Right now I'm reading

[baffled]

Just looked him up. Looks like a fun series of novels.

I should be good on fiction for a long while because of this thread.

[hideouse]

http://www.thelibertyman.com/downloads/ ... etsnaz.pdf
I bought this in hardback when I was at Ramstein. Lots of fun stuff. His other books are just as much fun.

[Mickey O'neil]

There was a very long thread about this same subject a while back. It may have been the same title. I think it may have been the Reviews forum.

[Wild Bill]

Stumbled on this :)



Audio CDs in MP3 / English: MP3, 64 kb/s (2 ch) | Duration: 12 hours | 2008 | ISBN-10: N/A | ASIN: B0054YPNU4 | 328 MB
Genre: Travel

In his latest collection of death-defying exploits and far-flung travels, Outside Magazine editor Tim Cahill visits the side of an active volcano in Ecuador, the Saharan salt mines and the largest toxic waste dump in the Western Hemisphere. He also ventures to find a Caspian tiger in Turkey and giant centipedes in the Congo. Cahill is one of the last great intrepid journalists, and his thirty wildly entertaining essays display sparkling wit and unstinting curiosity. When not on the move, he debunks hoary notions of the kindness of dolphins and ruminates on religion, death and the perplexing phenomenon of yoga. Charming, incisive and absolutely fearless, Cahill is the perfect travel companion.

[Wild Bill]

Good, but... too big jumps in time :)
Reading second book now.

[seeahill]

And, because I'm working on some stories that include this subject (and because I find this stuff fascinating) I'm reading Last Ape Standing by Chip Walter:

How is this?

Excellent. Written for the layman with some grace and some humor. It's pretty much up to date. (The science of what happened a couple of million years ago, or even 50,000 years ago changes so fast that a lot of what was written even 10 years ago is now out of date.)

Here's a good review of the book:

http://www.pghcitypaper.com/pittsburgh/ ... id=1627822

[DARTH]

"Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West" by Stephen Ambrose

About half way through it, great read.

Badmotherfuckers!

A good book also to get the spectrem of what the Natives were really like. Some were peaceful folks, some were fucking warlike savages and some were just greedy little 3rd World like animals.

As someone who co heads a Dojo it's a great study in shared leadership.

[milosz]

Cheryl Strayed, Wild - so far, meh. The years when she was shooting dope and fucking random dudes might have been a better read.

[buckethead]

And, because I'm working on some stories that include this subject (and because I find this stuff fascinating) I'm reading Last Ape Standing by Chip Walter:

How is this?

Excellent. Written for the layman with some grace and some humor. It's pretty much up to date. (The science of what happened a couple of million years ago, or even 50,000 years ago changes so fast that a lot of what was written even 10 years ago is now out of date.)

Here's a good review of the book:

http://www.pghcitypaper.com/pittsburgh/ ... id=1627822

Thanks, I'll check it out

[Garm]

The science of what happened a couple of million years ago, or even 50,000 years ago changes so fast that a lot of what was written even 10 years ago is now out of date.

Thanks for the opportunity to make an important point: IT'S NOT SCIENCE. Since we can only know a miniscule percentage of what happened x years in the ancient past as the result of educated guesses vis the fossil and geological records, the rest is speculation. That's why it changes all the time, and today's general concensus of experts inevitability becomes tomorrow's quaint notion.

Anything that ends in -ology is retarded.

[seeahill]

The science of what happened a couple of million years ago, or even 50,000 years ago changes so fast that a lot of what was written even 10 years ago is now out of date.

Thanks for the opportunity to make an important point: IT'S NOT SCIENCE. Since we can only know a miniscule percentage of what happened x years in the ancient past as the result of educated guesses vis the fossil and geological records, the rest is speculation. That's why it changes all the time, and today's general concensus of experts inevitability becomes tomorrow's quaint notion.

Anything that ends in -ology is retarded.

I'll buy part of some of that.

And yet ... there's always the question of what makes us human and how did we get here. I wrote about a paleoanthropologist whose theory, in short, is that early humans (Homo erectus in this case) evolved to cope with changing climate. Why, for instance, did the Homo erectus tool kit at Olorgasailee, Kenya consist entirely of hand axes for @800,000 years and then, about 400,000 years ago become much more sophisticated. Along with an expanded brain case. He hypothesized climate change during that period. So a huge earth drilling machine that could take core samples out of the earth was brought in. And when they examined the core that dated back 500,000 years ago, guess what they found?

[buckethead]

What about Scientology

[Turdacious]

The science of what happened a couple of million years ago, or even 50,000 years ago changes so fast that a lot of what was written even 10 years ago is now out of date.

Thanks for the opportunity to make an important point: IT'S NOT SCIENCE. Since we can only know a miniscule percentage of what happened x years in the ancient past as the result of educated guesses vis the fossil and geological records, the rest is speculation. That's why it changes all the time, and today's general concensus of experts inevitability becomes tomorrow's quaint notion.

Anything that ends in -ology is retarded.

I'll buy part of some of that.

And yet ... there's always the question of what makes us human and how did we get here. I wrote about a paleoanthropologist whose theory, in short, is that early humans (Homo erectus in this case) evolved to cope with changing climate. Why, for instance, did the Homo erectus tool kit at Olorgasailee, Kenya consist entirely of hand axes for @800,000 years and then, about 400,000 years ago become much more sophisticated. Along with an expanded brain case. He hypothesized climate change during that period. So a huge earth drilling machine that could take core samples out of the earth was brought in. And when they examined the core that dated back 500,000 years ago, guess what they found?

A few empty PBR cans, cigarette butts from the res, and some Mannatech packets?

[seeahill]

PBR, butts and Mannetech. Bingo.

[Garm]

The problem is multiple definitions. A proper scientific theory predicts a testable result. Ancient history, zoology, etc., cannot be sciences because they look backward and can thereby only produce maybes that cannot be refined by experiment.

Not science.

[seeahill]

The problem is multiple definitions. A proper scientific theory predicts a testable result. Ancient history, zoology, etc., cannot be sciences because they look backward and can thereby only produce maybes that cannot be refined by experiment.

Not science.

So why doesn't that brief example I just wrote qualify?

Welcome back, BTW.

[Garm]

The problem is multiple definitions. A proper scientific theory predicts a testable result. Ancient history, zoology, etc., cannot be sciences because they look backward and can thereby only produce maybes that cannot be refined by experiment.

Not science.

So why doesn't that brief example I just wrote qualify?

Welcome back, BTW.

You can't predict something that already happened. Pretty simple, that's why they can successfully hoodwink each other. It's scholarship, not science.

[seeahill]

So, Galileo wasn't a scientist but a scholar?
Astrophysicists and cosmologists are not scientists?
I mean, the Big Bang already happened.

[buckethead]

Welcome back Garm. Your thesis is only half wrong, though. A model derived by observing and speculating about the past can be quite scientific if it successfully predicts something in the future. A theory cannot be, nor should it ever be thought of as, "proven". I would agree, though, that most "why something evolved..." type of questioning does not fit any real type of scientific inquiry.

[The Crawdaddy]

Like the series, so I thought I'd read. Pretty impressed with how well HBO did with the adaptation. Pretty close with some minor detail changes really. Good read for just entertainment so far.

[DARTH]

Like the series, so I thought I'd read. Pretty impressed with how well HBO did with the adaptation. Pretty close with some minor detail changes really. Good read for just entertainment so far.

Is that the only book in the series you read so far?

If so it gets better than the shows.

Enjoy!

I'm waiting for Martin to write another one.

[Wild Bill]

While I will wipe my ass hole after a muddy shit with Iggulden's Caesar books, the Genghis shit is such a good read and he actually bothered to learn about the people this time.

I read them all, and the boy's will have it on their reading list in their teens.

Now reading fifth (last) book. Good reading :) Interesting how word "yam" was adopted in Russian language :)
yam rider = yamschik

And that old folk song

Steppe is all around
And still long way ahead
In that wild forlon stepe
Yamschik was going to froze
...

rueful song :)

[Wild Bill]

I am tired from english, next book will be in russian :) "Golden horde" trilogy by Khazakstanian author Esenberlin Ilyas

[Kirk]

While I will wipe my ass hole after a muddy shit with Iggulden's Caesar books, the Genghis shit is such a good read and he actually bothered to learn about the people this time.

I read them all, and the boy's will have it on their reading list in their teens.

Now reading fifth (last) book. Good reading :)

Huh, somehow I didn't realize there were 5 books. I'm on #3 and thought it was the last one.

[nafod]

I'm reading this right now, a book about books, and it is super interesting. Perfect for picking up and reading 5-10 pages or going on a long chug. From the book's intro...

The 700-year history of the novel in English defies straightforward telling. Geographically and culturally boundless, with contributions from Great Britain, Ireland, America, Canada, Australia, India, the Caribbean, and Southern Africa; influenced by great novelists working in other languages; and encompassing a range of genres, the story of the novel in English unfolds like a richly varied landscape that invites exploration rather than a linear journey. In The Novel: A Biography, "Michael Schmidt does full justice to its complexity.

...A few novels ask to be re-read and become living parts of memory that affect how we hear, speak, see, feel and act. Those novels and their authors are this book’s quarry