Interesting 10m video:
Why Are There UPPERCASE and lowercase Letters?
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-clrKOp5Co
Why Are There UPPERCASE and lowercase Letters?
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PC Gamer Chat Log Episode 57: Who is your favorite character from Fallout, season 1?
Another book finished. This time its Arthur C Clarke's Childhood's end. The premise is that aliens (the overlords) have "invaded" earth and the book charts the 3 stages of their occupation/stay on earth from the perspective of the humans and overlords. Starting at first contact, their golden age and then their final departure a hundred years later.
On the whole i liked the book. It was well written, imaginative and does try to explain possible outcomes both positive/negative from a society that has practically everything, no conflict, everyone's basic needs are catered for and then some. The best part is unsurprisingly the end as we finally understand the reason of the overlords visit and interest of humanity.
i didn't have any real gripes with the book as it was quite entertaining (certainly more enjoyable to read then fahrenheit 451) and certainly makes me more positive about Arthur C Clarke's work. i suppose i did have questions about the ending and but too spoiler heavy to discuss here, but whatever.
I need to read the Rama series and the space odyssey series, but i we'll look at those books at another time once i get around to them.
On the whole i liked the book. It was well written, imaginative and does try to explain possible outcomes both positive/negative from a society that has practically everything, no conflict, everyone's basic needs are catered for and then some. The best part is unsurprisingly the end as we finally understand the reason of the overlords visit and interest of humanity.
i didn't have any real gripes with the book as it was quite entertaining (certainly more enjoyable to read then fahrenheit 451) and certainly makes me more positive about Arthur C Clarke's work. i suppose i did have questions about the ending and but too spoiler heavy to discuss here, but whatever.
I need to read the Rama series and the space odyssey series, but i we'll look at those books at another time once i get around to them.
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Zloth
Community Contributor
That's another one that's been on my bookshelf for well over 3 decades. Jeez, retirement is going to be so busy!!
Read that maybe 40 years ago during my Clarke phase—I know I enjoyed it, even tho I couldn't remember a thing about it until you refreshed it for me
The first, Rendezvous with Rama, is excellent—but the later ones were not written by him, he just had 'input'. I did not enjoy Rama II and didn't read any of the others.
If you want other Clarke's, I recommend Earthlight and The Fountains of Paradise.
OsaX Nymloth
Community Contributor
Oh hey, a book thread. Neat!
Recently re-read two great fantasy series who I consider to be at the very top of the genre.
"The Malazan Book of the Fallen" by Steven Erikson and "The Black Company" by Glen Cook. The first one especially, is top3 if not top1 IMHO. Great characters, great stories spawning across multitude of levels (psychological, geographical, time etc.).
Currenty reading "The Last Contintent" by Terry Pratchett. Been a while since I visited Discworld and while I don't adore it as much, I still smile at the abstract humour. And it's a good break after aforementioned series that had like 10+ tomes of dark, gritty and sometimes straight up depressing stuff.
Recently re-read two great fantasy series who I consider to be at the very top of the genre.
"The Malazan Book of the Fallen" by Steven Erikson and "The Black Company" by Glen Cook. The first one especially, is top3 if not top1 IMHO. Great characters, great stories spawning across multitude of levels (psychological, geographical, time etc.).
Currenty reading "The Last Contintent" by Terry Pratchett. Been a while since I visited Discworld and while I don't adore it as much, I still smile at the abstract humour. And it's a good break after aforementioned series that had like 10+ tomes of dark, gritty and sometimes straight up depressing stuff.
i'll have a look and if needed add them to my read list which is ever increasing with scifi books. perhaps i shouldn't look at the hugo awards and classics for reading material.
Speaking of reading material i was looking at my other books last night and wanted to get some culture in me. So i decided to have a look at les miserables but after seeking the contents page suggesting that it over 1000 pages... i'm not entirely sure i want to attempt that. i probably won't be done until next year at this point. I read maybe the first chapter and i'm having reservations. part of the reason is that after reading the tale of 2 cities and the age of the book just makes it slightly unreadable at times. On the flip side, I'm reading the contemporary translation.
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Never made it thru that one—like many others, an important book for its time and purpose, but damn difficult to digest. Closer to 1,500 pages—so about the same as War and Peace, which I found more digestible—it does have one interesting attribute which tickled my fancy:
It has 365 chapters, so my plan was to read it over a year, one per day—so maybe that might work for you. Altho that didn't work for me, I did read 1,001 Nights over
Oh come on, surely you guessed it?
Another longie I failed with was homeboy's Ulysses, which takes place from 8 am on June 16th [aka 'Bloomsday' in Dublin] until 4 am June 17th—I fell asleep, and never bothered to try again
I think a thing with books like those is to ration them out. I suspect I tried to consume too many on the trot—English was one of my Uni subjects, and personal interests—and just sort of burned out on them.
The problem is which translated version to read. To clarify, after much research, I picked the Lee Fahnestock one as it seemed to balance of being faithful to the original and being modernised. But it still apparently packed with bloated side content thats not entirely relevant. This version was dubbed the brick. No joke, when I saw how many pages my mind did wander as to whether you could kill someone with it. Either by bludgeoning them or boring them to death.Never made it thru that one—like many others, an important book for its time and purpose, but damn difficult to digest. Closer to 1,500 pages—so about the same as War and Peace, which I found more digestible—it does have one interesting attribute which tickled my fancy:
It has 365 chapters, so my plan was to read it over a year, one per day—so maybe that might work for you. Altho that didn't work for me, I did read 1,001 Nights over
, so such weird games are feasibleOh come on, surely you guessed it?
Another longie I failed with was homeboy's Ulysses, which takes place from 8 am on June 16th [aka 'Bloomsday' in Dublin] until 4 am June 17th—I fell asleep, and never bothered to try again
I think a thing with books like those is to ration them out. I suspect I tried to consume too many on the trot—English was one of my Uni subjects, and personal interests—and just sort of burned out on them.
It's also the one that schools use to teach les mis apparently. But yeah, a real minefield when deciding which version
I have read some fairly long books like to clancy's the bear and dragon and Peter Hamiltons scifi books which I found to be a mixed bag tbh. But whether I should start les mis I'm not sure.
Zloth
Community Contributor
Get the Wheel of Time as a paperback series. If you don't like it, you can use the books plus a little glue to give your patio a new wall.
Will add to my read list then. But it will be a while as my backlog ever increases...
OsaX Nymloth
Community Contributor
I know the pain, I know it all too well. For every book read or album listened to, 5 new recommendations take their place. It's a never ending battle and there's never enough time.
IwantPeak
BANNED
Sounds like a good book. I enjoyed it, especially the ending. Looking forward to reading more by Arthur C. Clarke in the future.
Yeah the ending is bittersweet but i did have some questions (as did the book) like why humanity decided to destroy itself if given the choice or dare i say, why didn't they try making more children? a simple line like humanity became infertile would have sufficed.
On my les mis journey, i'm still reading it. I'm onto book 5 and like the title is full of tragedy. The good news is that because the book and chapters aren't that big i can breeze through it fairly quickly. So i've read 219 pages already.
i 'm finding it engrossing, but that said I'm giving the book the benefit of doubt and it was written back in the 1800s, but christ there were points that it tested my patience greatly. That said, i am interested in actually watching the movies/series just to find out how successfully adapted to the big screen.
Oblixir
BANNED
I agree, the ending was bittersweet. It's interesting to ponder why humanity made those choices.
I'll quickly throw this one into the done pile. i was reading the comic Undiscovered Country volume 1: Destiny.
The premise is that the USA decides to completely isolate and seal itself from the outside world for reasons unknown. Fast forward 30 years and the world has split into 2 groups, the AEA (Africa, Europe Alliance) and the PAP (Pan Asian Prosperity zone). Currently a global pandemic dubbed the sky plague is ravaging the human race and humanity is mere months away from collapse , suddenly a message coming from the USA is received promising a cure and the outside world is to send a delegation to visit the USA to obtain it.
A delegation team is brought together and are immediately shot down upon entering the West coast of the USA. The small band of delegates quickly discover that things in the USA have changed dramatically and it quick becomes a fight for survival in a land that's completely unrecognizable.
Ok, i'm not doing this comic justice, the premise was interesting ,as are the characters. More importantly, the mystery to the story. What has happened inside the USA? Why did they isolate themselves? Why are there mutant monsters? Why were the men and women chosen to be the delegation when they were liabilities? Why does time function differently in the US? The book gives you tantalizing morsels that just gets me asking for more. I won't spoil the story, but yeah suffice to say I'm eager to read the other volumes.
Now an update on the les miserable situation. I've almost finished it. Just one more book to read and i've finished the 1400+ pages! i do have a fair few things to say about it but we'll leave that to another time...
The premise is that the USA decides to completely isolate and seal itself from the outside world for reasons unknown. Fast forward 30 years and the world has split into 2 groups, the AEA (Africa, Europe Alliance) and the PAP (Pan Asian Prosperity zone). Currently a global pandemic dubbed the sky plague is ravaging the human race and humanity is mere months away from collapse , suddenly a message coming from the USA is received promising a cure and the outside world is to send a delegation to visit the USA to obtain it.
A delegation team is brought together and are immediately shot down upon entering the West coast of the USA. The small band of delegates quickly discover that things in the USA have changed dramatically and it quick becomes a fight for survival in a land that's completely unrecognizable.
Ok, i'm not doing this comic justice, the premise was interesting ,as are the characters. More importantly, the mystery to the story. What has happened inside the USA? Why did they isolate themselves? Why are there mutant monsters? Why were the men and women chosen to be the delegation when they were liabilities? Why does time function differently in the US? The book gives you tantalizing morsels that just gets me asking for more. I won't spoil the story, but yeah suffice to say I'm eager to read the other volumes.
Now an update on the les miserable situation. I've almost finished it. Just one more book to read and i've finished the 1400+ pages! i do have a fair few things to say about it but we'll leave that to another time...
So.. I finally finished reading les miserables the book. Essentially the story mainly follows the life of Jean valjean and the people who revolved around his life. I won't spoil the story but if you want the abridged version, read the wiki the movie omits and makes changes to the original story.
Lets start with the bad
The main issues i have with the book is that its a slow burner. The book starts with the good bishop Myriel and Jean valjean doesn't enter the story until the second book, so page 59-60... Which is a lot of pages before the story even starts. Ok fair enough, VH is building up the background story to stress the point how good and generous Myriel is and motive why he helps Jean Valjean on the path to redemption. What hacks me off is that it could have been better written or is generally superfluous to the main story. You could save yourself 200-400 pages and nothing would be lost.
An earlier example, why did we have to have an entire chapter dedicated to what myriel's home looks like? yes, we're introduced to the silver, but ffs that could have mentioned the silver in the story and didn't need to be some sort of cut away piece. It gets increasingly annoying as he does this so often. he spends an entire book writing the battle of waterloo (to its credit its well written) and its only to introduce a connection between the rogue Thénardier and marius's father and that's at the end of the battle, so maybe 2 pages of text relevant? Another example later is when jean carries the injured Marius through the paris sewers. Do i really need to read through a book on the history of the Paris sewers and its construction its needness padding.
Which brings me to my second issue, his need to shoehorn his opinions and social essay's on the reader. Some would argue that its important to set the scene, i think it comes across as preachy and indulgence on the writers part. i'm sure VH has some insightful points, too bad its written in such a way i wasn't interested to hear them. It might have been the style at the time or something but if you must make social commentary perhaps do it differently!
Thirdly, his need to self insert himself into the bloody story. Technically its the "narrator"/story teller, but you're not fooling anyone VH! We know its you!
last and fourth point, i felt there were plot holes in the story or plot ideas come across as weak, i can think of a couple of parts but its fine.
The good
I'm not going to lie, that is a long list of things i had issues with les Mis, but it has several key positives going for it:
1. the characters were likeable and had some depth. you're always rooting for Jean Valjean whilst hoping for the best for cossette and marius as they struggle through life before they find each other and jean steps in to save the day.
2. There are some very good sections of the story. namely those revolving around conflict or when jean's past rears its head. many times you see him struggle to do the honest thing and just walking away from it all and being free. There are some clever parts like his escape from javert and trying to evade the law or start a new life under a different disguise.
3. Despite the 1400+ pages, the pages are smaller then your average books and the chapters aren't long. you can quite easily breeze through the chapters/books with ease.
Would i recommend a read? honestly hard to say. For most people, probably not, you don't need to sit through that book if you have something better to do. But if you love the play or had to do it for school, i guess it could be worse. Certainly better then a tale of 2 cities.
it also depends on which version of the book you read and patience/tolerance to read something that big. Some translations are more modernzed then others, others (apparently) are abridged, trimming much of the fat from the main story or putting in the back somewhere.
Sure, some parts of the book was really good and published back in the day i would have found it amazing,. Yet at the same time there were parts where i just switched off and rolled my eyes because of the bloat and cack handed writing or his urge to write an essay on social issues. i was tempted to say watch the movie, but after watching like 2 minutes of the les mis movie on youtube i knew i was going to stay well away from that mess of a movie (inside my mind i was saying "STOP SINGING! YOU CAN'T SING! MAKE THEM STOP!")
Lets start with the bad
The main issues i have with the book is that its a slow burner. The book starts with the good bishop Myriel and Jean valjean doesn't enter the story until the second book, so page 59-60... Which is a lot of pages before the story even starts. Ok fair enough, VH is building up the background story to stress the point how good and generous Myriel is and motive why he helps Jean Valjean on the path to redemption. What hacks me off is that it could have been better written or is generally superfluous to the main story. You could save yourself 200-400 pages and nothing would be lost.
An earlier example, why did we have to have an entire chapter dedicated to what myriel's home looks like? yes, we're introduced to the silver, but ffs that could have mentioned the silver in the story and didn't need to be some sort of cut away piece. It gets increasingly annoying as he does this so often. he spends an entire book writing the battle of waterloo (to its credit its well written) and its only to introduce a connection between the rogue Thénardier and marius's father and that's at the end of the battle, so maybe 2 pages of text relevant? Another example later is when jean carries the injured Marius through the paris sewers. Do i really need to read through a book on the history of the Paris sewers and its construction its needness padding.
Which brings me to my second issue, his need to shoehorn his opinions and social essay's on the reader. Some would argue that its important to set the scene, i think it comes across as preachy and indulgence on the writers part. i'm sure VH has some insightful points, too bad its written in such a way i wasn't interested to hear them. It might have been the style at the time or something but if you must make social commentary perhaps do it differently!
Thirdly, his need to self insert himself into the bloody story. Technically its the "narrator"/story teller, but you're not fooling anyone VH! We know its you!
last and fourth point, i felt there were plot holes in the story or plot ideas come across as weak, i can think of a couple of parts but its fine.
The good
I'm not going to lie, that is a long list of things i had issues with les Mis, but it has several key positives going for it:
1. the characters were likeable and had some depth. you're always rooting for Jean Valjean whilst hoping for the best for cossette and marius as they struggle through life before they find each other and jean steps in to save the day.
2. There are some very good sections of the story. namely those revolving around conflict or when jean's past rears its head. many times you see him struggle to do the honest thing and just walking away from it all and being free. There are some clever parts like his escape from javert and trying to evade the law or start a new life under a different disguise.
3. Despite the 1400+ pages, the pages are smaller then your average books and the chapters aren't long. you can quite easily breeze through the chapters/books with ease.
Would i recommend a read? honestly hard to say. For most people, probably not, you don't need to sit through that book if you have something better to do. But if you love the play or had to do it for school, i guess it could be worse. Certainly better then a tale of 2 cities.
it also depends on which version of the book you read and patience/tolerance to read something that big. Some translations are more modernzed then others, others (apparently) are abridged, trimming much of the fat from the main story or putting in the back somewhere.
Sure, some parts of the book was really good and published back in the day i would have found it amazing,. Yet at the same time there were parts where i just switched off and rolled my eyes because of the bloat and cack handed writing or his urge to write an essay on social issues. i was tempted to say watch the movie, but after watching like 2 minutes of the les mis movie on youtube i knew i was going to stay well away from that mess of a movie (inside my mind i was saying "STOP SINGING! YOU CAN'T SING! MAKE THEM STOP!")
Great review!
In fairness, if you read a politician's writings, you're going to get political views and opinion in there. Victor Hugo was one of many who idolized Chateaubriand, and even went or was sent into exile for his beliefs—iow he wasn't just expressing pub-talk opinions. His era—middle quarters of 1800s—was a maelstrom of political, social and philosophical discourse and debate in France, still working out the aftermath of the Revolution and Napoleon and the Republic.
Make the font size larger, and the pages get smaller still! And yes, the handy bookmark feature in your reader makes it the simplest to put down and pick up again.
That seems to have been 'the way' back in the day. There are so many classics I just gave up on due to lack of stamina—and this in my energetic youth. The Russians were probably the worst, but the French and some English—eg Dickens, as you say—were never an easy read either.
In fairness, if you read a politician's writings, you're going to get political views and opinion in there. Victor Hugo was one of many who idolized Chateaubriand, and even went or was sent into exile for his beliefs—iow he wasn't just expressing pub-talk opinions. His era—middle quarters of 1800s—was a maelstrom of political, social and philosophical discourse and debate in France, still working out the aftermath of the Revolution and Napoleon and the Republic.
Make the font size larger, and the pages get smaller still! And yes, the handy bookmark feature in your reader makes it the simplest to put down and pick up again.
That seems to have been 'the way' back in the day. There are so many classics I just gave up on due to lack of stamina—and this in my energetic youth. The Russians were probably the worst, but the French and some English—eg Dickens, as you say—were never an easy read either.
Zloth
Community Contributor
Wow! And people say Jordan is long winded!?
Wrong movie! You needed to watch the South Park movie, not that one!
Colif
Moderator
this is book related in a way...
there is a character in HHGTG that is lead singer in a heavy metal band that as climax of their shows used a ship to crash into the sun and cause a super nova. On that ship, every label is Black on a black background. Warnings would flash black on a black background.
I feel I am reliving that...
My PC case has black labels written on black plastic
Now so does my new keyboard.
Its okay for young people but I can't even read them with my glasses on and with a strong light. I sometimes cheat and take a photo but that didn't help with the keyboard as there is an led strip just below markings
Just call me Hotblack
there is a character in HHGTG that is lead singer in a heavy metal band that as climax of their shows used a ship to crash into the sun and cause a super nova. On that ship, every label is Black on a black background. Warnings would flash black on a black background.
I feel I am reliving that...
My PC case has black labels written on black plastic
Now so does my new keyboard.
Its okay for young people but I can't even read them with my glasses on and with a strong light. I sometimes cheat and take a photo but that didn't help with the keyboard as there is an led strip just below markings
Just call me Hotblack
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Hubert Humphrey Goes To Georgia?
Shooting stars never stop
Been a pet peeve of mine for a long time. There must be some serious artistic awards for making the most useless UIs on the planet, cos there sure is a lot of effort put in. Typical example:
Part of the problem it was during these points during the story i would just switch off and partly because its written in a way that makes it harder to understand. I mean, when we switch back to the story i can understand what's happening,. so whenever he does go into social commentary it just comes across as self indulgent, purple prose laden word salad. perhaps if it were possible to have written it differently it might have been more compelling.
That's the least of its problems. That was a mere chapter so maybe a couple of pages. He dedicated a book writing about the history of the Paris's sewers ( so 20 pages), before actually switching back to the story when jean crawls through it. of course, we had to know about the paris sewers so that we can hear more of VH social commentary and criticism how we've stopped collecting human crap and using it to fertilize the ground.
Zloth
Community Contributor
That's a big name to live up to!Just call me Hotblack
Colif
Moderator
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