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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: September 1st, 2023

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  • Also, for this reason, some Romance languages still use words derived from Vespasian’s name for urinals.

    I expected it to be some oblique reference, but in Italian it’s literally vespasiano. It’s always crazy to me when thinking about Rome. Some guy taxes urine and 2000 years later his name is still part of the vernacular.





  • I don’t think AOC has that baggage. Democratic voters want someone that isn’t a corpo-centrist running like being not-Trump is enough. Every argument that can be made against AOC could have been made against Obama in 2006 too, but he had a message that resonated and won. AOC could be in a good position to do something similar. I’d sure vote for her, even if she’s become more mainstream she’s still miles ahead of every other likely candidate.









  • Huh, I kind of think the opposite. I haven’t read everything he’s written, but it seems to me that he kinda sucks at endings.

    I loved Anathem, and when you realize what’s going on it’s so cool, but then it doesn’t explore that idea as much as I want, it just ends without looking around the next corner. Cryptonomicon is a fun, interesting read and gets you worked up about what a monumental shift is going to happen… And then ends right as it’s coming to fruition. Even Seveneves had a 5000 year jump and spends hundreds of pages on the consequences of humanity’s brush with death… And then tosses in another population with five pages left. I want to keep going!

    Maybe I just don’t like being tantalized in the last few pages of a book, but I feel like I’m left hanging and unsatisfied, like there’s a missing sequel. His pulpier, early novels were much better in terms of wrapping up the story.