#outguessing

[leletha-jann]

...no spoilers, but I did not have Monday's page (April 8, 2024) on my prediction bingo card, and if you did, I require notarized evidence.

Go ahead, ask me about my current prediction bingo card, which is this:

Some of these are guaranteed losers (I don't know why I think Her Royal Feline Gingerness is named Samantha; I just do), some of them pretty darn likely (the OT3 is canon OR WE RIOT), but I had fun tracking them down in my head.

And here's a template if you'd like to play too!

I would ABSOLUTELY LOVE to see your bingo card. If you fill it out, please tag me.

(...but I still don't believe you had Monday's page on it.)

[salteytakesonmanga]

I remember the years and years and YEARS of speculation when we knew next to nothing about Roger and people had all sorts of theories about what the connection was between Roger and Luffy.

It turns out none of the theories came anywhere close to the profound connection between these two people. Even now we still don’t know what that connection really means. Rereading this I find myself admiring how carefully Oda layered these hints. He never rushes his hints (to our enormous chagrin) so this early on giving us anything to link Luffy to Roger is plenty. But at the same time, this is basically the first time Roger has been mentioned since the VERY FIRST PAGE OF THE MANGA.

[greysbay]

Outguess pc

OUTGUESS PC VERIFICATION

OUTGUESS PC DOWNLOAD

JPEG’s proposed standard aims to be generic, to support a wide variety of applications for continuous-tone images. For the past few years, a joint ISO/CCITT committee known as JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) has been working to establish the first international compression standard for continuous-tone still images, both grayscale and color. This paper is a revised version of an article by the same title and author which appeared in the April 1991 issue of Communications of the ACM. The paper is closed with outlining a condition that must be satisfied by all secure high-capacity steganographic algorithms for JPEGs. Finally, we identify two limitations of the proposed approach and show how they can be overcome to obtain accurate detection in every case. The accuracy of the message length estimate is demonstrated on test images for both algorithms. The details of this detection methodology are explained on the F5 algorithm and OutGuess. By doing so, we estimate the unknown message length by comparing the values of S for the stego image and the cropped/recompressed stego image. We choose such macroscopic statistic S that also predictably changes with the embedded message length. Because the geometrical distortion breaks the quantized structure of DCT coefficients during recompression, the distorted/recompressed image will have many macroscopic statistics approximately equal to those of the cover image. The detection first starts by decompressing the JPEG stego image, geometrically distorting it (e.g., by cropping), and recompressing. In this paper, we present general methodology for developing attacks on steganographic systems for the JPEG image format. Implication from this paper is that we should ensure the difference between the cover and stego images is only causedīy data embedding itself in steganography and steganalysis. Same coding pattern is employed in both cover and stego images, the performance of the newly devised steganalyzer has greatlyĭropped. Images, rather than the Avalanche Criterion explained by its authors, have led to great detection efficiency. Experimental results reveal that different coding patterns used in cover and stego Of this “payload-independent” steganalyzer. Studies on the factors which may have impact on the new steganalytic method, we find out the truly cause of the powerfulness Even though only several bytes wereĮmbedded, the scheme was still able to work, thus demonstrating astonishing steganalysis capability. Stego images embedded by JPEG steganographic tools, including JPHide, F5 and OutGuess. The authors claimed that it was very effective in detecting Showed concern over the statistics of Huffman compressed stream. A recently proposed compressed frequency domain based universal steganalytic algorithm

OUTGUESS PC VERIFICATION

If you provide the sender’s public key you will be informed if sign verification is succeeded.Current steganalytic schemes for JPEG steganography are in favor of extracting features in DCT (Discrete Cosine Transform)ĭomain and/or spatial domain. If you don’t provide the sender’s public key, at the end of the the extraction process, you will be warned that the sender identity is not verified. When you want to extract data (you are the receiver) only your private key is required but the sender’s public key is requested.

Asymmetric signed: when you want to hide data (you are the sender) the receiver’s public key and your private key are required.

When you want to extract data (you are the receiver) only your private key is required.

Asymmetric unsigned: when you want to hide data (you are the sender) only the receiver’s public key is required.

Symmetric: when you hide data, data will be encrypted with the provided PassPhrase and the same PassPhrase is required to extract.

Auto: The data will be encrypted but no PassPhrase or keys will be required to extract data.

The good thing about Steg is that there are several encryption methods that you can configure. jpg file, you can only save in tif or png format. Lastly, click “Save” to save the encrypted image. It will show the image on both the left and right panel so you can see the changes in real-time.Ĭlick the “Hide Data” icon and select the file that you want to embed in the image.

OUTGUESS PC DOWNLOAD

Simply download the build (32 bit or 64 bit) from its website, extract the file and run the “steg” application.įirst, you import in an image that you want to add data to.

[ekotonki]

Outguess 1.3

Outguess 1.3 code#

An algorithm estimates the capacity for hidden data without the distortions of the decoy data becoming apparent. net Forum - General Game Discussion : derekedit via Audiogames-reflector net Forum - General Game Discussion : The Imaginatrix via Audiogames-reflector net Forum - General Game Discussion : Dungeon Diver via Audiogames-reflector net Forum - General Game Discussion : BlindNinja via Audiogames-reflector net Forum - General Game Discussion : josephweakland via Audiogames-reflector net Forum - General Game Discussion : Mitch via Audiogames-reflector net Forum - General Game Discussion : Aaron Baker via Audiogames-reflector net Forum - General Game Discussion : Alduin via Audiogames-reflector net Forum - General Game Discussion : FeatheryPeachKitsune via Audiogames-reflector net Forum - General Game Discussion : Vazbol via Audiogames-reflector net Forum - General Game Discussion : Jayde via Audiogames-reflector My advice is to own it, because the community already has. It would be foolish to say I'm a bad chef because of that one dish, and thus I'm not saying you're a bad dev for making one bad ability. If I were a restaurant owner and I cooked two hundred and ninety-nine meals, and my three hundredth made someone recoil and spit the food out, guess what? I'm on the hook for that. You can't justify the latter by claiming that you have enough of the former. There are neat gimmicks and there are just plain-old bad gimmicks. Yes, dude, that happens, and it's not cool. Standard and shadow works decently well.ahem, until you get tri-kicked to death by something eight levels lower than you because of Erratic Battler. Given the type diversity in this game, being able to switch after you wail on something is really kind of essential, even if you have gargantuan attack, because it's easy to run into a type you don't want to be facing. Sheepskin Outfit helps Wolfsyre out, and actually helps my argument because it further encourages not evolving into Werewolfsyre. If a pokemon had an ability this bad, it would be relegated to the never-used tier, no matter how good its base stats were.ĭomestress, at least, has slightly boosted stats and a Domestress-only item that makes her usable. You can be proud of a lot of things, including a lot of customization elsewhere, Aaron, but you absolutely cannot defend this one. The inability to switch busts this ability. The lowering stats on their own are bad enough. You have no idea how insanely punishing that is. You basically get one round where you have boosted stats, then you're at neutral, then you're a liability. See, here's the thing, right? I haven't seen a single person besides you saying Erratic Battler is worthwhile, and I've seen about half a dozens, self included, who dislike it. I have absolutely no idea what broke in version 1.3.0 and what you improved in 1.3.1, so it makes me curious why I want to keep updating.Īlso, you posted while I was doing it, so here we go. And if you actually did stuff like improve moves/accuracy/abilities, we kinda really wanna know about that.

Outguess 1.3 code#

I'm not saying you have to include mathematical formulas in every update, not by any stretch, but even something like "optimized code to minimize latency in online battles" would be cool. This is an issue you've had since the original manamon and beyond, and it's not doing you any favours. I know you don't want to be spoilery, but sometimes if something is improved, we'd kind of like to know what it is. Misc bug fixes and improvements is.not all that descriptive. Aaron, for the love of crumbcake, dude, please, please, please write better change logs.

[kvetchlandia]

Bob Dylan Sad Eyed Lady f the Lowlands 1966

...With your sheets like metal and your belt like lace

And your deck of cards missing the jack and the ace

And your basement clothes and your hollow face

Who among them can think he could outguess you?

With your silhouette when the sunlight dims

Into your eyes where the moonlight swims

And your matchbook songs and your gypsy hymns

Who among them would try to impress you?

Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands

Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes

My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums

Should I leave them by your gate

Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?...

[leletha-jann]

Le'letha's Grand Unified* Theory of Timestop Creatures

*sorry, neither

Before canon catches up to us, let's fill in the blank:

This creature 

is ​​​​​​​​​​_____________...

1) ​an aspect of Lucrezia

Narratively this makes sense. Lucrezia's the main villain and we really only know the edges of her story yet. But what we do know does not even slightly rule out her being an angry interdimensional timestop creature at some point. We know that the entity originally known as Lucrezia is time-lost and stranded - and I'll take as another data point that she's somewhere without cake! (Does that creature look like it hails from a dimension with cake?) 

We know that a lot of time has elapsed for her and, while I can't find the quote at this exact moment, possibly at different angles - something the Castle describes this creature as traversing. We know that she has been changed by this, and appears throughout the known timeline in different aspects, appearances, and identities. 

And today's page has the Dreen telling us that "a monster must grow! Develop! Mature! ...to achieve its full fearsome potential...worthy of attention."

That sounds an awful lot like whatever Lucrezia has become. 

In fact, one of the very first things Lucrezia told us was "it's been so long since I was really human" (and even at the time, Tarvek went "um wait what", and then sensibly decided not to push.)

It's also distinctly ambiguous if the creature is reaching for the device as the source of the time distortion, or for Klaus. And while it doesn't mean much that I think it's going for Klaus, Gil thought it was. Gil's talent for intuitive leaps is the subject of a different post (I really must write it...), but he's very good at them. When Gil first saw the timestop creature, he didn't say "it's going for the device" or even for "it's going for the device my father used" (which would have moved the dialogue along as needed), he specifically said "it's heading for my father​." I trust Gil's intuition. Here, and in general.

I think the timestop creature is an aspect of Lucrezia. And she is, as far as we know (see option 5), the Big Bad of the series, so "This is probably Lucrezia's fault somehow" is a solid guess.

2) an aspect of Vapnoople

This has been clearly foreshadowed and it's definitely something that's going to come back to bite at some point. This could be that point, absolutely! Not that I didn't enjoy the storylines in the Society dome (I enjoy that phase of the story a lot!), but every storyline is here to do something and it could 100% be the origin story of the timestop creature we'd already seen, because time is not, and has never been, linear in this story! Right from the very beginning! (Yes, this is the infamous Page Four, of course.)

Vapnoople said he'd be back, and once we could talk to Kjarl, we learned that Vapnoople would probably appear very differently and be quite insane. 

Continuing with the idea that the creature is going for Klaus specifically, and not the device, it's possible Klaus cooperatively pinned himself to a board like a specimen and Vapnoople's taking the opportunity to get payback for, y'know, being lobotomized and turned into an object of scorn and pity. That being said, does a warped-by-the-monster-dimension Vapnoople care about that? And is Vapnoople a big enough presence to be the endpoint of the Second Journey? Is this his time to reappear in the story? Besides, he seemed quite happy to be heading off into the monster dimension. I don't think he'd be in a hurry to come back. 

But time is not linear between here and there (or any number of "there"s). So this is a workable second option, and I know it's one in favor with many readers.

3) a totally unconnected genuine interdimensional creature

A pleasingly random option, but one with precedent - we saw the Queen's Society do this earlier and Agatha clearly thought it was relevant to Mechanicsburg. 

One of the fantastic things about Girl Genius is that the world keeps happening. Not everything around us is about us. When you leave food on the floor, the ants that show up are probably not plotting against you. They're just doing ant things. 

(...probably. Although in a world of mad science, who knows?)

4) an aspect of Euphrosnia Heterodyne

An out-there option and the one most likely to elicit screaming from the fandom. (An argument in its favor, I'm sure.)

The mystery surrounding Euphrosnia has been building up in the background for years, a little bit at a time. She was the last female Heterodyne before Agatha. Her story parallels Agatha's, has shaped Agatha's, and keeps being mentioned. She vanished in strange circumstances. How did that happen? Where did she go? Is she coming back? She has too much of a narrative presence not to - there's something going on there. Agatha is returning to Mechanicsburg. Is Euphrosnia? Carson von Mekkhan did say that the Heterodynes always come home in the end...

(See, I'm looking for the ramp-up, the twist I can't see coming, like the two-and-a-half-year time skip was in the first place. I keep thinking recently, we've all been thinking recently, everything's going so well...and I had that feeling before, at the end of the siege...right before everything changed... What's coming for us this time? What evil, evil twist do the Foglios have planned?)

And it would be a heck of a ramp-up to have one of the old Heterodynes, and the legendary princess no less, take the field and change everything.

5) something else

Look. It's not my job to outguess the Foglios. (And if you think it's yours, you're wrong.) I look forward to being surprised!

And probably screaming. A lot.

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #25 – The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett

The fact that I put in a hold for this is basically a triumph of marketing. I saw Jackson Bennett doing an AMA to promote it, which reminded me that a) he existed and b) I liked the one book of his I’d read. So 20 people in the hold queue ahead of me latter, I finally got a chance to give it a try. Shockingly, this actually worked out incredibly – this was easily one of the most enjoyable reads I’ve had all year.

The book follows Din, a recently promoted Assistant Investigator mainly notable for the incredible invasive grafts and suffusion that left him with grey skin, dyslexia, and a literally edetic memory. The last bit is the most relevant, as his incredibly eccentric Investigator uses him as combination Watson and CSI, running around collecting all the evidence and conducting most of the interviews so she can make her grand deductions in peace.

The case in question is the murder of an esteemed and well-regarded commander through the unconventional method of a tree sprouting in his chest cavity and growing several feet over the course of as many seconds. As things are wont to, the investigation quickly spirals out of control, dragging the investigators to a logistical hub days from the Seawall protecting the empire from leviathan attacks and implicating true imperial grandees.

So, this is a murder mystery. An extremely high concept one, full of leviathan-blood enhancements and supernatural contagion and a whole society structured and organized around the constant struggle to stave off apocalypse, but ultimately still very much an intentionally tropey murder mystery. Every clue is mentioned as Din notices it, always before it’s relevance to the plot is revealed. There’s an extended reveal where the Investigator just lays out the whole mystery as she’s’ deduced it and baits the villain into doing something stupid. One of the supporting cast is revealed to have been one of the killers all along. The entire thing occurs with a ticking clock meaning the investigation has only days to find an answer. It’s all there.

To be clear, this is not at all a complaint. Maybe it would be if I read more mysteries, but as it is the whole set of tropes is a very rare treat for me, and it’s all executed very well. And I adore a well-done drawing-room reveal scene. Not that I did, but I appreciate that I could have tried to outguess the plot and figure out the whole mystery ahead of time from the clues given (instead of just noticing most of them and having a vague sense of where people were headed – though I def thought the governor’s second paying a weird amount of attention to Din was a threat and not the love interest). The whole thing was just a joy to read, even if the characters were all a bit exaggerated and archtypal, and the ending was a bit too neat and tidy for my tastes.

The setting isn’t exactly novel – creepy quasi-horror rich biopunk settings and horrible kaiju whose corpses warp the world around them being harvested and processed for raw materials became fairly well trod ground at some point – but it’s hardly generic or the expected standard either. It’s very well-executed, and the murder mystery conceit basically requires each new relevant addition to the story being clearly explained as we meet it, which was handled with surprising grace/without devolving into multipages reams of exposition too often.

It was very amusingly obvious (and then confirmed in the acknowledgements!) that the entire subplot about ‘preservation boards’ (bodies to ensure there’s no unintended side effects of growing/processing weird biopunk reagents in a given region) being abused to obstruct and delay vital progress to – literally – raise property values for the landed gentry, was directly inspired by Jackson Bennett having read a lot of articles about malicious abuse of environmental protection legislation in the US.

Politics-wise – I mean it’s a conceit of the whole story that the empire is essentially, if not benevolent, then at least necessary and well-intentioned. Riven with corruption and patronage networks, warped for the interests of the landed elite, full of negligence and despair – but at it’s core a good thing to work for, and receiving awards and mandates from on high is a good thing. The issue is the boyars and not the tsar, all that sort of thing. Which works for the story, but I’ve at this point read enough SF/F that really digs into the whole empire thing that the lack of subversion there took me almost by surprise.

Not that the empire’s all nice – the grafted specialists with superhuman strength or eidetic memory or perfect reasoning skills all die after a decade or two of service, and that’s just the price of keeping things running. A major subplot of the whole book is Din trying to hide the fact that his enhancements misfired slightly to make him functionally dyslexic (an issue, when your main value to be a perfect living archive). Not entirely sure if the series is really going anywhere with the whole disability theme beyond the very basic ‘the empire will only survive if it makes it possible for EVERYONE to contribute what they can’ beat it hit in this book – regardless, the fact that Din spend the entire book wondering what had been done to her boss’s brain that e.g. she spent most conversations blindfolded to help her focus, and while doing so can identify most forms of text on a page by touch, only to find out that no she’s just autistic was very funny to me.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

With your mercury mouth in the missionary times, And your eyes like smoke and your prayers like rhymes, And your silver cross, and your voice like chimes, Oh, who among them do they think could bury you? With your pockets well protected at last, And your streetcar visions which you place on the grass, And your flesh like silk, and your face like glass, Who among them do they think could carry you? Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands, Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes, My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums, Should I leave them by your gate, Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

With your sheets like metal and your belt like lace, And your deck of cards missing the jack and the ace, And your basement clothes and your hollow face, Who among them can think he could outguess you? With your silhouette when the sunlight dims Into your eyes where the moonlight swims, And your match-book songs and your gypsy hymns, Who among them would try to impress you? Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands, Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes, My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums, Should I leave them by your gate, Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

The kings of Tyrus with their convict list Are waiting in line for their geranium kiss, And you wouldn't know it would happen like this, But who among them really wants just to kiss you? With your childhood flames on your midnight rug, And your Spanish manners and your mother's drugs, And your cowboy mouth and your curfew plugs, Who among them do you think could resist you? Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands, Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes, My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums, Should I leave them by your gate, Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

Oh, the farmers and the businessmen, they all did decide To show you the dead angels that they used to hide. But why did they pick you to sympathize with their side? Oh, how could they ever mistake you? They wished you'd accepted the blame for the farm, But with the sea at your feet and the phony false alarm, And with the child of a hoodlum wrapped up in your arms, How could they ever, ever persuade you? Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands, Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes, My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums, Should I leave them by your gate, Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

With your sheet-metal memory of Cannery Row, And your magazine-husband who one day just had to go, And your gentleness now, which you just can't help but show, Who among them do you think would employ you? Now you stand with your thief, you're on his parole With your holy medallion which your fingertips fold, And your saint like face and your ghostlike soul, Oh, who among them do you think could destroy you Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands, Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes, My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums, Should I leave them by your gate, Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

[Not Dark Yet]

[checkoutmybookshelf]

You Have My Attention: X-Wing Series First Lines

In the many, many series that comprise the Star Wars EU (the Legends Canon since Disney decanonized it in 2014), the X-Wing series is an interesting case because it is fairly cleanly bifurcated between two X-wing squadrons and two authors, and yet the series as a whole--and the characters who cross over between authors--feel remarkably consistent. That's a feat in and of itself, as anyone who has read over the shift from Robert Jordan to Brandon Sanderson in the Wheel of Time can attest.

My clear preference is for Aaron Allston's writing style and the Wrait Squadron missions, but I know readers who dearly love Stackploe's Rogue Squadron as well. So let's take a look at how these authors grab readers with their first lines!

"You're good, Corran, but you're no Luke Skywalker."

-- Rogue Squadron

"Even before his X-wing's sensors had time to scan and identify the new ship, Corran Horn knew he was in trouble."

-- Wedge's Gamble

"Commander Wedge Antilles would have preferred the ceremony to be private."

-- The Krytos Trap

"Somehow the dead of night amplified the lightsaber's hiss, allowing it to fill the room."

-- The Bacta War

"Twelve X-wing snubfighters roared down into the atmosphere."

-- Wraith Squadron

"He made no pretense at being fully human."

-- Iron Fist

"Naval Lieutenant Jart Eyan looked rested and cheerful."

-- Solo Command

"Sithspawn! When his X-wing reverted to realspace before the countdown timer had reached zero, Corran Horn knew Thrawn had somehow managed to outguess the New Republic yet one more time."

-- Isard's Revenge

"She was beautiful and fragile and he could not count the number of times he had told her he loved her."

-- Starfighters of Adumar

"Imperial Admiral Kosh Teradoc paused, irritated and self-conscious, just outside the entryway into the club."

-- Mercy Kill

[believerindaydreams]

today in Harry Sullivan thoughts:

If they'd still had Harry for Pyramids of Mars then the rather underwhelming part four could have been a memorably terrifying companion adventure when Harry and Sarah have to chase the still-hypnotised Doctor. I mean, the puzzles would still be a bit silly, but it'd be a lot more dramatic if it's two humans trying to outguess Sutekh.

I mean, I groaned the first time I saw the guardians using the whole "which of us is lying" chestnut but with Harry there's a fair shot he might get it Wrong. Suspense, you see.

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

Today in Christian History

Today is Saturday, August 5th. It is the 217th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar; 148 days remain until the end of the year.

1590: Meletius Pegas becomes the Orthodox patriarch of Alexandria. He will endeavor to reunite the Greek and Coptic churches.

1604: John Eliot is baptized in England. His non-conformist views will eventually prompt him to move to America, where he will found fourteen congregations of Indian Christians, translate the Bible into Algonquin, and help prepare the Bay Psalm Book—the first book printed in America. Captured by Indians, he will learn their language while in captivity.

1720: Death in England of Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, a notable poet and hymnwriter, loyal to King James II. Among her best-known religious poems is “The Atheist and the Acorn,” which depicts an atheist as a fool for trying to outguess God’s arrangements. She had also written a praise hymn beginning, “To the Almighty on his radiant throne / Let endless hallelujahs rise.”

1751: Rev. John Cuthbertson, America’s first Scottish Covenanter pastor, arrives in America. His name appears frequently as a genealogical authority because he will keep a log of births and marriages. In it, he records over five thousand family names as well as notes of six hundred marriages and almost two thousand baptisms he performs in the course of seventy thousand miles of ministerial travels.

1833: Allen B. Freeman, a young man recently graduated from a Baptist seminary, arrives to serve as a missionary in Northern Illinois, but will die of cold and exhaustion in December the following year after his horse collapses under him, forcing him to walk many miles back to Chicago.

1835: Death of Thomas McCrie, Scottish minister and church historian. He and three other divines had left the General Association Synod and formed the Constitutional Association Presbytery. He also wrote biographies of John Knox and Andrew Melville.

1844: The first assembly of Queen’s College, British Guiana, meets. The school has been established by Anglican bishop William Piercy Austin, a missionary to the South American colony.

1876: Scottish missionary Mary Slessor boards the SS Ethiopia to sail to Calabar (Nigeria). She shares the ship with a cargo of liquor.

1955: Death of Jesse Irvin Overholtzer, founder and first director of Child Evangelism Fellowship.

[haikyuudescendants]

maze runner au! part 2.

“What if this is some kind of trap?"

"Yeah," Tetsurō said, "Maybe we should think about this."

"No." Suguru shook his head. "We can't try to outguess them any more. Sometimes they do things just to make me do the opposite of what they think I think they think I want to do."

"Huh?" the two of them asked at the same time, confusion transforming their faces.

The rage crept in, like a shivering rat looking for a spot of warmth, a crumb of food. And with every passing day came an increasing anger so intense that Suguru sometimes caught himself shaking uncontrollably before he reeled the fury back in and pocketed it.

He didn’t want it to go away for good; he only wanted to store it and let it build. Wait for the right time, the right place, to unleash it. WICKED had done all this to him. WICKED had taken his life and those of his friends and were using them for whatever purposes they deemed necessary. No matter the consequences. And for that, they would pay. Suguru swore this to himself a thousand times a day.

He didn't like himself very much anymore. He wasn't sure when he'd reached this turning point, but something had cracked within him. And then there was Mika. How could he ever have felt so much for her?

"I'm so sorry, Suguru," she said; her tears were wet against his skin. "I'm so, so, so sorry. They said they'd kill you if we didn't do everything just like they told us. No matter how horrible. I'm sorry!"

Suguru couldn't answer, couldn't bring himself to hug back. Betrayal. The sign on Mika's door, the conversation between the people in his dreams. Pieces were falling into place. For all he knew, she was just trying to trick him again. The betrayal meant he couldn't trust her anymore, and his heart told him he couldn't forgive her.

[sssardonian-ssserpent]

“…I don’t know who this Finn is but ssssomehow you’ve managed to outguess the most omnicidal man in existence. Congrats.”

@finncomet (I’m assuming this is you?)

[baseballbybsmile]

"Babe Ruth - Why Outguessing Ruth Is Baseball's Toughest Problem" (Baseball Magazine - October 1920)

[leletha-jann]

I was very tired driving to work this morning, so I started talking myself through my latest Girl Genius predictions/conspiracy theory to keep myself awake and responding. When I got to work I tried (and failed) to map it all out so I'd remember it.

Since I'm not going to outguess the Foglios, I think the takeaway here is that the conspiracy string people know what they're doing. String, thumbtacks, and bits of paper would have been so much better. You have to have serious graphic design chops to draw a conspiracy theory freehand, which clearly I do not.

ALTHOUGH, if the timestop creature does turn out to be an aspect of Lucrezia, you heard it/her called "Lucreature" here first.

[natehoodreviews]

2022 Year End Compilation

The Ancient Minstrel, Jim Harrison

Hm. A meandering, unfocused disappointment. In the introduction Harrison admitted that he surrendered to fictionalizing his autobiography. I wish he hadn’t. His fictitious flourishes only detract from his usually gorgeous prose.

Eggs, Jim Harrison

Hmmm! Considerably drier than I expected. It feels like he abandoned his usual poetic prose in favor of a more traditional―dare I say Russian―psychological study. The result is surprisingly staid.

The Case of the Howling Buddhas, Jim Harrison

HMMM!!! This was dreadful. Harrison has never been embarrassed by sex, but this novella feels like he wrote it with his penis.

Brida, Paulo Coelho

I have no idea if the magical system Coelho presents here is his own invention or not, but personally I don’t really care. I adored this book and its bizarre yet gentle syncretism of paganism and Christianity. I know many find Coelho’s books unbearably twee, but so far all the ones I’ve read have hit the sweet spot between sentimentality and sincerity. 

Undermajordomo Minor, Patrick deWitt

At a certain point this book started to feel like deWitt wrote it solely to surprise and outguess himself. That’s the only explanation I can think of for a book that takes so many surreal and thematically nonsensical turns. I enjoyed a good deal of it, but I can’t help but wish deWitt had settled it all on a central point or two. That said, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to forget the most bizarre secret aristocratic orgy this side of Eyes Wide Shut.

The Running Man, Stephen King [as Richard Bachman]

Deliciously, succulently furious. I had no idea King had this kind of fury in him. It made an already lean thriller absolutely propulsive. This was the pulpy palate cleanser I’ve been looking for for a long, long time.

The Far Cry, Fredric Brown

This was...very much not what I was expecting. When I picked this book up, I expected a decently entertaining crime thriller. Instead, it’s a slow-burn psychological drama of a man investigating a murder and becoming obsessed with the dead victim. So much of it predicts Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. The first chunk of the book is a bit dry, but once the obsession begins to really take hold of the protagonist it becomes quite engaging.

Reality Check, Peter Abrahams

Apparently, this book won a Young Adult literary award when it was published. All I can say is that if books this dull were considered industry exemplars at the time, then losing an entire generation of young readers to Twilight and dystopian death games suddenly makes much more sense.

Roadwork, Stephen King [as Richard Bachman]

This book makes an interesting counterpoint with Pet Sematary: both films are, in their own ways, about dealing with grief. But whereas Sematary reacts passively with resignation, Roadwork reacts actively with rage. It’s a bit bloated, but the whole thing still vibrates with the anger that makes King’s Bachman books so compelling.

Fever 1793, Laurie Halse Anderson

A brisk and snappy work of young adult historical fiction. Would be fascinated to see what this book would’ve been if it’d been written in the shadow of our current pandemic and its plague of misinformation and anti-vaxx sentiment.

The Thing Around Your Neck, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Adichie’s short stories all, in one way or another, see people trapped between the push and pull of different identities and cultures, whether they’re racial, ethnic, or geopolitical. The opening story, the ghastly and sad “Cell One,” even extends this to see a young man incapable of adapting to the us vs. them mentality of prisoners and prisoner guards after getting arrested over suspicions of murder. It’s a fantastic collection of stories, even if all of them don’t hit equal heights. A personal favorite is “Jumping Monkey Hill.” I could’ve easily read a book-length version of that one.

Patrimony: A True Story, Philip Roth

Knowing that I’ll probably go through something similar with my own father, reading this book was like placing my hand on a hot skillet.

A Lost Lady, Willa Cather

The elegiac downfall of a man, a house, a woman, a nation, a myth. Lovely, sad, and rich with Cather’s unmistakable sense of place.

Jesus’ Son, Denis Johnson

“I had a moment’s glory that night, though. I was certain I was here in this world because I couldn’t tolerate any other place.”

The Violent Bear It Away, Flannery O’Connor

Only someone with a devout faith could write a book with such venom towards organized religion.

The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon

Perhaps choosing this as my first novel to read while mentally burnt out after finishing a semester of seminary wasn’t the best idea.

Mao II, Don DeLillo

Terrifyingly prescient in its vision of a future where terrorism replaces the written word as the most effective means of mass communication. However, the book itself feels inherently disjointed, even within the context of DeLillo’s usual chronological and POV flourishes. Only the prologue and epilogue at the mass Moonie wedding and the revolutionary unrest in Beirut told from the perspectives of the book’s two central women seem to actually engage with DeLillo’s thesis of “the future belongs to crowds.” The middle clump of the book is mostly—both figuratively and literally—tortured writer porn.

Running Dog, Don DeLillo

Migraine-inducing in its byzantinism. This novel’s first half where it was just a pulpy spy thriller was more fun than the philosophically nihilistic second. The actual content of Hitler’s home movie was a brilliant coup, but it did little to relieve the overall turgidness of the overcomplicated narrative.

A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories, Flannery O’Connor

An essential Catholic corrective to the current of gloomy Calvinism that infects so much of American literature. The title story, “The River,” and “A Temple of the Holy Ghost” are sad and beautiful while “Good Country People” and “The Displaced Person” are deliciously nasty.

The Magic Barrel, Bernard Malamud

I enjoyed the modern Jewish parables well enough, but the “American Jew in Italy” stories sapped almost all of my enthusiasm out from reading this book.

The Pale King, David Foster Wallace

Somehow, simultaneously, one of the dullest, most thrilling, most banal, and most touching novels I’ve ever read. Wallace delves into the nature of boredom, proving that the ability to navigate mundanity and monotony is just as central to the human experience as the capacity to comprehend beauty. Parts of this novel lodged into my mind like a splinter, none more than the first chapter which might be one of the single most gorgeous pieces of prose in American literature.

A Really Big Lunch: Meditations on Food and Life from the Roving Gourmand, Jim Harrison

Possibly the finest book I’ve ever read about food, eating, the love of both, and how they all inform the act of living as a bodily human being. You can taste the marrow in this book’s bones.

The Book of Daniel, E. L. Doctorow

The fact that Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were later proven guilty as sin by declassified Soviet documents does nothing to lessen this book as a chilling portrait of how America scapegoats and lynches its poor, dispossessed, and racially marginalized. Also, I could read Doctorow’s descriptions of NYC crowds, streets, neighborhoods, and markets forever.

Homer & Langley, E. L. Doctorow

Oh, how I wish Doctorow had stretched his imaginary history of the Collyer brothers to include 9/11. Also, I feel like Doctorow might have fumbled a possible creative flourish by not revealing that the book itself was a copy of Langley’s fabled newspaper which, upon completion, managed to speculate on the future.

World’s Fair, E. L. Doctorow

Pleasant enough as a childhood autobiography of growing up in early twentieth century New York City, but at times it felt more like Doctorow was writing a laundry list of sense memories than he was the story of his youth. Also, it’s kind of cringy how much of it was recycled from The Book of Daniel.

The Ponder Heart, Eudora Welty

The rare Southern Gothic comedy that’s genuinely clutch-your-side funny, not the sardonic, wince-through-the-tragedy “comedy” of Flannery O’Connor.

Delta Wedding, Eudora Welty

**heavy sigh** You know what this book reminds me of? Those awful late 70s Robert Altman films where he filled his casts with too many damn characters all with barely anything to do. 

As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner

As amazing as everyone says it is. I was a Faulkner agnostic after reading The Sound and the Fury which I admired only on a technical level and Light in August which I didn’t like at all. But this novel was a tour de force portrait of Southern decrepitude writ large with the imagery of the Old Testament and the tragedy of the ancient Greeks.

Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Delightfully morbid, thrilling, and disgusting. Was not expecting this book to go in the direction of weird science, but I’m glad it did.

Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie

It was around the halfway point of this book—right when Saleem and Shiva were about to meet for the first time—that I heard the news that Salman Rushdie had been attacked and stabbed in New York. What a testament for how little has truly changed since his literary career started.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce

Statler: “What was this book called again? A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man?”

Waldorf: “More like Portrait of the Reader as Bored Senseless!”

Both: “D’oh-ho-ho-ho!!”