Neuromancer read!

Already started Count Zero and also started playing Cyberpunk 2077 on PC

Overall it’s a pretty cool book and considering it was written like 50 years ago he got a lot of shit right

The beginning was rough not because the story isn’t interesting but because he starts at 100 and takes almost no time to explain the world. Also I’m not a native English speaker but I usually don’t don’t issues with reading novels in English (haven’t read one in my native language in more than a decade probably) but his writing style was super hard to follow. He jumps a lot and it was many times difficult to know who said what. Definitely had to keep myself fully focused most of the time. Overall pretty cool book. Super imaginative world

The autocomplete is amazing

It just takes the mental strain out of syntax and I can focus more on the logic and structure of the code

Like you said much better for writing unit tests, but also for log messages and comments

Even the chat is sometimes useful but not as much. I treat it as much junior engineer assistant/rubber duck. I.e. I never completely accept what it outputs and usually review everything but quite often it gives me a different idea/approach even if it doesn’t write it 100% correct the first time. Because I always review it, having it autocomplete the next line is my preferred approach so I verify each line as they come.

Once you start to past 10/20+ lines in a row you will have a bad time.

It’s all good share how much you want.

That sounds like a cool friend. Thank you for your recommendations as well :)

I see

Thanks anyway for the input

I realize now that you probably have like twice my age and I’m very much an adult. Which is pretty cool, don’t get me wrong :)

Noted

I don’t really listen to audiobooks but it’s always good to know.

Also what’s your opinion on the rest of the trilogy that neuromancer is part of? I have the second book as well as my gf bought it but she didn’t have the courage/will to actually read it after neuromancer. Just curious

And yes I’ll let you know how it goes :)

We got our own book club in this thread haha (at least what I read)

Hey!!

Contact is read!!

I really liked it. In a story about ET contact, the focus is basically almost 100% on humans but I actually liked the approach. Halfway there were some chapters where it went on some tangents and it seemed weird filler but by the end it all wrapped up rather nicely.

It was also a much easier read, having taken like 1/10 of the time Red Mars took me.

I’ll probably read Neuromancer next, even if my gf found it a hard read.

I got invited

Do you If I accept it and install the game if I will be able to invite other people or do I have to play for some time?

At work atm so I’ll keep it succinct but definitely the giant cast of mostly uninteresting characters. The politics were actually quite ok but I usually like that sort of things.

Also sometimes he goes on these long paragraphs were he describes all the driving instructions in mars and expecting the reader to have lived on Mars for 10 years as well XD

He also gave as much emphasis to a teenager-like love drama as to a global scale terrorism operation which is, let’s say interesting

Hey!! I’m done with Red Mars

If you are still around I can add some of my thoughts.

The TL:DR is that I like it enough to read through the first one but not enough to buy/read the second and third books (at least for now).

Will probably read Contact by Sagan next.

It’s true that countries in Europe are more akin to states in the US but while there are difficulties scaling up there are also benefits. And in the end everything is divided anyway. It’s not just done in one centralized place.

The EU has done some meaningful things, though it’s mostly laws and not so much services. I’d argue that it had a much more difficult job also.

But there’s the private vs non private debate and the small vs big debate

Just look at most developed countries in Europe and you will find government operated services that are much better than what the free market came up with the in the US. Namely health services and transportation for instance. Postal services as well.

I just did a week long trip in the USA and all the National Parks were a joy to visit. I actually thought about and commented that it would be a totally different experience, read worse, if those things were privatized.

Honestly the whole argument that private entities are run better is bullshit. There’s nothing stopping any government from hiring the same managers and you just eliminated a certain % that would be the middle men. And now the main objective isn’t profit at all costs, so it will very easily be a better service for us, the consumers.

Enjoy!! The game is huge. No need to rush it but you will have plenty of things to do.

I mean… do you trust that they won’t?

They probably will as soon as they can without significant losses.

That isn’t there so people use it. That is there so that Facebook can track where you go

There are heat pumps that exchange heat with the ground. Those can function well in more extreme temperatures. Also you could/should have alternative heating methods for extreme situations even if they are much more inneficient

Merry Christmas!!! In the end I had to choose one quickly before I went home for the holidays so I quickly read one page or so from these two and decided to go with Red Mars.

I’m now about 100 pages in and while I’m not in love with it, it is definitely intriguing. The writing style is very sober and not embellished almost at all. He does also go on quite a bit about random stuff from time to time but it’s quite clear that he put a lot of thought into so many things so I’m curious to see how it will pan out. The book is also rather long so I feel ( and in a way hope) that it will pick up a bit more and soon.

A small correction. The article says:

Last year city residents accounted for 90% of the 39 million euros in public transport ticket sales.

So 90% of the tickets were bought by locals, not that 90% of the total revenue of that public transport service came from the tickets that locals bought. In fact this number is wildly overestimated. A lot of PT services operate based on taxes (same as this policy) and in many cases the revenue from tickets can be as low as 10%.

Honestly considering that only 10% of the tickets are coming from non residents I am surprised that it’s not free for everyone. For sure the loss of revenue there will be very small compared to the increased efficiency in operations, either from less maintenance/employees required but also to make onboarding faster/easier.

I was also not aware of these numbers until recently, when I heard thr Freakonomics episode on free public transportation.

You are equating all Palestinians as Hamas which is just factually wrong. Israel are in did fighting a war to commit genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza. This is not even debatable or something that Israel itself hides.

About half the population in Gaza are children. They also represent a significant share of the casualties and injured. Tell me how any of those children want to exterminate Jews and how Israel needs to defend itself from them. Tell me how indiscriminate bombings like that are justified.

And yes Israel did start this, decades and decades ago, and they are continuing with their plan. Hamas and Israel are both benefitting from this at the expense of civilian casualties.

Thanks a lot for your comment!!

Yes I understand that the Weir books and Teixcalaan duology are not that similar :)

I’ll keep that one on my list once I go on another shopping spree. Thanks for the recommendation. I’ve seen all of the expanse and really like it but because I’ve seen it I’m not too keen on reading the books. Even though I’m aware that there are differences.

Regarding the ones I had, yesterday I read more and yea 3 Body Problem seems like I’ll leave it aside for now.

I’m currently debating between the Mars Series or the Cyberpunk. I guess the question is if I want hard SF like you mentioned or not. There was this Mars TV show that I watched a few years ago and I really liked it so maybe there’s that, but I watched Cyberpunk EdgeRunners on Netflix and also liked it and made me want to try the game again. So it’s a hard call.

The Mars series seems quite beefy (in terms of size/pages) while Necromancer is like half the size. Would you say however that the Mars series is an “easy read”? What about Necromancer etc? What I mean by this is that the Weir books are quite easy to go through, especially PHM which both me and my gf devoured. Not only is the story more linear (not necessarily a thing I want it’s just a reason) but it’s also more simple language? The first Teixcalaan book was very interesting but at some point I was a bit lost with all the names and hidden plots.

As you can see I also like to write testaments in comments so no need to refrain. I will take any info/feedback that you want to share :)

As someone that absolutely love the Hail Mary, as well as the Martian and literally just finished the teixcalaan duology (and quite liked it) is there anything else that you recommend? That way I don’t have to ask Bard.

What I really love about Weir’s books is that he goes quite deep into the engineering and math of his story, and as an engineer that is right up my alley. But I also enjoy good world building and politics.

In my shelf I have:

• The three body problem
• Children of time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
• Contact by Carl Sagan
• Neuronancer by William Gibson (and the sequel)
• Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson

Since I have those I will read one of them next but if you have other recommendations outside of these let me know :)