Right now I'm reading

buckethead · Post by **buckethead** » Wed May 13, 2015 3:49 am

cleaner464 wrote:
Turdacious wrote:
cleaner464 wrote:I too have been getting my math/science skills back in order. I'm studying the "No Bullshit Guide to Math and Physics" to get back into the swing. Also, I have been using Khan Academy Calculus course. I'm amazed at how much I have forgotten since college.
Doing something similar. Ever check out the Coursera stuff?
My friend is taking a C++ course on Cousera. I haven't looked at it myself.

Which one? I can't find one (in English)

cleaner464 · Post by **cleaner464** » Sat May 16, 2015 5:12 am

Bux, I will ask him and get back to you.

Beer Jew · Post by **Beer Jew** » Sat May 16, 2015 3:06 pm

Going through my Ayn Rand phase right now.

Finished The Fountainhead a week ago, now almost finished Atlas Shrugged.

beefheart · Post by **beefheart** » Sat May 16, 2015 5:26 pm

Waterloo, the first non-fiction by Sharpes creator Bernard Cornwell. A good read.

DARTH · Post by **DARTH** » Sun May 17, 2015 6:40 pm

beefheart wrote:Waterloo, the first non-fiction by Sharpes creator Bernard Cornwell. A good read.

Been wanting to read that, looking to see if it ends up at used Books. I love his writing, no one describes battle better. He writes them in a way where it's easy to see the positions, distances and movement and keep your bearings. A lot of other writers don't do that nearly half as well.

beefheart · Post by **beefheart** » Mon May 18, 2015 9:19 pm

Darf:

Mrs. Beef is a library assistant (not a librarian, because that title is jealously guarded by those who have a Master of Library Science, at least around here) and would surely want me to recommend your local institution.

Wild Bill · Post by **Wild Bill** » Wed Jul 08, 2015 10:40 pm

"Powder mage" trilogy. Some unusual fantasy withf powder, rifles and bayonets.
I am now listening second pardt. Very good.

Turdacious · Post by **Turdacious** » Tue Jul 14, 2015 4:51 am

Escape from Camp 14, by Blaine Harden.

Brutal but great read, fuck North Korea.

Bobby · Post by **Bobby** » Tue Jul 14, 2015 6:55 am

Just read Tom Rob Smiths triogy:Child 44,Secret speach and Agent 6.Couldn`t put them down,well worth the read!

bennyonesix · Post by **bennyonesix** » Wed Jul 15, 2015 3:57 am

Rape of The Mind by Joost Meerloo.

Author was an Psychiatrist who watched and then underwent torture/mindcontrol at the hands of the Nazis. After that he escaped to Britain and worked for the Free Netherlands as an interrogator. And then relocated to the US where he pursued his practice and wrote on the subject.

The book is part autobiography and part analysis of societal pressures that are similar to what he went through.

Really fucking good.

Sangoma · Post by **Sangoma** » Thu Jul 16, 2015 1:51 am

I just finished The Collector by John Fowles. To my shame I it was the first book by this author that I read. Amazing novel.

bennyonesix · Post by **bennyonesix** » Mon Jul 20, 2015 3:51 am

Watching this dude on CSPAN who wrote a book called Arms and the Dudes. About these Miami Beach stoners who got a deal from the US to run guns and ammo to the Afghans right up to 2008... I guess they bought a ton of 50's and 60's Chinese rounds from the Albanians and shipped them to Afghanistan... The NYT blew up the program and that was a death blow to Afghnistan or so says this guy... Looks like a cracking good read. Piss up a rope you ignorant fux if you disagree. I am gonna read it.

Arma virumque cano

milosz · Post by **milosz** » Tue Jul 21, 2015 8:59 pm

Was reading the Art of Fielding because I saw it recommended by various folks - fucking awful, young adult shit. Bailed 40% of the way in, would have thrown the book but it would have damaged my Kindle.

Starting Tishomingo Blues.

bennyonesix · Post by **bennyonesix** » Wed Jul 22, 2015 9:12 pm

Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky. 36 pages in and let's just say I feel like throwing up. It is the distillation of all that I oppose. And presented in the most subtle and cunning mind-fuckery I can imagine.

The Dedication:

Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgement to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins- or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom--- Lucifer.

bennyonesix · Post by **bennyonesix** » Wed Jul 22, 2015 9:19 pm

One more quote that makes a lot of things make more sense:

From page 37 and in the section on the relationship between means and ends:

The essence of Lenin's speeches during this period was "They have the guns and therefore we are for peace and for reformation through the ballot. When we have the guns then it will be through the bullet." And it was.

I will also note that Alinsky is a HUGE fan of Lincoln. lulz.

bennyonesix · Post by **bennyonesix** » Wed Jul 22, 2015 9:30 pm

Sorry but got to put these down:

Machiavelli's blindness to the necessity for moral clothing to all acts and motives- he said "politics has no relation to morals"- was his major weakness.

Page 43

In his Social Contract, Rousseau noted the obvious, that "Law is a very good thing for men with property and a very bad thing for men without property."

Page 43

DrDonkeyLove · Post by **DrDonkeyLove** » Thu Jul 23, 2015 3:12 am

Keep at it B16. I want to understand Alinsky, and his acolytes but haven't been able to bring myself to read him yet.

bennyonesix · Post by **bennyonesix** » Thu Jul 23, 2015 3:32 am

It's done. Easy read. The guy is a genius communicator and manipulator. It is well worth the read. It is nihilism pure and simple. It was no accident he cited Lucifer in his dedication.

It was fascinating. It is like dealing with a sociopath or narcissist. Exhausting and kind of exciting and embarrassing all at the same time. Alinsky bounces between flattering his reader and telling "hard truths" that are really just emotional/psychological abuse and telling puerile jokes and outright nihilism.

In a twisted sense he is "honest", he says that he enjoys nothing more than to insert himself into situations where he creates conflict and then relies on his intuition to increase and perpetuate that conflict. The point of his life is conflict and the sense of calm he gets within the center of the storm of his own creation. He is quite open in his desire to "play God" in this sense. He sees it as an act of creation in the same way God creates.

He is totally unconcerned with goals. He says again and again that they do not matter. Instead it is the "doing" and the "conflict" that is the point.

There is no there, there. It is empty.

it is amazing, he says a few times at the end that this whole thing is a rationalization. People kept asking him why he did the things he did and he had no answer: so he thought about it and came up with this book, this ideology.

It really just seems like a really high functioning psychopath wrote a book teaching sociopaths how to cause as much chaos in the world as possible.

Andy83 · Post by **Andy83** » Thu Jul 23, 2015 4:57 pm

Benny, it makes one wonder what you do for a living. My guess is that you collect a paycheck for something so unimportant and boring that all you do is day dream and think up shit to post on IGx.

bennyonesix · Post by **bennyonesix** » Thu Jul 23, 2015 5:31 pm

I doubt you realize how right you are.

But I do fall in and out of the internet thing.

buckethead · Post by **buckethead** » Thu Jul 23, 2015 9:12 pm

bennyonesix wrote:
But I do fall in and out of the internet thing.

Does it correspond to when you fall in and out of sanity?

Sangoma · Post by **Sangoma** » Tue Dec 15, 2015 11:49 pm

This thread warrants a bump.

I just finished The Heretics, Adventures with the Enemies of Science by Will Storr. Very misleading title, as the text has little to do with science itself, but is rather sobering and humble look at how we see the world around us, how our beliefs are formed, why we do things we do, free will and other stuff. Thoroughly researched and very entertaining.

The Heretics

Sangoma · Post by **Sangoma** » Tue Dec 15, 2015 11:55 pm

Another good recent read: The Rational Male - Preventive Medicine by Rollo Tomassi. A politically incorrect look into gender interaction psychology, with the emphasis on female psyche. The roles of the masculine and the feminine in the society. The feminine has the upper hand, by far.

The Rational Male - Preventive Medicine

Yes I Have Balls · Post by **Yes I Have Balls** » Wed Dec 16, 2015 12:50 am

Just finished The Martian (very good) and The Mayflower: Courage, Community & War by Nathaniel Philbrick (great historical fictionalized account of the Plymouth settlers.

Next on the nightstand is Aurora by Kim S. Robinson (hard Sci-Fi about colonizing a planet in the Tau Ceti system).

tough old man · Post by **tough old man** » Wed Dec 16, 2015 1:08 am

Just finished "Billy and the Boingers"

IGX

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