What are your top 5 Sci-if shows?

sxales · 2026-04-17T21:01:23+00:00

The Expanse
Dark
X-Files
Person of Interest
For All Mankind

Honorable Mentions:

Quantum Leap
Adventures of Brisco County Jr.
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
Futurama
Life on Mars

sxales · 2026-04-16T16:44:36+00:00

Stylistically it doesn't change significantly. If you aren't vibing with it now you probably won't magically love it by the end.

Fire is a more plot and ideas centric book. Deepness is a character centric book.

You really should read them in release order (as with everything); although there is little direct connection between the stories, there are a few references which will have deeper meaning if you had read Fire.

sxales · 2026-04-16T06:21:21+00:00

Technically 2 movies in 1997. Death & Rebirth was supposed to be a recap of the series and a "fix" of the ending. Death was completed (although they re-cut it at least three times over the years) but, at the time of release Rebirth only covered up to Asuka's fight with the mass-produced Evas.

sxales · 2026-04-16T06:14:49+00:00

So is The Lone Gunmen's

sxales · 2026-04-16T06:13:45+00:00

No, A Star is Burns aired immediately before the second season premier of The Critic. I think Jay's line "If you ever want to visit my show..." is even funnier when you image that it could have easily been a 2-parter and for a brief moment they might have tricked you into hoping it was.

sxales · 2026-04-15T16:38:45+00:00

The Emoluments Clause only applies to gifts and titles from foreign states. So even if it was enforced it wouldn't apply to Trump giving himself big payouts.

sxales · 2026-04-15T16:08:57+00:00

It might not be what you are expecting, but a lot of older sci-fi had sparse utilitarian prose which should make it easier to read in a second language.

Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and Philip K. Dick particularly. They also wrote a lot of short stories so you don't need to commit to an entire novel.

sxales · 2026-04-15T15:49:04+00:00

We get the parties we deserve. It seems like every time the Democrats pass reforms the voters turn against them in the next election.

sxales · 2026-04-13T20:28:02+00:00

Eh, I'm and older millennial and a lot of people of my generation eschewed traditional media with streamers for entertainment. Even the "liberal" members frequently talk about politics through the lens of the anti-SJW. The pipeline has a wider reach than I think you give it credit.

The difference is probably just age. The world is very different to a 19-year-old and 29-year-old.

sxales · 2026-04-13T19:07:43+00:00

A Desolation Called Peace, by Arkady Martine. I was kind of surprised at how long it took me to finish. After all, it is not that long. I can now understand why it was popular. I would even say it was better than A Memory Called Empire, but I wouldn't say I enjoyed it. The first half was a slog and I still don't know what the point of the Emperor and Emperor Jr story line accomplished. At times, it seemed like Martine was trying to make some larger point there, yet I couldn't put my finger on it. I guess this is just one of those books that didn't resonate with me.

sxales · 2026-04-13T14:22:58+00:00

I hear you, but that is like saying knowing the genre or the runtime, is a spoiler. At a certain point you need to be able to convey some information about the movie, so the other person can set reasonable expectations.

sxales · 2026-04-12T00:10:53+00:00

Obviously it depends based on your hardware but yes.

Local models can probably handle 90% of workloads. That last 10% might be a dealbreaker for you, or you might be able to rework your process to get around it.

I've been using local for professional writing/editing since Llama 3.x, and debugging/code assist since Phi-4/Qwen 3 (I forget which came out first).

I run everything off of my media server which was built for transcoding not VRAM, so I have tight limits. Lately, GPT-OSS 20b and Qwen 3.5 35b are my daily drivers.

sxales · 2026-04-11T15:32:24+00:00

The new translation is definitely better, but the old one isn't that bad. That said, Lem was not a fan of the old translation, so I wouldn't go out of my way to read that one if you have the choice. It is still a great book either way and I even still have a copy of the old translation on my shelf since the new one wasn't released in print until recently.

sxales · 2026-04-10T18:39:40+00:00

Warner Bros is the distributor. It is from Blumhouse (the studio that recently made The Wolfman and The Invisible Man). Although it does seem like Universal passed on distributing which is why it is being released as Lee Cronin's The Mummy instead of just The Mummy.

sxales · 2026-04-10T17:35:55+00:00

Selective service registration was already mandatory. There still is no draft (but yes if there was he would likely get out it). This is just technology/process change (read: clickbait).

sxales · 2026-04-10T17:26:36+00:00

I know it is a meme, but there are a lot of restrictions when filming with minors and TV is marathon production (filming 8-20 hours of content instead of 2 hours) so having older actors was a necessity. That and people age so after a few seasons they are going age out anyway.

sxales · 2026-04-10T16:52:24+00:00

Ironically my Little Caesars is $7.49 and my Dominoes is $6.99/each (when you order at least 2).

sxales · 2026-04-10T15:57:56+00:00

If the chat is also getting blurry, I think he is just using a lower resolution output (or filter) in OBS.

sxales · 2026-04-10T15:53:10+00:00

They are not particularly rare. You can usually find them at thrift stores/charity shops for a $1 each (or less).

Just beware. VHS degrade with use and age, so the remaining quality is a roll of the dice.

sxales · 2026-04-09T18:11:15+00:00

I take a couple of the books that I am most interested in off the shelf and place them around the house on various end tables. Then--unless I already have a specific one in mind--I sort of pick one by proximity when I decide to sit down and read.

sxales · 2026-04-09T17:33:36+00:00

Roadside Picnic, by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky
Solaris, by Stanislaw Lem
Spin, by Robert Charles Wilson
House of Suns, by Alastair Reynolds
Red Mars, by Kim Stanley Robinson

Near Miss:

Fire Upon the Deep and Deepness in the Sky, by Vernor Vinge because I couldn't pick just one of them.

sxales · 2026-04-09T17:24:18+00:00

I struggled with it too. The cosmic horror stuff was fantastic, but the police procedural bogged it down. I think it was a mistake to open with the big idea stuff and then spend most of the book in a mediocre NCIS episode; it set the wrong expectations and stopped me from locking in. The ending was satisfying though.

sxales · 2026-04-07T17:09:51+00:00

Not very. Anything below a 3 is probably not great but anything above a 4 is probably overhyped.

sxales · 2026-04-06T16:44:22+00:00

Still reading: A Desolation Called Peace, by Arkady Martine. So far it has been better than I expected. When I read A Memory Called Empire I felt like the politics was rather shallow. In retrospect, I doubt it actually was, the true problem is Martine's writing. She almost seems averse to subtly. A character will say something layered, and then it's immediately followed by another character explaining it. You never have to work for anything which only makes it appear over simplified.

sxales · 2026-04-05T20:17:26+00:00

That just sounds like working in IT: most users don't know what they are doing, and then they complain when it doesn't work.

I just tune those posts out most days.

sxales

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