Nerd; Board, Card, Pencil & Paper Gamer; Avid Reader; to find me in other places: https://lnk.bio/JaymesRS

  • 14 Posts
  • 298 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: August 11th, 2023

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  • Yep. It takes a certain amount of skill to be able to ramp up the power and abilities of your protagonist without the story getting away from you.  That’s kind of why I described what I could recommend as series because there’s a few where the first few work well HWFWM being one of them but after that, there’s a pretty significant drop off in quality of the overall narrative.

    And even one of those that I’d say that I recommend (Ready Player One/Two) works pretty well but more so for a subset of readers that I just happen to be part of (those whose main cultural media experiences were between the 70s and the 90s.) and while the series works moderately well it’s definitely written to a specific subset of readers.

    As an aside because I already mentioned two of the three I recommended in the original comment, I should probably also recognize the third just for posterity. It’s the four book trilogy, This Trilogy is Broken by JP Valentine.


  • Magician by Raymond E Feist (later broken into Magician: Apprentice and Magician: Master and the split works even better)

    Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings.

    Both are pretty cliché by modern views, but both are pretty well written otherwise. Good world building.

    But ooo-boy, if one is the type of person that has trouble mentally separating the very problematic writer from their works (like JK Rowling or Marion Zimmerman Bradley), Eddings probably isn’t the best to read.






  • Some of this is more just a generic overview of differences in perspective.

    • It was inspired by this piece by someone who is now on the board that manages it. Yes they have a CEO, but there is a bigger board collaborating on direction decisions
    • They have an explicit policy opposing sharing data for AI usage.
    • It was initially the place for a bunch of frequently targeted minorities and the leadership implemented a bunch of changes that — in combination with a attitude of “block don’t engage” because many people aren’t rational actors — significantly make the space safer for users and less susceptible to dog piling and harassment.
    • Moderation is handled far better that any other large social media platform in my experience.
    • It was created as open source and as an open protocol from the start so in the event of a takeover, it’s relatively easy to spin off a clone (see protocols link).
    • They allow more openness to 3rd party moderation tools in a more integrated manner.
    • They have been open about discussing funding planning in the future and red lines that are unacceptable to them.
    • There is no algorithm in your main feed. You see only what those you follow share. There is a discover feed, but if you hide that it has no impact on your future experience.









  • I only have 2 followers, is it possible that I’m the bot? Wait, how would I know if I was? Is this the Matrix? Damnit! Maybe there’s a website to find out? BotOrNot? What even is a traffic light? Is a bus a car? What about a truck? Is a motorcycle a bike? A scooter? Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhrgh….

    ♫ Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do…… ♫