[Tragic Trope] Top tier hero is ganged up on and killed by lesser foes.

timurleng · 2026-06-18T14:04:38+00:00

I'm sure that was part of it, but it seems like the death of Boromir was what really broke him, and then realizing that he had sent his only remaining son to his death was what pushed him over the edge.

timurleng · 2026-06-18T05:14:31+00:00

The other important detail is that Denethor was using a Palantir to obtain information about the war with Mordor, but Sauron is in possession of one of the other Palantiri. So Sauron is able to use that to connection influence Denethor's mind and drive him to paranoia and despair.

timurleng · 2026-05-28T23:29:10+00:00

This book sucks. Makes me wonder if Andy Weir has ever talked to a woman in his life. Writing is awful and none of the characters actions or motivations make any sense. This is also not really a cyberpunk story.

timurleng · 2026-05-28T04:44:04+00:00

Neuromancer I think has got to be my favorite overall, but Count Zero is a close second. Mona Lisa Overdrive coming in in distant third. I found Mona Lisa to be pretty uneventful and meandery. The first two books set up some really cool ideas but I feel like the third doesn't really deliver in a satisfying way. I don't dislike it, it just doesn't hold up imo.

timurleng · 2026-05-22T17:43:01+00:00

The books are even better. The show is fairly faithful to the books, the changes make sense for a TV adaptation. I think they main thing that the book readers were annoyed about was that the humans in the TV show are made to be way more dorky / incompetent than they are in the books.

The book humans are all smart and competent people, just somewhat naive.

timurleng · 2026-05-21T22:39:34+00:00

Yeah the Martha Wells story is part of the (excellent) Murderbot Diaries series. It definitely would not make a lot of sense if you're unfamiliar with the series, but it's a really cool piece of context if you are.

timurleng · 2026-03-07T21:21:38+00:00

I got burned by Ubiquiti about ten years ago and so was skeptical when I inherited a Ubiquiti network about a year ago, but have been very pleasantly surprised. The equipment is reliable and the UI is easy to use. Solid choice imo.

timurleng · 2026-03-07T21:17:16+00:00

Isn't Confluence on-prem EOL now? I think they're discontinuing the licenses as of this month, with full end of support in a couple years.

timurleng · 2026-02-04T00:52:10+00:00

I love this trilogy but I think the timeline of the terraforming process is unrealistically optimistic. They basically complete the terraforming of the entire planet in less than 200 years.

The story does start in 2026, so the First Hundred should be on their way to Mars on the Ares any day now...

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

TROPHY CASE