Over at Wasteland and Sky JD Cowan reviews Nightblood and generally likes it [https://wastelandandsky.blogspot.com/2020/04/nightchills.html], but does spend some time pointing out a trope that was all too common in Vampire fiction of the time: > The "Crucifix only works if you have faith" trope is in this book. It barely features, and I'm sure it was only put in because it was all the rage at the time, but it doesn't change the fact that it makes no sense. It is a misunderstanding of the monst…
All posts in philosophy
Alexandru Constantin notes that not only is much of modern fantasy shallow in substance, but it also posesses no depth of style [https://barbarianbookclub.com/2020/03/26/its-all-about-style/comment-page-1/], rendering it almost unreadable. > Most of all, all three of the books had pedestrian writing that lacked any hint of style. The prose felt like early young adult, middle school grade, nothing fancier than early Animorphs, and the plot and characters felt stolen from a overwritten D&D modul…
A long time before reading Taleb's Skin in the Game with his much broader application of the concept, I'd already realized that authority and responsibility had to match. Authority without consequence / responsibility for one's choices was the ultimate "power corrupts", and responsibility without any authority was to be a slave to the whims of others. One example of how some dodge consequence is by offloading the risks onto others. Take "companies too big to fail." They get the profits when do…
Via Castalia house, an excellent post on how pop culture is more accurately, as Brian Neimeier puts it, Pop Kult (or "Cult"). > The Epistle of Captain America – The Pop Cult is Truly a Cult [https://dvspress.com/the-epistle-of-captain-america-the-pop-cult-is-truly-a-cult/] That said, I do think he's overlooked something: > When my viewers were upset about the corporate destruction of Star Wars, calling the franchise a cultural institution, I thought it a bit hyperbolic – after all, these are j…
Cataline over at the Dark Herald recommended that if you want a computer upgrade, get it now [https://darkherald.net/2020/03/03/if-you-are-going-to-upgrade-your-computer-do-it-now/] . > No big deal it happens every year. Vendors plan for it by stocking up their inventory. Nobody really likes stocking up their inventory since it ties up a lot of capital in way that can’t be quickly liquidated at need. But it has to be done and once fabrication starts up again the inventories smooth out as the s…