His politics got worse as he got older, but the early works by Mario Vargas Llosa are some of my favorite things I’ve ever read. The green house, the time of the hero (la ciudad y los perros), and conversation in the cathedral.

I recently read The Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz and it was excellent.

He’s a relative of the Allende family. He spent his childhood as a refugee after the US installed Pinochet and his family had to flee Chile. Idk why his anti imperialism would shock anyone.

I liked it, even if the characters weren’t great. I liked book 1 in kind of a detective/mystery novel kind of way. The first book is very different from the next two, which is where I think the series really starts to address larger questions. It’s still kind of flimsy and the characters might get worse, but I like some of the questions and hypotheses about the universe that it addresses. It gets into a more philosophical approach to the universe and how other species may interact with each other, mutually assured destruction, and how the human race would react to a sword of Damocles hanging over our head for 400 years. It’s told from a Chinese perspective as well, so it was interesting to me to see how he thinks these might play out as opposed to my assumptions coming from a western perspective.

I think the dark forest hypothesis as an answer to Fermi is reasonable, and I like a lot of the big picture ideas.

But yea, it’s not really a character driven series.

https://xkcd.com/1389/

I’m assuming COVID had something to do with it. Those photos are 3 and 4 years ago, and people are wearing masks.

The issue I have with Hoopla is that you can’t read on an ereader as far as I can tell. You need to read books through their app on your phone. I much prefer e-ink so I avoid Hoopla if I can

I knew this was Madrid! That whole row of bonsai in the botanical garden is impressive. And they have most labeled with age and origin. Really fun place to walk around.

Shad Ledue

I don’t want to be cold. I want to be comfortable. I want to not sweat. And for that to happen, I need the room to be cold.

If you’re good at math and good at explaining math, then statistics/analytics is a good way to go. You’ll probably need a degree though.

Pharma/medical device companies, especially in new development need people to run the numbers from their experiments and then communicate to the higher ups and the business people “what do those numbers mean?”

Consulting for new drug development can be stressful, but it’s interesting as you’re constantly learning about new treatments and therapies.

Any stats/analytics field should be similar. All of the business grads know that numbers and data are important, but they need someone to interpret them and explain to them what they are seeing.

Are they always there? Looks like they are getting ready to hang a curtain around it before painting it, or some other type of maintenance.

I mostly agree with you, however, I think it’s still good to point out to people that resources and help do exist and that there is no shame in using them. I know plenty of people who qualify for food stamps (or have in the past) and refuse to get them due to stigma. I’ve heard people with no food say they can’t go to a food bank because “that food is for people who are worse off than me” even though they are skipping meals and starving.

Directly pointing out “if you need help and help exists, use it” is important and helps destigmatize those options imo

“All” is all content on the fediverse, across all instances with which your home instance is federated. It will be similar for all instances, because most are federated with the big instances and those tend to have more posts and interaction.

If you only want to see the feed of communities on your local instance, you can just browse your “Local” feed.

I think it’s from “The Founder” about the guy who turned McDonald’s into a national chain.

What if you fire the current federal workers, hire them at SpeceX (for less pay, less job security, and less benefits) and then charge the government a higher price for the contract?

Also, they can probably just reduce the hours needed to become certified.

Kyle Rittenhouse

Finally got my first full clear this morning, and I’ve gotten 2 more since then. I’ve now gotten all of the achievements and I just completed a 2 stamp game!

It’s very possible to defeat the dragon. I can do it pretty regularly after a day of heavy playing. Getting the achievements is tougher. And I still haven’t gotten a clean wipe yet (I’ve been 1 tile away twice though)