Longer Step: Ideas for Justice and Sustainability

 The GOAT of SciFi books! Of course somebody has made a list of the top 50 of all time: https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/g39358054/best-sci-fi-books/ I've been challenging myself to try to read these 20 greatest SciFi books. Yes, yes, the top top ones are a great pleasure to read, such as Dune and Asimov's Foundation, and The Martian, and Hyperion is wonderful. But some, I just can't grok. However, this one: Project Hail Mary , is pretty great. By the same author who wrote The Martian. It's readable; unpretentious (for all the great science that's in it); and if you love science, you really need to read this, as it somewhat incredibly lays scientific obstacle upon scientific obstacle in front of our poor hero. I mean, he hardly ever gets even a moment's rest . This is better than Red Mars (which is also good, though it's less about science and more sort of a soap opera of lousy relationships), and it's better than Three Body Problem (great s...

  I keep returning (mentally) to the point made by a Wash Post writer, regarding Biden: You just cannot be directly responsible for the extermination/genocide of an entire ethnic group of people (Palestinian civilians), and have it swept under the rug because the US voters love you on so many other issues. It's like saying that Hitler painted some very nice watercolors, without saying anything else about Hitler. A Palestinian spokesperson said it well (my words from poor memory): 'What else could be more important than this?' Biden could've stopped military aid to Israel unless they did more to protect civilians. Biden could've inserted thousands of peacekeepers into Gaza, to protect/withdraw civilians even as Hamas was rooted out. Biden could've stopped the war with one phone call. This is direct responsbility. There must be some price paid for that. There were ways to avoid this level of civilian carnage. But one of my friends told me there is one thing even m...

  Needed help overcoming error messages in self-publishing (on KDP/Kindle). Daughter said "hire an expert on Fiverr." I found two, a guy in India and a woman in Pakistan. They charge $60 and $25, respectively, for what should be (for them; they're experts at this and have done this 100s of times) a job of an hour or so. Sadly, Hareem (woman in Pakistan) hasn't been able to overcome the error messages either, which makes me feel vindicated but also frustrated because we always hope an expert can fix our problem. She is beaucoup hours in, but constant failure. The guy in India is champing at the bit, promising he can fix it easily. One issue here is: This is skilled labor-you need a lot of experience and knowledge, to do this (to fix error messages when the error messages don't say anything about what the problem is). But the pay they ask for is so low that it has the effect of freezing out anyone in the US who might want to run a biz doing this. I bet $25 will bu...