I've been on a long and steady roll reading classic literature, both fiction and non-fiction. I think it's important to get a perspective from earlier times that influenced our current culture and also because many of these works have withstood the test of time.

However, I'm having real trouble reading some of the non-fiction e.g. Plato's Republic and Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals. With both fiction and non-fiction I accompany my readings with Sparknotes to make sure I'm not missing anything important. In the case of non-fiction I often can barely get a cohesive thought out of the original text. In some cases the text is too old to be understood on it's own and in others the author has great ideas but poor writing (e.g. Nietzsche, famously). But Sparknote's is much too brief—I'd like a more involved experience.

My request is this: I'm looking for books (or resources to find such books) about classic non-fiction that

1. distill the concepts without watering them down
2. provide context with either modern culture and/or other works that are related
3. are written for an intelligent layman; prose meant to communicate to a non-expert audience but with scholarly rigor

Basically, I read at a high level but I am not a professional scholar of literature, philosophy or history, yet I would like to have a bridge to such an understanding.

EDIT: I found this site to be exactly what I was looking for: https://plato.stanford.edu/index.html

This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

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Some years ago, I wrote a book about telecommuting, including a section about the reasons people don't want to be remote workers. High on the list was, "It's too hard to move up in the company" because if you're out of sight, you're out of mind.

Well, now suddenly nearly everybody is a telecommuter, whether or not they like the idea. So that particular skill is particularly relevant. And I've been assigned an article on "How to 'manage up' when you work from home." I'd like your input.

My article is meant to compile practical how-to tips for people working from home on “how to stay on your boss's radar.” What advice do you have to share?

Ideally: Give me a bullet point (“Do XYZ”), why (“It accomplishes this”), and perhaps an anecdote sharing how it made a difference.

Please don’t expend energy telling me why it’s important, or what the barriers are. Take that as a given. I’m looking for solid “Do this” suggestions.

First, some context. The latest from the US justice department saying that they will be focusing on finding "ANTIFA leaders" is incredibly troubling for anyone involved in leftist groups. I foresee a lot of good activists, regardless of how far left they actually are, arrested on trumped up charges in order to squash opposition.

Organizing is essential to resist fascism. This is made more difficult by the pandemic, as in person meetings bring a huge, almost unacceptable risk. As such, many orgs have been turning to platforms like Slack instead. Trouble is, Slack logs are not encrypted and I am certain that as a business based in the US Slack will not put up a fight to keep user data safe if the feds come calling.

I'd like to collect a decent list of alternatives. Important factors include encryption, ownership, open source status, ease of use, federation, scalability, hosting, cross platform, and anything else you can think of.

Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

hello hello dear friends !

I am here once again a little late on my curry posting this week... the whole world is just so in shambles right now! It's a bit of a heavy subject so I'll refrain from talking too much about it, but it's certainly affected me personally if I am honest. Might be a factor in why I decided for something so simple this week hahaha.

Anyways, we've got another Chana Masala this week ! Yes yes, the third week I do this recipe, and it's still quite a kicker ! This time, I used a recipe from the trusty ol' Bon Appetit, which was honestly probably the easiest one of all the ones I have made. Just put some tomatoes on some onions and add curry powder and chickpeas and BLAMO ! a delicious, hearty meal ! It's still crazy to me that such things like this exist... It took me like, what, a few minutes to dice and brown an onion ? then wait 20 minutes ? and then I get to have such a nice and happy time with my parents eating at the table together and cherishing moments together... all from something as simple as this! it really is a marvel, I tell ya.

Picture of the dish: https://imgur.com/a/MORtjiv
Recipe: https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/chana-masala
Question of the day: What is a food that you absolutely adore that is also quite healthy ?

Have a great day and STAY SAFE ! <3
Tomi, your friendly neighbourhood marshmallow~

With all the news about President Trump declaring "antifa" a domestic terror organisation, I heard a few local newsreaders saying this word on television. And their pronunciation of this word surprised me.

I've been mentally pronouncing this word as "AN-ti-fa", with the emphasis on the first syllable and a short vowel sound in the second syllable.

They pronounced it as "an-TEE-fa", with the emphasis on the second syllable, with a long vowel sound in that syllable.

My pronunciation is influenced by knowing that "antifa" is short for "anti-fascist". I don't know of any word with the prefix "anti-" where the second syllable is emphasised and the "i" sound is lengthened. Usually, the emphasis in "anti-" words is placed on the first syllable: "AN-ti-bac-TE-ri-al"; "AN-ti-TE-rro-rism"; "AN-ti-gen"; "AN-ti-bo-dy". So, I naturally emphasised the first syllable in "antifa": "AN-ti-fah".

When I heard the newsreaders saying "an-TEE-fa", it makes the word sound like an imported word/name from Spanish or Portuguese or Italian.

Is there a common pronunciation for this word? How do you pronounce it?