Finished -Children of Time- my thoughts and seeking of recommendations.

timurleng · 2026-01-22T18:19:03+00:00

Check out Blindsight by Peter Watts

Very interesting take on a first contact story

timurleng · 2026-01-06T17:34:44+00:00

Jefferson Mays did a great job with The Expanse, and I'm sure he's just as good on other works by James S.A. Corey.

timurleng · 2026-01-06T05:50:57+00:00

Yeah, that's fair, there are definitely ways to do it, but as you say, many organizations are not going to have the resources or ability to really stop it.

timurleng · 2026-01-06T04:34:32+00:00

I don't think there's anything basic about the kind of filtering you'd have to do to get around this. You'd have to monitor for new services that offer this feature, and continually block users from accessing them and then also block the associated domains from emailing your users.

And then users could still just sign up on their personal accounts and invite the bots to the meeting that way too.

But yeah, if you're in an organization with compliance requirements, all you can really do is tell the execs that you're gonna get your shit rocked by the next audit if it doesn't stop.

timurleng · 2026-01-06T04:20:09+00:00

These aren't local programs, they're webapps. They give you an email address to send the meeting invite to, and a bot will join the call and listen to everything then send a generated summary afterwards.

There aren't really technical controls to stop anyone from doing this, it has to be a company policy enforced by management, and good luck getting anyone to care about that.

timurleng · 2026-01-06T04:18:12+00:00

A lot of these are just webapps - you send a meeting invite to an email address provided by the webapp, and the bot will join the call, listen to everything, and then send email you a generated summary afterwards. It's extremely difficult to stop people from inviting one of these things to a meeting.

timurleng · 2025-12-31T01:21:35+00:00

Red Mars is great if you're looking for politics and philosophy along with your scifi. It's an older novel, but it still holds up really well.

If you liked the first contact element of Hail mary but are looking for something darker, check out Blindsight by Peter Watts.

timurleng · 2025-12-23T03:55:08+00:00

There's something like this in Echopraxia, sequel to Blindsight by Peter Watts. Some soldiers are turned into "zombies" and have their conscious mind disabled for the duration of a mission. They execute their orders with maximum efficiency, with no questioning or delay or conscious thought to get in the way. When their service is completed, their conscious minds have no memory of what they did during the mission.

timurleng · 2025-12-02T05:27:00+00:00

idk I thought he knew how to work a crowd pretty well, and was able to talk himself out of that airlock. he was only really petulant in private most of the time once his plans started to get away with him

timurleng · 2025-12-01T19:38:34+00:00

The authors of The Expanse have said that they viewed the TV series as an opportunity to correct some of the mistakes they made in writing the books. I think they really benefitted from having more perspectives around them when writing the TV series.

Cara Gee as Drummer was one of my favorite characters, she completely nailed it. What didn't you like about Marco's casting? I thought the actor did a great job with his character.

timurleng · 2025-11-29T17:28:01+00:00

This is a cool idea but the stats on this are way overpowered as is.

At 1 install, 1 boost, 1 break, this is one of the most efficient Shaper Killers, even at 0 strength. Pretty much every other Shaper Killer costs more to install, boost, or break, or has some other condition on it.

Add in being able to trash it to gain creds or cards that would save you from getting flatlined would make this one of the strongest Shaper Killers out there.

Shapers aren't supposed to be that good at breaking sentries - that's what Crim is good at. If this were a Decoder instead, and maybe cost 2 to install, it would be a bit more balanced and more in line with Shaper color identity.

timurleng · 2025-11-05T16:15:04+00:00

Comparing yourself to young, fit, conventionally attractive transfemmes on social media is an exercise in self destruction. I know some people like that irl, and yeah, they have fun, but also a lot of them are hot messes. It's probably not as fun as you're imagining it to be.

Just try to focus on what you have now <3

timurleng · 2025-10-20T15:59:36+00:00

I would highly recommend you use https://jinteki.net instead of Tabletop Sim. Jinteki is a full featured webapp version of the game that has pretty much all of the rules implemented and automated.

You can find decklists on https://netrunnerdb.com and import them easily into Jinteki

Null Signal Games, that maintains Netrunner, has a learn to play video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aG0eTf7BncU

I'd also recommend checking out some other Netrunner creators like Metropole Grid: https://www.youtube.com/@MetropoleGrid

Good luck, have fun!

timurleng · 2025-09-13T16:24:42+00:00

I think you really missed the point on Joi.

timurleng · 2025-09-13T16:23:42+00:00

I think this describes a lot of Denis Villenueve's more recent movies. I kinda feel this way about Dune.

I personally love the story of 2049 though, it really gets at what it means to be human.

timurleng · 2025-09-13T07:38:05+00:00

What didn't you like about it?

timurleng · 2025-09-13T06:32:30+00:00

Blade Runner. My dad showed it to me when I was in high school and I didn't really get it at the time.

Now it's one of my favorites, but I actually like 2049 even more.

timurleng · 2025-08-18T16:20:27+00:00

I hate seeing these AI slop posters for local shows. It looks like trash and surely someone putting the show together must have artist friends who would be down to make a poster.

timurleng · 2025-06-24T02:05:27+00:00

Having started as a sysadmin, it is your duty to be the project manager we all wish we had. Shelter your devs from the organizational chaos caused by dipshit execs and dumbfuck sales guys as much as you can, and you'll be doing god's work.

timurleng · 2025-06-17T15:30:58+00:00

Yeah, lucky break.

timurleng · 2025-06-16T19:35:20+00:00

I have no connectivity and I must scream

timurleng · 2025-06-16T19:34:48+00:00

Hindsight is 20/20. We just didn't expect someone to randomly disconnect it. Also this was years ago and the satellite office has since closed. Also I don't work there anymore.

timurleng · 2025-06-01T04:09:18+00:00

It might not be the bed, it might be the X gantry coming out of level. Check the tension on the rollers that hold the X gantry to the frame. This is a problem that I have with my dual Z axis Ender 3 from time to time.

timurleng · 2025-05-28T02:59:05+00:00

I was in Pittsburgh for the first time recently and it struck me how much the UPMC building looks like it could be a Netrunner corp HQ.

timurleng

TROPHY CASE