Sir_Osis_of_Liver
@Sir_Osis_of_Liver@kbin.social
- Comment on What more need be said about it? 10 months ago:
The only other book I struggled with was Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The travel-log sections were entertaining, and the relationship with his son was interesting, but the discussions on the nature of quality were completely lost on me.
I did get through Zen on the second attempt because I thought it was worth it. I saw no value in Atlas Shrugged at all.
- Comment on What more need be said about it? 10 months ago:
Very early on in my career in consulting engineering, I had an architect tee-off on me for changing the ceiling heights of the office space she'd designed.
I'm electrical, all I was concerned with was circuiting her lights, that was it. I had documentation showing that I'd worked off of exactly the same ceiling heights she had sent me. Heights that she'd apparently changed somewhere along the line without informing the client, who was an international conglomerate, and notoriously picky to work for.
That could have blown over, had she not berated me over email while CCing the client, my management and just about anyone else involved with the project. I made sure to "reply all" showing where the change had happened. She was replaced on the project the following week.
After that I stuck to industrial projects, where the buildings were non-descript concrete and steel boxes with no architectural involvement.
- Comment on What more need be said about it? 10 months ago:
I remember not picking up another book for some time after finishing it. I wanted to hang onto it as long as I could. It's epic.
- Comment on What more need be said about it? 10 months ago:
Dad had an interesting career. Started as an office clerk for a railway with only high school education. Then he got into using an IBM 650 IIRC) for doing freight rate calculations. How he managed that transition, I have no idea. He didn't care for being cooped up all day flipping switches, dealing with punch cards and tapes.
He switched to marketing and got on there very well and retired after 37 years as a regional director.
He always has a book on the go, even now at 83. He has a eclectic pile of them that he kept, from Zane Grey to an early history of the Civil War written around 1870.
- Comment on What more need be said about it? 10 months ago:
Back when I was in junior high in the early 1980s, I found a copy of Atlas Shrugged on my father's bookshelf, and started reading it. I can't remember how far I got into it, but I do remember thinking it was just awful in just about every way: story, writing, pacing, everything.
I asked Dad about it, "Oh, that. It's terrible, isn't it?" A friend had given it to him. Neither one of us finished reading it and after that it ended up at a book reseller.
On the plus side, he'd gone through his books and gave me James Clavell's Shogun to read, which was an awesome novel. - Comment on Paul Reubens, Creator of Pee-wee Herman, Is Dead at 70 11 months ago:
I was in that boat. I'm 56 now, and I've already had friends taken by cancer. It seems much more like a crapshoot at this point.