Jake Justen > Recent Status Updates

CTRL-V is doing some heavy lifting in this section, to the point that CTRL-V should be listed as the primary author and Dwight David Thrash CPA FCPA CGMA should be listed as a secondary author at best. Also, I am pretty sure Dena Hope is going to prison.

If you took a drink every time "I, Titus Uno, Certified Public Accountant, Forensic Certified Public Accountant, and Charterer Global Management Accountant" appears in this book, you'd risk liver failure by the time you got through the first chapter.

Damn it, boy, only one more section to go.

"Wilson will be punished and executed and we must attend. ... Do you want to rest a while and leave, or stay and enjoy festivities and food?"

This section includes the infamous wang severing scene, as well as the freshman term paper "who is the real savage" monologue. Harris's views of the natives are based entirely on 1950s Westerns and the noble savage trope.

About an hour left in the audiobook, we'll have to see how it ends but I like Book 1 much more so far. Not sure if I'll listen to Book 3 at this point.

"Dancing Leaf has been teaching me your talk for many years. No one else wants to learn. We can keep secrets and use the talk when we need for no one else to understand," She said as her face turned redder.

I already told my wife I'm going to read this again. I also told her that I could tell by her vibrations that she really wants me.

"It all adds up to be a bad day for the home team, and we just happen to be the visiting team that's trailing."

It's almost as bad as a Jason Witten idiom on Monday Night Football.

"You ready to drive a while, Dale? There's a truck stop coming up. You can get yourself together and I'll go in and check out the weather channel. Looks like we may be in for a little change. I'll park and check it out and meet you back here in a short, short. 10-4?"

"10-4, partner. Are we in bad weather now?"

Will you just look out the damn window, Dale? You can see we're not!

"When we first seen the meteor on Earth and was tracking it."

Part 2 of the reread. One more to go. God I love this book.

"As David arrived at the office."

I got the book again from Thriftbooks and am now relistening to the 372 Pages episodes covering it. I could definitely get through this in one sitting but it's more fun to break it up and listen along to the podcast.

At least the audiobook is going by quickly

Through Chapter 3. So far very interesting, especially Chapters 2 and 3 about the end of WWII and the start of the Cold War, including nuclear testing and spy tech development. The first chapter is entertaining because it focuses on Bob Lazar, which you can't tell the story of Area 51 without delving into Lazar or kooky areas - it was his interview on Las Vegas TV that brought national attention and interest to A51.

Just finished Part One: The Climbers, on to Part Two: The Mountain.

372 Pages We'll Never Get Back. Wow was that dull. So much dialogue inserted just so the author could insert backstory. None of the characters are interesting. There's a full chapter of the first person narrator just spacing off for more backstory. Then there's a third person chapter about someone else - don't know who, only know her as "she." Does anyone listed in that chapter or their relationship to "she" matter?

So far this is exceeding my expectations. My one hope was for this to be done competently and it has at least cleared that bar. Matt Dinniman has done a good job of world building. There are pop culture references, but not so many that they are distracting. Stats haven't gotten overbearing yet, but I am zoning out on the stats. (Audiobook, narrator has been decent)

It's insane that you can be 80% through a book and have no idea how or why anything works, or why anything is happening. The philosophy of the book is easy enough to get, it's just generic early 2000s boomer conservatism. And this last section has sprinkled in a few more "Grandpa, no" moments.

Been listening since February and I finally feel like I'm making progress. Still 6.5 hours to go. VERY comprehensive history of the US from 1492 to [early 2000s]. Lots of interesting stories, though.

18 chapters in and I have no clue what's going on or how HAL works. We're constantly told how perfect and virtuous Theresa is, but her actions show the opposite. This is clearly meant to be a manifesto, but the author's views aren't clear (except his contempt for cable news, which I'm sure he calls the lamestream media). The protagonist is still at someone's house, so maybe this is a genius 3rd Amendment manifesto?

I only have the epilogue left. Again, listening to the audiobook, it's odd how much it seems the narrator sounds like an AI voice over. I appreciate that the authors have taken a nuanced view of AI and looked at both sides of the hype cycle - promised benefits and existential concerns. Even their conversation with a chatbot showed how information generated by AI can be incorrect or wholly made up.