I just finished it. The Count of Monte Cristo came to my mind too during the ‘prison’ sequence, which was fairly good.
As far as the HTC scenario goes, it illustrates both the upside and downside: the ability to focus on something for a long interval, but also the massive reduction in quality of life. (It also mentions in passing the aging problem: the uncle is 40 but ‘looks 60’ and dies early, in the middle of his research—which he might have been able to finish if he had spent more time in realtime so he could await future replies from researchers & new textbooks or results.)
02:07:59AM I see that it’s on libgen.info, so I’ll give it a look.
04:16:13AM I just finished it.
I guess it is a short book, but man! You don’t kid around.
As shown in the book, the aging thing can in very narrow circumstances be a feature not a bug, but when I daydream about using a secret HTC to amaze everyone with my productivity and learning speed, the daydream includes some means of not aging faster than everyone else. (This makes me think of some sort of SF Dorian Gray.)
I just finished it. The Count of Monte Cristo came to my mind too during the ‘prison’ sequence, which was fairly good.
As far as the HTC scenario goes, it illustrates both the upside and downside: the ability to focus on something for a long interval, but also the massive reduction in quality of life. (It also mentions in passing the aging problem: the uncle is 40 but ‘looks 60’ and dies early, in the middle of his research—which he might have been able to finish if he had spent more time in realtime so he could await future replies from researchers & new textbooks or results.)
I guess it is a short book, but man! You don’t kid around.
As shown in the book, the aging thing can in very narrow circumstances be a feature not a bug, but when I daydream about using a secret HTC to amaze everyone with my productivity and learning speed, the daydream includes some means of not aging faster than everyone else. (This makes me think of some sort of SF Dorian Gray.)
Gwern probably has a better version of the HTC that allows you to spend 365 hours to each hour of realtime.