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kcaryths
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- kcaryths
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Would an AI that is not limited to a phsyical constraint, but would also have to deal with it's ultimate end due to the heat death of the universe, have an existential crisis if it really began to dwell on that? While human life is so short, there …
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The therapist part was really bad, agreed.
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I far prefer to read physical books but I listened to quite a bit of audiobooks as well. The narrator matters a ton, along with the type of book. Gone With the Wind had an amazing narrator and was a super easy book to listen to. Perfect for audioboo…
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I'm no expert on LLMs work so can't speak too much to that, but Sawyer's version of AI is what I believe the end goal would be. Direct copies that could be iterated on. Imagine a world in which we could "spin up" a direct copy of a person'…
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Ahh, see that's some fun Toronto specific stuff I never would have known about!
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(Quote) This is why it bothered me that the others were able to wander out into the wider world so easily. It would have been very simple to isolate them and yet they didn't. I get that it was a plot device but I didn't like it.
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I tend to like flavour text like that. It adds a little something extra to the experience.
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I thought the guilty party was made pretty clear by the way he kept trying to get the reader to only suspect the other two. I thought it was him the entire time.
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I got pretty annoyed by the fact that instantly there was a leap to "Well that's a soul!" from those who were involved in the project. There were all kinds of other intermediary steps that I would have expected from individuals in that fie…
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It felt 90s technoptimistic, which isn't really a criticism but an observation. I thought the idea of simply uploading 3 copies of human "consciousness" with very little regard for the actual storage space required and then having no co…
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The Canadiana in it felt familiar, but it definitely could have been plunked in almost any other North American city without a lot of changes to the way the book read. It definitely didn't feel like the setting mattered a whole lot.
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I thought it was a largely enjoyable, if not overly challenging book. What I would consider a good "beach" read in a Crichton sort of way. These are the kinds of books that I like to read in between other more challenging reads because the…
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This would be a highly challenging world to try and base a game in but in the right hands would be really really interesting. More interesting that the book in my view!
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Jeez, @BarnerCobblewood this is so good. Like, I didn't catch any of that and never possibly could have. Such a shame. I thought the "Unchosen" support group was great and it made me wonder about all of the other things that were going on…
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I loved the Doors and I wish they were explored a bit more. The group researching the doors and trying to find ways to "fool" them into opening was really interesting to me. The devils confused me a bit as at times they felt like they didn…
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It's very possible I have an incorrect idea of what magical realism is so I may have to do more research on the topic. I thought it slid into that category. I found the structure a bit difficult to manage at times, but moreso in how it sort of mean…
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@BarnerCobblewood Fantastic stuff! Not too long at all - love it. I feel like I almost read a book in another language - that's how disconnected I am from the culture, religion and historical context that was swirling along inside the pages. The int…
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(Quote) No need to apologise at all. This book did not do well for me either. I found myself completing it because of the quality of the writing, but I didn't enjoy much of the reading experience. I DNF'ed my first Chandrasekera book so this one was…
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Questions for The Saint of Bright Doors are up. That was harder than I thought to come up with, so be nice ...hahah.
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I enjoyed this book as well, and @RichardAbbott you did a good job hitting on many of the main points that were of interest to me. While I felt like his discussion on other SF works were a little "surface level", it's really hard to be to…
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Good with either one. They both sound good.
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Picked this up from the library this weekend and will give it a read.
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The last line reads like some sort of sovereign citizen speech.
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For sure. I have no idea if Vance was Libertarian or not.
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Yeah, you encouraged me to go look it up, and Emphyrio was also nominated for a Prometheus award for it's Libertarian messaging. I'd have to give more thought on whether the comparison between Russia and Hauma.
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(Quote) I could see how his use of obscure words might be seen as charming or something to people. I mostly just found it annoying. Why use big word when small word do good.
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Yeah, you encouraged me to go look it up, and Emphyrio was also nominated for a Prometheus award for it's Libertarian messaging.
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My only quibble (and I mentioned this elsewhere) with his writing is that he always drops these weird words that I never hear used elsewhere. Now, that could very well be because I am not well read enough but with both of his books I found myself fa…
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I didn't think the characters were useful as much more than tools to push the plot along and to flesh out the setting a bit more.
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(Quote) Agreed. I wondered why there was not more pushback against the type of society they had but perhaps if things were never really "that bad" then there was never enough of a reason to stick your neck out to fight against it. I just f…