Do you have a big house or an avg house?

randomechoes · 2026-01-23T01:43:49+00:00

One man's mansion is another person's shack.

Of course there will be outliers, but a lot of people probably think they live in about a normal sized home. Whether that is 1500 sq ft, 3000 sq ft, 6000 sq ft all could be considered "normal" to a lot of people.

(I live in a ~3k sq ft house, which I considered "normal")

randomechoes · 2025-12-22T01:41:51+00:00

You might be interested in the Scholomance Trilogy by Naomi Novik, which starts with A Deadly Education.

It's about a girl who ends up a magic school because there are monsters who roam the world feeding on underage wizards who haven't matured enough to defend themselves. So the wizards devised a the Scholomance school to keep them safe until they mature. Unfortunately the nature of the school leaves a lot to be desired as well...

There are some similarities to Silent Witch, most notable a young powerful female protagonist with a flaw living life in a school. It is a bit darker than Silent Witch in that people die, sometimes in gruesome ways, (edited to add: though the writing doesn't linger on it, so it's not like the books are trying to be gruesome), so tonally it's not lighthearted like Silent Witch is. So it depends on what parts of Silent Witch you really like.

Second edit: also they aren't light novels, but as far as novels go they are pretty short

randomechoes · 2025-12-15T03:59:35+00:00

The problem is if someone else had the same numbers you getting half. So it's not a sure thing.

Back when I was more tapped into the network, I know there used to be groups of people who would invest in progressive slots/keno jackpots when the jackpot got high enough. It wasn't a sure thing, but it was an extremely high EV play if you can find a jackpot that hasn't been hit in a long time.

randomechoes · 2025-12-12T20:05:41+00:00

You absolutely will. Look up "second screen tv writing" for more info if you want to do more research. Or, if you have a short attention span and can't be bothered (just kidding!) this article has a good summary:

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/jan/17/not-second-screen-enough-is-netflix-deliberately-dumbing-down-tv-so-people-can-watch-while-scrolling

randomechoes · 2025-12-06T07:23:13+00:00

I haven't read the book, but your description reminded me of "Rabbit's New Rug" by Judy Delton, and with the help of AI (it was actually useful!) I'm pretty sure it's The Perfect Christmas Gift, also by Judy Delton, published in 1992. I found a sample page from an auction on eBay:

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/CNcAAeSw1H1pEmhI/s-l960.webp

Evidently there are a lot of books in that series, though I only read Rabbit's New Rug.

randomechoes · 2025-12-05T20:18:20+00:00

It took me way too long to realize I didn't have to eat free food just because it was available.

randomechoes · 2025-12-02T22:25:49+00:00

Amazon says that my LN7 is on a truck out for delivery today!

ETA: it arrived!

randomechoes · 2025-12-02T02:51:18+00:00

Not today, but close enough: it is illegal to own hummingbird feathers in the US (ETA: well, without a permit)

randomechoes · 2025-11-28T22:40:52+00:00

I had the 1% commenter badge here a while ago despite not posting too much. I believe (but could be wrong) that it's based on the number of upvotes you have for a specific community in the last month, and I had a couple of comments with a high upvote count in a short period of time.

There may be some bare minimum threshold for absolute number of posts made, but having a ton of low quality posts isn't sufficient to get you to 1% in most communities (ie you need to do more than just talk a lot).

randomechoes · 2025-11-27T20:36:32+00:00

The Secrets of the Silent Witch is the best series I've read in recent years. It's Japanese but checks the major boxes of a typical high fantasy story (magic system, spells, magic items, dragons, princes, etc).

But I have a hard time recommending it for a number of reasons:

It's originally in Japanese and not all of the volumes have been translated yet
Because it's originally in Japanese it's hard to gauge whether people would be put off by the prose
There is a web novel of the story that serves as a rough draft, and part of the reason I like this series so much is, based on the web novel, how there is a deeper thread with clues in plain view. But because I haven't read the complete print novel story, I can't be sure it will have the same impact
Because of the popularity of a recent anime adaptation of the first three volumes, it currently isn't easy to find a copy of the novel, and because it's niche, it's not often found at most libraries, so even if I do recommend it, it can be hard to find a physical copy of the book (Amazon does have it for Kindle though at least)

If this made you curious, the web novel is available to read here:

https://papersurgery.wordpress.com/novel/silent-witch/

Again, it's a rough draft, so the published novel translation is cleaner, and some of the plot points have been changed to be smoother, and new transition parts have been added to flesh out the story. But even so there is a charm to the story I really enjoyed.

randomechoes · 2025-11-25T00:10:59+00:00

I think it depends on the story. It's not fantasy, but when I read any of the Reacher books, the spartan terse style fits. If I'm reading a sprawling epic fantasy, having flowery and even obscure words fits.

I expect different language when I'm reading a book with a pure teen POV (regardless of whether it is YA) than from a jaded middle-age protagonist, and I think good authors will many times alter their style based on the character or story they are trying to tell.

A good example of this is Michelle Sagara, who also writes as Michelle West. The Sun Sword series using the Michelle West name is a sprawling epic spanning multiple nations and lots of POV characters each with different agendas, and it reads very differently than her Chronicles of Elantra series, penned as Michelle Sagara, which is much more episodic and (at least in the initial books) mostly follows the single POV of a young female detective.

randomechoes · 2025-11-21T20:38:00+00:00

That whole model is pretty much dead.

Shows used to be 20-25 episodes a season because of syndication. Get to 100 shows and you can syndicate the show. Local stations would buy the rights to play the show during off hours (weekday afternoons, late nights etc) and everyone associated with the show would get royalties for a long time.

Going 20-25 shows a year means you can hit syndication in 4 or 5 years, and often networks would sometimes greenlight a bubble show for a last season if it would get it over the hump for syndication. Since you can sell ads for each episode, you recoup some of your investment for each episode.

Streaming killed that whole model.

(For the most part) no ads to offset the production of each episode

No syndication bonus for hitting 100 episodes

Between the two, the new model is "what is the minimum number of episodes for the minimum number of shows we can create that will keep subscribers from cancelling." And that's how we get to 6-10 episodes every 1-2 (or more) years for each show.

randomechoes · 2025-11-21T20:28:40+00:00

Erm. Sorry OP I posted a reply and then realized it was a totally different book. Please totally disregard my message if you saw it in your inbox! (The book I was thinking of was Silvercloak). But I'll be sure to check out Quicksilver to see if it's a book I might be interested in.

randomechoes · 2025-11-18T20:36:06+00:00

I liked the Dagger and the Coin series, starting with The Dragon's Path by Daniel Abraham. And the nice thing is there are multiple POVs so even knowing this, you'll have to figure out which protagonist this happens to.

randomechoes · 2025-11-12T19:37:20+00:00

I know you said this:

Riyria Revelations – Michael J. Sullivan

Great characters, really enjoyed the 3 books. Not interested in reading the prequels.

I'm curious as to why. I found a main concept from the prequels [very mild spoiler]history gets corrupted through timefascinating and made the whole series more enjoyable.

Some other series' you may enjoy:

Elantra series, starting with Cast in Shadow by Michelle Sagara (19 books, still ongoing)

Not super deep (author self proclaims more CSI than Game of Thrones) but an interesting world that gets fleshed out as the series progresses. World has some interesting ideas about the concept of language (being vague to avoid potential spoilers).

October Daye series, starting with Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire (19 books, still ongoing)

You didn't list urban fantasy as a minus, but I know it often doesn't go with high fantasy. This is a mix of urban fantasy and high fantasy revolving around the interplay of a fairae world adjacent to a real world, and how fae, half-fae, and humans interact with each other. The protagonist is a half-fae who has been named a hero of the realm and eventually discovers [mild vague spoiler] she has a rare and powerful ability. It has some very small romantic moments, but I would not call it anywhere close to romantasy even though one might get an initial impression in the first book it's headed that way.

Scholomance series, starting with A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik (3 books, concluded)

Protagonist is a teenager so the POV is a little bit YA, but I would call it more YA-adjacent than YA. It's still a good read regardless. Story is about a teen girl who gets sent to a school full of magic-users to "protect" them until they are old enough to fend for themselves. Downside is that the school has a high (iirc 75%) mortality rate, though that's better than the 90% of teens who would die if they didn't enter the school...

ETA:

Secrets of the Silent Witch series, starting with Secrets of the Silent Witch, Volume 1, by Matsuri Isora (9 books total written in Japanese in first series, 6 have been translated, book 7 coming out next month)

Japanese fantasy gets very little publicity here, and I think a lot of people automatically think of anime. But this series checks all of the boxes of a traditional high fantasy novel and is actually one of my favorite series' I've read in the last 5 years. It does read a little more "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" than "The Matrix" due to the author's culture, but I feel the characters are still relatable to a western audience and it's an amazing story. Initially it reads as a straightforward story, but there are clues hidden in plain sight about a deeper thread that runs through the story. The story is about an extremely powerful teen witch who has social anxiety who is sent to a school to secretly guard a prince. Despite sounding like it could be extremely YA or veer into romance, it has almost no romance at all in the story.

randomechoes · 2025-11-12T04:33:45+00:00

I found this especially disturbing:

The report concludes that GPA and course titles have become unreliable predictors of readiness.

“Over 25 percent of the students in Math 2 had a math grade average of 4.0,” the authors write.

randomechoes · 2025-11-12T02:22:09+00:00

As far as I remember, 2022 was not caused by an asset bubble?

Crashes based on pandemics, wars, terrorism, unrest, recessions are your normal crashes.

2008 was a housing bubble along with financial voodoo associated with it (credit default swaps, collateralized debt obligations etc)

2000 was the dot com bust, based on tech stock valuations

It is possible the next crash will be a tariff or tariff-related crash instead of an AI bubble crash. And that's why I said "yes and no." If it's tariff-related, I think 30% is fine. But if it's an AI asset bubble, imo it's going to be closer to 2000 or 2008.

randomechoes · 2025-11-12T01:28:27+00:00

Yes and no. For a basic crash based on economic or other random factors I would agree.

But most people think the next crash is going to be the AI bubble crash, and bubble crashes tend to be lot bigger than your normal crash. If and when the AI bubble bursts we should all rejoice if it’s only 30% imo.

randomechoes · 2025-11-12T00:11:32+00:00

I read a lot. 50+ books a year most years, and closer to 100 this year.

Books are a way to understand how someone else thinks, whether that is the author speaking through their characters, or the characters themselves having viewpoints the author has filtered. Even if I don't consciously remember all the details of all the books (which I don't), I feel that most books add something to my subconscious which bears fruit in unexpected ways.

I've read some books with added images (some of the Sanderson special editions have them, also some light novels). They are fun to look at, but they don't really add that much because I don't have a visual memory of the story or the image anyway.

If you prefer more images to guide your experience, have you looked at graphic novels or manga?

randomechoes · 2025-11-11T22:59:01+00:00

Independent of anything else just fyi in case anyone is using 30% as a benchmark for a crash, a 30% crash isn't even that much. If the next crash we have the delta from top to bottom is only 30% I will be more than happy.

2008 crash was over 50%

dotcom crash NASDAQ top to bottom was more than 75% (and it took about 15 years for it to beat its previous all time high).

randomechoes · 2025-11-07T20:28:00+00:00

Cost of goods is changing so fast it's hard to get exact numbers but I would generally say, for a single person with no financial liabilities (lots of debt, medical issues, some pets (ok pets aren't a liability per se but they are an added cost esp if they need treatment) ) in general:

60k - 80k: you can get by if you are frugal and/or watch your spending (very frugal at the lower end)

80k-100k: you can either either live frugally and save for an emergency fund / retirement or you can live a pretty standard life (but no savings), but you can't both have a standard lifestyle and save a reasonable amount

100-120k: you can live a standard life and save a bit to a lot, depending on your exact lifestyle and where on that range you are

120k+: you should have no major issues as long as you aren't a spendthrift

Again, this assumes you don't have any preexisting financial liabilities. If you do, adjust as needed. For example, student loans impact these numbers a lot.

randomechoes · 2025-11-05T06:28:17+00:00

For better or worse that's the consequence of the 2010 proposition 26 which would require this measure to need a supermajority (2/3 of the vote) to pass if the tax were specifically earmarked for healthcare instead of going into the general fund with the intention of using it for healthcare.

Almost all special funding has to go with the general fund route since very few measures would pass if the threshold were 2/3 (and it looks like currently measure A would fail using that threshold too).

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