Daniel Strokis replied to Steven Ray's status
@stevenray I just heard about him for the first time from The Dig podcast! I’m excited to read this.
I love science fiction, but I’ve been branching out more into fantasy, mystery, and even some romance. It’s always fun to explore unfamiliar genres!
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@stevenray I just heard about him for the first time from The Dig podcast! I’m excited to read this.
From his arrival in Britain in the 1950s and involvement in the New Left, to founding the field of cultural …
Vladimir Mau, an adviser to Boris Yeltsin in this period, explained that “the most favorable condition for reform” is a “weary public, exhausted by the previous political struggle … . That is why the government was confident, on the eve of price liberalization, that a drastic social clash was impossible, that the government would not be overthrown by a popular revolt.” The vast majority of Russians—70 percent—were opposed to lifting price controls, he explained, but “we could see that the people, then and now, were concentrating on the yields of their private [garden] plots and in general on their individual economic circumstances.”
Oh damn, that sounds frighteningly familiar stares in American
@kingrat IBCK is one of my favorite podcasts right now, so good 👌
There are always miracles. There is always hope. If you deny miracles and hope, you’re playing God […]. If I can’t shoot par, I won’t pick up a golf club. Wrong. You stick by what you believe, and go on doing what you can in your own clumsy, imperfect way, trying to hack out heaven by next Tuesday, even though practical people […] are sure it can’t be done. And damned if you don’t make some progress now and then.
— Naked to the Stars by Gordon R. Dickson (Page 152 - 153)
I think we all need to keep trying to hack out Heaven by next Tuesday.
This book feels like the good old tropes of sci-fi: optimism about humanity, a belief that we can overcome our barbarous nature, and the idea that as humans expand through the galaxy, our empathy grows with us.
It’s not a perfect story, but the ending wraps up the whole thing nicely (if somewhat hamfistedly). The love story with the protagonist, I think, needed to be fleshed out more to be believable. But the Contacts Service idea is intriguing and unique, and I liked that the futuristic elements of it weren’t made the focus of the writing.
Overall, I think this story is worth a read, especially today.
Once, Lovelace had eyes and ears everywhere. She was a ship's artificial intelligence system - possessing a personality and very …
The average size of an off-street parking space is assumed to be 330 ft.², including the access aisles needed for circulation in the parking lot or structure. San Jose requires 25 parking spaces per 1000 ft.² of dining area and a restaurant, so the parking lot is 8250 ft.² for every 1000 ft.² of dining area.
— The High Cost of Free Parking by Donald Shoup (Page xlii)
😳😬
Cars are just so inefficient. Every time I think about the ramifications of designing our cities around them I feel like I’m going crazy.
Bertrand Russell's classic introduction to philosophy, with relevant selections from various philosophers
A single line of code offers a way to understand the cultural context of computing.
This book takes a single …
While I’m not religious, I still found this book compelling and profound.
The first nine books are not, I think, as philosophically interesting as the last three books. Skipping over them would be a mistake. They contain some very beautiful prose about grief, his love for his mother, and his struggles with spiritual questions.
The last three books are very interesting to anyone interested in philosophy, regardless of religious affiliation. His writing about the nature of time in book 10 is especially impressive.
Garry Wills’s complete translation of Saint Augustine’s spiritual masterpiece—available now for the first time Garry Wills is an exceptionally gifted …