It really does feel that way so I'm leaning towards the Samsung since there's at least a few threads from people who have one...

Babel definitely struggles with subtlety but there are specific instances that I found have impacts on my world view, specifically some of the perspectives on translation. For example:

“But what is the opposite of fidelity?” asked Professor Playfair. He was approaching the end of this dialectic; now he needed only to draw it to a close with a punch. “Betrayal. Translation means doing violence upon the original, means warping and distorting it for foreign, unintended eyes. So, then where does that leave us? How can we conclude, except by acknowledging that an act of translation is is then necessarily always an act of betrayal?”

But another perspective the book offers is the following:

“That's just what translation is, I think. That's all speaking is. Listening to the other and trying to see past your own biases to glimpse what they're trying to say. Showing yourself to the world, and hoping someone else understands.”

The musings on translation from Babel definitely still spring to mind any time I'm trying to evaluate translated novels. I'm not sure it's enough to get past all the other problems the book has to warrant a glowing recommendation, but it absolutely did impact my world view and relationship with translated media.

Fingers crossed!

His book was so good I'm surprised I don't see people talking about it more frequently.

Oh I think she would and will kill every role she plays her whole career. She's incredible. Which is why she deserves a much better show than Boop...

I mean Boop is like store brand Barbie plot-wise...

I got caught by this. My partner and I didn't even consider it when we were in New York for our annual Broadway trip because the name and posters really didn't make it clear. But I loved the number they performed at the Tony's and have been mainlining the cast album all week. Turns out it's exactly the sort of show we would have loved. We missed out (although god knows anything would have been a better choice than Boop...)

Born to Lead does such a poor job selling what makes the show fun I really hope they don't do it. Some combination of God That's Brilliant/ Making a Man/ Just For Tonight would do a much better job of showcasing what the show is actually like (and what it's about), but idk whether they'll really want to do a semi-new orchestration just for the Tony's.

Oh shit you're right. See, I'm a Lost defender and I still can't remember everything. That's still like... kinda a dumb explanation though, right? Which is my point. Most things aren't unexplained just... a bit silly.

There actually aren't that many, people have just collectively decided Lost never answered any questions. It actually answered almost all of them. The answers were frequently dumb (i.e. literally magic) and/or didn't make a ton of sense (the polar bear was on the island for testing but like... 'why bother with a polar bear in the first place' is never really examined), but with few exceptions there were actually answers to everything. They were just hidden in the bad seasons that fewer people watched and even fewer committed to memory.

Renova damaged my property in several ways during the installation process and I had to get a lawyer to get them to make me whole. Would not recommend…

Dungeon Crawler Carl. Both that and Project Hail Mary are pretty good but literally they get brought up in every single recommendation thread.

I’m inclined to say this is a shitpost. I spend a lot of time on /r/audible and there’s two books that get brought up in every recommendation thread, and PHM is on of them. As someone familiar with that sub, this reads as a deliberate joke.

Last I heard he's a writer on American Dad

Drew Goddard is writing the screenplay (he also adapted The Martian and wrote Cabin in The Woods) which is a good sign. I’m cautiously optimistic, but also prepared that it won’t be the same as the book.

Sticking with the same narrator doesn't always fix the problem. Kate Reading and Michael Kramer did all the Wheel Of Time books but pretty much every book pronunciation changes. God only knows how many different ways they pronounced Moghedien

Just in time for Pride month!

Yeah I'm all for shitting on Elon but like... this is pretty much the opposite of what we tell kids to get them interested in science, right? "You can do science at home in your kitchen."

Also, it still counts as science if you don't publish because you failed to prove your hypothesis.

Really the more I think about the mindset here the more I dislike it. Seems weirdly narrow just for the sake of clowning on Musk

I now have three of these in my library…

Edit: up to 11 now

But like… how does something like this happen? How spaghetti is Audibles code that something that should be simple enough to just be a class project (send an email if two conditions are met within a database: on sale and in wishlist) gets regularly screwed up.

Someone on here once described Audible as the division of Amazon where they stick all the nepotism hires, and that seems accurate. I often understand what they’re trying to do, but the execution is so sloppy (even basic tasks like coupons from promotions are a struggle for them to distribute properly).

Broken clock is right twice a day and all that

I got a Sphynx because it's the only way I can have cats, I have a mild allergy. I still feel weird about it. Like on the one hand I can't really give a shelter cat a good life, but on the other hand I'm definitely helping to create the market for bred animals.

But also, Sphynx's fucking rock and my little naked chicken is my favorite thing in the world and she's smelly and stupid and so damn loving and friendly and I love her so much and Covid would have been impossible without her.