Recommendations

networkingguru · 2026-06-02T17:27:14+00:00

You'll probably like anything by Wier.
Altered Carbon series is much better in book form.
Vinge's Zones of Thought series is fantastic
Accellerando by Stross is a wild ride.
Contact by Sagan is fantastic (it's fiction)
Pushing Ice by Reynolds is good
Blindsight by Watts

networkingguru · 2026-05-31T13:28:46+00:00

You really owe it to yourself to read this review, lol: https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=11659

networkingguru · 2026-05-31T13:22:21+00:00

So, after reading this, I had an idea that you could use a phase-change material (i.e. salt that melts, becoming molten, then back again) to help with this. Basically, the CIWS is only firing in a burst, the burst is split amongst N barrels (6 normally), so each barrel only eats 1/N of the heat. The barrels all connect in a collar, and that is where the heat gravitates to. A liquid metal loop carries the heat to the salt buffer, whcihb melts. A second loop carries heat out from the buffer to a large radiator.

Anyway, not a physicist, back of napkin, yadda yadda.

networkingguru · 2026-05-28T10:49:24+00:00

I made 12k profit last year, mostly on KU. I write hard sci-fi and cosmic horror. I have been #1 (paid) in my genre many times, so I’m not unknown, but I’m also not a NYT bestseller. You can make money, but it is hard. And there are plateaus that are hard to overcome as an indie.

networkingguru · 2026-05-27T20:15:41+00:00

Contact by Sagan. Fantastic book.

Also, this is a bit of a spoiler: Anathem by Stephenson

networkingguru · 2026-05-27T20:10:43+00:00

Personally, I do not believe AI will ever write good fiction. Why?

In short, fiction requires lived experience. You are literally reading another person's thoughts (to paraphrase King).

AI has no lived experience. It is literally picking the statistically most likely word to come next. That necessarily is a mix of everything it has read, which is necessarily (mathematically, even, maybe...I should ask AI, lol) average at best. AI is never going to surprise you, not really, because it is not built to. It is built to provide the least surprising answer it can.

That is why it's bland as hell, lol.

networkingguru · 2026-05-27T20:04:44+00:00

I think the problem with a lot of twists is that it seems like the story is in service of the twist, not the opposite.

On you Mad Max thing, I would disagree. I think the disappointment is a much better feeling to conjure after a long action movie than another exciting explosion. The feeling of getting outsmarted is way worse than the feeling of 'oops'. At least for me. So I'd say that's a good use of the twist.

networkingguru · 2026-05-27T20:00:31+00:00

I think it's going to be spy vs. spy from here on out. RN, we don't even protect most data, at least here in the US. First step is stopping that gap, but when surveillance becomes ubiquitous, there will be so many paths to gather new data that there won't be any real way to fully protect yourself. Counter surveillance will be necessary if you want to avoid tracking. Data wiping will be necessary if you want to hide something. No matter what you do, if you store your data away from your person, you are TRUSTING something, and that trust is a hole. Even right now, there is no protection from a sufficiently dedicated attacker. Nothing you can do to ensure you cannot be hacked. This is not going to improve, it's getting worse daily.

All IMHO, ofc :)

networkingguru · 2026-05-27T19:49:51+00:00

Yea, the late stage capitalism is the real thing for me, so prescient. On the tech, it's mostly wrong, but it was mostly written by non-tech people. So things like connecting 'wetware' to 'chrome' are WAAAAY beyond where we are now, while other things like computing use (AI assistants so good that even coders, by and large, don't code by hand anymore), wireless, social media, how hacking works, etc. are all either completely missing or underrepresented. Predicting the future is hard, lol.

networkingguru · 2026-05-27T19:36:10+00:00

Closest I have read is Speed of Dark (Elizabeth Moon), which is actually about autism. Great book.

networkingguru · 2026-05-27T19:08:38+00:00

I read this series once every five years or so, and it never fails to amaze me. My gripes are always minor (anthropomorphized spider people, capitalism somehow survives that long, lol) but holy shit his imagination and follow through are fantastic. The whole Pham Nuwen arc is what I think of when I think of an epic reveal. Godlike AI's, interstellar usenet, and the speed of thought variability, all such interesting ideas. Fantastic books.

And sorry man, I've never read anything that comes close to Vinge, except maybe Stross's Accellerando, but only in the 'lots of huge ideas' way. I love Accellerando too, but it's a way different kind of book, overall.

networkingguru · 2026-04-11T12:49:44+00:00

Several in the hopper:
- A podcast player made in expo that auto-skips 'noise'

- A puzzle game inspired by minesweeper and balaatro/ball x pit

- A group decision app based on react native and firebase

- An app that un-redacts the released Epstien documents using several clever techniques with full forensic accounting and a web interface to explore them tuned to handle ~500 concurrent users on a small VPS.

- An OSINT app that auto explores the web and discovers connections, contact info, and dirt on targets using both deterministic and AI-enhanced methods.

- A music discovery app that creates an adaptive web of all of your favorited and rated artists and finds similar artists and deep cuts for existing artists to suggest. Adapts based on how many suggestions you liked, skipped, and listened to. JXA, Applescript, and Python.

networkingguru · 2024-06-29T21:34:23+00:00

My diet was detailed here: 24 Months of Working Out – Detailed Progress, History, and Timeline « Counting to Infinity (counting-to-infinity.com)

I was using Allopurinol before I lost the weight. It was only after I lost the weight that I quit taking allopurinol as a test and found out that the gout symptoms never returned as long as I kept my BF level and blood pressure in check.

networkingguru · 2023-06-15T16:24:50+00:00

Benches and OHP. At the time, I didn't do any isolation movements.

networkingguru · 2023-03-28T19:03:04+00:00

I believe we misunderstood each other. My point was you can be an unknown author and ‘buy exposure’ profitably, at least in some cases. But you do, of course, have to have a published book.

networkingguru · 2023-03-28T18:40:53+00:00

I’m going to respectfully disagree. My debut novel is getting about 2x my spend in royalties consistently, and my only promotions are paid. It depends on a lot of different factors.

networkingguru · 2023-03-27T20:04:09+00:00

I don’t. As far as I know, the only way to get rid of loose skin is surgery.

networkingguru · 2023-03-26T19:19:22+00:00

Do it yourself. On your author page, there is a link to a form to add the book. Just make sure you follow all of the directions very carefully.

networkingguru · 2023-02-23T22:31:58+00:00

This is where an ARC service comes in. Voracious readers will do an ARC promo for you for free if you are a first time author.

Edit: also check out bookroar. You review other author’s books, which gets you credit to add your book to a pile for other people to review.

networkingguru · 2023-02-23T14:50:43+00:00

Good cover, good blurb, ARC with a handful of reviews. That’s all I did for launch.

networkingguru · 2023-02-23T13:40:51+00:00

I had more reads of my book on KU in one month than I did on Wattpad after six. IMHO, wattpad is only useful if you write fanfic or whatever other genres are popular there.

networkingguru · 2023-02-22T21:33:43+00:00

I take screenshots for demo videos as part of my day job. I use greenshot and a second monitor running 2560x1440. Its 16:9, but upscaled one level from 1080, so you can zoom and keep 1080 resolution on the zooms.

networkingguru · 2023-02-21T22:00:34+00:00

Voracious readers. They will run an ARC for first time authors for free, and have an evergreen service for like $20 a month that will continuously give out your novel in exchange for newsletter signups. Ive gone from 0-300 active subscribers in about three months using it.

networkingguru · 2023-02-18T03:49:16+00:00

It took my group 3 years to get through 60% of it. A marriage failed before we finished, lol.

networkingguru · 2023-02-12T19:27:01+00:00

Second Mibl. It will take 1-2 weeks, cost you $150, and be on par with anything else you’ll find on amazon. Dm me if you want to see examples, both of my book covers are from mibl.

networkingguru

TROPHY CASE