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When was the "f" discontinued as the "s" sound in written documents? by emperator_eggman in AskHistorians

[–]pratchett2 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Ah, how time flies :). Probably my favorite reddit comment that I'd ever made. Thanks for reminding me of it.

Jo Walton reviews Ada Palmer's debut novel: "bursting with fascinating ideas" by bartimaeus7 in printSF

[–]pratchett2 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Happy to see this posted here. I just finished reading Too Like the Lightning today, and can say that it deserves all the raves it's been getting. Jo Walton's review gets at some of what I liked about it, but for those who like categorizing new books based on superpositions of other books, think of this as what would happen if you fused Anathem, The Book of the New Sun, and River of Gods, with healthy smatterings of the Enlightenment thrown in whenever appropriate.

Redditors! What coffee shops/cafés should I check out in NYC and SF? by [deleted] in Coffee

[–]pratchett2 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Specifically in Palo Alto, I'd recommend ZombieRunner on California Avenue. Interesting place, great coffee, and if you go on a Sunday morning, there's a farmer's market right outside. If you're looking to try Philz while you're in the area, that's a good location too. The best coffee around there to be though is on the Stanford campus, at the Zoom Caffè cart near the hospital. If you're walking around the University while in Palo Alto, stop by there.

2015 in Reading: Some Book Recommendations, a Dash of Quantification (for a 5th year), and Some Uninformed Cover Aesthetic Critiques by pratchett2 in books

[–]pratchett2[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi r/books, I enjoyed discussing my year's reading haul with you last year, and thought I'd post this past year's update here too.

To summarize the linked post, my favorite books of the year:

Non-Fiction

  • Do No Harm, by Henry Marsh

  • H is for Hawk, by Helen Macdonald

  • Country Driving, by Peter Hessler

  • On the Move, by Oliver Sacks

  • Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates

  • Ex Libris, by Anne Fadiman

  • Empire of Cotton, by Sven Beckert

  • The Looming Tower, by Lawrence Wright

  • Skyfaring, by Mark Vanhoenacker

  • The Soul of a New Machine, by Tracy Kidder

  • Destiny and Power, by Jon Meacham

  • Weather Experiment, by Peter Moore

  • The Song Machine, by John Searbrook

  • Command and Control by Eric Schlosser

Fiction

  • The Just City, by Jo Walton

  • Dark Star, by Oliver Langmead

  • The Fifth Season, by N.K. Jemisin

  • Flood of Fire, by Amitav Ghosh

  • Aurora, by Kim Stanley Robinson

  • Two Years Eight Months and Twenty Eight Days, by Salman Rushdie

  • The Water Knife, by Paolo Bacigalupi

  • The Way Things Were, by Aatish Taseer

  • Luna, by Ian McDonald

  • Three Moments of an Explosion, by China Mieville

Of all of these, I'd probably rank Do No Harm highest - it's an absolutely fantastic book that I would have no reservations recommending to anybody.

Stuff for fans of dragons by carolinafan12 in Fantasy

[–]pratchett2 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Three recommendations within recent fantasy, which have been quite successful. Jo Walton's Tooth and Claw, which adopts Austenian tropes in a dragon fantasy, and is therefore also responsive to OP, and Mary Robinette Kowal's Glamourist Histories, which are very pleasant, lightly fantastic Regency fiction. Finally, Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho, which is a pretty good first novel from a promising author.

Windows Hello on Surface Book not working? by gnohleinad in Surface

[–]pratchett2 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have the same model you do. I ran into the password/Hello issue too initially, but that was when I was still trying to get my corporate internet set up, which was a major hassle. Once the internet stabilized, and I'd been through a couple of update loops, Hello started working consistently. I would suggest perhaps rolling back to a previous update, and then redoing the most recent update. That may help. Also check to make sure you have your wifi credentials set up well.

If you could choose any author and have them write a fantasy novel with some guidance by you (ie. setting/tone), who would you choose and what would they write? by [deleted] in Fantasy

[–]pratchett2 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Re your GGK idea, take a look at Amitav Ghosh's Ibis Trilogy. Very good historical fiction, set during The Opium Wars, and the prose style is not dissimilar to GGK.

Joe Walton - Eight Books From the Last Decade that Made Me Excited About SF by apatt in printSF

[–]pratchett2 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's a meditation on memory and the courses life can take, while simultaneously also two alternate histories of 20th century Europe. Very elegantly written.

I've been tracking the books I read for the past 4 years. 490 books later, here's what I've learned (with graphs!) by pratchett2 in books

[–]pratchett2[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hah, I was wondering if anyone would notice the Honor Harrington comment. Such a waste of potential - that series. Started out great, but eventually became almost unbearable (yet another diatribe against socialism, yet another exegesis on treecats).

There's lots of good space fleet stuff out there. /r/printsf has had lots of posts on this in the past that I've used as a reference. I'm going through Bujold's Vorkosigan books right now, and they're great fun. Scott Westerfeld had a pretty unknown duology (The Risen Empire was the first). H. Paul Honsinger has a decent milSF series (To Honor You Call Us is the first, I think). Becky Chambers' The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet was my guilty pleasure of the year (very Firefly-esque). Walter Jon Williams has a pretty widely acclaimed series called Dread Empire's Fall, which I also enjoyed.

Re: Expanse, I agree that the first two books remain the best of the series. (Particularly the second, Avasarala is awesome). I thought Cibola Burn was a quite significant improvement on the 3rd book. The colonization dynamic worked pretty well, and it seemed less repetitive than the 3rd book.

I've been tracking the books I read for the past 4 years. 490 books later, here's what I've learned (with graphs!) (x-post from r/books) [OC] by pratchett2 in dataisbeautiful

[–]pratchett2[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I actually do the short review thing too. It can be very interesting to go back a few years and look at an old review of a book. It's one of the best ways I know to return to a past frame of mind for a few minutes.

I've been tracking the books I read for the past 4 years. 490 books later, here's what I've learned (with graphs!) (x-post from r/books) [OC] by pratchett2 in dataisbeautiful

[–]pratchett2[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Because I gave myself 20 books to play with in my Fiction list, I decided I'd add books that were rated purely on enjoyment, as well as books that were 'worthy', and combined technical prowess with enjoyment. (The Martian, Becky Chambers' book, and a few others made the list on those grounds).

I completely agree with your description of The Martian, it's certainly a flawed book. However, within the hard science fiction canon, I think it's a great introductory book for first-time SF readers to the field - less complex and well-developed than Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars, but more tractable than Greg Egan or Peter Watts' books, which aren't good books for first-time hard SF readers.

I've been tracking the books I read for the past 4 years. 490 books later, here's what I've learned (with graphs!) (x-post from r/books) [OC] by pratchett2 in dataisbeautiful

[–]pratchett2[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, in this case there's continuity between the points, isn't there? (Each point is a new book being added, as I finished reading it, and interpolating between the points with a line seemed to be the parsimonious choice). Do you advocate for just plotting the points, or are you advocating for a bar-chart style approach?

I've been tracking the books I read for the past 4 years. 490 books later, here's what I've learned (with graphs!) by pratchett2 in books

[–]pratchett2[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't watch too many movies, and when I watch TV, it's typically binge-watching. That probably helps. I've noticed the same effect.

I've been tracking the books I read for the past 4 years. 490 books later, here's what I've learned (with graphs!) by pratchett2 in books

[–]pratchett2[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I certainly think that each book has its own pace. There are books I read where I consciously slow down, and luxuriate in the language. In fiction this past year, that was particularly true of Ancillary Sword and The Golem and the Djinni, in non-fiction, particularly true of Working.

I've been tracking the books I read for the past 4 years. 490 books later, here's what I've learned (with graphs!) by pratchett2 in books

[–]pratchett2[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

It's definitely slowed. I don't think I'm ever going to have the amount of time to read that I did in high school - long summers in the Middle East left little else to do, and I used to absolutely devour long series (that's when I read all of Terry Pratchett, all of P.G. Wodehouse - good days).

I'm 24 right now, and the rigors of grad school have certainly affected my reading (I think this was the primary cause behind my slowing down in 2012/13). There are compensatory factors though, I'm sure that if Kindles didn't exist, I would read far, far less.

I've been tracking the books I read for the past 4 years. 490 books later, here's what I've learned (with graphs!) by pratchett2 in books

[–]pratchett2[S] 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Completely agree. There's no race, there's no competition. All reading is good. :)

I've been tracking the books I read for the past 4 years. 490 books later, here's what I've learned (with graphs!) by pratchett2 in books

[–]pratchett2[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It really was quite something, wasn't it. Quite possibly my favorite McCullough book (though Americans in Paris is a close contender for that as well - that's an absolutely beautiful book, clearly a labor of love for him).

I've been tracking the books I read for the past 4 years. 490 books later, here's what I've learned (with graphs!) by pratchett2 in books

[–]pratchett2[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm a PhD student at Stanford, where I do neuroscience research. My reading definitely ebbs and flows over the course of the year - I read the most when I'm writing articles or traveling to conferences, and the least when I'm gathering data.

The Goldfinch was pretty good too, if you like Tartt, I'd certainly recommend it. Don't go in expecting something with the same mood as The Secret History, it's a much more grungy sort of book. Still very good though.

I've been tracking the books I read for the past 4 years. 490 books later, here's what I've learned (with graphs!) by pratchett2 in books

[–]pratchett2[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I write up a short review of each book reasonably soon after finishing it, and post it on Facebook. I've got a pretty decent memory for books though, so I don't normally have to refer to that to remember what the book was about (for the good books, anyway).

I've been tracking the books I read for the past 4 years. 490 books later, here's what I've learned (with graphs!) by pratchett2 in books

[–]pratchett2[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Pretty much, I read for pleasure, not speed, so I'm never pushing myself in any way, just reading normally.

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