I read Mark Freestone’s Making a Psychopath: My Journey into 7 Dangerous Minds. It’s was a short and frankly somewhat shallow book, but I did think it was okay. My own interest in the subject matter probably carried the experience for me, but the seven cases were also genuinely interesting.

Right now I’m reading Andy Weir’s Artemis, since I really liked The Martian, just like pretty much everyone else. Artemis, however, has not lived up to The Martian so far. While I really, really love the moonbase setting, the main character and dialogue doesn’t have the wit and charm of the previous book. It’s still pretty good, just disappointing.

Speaking of moonbases, I wonder if there’s any good sci-fi stories exploring the concept. I have read A.C. Clarke’s Earthlight and I remember it was pretty good. If anyone has any recommendations, I’d welcome them!

I’ve taken to the habit of just logging in to the few sites I have accounts every time I open the browser. At this point, all my browsers are configured to delete all data. I don’t find it an inconvenience, and I feel it adds a layer of security. I don’t even use a password manager (though I should), as brain exercise I’ve memorized the few passwords I need. For me, it’s definitely worth the slight extra hassle. However, I accept this may be a bit much, given I’m pretty much the only person who uses this computer. I just feel more comfortable flushing all those pesky cookies daily.

While I was never ‘normal’ myself, I’ve often thought of one kid in particular. He wore very old fashioned and formal clothes. He also spoke in a very precise and formal way and just felt off. Occasionally he would make odd and racist comments.

As an adult, I think his story is quite sad actually. Today I think he may have been somewhat autistic, and I think I heard he was raised by his grandmother. He didn’t pick his own clothes, his old granny just dressed him how she thought was proper. I don’t know what happened to his parents, but I doubt it’s a happy story.

I hope he is doing okay. He was never going to fit in back then, and it was not his fault.

He’s also a descendant of her uncle. Arwen’s kinda nasty.

They have since also posted an apology on Twitter:

I just finished The Gathering Storm by Brandon Sanderson. Per request, I’ll leave some thoughts about it here.

While I know Jordan wrote some of this book, I personally regard it as Sanderson’s work. As such, I felt it was a huge improvement over Jordan’s writing and for me, the best book in the series since The Fires of Heaven. This confirms to me a fact that has been bouncing in my mind for a long while: I don’t think Robert Jordan is a very good writer. He certainly had an interesting story to tell in a captivating setting, which is why I continued to read this far, but his idiosyncrasies are somewhat infuriating.

… Which is why this book is so refreshing: the plot actually moves along, things actually happen, characters don’t constantly sniff derisively or adjust their clothes when annoyed, nor is the reader incessantly hammered with how oh so different the sexes are in the setting, when they act pretty much the same. On that note, the characters feel more reasonable here, and not as unlikable as is Jordan’s wont. While still arrogant and bullheaded to a fault, they feel more understandable in their actions. I think I even saw some character development typically lacking in the series.

While I will again take a break between books, I’m very optimistic about the last two books in the series. I probably won’t read the prequel, but we’ll see.

GOG has made a statement in picture form:

That is terribly sad. Persepolis is a great comic book and film.

Even The Joker knows not to stick his dick in crazy.

What? Speak English.

A Fish

That’s actually spelled ‘ghoti’.

English-language spelling reform now.

My inner critic is brutal. It uses all my intelligence against me, and will always find enough wiggle room to where I can’t really outright debunk any of its claims. Even if I do, it doesn’t acknowledge it in any way, it just picks another vector of attack. It was pivotal for me when I realized it wasn’t trying to argue with me or improve my behavior. It doesn’t care about truth or evidence, its only mission is to make me feel like the worst shit ever shat. It only welcomes argument because that gives it attention and more room to attack. Once I realized I had been playing by the wrong rules, I could actually start moderating it. Not by telling it to shut up, but by pointing out that I can see what it’s doing. I can just let it yammer on, and it hates that I don’t engage with it. It hates to be seen for what it is, because it sounds fucking ridiculous, especially when it gets desperate. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

Having an inner critic is important, but if your parents dialed yours up to eleven, you just might want consider what the actual rules of engagement are.

We’re part of the universe and we care, therefore the universe cares through us.

“We are the universe made manifest, trying to figure itself out.” -Delenn

“The stars are matter, we’re matter, but it doesn’t matter.”

One could ask the same of you, could they not?

Come one, that’s really cheesy.

Have you seen math? It’s the Devil’s play tool!

Sure, a WM will run fine and leaves you with more resources to work with. Your setup will still struggle running a modern browser.

Yeah, none are going to be fast. Browsing is going to be slow no matter what, unless you use something like lynx. The best I can give you is Falkon, but don’t open many tabs.