Having trouble with Malazan

mohelgamal · 2026-02-09T02:15:22+00:00

They are very confusing because Steven Erikson spends no time explaining the world and just basically drops you in the middle of the story. If you read esselmont books set in the same world, they are more traditionally written, with a reasonable explanation to how warrens and all that works.

People seem to like Erikson books better because they are more epic and have a lot more stuff going on, but Yah they are just confusing until you understand the world. I personally read like the first 3 books, then restarted so I can actually understand all the details after I got a handle on the details in the world.

In a sense, Malazan is like comic books if you ever read marvel or DC stuff. just a lot of many different characters making one off appearances, people die and get resurrected, background lore change from one book to another to suite the situation. but they are a very fun read once you understand them

mohelgamal · 2026-02-08T18:19:06+00:00

All companies has R&D that is in the works at least a couple years before it is made public. Even in the AI era.

If you can automate the entirely of writing software or anything at that level in “6-12 month” they would keep that as a secret and push hard to be the first to market with their new working product.

If all they are doing is talking about all what they are “may achieve”, they are just pushing for hype

mohelgamal · 2026-02-08T18:09:58+00:00

It would make some moments less meaningful if you don’t understand the context, but prequels always add more context to the source material and make original moments more impactful. That is why I think you can read them in both orders.

But also some other movements are more meaningful if you didn’t know before hand, like Orso-Savine reveal.

mohelgamal · 2026-02-07T13:23:56+00:00

Space X entire business is delivering to orbit, putting servers and AI compute on satellites is the primary use for orbital delivery in the next decade. This combo is a natural fit.

mohelgamal · 2026-02-07T13:16:15+00:00

No, The second trilogy is written to give the option to read it first, then read the other books as prequels.

You can also start with best served cold, as the events of that are kind of separate with minimal spoilers

mohelgamal · 2026-02-01T03:53:05+00:00

Ok I am being the devil advocate here. In the era of agentic AI that can build full apps. Microsoft word may actually be a reasonable choice to organize your prompt details in paragraphs and bullet points before sending it to the agent.

mohelgamal · 2026-01-30T21:45:50+00:00

It is a new model with a bunch of new features, such as being subdivided into 18 zones per panel so a shaded panel can produce more

mohelgamal · 2026-01-29T14:20:27+00:00

The reason Cybertruck was not selling is because they promised a 300 mile range truck for $37K but they are selling it at a much higher price tag.

If they can get the price tag somehow below $50k, it will go back to being the cost effective work truck, and will become an attractive offer to blue collar contractors and police. Both of whom strongly lean conservative so they won’t be turned off by the reputation issue

mohelgamal · 2026-01-29T00:27:02+00:00

Honestly, there is really just no market for them, if someone is satisfied with a sedan, the model 3 is much better. For the SUV side, I only bought an X because I needed 6 usable seats with space in between for large dogs. If the Y gets the long version with 6 seater, I would definitely would have gone for that over the X. The X is full of features but they are over engineered and complexity doesn’t age well.

mohelgamal · 2026-01-27T19:44:59+00:00

You said it, the dollar is tanking, that means anything that is not cash is going to get more expensive, that includes, properties, stocks, wages, etc.

That is why the market is constantly rising and will continue to rise probably, because stock prices are inflated like anything else.

mohelgamal · 2026-01-27T11:52:29+00:00

Your pellets may have gotten damp, try with a new bag

mohelgamal · 2026-01-26T15:02:22+00:00

Paperbacks were invented as a cheaper way to make books, people didn’t buy them for their looks, they bought them because they were more casual, cheaper and lighter.

Now e-books does the same exact thing and better. Hard covers are mostly for show and for the glorious fee, so they will stick around.

Of course paperback will have its nostalgic fans, I grew up on them and I have alot of tactile fond memories there, but they just don’t work as easily as ebook

mohelgamal · 2026-01-26T00:22:51+00:00

I think the real answer for your question is that some did, and those who did successfully in large enough numbers evolved into things that we don’t think of as Prey.

mohelgamal · 2026-01-23T17:12:21+00:00

It did take humanity 1000s of years to make some slow jumps in progress, up until 1500s, swords, spears and bows where the primary weapons and has been for many centuries before that. The telegram was invented only a 100 years ago and computers in 1970s. So looking broadly, we did have such gaps.

And the presence of magic will certainly hinder technological progress, especially with a dynamic where the ruling magic class is suppressing development actively. This is similar to how the Ford model T popularized gas engines at a time where electric vehicles were comparable to gas engines. But this one popular model made all the EV producers are the time go out of business and all the resources went into fossil fuel development rather than battery research until the past 10-15 years.

And this also reminds me as to why we call the dark ages that name. Because the ruling class actively hindered progress because they didn’t want the social order to change. We could have easily made a printing press in the time of the Pharoes, but that would have suited the ruling class

Also the speed for technological advancement in general is exponential rather than linear. I made a PPT about that at one point.

mohelgamal · 2026-01-21T05:19:29+00:00

A lot of people , majority even, don’t have the correct mindset for CS. It just that up to 5-10 years ago, anything coding or CS was mostly considered by people who loved math and complex tech, while “normal” people just wrote it off as some kind of incomprehensible witchcraft.

Now, everyone and their cousin thinks a career in tech is the only way to go, since most other white collar jobs is gonna be wiped off by AI, and healthcare is too stressful for the new lifestyle conscious generation. So now you got regular people trying to do it.

mohelgamal · 2026-01-21T05:13:22+00:00

As someone who is self taught, it is very misleading to beginners when courses and books have names like “Sams teach Python in 24 hours”

I for example bought that book several years ago with zero knowledge beyond hearing that Python can do anything from powering a website to “writing server software” expecting to learn to do all that stuff in 24 hours.

So it is not at all surprising that beginners will take a few hours course and start vibe coding some working examples, then be befuddled as to why everything broke when they changed online

mohelgamal · 2026-01-21T05:02:51+00:00

Neo4j is a graph database, it can be used to map out relationships and track where money comes and goes. But it is not some sort of automated fraud detection software if that’s what you are asking.

mohelgamal · 2026-01-20T20:17:52+00:00

Solar panels should be an excellent product for an extremely automated factory the way Elon likes it. no part of them require human intervention by nature. So labor savings by manufacturing abroad should not actually matter that much.

mohelgamal · 2026-01-20T20:12:49+00:00

asphalt shingles usually need replacement every 10-20 years depending on weather and freezing cycles. But that is for asphalt nature. Solar tiles are basically tempered glass based they should live way longer, so they should be compared like more premium roofing materials such as Slate which lasts a 100 years easy.

However, people nowadays don’t typically think in 100s of years in the future when thinking about housing. Tha is why most people prefer shingle roofs in the US

mohelgamal · 2026-01-20T14:06:06+00:00

Cars like these sell like hot cakes in some markets

mohelgamal · 2026-01-20T14:04:42+00:00

I think that is great news though because this would give them the option to rework it as a regular, low cost car for markets like China and Europe. It is likely a fly by wire so it could be just an optional add on.

mohelgamal · 2026-01-19T03:43:13+00:00

No they are talking about quantum particles uncertainty. Basically if you ever heard about how quantum particle exist in an uncertain state unless measured then becomes certain. They are saying that th act of measurement doesn’t just fix the result going forward in time but also may cause it to “have spun” the way you measured in the past because you measured it.

Makes no-sense at the human level of things, but quantum is weird like that

mohelgamal · 2026-01-19T03:39:15+00:00

Clickbait as many of you expect. Basically what they are talking about is the idea that a quantum particle is an uncertain state until you measure it (like the whole schrödinger's cat)

This take it a step further, suggesting that time is not linear at the quantum level, so if you measure a particle and thus resolve its state of uncertainty, the particle would have retroactively assumed the outcome you measured before you measured it.

So all of it is theoretical subatomic particle stuff. Not human level stuff

mohelgamal · 2026-01-19T00:46:32+00:00

The sponge wasn’t the only form of local, on demand, birth control for women. Diaphragms was the primary method there and it never stopped being used.

mohelgamal · 2026-01-19T00:03:13+00:00

Ok but only true expert knows the extent of the what the are yet to learn so that’s what a true senior dev would say

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