What are you reading?

Jump to Latest
#121
notice the < > sign, it signifies the choice
left is the jfet, square law (quadratic), right the bipolar junction, exponential with the {tempco}; left is 'harmonic', right is 'uneven harmonic(-s)'
in the right section, x is the base-emittor stimulator (aka vbe), so vbe/25mV, as by the exponential, ugly curved it is no matter what
the ear prefers left, the eye for most the right


Sumer, first civilization. In the pit of two rivers, on the brink of stone and bronze, all stories told, stolen by successors of all and different kind and origin, the winners takes all reinterpreting to their needs. Of all times, like our own.
Current Irak, unrecognisable, long term climate changings unnoticed by contemporain witnesses, fallen by the same cause, dried the marches, new kings upstream (Sargon), capitals everlasting yet a broken arch remains in the desolated desert ("We washed our weapons in the Sea"), Akkadian Paradise, Babylonian Gardens, Great Conquerer, Greek Gods, The Romans, Troubadours betraying arranged love in favour of true, characters pressed (2x!), rebirth, revelation, science, the moon as a touch stone. What about Sumer? Your perception of reality is not the reality, it is your perception and hence not the reality. Sure I left a lot out. Better dont make calculations: boring and laborious. On your knees devoting your whatever.


@ moderators: this is lounge not?
 
#122
I'm not sure I buy Ayn Rand. Linear reason may be OK as far is it goes, but does it have a Heart?

I was reading James Lee Burke: Sunset Limited today.

Dave Robicheaux said:
I remember a Christmas dawn five years after I came home from Vietnam. I greeted it in an all-night bar built of slat wood, the roof raised off the dirt with cinder blocks.

I walked down the wood steps into a deserted parking area, my face numb with alcohol, and stood in the silence and looked at a solitary live oak hung with Spanish moss, the cattle acreage that was gray with winter, the hollow dome of the sky that possessed no color at all.

Suddenly I felt the vastness of the world and all the promise it could hold for those who were still its children and had not severed its ties with the rest of the human family.
Click to expand...

That's poetry, my friends. And we protect our children. 🙂
 
Last edited:
#126
OK, I can dig writers from all over the World. These are people who live their dreams.

One of my favourites is Ursula Le Guin:

Dreams must Explain Themselves

Enjoyed her stories. Little suspected where she was coming from. She explained to me that the people with Heart are forever being driven back into the Reservation.

But at some point, you have had enough. Time to give it a little push in the other direction. You follow? 🙂
 
#129
Steve, here's a new profile picture to use as a follow up to your earlier mask-on-face one. 🙂
 

Attachments

  • egg-on-face.jpg
    egg-on-face.jpg
    37.2 KB · Views: 195
#130
Don’t know exactly what sparked up the flashback, but I’m thinking it might be time to re-read Daniel Quinn’s “Story of B”, “Ishmael” and “My Ishmael”. Anyone here remember the best chronological sequence of those three?
 
#131
Recently finished, "The Essential Book of Fermentation" by Jeff Cox

Now simultaneously reading "Mastering Fermentation" by Mary Karlin and "Fermented: A Four Season Approach to Paleo Probiotic Foods" by Jill Ciciarelli.

Waiting in the wings - "Fermenting for Dummies" but I doubt I will actually read it. Maybe it has some good recipes.
 
#132
My neighbour asked me to put out his rubbish bin recently. Naturally as a man of infinite curiosity I inspected it first. Full of old treasures. Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman movies, for instance.

And a novel called "The Mandelbaum Gate" by Muriel Spark. Written in 1965. "Who she" you say? Well, she wrote "The Prime of Miss. Jean Brodie". Who could forget Maggie Smith in that one?

I was knocked out by the brilliancy of this novel. It's about politics and love and religion in the Middle East ca. 1961. Think Israel aka Occupied Palestine and Trans-Jordan. Apparently Muriel Spark used to work for Political Intelligence in the UK Foreign Office.

You just read a magnum opus like this and think most people just do the best they can. A cheering thought in a World that has otherwise gone nuts. 🙂
 
#133
Life is returning to the old Normal in the UK. We guys getting professinal haircuts and keeping our teeth in good shape, the girls are getting their nails done. 😀

Streets once again clogged with traffic fumes and noise. Clear blue lockdown skies and peacefulness and quiet just a distant memory. 😕

No idea where this minor blip in the World's History is going. TBH, it's not the 50% mortality of the Black Death, is it? 😎

Anyhow, people have thought about this before. Why Bertrand Russell's argument for idleness is more relevant than ever

Strangely there is a school of thought that says we spend far too much time worrying about Money. We should really concentrate on Sport, the Electron Spin, growing a few vegetables, and having fun.

The rest will take care off itself. Clearly the UK has abandoned sound Monetary Policy. Most of us are off to the Beach tomorrow. Whatever the Weather. Be alright.
 
#134
system7 said:
Life is returning to the old Normal in the UK. We guys getting professinal haircuts and keeping our teeth in good shape, the girls are getting their nails done. 😀
Click to expand...

... So, except nice nails, the girls are resorting to unkempt hair and bad teeth?
Is it to maintain distance rules?

I think some the best sci-fi I've read in recent times must be the "Book of the Ancestor" series by Mark Lawrence.
I found it very dense and well put together, in a good way. There are some sentences in those books that pack a chapter or a novel worth of meaning.

Funny how many female writers write of the classic male hero, IMO some of the very best female protagonists have been written by male authors. One exception might be Trudi Canavan, very nice books, exciting read.

For young readers I really like to recommend John Flanagan's Ranger Apprentice series, easy read but well written, can also be a refreshing read for those that have read a lot of heavy books.

Those are some of my favourites of the more modern sort.
 
#136
Will have to read that, I still find that most writers exhibit great amounts of gender bias and generalizations of "differences". Does not matter if it's a male or female writer, some things are equally bad but in different ways.

Hope I don't get into trouble for saying this.
The thing that divides us the most is that we *think* we are different. We all want the same things, and are driven by the same factors. Good food and a comfortable home, nice colleagues, a supporting partner when you need it.

If you get down to the nitty gritty, there's only two somewhat differences between men and women, and they're not even conclusive, just average very slightly out from the rest.
1. Men statistically have a slightly better dimensional understanding.
2. Women statistically have a slightly better social understanding.

That's not to say that women are useless at building lego, or that men are unable to speak to other individuals. But these are the most conclusive statistical differences between the genders, and the actual differences in ability are very small.
AFAIK all other "differences" are caused by upbringing, social systems, gender bias and prejudice inherited from previous generations. And most feminists are equally bad IMO.

That said, I think that some of the (mostly sci-fi) writers that have had a semi-decent gender view, and have written very good books that I liked are mainly British.
Alastair Reynolds, Neal Asher, Terry Pratchett (RIP), Mark Lawrence (British parents, moved from the US to UK at a young age, back and forth a bit). Probably some I forgot to mention.

I've read many other series of books from other authors that I've liked, but most of them exhibit a stronger kind of gender biased view one way or the other. Also interesting to see that authors change over time on some things.
 
Last edited:
#137
For something completely different: Gilles Pudlowski "Pudlo Paris 2020" -- a gourmet guide to the arrondisements, restaurants, salon de the, boucherie, charcutier, pattisier, chocolatiers etc. Even with a limited knowledge of FR it's great to browse.

Also -- just in "Great Society" by Amity Shlaes -- she is book production monster having focused on the economy of the 1920's and 1930's, now focusing on the 1960's.

I think that there are very few women professional poker players.
 
#138
KaffiMann said:
If you get down to the nitty gritty, there's only two somewhat differences between men and women, and they're not even conclusive, just average very slightly out from the rest.

1. Men statistically have a SLIGHTLY better dimensional understanding.

2. Women statistically have a SLIGHTLY better social understanding.


.
Click to expand...

That’s like saying my lower posterior is only slightly hairy! 😀
 
#139
Hahah! 😀
I'll blame it on self reinforcing stereotypes. Actual differences in several controlled studies are very small, the differences are visible after averaging, but we are much more alike than different.

So in a nutshell, what can be said about the differences between men and women? We have seen that there are indeed significant differences between a male and a female brain. But we should be careful not to attach too much importance to these differences as social criteria such as stereotypes play an equally important role in assessing the differences between both sexes.
Click to expand...
Male vs. female brains – is there scientific evidence for our differences? – NeuroNation
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom