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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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Placid Dingo

I should read 'Them' again, having a bit better concept of the political world now.

Reading, and loving The Trial. Also Three Musketeers, and The Moonlit Mind which is a freebie novella from Dean Koontz.
Haven't paid rent since 2014 with ONE WEIRD TRICK.

Triple Zero

Quote from: Rumckle on December 22, 2011, 08:19:45 AM
I just finished reading Anathem by Neal Stephenson, it is a one of the best novels I've read in a while, and I would say that anyone who likes physics, philosophy and mathematics would enjoy it, as it is pretty heavy on that stuff. It also reminded me how awesome geometry is.

I just started reading Them by Jon Ronson, after reading some people mentioning it here, it is both hilarious and slightly disturbing.

Except it goes all QUANTUMZ! near the end and frankly I thought it was kind of longwinded. I never bothered to read the final chapter after I asked the friend I borrowed it from if anything interesting was gonna happen except for "and the Hobbits return to the Shire", so I gave it back.

It had some interesting bits though and he obviously spent a lot of effort in thinking up that world.
Ex-Soviet Bloc Sexual Attack Swede of Tomorrow™
e-prime disclaimer: let it seem fairly unclear I understand the apparent subjectivity of the above statements. maybe.

INFORMATION SO POWERFUL, YOU ACTUALLY NEED LESS.

Rumckle

Yeah, the entire ending was kinda weak. Also, I guess after listening to so many people misuse quantum theory I've kinda become immune to it now, especially in fiction works.
It's not trolling, it's just satire.

LMNO

From what I understand, it wasn't all that misused.  He simply decided to make the Multiple Universes theory the correct answer to the quantum problem, and extrapolated from that.

And the realization that Arbe and the other planets the Geometers are from are alternate copies of Earth Prime is pretty damn cool.

Igor

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on December 23, 2011, 02:09:39 PM
From what I understand, it wasn't all that misused.

Yeah, Lee Smolin for instance said it was the only thing he'd ever read that almost made him believe the many-worlds interpretation.
It's one of the least quantum-abusing stories I've ever read.

To be honest, I had more trouble with the Platonism bits.
Be what you would seem to be - or, if you'd like it put more simply - never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.

LMNO

It amused me that he takes a centuries-old philosophy, and applies it to modern quantum theory; as I understood it, our earth was the Platonic Ideal, and every iteration from there to Arbe were imperfect copies.

Igor

Really? What I got from it was that Arbe was more Platonic than Earth. (And Earth more Platonic than the other two worlds)
Although that may have just been the ideology of one of the groups on the spaceship; that they were on a continuous journey towards more perfection.

He did make the two ideas (Platonism and Quantumz) fit together really well though.
Be what you would seem to be - or, if you'd like it put more simply - never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.

Triple Zero

Ok then I guess my judgement of the QUANTUMZ was heavily coloured by not liking the longwinded tedious descriptions of architecture in the writing style. I had a really hard time dealing with that, from visualizing the layout of the monastery to inside the spaceship, I sometimes had to re-read that stuff 3x to make sense of it and I didn't even like it, but it seemed necessary for the story.
Ex-Soviet Bloc Sexual Attack Swede of Tomorrow™
e-prime disclaimer: let it seem fairly unclear I understand the apparent subjectivity of the above statements. maybe.

INFORMATION SO POWERFUL, YOU ACTUALLY NEED LESS.

LMNO

I'll agree that the writing was often the biggest challenge.  But for some reason, I didn't mind (though I usually do).

Rumckle

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on December 23, 2011, 02:09:39 PM
From what I understand, it wasn't all that misused.  He simply decided to make the Multiple Universes theory the correct answer to the quantum problem, and extrapolated from that.

And the realization that Arbe and the other planets the Geometers are from are alternate copies of Earth Prime is pretty damn cool.

Yeah, it wasn't so much the multiple universe theory of quantum mechanics that I had a problem with (though in general I think there are problems with it), rather it was:

SPOILERS

The quick changing between worlds at the end, when Raz and Ja went into the other universe where everybody was all dead. But because that bit was so confusing and multiple world quantum physics is also confusing, maybe it did make sense and I just had trouble understanding it.


As for the writing, I didn't have too much of a problem with it, probably because lately I've only been reading non-fiction, plus I'm used to reading philosophy works.


Quote from: Igor on December 23, 2011, 03:48:41 PM
Really? What I got from it was that Arbe was more Platonic than Earth. (And Earth more Platonic than the other two worlds)
Although that may have just been the ideology of one of the groups on the spaceship; that they were on a continuous journey towards more perfection.

I thought that was implied by the talk about how information can only flow down through the multiverse flow (or whatever it was called), and that implied that the spaceship could only go up the flow
It's not trolling, it's just satire.

Triple Zero

Ah yes now I remember, it was the Quantum Ex Machina stuff (when the people were/weren't dead) that really bothered me. Maybe it all adds up scientifically, but then the old guy could shift realities with his mind and through chanting, and really that's just magic.
Ex-Soviet Bloc Sexual Attack Swede of Tomorrow™
e-prime disclaimer: let it seem fairly unclear I understand the apparent subjectivity of the above statements. maybe.

INFORMATION SO POWERFUL, YOU ACTUALLY NEED LESS.

El Sjaako

Just finished The great cat massacre and other episodes in French cultural history. It was not as good as the title suggests, but much better than you would expect from a scholarly work about 18th century French people.

Rumckle

Quote from: Cain on December 22, 2011, 10:42:49 AM
Wait until you get to the final chapter, where Ronson and Alex Jones infiltrate Bohemian Grove.

Alex is slightly....excitable.

Haha, that was pretty great, an interesting insight into how the minds of crackpots like Jones work.


Since that I've read The Wall Street Money Machine, which is a collection of three articles about the lead up to the banking collapse, and CDOs and all the bullshit that went on there. I found it fascinating, and it explained what happened rather clearly, definitely made more sense than when I was trying to piece together what happened through random newspaper articles.

I read Superfreakonomics, it is pretty much the same stuff as Freakonomics, so if you liked that you'll like this one, but don't expect any ground breaking revelations of thought. Though if you haven't read Freakonomics I'd suggest reading that instead, this one seemed slightly less complete/more rushed.


I've started reading The Prince, it's pretty cool, but can be a tough going at times with regard to some of the historical references.

I've also started Cat's Cradle as a bit of fiction reading, I really like the writing style, though at the start I was wondering if it was really Sci-Fi at all, because there wasn't anything in the way of amazing futuristic technology. Also, the short chapters make it easy to read in short bursts.

I also just picked up Relativity: A very short guide, mainly for the general relativity section, as while I've studied special relativity a few times, I am yet to look at general relativity (plus I'm also watching the Stanford Uni lectures on youtube).
It's not trolling, it's just satire.

Jasper

I recently went to the El Cerrito free book exchange.

Came back feeling like that scene in Baron Munchausen where they steal all the gold.  I think my spinal discs compacted carrying those books to the car.

Now I don't know what to read next.  :(

Placid Dingo

Nice choices Rum!

The Prince and Cats Cradle are two of my absolute favourites. Bokonism did a lot to shape my own personal brand of Discordia. I remember hearing Richard Kelly was thinking about making a Cats Cradle film.

I'm still reading the Old Testament. Up to Job. Also, Don Quixote.
Haven't paid rent since 2014 with ONE WEIRD TRICK.