Lol! My mum still asks both me and my husband (“techy” jobs according to her) to solve all her problems with computers/printers/ the internet at large/ any app that doesn’t work… the list is endless. I take it as a statement of how proud she is of me that she would still ask us first, even if we haven’t succeeded in fixing a single issue since the time the problem was an old cartridge in the printer some 5-6 years ago.
The two things are actually often related: junk food is faster, more accessible, stores longer, and is cheaper per calorie. So you can be hungry, skip a salad meal (that would need to be bought fresh and prepared) while having “mcdonalds”/microwave meal/high calorie meal for your leftover meal. Third has been the pattern, following US, where it is very common for the poor to eat more calories than the rich, while eating less healthy meals.
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi - a personal review
Overview: 3.5/5 stars
This book talks about difficult themes in the history of Africa and then US, centered around discrimination and exploitation. The book follows a variety if people along the last three centuries that dealt with various elements of discrimination, with slavery being a central theme.
While the topic in interesting, the writing style felt mostly flat to me. The characters were human, but it felt most of them were objects of their own lives instead of subjects. It seems they suffered not only from the outside world but also a lack of inner development. That was true not only of the characters that had limited to no agency, but also of the ones that had freedom and took revolutionary actions: they all felt limited and fairly unengaging.
From the more academic perspective, it gives glimpses of philosophical debates in the history of African Americans. This was the but I personally enjoyed the most.
All in all, an okay book about an interesting and well-researched
The Netherlands has Tikkie, same thing. And my bank has instantaneous transfers all across the EU… I’ll never change bank
Absolutely, and all the people that now have the artifacts benefit in keeping the status quo, so there is effectively little push to solve a very complex problem.
I personally feel represented in at least three categories, so I’d say it does!
I’m glad to see this discussion starting gathering attention. In general, I think we should start looking more and more at car sharing over car owning: nobody needs an SUV every day, but you might enjoy a longer trip driving one. So short term rental should be incentivized to decrease the overall number of cars on the road and parking lots.
It’s already a day later! You got this, the hardest part is flowing by. How are you doing?
My little piece of advice: you don’t have to think about the future, tomorrow, next week, they are all far off. Think about now, this hour, the next 5 minutes, or whatever stretch of time seems manageable. What do you do now? Cook dinner? Watch a show? Cry in the shower? The future might be scary and too much to manage now. You’ll handle it when you get to it. Now, you only have to think about right now.
Verbena tea is calming and soothing. Lavender is relaxing. Green tea for me is a calming ritual.
You got this. Maybe it doesn’t feel like it, but you only need to do one step, and you got that one step.
As others have pointed out, it’s also a way to replace the soul of the city with something more economically interesting: clean apartments.
Amsterdam has a problem with gentrification on one side and “cheap” tourism on the other. This move seems to want to solve the later by amplifying the former…
It’s a bit confusing: the big number is not the index but the world wide ranking if the country. It’s made extra confusing because a big index is good, but a bug ranking is not…
I know it’s a dumb meme… but girls acting weak to get hit on is a horrible mental construct!
“Successful record attempts have employed a variety of tactics for evading traffic law enforcement.”
Good to know, next time ill go there for a party!
I saw some kids having themed Halloween parties, and in some small towns kids going door to door, but it’s very local, most places would not have that.
Where are you located?
I never noticed that I also thought of “her”. I read the book a while ago, so I don’t remember your reference, but I remember finding it refreshing to find a robot that was “obviously female” instead of undefined therefore male.
My comment might have had quite some negative reactions, but the discussions were good. And I got the wrath of feddit, as expected!
I can’t get over Germany closing its existing nuclear power plants. The costly job of construction was done! But Fukushima panic struck and they never stepped down from that decision. And now they are all shocked pikachu face that they can’t make the climate goals…
Fossil fuel based solutions are significantly worse for climate change than nuclear. Saying that the other renewables are better is matter of discussion, but renewables without nuclear are not going to make the cut. Using both renewables and nuclear is best to cut emissions.
Victor Hugo: Les Misérables
Politically, Napoleon divides the history of Europe in “before” and “after”. He grabbed the power in France after the Revolution with such skills that he had virtually no opposition. From there he conquered everything, from Egypt, to Russia and Spain. His fall was equally momentous. And then he did it again, leaving everyone confused and the political board of Europe forever reshuffled.
Victor Hugo is a man of that time, trying to make sense of all of this turmoil while mainly talking about people and their inner worlds. In Les Misérables he concentrated on the lowest of the low, poor people making bad choices.
At the time, it was believed that crimes had to be punished, but there was no hope for the criminal to be reinstated into society as a fully functioning member. Hugo makes the opposite claim: criminals are just good people in bad situations. And he talks about them.
While the length can scare readers off, I would encourage anyone to start it. Every page is a little masterpie
Time to brag: what’s the hardest book you read?
By this I mean, a book you had to brace yourself to read, and you feel proud for having read. Did you enjoy the process of reading it?
What elements are, in your opinion, necessary to make a good book?
Is it interesting characters? Or believable motivations? Maybe writing style? Is the world building?
And how likely are you to enjoy a book that doesn’t fit your own criteria?
The Silmarillion creates a mythology
A bit criticism to the Silmarillion is that the style is very dry and the plot is disconnected.
This is by design. The Silmarillion wanted to be the creating work of the UK mythology. As such, it mimicked the style of other mythological sagas: the Mabinogion most notably, the minor Homer, the Eddas. Part of the idea is to create a shared well-know scene from which other authors can draw to set their own works.
In some ways, it was incredibly successful: nowadays it’s impossible to talk about Elfs without referencing Tolkien’s in some ways.
Plainsong: instant classic
I read Plainsong by Haruf some two years ago, and I was immediately enamored with it. All characters are so easily relatable and the whole story unfolds along a sweet melody. While bad and sad things happen, you still feel lulled by the background song and you know things are going to get solved. For any fan of “slice of life” and small stories.