doesn't make much of a difference when you are the only non vampire left
I'm fairly sure there is a book about that exact thing, but I can't remember how it ends...
Readit Newsdisparate_dan commented on Use social media mindfully danielleheberling.xyz/blo... · Posted by u/mooreds
disparate_dan commented on Las Vegas is embracing a simple climate solution: More trees npr.org/2025/06/09/nx-s1-... · Posted by u/geox
> making them even more likely to go on with their wasteful ways
It's going to make them use less aircon, which seems like a good start
But more water, in a desert region?
disparate_dan commented on Scientists are learning why ultra-processed foods are bad economist.com/science-and... · Posted by u/Brajeshwar
Putting aside the vague hand wavy definition of what "highly processed foods" literally means, my suspicion is that there are two things making processed food worse for you.
I've heard drinking juiced fruits is worse for you than eating the equivalent fruits, as the sugars in the fruit are wrapped in fiber that make the sugars "slow release" into your body, and those are broken down when juiced so the sugars hit you at once. I suspect processed foods "mainline" nutrients in ways that unprocessed foods don't.
Secondly, I think a lot micro-nutrition is ignored when comparing processed food, like the fat, carb, salt, etc is equivalent between potato chips and, say, a baked potato with butter, but there are a lot of small things that our body needs that are not part of that equivalence. At least for me, when I eat potato chips I eat more because they never quite satisfy me. I suspect this is because the micro nutrition is cooked or processed away, so I end up eating more carbs because it's not quite giving me all what I need, just the big macro needs.
I agree. I think there is a third thing: processed foods are more likely to contain additives like colorants, emulsifiers, preservatives and stabilisers that humans have been eating for decades rather than centuries so we don’t have the same body of knowledge about them or their health-related impacts.
disparate_dan commented on With 'Megalopolis,' the Flop Era Returns to Cinemas nytimes.com/2024/10/05/mo... · Posted by u/paulpauper
>> "... artists lose their ability to make art when their brain is infected by money and power."
I disagree. It's largely age based. Especially for filmmakers as novelty is part of the appeal of movies. As the artist ages, I think Yeats said it best: "What can I but enumerate old themes".
Coppola is 85. How many octogenarians are still creatively significant? Yes, they can still put out an album or a film or a book, but their best days are behind them.
Coppola paid for "Megalopolis" out of his own pocket. He wrote and directed the story and cast the actors that he wanted. What is art in its purist form but the self-expression on an individual?
Previously, Coppola mortgaged his home and went legendarily overtime and overbudget for "Apocalypse Now". That's regarded as a classic and was lauded in its time. "Megalopolis", not so much, though time could add a new perspective, as sometimes art becomes more favorably viewed upon reflection.
It’s not just age. Martin Scorsese is still making exceptional films. So is Clint Eastwood.
disparate_dan commented on How Deep Can Humans Go? mcgill.ca/oss/article/stu... · Posted by u/bookofjoe
I wonder if there are lessons to be drawn from other marine mammals which can diver way deeper and longer than assisted humans, although they all also metabolise oxygen. How for example do cetaceans deal with the nitrogen in their bloodstream on returning to the surface?
disparate_dan commented on A Few Notes on the Culture by Iain M Banks (1994) theculture.adactio.com/... · Posted by u/Bluestein
I don't think Iain M. Banks is a good writer. (You can see it in this piece, which falls into the trap of using long words to sound clever.) His sci-fi has a serious flaw: it's static. Nothing changes, everything is inevitable, the baddies are predestined to lose. His characters and dialogue are bland.
The books do have a strength, which is the completeness of their picture of the world. The concept of the Culture is interesting. I think it has less to do with the third dimension of space, and more to do with the 1990s. The Culture looks a lot like confident liberal democracy, pitting its advanced tech and cultural openness against its various (doomed) rivals. That's why a lot of the books seem a bit colonial: travel to a small annoying planet, knock some sense into the primitive authorities holding sway. And it also has that 1990s vibe that one side is in the right, and that side is always going to win.
For a contrast, think of The Three Body Problem. It's set on an equally epic scale - but so much more happens!
I’m a veteran SF reader but I only read The Culture books for the first time recently, and I agree with you, albeit you have to acknowledge their massive influence on contemporary SF. The Three Body Problem, though, I struggled to finish the first book at all, because I found the prose excruciatingly bad (or more properly I guess, the translation).
disparate_dan commented on Why isn't everyone using code workflow platforms when creating new applications? · Posted by u/panqueca
I think the biggest issue with workflow tools vs code is that a visual representation of a software system doesn’t made it any less complicated, and often the workflow system makes it even worse. I say this while building AWS Step Functions (another workflow system) into multiple applications, so it’s not really “off the cuff”.
I use Step Functions over Lambda for one big reason: no dependencies or runtimes to update. Secondary reasons include the lack of “cold start” and the unique capabilities. However, they have huge downsides and one of them is the complexity of building anything that isn’t choreographing calls to AWS services. It can get crazy ugly, and would quickly if it was the only tool I had.
Used in combination with imperative code, declarative workflow is a gift. On its own, a nightmare.
How does Step Functions avoid the cold start problem? Isn’t it just executing on Lambda?
disparate_dan commented on Poll: Can you visualize details with your eyes closed? · Posted by u/mercutio2
It depends. If I spend a week looking at elephant heads, I'll see them even if I don't want to. I have this problem any time I get really into a video game.
I forget the name, but there was a free to play Starcraft clone/homage I got hooked on. After a while, entire scenes would play out in my vision when I wasn't focusing on anything. Doesn't seem to happen as much these days, but I also have a healthier relationship with my hobbies.
This also happens with (fiction) books to some extent.
Not being able to visualize stuff hasn't been an impediment to visual art. On the flip side, being able to compose entire songs in my head hasn't been a benefit to making music: it collapses on contact with reality.
I think this is a different phenomenon - I forget the name, but basically, your brain produces more of the behaviour that you rehearse with it. In my youth I played a lot of Tetris, to the point where I would ‘see’ (almost hallucinate, really) fitting shapes into the tops of hedgerows and skylines when I was outdoors.
Related to Dickens and Collins: anyone who's read works by Dickens (who hasn't) and Collins (usually The Moonstone or The Woman in White) and would enjoy a fictional exploration of their relationship in a somewhat darker, rather macabre setting with Wilkie Collins as an unreliable (opium addicted) narrator might consider reading Dan Simmons' Drood (2009). I had the pleasure of reading it earlier this year.
While the premise is odd, Simmons succeeded in creating a work where it is easy to forget that he is not (by far) a contemporary of Dickens and Collins; his style and narrative in Drood are eerily close to how Collins (and his contemporaries) wrote.
Most readers will know Simmons from his lauded Hyperion Cantos. Drood though, is something else entirely, but impressive nonetheless.
In fact, I discovered Wilkie Collins through (and thoroughly enjoyed) Drood; but now I find my Dickens is lacking and I need to explore beyond A Christmas Carol. But reading Dan Simmons is a delight, whether it’s Hyperion, or his Stephen King-esque works, or my favourite, The Terror, which is something else again.
Summed up perfectly, exactly my situation too
I’d been off Windows since the early XP days, first Mac then Gentoo then running a hackintosh for several years, and got fed up with the maintenance. Since in the end I was mostly using it for gaming I just thought, WTH, I’ll use Windows 10, how bad can it be!? I lasted a month and then in a figure of pique and frustration I downloaded and installed Linux Mint 20.3. What a breath of fresh air! And the silver lining is Steam Play which makes it as good a gaming machine as ever and far better than it was as a hackintosh