The Keep by F Paul Wilson.

My old school had a scale model of the solar system. It used the same scale for the planets size and distance. The sun was a 12" ball on one end of campus. Around campus were poles with little glass domes on top inside were tiny pins with little planet models on them.

So I’m no a fan of her ideas. I have however read a lot of her stuff mostly to refute a friend who was a fan.

That said she was very much against violence to achieve political or personal goals. She was however very ok with using money and economic power to achieve goals.

So buying a business to fire someone you don’t like, shutting down a business to punish a town, etc. All completely ok in her book.

When I was about to graduate high school a uncle in law told me to make sure I pick a college with a football team I’m comfortable rooting for for the rest of my life.

Baguette, butter, brie.

Yeah I support trans rights. If you are consistent I’ll use your preferred pronouns. I don’t care what bathroom people use. Health care is between you and your doctor. I only care about what genitals you have if we are going to be doing things with each others genitals.

That said so many trans people are complete assholes about it. I’m on your side but fuck so many of you are annoying jerks.

I remember when gays started coming out of the closet and they handled it better. Polite but firm about being treated fairly. The trans community is making more foes then friends the way they are acting.

ATP in the corner. “Am I a joke to you ?”

I have a VERY southern friend. He once said “y’all all”.

Yup. I had an infestation thar took months to get rid of. Turns out they were in an old bag of dried peppers.

It’s right there in the word. deci 1/10 mate from matus to remove. It’s like expecting half price to mean 1/3 price. We use deci all the time to mean 1/10 Decileter, decimal, etc.

Common misuse of words. Decimate means reduce by 1/10 not almost completely destroy. Exponential growth. The variable has to be in the exponent if it’s a constant exponent that is polynomial growth. Gaslighting isn’t just lying. It’s making someone belive that they can’t trust their own memories or experiences so they believe you despite evidence to the contrary.

Naked Lunch. It’s a dark strange read but it suck with me.

The book is better but the movie was pretty good.

I grew up near an area where a large number high net worth people. For example as a kid I thought Lamborghini was a common car because I saw them all the time.

In my experience lots of money brings out your true self and let’s you act the way you want. So if you are inclined to be self centered and an asshole you can be a massive asshole. You can also be generous and kind.

Most rich people are pretty normal. However the normal ones do try to not make it known that they are rich. So you often don’t notice the normal rich people.

It’s also hard to tell the difference between a person who lives on a 200k a year income and a person with a double digit millions net worth.

I had a friend as a teen. I invited him to go diving with me as he had never been. He showed up with a 20k wetsuite.

Mega Traveller 2. Buggy janky story. Bad combat. Character creation that includes all the skills from the pen and paper game but only about 10% of them actually do anything in game.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MegaTraveller_2:_Quest_for_the_Ancients

We tried that in the US. It went very poorly.

It’s old but Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy is great.

Fortitude Session 1 is great. Season 1 is also self contained and the mystery is solved. Season 2 was a new mystery and kind of meh.

Here is an 8 minute video that goes into more depth on how this works. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FjjJha7HMI

Firefox and it’s forks are the best browsers. They are still not very good. There are a ton of bad decisions and poor code. From old legacy stuff like how user profiles are stored to closed source shit like pocket.

The mozilla foundation has been on a downhill slide since google hired the skilled programmers to make chrome. Bad leadership,poor spending, and stupid priorities.

So yes firefox is the best browser. But that’s kind of like being the best cable company. Not exactly a great thing.

So from the perspective of being in the United States. Remote Indian work it’s cheap but of extremely low quality. This ranges from call center workers to programming and engineering work.

This is usually a sign of the company trying to cheap out and having poor products in general. So it’s kind of a compounding problem.

Politically India seemes racist, nationalist, and terrible on climate change. I’m from the USA so yes I know we are not great on these topics as well.

Having been to India a few times from inside here it’s what I’ve noticed in the country.

The poverty and wealth gap between Indians and westerners means almost everybody wants money from you and to up charge you. From beggars, to chai vendors, to high end stores and hotels. They also love hidden fees and you have to be vigilant about details. This puts me on a constant tense alertness when dealing with people that gets very draining.

I’ve also spent time with an indian family during holy. My western friend was dating a member of the family and we went for a visit. The family was very generous and welcoming. It was the only time in India when I was relaxed and able to chat and enjoy the company.

Racism and classism abound. The ways different ethnic groups treat each other and try to force the use of their language on the other group. For example a Hindi and Malayalam language standoff when I was in Kerala.

Or when at a store that sells stone art has two clearly miserable lower cast people working a human powered cutting tool for the tourists when you can hear the sound of high speed electric tools from the back room.

Animals other then cows are treated horribly. Elephants in particular always looked miserable and broken.

People with government jobs are arrogant and lazy. From customs and immigration to the national parks. I arrived 20 min before closing at a national park to buy tickets for a late night tour that was latter that evening. The ticket both was empty with one other person waiting. Two minutes before closing the guy came to the window in a towel because he had been showing before getting off work.

The belief in crap science abounds. I got an ayurvedic massage that wasn’t a very skilled massage and then the guy tried to give me medical advice. Several people tried to explain that the ayurvedic guys were just as good as doctors. On way out another of the ayurvedic “doctors” tried to sell me a medicine that he assured would remove belly fat and regrow hair. This from a fat bald man.

The fiet time I was in India Modi had just won his first term as Prime Minister while I was there. There was a huge procession of angry young men yelling and pushing people out of the way. I assumed they were from the losing party. My driver informed me that no they had just won the election.

It was clear that this wasn’t a jubilant celebration of success. It was a angry group that now had the power to do what they wanted.

I know i’ve been negative and there is a fair amount of nice things in India but they always are fleeting and overshadowed by something. In the multiple times i’ve been to India i’ve never had a bad meal and there are a lot of nice people. I just think they are constantly at odds with each other.

The most Indian moment I had was drinking tea while enjoying the smell of the spice fields. Then the wind shifted and all I could smell was the stench of shit and diesel from the cesspool over the hill.