Stopped reading Siddhartha Mukherjee's The Emperor of All maladies (about the human history of dealing with cancer) becau se 250 pages in, I got bored with the endless cycles of reserahc, funding, politics, funding, research, funding, etc.

I just don;t care.

I have published reviews of the books I read for 9+ years.

Lawrence M. Krauss, physicist, has a new book coming out early May. UK Title - The Known Unknowns. USA Title - The Edge of Knowledge.

I follow Krauss on twitter and when he mentioned it I DM'd him to request a review copy and gave him the link to my blog.

He contacted his publisher and his agent emailed me a very advance proof copy. I read it. It is awesome.

https://rxttbooks.blogspot.com/2023/...ow-far-we.html

Bad ass

BOOKS!

SCIENCE!

bieeeeeeeeeeeen! me gustó

check this shit out. sonic life

One of the most exhilirating and unexpected results of reading weird and difficult books and writing reviews for ten years has occurred today, for it was only today I saw that theoretical physicist and author Lawrence Krauss had placed the final paragraph of my review of his latest book, "The Edge of Knowledge," on his personal homepage.
https://lawrencemkrauss.com/

"Somewhere Out There: My animated life" by Don Bluth.

Congrats x2 Rob, that's awesome.

I'm reading The Manuscript Found in Saragossa by Jan Potocki, so far I've read about 60 pages and it's ill AF

The Waste Lands by Stephen King. Book 3 in the Dark Tower series.



I haven't been as engaged with this one as the first two, but it's still good.

im rereading the iliad. very very very very slowly. this time in robert fitzgerald's translation, which is new to me. you can find the free audiobook here if you're curious:

https://archive.org/details/hmrio

i don't particularly like the reading in the audiobook, i think it should be a more brutal performance, so i just read the text myself instead. the thing is music to my ears, literally. i love it

first i tried reading the one that keats read and wrote about (chapman's) but that one didn't really work for me

not exactly "reading" in the sense of a book but i've recently discovered brian eno and peter schmidt's oblique strategies, and i started using them at work

see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblique_Strategies

i was first tempted by a beautiful black card pack which i saw selling for $99, but considering my current bias against material object accummulation (because mobility is nobility) i went for the $2.50 ios app instead, and im loving it hahha

current card says:


easing...

WHAT? Were you born yesterday? :D

no. today

you?

I'm already dead.

ah! jesuits!

More like Old 97's:

The Empty Bottle was half empty, tide was low, and I was thirsty
Saw her sitting at the bar, you know how some girls are
Always making eyes, well she wasn't making eyes
So I sidled up beside her, settled down and shouted, "Hi there."
"My name's Stewart Ransom Miller, I'm a serial lady-killer."
She said, "I'm already dead," that's exactly what she said...

okay lolyola. so do you in your postmortem have the card stack?

mine said:

"Remove specifics and convert to ambiguities"

I think you're going through the cards too fast, man. Pick one only when facing a "situation". Let the instruction sink in. :)

ah! jesuits after all! (the pope is jesuit)


the card was for your post about the dead lady. but for me not for you

e.g., to reread as: "dead like some woman in some song" hahahaha

next card!

"simple subtraction"

=

s.j.

okay since maybe assuming you don't have a stack, i'll draw you a card, then it's your turn to play:

"What is the reality of the situation?"

but also accidentally i clicked twice (there's a card about accepting errors as hidden intentions), so here is the second draw:

"Nobility of intentions"

These are not playing cards! They can be fun (and funny), though.

I do have a bona fide set. So does Mary Timony:

iggy and the estuches :(

--

well im off to read something else

Read about that fuckin' theocrat on The Politics Thread.

I've been very health/fitness book conscious the past 18 months.


Presently reading "Why We Sleep" and "The Vegetarian Myth"

um, fuck no, lol

(this thread was enough of a killjoy for one evening)

i need to disinfect my poor cards now

the last thing i need is more homework assignments!

i enjoy PLAY and abhor voluntary misery

okay

nice

i hate vegetarianism. i've attempted it enough times, always with terrible results

pastured eggs and sockeye salmon ftw

also, yum, bison liver! do you get bison meat in sd? (gonna guess plenty? i mean it's tatanka central...)

I assume it's generally available, but I admittedly don't eat a huge amount of bison. I've had some, but not a lot.


At the moment, my take is that if someone wants to be vegetarian/vegan, and it works for them, go for it. More meat for me.


The idea of taking ruminant animals out of the cycle of life, including consumption, would be worse for the planet than beneficial.


Another book I'd recommend is "Sacred Cow" by Robb Wolf and Diana Rodgers. As they'll say repeatedly: "It's not the cow, it's the how!"

This world is big and wild and half insane
Take me where real animals are playing
Just a dirty old shack
Where the hound dogs bark
That we called our home
I want to be back there
Among the cats and dogs
And the pigs and the goats

On Animal Farm
My animal home
On Animal Farm
My animal home

your local plains and the bison basically evolved together, especially before the mammoth extinction... mammoths killed trees actually and made more room for grasses lol

bison meat is pricey, but i looove the liver! i can find mine locally for $5/lb which is a great value because it's so nutritionally dense... not everyone is into organs though, but liver is amazing food


haha, yeah, i hate the food, not the people. in fact my first attempt during my teens was because of a girl hahahaha. my final attempt was during the pandemic. it was the last straw though. never again

i've tried all sorts of approaches, but i always end up sick and disgusted with a vegan diet. and carbs, as much as i love them, mostly make me hungry if i eat them as a staple. otoh i have zero problems digesting animal protein and fats, and they ward off hunger like nothing else. sure i eat my fruits and veggies too but for the vitamins and minerals not for macronutrients


right, they are essential to their ecosystems. moving herds grazing quickly actually stimulate growth in grasslands. it's a beautiful thing, and we have ruined it



yeah, the feedlot seems to be the problem in our world... feeding ruminants corn and soy is far from ideal-- they're grass not grain and bean eaters. we have a weird food system. like you said, removing them from the life cycle...

but the economic pressure is there to do it... and i don't have an answer to that...

meanwhile, i rewound and started again...

Anger be now your song, immortal one,
Akhilleus’ anger, doomed and ruinous,
that caused the Akhaians loss on bitter loss
and crowded brave souls into the undergloom,
leaving so many dead men—carrion
for dogs and birds; and the will of Zeus was done.
Begin it when the two men first contending
broke with one another— the Lord Marshal Agamémnon, Atreus’ son, and Prince Akhilleus.

Among the gods, who brought this quarrel on?

The son of Zeus by Lêto. Agamémnon
angered him, so he made a burning wind
of plague rise in the army: rank and file
sickened and died for the ill their chief had done
in despising a man of prayer.
This priest, Khrysês, had come down to the ships
with gifts, no end of ransom for his daughter;
on a golden staff he carried the god’s white bands
and sued for grace from the men of all Akhaia,
the two Atreidai most of all:
“O captains
Meneláos and Agamémnon, and you other
Akhaians under arms!
The gods who hold Olympos, may they grant you
plunder of Priam’s town and a fair wind home,
but let me have my daughter back for ransom
as you revere Apollo, son of Zeus!”

Then all the soldiers murmured their assent:

“Behave well to the priest. And take the ransom!”


But Agamémnon would not. It went against his desire,
and brutally he ordered the man away:
“Let me not find you here by the long ships
loitering this time or returning later,
old man; if I do,
the staff and ribbons of the god will fail you.
Give up the girl? I swear she will grow old
at home in Argos, far from her own country,
working my loom and visiting my bed.
Leave me in peace and go, while you can, in safety.”


fucking agamémnon, an absolute prick!
why doesn't he die instead of everybody else?