About to buy Three Body Problem on sale. Any comments on the book so I can determine where to put it in my reading list?
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About to buy Three Body Problem on sale. Any comments on the book so I can determine where to put it in my reading list?
I read the Three Body Problem, expecting a lot of menage a troi. I was disappointed. So put it toward the bottom.
In the meantime, I've been reading The Golden Compass, because I never read that shit as a child. And I'm kinda glad, 'cause a lot of this stuff would have gone over my head as a naive child. This gets intense.
If it's three human body problems you want, you should read Perdido Street Station. The human on human-with-cockroach-head sex is the most tantalizing, pulse pounding I've ever read!
In all seriousness, don't. That shit was fucking disgusting. I know new weird books are supposed to make you queasy, but that was ridiculous.
... wutQuote:
The human on human-with-cockroach-head sex is the most tantalizing, pulse pounding I've ever read!
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uHFXLFpqu0...detail-Lin.jpg
The protagonist's love interest. I imagined her a bit different though. Blonde with blue eyes. Oh, and a human head :D Suck it, China Mieville!
Going down the reading list of enlightened intellectuals leads to some strange places.
When it comes to trippy scifi, give me New Wave any day over this new fetishistic material. Terminal Beach rocked.
I just read Farmer in the Sky again. It makes me happy.
Ahhhh, Heinlein. Good ol' Fascist, libertarian, socialist, capitalist, spiritual, religious, atheist Heinlein.
Oh come on, TE, you son of a bitch! Do you wanna live forever???Quote:
Ahhhh, Heinlein. Good ol' Fascist, libertarian, socialist, capitalist, spiritual, religious, atheist Heinlein.
...Yeah, that about sums it up.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheEconomist
Considering reading some philosopgy of pop culture books. There's a series that has some books on various games I love like BioShock, Final Fantasy, Zelda, Dungeons & Dragons, etc. No StarCraft though, huh, go figure.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_no...Culture+Series
Anyone looked into this? Not sure how strong the quality is but I've always wanted to get into philosophy but dry philosophy I have a hard time getting used to due to the general uselessness of it mixed with the drudgery. If I can mix it in with some fun, maybe I can get a foot in the door.
Can't wait till season 2, though I thought the books were easier to follow than the show. Thanks for telling me about the books!Quote:
Originally Posted by TheEconomist
Gotta finish Revelation Space someday. :P
The books were definitely easier to follow. I liked the characters better too. But, still, always nice to see a scifi show going against the grain and doing something sciency.
Most definitely. I still keep coming back to the trilogy to sort it all out, haha.Quote:
Gotta finish Revelation Space someday. :P
Then read Pandora's Star. Then I'll give you some more :D
Also, random thought of the moment. Just replayed Bioshock Infinite with the DLC. It is the figurative shit. Just wanted to say that.
I doubt it. It sounds like it's just not for you. But if you want to try, the analects of Confucious are in a simple format.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheEconomist
Right now I'm reading about Chinese history. It's pretty weird how some of their ancient emperors and philosophers promoted economic policies remarkably similar to communism. Granted, the base idea of communism in execution is government control, so that's probably why.
Wow, you too?Quote:
Right now I'm reading about Chinese history. It's pretty weird how some of their ancient emperors and philosophers promoted economic policies remarkably similar to communism. Granted, the base idea of communism in execution is government control, so that's probably why.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around the the Cultural Revolution and how they thought killing or exiling martial artists and teachers, scientists and other scholars was a good idea.
Long story short: It primarily stems from the civilization building around the Yangtze River and its loess. Similar to India and Egypt. The one thing large centralized government is good at is marshaling resources. That and the fact that whoever controls the opening of the river controls the whole thing, hence, large, centralized, governments. In the good old days, strong central governments (empires) had an advantage over decentralized governments since the goal back then required large scale economies instead of fine-tuning allocation of resources. Too brain dead to go into anymore detail.Quote:
It's pretty weird how some of their ancient emperors and philosophers promoted economic policies remarkably similar to communism. Granted, the base idea of communism in execution is government control, so that's probably why.
The Chinese also have a fear of decentralizing since, whenever they do, such as during the warring states period or during colonialism. They fear weak governments like Americans might fear government control or theocracies.
The Chinese also had Daoism which was for smaller governments. More with the intent to be in line with nature than industry like capitalism, but, still, not all centralized. Then again, they also had legalism, which is basically the idea that every correct decision by a human behind it requires some legal code to facilitate it.
Yeah, the book I read went into that a lot.
It was also pretty dull, and basically made a Chinese history summary by quoting various perspectives on Chinese history and letting them confront each other. Which wouldn't have been so bad if they didn't quote so much Marxist revisionism.
I've been subjected to Marxist revisionism myself. I sympathize. The problem with academic echo chambers is that everything devolves into narrower and narrower interpretations of multivariate problems despite the seemingly complex models put forth by the intellectuals.
I just like plain facts. If we know something, we know it. If person A went to place B and did action C, I want to know that. Don't tell me patterns over time, tell me what happened. If there's a pattern, let me notice it.
I'm reading the Faerie Path by Frewin Jones. Not because I want to, but because I'm trying to do research on ordinary teenage girls so that I can write better for them. I'm anticipating lots of suck.
Triple post, whatever. In any case, I just read Cancer Ward, and apparently Women's Day on March 8 is of Soviet invention. Originally made in celebration of "women proletariat" all around the world. Yeah.
Doesn't surprise me at all, LOL.
Ironically, Capitalism afforded Women more rights than Communism. As usual.
And did you see the facebook reminder too? Holy crap. Though to be fair, the only reason I know about it is because I read a book from about fifty or so years ago.
Cancer Ward is an okay book, but you have to take it more in terms of a character study/historical commentary rather than a story. The plot kind of just goes on little by little. It's about a bunch of people in a cancer ward, as you'd imagine, and what kinds of cancers they have and with what attitudes they carry on. Being set in 1955, it's also subtextually about what Soviet Russia would do after the death of Stalin.
The theme of the book is more or less that communism is a cancer, and Russia's future could resemble any one of the cancer victims in the ward. They could be cured, suffer some form of amputation, get "secondaries" after the first round of cancer ends, suffer irreversible radiation damage, or get discharged because there's nothing that can be done. As much as I like the historical bent, the ending isn't really fulfilling, because of this theme. Though I guess if someone were to write a sequel based on what actually happened to Russia, that could be interesting.
Gotta say Nissa, you read some interesting books. I thought I read a lot of complex material. Clearly, you've got me beat, especially at this point in my life. Props to you.
Well, it's just because I read a lot of history related things. You've got me beat so far as math/economics goes.
Regardless, props are due. You are awesome.
As an aside, you'd be surprised (or not) how simply having a knowledge of history gives you better economic insight than a lot of economists who do lots of analysis, research, and reading.
That's because they suffer the problem which even Blizzard admitted in LotV: history is understood by looking at it via the backward lens, not by living in the moment. And since a lot of economists are doing it from the latter....Quote:
Originally Posted by TheEconomist
No. No. No. No. No. No.Quote:
history is understood by looking at it via the backward lens, not by living in the moment. And since a lot of economists are doing it from the latter....
Ragnarism (noun): A statement that appears to be a joke but is meant to be taken seriously, often to unwittingly tragic consequence for the person who makes such a statement. Distinct from but related to "non sequitur".Quote:
Originally Posted by ragnarok
Oh Rag, never stop ragging.
Well, right now I'm reading Feuding Allies, a book about all the political drama that went on during WWII and all the flaming egos involved. Holy crap was it bad. It's no wonder Stalin took advantage of them so badly. He was an expert in manipulating the people who didn't take him seriously within the USSR, so manipulating foreigners was just as easy for him.
http://i.imgur.com/dwsR4FG.png
I can't wait for this to arrive. Not quite reading it yet, but still. I was iffy on spending 41$ on a single volume, but I've been good at budgeting lately and have been wanting some Frank Stanford for a year, and the complete works is a good bit of 'some Frank Stanford' in my opinion.
Just got my hands on Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights, by Salman Rushdie; The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu, followup to The Three Body Problem; and a signed copy of James Gurney's (of Dinotopia fame!) Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter. :D
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By the way, Muspelli. Not the exact book, but still. I love this site.
Added to my bookmarks, thanks!
I'm reading Bakuman, a manga about making manga. It's pretty good, but the latter half of it feels a bit like it's trying really hard to stay interesting.
http://starcraft2.judgehype.com/news...-146888/10/#19
JohnnyZeWolf is still triggered, months later. Beautiful thread, beautiful post. Almost literature.
Oh, he's French/Canadian? It all makes sense now.
Hey! Don't hate!Quote:
Originally Posted by TheEconomist
I can confirm; he sounds as dumb in French as he does in English. Here's what he said:
Quote:
This vast majority(people that hate SC2 story on the official US forums) is made of around 12 immature idiots that spend their time worshiping the SC1 manual, posting useless comments -along the lines of "lol I want to see Raynor rape Kerri to avenge Fenix"- and get mad when we remind them of the numerous writing problems of SC1/BW.
These pigeons can cry all they want that it used to be better, they still give their money to Blizzard.
If only he would understand he's being too hypocritical of it all.Quote:
Originally Posted by Muspelli
- - - Updated - - -
Actually, given the critics on the battlenet forums, it's not as complete BS as you'd think. A lot of people after dealing with them grew very exasperated.Quote:
Originally Posted by sandwich_bird
Love Canadians. Not so much the French Canadians.Quote:
Originally Posted by sandwich_bird
Uh...the reason why SC/BW's errors don't get as much criticism is because there weren't as many, and you could still play the games and feel like you were caught up in an awesome sci-fi world. No such feelings in SC2.
So, I tried to read SCG Spectres. It was pretty boring, as it just kept going on about stuff without setting up the characters and why we should care about them. At least Tosh had more personality in it than in SC2.