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Unofficial What are you Reading Thread?

Started by Thurnez Isa, December 03, 2006, 04:11:35 PM

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Mesozoic Mister Nigel

I just cracked open "The Coming Plague".
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Juana

"I dispose of obsolete meat machines.  Not because I hate them (I do) and not because they deserve it (they do), but because they are in the way and those older ones don't meet emissions codes.  They emit too much.  You don't like them and I don't like them, so spare me the hysteria."

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Rococo Modem Basilisk

Quote from: Faust on May 26, 2012, 08:17:50 PMThe other side of it is the self congratulatory wank, how he insinuates inspiring such titles as the dark knight returns and watchmen while agreeing they are among the best comics while at the same time attacking them and calling them the dark age of comics.

I didn't catch that at all while reading it. I remember that he said he gave Watchmen a terrible review, and then Alan Moore turned around and gave Arkham Asylum a terrible review. However, I got the impression that he was claiming that comics of that era were dark for the sake of dark, and that he was a part of the problem. In other words, I interpreted Supergods as the comic book equivalent of the Heiroglyph Project announcement, and his work on All Star Superman appears to be in-line with that.

Speaking of comic books, has anyone else seen GM's work on that other franchise named 'The Avengers'? I scored the first issue, but it finished while I wasn't looking and so far as I can tell it hasn't been released as an anthology yet.


I am not "full of hate" as if I were some passive container. I am a generator of hate, and my rage is a renewable resource, like sunshine.

Lenin McCarthy

The Uncertain Mind: Individual Differences in Facing the Unknown. Should be an interesting read.

Cainad (dec.)

Quote from: Cain on May 27, 2012, 08:19:23 PM
Cainad, it occurs to me: Kellhus is an AI, the Inchoroi are transhumanists.

Not literally, but you know what I mean, yes?


Oh shit, yeah! An intellect that can wholly comprehend and optimize itself, and people that are focused entirely on transcending the mortal condition. Good catch.

EK WAFFLR

Finished House of Leaves.

Reading Focault's Pendulum.
"At first I lifted weights.  But then I asked myself, 'why not people?'  Now everyone runs for the fjord when they see me."


Horribly Oscillating Assbasket of Deliciousness
[/b]

Don Coyote

Finished The Unicorporated Man
It half way read like some kind of weird Libertarian wet dream. This novel takes a billionaire from the early 21st century, cryogenically suspends him for 3 centuries, to be revived in a world with a universal government that spans the solar system but is extremely weak. Everything the government is considered to be the primary supplier of, police, utilities and the like, is open for competition from corporations, of which there are a lot, in a weird turn of events. However the oddest thing is this social norm of EVERYONE being an incorporated person, with the government having 5%, and the parents starting with 20% of the shares of the individual, and gaining education and the like by selling shares of yourself to corps, universities and other people. You are free to do what you want, provided you have a majority of your shares.
The future seems very uptopian, and made me question the validity of not doing things that way. When you look at it from a social standpoint, it makes other people financially invested in your well being, and like wise makes you financially invested in other people. There is also no government central currency, instead the corporations issue their currencies. And in the end it doesn't seem to be a Libertarian wank book.

There is also emergent AIs, and cheap nanotech.

I also read Someone Come to Town, Someone Leaves Town. It was weird. The protagonist is the son of a mountain and a washing machine.


Freeky

You have to sell yourself off to corporations in order to get educated?  How does that seem reasonable in the current light of day?

Don Coyote

Quote from: The Freeky of SCIENCE! on June 07, 2012, 03:06:32 AM
You have to sell yourself off to corporations in order to get educated?  How does that seem reasonable in the current light of day?

Did I say it was?

Don Coyote

FUck, That was flippant. And I apologize.

Ok, from my viewpoint, everyone in society is invested in one way or the other in other people in their society, and many of the people you are invested in have ties to you that they can use to push you around. The only difference is in the novel makes it a blatant (mostly) financially motivated system.

Now I don't want to spoil the book, but while it shows all the positives that came about through this incorporated person idea, there is the obvious contrast of the horrible downsides of not having a control of your life, and the extent that those in power (wealthy) will go to secure a share in someone's life and earnings, as well as the invasiveness of some of the laws regarding incorporation. It actually serves to illustrate how bad things could get under Libertarians, while still seeming all roses.

Anna Mae Bollocks

I saw an actual theory something like that, it say that when you're issued a birth certificate or social security number, I don't remember which, there's a corporation created in your name but you don't own it. I think it was Alex Jones or David Icke or one of those guys, so I didn't pay rapt attention but in some ways it's semi-plausible.

And who was on top, the washing machine or the mountain?  :lol:
Scantily-Clad Inspector of Gigantic and Unnecessary Cashews, Texas Division

Don Coyote

Quote from: Anna Mae Bollocks on June 07, 2012, 03:53:22 AM
I saw an actual theory something like that, it say that when you're issued a birth certificate or social security number, I don't remember which, there's a corporation created in your name but you don't own it. I think it was Alex Jones or David Icke or one of those guys, so I didn't pay rapt attention but in some ways it's semi-plausible.

And who was on top, the washing machine or the mountain?  :lol:

The washing machine lived inside the mountain  :fap:

Anna Mae Bollocks

Quote from: Guru Quixote on June 07, 2012, 04:01:25 AM
Quote from: Anna Mae Bollocks on June 07, 2012, 03:53:22 AM
I saw an actual theory something like that, it say that when you're issued a birth certificate or social security number, I don't remember which, there's a corporation created in your name but you don't own it. I think it was Alex Jones or David Icke or one of those guys, so I didn't pay rapt attention but in some ways it's semi-plausible.

And who was on top, the washing machine or the mountain?  :lol:

The washing machine lived inside the mountain  :fap:

Nassssstaaaaaaay.  :lol:
Scantily-Clad Inspector of Gigantic and Unnecessary Cashews, Texas Division

Rococo Modem Basilisk

Finishing Conjuring Up Phillip, a book written in the 70s trying to make the case that at least some accounts of hauntings are likely to instead be the result of psychokinesis (an idea that became popular later), based on two experiments wherein a group created a fake historical character (with intentional inconsistencies so that such a person could not have actually existed) and then summoned this character (who proceeded to, according to the book, do things like levitate tables). Once I finish it, I'll see if I can find anything trying specifically to debunk it, since the book is kind of a single-point-of-failure. Tangentially, I was considering the similarities with PKD's 2374 experience (from the perspective of questioning whether one could be the result of the other).

Starting Metamagical Themas, which is generally interesting (and more approachable than Godel Escher Bach). I ran into a couple major WTF moments, about which I will rant later.

Rereading the collected works of Charles Fort. Starting on Zamyatin's We. Later, I plan to attack House of Leaves again, now that I have it in dead tree.


I am not "full of hate" as if I were some passive container. I am a generator of hate, and my rage is a renewable resource, like sunshine.