Back in my day sugar was only C and H.

This reminds me of the ASMR video I watched where this person removed my cranial nerves for cleaning and I was so immersed that I was kind of weirded out and upset by their sudden theft.

Has is occurred to you that the reason no one is arguing that Biden and Harris aren’t pieces of shit is because they are actually pieces of shit, and no one in this reply chain said otherwise? That’s why “no one said that” was so funny to me.

Ok, but no one here said that.

They literally did though, in those exact words.

Everything about biology is a random effect. Even a mutation that’s selected for wasn’t planned; it just happened by chance. Like if you’re an aquatic species maybe you’ll end up being a strong swimmer over generations, but the water doesn’t pressure you towards that on its own. You have to coincidentally develop flukes that make you a stronger swimmer before those traits can be selected for.

Sometimes traits that get passed down aren’t beneficial at all because they don’t make an impact on reproduction. Think of an animal that comes in many colors like a house cat or certain fish species. In such cases it’s clear that the color of the animal doesn’t have any bearing on its ability to reproduce, so a variety of colors are passed down for no particular reason.

I’m on the waiting list for it at the moment. :)

Ah, I wondered if it might have been a typo since “mistborn” seems like a more plausible word. I’ve been meaning to get around to Sanderson since forever, but I didn’t do any reading for the longest time, and I’ve been on a big sci-fi kick since starting up again because I’m mostly interested in stories that use novel premises to examine issues like human rights and the nature of consciousness/life, etc. I’ve felt like fantasy is too meaningless adventure-y? Not enough induction of personal growth. But I’m in the middle of The Magicians right now, and that’s really proving me wrong, and also there was Tehanu. That was a hard book to read because it was so real.

Anyhow, thanks to you both.

Searching Misborn gives me too many different results. Which one?

I’ve just read An Immense World by Ed Yong and learned that what seems to matter in birdsong is the way the notes change, like mid-note.

There’s lots of bad pacing and horrible acting in movies today though. You can obviously watch or not watch whatever, but I think you’re limiting yourself unnecessarily if you put too much weight on the year of release.

None of that makes any sense. An old book and a new book aren’t different in the way a rotary phone and a smartphone are. They are functionally the same object: text on paper.

You could have, for example, a story about someone stranded on an island, and the era it was written in would make almost no difference at all because technology doesn’t have any bearing on the story, and we haven’t changed as a species. The culture of the author would influence things, but that’s true even of media today since we don’t all share the same culture.

Old media can also be very illuminating when it does affect the story because it can teach you something about the era in which it was made. You might think to yourself, “Gosh, people used to be able to feed and house their families on a single paycheck? Why can’t we do that today?”

And yeah, having stuff in black and white is less visually interesting, but I’m not going to rule out something I might find enjoyable just because of that. I watched quite a few old sitcoms in my childhood that I enjoyed just as much as the modern cartoons, and I still enjoy some of those cartoons today alongside modern TV.

Do you think the Home Alone sequels are better than the original?

Moby Dick is good in a way where I don’t care about any of the characters or the story, but I could read Melville describe water or argue that dolphins are fish for the rest of my life, just because of how beautifully he does it.

I don’t understand that at all. What about being old makes something boring by default?

I’ve never been good at reading stuff like this, so it’s more than plausible I’m just missing it, but I can’t find where the resolution would give anyone the legal power or moral authority to invade another state.

I think going forward it would be wise to have a rule that communities need to be actively moderated at some minimum interval by an account on the community’s home instance, or else face closure or the institution of new moderation. Sitting on an unused community is like owning unused private property. “I don’t want this, but I don’t want you to have it either.”