What are you reading? Topic

Besides booger, last time I looked you got paid by, dare I say it, the public !

Reminds me of when I was at a filming of "Firing Line" - William F. Buckley's old program, and they were debating government funding of universities. Buckley was agin' it. 

Then, during the commercial break, off camera, someone from the audience asked Buckley how he paid to go to Yale. 

Answer: The GI Bill.
12/6/2012 5:28 AM
Not really the same as government funding of universities in the sense being discussed, bad story.  I'm sure you can come up with a better example that actually works.  You seem to have a really deep bank of anecdotes.  I hope someday I have that, but frankly, the physical sciences aren't all that conducive to amusing anecdotes in the way the social sciences are...
12/6/2012 7:06 AM
Posted by italyprof on 12/4/2012 6:24:00 AM (view original):
By the way, again thanks to whomever it was - mensu1954, or Grizzly, or someone, wish I could find the post, who turned me on to the series of alternative historical novels of Harry Turtledove - read the whole thing (like 14 books or something) from the Civil War to the end of World War II and it was worth every page. 
Glad you enjoyed.

If you liked that, try his 2 part series that had Japan follow up Pearl Harbor with an invasion of Hawaii.  I think the first book is "Days of Infamy".  Obviously, not a good thing for the civilian population of the islands

He also has a 4-5 book set, still in progress, where Neville Chamberlain didn't cave in over Chechoslovakia, and WWII came a few years early for France and England.  Not quite as good, but still interesting.  Among other things, Rudolph Hess is successful on his mission to negotiate a cease fire, and Winston Churchill gets assassinated.

Finaly, he has some very good stand alone novels... One of which, "Ruled Brittania", stars William Shakespeare as the main character in an England which lost to the Spanish Armada.  Let me know when you figure out who Constable Strawberry is based on.    "In the Presence of Mine Enemies" tells the story of an English jewish family after nazi Germany conquered the world.  You'll find similarities to the collapse of the Soviet Union in this one.

You should probably pass on the Videssos series unless you can deal with some fantasy... but it's very well researched and very true to the nature of Rome. 
12/6/2012 12:29 PM
Thanks. It was you, I remembered that today. Great fun to read. 
12/6/2012 4:20 PM
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I don't disagree with the statement that Keynes was right about a lot of things...  It's just the "just about everything" wording that gets me.
12/10/2012 9:38 PM
This tour from 1932 appeared in the news recently (someone had some video footage stored away that has been rediscovered). It isn't really well known (at least here) that Ruth and Bradman actually met.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/310792.html

I wasn't aware that cricket was a thing in North America before baseball took over from the 1870s or so, though I spose it makes sense.
12/11/2012 7:43 AM
Posted by dahsdebater on 12/10/2012 9:38:00 PM (view original):
I don't disagree with the statement that Keynes was right about a lot of things...  It's just the "just about everything" wording that gets me.

I love the famous Keynes quote about revising your opinion...

"

“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”


12/11/2012 9:40 AM
I'm not sure I changed my mind, I've just further explained my initial position.  Not that I'm inherently opposed to changing my mind.  But seriously, you should read what I wrote in this thread.
12/12/2012 1:25 PM
"IN THE HEART OF THE SEA"---- NATHANIEL PHILBRICK

TRUE STORY OF THE ESSEX , A NANTUCKET WHALING SHIP ATTACKED BY AN 80 FOOT SPERM WHALE IN 1819 ,AND THE CREWS SURVIVAL ADRIFT AT SEA


ONE OF THE INSPIRATIONS FOR "MOBY DICK"
12/17/2012 9:22 AM
I recently read the first 100 or so "Walking Dead" comics.   It's a pretty neat story.
12/17/2012 2:15 PM
Nerds.
12/17/2012 4:55 PM
Posted by italyprof on 12/4/2012 6:22:00 AM (view original):
Recent reading includes William McNeill's great "The Pursuit of Power" and re-reading of the massive but worthwhile Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power (two volumes) - both works stress that the rise of markets, economic development ancient, medieval and modern, technological development and the rise of capitalism itself all dependent to a degree that ideologically pure market-oriented thinkers don't want to admit, on massive state-government activity, especially, but not exclusively, military and infrastructural. 
Italyprof...I am reading McNeill right now for a History of Technology course. Very interesting.
12/18/2012 1:07 AM
Posted by italyprof on 12/4/2012 6:24:00 AM (view original):
By the way, again thanks to whomever it was - mensu1954, or Grizzly, or someone, wish I could find the post, who turned me on to the series of alternative historical novels of Harry Turtledove - read the whole thing (like 14 books or something) from the Civil War to the end of World War II and it was worth every page. 
Italyprof,

Grab Turtledove's Counting Up, Counting Down. It's a nice collection short stories. Looking forward to finishing my degree program so I can read what I want again, instead of what I have to!
12/18/2012 1:12 AM
Yeah, McNeill's book is a real eye opener - my whole sense of modern history changed reading that book. Didn't know the Turtledove collection thanks. 

As to getting to read what you want, it is a great feeling, but my period of being able to do that is about to end as I work on a new manuscript of my own, which means reading again becomes instrumental to getting stuff done. I know how you feel. 
12/18/2012 6:45 AM
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