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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/05/u...tegy.html?_r=1
The New York Times just blew bathrobegate wide open. Apparently, Trump wears bathrobes in his home. Sickening. I mean, these reports are uncorroborated by a single anonymous source who gives the sneaking appearance of saying exactly what people want to hear, but, I mean, think to yourself, isn't Donald Trump the kind of person that would wear a bath robe in his house? Monstrous.
New York Times has long since been a propagandic rag, intent on making people feel certain ways rather than simply reporting news. That's nothing surprising.
Still better than HuffingtonPost
Everything is better than the Huffington Post. Except for BuzzFeed. BuzzFeed is everything that is wrong with humanity at the moment.Quote:
Originally Posted by sandwich_bird
Never has a truer statement been made.Quote:
"Except for BuzzFeed. BuzzFeed is everything that is wrong with humanity at the moment."
Just started reading Leviathan Wakes by James SA Corey - it's the space opera book series that The Expanse show is based off I think, so I want to read the books first before I watch the show (since the show looks good)
Books are much, much, much better than the show. Or, at least, the story is geared towards a novel presentation. Most of the story can't be shown in exchanges between characters as well as with exposition about the overall happenings of the solar system.
Good to know - I always prefer the books to the movie/show anyway, so I figured this would be better!Quote:
Originally Posted by TheEconomist
On a side note, who here has read Seveneves by Neal Stephenson? Book of the century - if you haven't read this one, pick it up NOW. Amazing.
I own it and started it. Was excited for it. But I have Neal Stephenson fatigue after reading Reamde (massive), Snow Crash, and Diamond Age in the same year.
Just got done reading Why Does He Do That?, a book on men who are controlling/abusive. It's got some good things to day, like how abuse comes from false values rather than mental disorders, but it has some weird problems. Like, it states that the Little Mermaid is about abuse-creating values (a woman throwing her life away for a man) when it's really about the dumb choices of teenage girls (Disney) or gaining a soul (original). It also claims that it's sexist for a boy to have an all-boy birthday party. Um, not really. Little boys aren't motivated like that. They just want to hang out with people who like the same things they do, and usually that's going to be other boys.
Not that I've known any boys to be insistent on that point.
I like this thread. People need to post more in this thread.
Right now I'm reading multiple books (not really a great system, but there you go) and one is Private Truths, Public Lies, which is a book about "preference fabrication", where people pretend to agree with general consensus for fear of social stigma. It's a bit weird so far, but I like how unemotional it is -- too many nonfictions these days try to sound like novels, and that's pretty annoying.
I've read a lot of books recently. I would post about them but no one responds.
Also, I pretty sure I wrote a response about the book 'Why Does he Do That' but it's not here .. so .. 'kay
Yeah, that sounded like the kind of thing you would respond to.
So, just to ask, as a boy, did you ever want an all-boys party?
No. All of my parties were with both genders, and it turned out fine. Except for my laser tag birthday party where the girls bitched endlessly about how aggressive and boring it was. Somehow I left thinking it was all my fault. I remember it being pretty embarassing. I was hot shit with the boys though, but, somehow, I really only remember the bitching of the girls.Quote:
So, just to ask, as a boy, did you ever want an all-boys party?
One of the girls later had a stupid-fucking look-at-me!! present-opening party at Chuck E Cheese's. The girls loved every minute of it. I gave up.
The beginning of red-pill wisdom.
So, if the book was trying to say something about boys not wanting girls at parties, maybe that's why :D But I'm sure he has a 'Boys are dicks" argument too. Granted, we were less than ten (I'm thinking 7 or 8) and kids are dumbasses.
I decided birthday parties were stupid shortly after and stopped throwing them. Haven't had a party in, like, half my life. It's great. The only side effect is that I sometimes forget how old I am for a bit after my birth date since there's no one to make a big fucking deal about the arbitrary number change.
Lol. Well, actually, how the book stated it was that parents should be careful about any suspected "sexism" in their sons, like, if a boy says he only wants boys at his party, the parent should say, "No, that's sexist." As someone who's worked with kids before, I found that horrifying, because kids aren't really aware of sexism, and you shouldn't introduce them to adult conflict like that.
I'm now reading a book called Opening Heaven's Door. It's about near death experiences and out of body experiences, and how weak the arguments are against them -- basically just materialists finding any excuse to deny them. I liked the book at first, but it's really governed by the perceptions of the writer, and feels very penned-in by how she feels about spirituality. Basically, I'd like to read the same type of book by someone else, just to get a cross-opinion by someone who thinks differently.
Not to mention that her editor didn't get on her case about run-on sentences. And she has a hint of "treat the audience like they're stupid", as she continually adds unnecessary brackets to quotations. Like, she literally adds "[also]" to someone's quotation. It's not like "also" is a word that clarifies all that much. I know this is a nitpicky thing, but I read a lot of nonfiction, and when you see all those unnecessary brackets additions all the time, it gets really annoying.
Maybe the boy wants a damn boy birthday. Stop ruining childhoods feminists!
I had like one birthday party in my life (that I remember) and that was back when I was 5, everything after that was simply going to the store to buy some toys/video games.
:/
I've just finished the last book of N. K. Jemisin's Inheritance Trilogy, composed of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, The Broken Kingdoms, and The Kingdom of Gods. While she describes her books as romance, they most definitely fall in the realm of fantasy. The characters are beautifully crafted, the mythology extensive and painstakingly created. The first book in the series stumbles around a bit, but from there the series takes on a more professional feel.
I can't wait til she finished the Fifth Season series, a dystopic fantasy.
That's at least one step above my birthdays as a kid. One year my brother had to pawn his VCR so that we could have cake. No presents. I did have one birthday party at a skate rink one year. I don't recall there being any boys, though I made no effort to ban them. Is that sexist too, feminists?Quote:
Originally Posted by KaiserStratosTygo
I haven't heard of those books you mentioned, Khas, but good to know that there's something cool out there to try.
No, you're just protecting yourself from the nasty, violent, dangerous boys.Quote:
Is that sexist too, feminists?
http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love...emale-orgasms/
... there are no words ....
Can I sue Samsung for invading the safe space of my Tablet when this came into my newsfeed without my consent. Pretty sure I've been sexually assaulted.
Oh cool, something trolly. Can't use that in my project, though. Sexual stuff would probably be too inappropriate.
...but I really want to, because my teacher is a male feminist.
Seriously, why would the analytics put a cosmopolitan article on your tablet? Been checkin' out those women's magazines? ;)
There's no analytics involved. It's Flipboard. It shows the most popular feeds. I don't even read news, much less on my tablet, which might as well be a Camera only since that's all I use it for.
You could also use it for Dungeons and Dragons PDFs. Super handy for that kind of thing.
I'm waaaay too lazy (busy? no lazy) for D&D
I just read Boys and Girls Learn Differently by Michael Gurian. It's pretty good. Granted, I kinda wish it had been more academic, but apparently it's supposed to be a guide for teachers. Anyway, it basically talks about the differences between boys and girls. Stuff like how girls are better at language, and guys at spacial relation. Probably the most interesting part was how apparently guys' "resting brain" is a lower part, meaning that guys are more impulsive, but also more able to make quick decisions in minimal time. Hence all those internet gifs of dads saving children from falling from things.
I'm reading the Shape of Inner Space, which is about Calabi-Yau manifolds and the possible geometry of a ten/eleven dimensional universe. It's a bit (ha, bit) beyond me, but it's always good to try things beyond what we know, so we can try to know them. I'm reading it to get ideas for a sci fi story, but the problem is it's written by a math guy, which automatically makes it harder to draw inspiration from.
With pardon to Econ for his moved romance stuff, I wish someone would post here besides me. But for now, I insist on using this thread to air my reading-related grievances.
So I tried to read Man of the Century, a book on John Paul II. It sucked, and for really stupid reasons. If any of you out there want to write nonfiction, remember that it's always a good idea to avoid unnecessary brackets in quotations. Nothing ruins a good quote like you inserting your own spin on someone's statement. For example, bad grammar in a quote should not be corrected unless the sentence is otherwise not understandable. Otherwise you're destroying the personality of the person quoted. Likewise, don't replace major words with words of your own. The author of this book, Jonathan Kwitney, inserted "[dispute]" into someone's quote, replacing the word that the speaker originally used. Um, why bother quoting someone if you're basically going to change the meaning of the statement? Likewise.....excessive ellipses...also...destroy...the meaning of a quotation. That's not even going into his rampant biases, his constant changing of settings and topics, and a lack of narrative flow.
The moment that really kicked me out of this book is when Kwitney was talking about Descartes, and then, when someone said "Post-Cartesian", he added [after Descartes]. Um, really? Anyone who has taken a math class in the past ten years knows what "Cartesian" is, and for those who didn't remember would certainly get it from context. Otherwise they probably wouldn't be reading a two-inch thick book.
All my whining is to say that nonfiction needs technique.
*sigh*
I'm also reading an anthology of Albert Einstein's writings. Dude was a total socialist, and I'm not making that up. He advocated the unification of all the world's militaries, to the point where a military would not represent the interest of the country where it is located. He was very anti-nationalist, and didn't seem to realize that a unified military would make it real easy for a tyrant to have a unified army. To be fair, I'm only a little ways in, and the stuff so far predates the communistic things that would have disproved such sentiments.
With respect to Einstein, I think he had some pretty good motivation to be opposed to nationalism.
True. It didn't come out of nowhere. It's just such an unbalanced, unresearched opinion, that it becomes troublesome to anyone who thinks his scientific intelligence means he has political intelligence.
Though to be fair, Einstein does repeatedly mention that his intelligence is primarily in science. He doesn't claim that he knows everything.
A Jewish intellectual in the 20h century proposing world government? Why is this unique perspective not discussed more often?
Hey, I'm just saying what was in the book. Besides, not everyone has studied this period as much as you.
It's kinda fascinating, though. You've got all those people who claim "it was a simpler time then," when really that time was just as complicated as now, or any other period in time.
I haven't studied the period, but I know that libertarian-leaning Jews weren't invented until after the HolocaustQuote:
Besides, not everyone has studied this period as much as you.
Day to day lives were simpler, most people were still just farmers and rural.
Eh, is working at McDonalds really that much more complicated? Nah, we just think life is more complicated now because we have better communication.
Anyway, I don't think I'm going to finish the book. I've got other things to read, and it's apparently an edited compilation. Like, apparently Einstein got some criticism from feminists after a visit to the US, and he responded to them. The book, however, only includes three sentences of his response, and doesn't mention what problem the feminists apparently had. Disappointing. Besides, I have to read things that are better for what I'm writing.
It's still pretty funny that Einstein was so socialist. I should have known it after reading that he hung out with Charlie Chaplin.
Read the Cyber Effect by Mary Iken a couple of months ago. Thought it was a good book, though some things were taken out of context.
Life is more complicated. Facebook alone complicates things immensely.Quote:
Nah, we just think life is more complicated now because we have better communication.
Lives are so easy that people now are just thinking up ways to make life more complicated just to not be bored.
Let's see...I'm nearly through a book on emotional strength by Charles Stanley, but I can't remember the title right now. Also working on a book on the Korean War, a book on space politics, and a book on Christianity in China.
Books are great.
I finally obtained the novelization of the Rage game from 2011 (or was it 2012). Am comparing it to the game right now
I'm in the middle of the complete works of O. Henry right now.
He's a good writer, but he keeps referencing things that aren't necessarily common knowledge. For example, in many of his stories he talks about being clutched by Morpheus (who I assume is a Greek god or something) in reference to sleep. He'll also get his references slightly wrong because his characters are often witty southerners or half-civilized guys living on the frontier. Not to mention that O. Henry lived over 100 years ago, so his language is, shall we say, rather not politically correct. I'm not bothered by that usually, but...there's a lot of n-words, and "white" is used as a compliment. Granted, it's some of the characters and not the plain narrative using that kind of language, but still.
The Stormlight Archive The Way of Kings
It's probably one of the biggest fantasy novels I've ever read. Have any of you read it before?