Unofficial What are you Reading Thread?

[PeregrineBF]

On cryptonomicon: note that the Solitaire/Pontifex cypher used isn't really that secure, the CPRNG is quite biased. It's probably possible to memorize and use XXTEA on paper, if rather difficult. That would be a much more secure way to do hand encryption.

[Iason Ouabache]

"The Red Queen, Sex, & the Evolution of Human Nature" by Matt Ridley.  (Found in the Operation Mindfuck Pack)

Extremely interesting read. Definitely a good mindfuck.

STILL reading through this. Still being mindfucked. The chapter on polygamy has been especially enlightening. I really need to start taking notes.

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

Got through Cryptonomicon. Apparently my university library carries no novels, so I picked up a book on game theory and a book on information theory.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I'm reading "Shrimp: The Quest For Pink Gold".

[Triple Zero]

On cryptonomicon: note that the Solitaire/Pontifex cypher used isn't really that secure, the CPRNG is quite biased. It's probably possible to memorize and use XXTEA on paper, if rather difficult. That would be a much more secure way to do hand encryption.

I tried not to spoil it. In the book it is called Pontifex, not Solitaire, to hide the fact that it involves playing cards. But you had to show off your smarts! Good for you.

Let alone you're just regurgitating something you read elsewhere. The CPRNG being biased is still quite a long shot from actually devising a viable attack for the type of message Solitaire is intended for.

Additionally, yes, memorizing the XXTEA algorithm is rather easy, as it's just a few lines of C-code. But carrying out the algorithm on paper is incredibly tedious, and most importantly error-prone. How many rounds were you thinking of?

[Cain]

PBF can't not be a pedant.  It's logically impossible, like a round square.

Also, reading The Changing Images of Man by the Stanford Research Institute, Chaos and Violence by Stanley Hoffman and Steven Erikson's Toll The Hounds.

[Juana]

"American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America" by Chris Hedges 

[Harper]

Eff.

I've had eleven or eight too many martinis tonight and posted this in the wrong thread:

http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=18201.0

I am currently reading The Big Necessity. It is eye-opening and personal in a way that only shit can be.

[BadBeast]

Just re-read "Milk, Sulphate, and Alby Starvation" by Mark Millar. When people say "amphetamines make you paranoid" they obviously never considered a scenario like Alby's. The Milk Marketing Board really do want to kill him. And his new girlfriend by pure chance, happens to be a reknowned international assassin. But the person who wants to buy his treasured comic collection, is not who Alby thinks he is. Add a magic healing crown to the mix, a Zen meditating video game savant, and a Burmese Druglord, set it in 1980's Brixton, from the surreal point of view of a small scale speed dealer, who (for a large part of the story) thinks it's 
all a plot to steal his comic book collection, and you've got one of the paciest books I've ever read. (And one of the unlikeliest plots)
About to start Gene Wolfe's "Soldier of the Mists". (Again)

[LMNO]

Finished Guns, Germs, and Steel and am now reading You Are Being Lied To.

I'll make it through Cain's Discordian Library someday.  I swear.

[-Kel-]

I finally got around to reading American Psycho and I hate it!!! hate hate hate. And i usually love Bret Easton Eillis. But this sucks. The book would be great if he didn't repeat over and over what each character Bateman interacts with clothing, clothing fabric, color, designer, blah blah blah over and over. I know he's driving to hammer in the whole "this is all surface, i only care about surface, Bateman is nothing but a shell and therefor only sees the shells of other people." BUT FOR FUCKS SAKE, THE READER GETS THE POINT!!!  Get on with the violence and other humor pointing out things like that. I don't need it every bloody time. ugh. It has taken me three months to read this damn thing and im only half way threw it. When he's not going on and on about...."Libby is blond and wearing black grosgrain high-heeled evening shoes with exaggerated pointed toes and red stain bows by Yves Saint Laurent. daisy is....." there is actually some good writing, good black humor, and great violence. The book has now become a bathroom reader as it is the only time i can stand to open the stupid thing.  

</RANT>

Are you kidding?  If the book didn't have that, it wouldn't be half as creepy as it is.

finally finished it, finally. And i got your point when i read this...

"Favorite group: Talking Heads. Drink J&B or Absolute on the rocks. TV show: Late Night with David Letterman. Soda: Diet Pepsi. Water: Evian Sport: Baseball.
The conversation follows its own rolling accord - no real structure or topic or internal logic or feeling...Just words..."

Maybe I've just been to consumed with the fact that we're all surrounded by fluff and material bullshit and we all have the capacity to be horrific monsters while keeping up the facade.

Book was okay but the repeated over detail still annoyed me.

[Cain]

Conservative Victory: Defeating Obama's Radical Agenda by Sean Hannity (for the lulz)
The Black Company by Glen Cook

And I've just picked up Alan Moore's Voice of the Fire, though I haven't read any yet.

[LMNO]

Often, I am jealous that you read as much as I used to, i.e. two or more books sumultaneously.

[Cain]

I often have several books on the go, but sometimes I find switching between them hard.  Especially fiction and non-fiction, since with the former, if I'm getting drawn into the plot, it can be very hard to go back to (for example) Hannity's histrionic ranting.  No matter how funny it is.  But yeah, I consider myself "reading it" if it is still incomplete and I haven't given up out of disgust or boredom, which could include books I haven't actually read in several days.

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

By that definition, I have books I'm reading that I haven't picked up for years <_<. I tend to just 'not get around to' finishing one book or another and eventually get to the point where I lose my place and need to start over.