Erik > Recent Status Updates

For all you goodreads enjoyers who are also good dog enjoyers, I just launched my dog-focused social media (and, more importantly, dog play-date scheduler) website: www.barkpups.com. Join, look at cute pictures and videos of dogs, share your own. No ads, no monetization, no bizarro data collection, no FOMO or other social media shennanigans. Cute dogs.

If anyone's curious why I haven't posted a book review in a long time, it's because I'm super busy with alternative projects: doing web-development stuff to switch careers and making my own video game, together which completely duopolize my well of creative energies.

I love how many strange jokes I have in my reviews... that even I don't understand when I read them years later. Like, I know it's a reference to an apparent contradiction or paradox with some other part of the review, but now in retrospect, I'm like, Dude, self, I don't follow. I don't get it.

Not sure how much longer I'll keep on reviewing books. Both here and on Steam (where I review video games), it's just this endless parade of obnoxious comments from dunning-kruger infected intellectual zombies. I find it curious, if not surprising, that any claim of expertise is inevitably greeted with an accusation of elitism or arrogance. But no, knowing something and knowing you know it is not arrogance.

lol why in the world does Goodreads have a captcha for saving your profile edits?

"I started with a 'simple fact' that everything in the universe must be created by something." Eugh. Aquinas' Five Ways. Not great even when properly stated. But like this? Creation is not real. It is just transmutation, which can be spontaneous, e.g. radioactive decay. In fact, the universe does not contain truly independent events, and without being able to separate X and Y, you can't really claim 'X caused Y.'

This atheist vs theist argument would be comical if it weren't so accurate. There's nothing wrong with faith. It is a requirement of making decisions and holding beliefs with imperfect information. But there's a large difference between accepting a necessary amount of ignorance and building one's entire worldview on a foundation of ignorance.

You know you're reading epic fantasy when you're 100 pages in and still only have the barest grasp of plot and character and all around WTF is happening and why.

This reminds me of that time when I had to go back to old reviews and change all the ampersands into "and" because this website owned by a company with a 1.66 trillion dollar market capitalization couldn't manage to write a mobile app capable of displaying them.

I find myself writing three book reviews simultaneously... KIDS, THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU PROCRASTINATE.

Whew, that Wheel of Time #13 review took a long time to write. Creative reviews require so much more time and effort than even my most well-polished opinion or essay reviews. Ironically, the time and effort is - at least in terms of number of readers/likes/comments - wasted. It's much easier to get people to read highly charged (esp w/ politics) opinion pieces. *shrug* But that's the human animal for you.

Finally! When Tam al'Thor quietly but firmly calls Cadsuane out as the petty bully that she is... I feel like I've been waiting 12 books for that. Fuck the Aes Sedai, the "Wise" Ones, and all the other bullies that make up practically the entire female cast of Wheel of Time.

I'm fascinated by how many people who answer my Friend Request Challenge ("...How long until the velociraptor gets you?") answer with some form of, "It won't get me at all!" It's over half. I'm sure how they answer says something about a person's personality, but I don't know what.

Amazing how vile a character Nynaeve is. In the span of two pages, she manages to be racist toward the Aiel and sexist toward men and then to repeatedly call or imply her "friend" Elayne is a slut. She's a good demonstration of a character who isn't Evil but evil, at that daily domestic level, with her never ending negativity, criticism, and childish temper tantrums. Frankly bizarre.

I decided this year I would write shorter reviews and try to minimize my social media time. And then I write a review that hit the character limit. And I'm sure (if anyone bothers to read something that long) will incite a lot of comments telling me how wrong I am about free will and science and religion. ~Le sigh. Best laid plans of mice and men.

First time I ever blocked someone on GR :(

I thought writing a book was a bit annoying b/c of the difference between CREATING a work and READING a work (e.g. beta readers often complain when characters behave non-optimally, as if a genius saint would make for a good character) - but coding/designing a game is way worse. I showed someone a video of my successful implementation of pathing (using A* algorithm) and their response was, "Is that it?" *sigh*

I've had a good long run with Goodreads. I'm proud of my reviews, especially those that explored a perspective no one else has. But writing a good review takes a lot of time and effort. And, unfortunately, the opportunity cost has risen too high for me to continue doing them. I'd rather spend my creative energies on more fruitful endeavors. So thank you all, but for the foreseeable future, I am a Goodreads ghost.

"Alien superweapons were used," Alex said, walking into the room, sleep-sweaty hair standing out from his skull in every direction. "The laws of physics were altered, mistakes were made."

Hahaha, "mistakes were made" is probably my single most-uttered catchphrase. Glorious passive-voice politician equivocation: Fun for the whole family, and versatile too!

It occurs to me the reason I hate writing actual plot summaries in my book reviews is that, whenever I post a review, I go read all my friends' reviews. And for certain books (e.g. Leviathan Wakes), which everyone has read, this often involves reading the same plot summary like fifty times. One starts to develop a dislike for them...

I love reading positive reviews of Greg Egan's works. They're all so... intelligently eloquent. There's something tremendously exciting about reading a lovingly and painstakingly crafted essay on how the novel is a giant metaphor for Existentialism. Only got 1 Like, but, eh, such is the treasure of the internet, hidden amongst the heaps of vacuous garbage.

Out of curiosity, I calculated the Pearson correlation coefficient between my GR friends' average Ancillary trilogy rating and their average Machineries of Empire rating. I was convinced they're essentially the same book. The coefficient rating was 0.69, which is a mid-high correlation score.

Trying to write a negative review the author would nevertheless appreciate, if not love... this is my ambition, for that is the world I would choose to live in if I could. A world in which stark, severe, utter disagreement of world views need not result in emotional, spiritual, or physical violence.

Hrm. I just finished it, and I was unimpressed. But, weirdly, I cannot find any thorough critique of the book/series? Makes me feel lonely. Seems like I often end up writing rare negative reviews for otherwise beloved books. I like to think of it as crafting a lighthouse for other sailors in the stormy seas of non-conformity.

"Think of normal spacetime, said the author/illustrator, as a hypersurface. Each point on that surface had a tangent space associated with it. The tangent space would be considered a linearization of the area around the point ... Anyone stuck in the region of a threshold winnower's effect was painfully affected by the linearization." I'm dumbfounded how stupid this paragraph is.

Summer means engaging READING WARP DRIVE. And none of that Star Wars sci-fi hyperdrive garbage. I'm talking READ FACTOR .9999. Meaning that by the time, I read one book.... *stops and calculates* ...you'll all be... dead...? Hrm. I'm going to need a better metaphor.

Someone comments on my review: "Wow that's a lot of word salad. If you don't like it, just say you don't like it." ALERT: INCOMING DOUBLEPLUSGOOD. On a related note, on a bi-monthly basis, I have to listen to a student complain that there are "too many words" in the English language. "Why do we need all this words for 'good'? Why not just 'good'?!" You may be sure that I immediately blow-dart them in the neck.

lulz, the feeling of looking at other people's reviews for a book I just reviewed and encountering tons filled with animated gifs. I'm always like Oh shit, I've walked into the wrong neighborhood! No sudden movements as I slowly return to my old person / non-YA corner...

I was discussing free will with a student (within the context of an article from The Atlantic on the same) and found it frustrating how simplistic both the article & the student's views were... I need a good excuse to write an essay on free will. Let off some philosophical steam, if you will. Anyone got any recommendations for books on the topic?

Here's a physics joke.

Q: What's the least fashionable particle?

A: There is no such particle.

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