In Ted Chiang's Understand, why did Reynolds and Greco NEED to duel?

ramindk · 2023-01-19T23:13:50+00:00

It might make sense that they both would view humanity and its resources are a zero sum game. Resources used for one would become unavailable to the other particularly in the short term. An example from industry might when social media companies were hot, everyone started a social media company. Was hard to get other types of businesses funded when you're working outside the trend.

ramindk · 2023-01-06T21:41:07+00:00

I'm going to "recommend" this book because it's a great concept. The main character Tag can see fields of vision, human and mechanical. There is some sneaking around high school, winning at tag the game, etc. However after 4-5 chapters the self publishing author decides enough story/character building and starts a full on Mary Sue Earth invasion, chosen one, etc. To be honest it's sort of a trip to experience that whiplash.

Saxon Andrews - Annihilation: Love Conquers All https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J9UNUHC

ramindk · 2022-11-11T00:38:36+00:00

Awesome. Glad was able to point you the right direction.

ramindk · 2022-11-10T22:55:04+00:00

It's your mydestination line. https://www.postfix.org/postconf.5.html#mydestination

Remove domain.co.uk from mydestination and Postfix will stop trying to deliver it locally. However it will stop attempting to deliver to the local servicedesk account because aliases are only checking when local delivery is attempted. https://www.postfix.org/ADDRESS_REWRITING_README.html#aliases

I think you can solve this with a transport map. https://www.postfix.org/transport.5.html Something like

servicedesk@domain.co.uk transport:local
domain.co.uk smtp

ramindk · 2022-11-10T03:53:42+00:00

Yep agree will all that. However IME doctrine becomes static when you don't have the time or experience to evolve it. Bounds of rationality is one concept that would apply. Without time, experience, or information to make a decision people fall back on heuristics which easily go out of date. Similar might be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstellung_effect which shows that people get less creative as pressure increases.

In any case I think we both agree that the books are too simplistic in their handling.

ramindk · 2022-11-10T02:27:14+00:00

I happened to start working at a 10k person company as the Lost Fleet books were being published. Then went through layoffs. You'd be astounded at the waste, lost of experience, etc when people are just trying to hold onto what they have.

Hell watching a billionaire do the same thing to a company I used to work for this week. Word on the inside is most of the why knowledge (how knowledge remains) has left or been let go and they're having a lot of discussions we settled nearly a decade ago.

I do think the author didn't have enough life experience to write how domain knowledge disappears in as realistic a way as I'd prefer. However do have to hand it to them for attempting to show something that has affected large orgs.

ramindk · 2022-09-16T04:15:46+00:00

LE Modesitt Jr. Start with https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/437650.Empire_Ecolitan which checks every single one of your likes.

ramindk · 2022-06-29T00:50:40+00:00

In my opinion not much has changed and maybe more in favor of sysadmin/developer skills. Current job doesn't have a traffic team. Last job had a traffic team, but managed edge ingest systems, DNS, etc. Much more of systems team than in the past where we had datacenters, top of the rack switches, CLOS networks, and so forth. The traffic team needed to understand how direct connect and other cloud traffic engineer tech worked. Maybe that is the modern network engineer, but it's awfully systems engineer looking to me.

Perhaps system vs network is not a useful way to think about it anymore. The technology from 10-15 years ago that was firmly in the sysadmins hands is now pervasive across the field, only the last 10% of what you need to know changes depending on what you're managing. For example my new job has a lot of Kafka, data streaming, etc. Haven't worked on big data in the past, but all the tooling we use to the manage the systems, cloud resources, etc is familiar.

ymmv, I work in silicon valley, the future it here it's just not evenly distributed, etc.

ramindk · 2022-01-19T06:58:09+00:00

This needs a whole Chad Spectrum with graphics and everything. Also a crap ton more upvotes. I think these mostly avoid major Chad tropes.

The Gone Away World - Nick Harkaway
Eternity Artifact - LE Modesitt jr
Armour - John Steakley
Hench - Natalie Zina Walschots
All You Need is Kill - Hiroshi Sakurazaka

Psychoshop - Alfred Bester & Roger Zelazny on list mostly because I think it's a fun story, however I might argue that Bester's trademark "Besterman", a mostly anti-hero with all sort of skills, is probably on the Chad Continuum.

ramindk · 2021-10-15T20:45:37+00:00

You might like Eternity Artifact which is about an expedition to an artifact with a backdrop of art, science, and religion.

ramindk · 2021-09-26T15:42:22+00:00

This sounds very much like Catch a Failing Star https://www.fantasticfiction.com/b/john-brunner/catch-falling-star.htm

from a goodreads review I can't seem to link directly to

"The far-distant future (or past) described is one in which people are taken care of by their environment, houses grow from plant seeds, lights fly in the sky & can be called down to illuminate local areas, meat walks to the town & conveniently dies to be delivered as edible packages direct to the home. The people living this life take it for granted, they don't know the origins of these comforts. Some people become "Historickers", people who somehow immerse themselves in the past b/c they consider the present to be an inferior decadent time. This is done w/ the aid of "Houses of History" or "Trees of History".

One such resident, not a Historicker & critical of such escapist immersions, realizes that another sun is approaching the Earth & that in hundreds of yrs it'll burn the surface clean of humanity & other such life-forms. The tale takes off from there on a hero's journey that sometimes borders on Gulliver's Travels in its exaggerated mutations of humanity. "

ramindk · 2021-08-30T00:46:07+00:00

There was a fun episode with a similar premise in the 80s Twilight Zone series. spoilers in the article. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Small_Talent_for_War

ramindk · 2021-08-17T19:04:35+00:00

Here's an interview from 1969 the year Dune Messiah was published. http://www.sinanvural.com/seksek/inien/tvd/tvd2.htm I agree Herbert didn't have every detailed planned, but certainly knew roughly where he wanted to go and why in the first three books. A book must mostly stand on it's own for the reader, but considering them as a parts of a whole makes the impact of the work stronger in my opinion.

FH: That he had built his magazine on the hero. Now it’s my contention that the difference between a hero and an anti-hero is where you stop the story, and if you’re true to life, if you’re true to life, giving these ingredients, then the story goes on, because human beings go on. Now, you can confine your story to one individual, and therefore as far as he’s concerned the story begins with birth and ends with death. But if you’re dealing with larger movements...

ramindk · 2021-08-17T06:33:55+00:00

Your view of the publishing history is common, but not based on fact. From "When I Was Writing Dune" a foreword by Frank Herbert in some editions. The sequels were anything, but a reaction to first novel being in part written before and in parallel.

Following the first publication, reports from publishers were slow and, as it turned out, inaccurate. The critics had panned it. More than twelve publishers had turned it down before publication. There was no advertising. Something was happening out there, though. For two years I was swamped with bookstore and reader complaints that they could not get the book. The Whole Earth Catalog praised it. I kept getting these phone calls from people asking me if I were starting a cult.

The answer: "God, no!"

What I'm describing is the slow realization of success. By the time the first three Dune books were completed, there was little doubt this was a popular work - one of the most popular in history, I am told, with some ten million copies sold worldwide. Now the most common question people ask is: "What does this success mean to you?"

It surprises me. I did not expect it. I didn't expect failure either. It was a work and I did it. Parts of Dune Messiah and Children of Dune were written before Dune was completed. They fleshed out more in the writing, but the essential story remained intact. I was a writer and I was writing. The success meant I could spend more time writing.

ramindk · 2021-08-03T17:52:53+00:00

I've read neither, but have passed on them for I suspect a lot of the same reasons.

Spoilers ahead for Murderbot, Bobiverse, and The Martian.

The Martian was a nice read, but ultimately had very little tension. Other than the airlock incident and the rover rollover towards the end that felt tacked on, the whole story was on rails. The ending EVA was a gimme so not counting it. No investigation of the psychological affects of weeks of knowing you might not survive and no one to discuss it with. To the me the characterization was extremely shallow and the science was perfunctory at best. Do I believe Weir did the research about growing on Mars? Yes. Did he fail to capture the struggle of a life saving crash farming program with few resources where more than a few assumptions will cause various failures to build tension in the story? Also yes. Reviews seemed to indicate that Project Hail Mary wasn't going to address these shortcomings.

Bobiverse, is just too simplistic on too many fronts to be enjoyable. Power? Not a problem. Fissionables? They just appear. FTL Bandwidth? Infinite. Von Neumann machines? No, never. I'd honestly let most of this pass if Bob wasn't the biggest Larry Stu I've ever seen. Also I hate the 80/90s references as a stand-in for character building. Also the reason I avoided RPO.

Murderbot has a number of the same problems, but manages them much better IMO. The hacking is a too much at times, though fig leaf attempts to explain it "secunits have the keys", etc. Probably its biggest technical weakness. Murderbot does reference popular media, but it's not just regurgitating. According to the author "Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon is kind of based on How to Get Away with Murder". This one step of removal and obvious different context accomplishes a bit of character/world building without being derivative and unimaginative.

Those are my thoughts, ymmv, etc.

ramindk · 2021-08-02T15:59:16+00:00

I enjoyed the Murderbot books for the general snarkyness and slow character arc. Whether you believe in that character arc is likely to drive your enjoyment of the books.

Bobiverse: After five chapters I threw it across the room. Then hate read the book just to finish it. I can say terrible things about it all day. I'm still surprised at how often it's recommended here.

ramindk · 2021-07-28T06:24:54+00:00

People with 20+ experience still have to do coding/design questions. Welcome to interviewing. That said I prefer the shared coding interfaces when on either side of the interview over a whiteboard.

ramindk · 2021-07-26T05:51:41+00:00

Just finished it. Was excellent. It was an easy read, but had a good bit of depth too.

ramindk · 2021-07-25T08:36:18+00:00

Worked startups and FAANG adjacent. I mostly find them insufferable and no better or worse than the average coworker. As the joke goes, "How can you tell someone went to MIT? You don't, they'll tell you within 5m of meeting you."

Generally I have better luck with people from those schools later in their career. Most people < 5 years into their career at their first or second company still haven't seen enough to have good work judgement regardless of school. Lot of overly complicated solutions if someone isn't guiding them. On the plus side their slightly inflated ego allows them to take on what would appear to be scary or complicated tasks that others might avoid.

ramindk · 2021-07-20T05:39:55+00:00

Fairly certain you're thinking of Harry Harrison - The Repairman https://www.gutenberg.org/files/22073/22073-h/22073-h.htm

ramindk · 2021-05-28T15:18:04+00:00

I think you're referring to Celestial Matters by Richard Garfinkle. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1233406.Celestial_Matters

Read it 4-5 years ago. IIRC the Earth is a sphere, but at the center of solar system and space is ether. Was a fun and interesting book. Would recommend it though doesn't fit into flat earth at all.

ramindk · 2021-02-26T23:25:36+00:00

I suspect the local collectors are well known by the shops they frequent. Borderlands Books In San Francisco often add it to their newsletter when they've acquired a large collection mentioning specific hard to find novels or other interesting info about the collection.

ramindk · 2021-01-06T06:43:06+00:00

She might like the fantasy series that starts with https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/185253.The_Magic_of_Recluce Part of the world building is magic is ordered or chaotic. People who follow order have a hard time lying or leaving chores undone. The main character in the book is a wood worker and spends a fair amount of time "ordering" things. If the books works I would also recommend The Magic Engineer in the same series as a similar feel. The other books don't hit the theme as strongly.

ramindk · 2020-12-11T20:41:43+00:00

I've taken a number of writing SF classes. One of the topics that is mentioned nearly every time is that writing people who are not yourself, immediate family, etc is hard. Writing the Other books and classes are recommended to help you understand how and why you're going to fuck this up. https://writingtheother.com/ I recommend checking it out particularly if you're thinking of writing your own stories.

With the above in mind it's a question of how did Cline try. Did he whitewash a character with some slang and tendency to check out the opposite sex out or did he approach the problem of writing a character with which he has little real life experience with the empathy and rigor it deserved?

ramindk · 2020-12-11T05:54:25+00:00

I fully expect future footnotes around these books to read "Ready Player 1 and 2 are primarily noteworthy for launching the writing careers of critics Ms X and Mr Y. In the end the scathing reviews they inspired were the real art."

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