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Tricone RC

Knob Twiddlers
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Posts posted by Tricone RC

    Your pointless thoughts & observations

    in General Banter

    Posted

    I often get weird looks when I take my toddler to kiddie activity groups at the local library. I'm almost always the only bloke there, and none of the mums have ever shown the slightest interest in acknowledging me although they're pretty chatty with eachother.

     

    It's like a complete inverse of the weird stalking that women get from gamers. Blanking as opposed to creepy obsession

    How does the World view America these days?

    in General Banter

    Posted

    I wasn't kidding about the aluminum.

     

    Aluminum is in iodized salt (table salt) and may be the difference you're tasting. It's used as an anti-caking agent.

    Anti caking agents are normally aluminosilicates, i.e. powdered feldspars or zeolites, which definitely wouldn't taste salty, if anything they'd taste a tad caustic if you munched a spoonful of the pure stuff

     

    Abtiperspirants have aluminium salts though

    Now Reading

    in General Banter

    Posted

    I just got done rewatching The Expanse... And have started reading The Churn. I'll probably dive into the other novellas and then back into Cibola Burn after I finish them and go through the series again before reading Persepolis Rising for the first time.

     

    The last series I was this into was probably The Dark Tower books... I absolutely love the universe that Abraham and Franck have built here.

    The expanse is a lot of fun. Not read any of the novellas. Cibola Burn was my least favourite at the time, but three books ahead a lot of the themes from that book are cropping up again, so it's an important step on the journey or whatever.

     

    Halfway through Dissolution (Sansom's Shardlake series #1). Fantastic so far

    Now Reading

    in General Banter

    Posted

    Been reading The Hitchiker's Guide books and they're okay. Occasionally will give me a chuckle, they all seem a bit undercooked though, in terms of actual plot, character, and most importantly, humor. They should be a riot: I've always had a lean towards British humor, I love sci-fi, I love ridiculous shit...but not a single one is really delivering. On the fourth one now and that's sorta skewed away from Dent and Ford (though he just showed up for some reason) and if I get halfway through this and it's not getting better then I'm going to give up. This one is, so far, the worst of them, and I obviously wasn't in love with them anyway. They're quick enough reads, at least, I wouldn't have finished the first one if it wasn't easy to get through. 

     

    edit: upside is there's some fun words that would make for good track names :)

    HHG is definitely more of a vehicle for Adams' ramblings, and the plot is secondary... The fourth one isn't as good as the first three, and the fifth one is just depressing. 

     

    Give Illuminatus a try, I found it in a similar vein to HHG (disjointed plot included), but the lols are taken up a notch

    Your pointless thoughts & observations

    in General Banter

    Posted

    Nothing beats a stone-clad floor in tiles with lovely patterns, staircases of aptly designed metal railings and mosaic-like stone furnishing of steps. Solid wooden furniture, wooden creaky floor, double-winged doors with high-placed door handles, high ceilings, iron and glass plant houses, gardens, winter gardens, old ball-like hallway lamps with motifs and rough tactile switches, cast iron stove with firewood stacked next to it. Large kitchen with copper dishes, cozy study rooms with foutons, work desks and personal libraries. Contemporary box-like plastic architecture can suck my sweaty balls. It's boring and pretentious just like their designers.

    I've been looking at making / getting made some tiles with monastery style decorations to put on our kitchen floor. Faded fleurs-de-lys and plant patterns and stuff. Reckon they'd look great

    stupid first world problems you're dealing with

    in General Banter

    Posted

    I keep screwing up my earphones lately. I've gone through four sets in two months. One channel will just cut out suddenly and no amount of wiggling the connections can get it back.  

     

    I am wearing them while working which probably has something to do with it, but it's bloody annoying, most of all because I have to wait a couple of days without earphones until someone can drive a new pair up (can't buy anything here except Bud Light and camo jackets)

    Now Reading

    in General Banter

    Posted · Edited by Tricone RC

    It annoys me that BNW and 1984 get compared so much - they are nothing like eachother. I blame all those "guise Trump just got elected, look at all these dystopian books!" buzzfeed lists

     

    Just started The Sheep Look Up, the second John Brunner I've read. About two minutes after I started it I saw a news ticker in the corner of my eye saying that Indian police had just mown down some anti-pollution protesters. So it's depressingly relevant

    What TV series are you watching at moment?

    in General Banter

    Posted

    Frontier. Series about the Hudson's Bay Company, a great bit of history that hasn't had much telly coverage. For people who don't know the HBC was a fur trading company that was granted an immense trading monopoly by Charles II across a swath of what would later become Canada and played a huge role in the development of Canada and/or the fucking over the natives. It still exists today in the form of a department store

     

    It has Khal Drogo in it

    Now Reading

    in General Banter

    Posted

    Anyone read any John Barnes? I picked up Kaleidoscope Century, which sounds like it's basically about immortal Droogs in space. It's #5 in a list of crap I have to read so it'll be a while afore I commence

    stupid first world problems you're dealing with

    in General Banter

    Posted

    I only have to go into our office once a month or so, but it's in a dumb spot with zero public transport. I normally car-share with a friend who has two little dogs in the car constantly. This morning I sent my wife a text complaining about how the dogs fucking stink. I also, apparently, sent the text to said friend. Guess I'm hitch-hiking home

    Now That Trump's President... (not any more!)

    in General Banter

    Posted

     

    It's barely different in action - Obama preferred drone strikes worldwide, Trump executes curiously timed airstrikes in Syria.

    The difference is Obama didn't talk out of his ass the entire time on twitter nor try to green-light even more unlimited defense spending. We went from a POTUS who was well-versed in worldwide conflicts with a mostly hands off approach to a man trying to meddle in things he doesn't understand let alone care about long-term consequences of. The decisions he makes are flippant, and overall inconsistent middle eastern policies that literally go hand-in-hand with his and his inner circles personal economic interests.

     

     

    IMO Obama got sucked into a few too many interventions, many of which had too much mission creep. Well-intentioned, of course, but I remain to be convinced that they actually helped the region. Libya is fucked, partly thanks to Obama and Sarko. Syria is the most complex clusterfuck since the Yugoslav collapse, and Barry decided to wade in and arm a nebulous group of basically-unknowns. Whereas, for his many blindingly obvious faults elsewhere, Trump has, on the whole, stuck to undertaking very targeted strikes with very specific and narrow aims. To me that's the least worst approach. Best would be for properly supported UN peacekeeping forces to roll in en masse; unfortunately that's not really on the cards these days

    Now That Trump's President... (not any more!)

    in General Banter

    Posted · Edited by Tricone RC

    Surgical strike was the least worst option. At least it *might* deter the dentist-despot from massacring civilians in quite a blase fashion. Ground action would almost definitely end up with mission creep and thus a protracted bloodbath. And probably some diplomatically-inconvenient dead Russians too. But doing nothing was barely an option. Despite all the other middle east shit shows I do think Western states possess a tiny, miniscule shred of moral justification for things like this. And the UN is of the opinion that chemical weapons were used too. This isn't like Iraq where it was all made-up crap

     

     

    Honestly, I think Trump is handling middle east conflicts better than Obama did.

    Cryptocurrency as the next significant stage for computing technology, not just an investment

    in General Banter

    Posted

    Bill Gates on crypto on Reddit AMA:

     

    "The main feature of crypto currencies is their anonymity. I don't think this is a good thing. The Governments ability to find money laundering and tax evasion and terrorist funding is a good thing. Right now crypto currencies are used for buying fentanyl and other drugs so it is a rare technology that has caused deaths in a fairly direct way. I think the speculative wave around ICOs and crypto currencies is super risky for those who go long"

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