Similar people will see a stock line go up and assume that means it'll go up forever, but then see a trend in society and assume it can't possibly go up further.
Really odd when you think about it.
Really odd when you think about it.
Eliminate the income tax, watch how much more gets done and how much less needs to get done.
We laughed so hard at the Azteks when they said the world would end in 2012.
Who's laughing now?
(Not them, they're all dead. But still)
Who's laughing now?
(Not them, they're all dead. But still)
All these far left jurisdictions are hilarious. No good answers, just the worst answers and almost the worst.
"The province has a 20-bed facility at 190 Disraeli Fwy. that is ready to open once the legislation is passed and regulations are in place."
20 beds!
For a city with a severe drug problem and a million residents!
So are they like 100x bunk beds the people there will be sleeping in over hourly shifts?
20 beds!
For a city with a severe drug problem and a million residents!
So are they like 100x bunk beds the people there will be sleeping in over hourly shifts?
The effects of not making game devs build their own engine and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
"I have committed an act of colonial violence. Pray I do not choose to commit more acts of colonial violence, because history tells us you will not fare well."
But but Mike Myers told me about shit Canada hasn't had in 30 years and he said this was the guy! Are you telling me the California resident and American citizen didn't know what he was talking about?
I recently made it through the book Blade of the Betrayer, Shadow of the Betrayer book 1, by Michael Calloway. Here's some thoughts on it.
My connection to the book is I'm mutual follows with the author, but that's it. I paid my own Canuckistani Kopecs for the trilogy. There is an offer on now where you can buy the book for less than two Canadian dollars and he made an offer to anyone who would write a review, but I actually made the purchase in May 2024 prior to any deals or offers and I didn't take any offers related to reviews. I wanted to write a review once I read it to engage with fellow authors on freeside.
The introduction was a bit off-putting. On the first few pages I needed to look up a couple words, and I was concerned that I'd struggle to read the rest of the book. Thankfully that wasn't the case and while the prose can be clunky in places (not too many places, thankfully), not enough to distract from the story once it gets going.
Fundamentally, the first third of the book is a war story. It reminds me of the memoirs of soldiers from world war 1 when war had evolved in such a way where many people died of things entirely outside of their control. On the other hand, the battles are at about a 17th century level of technology, where pikemen and calvary coexisted with cannons and arquebusiers. We get to see the rising military career of the main character as he survives battles and different missions.
There are fantasy elements to the world as well which are visible at this point, including enchanted armor, healing magic, and anthromorphic beasts. None of them are world breaking so far, in the sense of making normal actions or normal soldiers obsolete in war.
Near the end of the first third, the tone of the book changes somewhat to focus more on politics, and a major turning point occurs. It's a chance to look at one of the enemy factions, and humanizing them -- perhaps more than the faction the main character is part of is ever humanized.
After a short time, the international politics portion ends, and the main character returns to his own faction, but ends up in a series of events that resolve part of the original plot while pivoting the story. It almost reads like a spy thriller in these parts, not knowing who to trust.
Immediately after this section, the story takes on an almost surreal tone. I didn't know if certain events actually happened, or were hallucinations of a dying man. That surreality colors what happens next.
After some palace intrigue, the book returns to its initial format as war story, and the final phase closes out with the main character leading troops through several battles.
Historically, it feels like a fantasy version of western Europe during the early Enlightenment. Technology is advancing, particularly military technology, and a culture that's largely religious and aristocratic is slowly starting to question itself in the face of the contradictions of the aristocracy and the clergy. These questions form one of the core themes of the book, and although the main character is loyal to his aristocracy and royalty, it feels quite tenuous, like at any moment a slightly different character would make the story into a much different story. Future books may see the character changed in this regard and I wouldn't be surprised.
It took me a long time to read the book, but not for any reasons related to the book itself. Regardless, I had a good time reading it, and I was able to pick it up without too much trouble.
Many of the names feel European through a funhouse mirror, so that was good in places but bad in others. I had to go back and try to remember who was being referred to at times, but that's not the fault of the book and more my memory with respect to Russian sounding names.
The story is in a fantasy setting, including magic and half-human half other creatures. Of course there's always a potential for "furry issues" to arise, but in this case the dominant half man half beast creatures are treated properly as objects of fear and wonder, not attraction. Although magic existed, it seems that it was almost low fantasy for the level it didn't show up. The most important technologies here are guns and swords, not fireballs and magical circles. There were some supernatural elements to at least one of the antagonists, but it felt organic within the world.
One common theme in the book is the suffering of the main character. In spite of his loyalty to the empire he serves, he faces all manner of suffering, from maimed body parts to losing social standing to losing loved ones and more. I suspect this is setting up for an arc over the novels. It wasn't used in a "this is my secret power of pain" sort of way, the harm the main character faces causes their battle effectiveness for example to drop over the course of the book.
Another theme that nibbled at the edges of the story was religion. In that sort of "Europe through a funhouse mirror" sort of way, it seemed like there was discussion of Catholicism vs. Protestantism vs. Paganism, and it's built into the way people relate to the world. Regardless, this is definitely a fictionalized religion for a fictional world.
In conclusion, the book was interesting to read and I enjoyed it. If we want more media created by people who value things that matter outside of the NYC/LA bubble, then the only way that can be supported is to buy that media when it deserves it, and this one is an easy book to recommend.
@Tactical #bookreviews #books
My connection to the book is I'm mutual follows with the author, but that's it. I paid my own Canuckistani Kopecs for the trilogy. There is an offer on now where you can buy the book for less than two Canadian dollars and he made an offer to anyone who would write a review, but I actually made the purchase in May 2024 prior to any deals or offers and I didn't take any offers related to reviews. I wanted to write a review once I read it to engage with fellow authors on freeside.
The introduction was a bit off-putting. On the first few pages I needed to look up a couple words, and I was concerned that I'd struggle to read the rest of the book. Thankfully that wasn't the case and while the prose can be clunky in places (not too many places, thankfully), not enough to distract from the story once it gets going.
Fundamentally, the first third of the book is a war story. It reminds me of the memoirs of soldiers from world war 1 when war had evolved in such a way where many people died of things entirely outside of their control. On the other hand, the battles are at about a 17th century level of technology, where pikemen and calvary coexisted with cannons and arquebusiers. We get to see the rising military career of the main character as he survives battles and different missions.
There are fantasy elements to the world as well which are visible at this point, including enchanted armor, healing magic, and anthromorphic beasts. None of them are world breaking so far, in the sense of making normal actions or normal soldiers obsolete in war.
Near the end of the first third, the tone of the book changes somewhat to focus more on politics, and a major turning point occurs. It's a chance to look at one of the enemy factions, and humanizing them -- perhaps more than the faction the main character is part of is ever humanized.
After a short time, the international politics portion ends, and the main character returns to his own faction, but ends up in a series of events that resolve part of the original plot while pivoting the story. It almost reads like a spy thriller in these parts, not knowing who to trust.
Immediately after this section, the story takes on an almost surreal tone. I didn't know if certain events actually happened, or were hallucinations of a dying man. That surreality colors what happens next.
After some palace intrigue, the book returns to its initial format as war story, and the final phase closes out with the main character leading troops through several battles.
Historically, it feels like a fantasy version of western Europe during the early Enlightenment. Technology is advancing, particularly military technology, and a culture that's largely religious and aristocratic is slowly starting to question itself in the face of the contradictions of the aristocracy and the clergy. These questions form one of the core themes of the book, and although the main character is loyal to his aristocracy and royalty, it feels quite tenuous, like at any moment a slightly different character would make the story into a much different story. Future books may see the character changed in this regard and I wouldn't be surprised.
It took me a long time to read the book, but not for any reasons related to the book itself. Regardless, I had a good time reading it, and I was able to pick it up without too much trouble.
Many of the names feel European through a funhouse mirror, so that was good in places but bad in others. I had to go back and try to remember who was being referred to at times, but that's not the fault of the book and more my memory with respect to Russian sounding names.
The story is in a fantasy setting, including magic and half-human half other creatures. Of course there's always a potential for "furry issues" to arise, but in this case the dominant half man half beast creatures are treated properly as objects of fear and wonder, not attraction. Although magic existed, it seems that it was almost low fantasy for the level it didn't show up. The most important technologies here are guns and swords, not fireballs and magical circles. There were some supernatural elements to at least one of the antagonists, but it felt organic within the world.
One common theme in the book is the suffering of the main character. In spite of his loyalty to the empire he serves, he faces all manner of suffering, from maimed body parts to losing social standing to losing loved ones and more. I suspect this is setting up for an arc over the novels. It wasn't used in a "this is my secret power of pain" sort of way, the harm the main character faces causes their battle effectiveness for example to drop over the course of the book.
Another theme that nibbled at the edges of the story was religion. In that sort of "Europe through a funhouse mirror" sort of way, it seemed like there was discussion of Catholicism vs. Protestantism vs. Paganism, and it's built into the way people relate to the world. Regardless, this is definitely a fictionalized religion for a fictional world.
In conclusion, the book was interesting to read and I enjoyed it. If we want more media created by people who value things that matter outside of the NYC/LA bubble, then the only way that can be supported is to buy that media when it deserves it, and this one is an easy book to recommend.
@Tactical #bookreviews #books
The first two episodes of Doctor Elise are pretty cool -- the lady is about do die in a plane crash and her last thought is "I wish I had more chances to save people". She survives the plane crash, stabilizes all the survivors, and (spoiler alert) dies having ignored her own wounds.
It's just a nice sort of earning of the resurrection.
There's actually a lot more to the story, I'm interested in seeing where it goes from here.
It's just a nice sort of earning of the resurrection.
There's actually a lot more to the story, I'm interested in seeing where it goes from here.
Just me and the boys, eating 2.5 million dollars worth of fish (wasn't that good tbh)
We got these crappy toy cars from the dollar store, 6 of them for 3 dollars. Right out of the box there were big problems, the wheels kept popping out because the mounting system was really weak.
I started off with a simple design to hold it in place but I made some mistakes and had to cut out the existing wheel holders to make them fit which was not ideal. For my second attempt, I cut notches out so the existing wheel holders could stay, then I glued them in with gorilla glue.
The gorilla glue is kind of nasty stuff, got everywhere. I had to remove the axles from a couple. I was still able to because the undercarriage is still flexible enough that I can get them in and out intentionally, but they're not going anywhere by accident.
The one thing I'd do differently if I do it again is the glue is not an ideal way to do this. I would make it higher to press fit in with the top of the car instead.
From a purely money saving perspective, I'm more expensive than the cars, but it's a chance to combine making and keeping my boy happy and showing him that in this house we fix things instead of just throwing them away.
I started off with a simple design to hold it in place but I made some mistakes and had to cut out the existing wheel holders to make them fit which was not ideal. For my second attempt, I cut notches out so the existing wheel holders could stay, then I glued them in with gorilla glue.
The gorilla glue is kind of nasty stuff, got everywhere. I had to remove the axles from a couple. I was still able to because the undercarriage is still flexible enough that I can get them in and out intentionally, but they're not going anywhere by accident.
The one thing I'd do differently if I do it again is the glue is not an ideal way to do this. I would make it higher to press fit in with the top of the car instead.
From a purely money saving perspective, I'm more expensive than the cars, but it's a chance to combine making and keeping my boy happy and showing him that in this house we fix things instead of just throwing them away.
