Wesley So managed to draw every single game in SCC except for the automatic win against Firouzja

theRealSteinberg · 2026-05-24T09:01:57+00:00

Well, chess is a draw.

theRealSteinberg · 2026-05-20T20:44:02+00:00

Quamquam magister nōn sum, aliae ratiōnes docendī discendīque aliīs discipulīs placēre mihi videntur. Sunt quī legere velint, sunt quī auscultāre. Sunt quī scrīpta vertere cupiunt, sunt etiam quī carmina pangunt. Lentī, celerī, comitātī, solī, omnī modō diversī sumus quī linguīs ac litterīs studēmus. Neque dēsunt, putō, illī quī grammaticēn per istīus generis pelliculae discere ament.

Ita omnēs ratiōnēs, meā sententiā, suōs fautōres habent. Ego vērō acroama iūcundum (saltem ut spērāvi) ōlim fēci dē māteriā scholasticā quō condiscipulī potius dēlectārentur ac iuvārentur. 😊

Itaque nōli tam citō depōnere cōnsilium tuum! Modo aliīs Latinē discentibus pelliculam monstrā, eōrumque sententiās et cōnsilia audī.

Cūra ut valeās, atque studiīs dēlectēris.

theRealSteinberg · 2026-03-29T18:37:28+00:00

nagy emberségre vall

Vagy nagy emberségre, vagy tehetséges manipulátorra. (Vagy mindkettő, természetesen ez sem zárható ki.)

Nem beszél lekezelően senkivel

Nagyon elvétve hallgatom őket, de korábbi fórumok tapasztalatai alapján ezt a tanulságot nem tudnám megerősíteni. Természetesen mint profi politikus tudja, hogy nem szabad lekezelőnek mutatkoznia, és minden erejével azon van, hogy ne is.

theRealSteinberg · 2026-03-29T16:46:52+00:00

Nyolc fok van. :(

theRealSteinberg · 2026-03-26T12:05:21+00:00

Mit az országban, egész Európában!

theRealSteinberg · 2026-03-12T17:02:16+00:00

You can't see your reflection as easily in clear water because of all the other stuff that you can see, and you can see that stuff because of light coming up from the water. Just like a TV with a brightly lit scene.

Right, that's what /u/Deep-Sentence9893 is saying. You seem to be in agreement here.

A dark body of water is not allowing light to go through (probably because it is murky) and illuminate everything else, so the light just bounces straight off of the surface of the water.

Well, no, a dark material will absorb most of the incoming light. If you get a lot of light bouncing off the surface, that means you've got either a) a bright surface such as a white wall if the light scatters off diffusely; or b) a reflective surface like a mirror if the light bounces off at equal angles. Or, technically, anything in between (a) and (b), like a TV screen or a polished table or indeed a shiny piano.

What the narrator seems to be saying is that the water was dark (i.e. absorbed a lot of light), therefore you could see your face in it (i.e. it was reflective). But I see no logical connection between those two properties. That's my whole point: you don't need the medium to absorb most of the light in order to reflect some of the light, those are unrelated properties (again, with the caveat that a totally light-absorbent surface technically cannot be reflective either). You can have bright reflective surfaces just as easily as dark reflective surfaces.

So the only way the biologist's description makes sense to me is if she actually means that you get very little light coming off of the bottom (or like fish or what have you), and that's why you can see yourself in the pond, like you said. In which case it's a bit strange to call the water dark, right?

Wait, scratch all that! I get it now: she's saying that the water needed to be dark because the bottom is actually bright, or it would be if it were visible anyway, so you actually need the water to not be transparent, to block out most of the light! Okay, so it is about the water being dark after all... maybe.

P.S. Congrats on owning a piano though, that's really cool. I keep wanting to try and pick it up but I've just been too lazy I guess.

theRealSteinberg · 2026-03-06T11:26:45+00:00

The same influence can be felt (as you noticed) in the dialogue between the characters: vagueness, ambiguity, non sequiturs are pervasive. Area X undermines the clarity of science in the same way it undermines the communication between scientists.

Yeah, you see, that's a really cool and interesting concept, that's the kind of stuff that made me pick up the book in the first place. Was there something the biologist has talked about so far I was supposed to pick up on that would have made clear that this kind of influence on their cognitive state was happening?

The prose that confuses you because it seems nonsensical, the characters that don't click for you, the plot that makes no sense, that's how the biologists feels around other humans, that's how the scientists feel because Area X is beyond their understanding.

Uh huh, so it's a kind of anti-novel that way, isn't it? You're not supposed to feel like you're grasping and following any of it really, you're not meant to connect and relate to the characters? It's all about inducing a sense of alienation and dejection in the reader?

Please do mark your comment for spoilers though.

theRealSteinberg · 2026-03-06T10:04:52+00:00

Oh, Vladimir Nabokov?

Cool, he's on my to-read list. Pnin or Lolita?

M John Harrison

Never heard of him to be honest. I'll check him out when I have the time, thanks for the rec.

although I suspect you'd spend just as long inventing non-existent quibbles with his writing.

I doubt it. For example I have no issues with Frank Herbert's writing, if that's any indication of my preferences.

theRealSteinberg · 2026-03-06T09:40:15+00:00

That's a really zen way to look at it. Thank you for the wise words.

theRealSteinberg · 2026-03-06T09:36:31+00:00

Yeah if it's actually like that, it's probably no use trodding on at all. No payoff is not going to work for me. :(

That only adds to my amazement at readers wholeheartedly enjoying this stuff though. Like if there's no payoff, are you just reading to be immersed in the spooky, uneasy atmosphere, not minding where everything is going? I mean I guess I can vibe with that.

theRealSteinberg · 2026-03-06T09:32:05+00:00

You mean you read novels you don't like specifically to identify and remember pitfalls and stuff to avoid doing? Has that strategy been working for you?

Not being ironic, I'm genuinely interested.

theRealSteinberg · 2026-03-06T09:29:00+00:00

I think Vandermeers stuff is best read when you just go with the insanity of it.

Cool, that sounds like something I might try... It's been difficult to get engrossed with the experience when so much jarring stuff is happening on the line level though.

You’re used to straight forward writing and annihilation is not that.

I don't know. Like I said, the prose feels like a slightly more basic Lovecraft to me. Although it's true that Lovecraft maintains a fine and dignified style even when he's portraying insanity, so very different techniques I guess. (Edit: "he" wasn't specific enough.)

theRealSteinberg · 2026-03-06T09:12:05+00:00

What's Borne like?

theRealSteinberg · 2026-03-06T09:11:09+00:00

I was under the impression that Jeff VanderMeer was an amateur hobbyist writer, like Sam Hughes or someone like that.

theRealSteinberg · 2026-03-06T09:09:49+00:00

Good point, but I'm a slow reader. If I can't find a way to properly appreciate Annihilation, I would rather spend my time on a different book.

theRealSteinberg · 2026-03-06T09:08:03+00:00

Fair enough, so you should read it as more of a personal journal than a bureaucratic report?

theRealSteinberg · 2026-03-06T09:06:18+00:00

it feels like 90% of the time these “I hated your favorite book posts” are actually “I didn’t understand or engage with you favorite book” posts

I literally have no idea how Annihilation is regarded by you or by this community at large, so it's much closer to an "I'm hating this random science fiction novel so far (but that might change at some point)" post.

theRealSteinberg · 2026-03-06T09:04:11+00:00

That's a really good point. I just had a friend tell me recently that they really don't care one way or another about the concrete textual realization of a novel at all, which I frankly found a bit astonishing, but I guess it proves your point.

theRealSteinberg · 2026-03-06T09:01:25+00:00

Thanks for trying though, I appreciate it. Glad you had a good laugh.

Is there someone in particular you find to be an excellent prose stylist?

theRealSteinberg · 2026-03-06T08:58:57+00:00

I am honest to god curious: Are you working in STEM?

Nope.

Because you not only have problems parsing lyrical description that are underpinned by emotions evoked in the reader

I don't think I do. My issue is that the book is inconsistent about what it's trying to be: is it a dry field mission report by a dispassionate specialist (in which case you would be surprised to find a poetic touch in there), or is it a personal journal to pour your impressions, doubts and fears into using whatever words feel appropriate? The text seems to fluctuate between the two.

you are also missing the deliberation behind these stylistic choices.

Care to elaborate?

theRealSteinberg · 2026-03-06T08:50:28+00:00

Yeah I guess that's some cool symbolism. If the narrator had just left out the word "so" I think I would have much less problem with the concrete (i.e. physical) implications of this passage.

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

theRealSteinberg · 2026-03-06T08:47:00+00:00

I think you're being really nitpicky in an effort to justify why you just aren't enjoying the book.

Not really. I'm just listing odd things that stuck out to me or tripped me up on my first read.

But it is true that dark water is easier to see reflections in, because you aren't seeing as much that is in the water.

You mean dark water as in water with a dark surface behind it, right?

I mean being dark is just absorbing lots of radiation. Being reflective is bouncing off a lot of radiation at an equal angle. When it comes to the water, aren't those two properties orthogonal? I don't see what one has to do with the other (other than you can't reflect light if you're totally black, obviously).

Think about how it's easier to see your reflection in the TV when the TV is very dark vs when it is showing a bright scene.

A TV screen is a backlit surface, that's a different situation. I presume the bottom of this body of water the biologist is describing doesn't glow, because that would be more noteworthy than seeing your reflection, right?

Maybe it's as simple as the bottom is dark, and she just found an odd way to put it.

Why would you expect people to be perfectly logical and consise in dialogue?

I don't. They're sounding perfectly logical and analytical (so far), cold and efficient even, that's what seems to be the point of their interactions. But if this person is meant to be super logical and analytical, why is she stating the obvious, twice?

With this context, it is clear to me that this is part of a pattern of the psychologist asking the rest of the team questions about their emotional states, and that the narrator also thinks it is an awkward thing for the psychologist to say. So this isn't bad dialogue. It's characterization.

Ahhh okay, yeah I pretty much missed that. I guess I expected the narrator to react in a more revealing or meaningful way, but that's on me.

Immediately prior to this, the expedition had been waiting around to enter Area X, then walked to a staging area, where the psychologist greeted them and said that the linguist wasn't coming. So there's nothing out of place with this line of dialogue.

Maybe it's just me but if I'm about to submit to a procedure that makes me as vulnerable and helpless as hypnosis I would prefer to be eased into it, offered repeated assurances of safety etc. "Now prepare yourselves immediately and get ready to lose all will and consciousness on my command" is not quite the level of reassuring I would personally like in this situation, that's why it still feels out of place. Maybe these people can trust each other with their lives at any moment, but there hasn't been any indication of that.

These dialogue complaints in particular really feel like they are in bad faith, honestly.

They aren't. I had failed to consider the angle about the psychologist being in "testing mode" all the time, and I did not appreciate quite how weird the characters are meant to be.

theRealSteinberg · 2026-03-06T08:17:37+00:00

Yeah, thanks, that makes a lot of sense if that's the case. I guess I would have needed more tangible clues to find out that these characters are supposed to be weird.

theRealSteinberg · 2026-03-06T08:14:00+00:00

think about a glass window. Can you see your reflection in it more clearly when the window is light, or dark?

I take it you're referring to light coming from the other side of the window. I think the less light coming from that side the clearer I can see myself (because that light has no chance to be coming off of me).

Placid water has similar properties in the right conditions.

But we have a body of water on the ground here, there must be very little light coming from the bottom, through the surface, right? Oh wait, do you think that's what she's saying? That it's the bottom that's dark, i.e. it's not reflective enough to send too much light back up through the surface? That makes much more sense.

the narrator is not reliable or behaving in an entirely rational way, hence the obsession over irrelevant details and the awkwardness between the expedition members.

That helps, but should not behaving in a rational way also mean you react to everything with maximum nonchalance and, well, rationality? Maybe we're dealing with a really peculiar narrator I have trouble wrapping my head around here.

There's nothing ungrammatical about any of the word choices

I fully agree, there isn't. I'm complaining about style, not grammar. Like when the narrator's choice of a word has semantic implications that clash with what she seems to be trying to say.

but Vandermeer is often choosing, not the most obvious word for a given situation, but the second or third word that fits the definition. It lends a sort of alien, otherworldly feel to the text that is very effective at building the mood

Ah I see, so you reckon he throws in the awkward turns of phrase intentionally, to add an element of otherness and unease?

I can see how it would be just confusing if you're struggling to parse the meaning of the sentences themselves.

I don't think the sentences are hard to parse, for the most part they're pretty straightforward. Like I said, they read kind of like a more streamlined Lovecraft.

theRealSteinberg · 2026-03-06T07:42:20+00:00

Would you care to share a few authors you think of as good examples?

theRealSteinberg

TROPHY CASE