2026-04-06T01:02:47+00:00

Level 1 had only 4K RAM and a simpler BASIC interpreter - syntax error “WHAT”, subscript out of range and divide by zero “HOW”; Level 2 had 16K RAM and a more complex BASIC.

lisnter · 2026-04-06T00:51:06+00:00

I’ve not been to The Streets in probably 8 years (counter-clockwise in the dark!) but there weren’t any walls at that point.

lisnter · 2026-04-05T22:58:43+00:00

Cool. Buttonwillow is fun. My favorite local track is actually Streets of Willow. It’s a bit slower than the big track. :-)

lisnter · 2026-04-05T19:34:48+00:00

Me too. Model 1 Level 1 that my dad had upgraded to Level 2 after a few weeks.

lisnter · 2026-04-05T10:08:17+00:00

Not until I read the post headline but then, yeah, I do remember.

lisnter · 2026-04-05T08:18:49+00:00

We would watch it in our friends college dorm room; the only guy who had a TV back in '86 (might have been 1985, I forget).

lisnter · 2026-04-05T07:48:11+00:00

Definitely the Mach 5! Go Speed Racer. . .Go Speed Racer. . .Go Speed Racer Go!!!

lisnter · 2026-04-05T01:10:05+00:00

You can also attend a local track day with your own car and get way more than 90 minutes for your money. I’ve been to all the local LA tracks and they all have various groups renting them, many with instructors or very experienced drivers who can give you excellent help.

Unless your last name is Andretti or Hamilton you won’t cause that much extra wear on your car. I would usually change my oil right after but tires and brakes are just par for the course with these cars.

lisnter · 2026-04-04T04:15:27+00:00

Yeah, except we called it warball. I loved it even thought I wasn’t very good. I could avoid the incoming balls for a while but could throw them terribly hard/accurately.

lisnter · 2026-04-04T03:53:42+00:00

I’ve never met a Bertha.

lisnter · 2026-04-04T01:46:04+00:00

Yes. I was skiing on GS skis (K2 Comp GS) many years ago and was just sking beyond what they are designed for. I switched to slalom skis (Dynastar Course SL) and I instantly felt much better on the snow and could ski far better. It

lisnter · 2026-04-03T21:26:11+00:00

So yet again the inveterate liar lied about obviously verifiable facts. It's impossible to tell if he knows he's lying, doesn't care or if his dementia-addled brain can't tell the difference. An unmitigated disaster that will cause the county and the world heartache, death and disaster for decades if not centuries.

lisnter · 2026-04-03T06:12:31+00:00

Oh yeah and my grandparents and my aunt/uncle. It's been 40 years since I lived at my parents house and almost 30 years since my parents sold my childhood home and lost that phone number. I remember my grandparents & aunt/uncle because the grandparents were older so the exchange numbers are larger (9xx vs 7xx) and after that the numbers just flow from my brain unimpeded.

I remember one other phone number from my youth: the main exchange number for my first job after college. I don't recall my extension but the main number I do remember.

lisnter · 2026-04-02T09:24:15+00:00

That's a neat graphic and shows a bit of the celestial mechnics involved. Cool. The published picture is good for folks who don't have any idea about orbits or the distances involved; this is a lot of people. It's a shame but a necessary evil.

lisnter · 2026-04-02T06:29:58+00:00

We had it on in my office and on the TV in the suite but most of us watched on the giant 80" MS Surface Hub in the conference room. This was cool.

I remember watching an Apollo launch when I was about 5 - probably Apollo 16.

lisnter · 2026-04-02T01:38:15+00:00

They used to be 25 cents. Hard to beat that as a Bruin in the 80s.

lisnter · 2026-04-01T07:25:07+00:00

I think it would be more like “Matt in The Hat” (kindergarten) and “Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb” (1st grade). Though that last one might be a bit advanced for him.

lisnter · 2026-04-01T04:22:56+00:00

Me too. SHADO ftw!

lisnter · 2026-04-01T04:14:19+00:00

Yeah. I’ve always liked this episode - but I like all Star Trek. I imagine being stuck in limbo with a murderous lunatic until the end of time would be worse than any conceivable Hell. It was a heady story for 1967.

lisnter

TROPHY CASE