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Sextro posted:I’ve not actually finished dune yet but I’m pretty sure these mentats are people trained to be autistic. Not really? Like a lot of things in Dune, the idea of Mentats comes from very 60s ideas about "human potential," combined with a cynical take on Golden Age sci-fi tropes.
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Nov 16, 2021 20:04
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General Battuta posted:There's a very minor detail in the Hannu Rajaniemi novels about Mielikki activating 'combat autism', a kind of altered cognitive state for fighting. I always wondered what autistic people might think of this. I'm not fishing for condemnation or validation, I would just be interested to hear. It's not even science fiction, we actually do this and apply it to lots of things, not just combat. It's kind of a hypervigilant, hyperfocused flow state with an emotional dissociation component. I know a few former soldiers who have learned they have autism, and who talk about having a "battle computer" mode that they enter during stressful situations. Part of why I do emergency/incident response work is because in the presence of a crisis my mind kind of becomes all bright and sharp and swift and I see vectors and probabilities in my mind's eye that let me strip away extraneous data and get at the meat of a problem while most everyone else is having some dumb pointless emotional reaction to what just happened. I first noticed this effect as a small child. I put out a spreading fire while a roomful of adults flapped their hands and panicked uselessly. I didn't feel panic; instead I felt this curious serenity, and a profound sense that... well, it was years later when I encountered the words for this feeling: Right Action. You are doing what you are supposed to do, what should be done, the one thing that makes sense given the circumstances. There is absolutely no doubt whatsoever in your mind: there is only room inside you for certainty. You cut away all the extraneous input - including, crucially, your own sense of personal risk - and run toward danger. Then you work the next problem, and the next, and so on. You feel amazing and perform well beyond your own expectations. Then you crash and are barely functional for a period of days to weeks; depending on the severity and trauma of the event there may be other mental health consequences. The hyperfocus burns the event into your memory, not coincidentally ensuring its prominence in later flashbacks. These moments of crisis are the only times when my ADHD-autistic brain feels truly whole and integrated, as though, for once in my life, my entire dumb brain is actually switched on and focused on task. It is physically and mentally exhausting and I cannot maintain it for long. I'd love to know what my brain activity actually looks like when this is happening though. Kesper North fucked around with this message at 20:38 on Nov 16, 2021 |
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Nov 16, 2021 20:29
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"The bomb only lives while it is falling" but you have to pick up all the pieces after you explode
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Nov 16, 2021 20:55
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If you are up for some trashy/pulpy post-apocalyptic reading, PC games seller Fanatical has a bundle just for you (3 tiers): Deathlands Sci-Fi Novels Bundle (Vols 1-40) (3 of them also as audio books) PDF format. Use Calibre to convert to ePub/Mobi I believe I still have book 3, Neutron Solstice, somewhere. I don't plan on reading it again, but back in 1987 when it got released, I immediately bought it when seeing the cover and reading the back cover  quote:A generation after a global nuclear war, Louisiana is a fetid, sullen landscape of impenetrable swamps and grotesquely mutated wildlife. Above the gnarled bayous, radioactive red dust clouds race across the sky on nuclear winds; below, thick mud sucks at a man's boots. Now and then a biting acid rain falls, swept in on the boiling winds from the Gulf. In the reeking swampland that was the Mississippi basin, neutron bombs have left barren cityscapes the territories of small groups of bitterly opposed survivors. Ryan Cawdor and his companions Krysty Wroth and J.B. Dix come upon one such group who are striving to revive life on earth the way it was before the bombs fell. But they're up against a postholocaust feudal lord who's just as determined to wipe them out. In the Deathlands, the world blew out in 2001. The future is emerging. Jesus Christ, I just saw on the Wiki page that there are 125 books in this series.
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Nov 16, 2021 21:11
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Oh god my dad loved those, he read like 70 of them. I don't think he knows they're still going so nobody tell him!!!
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Nov 16, 2021 21:13
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quote:A generation after a global nuclear war, Louisiana is a fetid, sullen landscape of impenetrable swamps and grotesquely mutated wildlife. So, nothing changed.
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Nov 16, 2021 21:14
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General Battuta posted:"The bomb only lives while it is falling" but you have to pick up all the pieces after you explode Yep. I've heard that same metaphor from my soldier friends, actually. With practice you start pre-planning for that while still in combat mode. You learn how to fall - well, not safely, but you can soften the landing and minimize the splash. What sucks is when the next crisis starts up after the crash hits. There's also an element of 'the missile knows where it is because it knows where it isn't". Even if I don't necessarily "know" what to do in a given situation, I know what I don't want to happen - the bad thing! - so I just look at the negative possibility space where the bad thing doesn't happen and detect the difference (or deviation) between bad and good outcomes, then generate corrective commands to drive the situation away from a bad outcome. It all seems very simple at the time. Kesper North fucked around with this message at 21:19 on Nov 16, 2021 |
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Nov 16, 2021 21:16
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General Battuta posted:"The bomb only lives while it is falling" but you have to pick up all the pieces after you explode I can help you with the second part, do ignore that buzzing it is just my friendly knife missile 
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Nov 16, 2021 22:01
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Half a King (Shattered Sea #1) by Joe Abercrombie - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HBQWGYO/ I Am Legend by Richard Matheson - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07XB49BG4/
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Nov 16, 2021 23:48
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General Battuta posted:"The bomb only lives while it is falling" but you have to pick up all the pieces after you explode is this the true secret of Bomb Logic
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Nov 17, 2021 00:03
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Kesper North posted:There's also an element of 'the missile knows where it is because it knows where it isn't". Even if I don't necessarily "know" what to do in a given situation, I know what I don't want to happen - the bad thing! - so I just look at the negative possibility space where the bad thing doesn't happen and detect the difference (or deviation) between bad and good outcomes, then generate corrective commands to drive the situation away from a bad outcome. It all seems very simple at the time. This is a really good description of how my (autistic) brain used to work the majority of the time, but it's really bizarre and alienating to other people, so I had to train myself out of it. Now I'm thirty and still offputting and weird, but I at least made understandable decisions, even if I don't especially understand why other people care about how I do things that don't affect them.
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Nov 17, 2021 01:23
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I've been re-reading most of the Iain Banks (M and non-M) books and I was a bit surprised that they've dated somewhat poorly imo, at least relative to when I read them in the early naughts as a teenager. It's more obvious in his non-M books where he often writes from the POV of a rich young toff "slumming" it and working out some childhood trauma, while making it in the business world just seems very cloying in this moment. And his writing of Asians/Asia comes off as very patronising in a skyscrapers mixed with coolies acting as a backdrop for his jetsetting characters.
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Nov 17, 2021 02:02
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what are the other diagnosable attack modes? i've come up with a few murder mania command narcissism peace negotiator bpd (this one does not have a great track record)
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Nov 17, 2021 02:06
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tactical narcolepsy
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Nov 17, 2021 02:41
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Schizoid volatility, tactical subtype.
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Nov 17, 2021 03:07
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Bayham Badger posted:tactical narcolepsy the dreaded battle nap
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Nov 17, 2021 03:43
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Nomnom Cookie posted:what are the other diagnosable attack modes? i've come up with a few whatever murderbot has.
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Nov 17, 2021 07:24
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Larry Parrish posted:whatever murderbot has. That’s the one where you’re so socially nervous that you murder people to get out of conversations.
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Nov 17, 2021 07:44
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shrike82 posted:I've been re-reading most of the Iain Banks (M and non-M) books and I was a bit surprised that they've dated somewhat poorly imo, at least relative to when I read them in the early naughts as a teenager. I agree with everything in this post, and have commented about the non-M Iain Banks books always having hyper-entitled rich main characters "slumming it" a few times in this thread. The worst Culture books to me are Excession, then Player of Games, because both of those two Culture books have those non-M hyper-entitled rear end in a top hat characters as main characters. Started reading some more Pat Frank stories. Nothing else by Pat Frank has been as good-stupid as or as unintentionally hilarious as his magnum opus, MR ADAM, so far.
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Nov 17, 2021 08:40
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Nomnom Cookie posted:command narcissism lol Combat ODD/CD aka 'Friday Night Syndrome'
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Nov 17, 2021 13:14
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I feel like I must have read Excession a little off-kilter, because to me it was full of Minds that were unbearable and smug in precisely the way you described but the way it ended made it all worthwhile because it consisted of them realizing they had totally wasted their time acting like cleverer-than-thou dickheads when confronted with something way more powerful but less self-congratulatorily convoluted than they were.
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Nov 17, 2021 14:58
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Mother of Learning Arc 1 is out on Kindle on Dec 1 (audiobook Dec 21): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09M2R6QLF It's progression fantasy that follows a teenage wizard who gets stuck in a month-long time loop and needs to find a way out. One of the more popular fantasy web serials around, it's got good exploration of magic and a neat mystery and worldbuilding. The dialogue/voice is kind of a weak point; while it's in English from the start, not a translated work, the author is Croatian, which probably explains some of that. Not really the cringey kind of bad, though, just that the characters can sound kind of same-y. Anyway, it's been edited now, and it was a fun read when I went through it before as a serial!
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Nov 17, 2021 19:20
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Drakyn posted:I feel like I must have read Excession a little off-kilter, because to me it was full of Minds that were unbearable and smug in precisely the way you described but the way it ended made it all worthwhile because it consisted of them realizing they had totally wasted their time acting like cleverer-than-thou dickheads when confronted with something way more powerful but less self-congratulatorily convoluted than they were. nah you read it right. I just hated/still hate the "human" Culture characters more than the hyper-smug Minds in Excession. Ever read the Y: The Last Man comic book series or watched "Hell comes to Frogtown"? Pat Frank's MR ADAM did that poo poo first and is still freaking bizarre as hell.
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Nov 17, 2021 22:01
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quote:DrakeNews #123, the last newsletter, November 17, 2021 
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Nov 17, 2021 22:04
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Yeah I always liked Excession because while it marinates in the Minds' self satisfaction, even early on in the book they are clearly very human in their hypocrisy and arrogance. Like we are introduced to their shared VR which is infinitely beyond what any puny fleshling can understand and totally supplants the material world *smash cut* a Mind has longed all of that off to go study stars with its mates
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Nov 17, 2021 22:35
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Sad indeed (don't think I've ever read anything by Drake but still.) That said, Thank You For Your Servos is a loving great title for a military robot story collection.
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Nov 17, 2021 22:46
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well the new neal stephenson is out   
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Nov 17, 2021 23:17
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Copernic posted:well the new neal stephenson is out jesus christ
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Nov 17, 2021 23:20
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Neal Stephenson should stick with not writing women or having a woman cowriter but I love his random research obsessions. He's evolved a lot since Snow Crash but still a little yikes.
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Nov 17, 2021 23:30
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lets see what the new york times has to say https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/16/books/review/neal-stephenson-termination-shock.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytbooks quote:There’s a density to these people, anchored firmly to the historical and geographical minutiae with which Stephenson is so often concerned. In fact, the back stories are the source of some of the book’s most emotionally resonant moments. As absurd as the rest of this sentence is going to sound, there is something profound in the grief of a veteran trying to hunt down the massive feral hog that ate his daughter. quote:But those feral pigs have barely turned cold before “Termination Shock” goes in a very different direction — 300 pages or so of mostly exposition and character back story, quote:Stephenson is one of speculative fiction’s most meticulous architects, and here he’s got sheets and sheets of blueprint. If you’re one of the many readers who enjoy his novels for precisely this reason, rejoice — few writers do this stuff better. There’s a roughly 20-page section early on that explains exactly how the giant sulfur gun works, and I found it fascinating as a work of both imagination and pedantry. But there are also a couple of drawn-out scenes in which multiple characters speak almost exclusively in exposition and, at the end, one of those characters helpfully sums up all the key concepts discussed.
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Nov 17, 2021 23:32
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Harold Fjord posted:Neal Stephenson should stick with not writing women or having a woman cowriter but I love his random research obsessions. He's evolved a lot since Snow Crash but still a little yikes. As I've said before about Neal Stephenson, all that comes from the Cypherpunk mailing list. Neal Stephenson really hasn't ever had an original thought. And if I truly want to start some poo poo, becoming more convinced Walter Jon Williams or Winn Schwartau ghostwrote the first 1/4 of Snow Crash. Siding towards Walter Jon Williams if I think/truly believe everything in the first 1/4 of Snow Crash is written tongue-in-cheek, Winn Schwartau if I believe everything in the first 1/4 of Snow Crash was written deadly serious, because Schwartau is that terrible of an author. Just check out Schwartau's Terminal Compromise if you don't believe me. Terminal Compromise is so bad, Schwartau keeps purging it's existence from his wikipedia page. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/757822.Terminal_Compromise https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79
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Nov 17, 2021 23:45
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Cicero posted:Mother of Learning Arc 1 is out on Kindle on Dec 1 (audiobook Dec 21): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09M2R6QLF There's two threads for this type of poo poo. Take it to the place where people want to read about it.
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Nov 17, 2021 23:49
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fez_machine posted:There's two threads for this type of poo poo. Take it to the place where people want to read about it. ? It may be based on a web serial, but it is is being published as a fantasy book series now. Doesn't look like it is available through kindle unlimited, so it wouldn't belong there either.
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Nov 18, 2021 00:09
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please keep this thread limited to discussion of serious published authors, the difference in quality is quite dramaticCopernic posted:well the new neal stephenson is out
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Nov 18, 2021 00:12
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How is that not just an ad? I am not a big fan of the sales links either, but at least those are tiny and mostly classics so they're easy to tune out.
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Nov 18, 2021 00:16
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thotsky posted:How is that not just an ad? I am not a big fan of the sales links either, but at least those are tiny and mostly classics so they're easy to tune out. Someone posting about a book they enjoyed, and a link to where that book can be purchased, is an ad? Is every positive review of a book an ad or just the ones that include a link to where someone can buy the book.
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Nov 18, 2021 00:26
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Clark Nova posted:please keep this thread limited to discussion of serious published authors, the difference in quality is quite dramatic difference is we're able to call Neal Stephenson's poo poo what it is web serial trash and kindle unlimited filler is posted and the commonweal brigade comes in and have a C.I.A censored debate about the intricacies of the poo poo shirunei posted:? funny how the announcement got posted in both those threads but with less detail and hard sell
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Nov 18, 2021 00:28
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Clark Nova posted:please keep this thread limited to discussion of serious published authors, the difference in quality is quite dramatic fez_machine posted:difference is we're able to call Neal Stephenson's poo poo what it is I had more detail here because other threads people have probably heard of it before, it's not some weird conspiracy
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Nov 18, 2021 00:33
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y'know nobody was even talking about the post before y'all got your panties in a bunch so if you'd just let it be there wouldn't be any thread space devoted to it. you really don't need to tell the world you're not interested in a book like a cat meowing about how she just pooped
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Nov 18, 2021 00:34
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Cicero posted:I had more detail here because other threads people have probably heard of it before, it's not some weird conspiracy Didn't think it's a conspiracy, I did, however, think that showed where the series belongs. neongrey posted:y'know nobody was even talking about the post before y'all got your panties in a bunch so if you'd just let it be there wouldn't be any thread space devoted to it. you really don't need to tell the world you're not interested in a book like a cat meowing about how she just pooped I felt like fighting today fez_machine fucked around with this message at 00:36 on Nov 18, 2021 |
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Nov 18, 2021 00:34
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