Random Thread ~Usagi-Chan ☮ Tūsurī~

[esm]

I also barely download anything big these days, since we can stream most media these days if you’re not going for anything too obscure. I imagine not downloading much helps computers a lot. I don’t even use MS Office anymore and use Google Docs, Slides, etc for work. So I’m using my laptop for pretty basic things. Minus doing work, I probably use my phone more these days.

If I were more into gaming, I’d definitely get a Windows laptop, obviously. I’ve been wanting to get back into playing video games but instead of playing newer stuff I keep wanting to just play old SNES games I know by heart because it’s just the most relaxing thing in the world.

[TotallyUncool]

I'm a little late to the discussion of everything, buuuut...

Wordle: I've played it a couple of times, but that's about it. The "Look how well I did!" stuff is clever promotion, but if I'm going to boast about something, I'd rather boast about my willingness to waste time turning it into an utter farce:


Reading: I used to spend more time reading than I have been for the past few years. I'd always have a current library card, and I'd spend a few hours (at least) on weekends at the library, reading and looking for interesting books to check out.
In recent years, though, I've shifted more to buying used books from thrift shops, Book-Off, and library sales, and reading those. During the past two years, it's all pretty much been Amazon and Ebay, but it's still the same thing: looking for interesting used books at a bargain price. There is still no substitute, however, for a well-funded system of public libraries.
I read mostly non-fiction (see spoiler below), and most of that is history, or history-related stuff. A few years ago, I got interested in the Cambridge History of China, which runs to 17 physical volumes (one of which hasn't been published yet), and around 12,000 pages of actual text. I started to buy volumes on Amazon and Ebay when I could find them at a reasonable price (which isn't always easy), and at this point, I've read a little over half of it (mostly in sequence). It's a mixture of narrative history and topical history/analysis, so it ranges from quite dry to not dry at all - a lot of the narrative history basically reads like a Game of Thrones / Foundation mashup (seiously, nothing can beat the Empress Wu!), and even the topical/analysis stuff is generally quite interesting.

Spoiler: show

I go through phases where I read a lot of fiction, and phases where I consciously avoid it. By itself, that's OK, but those "phases" can last for years, and at this point, I don't even consider my reasons for avoiding fiction to be sane or valid.
Basically, when I was about Junior High School age, I was a social disaster and had a rotten time. I read a lot (fiction and non-fiction, mostly very adult-oriented stuff), and I was very aware of fiction as a means of both escape and of having a vicarious social life. I was afraid that if I continued to read fiction, I would fall into the trap of accepting vicarious living and wish-fulfillment fantasies as a substitute for a real social life, and that if that happened, I never would break out of my isolation - so I decided that I would read only non-fiction until I did have a decent social life. I was being utterly dogmatic and unreasonable, of course (and I kind of knew it), but maybe that's what I needed to do. I did stick with that decision off and on for the next few years.
In any event, by the time I was about 17, I'd gotten pretty good at establishing social connections, and no longer felt isolated. I was able to read more fiction, but I was still somewhat cautious about it (I read most Marvel comics, for example, but I absolutely rejected Spiderman as a really, really obvious social-reject wish-fulfillment fantasy). After that, it depended on how connected/disconnected I felt - when I felt connected, I read more fiction, and when I was struggling to connect socially, I read considerably less fiction.
But my original reason for not reading fiction was basically so that I would be forced to focus my attention and emotional energy on developing the ability to make social connections, and I had that figured out by the time I got thrown out of high school. After that, it was mostly a matter of circumstances and effort - whether I let myself slip into isolation or put in a little bit of extra effort to find/develop a social world.
Somewhere along the line, though, I just started telling myself that I'd get back to fiction later - after I felt a little more stable in my social life and general relationship with the world, or just when I could feel certain that I wasn't cheating myself out of life. So it became something that I put off in part because it was an unresolved moral issue (if that makes any sense, which I doubt). And now - it's like refusing to read fiction is a bad habit that I need to break, but breaking the habit itself requires a certain amount of emotional energy and attention. As I say, not sane and not valid.

[erilaz]

In recent years, though, I've shifted more to buying used books from thrift shops, Book-Off, and library sales, and reading those. During the past two years, it's all pretty much been Amazon and Ebay, but it's still the same thing: looking for interesting used books at a bargain price. There is still no substitute, however, for a well-funded system of public libraries.

I think I bought only nine books online in the past year, which for me is saying something. Storage space is at a premium at my place, so when it comes to books, I've been trying to borrow more and buy fewer. But old habits die hard, especially when I see a bargain. Last time I was at the Friends of the Library store, two weeks ago, I finally bought Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, since they had a paperback in pristine condition that would complete my set for only $2. (Super-cheap used copies of that book without cracked spines are a rare animal, but I knew I'd find one eventually.) They also had Bossypants by Tina Fey, which I've been meaning to read, and since it was only 50 cents....

[esm]

Ended up finishing In Cold Blood yesterday and started Angie Thomas's The Hate U Give. I finished it today because it was really good. Pretty much my entire school (students and staff) is African-American, so I want to read more African-American literature. It's about to be Black History Month after all.

So that makes 8 books total for the month.

[erilaz]

Looking at my old reading lists, I averaged about 80 books per year (including assigned reading) when I was in high school. Nowadays, 25 is typical. Last year, it was only 21.

Conversely, my movie intake has increased dramatically. In the past twenty years, I've usually seen between 200 and 300 movies per year, sometimes more. In Plague Year 2020, I averaged over one movie per day.

Bear in mind that when I was in high school, I lived in a boring town in California's Central Valley, the Internet didn't yet exist, my family didn't have cable TV, and we didn't even have a VCR until after I graduated.

[CaptainBerryzGiraffe]

So I like trains. Always have. Recently my father bought be two books about the history of the long island railroad (oldest and busiest commuter rail in the country) and then yesterday I went with my friends to the "New York Transit Museum" which has a nice collection of old train cards from the 20s, 30s, 40s... And I ended up getting a crap-top of more books while there. So now I have ages of train material to read and I'm excited!

[Moh]

Moh, so sorry about your mom. Getting that second injury on top of the first one, I can only imagine that it must be as demoralizing as it is painful. For your sake and hers, I wish her a swift recovery.

She's annoyed that it happened to be her dominant arm, but otherwise she's in pretty good spirits.

Spoiler: show

She has to see the orthopedic surgeon on Wednesday; couldn't get in today. Her ENT saw her today and said her nose looked great. She had a cyst on her right adenoid and the pathology came back benign.

[Celedam]

Wordle players, please note…

https://www.nytco.com/press/wordle-new-york-times-games/
https://twitter.com/powerlanguish/status/1488263944309731329

[boinsie]

Hilariously, the whole thing operates off of a very basic server-side webpage. You can just go download the next 4800 days' worth of Wordles right now by saving the website to your device--potential future New York Times changes be damned.
Seven-figure acquisition.

(EDIT: I've just realized that this makes it sound like I'm a Wordle hater. Not at all! I've been at it for the past month with friends. Just find it silly that NYT just spent more than a million on a game that has been shown to not be trademarkable?? Good for Mr. Wardle, tho! )

[Zunu]

Seven figures for a massively popular game seems like a good bargain just on the advertising, and a decent payout to Mr. Wardle who was smart enough to repackage a little known 80's quiz show. WIN/WIN. Speaking of which, I've moved on to Dordle anyway.