Unofficial What are you Reading Thread?

[Cain]

Also, while I'm posting here:

Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers
Dan Simmons, Hyperion
The Cambridge Companion to Hannah Arendt
Phillip Bobbit, Achilles Shield

[BADGE OF HONOR]

Dan Simmons, Hyperion

Have you read his latest two books?  They're...odd.

[Cain]

Dan Simmons, Hyperion

Have you read his latest two books?  They're...odd.

No, can't say I have.  I've heard mixed things about Simmons, mainly that when he is on form he kicks ass, but when he isn't he sucks donkey balls, and that he can switch between the two with disturbing speed.  Also this is the first book of his I have read, despite having meant to start reading him for 3 years now.

I have a lot of backed up fiction on my waiting list.

[Triple Zero]

I don't mind individual files, I'm just not going to do any collections for a while.

Also, I have one that someone else prepared earlier.

http://rapidshare.com/files/178566994/NoTechHack.rar

Also also, you may want to throw this on an RSS feed http://avaxhome.ws/ebooks/security_info/hacking_hackers

thanks!

[Brotep]

Nice.  Forgot about this thread...

CIA Human Resource Exploitation Manual
Army Field Manual 34-52 (Intelligence and Interrogation)
The User's Manual for the Brain by Richard Bandler
Absolute Magic by Derren Brown
Tricks of the Mind by Derren Brown
Pure Effect by Derren Brown
Billion Dollar Bunko: How to cheat at everything by Simon Lovell
The Art of Seduction by Robert Greene
Get Anyone to Do Anything by David J Lieberman
The Mystery Method by Mystery
Rules of The Game by Neil Strauss
The Book of Tells by Peter Collet

Bandler, really?

[Pariah]

Dress Your Family In Corduroy and Denim
The Chosen (for school)

[Cain]

Nice.  Forgot about this thread...

CIA Human Resource Exploitation Manual
Army Field Manual 34-52 (Intelligence and Interrogation)
The User's Manual for the Brain by Richard Bandler
Absolute Magic by Derren Brown
Tricks of the Mind by Derren Brown
Pure Effect by Derren Brown
Billion Dollar Bunko: How to cheat at everything by Simon Lovell
The Art of Seduction by Robert Greene
Get Anyone to Do Anything by David J Lieberman
The Mystery Method by Mystery
Rules of The Game by Neil Strauss
The Book of Tells by Peter Collet

Bandler, really?

Alot of his stuff is pure bullshit, I will admit.  But the fact it is pure bullshit which has sold large suggests its worth studying, since anyone who can sell bullshit must have some ability at manipulation.  Also, NLP has had a massive impact on self-help/management, and while I doubt its effectiveness at what it claims to solve, I don't doubt its effectiveness in getting New Age idiots with lots of money to hand their hard-earned cash over to you.

Its more a contextual thing, than useful in and of itself.

[Brotep]

Alot of his stuff is pure bullshit, I will admit.  But the fact it is pure bullshit which has sold large suggests its worth studying, since anyone who can sell bullshit must have some ability at manipulation.

It doesn't take much, though.  If you paint it yellow and call it a banana, the monkeys will buy it.

Also, NLP has had a massive impact on self-help/management, and while I doubt its effectiveness at what it claims to solve, I don't doubt its effectiveness in getting New Age idiots with lots of money to hand their hard-earned cash over to you.

Oh oh, another problem...New Age idiots don't have any hard-earned cash--they gave it all to "Ramtha" 

Its more a contextual thing, than useful in and of itself.

...k.  Well anyway, you don't need to defend your reading choices to me, but I'm just not seeing it.

[Dr Goofy]

How to break a terrorist by Matthew Alexander

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

Nice.  Forgot about this thread...

CIA Human Resource Exploitation Manual
Army Field Manual 34-52 (Intelligence and Interrogation)
The User's Manual for the Brain by Richard Bandler
Absolute Magic by Derren Brown
Tricks of the Mind by Derren Brown
Pure Effect by Derren Brown
Billion Dollar Bunko: How to cheat at everything by Simon Lovell
The Art of Seduction by Robert Greene
Get Anyone to Do Anything by David J Lieberman
The Mystery Method by Mystery
Rules of The Game by Neil Strauss
The Book of Tells by Peter Collet

Bandler, really?

Alot of his stuff is pure bullshit, I will admit.  But the fact it is pure bullshit which has sold large suggests its worth studying, since anyone who can sell bullshit must have some ability at manipulation.  Also, NLP has had a massive impact on self-help/management, and while I doubt its effectiveness at what it claims to solve, I don't doubt its effectiveness in getting New Age idiots with lots of money to hand their hard-earned cash over to you.

Its more a contextual thing, than useful in and of itself.

NLP has a lot of bullshit associated with it, but not of the New Age variety. I'd like to see evidence of where you're making that connection to New Age, Cain.

Also, what claims do NLPtards make that you doubt?

[Cain]

The New Age connection is that of aim, mostly.  The whole self-help and actualization vibe is very prevalent among the New Age movement, and while one could claim that in and of itself that is not evidence, that it also makes grandiose claims (I swear one of Bandler's flunkies compared him to Socrates and Plato.  For real, not even in a joking context) and little in the way of testable evidence suggests a connection. 

There is also the business connection.  Several clever post-Marxist types have often noted a link between New Age thinking and what they would call Late Stage Capitalism, and NLP does seem to be marketed strongly to management types, with a heavy focus on sales (both on the "teacher" selling the program to you, and the utility of the program in sales).  There are also strong links with the Human Potential Movement.

As for claims, I doubt, for example:

That if one person can do something, anyone else can learn it (Roger Dilts is a main culprit here)
That the emphasis on non-verbal behaviour in the singular is testable or useful (obviously there will be some universal and localized body language, based in biology and culture, but that is not exactly what is claimed)
That primary representational systems actually exist

Its also interesting to note that no Neuropsychologists I am aware of cite NLP as an influence on how they believe the brain works, which casts a fair bit of their claims into doubt.  Several other scientific, peer-reviewed studies have also said that NLP is based on outmoded psychological models and crude, simplistic ideas of the brain and is full of factual errors.

This is not to suggest that NLP does not have useable techniques or methods, only that when they do work, it is extremely unlikely that they are due to the model of the brain that NLP proposes

[Cain]

Baron Antoine Henri de Jomini - The Art of War (2008 restored edition)

Jomini based his Art of War upon the methods of Napoleon.  Though his manual is lesser known than Clauswitz, Sun Tzu or even Machiavelli, its still good and highly original reading.  Also, perhaps unsurprisingly, he was one of the best French generals during the Napoleonic Wars, serving in Austerlitz, Spain, Russia and Prussia.

[Manta Obscura]

I just finished reading "The Schrodinger's Cat Trilogy" by R.A.W., "The Graveyard Book" by Neil Gaiman, "Santa vs. Satan" by Jake Kalish, and "The Lost Sayings of Abraham Nopfziger" by Dallas Wiebe. They were interesting (but unnecessarily self-referential), fun (but juvenile), funny (but crude), and inspiring (but dogmatic), respectively.

I am now reading "Skyblue's Essays" by Dallas Wiebe, "Everything is Under Control" by R.A.W., and a collection of stories by Lovecraft titled "Waking Up Screaming." So far I like "Skyblue" the best.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I'm reading a book about a Nigerian refugee, called "Little Bee".

[Kai]

reading two books, Alien Ocean, and still trying to push through Principles of Biological Systematics.