7858

@7858.eth

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And Then There Were None Ten strangers come together on an island and drop like flies in mysterious fashion. I lack the mystery novel gene, but I decided to read this because it’s one of the best selling books of all time. It was pretty much what I expected. “… then the murderer must be one of us!” is such a familiar trope that you pretty much know how things are going to play out from the start. The minutiae of ordering and mechanisms felt tedious to me. But there’s a market of 100 million buyers out there who clearly get off on it. Probably better to take their word for it, but if you’re taking mine, skip it. You already know the destination and the journey is not rewarding. Not recommended.

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@ponder please make a poll: What’s the world’s total historical production of silly putty closest to in volume? 1) a swimming pool 2) a water tower 3) a freighter 4) more

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Just scorched my beard lighting a bonfire with accelerants. Now the whole world smells like burned hair. Chat, should I shave it or just kill myself? I also have like 1/3 less eyebrow density if that moves the needle

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The failure to build more Neolithic style monuments mystifies me We should be sticking one of these in every single mid state park with a hill Quarrying and transportation are the only hard parts. It’d take two backhoes and a DOT crew of six less than a week to put one together It’s time to build

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Madame Bovary Bored, grasping, delusional wife acts out in various ways. Not good. Not fun. Not interesting. Emma Bovary is supposed to be complicated and unsympathetic, I suppose. I often enjoy stories with characters like that. But I need some compensations in the form of morally ambiguous scenes, or compelling plot twists that result from the character’s choices, or consequences for sympathetic characters. Not much of that showed up here. I couldn’t get invested in anyone there’s no plot to speak of. You’re just passing time in the company of unpleasant people. Not recommended.

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https://farcaster.xyz/0xdesigner/0xc9e38d05

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Happy solstice, my fellow creatures of Earth

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Every day we stray further from god

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Excellent Advice for Living Kevin Kelly, the Wired guy, writes a series of extremely brief pieces of guidance ranging from practical to profound. He admits up front that it’s not all brand new, but it’s all clearly stated and it’s a masterful aggregation. There’s no fluff and no filler. It’s got a negligible degree of pretentiousness, despite the title. It grew out of a series of letters to his kids. That love, joy, and skin in the game comes through. I don’t think any adult could read it without finding something already internalized, nor do I think that anyone could go through it without finding something worth adding to his or her internal rule book. I’m going to read it again with my kids this weekend. Recommended for everyone.

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Tribalism is one of the only impulses we have that’s stronger than our urge to consume stories It’s more fun to hear a personally relevant story that affirms in group identity than one that does not So expect more us and them fantasies a la fox/msnbc than solo one-off individualized fever dreams

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https://farcaster.xyz/zinger/0x41b852ec

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Chronicle of a Death Foretold Two brothers murder a man out of honor and the narrator reconstructs the events afterward. You gotta read it. I don’t often feel unqualified to review a book, but I do here. Woefully so. I can normally look back on a book and say “this is the technique, that’s why it felt so poignant.” But Marquez has a way of mysteriously pressing on a psychosexual-emotional-social funnybone that makes my whole consciousness tingle inexplicably. What would be a routine scene in the hands of another author just absolutely sings in his universe, consistently. If you’ve read 100 Years of Solitude, you know what I mean. This book feels like a long newspaper account from that universe. It’s kind of like a bizarro murder mystery. Highly recommended for all.

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It makes me so happy to see FC people announcing all these babies. And with ghibli pics, too!

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I think there’s still a non zero chance that MM gets driven by market forces into a Palantir-for-spam-bots type of posture They are getting incredibly good at it

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Pretty bold to assume I still have friends I didn’t make on FC 😒

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I respect and admire android But > we’re living in a time of great conflict No we’re not > to be well requires peace and community Only locally > To be unaffected amidst conflict is abnormal We’re not amidst conflict. We’re amidst propaganda and voluntarily consuming entirely too much of it Persians and other readers in actual conflict zones: I see you. I feel deeply for you. I wish you as much health, safety, and liberty as can be secured. Comfy, secure westerners engaging in performative anxiety: gtfo Comfy, secure westerners actually debilitated by the existence of conflicts abroad: your lifestyle choices are giving you a disease and I strongly encourage you to amend your information diet

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The Double Helix Nobel prize winner tells a personal account of the discovery of structure of DNA, as it says on the tin. It’s delightfully catty, gossipy, and petty. When he’s not casually throwing around polysyllabic jargon, he’s mostly either freely discussing his own relatively minor priorities or unabashedly dragging his contemporaries. He spends more time on the challenges of securing grants, housing, and worldly comforts than he does on the actual mechanics of doing science. He roasts poor Rosie. No clue if it was a fair picture, but it smacked of spurned lover to me. The other scientists get a spectrum of warts-and-all portrayals ranging from mostly favorable to disdainful. And I absolutely loved it for all this. It amounts to a compelling and believable portrait of Watson’s mind at the time of his discovery. You just have to treat him as an unreliable literary narrator and not as a faithful reporter. The juxtaposition of the importance of the discovery with the immaturity (nonjudgmental) of the co-discoverer is rewarding in itself and highlights how accessible achievement can be. Highly recommended, especially for anyone who enjoyed Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman.

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My wife and I enjoyed this until a 120 point play turned the tide 😬

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This stuff is pretty good

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