I finished Consider Phlebas on my commute - I still don't rank it quite as highly as the others but it came to life more at the end. My favourite bit was when Horza was trapped on the cannibal cult island. Completely irrelevant to the plot but some excellent wtf storytelling!
I only noticed this comment now, I've been reading the Culture series too - I enjoyed the world building in Consider Phlebas a lot but after a while I just wanted it to finish. So I skipped on and read a few others in the series then came back to finish it.
I've been reading The Culture series by Iain M Banks. I gave up on the first book a while back, which I've heard is quite common, but I plan to go back and finish it.
I've just read The Player Of Games and Excession and both are exceptional.
I like the part where they point out that writers probably have more leverage than they think about having a say - but then maybe many writers don't consider the ebook side of things when thinking about getting their work published.
It's obvious that 'they' are out to demonise IA as something like Pirate Bay whereas it really, really isn't. Aside from the massive amount of obscure reference material, I found BBC documentaries on there from the 80s about some history which is otherwise unobtainable. I can understand if there's some legal points which need to be worked out between both sides in order to keep the site going... but that obviously isn't what the publishers are going for.
Well I mean yeah we bought our house off my father-in-law who sold it at extreme mates rates, and my parents paid my half of the deposit. And I don't think that's news, that's the way it's been for people I know for the last 10 years or so. We only relatively recently managed to get a mortgage because I was doing contract work for a long time which paid a lot better but isn't stable enough to get one.
I feel lucky because I know there's no way I'd be able to live in our own house without parental help - we're both public sector workers so we do alright but don't have any money to put aside for savings. Which also means we won't be able to return the favour for our son, or at least not to the same degree. I've just turned 40, I have friends a few years younger who are working but still live with family because they have no other realistic option.
My father-in-law worked in the property world as a surveyor since the 70s or so and when his father died young he bought some flats in London with the inheritance. His dad was a miner so the flats were dirt cheap but they were in King's Cross which back then was known for drugs and prostitution. He despised the 80s, because he knew it was short term gain for his generation at the expense at the next ones - instead of investing in the future, governments were just selling everything off to the private sector for short term gain, and so he had this masterplan of saving all this stuff up for his kids. He's an interesting person to talk to.
My parents had enough money to put aside in savings for the future for me and my sister every month, which went towards the house deposit and my university fees. They didn't own any flats in London but they had that extra to put aside. That's what our generation doesn't have, the ability to put anything significant aside for the future - it all goes on bills.
Tildes simply doesn't have the goals of "reddit alternatives" that are hoping to launch a new, popular site. It's just doing its own thing. Personally I find it refreshing, but it's definitely not for people who want to be part of the next "reddit" with millions of other people.
Sure, I definitely respect that and it is one of the things I like about it. I like the way it's focused on conversations over cut n paste memes.
But I think I've found a similar experience here on Kbin by blocking meme heavy groups and joining more specific communities. I'm still going to check out Tildes every now and then though
I've read Dante and enjoyed that a lot. It's interesting how Dante also puts a lot more of his contemporaries into the various parts of the afterlife then I was expecting; so footnotes can veer from talking about Greek mythology to minor figures from the civil war that had led to his exile. Which can be a little jarring sometimes!
This is on my to read list. I have an annotated copy to help because I've heard it's hard going but I know it's hugely influential and so keep meaning to get to it!