Favorite Writers
Submitted by lukeprog on Mon, 06/23/2008 - 05:25
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I tend to like writing that is:
- in plain talk, clear, simple
- short
- densely interesting
- smart, knowledgeable, critical
- surprising but true
- about topics that interest me, or make me interested in a topic
If you can suggest other writers with these qualities, please do. I love finding a new favorite author.
How about Lukeprog? ( :
Goodness, no! He is a lazy, bad writer.
What about fiction?
I never read fiction anymore. Nonfiction is more interesting to me. I watch movies for fiction.
I know you must be aware of this, but dude... you sure are missing out on a lot of great stuff! If you think that reading novels takes too much time, at least try some poetry!
I've read hundreds of poems and novels in my day, I just don't have time for it now. I know I'm missing out on great stuff, but if I was reading fiction I'd be missing out on great nonfiction stuff!
I passed Battleground God without reading the instructions or the FAQs, or taking any hits along the way. When I tried to play the game answering as I would have 5 years ago, I took 3 direct hits.
Just one of many philosophy games I StumbledUpon today.
I had a bit of fun today. Here are the tallest buildings in the world.
Poor Sears Tower, about to get dropped from 1st to 7th in the next few years.
Chicago clearly has an insecurity.
Instantly use your browser history to estimate your gender.
I'm 100% likely to be male. Oh well.
0dysseus, did you score 50%?
Yes.
But I'm using the Teiresias browser. It doesn't have the largest browser history cache but you have to measure the browser future in Herabytes.
Ah! Divine comedy.
I'm glad to see you're checking out my Malebolge.
That's what the librarian said!
I miss bertie.
What a relief to hear it's not your Cocytus, the worst place on all of Teegeeack.
All hail Wikipedia!
Thanks for Charon!
I have no idea what (a) Teegeeack is.
Wow. When will someone translate the rest of this?
The most important travel site in the world.
"Utilitarianism could never work because we could never rank what the 'greatest goods' or 'greatest evils' are." Wrong.
The science of this list is questionable. For example, how is being hit by a train a better outcome than taking a drink from a bottle of piss? I think that comparison requires more testing. Let's round up some people, some trains, and some bottles filled with piss and see how they rank their happiness.
Judging by the rest of the site, I think the page is a joke.
But you have an interesting idea. We could measure happiness before and after thousands of events and then build a list.
I know, I was mostly joking too. There are tons of studies like that, though, about people ranking their utility in different outcomes, although those outcomes fairly rarely tend to involve being hit by a train.
There are some close calls.
I want one.
See, religion does lead to violence.
Today's WTF.
That really is WTF.
I love this. People want to admit they listen to The Beatles and Radiohead even less than they want to admit listening to Britney Spears and Avril Lavigne.
Andrew Jackson's message to the bankers:
"Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves... I intend to rout you out, and by the Eternal God I will rout you out!"
If only Obama or McCain had such balls.
Simple. Mccain/Obama debate transcript + readability measurement = Mccain spoke at a 9th-grade level, Obama at the level of a freshman in college.
"It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." - Henry Ford
If you're interested in Psychology (namely psychodynamic - the unconscious) than I'd strongly recommend Carl G. Jung, who has written many fascinating books on the unconscious. The best book of his I've read is Memories, Dreams, Reflections. It's a very simple yet enthralling read.
Actually, upon scrounging around your website (which is excellent! (: , I'm not sure you would enjoy Jung as he is something of a mystic. I find him to be very uplifting.
Yeah, I'm more interested in what contemporary neuroscience has to say than mystical guessing, however poetic. :)
But thanks for wanting to share what you enjoy.
Chart: Reading Grade Level of Every Presidential Inauguration Speech.
Very interesting. My first thought was expecting this to show a higher level the greater the intelligence of the president. Hence my surprise at the level of Harding (higher than expected) and Jefferson (lower than expected). But then obviously the ideal is not to have a speech which 75% of people cannot grasp but also not to oversimplify the points made.
I would assume the average reading level of those who listened to Washington's speech was higher. With a larger reading grade level gap than now though it would depend heavily on the proportion of educated to uneducated.
I tend to think simpler communication is better communication. I think the speeches have been improving.
Still, with more complex speech we can be more eloquent and communicate our ideas more exactly. Also, you gotta love an opening paragraph like Washington's:
'Among the vicissitudes incident to life no event could have filled me with greater anxieties than that of which the notification was transmitted by your order, and received on the 14th day of the present month. On the one hand, I was summoned by my country, whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love, from a retreat which I had chosen with the fondest predilection, and, in my flattering hopes, with an immutable decision, as the asylum of my declining years—a retreat which was rendered every day more necessary as well as more dear to me by the addition of habit to inclination, and of frequent interruptions in my health to the gradual waste committed on it by time.'
Precision is great for scientific papers, engineering instructions, computer manuals, etc. But inaugural speeches are 100% platitudes, which are better said in plain talk. That's my opinion, anyway. :)
Once again I have no idea if Scaruffi is correct about politics but goddammit he's informed and interesting.
Scaruffi is now taking interns.
Are you going for it? :-)
If I lose my job in L.A. it might be kinda fun for a month or two. :) I wouldn't do it for the resume, but for the company.
Thought of the moment:
Science doesn't "disprove" God. It can't.
Well, I guess science "disproves" God the same way it "disproves" fairies.
Science cannot disprove fairies! That's impossible. Show my your PROOF, sir.
Watch as Paul Graham writes an essay.
"A true patriot is a lover of his country who rebukes and does not excuse its sins." - Frederick Douglas
Dear public servant: Please Stop Helping Me!
No Ayn Rand?
No. I don't read much fiction, and she wasn't much of a philosopher.