I’m gonna lean into the series part here, and point at some web series:

Pale is an urban fantasy story (modern day with a magical hidden world) by Wildbow. The premise for this story is it’s a murder mystery where none of the suspects is able to lie; and three girls are inducted into the magical world to solve it. This is actually the second web series of his in this world, after Pact. Wildbow is an extremely popular online author, and all his works are available online for free - his superhero stories (Worm and Ward) have influenced most of the online superhero fiction (and even some print publications) I’ve read since.

The Gods Are Bastards by D. D. Webb is a “high fantasy western”. It follows a class of 9 students going through the premier adventuring school in the empire; about a century after magitech advances have made that unfashionable. This series is entirely free online, as are most of his other works. Book 1 of 17 has been printed and is available under the same name. This series is on hiatus partway through his final book; he’s working on getting the mental space to complete it. If you read it online he’s very open about his process and issues as he goes; and if you find you enjoy it, he has a few other series getting updates in the meantime!

A Practical Guide to Evil is a fantasy series where story tropes are as strong as physical laws - the Law of Threes, for example, states that if a Hero is trounced by a Villain, and then is narrowly defeated in their second encounter, they will absolutely defeat the Villain the next time they meet. It follows the adventures of Catherine Foundling, an orphan who turns Villain to carve out a better life for her people. The first book is up on Amazon, the rest of the series is still available online.

All three of these have amazing, unique characters, extensive and fascinating world building, and go long - 15+ books worth apiece, so if any grab you, pace yourself! Also, they’re almost entirely available for free online!

Usually about 6-6.5. I generally go to bed around 930, fall asleep fast, and wake up around 4 energized and ready to go!

Then I hit a small crash midday, but can’t usually get away for a nap…

“Don’t feed the trolls” can be good advice; I recently (one or two comments back!) made such a suggestion myself.

But it seems like there are times when we have to engage. Trollish behavior is behind phenomenons like fake news, incel culture, etc. - clearly those need addressed wherever they come up. The correct response seems to be situational.

Isn’t The Amazing Race (reality show) inspired by Around the World in 80 Days?

I feel like both are a little bit niche here - most people interested in science fiction will have heard of them, and people into literature in general; but I’m not sure beyond that.

Happy to recommend! Been looking forward to it since I grabbed it on the winter sale; had to finish a Factorio run first :p

The one that’s choking the world economy because total output went down 20%

What is it that keeps the underground pockets of helium in place, anyway? Just craptons of stone?

Honestly? Oil usage. Everyone knows it’s bad, and the only people really in a position to do anything about have a vested interest in leaving things as is.

This sounds exactly like Asbestos.

I’ve just started The Necromancer’s Tale, which lets you explore a minor noble’s fall from grace into (I think) lichdom. Just came out last summer. The art style is what you might expect from a small, ambitious studio; the writing so far is rather good.

…are there statistics on that?

…crap, I’m cis male and I wanna be addressed as “mage”…

At this point, the only thing I have Windows around for is VR. Every non-VR game I have runs swimmingly (often better!) on the Linux partition, but VR still struggles to keep up…

But doctor… I am the parent.

Seriously, half the stuff that we print is coloring pages.

I dunno, in this case the amateur happens to be able to absorb a whole lotta hits too - they can fail over and over while waiting for you to slip.

Maybe… More complicated limbs struck me as more prone to failure than rotors, and more expensive to maintain and replace

I’m remembering the old duelist’s adage, that the worst opponent to have is an amateur - because you have no idea what they’ll try

So I’m not as caught up in the current state of robotics as I’d like… The article talks about these being used to patrol, do safety inspections, and the like.

Wouldn’t it be cheaper to replace each of these with a dozen quadrocopter drones?

To my knowledge, there is very little research at all - the programs that would look into whether this might protect or endanger children struggle to get funded, because it’s icky.

I’m in the Midwest, where we really have long had wild fluctuations in the weather day to day - think snowfall in the morning in early May followed by 60°F in the afternoon. I’m on the eastern half of Kansas, so there’s a lot of open land to the west for big weather patterns to bounce around, and not a lot of bodies of water to moderate things.

I’ve had better luck commenting on trends rather than days: “Loving all this nice weather the last few weeks!” “Yeah, but honestly, it’s kinda unnerving to have it in January…”

Eh, that seems to suggest it’s entertainment for or about misers, rather than misery