What are you reading?

[pinhodecarlos]

Lie Down With Lions - Ken Follett

[Duke of Buckingham]

I am reading this post right now and I am trying to read NOIVA JUDIA de Pedro Paixão, a light Portuguese book. I have just re-read some passages of the "Sun Tzu's The Art of War".

[Mike029]

Great thread Carlos thank you.

Finished book one of the series Ashes of Eden
Now reading The Return

Star Trek novels co-written by William Shatner, Judith Reeves-Stevens, and Garfield Reeves-Stevens

[Fire$torm]

The last book I've read was Hull Zero Three by Greg Bear.

[trigggl]

Just got done reading The System of the World by Neal Stephenson.

Now reading The Gathering Storm (Wheel of Time) by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson. Been reading this series since I read book three 20 years ago. I guess Robert Jordan was determined to follow in his heroes' footsteps and died before finishing the series. What's with authors and not knowing how to finish? :!!

[pinhodecarlos]

Started "The Key to Rebecca" by Ken Follett.

[Fire$torm]

This thread has resurrected my interest in finishing Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_of_truth). Alas, I have to start fro the beginning since its been years since I read the first four.

And I curse those who murdelized Goodkind's work with that horrible TV series, The Legend of the Seeker.....

[zombie67]

Started "The Key to Rebecca" by Ken Follett.

I read Triple (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_(novel)) as a teenager. Holy S. I can still visualize so much of that book. And this is with a crappy memory. ;)

[artemis8]

I am reading Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfisnished Civil War by Tony Horwitz.
I just finished reading Star Wars : The Ultimate Visual Guide with my 8 year old :)

[Duke of Buckingham]

I am always reading people to write new things with old feelings. I am always reading me to try to understand how deep and serious are my commitments to other persons and to my God. I am always trying to be better everyday because sometimes I don't like what I read and want to change it.

I am always unsatisfied with the small details. So I will start reading a new book ...

Very Crazy Duke

[Duke of Buckingham]

I am reading Agamemnon from Lucius Annaeus Seneca, a good book from the start. This is the man of the known sentence
1132
That we use so often to cover our mistakes.

Read something of Seneca "The Young" for the times he saved you and you used that sentence. Maybe there are books and text of him on the Internet.

[pinhodecarlos]

Started "The Key to Rebecca" by Ken Follett.

Finished. Next I will start "Inca - Princesse du Soliel" by Antoine Bertrand Daniel in three volumes.

[pinhodecarlos]

Finished reading "Inca Vol 1 - Princesse du Soliel", next I will read "Inca Vol 2 - L'Or de Cuzco".

[Duke of Buckingham]

I finished reading David A. Campbell, "Greek Lyric Poetry" and I am now reading "Asterix in Spain".

One thing about art, is no matter in what style and century is written, all art moves the human emotions and one thing that one day could capture the human spirit, will capture others spirits in the future, no man is so distant from other man that can not understand the feelings that powered him to write or sketched or painting or music his feelings.

But the main thing that moves me is to understand other humans on all times. I wish I could but I am still trying. I will try that while I am alive.

I just loved Tyrtaeus, son of Archembrotus, a Laconian or Milesian elegiac poet and pipe-player. It is said that by means of his songs he urged on the Lacedaemonians in their war with the Messenians and in this way enabled them to get the upper hand. He is very ancient, contemporary with those called the Seven sages, or even earlier. He flourished in the 35th Olympiad (640–37 BC). He wrote a constitution for the Lacedaemonians, precepts in elegiac verse, and war songs, in five books.

I am loving René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo. We are all there from kat to the crazy Duke. We are all there in my mind...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f0/Asterix_-_Cast.png

Now I will sing another song.

[Duke of Buckingham]

The very word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings.

John F. Kennedy

A Citizen's Dissent
by Lane, Mark
Holt, Rinheart and Winston, 1968

[Duke of Buckingham]

O Conto da Ilha Desconhecida
The Tale of the Unknown Island

Jose Saramago
Nobel Prize

[Duke of Buckingham]

O Melhor de Mim
The Best of Me

Nicholas Sparks

[Duke of Buckingham]

Einstein's God

by Krista Tippet.


A good book with the subtitle of "Conversations about Science and the Human Spirit". A book easy to read, nothing heavy, as simple as E=mc2. Relativity speaking. :D

[Duke of Buckingham]

Natural Hazards: New York City vs. The Sea
In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, scientists and officials are trying to protect the largest U.S. city from future floods

By Jeff Tollefson and Nature magazine

As the humbled city begins to rebuild, scientists and engineers are trying to assess what happened during Sandy and what problems New York is likely to face in a warmer future. But in a dilemma that echoes wider debates about climate change, there is no consensus about the magnitude of the potential threats — and no agreement about how much the city should spend on coastal defenses to reduce them.

More on: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=natural-hazards-new-york-city-vs-the-sea

[Duke of Buckingham]

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.

Abraham Lincoln

[Clank [MM]]

The hard cover release of The Far Side. As old as these are I still burst out laughing at some of them. The good old days....

[artemis8]

I just read Gone Girl, very well written and quite disturbing at times.

[Fire$torm]

I just read Gone Girl, very well written and quite disturbing at times.

Then you may like the fact that a film adaptation is already in the works ---> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gone_Girl_(novel)#Upcoming_adaptation_to_film

[Duke of Buckingham]

We shall fight on the beaches

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/We_shall_fight_on_the_beaches

[Steve Bohlen]

Several things, but most notably The Metabarons Ultimate Collection (http://www.humanoids.com/album/278).

[Duke of Buckingham]

IMF Country Report No. 13/154
GREECE
June 2013
2013 ARTICLE IV CONSULTATION

http://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/countryfacts/grc/

It is very interesting to see how, the called helping funds, construct their theories and experiment them in countries destroying their economy and any capability of fast recovering. Portugal situation is not so different of Greece but they are making the same mistakes.

It is sad, very sad to see the unemployment and the sadness of the people in the streets ashamed and crushed by the actions of this new lords of the world and his way of seeing economy.

[Duke of Buckingham]

Escape From Freedom by Erich Fromm

http://www.setiusa.us/showthread.php?5230-Erich-Fromm&p=61840&viewfull=1#post61840

[Fire$torm]

Several things, but most notably The Metabarons Ultimate Collection (http://www.humanoids.com/album/278).

Hmmm, very interesting :)

[litehouse43]

Has anyone read any of Ray Kurzweil's books? Namely The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology or The Age of Spiritual Machines?

I suspect the cruncher crowd would love them- The Singularity is Near is my favorite book of all time.

[Duke of Buckingham]

Has anyone read any of Ray Kurzweil's books? Namely The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology or The Age of Spiritual Machines?

I suspect the cruncher crowd would love them- The Singularity is Near is my favorite book of all time.

I can agree with you but would recommend also the book "How to Create a Mind" of Ray Kurzweil, the book will create a lot of waves and passionate discussions.

[DrBackJack]

We shall fight on the beaches

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/We_shall_fight_on_the_beaches


1420

Churchill was awesome, no doubt !

This book here is the 1st edition from 1943 with the maps and great pictures.
Tregaskis was rushed home so the book could be printed ASAP.
It's good !

[Duke of Buckingham]

1420

Churchill was awesome, no doubt !

This book here is the 1st edition from 1943 with the maps and great pictures.
Tregaskis was rushed home so the book could be printed ASAP.
It's good !

I will try to read it on this next few days.

[Duke of Buckingham]

Better grok this one. :D

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/350.Stranger_in_a_Strange_Land

[Duke of Buckingham]

The Creator is a science fiction novelette by author Clifford D. Simak. It was published in book form in 1946 by Crawford Publications in an edition of 500 copies. It had previously appeared in the September 1935 issue of the magazine Marvel Tales.

:rolleyes: I am reading old books. The books haven't changed but I did ... :p

[Duke of Buckingham]

Dune is a 1965 epic science fiction novel by Frank Herbert. It won the Hugo Award in 1966, and the inaugural Nebula Award for Best Novel. Dune is the world's best-selling science fiction novel and is the start of the Dune saga.

Set in the far future amidst a feudal interstellar society in which noble houses, in control of individual planets, owe allegiance to the imperial House Corrino, Dune tells the story of young Paul Atreides, the heir apparent to Duke Leto Atreides as his family accepts control of the desert planet Arrakis, the only source of the "spice" melange. Melange is the most important and valuable substance in the universe, increasing Arrakis's value as a fief. The story explores the multi-layered interactions of politics, religion, ecology, technology, and human emotion, as the forces of the empire confront each other in a struggle for the control of Arrakis and its "spice".

Herbert wrote five sequels to the novel Dune: Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune, and Chapterhouse: Dune. The first novel also inspired a 1984 film adaptation by David Lynch, the 2000 Sci-Fi Channel miniseries Frank Herbert's Dune and its 2003 sequel Frank Herbert's Children of Dune (which combines the events of Dune Messiah and Children of Dune), computer games, at least two board games, songs, and a series of prequels, interquels, and sequels that were co-written by Kevin J. Anderson and the author's son, Brian Herbert, starting in 1999.

http://www.amazon.com/Dune-Science-Fiction-Frank-Herbert/dp/0441172717

[zombie67]

This is probably the best review of a car ever. Although it could have been written about anything.

Jeremy is a hilarious writer, and this is awesome. Anything that ends with this is awesome, "And you can't appreciate the Jaguar F-Type without the Ford B-Max. In the same way that girls wouldn't swoon over Richard Hammond if he didn't present Top Gear alongside May and me."

http://www.topgear.com/uk/jeremy-clarkson/jeremy-on-appreciation-2013-06-25

[Duke of Buckingham]

"The Fly" by Katherine Mansfield is about the conquest of time over grief.

A good short story.

[Duke of Buckingham]

The Gift (book)

The Gift is a short book by the French sociologist Marcel Mauss and is the foundation of social theories of reciprocity and gift exchange.

Mauss's original piece was entitled Essai sur le don. Forme et raison de l'échange dans les sociétés archaïques ("An essay on the gift: the form and reason of exchange in archaic societies") and was originally published in L'Année Sociologique in 1925. The essay was later republished in French in 1950 and translated into English in 1954, first, by Ian Cunnison and, in 1990 by W. D. Halls.

Mauss's essay focuses on the way that the exchange of objects between groups builds relationships between humans.

It analyzes the economic practices of various so-called archaic societies and finds that they have a common central practice centered on reciprocal exchange. In them, he finds evidence contrary to the presumptions of modern Western societies about the history and nature of exchange. He shows that early exchange systems center around the obligations to give, to receive, and, most importantly, to reciprocate. They occur between groups, not individuals, and they are a crucial part of “total phenomena” that work to build not just wealth and alliances but social solidarity because “the gift” pervades all aspects of the society: politics, economics, religion, law, morality, and aesthetics. He uses a comparative method, drawing upon published secondary scholarship on peoples from around the world, but especially the Pacific Northwest (especially potlatch), Polynesia (especially the Maori concept of the hau), and Melanesia (especially the kula exchange).

After examining the reciprocal gift-giving practices of each, he finds in them common features, despite some variation. From the disparate evidence, he builds a case for a foundation to human society based on collective (vs. individual) exchange practices. In so doing, he refutes the English tradition of liberal thought, such as utilitarianism, as distortions of human exchange practices. He concludes by speculating that social welfare programs may be recovering some aspects of the morality of the gift within modern market economies.

[Duke of Buckingham]

Where Is Woodstock?

by
Charles M. Schulz

http://img2.imagesbn.com/p/9780762432387_p0_v1_s600.jpg

[Duke of Buckingham]

I am reading "A Short History of Progress" is a non-fiction book and lecture series by Ronald Wright about societal collapse.

The twentieth century was a time of runaway growth in human population, consumption, and technology that has now placed an unsustainable burden on all natural systems.

A small part of the book for you:

“ Things are moving so fast that inaction itself is one of the biggest mistakes. The 10,000-year experiment of the settled life will stand or fall by what we do, and don't do, now. The reform that is needed is not anti-capitalist, anti-American, or even deep environmentalist; it is simply the transition from short-term to long-term thinking. From recklessness and excess to moderation and the precautionary principle.

The great advantage we have, our best chance for avoiding the fate of past societies, is that we know about those past societies. We can see how and why they went wrong. Homo sapiens has the information to know itself for what it is: an Ice Age hunter only half-evolved towards intelligence; clever but seldom wise.

We are now at the stage when the Easter Islanders could still have halted the senseless cutting and carving, could have gathered the last trees' seeds to plant out of reach of the rats. We have the tools and the means to share resources, clean up pollution, dispense basic health care and birth control, set economic limits in line with natural ones. If we don't do these things now, while we prosper, we will never be able to do them when times get hard. Our fate will twist out of our hands. ”

[Duke of Buckingham]

The Fall of Arthur
by J R R Tolkien.

A nice reading in verse about Artur's last battle.

wan horsemen wild in windy clouds
grey and monstrous grimly riding
shadow-helmed to war, shapes disastrous.

Yes J R R Tolkien the storm is coming,

[Duke of Buckingham]

I am rereading "Os Insubmissos" (The Unruly) the book of Urbano Tavares Rodrigues that died today, I don't know if there are translations from this author in English language.

He died at the age of 89 years, (Lisbon, 6th of December of 1923 — Lisbon, 9 of August of 2013), He was a Portuguese professor of literature, a literary critic and a fiction writer, winner of many literary prizes. He was born in 1923 in Lisbon, Portugal, but spent most of his childhood near Moura, in Alentejo, the Southern region of Portugal.

Among the numerous awards that dedicated their work include the Literary Life from the Portuguese Writers Association (in 2003), the premium Fernando Namora and Ricardo Malheiros, Academy of Sciences awarded the "Uma Pedrada no Charco" - "A Stoned in Pond".

He was a great Portuguese writer and as many writers of his generation (like Jose Saramago the Nobel Prize of Literature) he was connected to the Communist Party, one inheritance from the time of the Portuguese dictatorship,

[Duke of Buckingham]

"Cabo da Boa Esperança"

"O navio está na praia, naufragado,
Esquecido das ondas, do bulício dos portos;
Algas e conchas cobrem-lhe o costado
- As flores dos navios mortos.

Senhores de austera compostura
Dizem-no, ao vê-lo apodrecer,
A negação do Longe, do Mistério, da Aventura;
Sinal de todo o impossível querer.

Mas não sabem que, à noite, o rapazio,
Junto ao costado poluído vem sonhar
As linha ideais de um outro navio,
Em busca de outra praias, em busca de outro mar."

A M Couto Viana


"Cape of Good Hope"

"The ship is on the beach, shipwrecked,
From the waves and the hustle and bustle of the ports forgotten;
Algae and shells covering his side
- The flowers of dead ships.

Lords of austere composure
They tell, seeing it rot
It is the denying of the Far, the Mystery, the Adventure;
Signal of all wanting the impossible.

But they don't know that at night the jig.
Along the polluted side come to dream
The ideal line of another ship,
In search of other beaches in search of other seas ".

A M Couto Viana

[Duke of Buckingham]

Rereading some parts of The Iliad and The Odyssey from Homer a very good book

Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus’ son Achilleus
and its devastation, which put pains thousandfold upon the Achaians,
hurled in their multitudes to the house of Hades strong souls
of heroes, but gave their bodies to be the delicate feasting
of dogs, of all birds, and the will of Zeus was accomplished
since that time when first there stood in division of conflict
Atreus’ son the lord of men and brilliant Achilleus. . . .

[Duke of Buckingham]

A melhor homenagem a um poeta
É decorar-lhe os versos

The best tribute to a poet
It is memorizing his verses


Very crazy Duke

[Duke of Buckingham]

Letters from a Stoic (Penguin Classics) by Lucius Annaeus Seneca and Robin Campbell (Jul 30, 1969)

Stoicism, as expressed in the Letters, helped ease pagan Rome's transition to Christianity, for it upholds upright ethical ideals and extols virtuous living.

Al this knowledge, extracted from Epistulae Morales, you can buy for £8.99 with the translation and introduction from Robin Campbell.

Very Good Reading.

http://www.penguinclassics.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780140442106,00.html

[Duke of Buckingham]

I am reading The first Volume of "Mother Earth (magazine)" a grouping oriented anarchist magazine edited in 1907 to 1915 in the United States.

It is not updated and sometimes is quite boring but have some articles of major value including women's emancipation, sexual freedom and birth control. There many articles signed for people of the Social Science, Education and Art, It has some very interesting ideas we are debating now (again). The world is round and we keep spinning.

In August of 1917 Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman were found guilty of violating the Espionage Act, and were deported. The subscription lists of Mother Earth and The Blast (another anarchist magazine), which contain 10,000 names, were seized for the government to act against those citizens under the Espionage Act.

Some stories are quite dramatic about people that the only crime was to have signed a magazine.

Between many others I chose a passage that seemed interesting to me:

"Everywhere and always, since its very inception, Christianity has turned the earth into a vale of tears; always it has made of life a weak, diseased thing, always it has instilled fear in man, turning him into a dual being, whose life energies are spent in the struggle between body and soul. In decrying the body as something evil, the flesh as the tempter to everything that is sinful, man has mutilated his being in the vain attempt to keep his soul pure, while his body rotted away from the injuries and tortures inflicted upon it."

[Duke of Buckingham]

A small passage remembering "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" of Milan Kundera.

Books are like women, we only return if there is a quote or a moment that makes us to return once more.

I have been returning to "L'Insoutenable légèreté de l'être" (the French and first version of the book) since 1984.

“When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object.”

“Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost.”

“There is no perfection only life”

“Physical love is unthinkable without violence.”


― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

[Duke of Buckingham]

I am reading a Portuguese Poet that I don't think has been ever translated to English. Well it is a real pity most of his verses are very good in spite he couldn't write but some did it for him.

Sem que o discurso eu pedisse,
Ele falou; e eu escutei.
Gostei do que ele não disse;
Do que disse não gostei.

Tu, que tanto prometeste
Enquanto nada podias,
Hoje que podes – esqueceste
Tudo quanto prometias…

Chegasses onde pudesses;
Mas nunca devias rir
Nem fingir que não conheces
Quem te ajudou a subir!

Without my asking the speech.
He spoke, and I listened.
I liked what he didnt say,
I did not like what he said.

You, who promised so much
While you could nothing,
Today you can - and forgotten
Everything your promised ...

Might you arrive where you could;
But you should never laugh
Or pretend not to know
Who helped you to climb!

[Duke of Buckingham]

The human species does not necessarily move in stages from progress to progress ... history and civilization do not advance in tandem. From the stagnation of Medieval Europe to the decline and chaos in recent times on the mainland of Asia and to the catastrophes of two world wars in the twentieth century, the methods of killing people became increasingly sophisticated. Scientific and technological progress certainly does not imply that humankind as a result becomes more civilized.

GAO XINGJIAN, Nobel Lecture, 2000

[Duke of Buckingham]

The human species does not necessarily move in stages from progress to progress ... history and civilization do not advance in tandem. From the stagnation of Medieval Europe to the decline and chaos in recent times on the mainland of Asia and to the catastrophes of two world wars in the twentieth century, the methods of killing people became increasingly sophisticated. Scientific and technological progress certainly does not imply that humankind as a result becomes more civilized.

GAO XINGJIAN, Nobel Lecture, 2000


One Man's Bible is the second novel by Nobel Prize-winning author Gao Xingjian to appear in English. Following on the heels of his highly praised Soul Mountain, this later work is as candid as the first, and written with the same grace and beauty.

In a Hong Kong hotel room in 1996, Gao Xingjian's lover, Marguerite, stirs up his memories of childhood and early adult life under the shadow of Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution. Gao has been living in self-imposed exile in France and has traveled to this Western-influenced Chinese city-state, so close to his homeland, for the staging of one of his plays.

What follows is a fictionalized account of Gao Xingjian's life under the Communist regime. Whether in "beehive" offices in Beijing or in isolated rural towns, daily life is riddled with paranoia and fear, as revolutionaries, counterrevolutionaries, reactionaries, counterreactionaries, and government propaganda turn citizens against one another. It is a place where a single sentence spoken ten years earlier can make one an enemy of the state. Gao evokes the spiritual torture of political and intellectual repression in graphic detail, including the heartbreaking betrayals he suffers in his relationships with women and men alike.

One Man's Bible is a profound meditation on the essence of writing, on exile, on the effects of political oppression on the human spirit, and on how the human spirit can triumph.

[pinhodecarlos]

Fluid Mechanics from Frank M. White for my PhD.

[Duke of Buckingham]

Beyond Freedom and Dignity from B. F. Skinner.

Free will and the moral autonomy of the individual and much more in a a technology of behavior book ...

[Duke of Buckingham]

The Corpus Aristotelicum is the collection of Aristotle's works that have survived from antiquity through Medieval manuscript transmission. These texts, as opposed to Aristotle's lost works, are technical philosophical treatises from within Aristotle's school. Reference to them is made according to the organization of Immanuel Bekker's nineteenth-century edition, which in turn is based on ancient classifications of these works.

http://www.amazon.com/Renaissance-Readings-Corpus-Aristotelicum-Conference/dp/8772895853

http://i.brainyquote.com/photos/a/aristotle133079.jpg

[Duke of Buckingham]

Milan Kundera - Immortality

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01008/milan_kundera_460_1008903c.jpg

. . . She walked around the pool toward the exit. She passed the lifeguard, and after she had gone some three or four steps beyond him, she turned her head, smiled, and waved to him. At that instant I felt a pang in my heart! That smile and that gesture belonged to a twenty-year-old girl! Her arm rose with bewitching ease. It was as if she were playfully tossing a brightly colored ball to her lover. That smile and that gesture had charm and elegance, while the face and the body no longer had any charm. It was the charm of a gesture drowning in the charmlessness of the body. But the woman, though she must of course have realized that she was no longer beautiful, forgot that for the moment. There is a certain part of all of us that lives outside of time. Perhaps we become aware of our age only at exceptional moments and most of the time we are ageless. In any case, the instant she turned, smiled, and waved to the young lifeguard (who couldn't control himself and burst out laughing), she was unaware of her age. The essence of her charm, independent of time, revealed itself for a second in that gesture and dazzled me. I was strangely moved. And then the word Agnes entered my mind. Agnes. I had never known a woman by that name.

Milan Kundera (Czech: [ˈmɪlan ˈkundɛra]; born 1 April 1929) is the Czech Republic's most recognized living writer. Of Czech origin, he has lived in exile in France since 1975, having become a naturalised citizen in 1981. He "sees himself as a French writer and insists his work should be studied as French literature and classified as such in book stores."

Kundera's best-known work is The Unbearable Lightness of Being. His books were banned by the Communist regimes of Czechoslovakia until the downfall of the regime in the Velvet Revolution of 1989. He lives virtually incognito and rarely speaks to the media. A perennial contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature, he has been nominated on several occasions.

[Duke of Buckingham]

I am reading a Portuguese book about Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, a most interesting philosopher from ancient Greece.

In 500 BC, this man was the most revolutionary and as punishment for is crazy ideas, he fled to Lampsacus due to a backlash against his pupil Pericles. The man considered that the moon was a piece of the earth that for some reason separated and the sun was a very hot big piece of iron.

A very good reading.

I made a search and found this for you:

Anaxagoras, the son of Hegesibulus or Eubulus, was a native of Clazomenae. He was a pupil of Anaximenes, and was the first who set mind above matter, for at the beginning of his treatise, which is composed in attractive and dignified language, he says, "All things were together; then came Mind and set them in order." This earned for Anaxagoras himself the nickname of Nous or Mind, and Timon in his Silli says of him:

Then, I ween, there is Anaxagoras, a doughty champion, whom they call Mind, because forsooth his was the mind which suddenly woke up and fitted closely together all that had formerly been in a medley of confusion.

He was eminent for wealth and noble birth, and furthermore for magnanimity, in that he gave up his patrimony to his relations. For, when they accused him of neglecting it, he replied, "Why then do you not look after it?" And at last he went into retirement and engaged in physical investigation without troubling himself about public affairs. When some one inquired, "Have you no concern in your native land?" "Gently," he replied, "I am greatly concerned with my fatherland," and pointed to the sky.

He is said to have been twenty years old at the invasion of Xerxes and to have lived seventy-two years. Apollodorus in his Chronology says that he was born in the 70th Olympiad,] and died in the first year of the 88th Olympiad. He began to study philosophy at Athens in the archonship of Callias when he was twenty; Demetrius of Phalerum states this in his list of archons; and at Athens they say he remained for thirty years.

He declared the sun to be a mass of red-hot metal and to be larger than the Peloponnesus, though others ascribe this view to Tantalus; he declared that there were dwellings on the moon, and moreover hills and ravines. He took as his principles the homoeomeries or homogeneous molecules; for just as gold consists of fine particles which are called gold-dust, so he held the whole universe to be compounded of minute bodies having parts homogeneous to themselves. His moving principle was Mind; of bodies, he said, some, like earth, were heavy, occupying the region below, others, light like fire, held the region above, while water and air were intermediate in position. For in this way over the earth, which is flat, the sea sinks down after the moisture has been evaporated by the sun. In the beginning the stars moved in the sky as in a revolving dome, so that the celestial pole which is always visible was vertically overhead; but subsequently the pole took its inclined position. He held the Milky Way to be a reflection of the light of stars which are not shone upon by the sun; comets to be a conjunction of planets which emit flames; shooting-stars to be a sort of sparks thrown off by the air. He held that winds arise when the air is rarefied by the sun's heat; that thunder is a clashing together of the clouds, lightning their violent friction; an earthquake a subsidence of air into the earth.

Animals were produced from moisture, heat, and an earthy substance; later the species were propagated by generation from one another, males from the right side, females from the left.

There is a story that he predicted the fall of the meteoric stone at Aegospotami, which he said would fall from the sun. Hence Euripides, who was his pupil, in the Phathon calls the sun itself a "golden clod." Furthermore, when he went to Olympia, he sat down wrapped in a sheep-skin cloak as if it were going to rain; and the rain came. When some one asked him if the hills at Lampsacus would ever become sea, he replied, "Yes, it only needs time." Being asked to what end he had been born, he replied, "To study sun and moon and heavens." To one who inquired, "You miss the society of the Athenians?" his reply was, "Not I, but they miss mine." When he saw the tomb of Mausolus, he said, "A costly tomb is an image of an estate turned into stone." To one who complained that he was dying in a foreign land, his answer was, "The descent to Hades is much the same from whatever place we start."

Favorinus in his Miscellaneous History says Anaxagoras was the first to maintain that Homer in his poems treats of virtue and justice, and that this thesis was defended at greater length by his friend Metrodorus of Lampsacus, who was the first to busy himself with Homer's physical doctrine. Anaxagoras was also the first to publish a book with diagrams. Silenus in the first book of his History gives the archonship of Demylus as the date when the meteoric stone fell, and says that Anaxagoras declared the whole firmament to be made of stones; that the rapidity of rotation caused it to cohere; and that if this were relaxed it would fall.

Of the trial of Anaxagoras different accounts are given. Sotion in his Succession of the Philosophers says that he was indicted by Cleon on a charge of impiety, because he declared the sun to be a mass of red-hot metal; that his pupil Pericles defended him, and he was fined five talents and banished. Satyrus in his Lives says that the prosecutor was Thucydides, the opponent of Pericles, and the charge one of treasonable correspondence with Persia as well as of impiety; and that sentence of death was passed on Anaxagoras by default. When news was brought him that he was condemned and his sons were dead, his comment on the sentence was, "Long ago nature condemned both my judges and myself to death"; and on his sons, "I knew that my children were born to die." Some, however, tell this story of Solon, and others of Xenophon. That he buried his sons with his own hands is asserted by Demetrius of Phalerum in his work On Old Age. Hermippus in his Lives says that he was confined in the prison pending his execution; that Pericles came forward and asked the people whether they had any fault to find with him in his own public career; to which they replied that they had not. "Well," he continued, "I am a pupil of Anaxagoras; do not then be carried away by slanders and put him to death. Let me prevail upon you to release him." So he was released; but he could not brook the indignity he had suffered and committed suicide. Hieronymus in the second book of his Scattered Notes states that Pericles brought him into court so weak and wasted from illness that he owed his acquittal not so much to the merits of his case as to the sympathy of the judges. So much then on the subject of his trial.

He was supposed to have borne Democritus a grudge because he had failed to get into communication with him.At length he retired to Lampsacus and there died. And when the magistrates of the city asked if there was anything he would like done for him, he replied that he would like them to grant an annual holiday to the boys in the month in which he died; and the custom is kept up to this day. 15. So, when he died, the people of Lampsacus gave him honourable burial and placed over his grave the following inscription:

Here Anaxagoras, who in his quest
Of truth scaled heaven itself, is laid to rest.

I also have written an epigram upon him:

The sun's a molten mass,
Quoth Anaxagoras;
This is his crime, his life must pay the price.
Pericles from that fate
Rescued his friend too late;
His spirit crushed, by his own hand he dies.

There have been three other men who bore the name of Anaxagoras [of whom no other writer gives a complete list]. The first was a rhetorician of the school of Isocrates; the second a sculptor, mentioned by Antigonus; the third a grammarian, pupil of Zenodotus.

[Duke of Buckingham]

Lye and turn your problems part of your future. The truth will make your problems part of your past.

Ric

[Duke of Buckingham]

I am rereading Animal Farm by George Orwell, a nice light book.

Tired of their servitude to man, a group of farm animals revolt and establish their own society, only to be betrayed into worse servitude by their leaders, the pigs, whose slogan becomes: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." This 1945 satire addresses the socialist/ communist philosophy of Stalin in the Soviet Union.

[zombie67]

I am rereading Animal Farm by George Orwell, a nice light book. [...] This 1945 satire addresses the socialist/ communist philosophy of Stalin in the Soviet Union.

As well as many aspects of modern society...

[Duke of Buckingham]

As well as many aspects of modern society...

We are so few fighting for freedom and freedom is our best asset.

For most of the human race it is not their problem to fight for anything, it is enough (they think) to vote once in a while. Liberty is a prominent question in philosophy, at least my philosophy.

We more than often trust on our leaders with disastrous results, "The fish forget each other." from Prince of Huai Nan is a good text on human conduct (because men shouldn't forget each other). Our liberty is achieved by defending others freedom.

This idea of liberty leads us to another fundamental thought, viz., that of forgetfulness. This is expressed by the fishes forgetting each other. Thus, the True Man, standing firmly on a spiritual foundation, the basis of Heaven and Earth, his centre, or heart, moving freely in this sphere, is possessed of the fulness of virtues, and is warmed by the rays of harmony. Naturally all things become full of the vividness of life's happiness. In that case, who would be willing to change that state for one full of perplexity and complexity, arising from the intrusion of desire and passion, selfishness, ambition, pride and so on?

Man I write too much, sorry for that Z. :((

[Duke of Buckingham]

One Hundred Years of Solitude author Gabriel García Márquez.

The widely acclaimed book, considered by many to be the author's masterpiece, was first published in Spanish in 1967, and subsequently has been translated into thirty-seven languages and has sold more than 20 million copies. The magical realist style and thematic substance of One Hundred Years of Solitude established it as an important, representative novel of the literary Latin American Boom of the 1960s and 1970s, that was stylistically influenced by Modernism (European and North American), and the Cuban Vanguardia (Vanguard) literary movement.

[Duke of Buckingham]

A Culture of Freedom: Ancient Greece and the Origins of Europe

By Christian Meier

Oxford University Press

Published 22 September 2011

[Duke of Buckingham]

With Fire and Sword (Polish: Ogniem i mieczem) is a historical novel by the Polish author Henryk Sienkiewicz (also the author of QUO VADIS), published in 1884. It is the first volume of a series known to Poles as the Trilogy, followed by The Deluge (Potop, 1886) and Fire in the Steppe (Pan Wołodyjowski, 1888), also translated as Colonel Wolodyjowski. The novel has been adapted as a film several times, most recently in 1999.

With Fire and Sword is a historical fiction novel, set in the 17th century in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth during the Khmelnytsky Uprising. It was initially serialized in several Polish newspapers, chapters appearing in weekly instalments. It gained enormous popularity in Poland, and by the turn of the 20th century had become one of the most popular Polish books ever. It became obligatory reading in Polish schools, and has been translated into English and most European languages.

The series was a vehicle for expressing Polish patriotism in a Poland partitioned and deprived of independence, while avoiding censorship by having a historical background concerning wars with past enemies other than the countries ruling parts of Poland at the time of writing (Russia, Germany and Austria).

[Duke of Buckingham]

The Charge Of The Light Brigade

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
'Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!' he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

'Forward, the Light Brigade!'
Was there a man dismay'd ?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Some one had blunder'd:
Their's not to make reply,
Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel'd from the sabre-stroke
Shatter'd and sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade ?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder'd.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

[Chron3]

Decision in the Ukraine - Summer 1943
II SS and II Panzerkorps
by Nipe

and

Panzertaktik
German Small Unit Armor Tactics
Wolfgang Schneider

[Duke of Buckingham]

I am tasting the words in my mother language of the most important writer for me. I am rereading Fernando Pessoa, on his Book of Disquiet. I would like the words were mine but then I face me and think what are the words that have never been said ...

From me to you, some quotes of this work of art, I hope you like it:

“Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life.”

“There are ships sailing to many ports, but not a single one goes where life is not painful.”

“My soul is impatient with itself, as with a bothersome child; its restlessness keeps growing and is forever the same. Everything interests me, but nothing holds me. I attend to everything, dreaming all the while. […]. I'm two, and both keep their distance — Siamese twins that aren't attached.”

“My past is everything I failed to be.”

“I've always rejected being understood. To be understood is to prostitute oneself. I prefer to be taken seriously for what I'm not, remaining humanly unknown, with naturalness and all due respect”

“I'd woken up early, and I took a long time getting ready to exist.”

“We never love anyone. What we love is the idea we have of someone. It's our own concept—our own selves—that we love.”

“My soul is a hidden orchestra; I know not what instruments, what fiddlestrings and harps, drums and tamboura I sound and clash inside myself. All I hear is the symphony.”

“I feel as if I'm always on the verge of waking up.”

“Everything around me is evaporating. My whole life, my memories, my imagination and its contents, my personality - it's all evaporating. I continuously feel that I was someone else, that I felt something else, that I thought something else. What I'm attending here is a show with another set. And the show I'm attending is myself.”

“If I write what I feel, it's to reduce the fever of feeling. What I confess is unimportant, because everything is unimportant.”

“I've always been an ironic dreamer, unfaithful to my inner promises.
Like a complete outsider, a casual observer of whom I thought I was,
I've always enjoyed watching my daydreams go down in defeat.
I was never convinced of what I believed in.
I filled my hands with sand, called it gold, and opened them up to let it slide through.
Words were my only truth.
When the right words were said, all was done; the rest was the sand that had always been.”

“I've never done anything but dream. This, and this alone, has been the meaning of my life. My only real concern has been my inner life.”

“To have opinions is to sell out to youself. To have no opinions is to exist. To have every opinion is to be a poet.”

“We worship perfection because we can't have it; if we had it, we would reject it. Perfection is inhuman, because humanity is imperfect.”

“Life is an experimental journey undertaken involuntarily. It is a journey of the spirit through the material world and, since it is the spirit that travels, it is the spirit that is experienced. That is why there exist contemplative souls who have lived more intensely, more widely, more tumultuously than others who have lived their lives purely externally. The end result is what matters. What one felt was what one experienced. One retires to bed as wearily from having dreamed as from having done hard physical labor. One never lives so intensely as when one has been thinking hard.”

“To know nothing about yourself is to live. To know yourself badly is to think.”

“There are metaphors more real than the people who walk in the street. There are images tucked away in books that live more vividly than many men and women. There are phrases from literary works that have a positively human personality. There are passages from my own writing that chill me with fright, so distinctly do I feel them as people, so sharply outlined do they appear against the walls of my room, at night, in shadows….. I've written sentences whose sound, read out loud or silently (impossible to hide their sound), can only be of something that acquired absolute exteriority and a full-fledged soul.”

“I suffer from life and from other people. I can’t look at reality face to face. Even the sun discourages and depresses me. Only at night and all alone, withdrawn, forgotten and lost, with no connection to anything real or useful — only then do I find myself and feel comforted.”

“To write is to forget. Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life. Music soothes, the visual arts exhilarates, the performing arts (such as acting and dance) entertain. Literature, however, retreats from life by turning in into slumber. The other arts make no such retreat— some because they use visible and hence vital formulas, others because they live from human life itself.
This isn't the case with literature. Literature stimulates life. A novel is a story of what never was, a play is a novel without narration. A poem is the expression of ideas or feelings a language no one uses, because no one talks in verse.”

“I wasn’t meant for reality, but life came and found me.”

“...the painful intensity of my sensations, even when they're happy ones; the blissful intensity of my sensations, even when they're sad.”

“I'm sick of everything, and of the everythingness of everything.”

“I’ve dreamed a lot. I’m tired now from dreaming but not tired of dreaming. No one tires of dreaming, because to dream is to forget, and forgetting does not weigh on us, it is a dreamless sleep throughout which we remain awake. In dreams I have achieved everything.”

“The essence of what I desire is simply this: to sleep away life.”

“I don't know what I feel or what I want to feel. I don't know what to think or what I am.”

“Life is what we make of it. Travel is the traveler. What we see isn't what we see but what we are.”

“Having never discovered qualities in myself that might attract someone else, I could never believe that anyone felt attracted to me.”

“But do we really live? To live without knowing what life is - is that living?”

“What Hells and Purgatories and Heavens I have inside of me! But who sees me do anything that disagrees with life--me, so calm and peaceful?”


― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

http://www.amazon.com/The-Book-Disquiet-Penguin-Classics/dp/0141183047

[Duke of Buckingham]

I am rereading "Os Lusíadas", usually translated as "The Lusiads", is a Portuguese epic poem by Luís Vaz de Camões (sometimes anglicized as Camoens).

Written in Homeric fashion, the poem focuses mainly on a fantastical interpretation of the Portuguese voyages of discovery during the 15th and 16th centuries. Os Lusíadas is often regarded as Portugal's national epic, much in the way as Virgil's Aeneid was for the Ancient Romans, as well as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey for the Ancient Greeks. It was first printed in 1572, three years after the author returned from the Indies.

I don't think I can translate that, even the several English translations, are so different and none seems to be adequate to the greatness of the poem. I know that most of the Portuguese can't understand the poem due to the use of Archaic Portuguese and to several figure of speech.

As I was browsing I found in amazon what appears to be a well informed commentary about this issue, which I will quote:

"Had Camoens been "Englishened" shortly after his own lifetime, no doubt some English translator could have grasped the proper tone, meter and spirit for his work to be presented in English grab. However, since he died in 1580, just when Spain absorbed Portugal into the Iberian Union, his poem in praise of the Portuguese exploits in India was not to be Englishened when the English where busy trying to undone what he had praised. Therefore he lost his chance with the English language. As it is, all English translation of Camoens have been at best exercises in creative anachronism (such as Richard Francis Burton's Victorian one) or simply inadequate (such as the Penguin trans., which is _in prose_!). Also, there is the problem that a translation of the high degree required is best achieved between cognate languages (such as the German trans. of Shakespeare, or the Portuguese trans. of the D.Quixote). Be as it is,Camoens didn't fail to attract the attention even of Marx & Engels, who quote the opening section of the Lusiads (in Portuguese) in the _German Ideology_. Therefore I advise reading _any_ English trans., but only to get a foretaste before learning Portuguese and reading the original.Finally, for those who think the poem's "hero" Vasco da Gama to be unintersting: the hero of the poem is the Portuguese people in general, therefore the name of the poem - the _Lusiads_ (from Lusitania, i.e. Portugal) and not the "Gamaeid"."-C. E. R. Mendonça "Carlos Eduardo Rebello de Mendonça"

Well I am reading it again.

[pinhodecarlos]

Reading articles, thesis, reports about gas-lift technology. It will be my main PhD subject.

[Duke of Buckingham]

Reading articles, thesis, reports about gas-lift technology. It will be my main PhD subject.

Your turn to do so Carlos. I will light your life with some nice images from gas-lift technology:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3npUD2cV8k

[Duke of Buckingham]

Foundation and Empire a novel written by Isaac Asimov.

I am reading the first half of the book, titled "The General", tells how the experienced General Bel Riose of the Galactic Empire launches an attack against the Foundation ...

I would make one very good movie of the series Foundation and Empire, the book as everything to be a good movie or TV series.

The Foundation novels of Isaac Asimov are one of the great masterworks of science fiction. Unsurpassed for their unique blend of nonstop action, daring ideas, and extensive world-building, they chronicle the struggle of a courageous group of men and women to preserve humanity's light against an inexorable tide of darkness and violence.

[Duke of Buckingham]

I am rereading "The Republic of Plato".


“In practice people who study philosophy too long become very odd birds, not to say thoroughly vicious; while even those who are the best of them are reduced by...[philosophy] to complete uselessness as members of society.”
― Plato, Plato's Republic: The Theatre of the Mind

“The society we have described can never grow into a reality or see the light of day, and there will be no end to the troubles of states, or indeed, my dear Glaucon, of humanity itself, till philosophers become rulers in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands.”
― Plato, Plato's Republic

“Have you ever sensed that our soul is immortal and never dies?”
― Plato, The Republic

[pinhodecarlos]

Paper: A numerical model of slug flow in vertical tubes.

[Duke of Buckingham]

That seems interesting ... by the way what does that mean?:confused:

Sorry for my ignorance pinhodecarlos.:((

Give me a quick explanation about it ... b-(

[pinhodecarlos]

When you are drilling a well the structure can be horizontal, inclined or vertical. In real life you have the three. On my PhD I will be concerned about the vertical tubes and what happens to the multiphase flows when they come up, liquid and gas. While they come up different types of flows and patterns can happen, the flow can be bubbly, slug, churn or annular. I will concentrate my effort on the transition from bubbly flow to slug flow of vertical tubes with gas-lift technique. This technique ensures by injecting a gas to increase the well production and therefore new numeric models and experiences on a real set-up are necessary to predict the production of the well and also to be sure when the various flows transitions will happen and to calculate a bunch of stuff (fraction void, velocities, flow rate, pressure, etc), so that the mechanical parts of the drilling wells don't get breakdown.
So I am reading a bunch of papers on this area.

[Duke of Buckingham]

I am trying to read MY COMPUTER and that is not easy, I start to think this computer is a female because is so difficult to understand ...

maybe in the end, it will be as a woman and give much more than it asks ...

But somehow is fun and challeging ... as a book ... as woman.

I am going to read it and read it and read it ... because there is a passage that makes me come back once more.

http://fe.epaentretenimento.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/homem_apaixonado.gif

[Duke of Buckingham]

I am reading "Walden II", that is a scientific fiction book writen by Burrhus Frederic Skinner in 1948.

The book suggests us to use our knowledge about human behavior to create a social environment where we will take productive and creative lives without compromising the possibilities of those who will follow us, so they can do the same.

It is a good social study with no compromise with the science itself, maybe better it is a study about how B. F. Skinner brain started to construct his experimental analysis of behavior.

[Duke of Buckingham]

We
by Yevgeny Zamyatin, Евгений Замятин, Clarence Brown

A masterpiece of wit and black humor that accurately predicted the horrors of Stalinism, We is the classic dystopian novel. Its message of hope and warning is as timely at the end of the twentieth century as it was at the beginning.

A book about the discovery -- or rediscovery -- of inner space...and much about that disease the ancients called the soul.

A good book, not that I agree with much of it but it is a different point of view in a different world on another time.

[Duke of Buckingham]

I am with a very bad flu so I am reading "The Flu" by Jacqueline Druga.

In 1918 forty million people succumbed to a particular strain of swine flu. It appeared out of nowhere, and just as quickly as it surfaced, the Spanish Flu vanished. Gone for good. Or so we thought. Though mankind has anticipated its resurfacing for some time, mankind is ill prepared. Mutated and with a vengeance, the Spanish Flu returns.

Better that you read it to know more ...

[finalfugue]

Knocked out: On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22473.On_the_Origins_of_War_and_the_Preservation_o f_Peace?from_search=true) - Donald Kagan
In my nose: Breaking the News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/152982.Breaking_the_News?from_search=true) - James Fallows
On deck: Thinking, Fast and Slow (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11468377-thinking-fast-and-slow?from_search=true) - Daniel Kahneman

Incredibly recommended from last year: The Son (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16240761-the-son?from_search=true) - Philipp Meyer

[DrPop]

Confessions of an Alien Hunter: A Scientist's Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Alien-Hunter-Extraterrestrial-Intelligence/dp/1426203926/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1393453511&sr=1-1&keywords=confessions+of+an+alien+hunter) by Seth Shostak. He is the lead Astronomer at the SETI Institute. :)

[Duke of Buckingham]

Do No Harm by Fiorella de Maria

Fiorella De Maria was born in 1979 in Italy of Maltese parents. She grew up in Wiltshire, England and attended St Mary's School, Shaftesbury. After a gap year working and travelling in the UK, Europe and the Middle East, Fiorella read English as an undergraduate at Cambridge and stayed on to complete an MPhil in Medieval and Renaissance literature, specialising in the English verse of Robert Southwell SJ. Fiorella lives in Surrey with her husband and four small children. Her hobbies include reading, music, amateur dramatics and travel.

When a British emergency room doctor saves the life a woman who apparently attempted suicide, he is accused of committing a crime and stands trial. Not only is Dr. Matthew Kemble's medical practice at risk, but also his liberty. If he is found guilty of trespassing on a woman's right to die, he could go to jail. Where do personal freedoom starts and ends.

[Duke of Buckingham]

Dream of the Red Chamber composed by Cao Xueqin

The novel provides a detailed, episodic record of the two branches of the wealthy and aristocratic Jia (賈) clan—the Rongguo House (榮國府) and the Ningguo House (寧國府)—who reside in two large, adjacent family compounds in the capital. Their ancestors were made Dukes and given imperial titles, and as the novel begins the two houses are among the most illustrious families in the city. One of the clan’s offspring was made an Imperial Consort, and a lush landscaped garden was built to receive her visit. The novel describes the Jias’ wealth and influence in great naturalistic detail, and charts the Jias’ fall from the height of their prestige, following some thirty main characters and over four hundred minor ones. Eventually the Jia clan falls into disfavor with the Emperor, and their mansions are raided and confiscated.

In the novel's frame story, a sentient Stone, abandoned by the goddess Nüwa when she mended the heavens aeons ago, begs a Taoist priest and a Buddhist monk to bring it with them to see the world. The Stone, along with a companion (while in Cheng-Gao versions they are merged into the same character), was then given a chance to learn from the human existence, and enters the mortal realm.

The main character of the novel is the carefree adolescent male heir of the family, Jia Baoyu. He was born with a magical piece of "jade" in his mouth. In this life he has a special bond with his sickly cousin Lin Daiyu, who shares his love of music and poetry. Baoyu, however, is predestined to marry another cousin, Xue Baochai, whose grace and intelligence exemplifies an ideal woman, but with whom he lacks an emotional connection. The romantic rivalry and friendship among the three characters against the backdrop of the family's declining fortunes forms the main story in the novel.

It sold more than 100 Million copies (2005 numbers) and has a lot of version on any language , shouldnt be difficult to find one to fit you.

[Duke of Buckingham]

INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison

Critic Orville Prescott of The New York Times said “Ralph Ellison's first novel, 'The Invisible Man,' is the most impressive work of fiction by an American Negro which I have ever read,” and “it does mark the appearance of a richly talented writer.” Novelist Saul Bellow in his review called it “a book of the very first order, a superb book...it is tragi-comic, poetic, the tone of the very strongest sort of creative intelligence” George Mayberry of The New Republic said Ellison “is a master at catching the shape, flavor and sound of the common vagaries of human character and experience.” In The Paris Review, literary critic Harold Bloom remarked “It’s a very fine book indeed. It surprised and delighted me when I first read it and it has sustained several rereadings since.”

[Fire$torm]

Good find there Duke! Thx, it's on my short list. (The only list I have atm... :) )

[Duke of Buckingham]

Good find there Duke! Thx, it's on my short list. (The only list I have atm... :) )

Thank you F$ and keep on reading other books besides the programing code ... now my head is spining again, I cant talk about programing code because my head spins a lot.

Why they dont do a programing code with images ... I would be very good at it.

http://images.radcity.net/5120/4774493.jpg#My%20head%20is%20spinning

[Duke of Buckingham]

https://snt147.mail.live.com/Handlers/ImageProxy.mvc?bicild=&canary=3apZpcLMBv8gX0r81c%2fsEYc5Pay63koQOxwv1Jjm1 pQ%3d0&url=http%3a%2f%2fcontentz.mkt6303.com%2fra%2f2014% 2f17305%2f03%2f20531396%2fgraphics-firepro_hold_the_date-700x282.jpg
AMD to Host News Conference to Preview Groundbreaking New Solutions for the Professional Graphics Market

AMD (NYSE: AMD) announced that Matt Skynner, Corporate Vice President and General Manager, Graphics Business Unit, AMD, will host a special preview news conference in Sunnyvale, California to showcase powerful new professional graphics innovations from AMD. Tweet This

The conference starts on March 26th at:
9:15am Pacific
11:15am Central
12:15pm Eastern

[Godric]

The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories
Currently On chapter 3, and I freaking love it so far.

Herodotus, the Father of History.

[shiva]

I read every day at least a little bit. I at least always read for about 30 minutes before I go to bed. I also read for enjoyment, no more tech stuff for me. Reading an entertaining book will relax me and I sleep much better after reading for a while. Now I'm reading OUTLANDER by Diana Gabaldon.

[Duke of Buckingham]

I am reading Godric homepage http://wallbase.cc/user/id-28403

[pinhodecarlos]

Paper: Turbulent pipe flow predictions with a low Reynolds number k–ε model for drag reducing fluids

[Fire$torm]

I read these forums every day....

[finalfugue]

I'm almost ashamed to admit it considering it's like a geek Gospel of Matthew, but I'm just now getting around to reading Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7082.Do_Androids_Dream_of_Electric_Sheep_?from_sea rch=true)"

For years I skated on, "Well, I saw Blade Runner..." Not the same, not the same at all, and pleasantly so. Although I think I'm able to bring a lot more perspective, context, and learning to it now than if I had read it at say, 14.

[Godric]

The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II Book by Iris Chang


Worth reading

[Duke of Buckingham]

I read these forums every day....


That should be a curse that some of us have, reading and posting in these forum.

O Coração da Memória (na festa da amizade) de Cristóvão de Aguiar.
The Heart of Memory (on the feast of friendship) Cristóvão de Aguiar.

A book dedicated to my uncle, made more of ancient memories and the emotions attached to each of them.

[aux9o]

A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE - A GAME OF THRONES

I watch the shows so figured id read the books.

[pinhodecarlos]

A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE - A GAME OF THRONES

I watch the shows so figured id read the books.

You are going to be disappointed not by the books but by the TV show.

[Mike029]

You are going to be disappointed not by the books but by the TV show.
Waiting on the last book(s) and you are right.
He pushed back the next book to 2015.

[Duke of Buckingham]

The Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse a very nice book from one Nobel Prize.

A tale from a 10 years old boy with a prize, a real nice proof that talent is born with the name of Herman Hesse.

[pinhodecarlos]

Arrived in Portugal on the 28th of July and already read the "Eye of the Needle" from Ken Follett and the "English Girl" from Daniel Silva. Reading "The Blind Man of Seville" from Robert Wilson.

[Duke of Buckingham]

I will try to translate a true history, that I think is very interesting about how Portugal functions on Human and Civil Rights.

Carlos spent three months in a mental hospital where only he was not mad.

Carlos opened his eyes Monday and he was the only one who was not crazy. Walked the hallways of the psychiatric wing of the Hospital Egas Moniz (Lisbon) and tried to explain to doctors that it was all a mistake. He never ceased to be an informatic programmer that made games for large European companies. That day, as in the following months, invariably heard what he did not want: "One of the characteristics of their psychopathology is not be aware of your problem You need to stay here for treatment.".

For almost three months, Carlos would always listened to these conversations and try to reconstruct the past few years. He remembered the discussions he had with his father about his health but none of the arguments that the family had presented to him justified that policemen had gone to get him on a Sunday with a warrant and drive him to the hospital.

Had lunch and went to sit at the computer to advance the work that had a tighter deadline. The difficulty of doing projects for various companies was to spend the day around the monitor and keyboard. Increasingly had less time for friends. Almost never thought of that, but now that he had time he could make a balance of what didnt went well and what will not repeat. What did he do to be here, treated with injectable antipsychotics and sedatives? The cold walls and iron beds did not help him find an answer. And it was not just him saying he had no psychopathology. The doctor who received at S. Jose Hospital in Lisbon, also found no relevant signal: "During the interview it was not possible to demonstrate any psychopathology compatible with the exception of a certain secrecy, slight inconsistency that tried to remedy aspect reiterating the veracity of facts showing that he experienced some tension. "However, the psychiatrist Anabela A. Barbosa wrote in the emergency record which conducted its admission based on an interview with the parents and what the patient wrote on Facebook.

The decision left the father more calm because he didnt agree with the life his son followed. Since Carlos decided a year ago to separate from his wife, spent even more time at the computer than with friends, leading many to speculate about the possibility of 41 years to be developing paranoid schizophrenia of his paternal grandfather. Never listened to what people said becausehe did not see any sense in these concerns since lived independently and was social integrated. His sister in law doctor in National Health Service, have been an important element in the whole process of compulsory detention. The doctor who made the first clinical data on which was base their admission is clear: The patient was not seen, but reports of the family are "worthy of credibility (sister in law is colleague)."

Formally all started on 11th October 2013 without seeing the patient, the Doctor Maria Madalena Serra writes black in white a clinical information that it is a "delusional disorder in large time evolution without any kind of treatment." and finish referring she considers to be important to your internment. Two hours later, the Commissioner of Health has already urgent issue a warrant to drive him to the hospital because there is a "sharp deterioration in his health." In this document, again without being seen or heard, Carlos becomes "bearer of mental disorder" . Away from what was happening in the Hospital of S. Francis Xavier and the warnings from health authorities, held the day to do the same as always. Distract for hours at the computer, working, and trying to overcome some problems that had arisen with the end of the wife relationship and from whom he has a daughter.

In the internal register of the Hospital Egas Moniz would included that days before "he have called his parents to his home to tell them he wanted to go to court to prove that he was not crazy and that everyone else was wrong." This attitude and an alleged "incompatibility" with some familiar was what led them to "start the process of the Psychiatric Emergency Service '.

Let us go to the doctor?

"Good afternoon, we have a warrant and you have to follow us." The surprise to see four policemen at his door, he that never had problems with the law "Good afternoon, sorry, but why?" he said.

On the way to the Hospital of S. Jose his nerves do not took him the hope that his truth would be confirmed by a clinical evaluation. What ended up happening. The doctor found nothing that showed any psychopathology, but what Carlos said or the Doctor analysis serve him of nothingl. Was transferred to 19h20 Sunday to Hospital Egas Moniz.

"From the interview with the parents enhances by the same behaviors consistent with persistent persecutory ideation targeting parents, associated with posts on Facebook," the psychiatrist justified its decision to transfer the patient to hospital.

After entering the Egas Moniz, the problems have increased. He was left without access to a computer, tablet or mobile phone. The doctor who accompanied initially was, without him knowing it, the same that had done days before the clinical information based on the description of sister in law. Between sleep and consciousness of medicines he was stucked in this film, Carlos begin to try in court to reverse what happened to him. The public defender asked for a habeas corpus, ie, the immediate release, but was not granted. "It is difficult in these situations the courts go against what is the diagnosis of a doctor, not normally taken risk," explained the court source.

Since he had to stay, Carlos tried to take some refuge in books - but ran into a prohibition of reading any work that was not in the hospital library. Wanted to move forward with several projects still underway during the visits of friends and colleagues, but every day that passed he was more broken by the medication.

At the beginning even tried to fight against the medication, not taking it, but was quickly caught. In internal documents that had accessi, doctors say the patient "started treatment with oral antipsychotics, which proved ineffective due to the evasive maneuvers of the patient (hidding medication, elimination of pills down the toilet or in the trash, etc.) ". So they decided to "began treatment with intramuscular antipsychotic in Depot".

NEW LAWYER

This process began with information from family members, but Carlos had always the support of friends to find a lawyer who could handle his case with more attention than the Portuguese State. "Not that there was any inconsistency between them," said a source close to the process. But even that turned against him. In the documents consulted, doctors justify the change of attorney with "disease" and reported that Carlos did consider that the State Attorney was done with his family.

"Appointed an attorney by the patient refuses was include in the "delusional sphere," can be read, for example, at discharge from December 19th - the day of the first victory of Carlos. In the internal memo, continues to be labeled as a patient with "delusional disorder", but now can do the treatment at home, having to attend from 15 to 15 days.

He could get out of the Egas Moniz when we begin to doubt that he wrong in this whole story, that maybe he was sick and did not realize it. Under massive doses of Carbamazepine, Olanzapine, Risperdal and Lorazepam all was a doubt, but with the gates of the hospital left behind served as the impetus to fight for his verdade. With the medication being diminished and already in April, five months after being hospitalized, a report of psychiatric evaluation revealed that, despite lowering the dose, was not recorded any change in his behavior.

This report was requested from The judgment of Criminal Procedure of the Judicial District of the Great Northwest Lisbon - Sintra in December, when Carlos had gone outpatient, arrived a few months later but left no room for doubt: he was not sick.

Although he had no signs of psychopathology, the months he was on medication, the fact that it was said he was wrong everytime he was victim of an error left sequelae. The computer programer of 41 years underwent in a clinical state of depression and he had to be followed in the hospital from his home area to minimize sequelae.

Court Decision

It was however the evaluation of independent doctors who brought some respite, but the recognition from justice that he was not crazy after all. In June, with an almost normal and increasingly life and disconnected from his family - who insisted on his alleged illness - Carlos saw the Comarca de Lisboa Northwest acknowledge his mental health. "There is, on one hand, to this date there is no trace of psychotic break in admitting [that according to the attending physician will have been redeemed], given that [...] does not identify [...] one concrete situation of danger to himself or others' legal rights.

The judge also ensures they are not "meeting the requirements for the maintenance of compulsory treatment in the outpatient admitting or compulsory detention of the same regime." He concludes: "I determine its termination without prejudice to voluntary treatment."

From the start that the defense maintained that "there were several rights Carlos denied in this process." Now that the case is over, explained Pedro Silva Lopes, the "constitutional right to liberty, the right to personal integrity or the right of personality" were not taken into account. At a meeting in Cascais, the attorney further explained that the whole process left marks on his client that will not be cured only with the ascertaining of the truth. Carlos has managed to redo part of his old life, he was already present at several events in the United States of America to disclose some IT projects, but there is still much to recover. He did not want to stay here, want to know who was in conversation with parents and achieved what only in extreme situations is done in Portugal: one compulsory detention without even seeing the patient....

[Duke of Buckingham]

I am reading:
German media said NATO's plans to hold large-scale military exercises in the Russia-Ukraine border.
http://i1.sinaimg.cn/dy/o/p/2014-11-07/1415353333_pOZtpP.jpg

[shiva]

You are going to be disappointed not by the books but by the TV show.
Aren't the TV shows always a disappointment after reading the book? That has been my experience.

[pinhodecarlos]

Aren't the TV shows always a disappointment after reading the book? That has been my experience.

Of course.

[Duke of Buckingham]

Two diferent ways of comunicating, one depends more on thoughts, the other on action, that needs diferent skills from the authors and directors.

But the real diference is that the book depends on one author and consumes only the author time with a small participation of the business men on his work.

Movies are an activicty that depends on a lot of money and of the producers, it is no longer one man product but a team production, including other external companies to the main studio, nothing depends on one single idea or will but in a capability of making compromises and some political skill to deal with a lot of departments.

It is this, not only but also, it is not possible to explain the complexity of TV or Cinema on any post but I wouldnt think we could explain the complexity of comunication or the capability of some men to comunicate feelings or thoughts on some sheets of paper.

I am reading:
Never Mind Philae’s Topsy-Turvy Touchdown, Its Brief Mission Advances Comet Science on Internet (another way of comunicating)

You can see the article on http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/never-mind-philae-s-topsy-turvy-touchdown-its-brief-mission-advances-comet-science/?WT.mc_id=SA_SPC_20141120

[Duke of Buckingham]

I am reading "Reguengos becomes European Wine City" on Portugal news in English language.

http://theportugalnews.com/news/reguengos-becomes-european-wine-city/33303
http://theportugalnews.com/

[Duke of Buckingham]

When We Were Orphans is a novel by the British-Japanese author Kazuo Ishiguro.

The novel is about an English man named Christopher Banks. He used to live in the international settlement area of Shanghai, China in the early 1900s.

[artemis8]

When We Were Orphans is a novel by the British-Japanese author Kazuo Ishiguro.

The novel is about an English man named Christopher Banks. He used to live in the international settlement area of Shanghai, China in the early 1900s.

Do you like it?
I am reading Gold Boy, Emerald Girl by Yiyun Li. It is set in China too. I like it so far.

[Duke of Buckingham]

Do you like it?
I am reading Gold Boy, Emerald Girl by Yiyun Li. It is set in China too. I like it so far.

It is an interesting book on my poit of view artemis8.

[Duke of Buckingham]

"After being briefed on the CIA Inspector General report today, I have no choice but to call for the resignation of CIA Director John Brennan. The CIA unconstitutionally spied on Congress by hacking into Senate Intelligence Committee computers. This grave misconduct not only is illegal, but it violates the U.S. Constitution’s requirement of separation of powers. These offenses, along with other errors in judgment by some at the CIA, demonstrate a tremendous failure of leadership, and there must be consequences."

Mark Udall

And we all being spied for no reason and Edward Snowden on Russia and Wikileaks? The tail out of this last years of a new Status Quo against freedom of any kind, is the Senate of The USA worried with that or only with Senators being spied Mr Mark Udall?

Ricardo Ferreira

[Duke of Buckingham]

ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE

By Anthony Doerr

I am rereading this nice fiction book and a vastly entertaining feat of storytelling.

[Bryan]

I'm reading "Linux for Dummies" =))

[Duke of Buckingham]

Los Angeles, United States, Dec. 30 - A two year old accidentally shot his mother in an American supermarket, with a gun pulled of her suitcase, said police.

The incident happened at a store in Hayden, in the state of Idaho, in which the woman was shopping with her son and other family members.

"When the authorities arrived on the scene, they found the victim of 29years was already dead," said Sheriff Kootenai, Ben Wolfinger.

The sheriff added that "the son of the victim was sitting in the shopping cart, removed the gun of the mother suitcase and fired, targeting the victim."

[pinhodecarlos]

So never go shopping with you kids.

[Mumps]

Or, with a handgun in your purse with the safety off... Yet another tragedy created by people with poor gun handling skills together with their children...

[pinhodecarlos]

That's the issue on having on United States Constitution the right to possess arms.

[shiva]

the Constitution doesn't say anything about being stupid. I find it hard to think that someone that has a CC permit is so spaced out that they don't notice someone getting into their purse and taking out a gun. they should be shot. this whole story sounds made up to me.

[Duke of Buckingham]

It is very difficult for any European to understand why the United States see the use of weapons as a freedom issue.

I can understand now, after some years, why Americans see the use of guns as a freedom issue but I have some years of advance in here.

The problem is when other things are ahead of our freedom, guns can cost some lives and that is not good but freedom can cost much more.

The real problem is to give guns to people that are not prepared, just think if we could sell a car without breaks or that a 2 years child could drive ...

I am against all of these, the guns that can be fired for a very young child as the ones that are owned by true idiots, we need to have better protection on weapons to keep them or soon we will lose the right to them.

But that is a real difficult issue to discuss, I would never consider freedom as a thing to discuss on a forum or a chat, my english would never be good enough for it anyway and I can write some average english, dont you think? :)

[Bryan]

this whole story sounds made up to me.

Nope, STORY (http://www.krem.com/story/news/local/spokane-county/2015/01/01/more-details-released-about-hayden-walmart-shooting/21165455/)

[Bryan]

Duke, in 1942 the Japanese were planning to attack Pearl Harbor, destroy our Pacific Naval Fleet, and begin WWII against the US. Admiral Yamamoto, who had attended college in the US, planned and executed the attack. During the planning there were many in the Japanese military that wanted to then invade the western United States after our navy was crippled.

Yamamoto, knowing the US people, said; "Invading the US is impossible because behind every tree there would be an American with a gun!" Duke, THAT is Freedom.

[shiva]

Nope, STORY (http://www.krem.com/story/news/local/spokane-county/2015/01/01/more-details-released-about-hayden-walmart-shooting/21165455/)yea I have read it, but something is still fishy. a 2 year old, must be a big one. not very many 2 year olds would have the strength or a large enough hand to hold a gun, even a small 380. I just think there is something more to this story.

[Duke of Buckingham]

Duke, in 1942 the Japanese were planning to attack Pearl Harbor, destroy our Pacific Naval Fleet, and begin WWII against the US. Admiral Yamamoto, who had attended college in the US, planned and executed the attack. During the planning there were many in the Japanese military that wanted to then invade the western United States after our navy was crippled.

Yamamoto, knowing the US people, said; "Invading the US is impossible because behind every tree there would be an American with a gun!" Duke, THAT is Freedom.


yea I have read it, but something is still fishy. a 2 year old, must be a big one. not very many 2 year olds would have the strength or a large enough hand to hold a gun, even a small 380. I just think there is something more to this story.

I dont think that self defense can be confused with freedom but I understand the need of having self defense in order to defend our freedom as I dont think the Japanese would be the true enemy, when we talk about freedom, I think that today our Governments are much more our enemy when we talk about our freedom.

When I read the story I also thought it was stranger a 2 year old child be able to shot a gun but well I read it and post on "What are you reading?" because it is a real unusual story.

[shiva]

I dont think that self defense can be confused with freedom but I understand the need of having self defense in order to defend our freedom as I dont think the Japanese would be the true enemy, when we talk about freedom, I think that today our Governments are much more our enemy when we talk about our freedom.

When I read the story I also thought it was stranger a 2 year old child be able to shot a gun but well I read it and post on "What are you reading?" because it is a real unusual story.Duke, many Americans if not most believe you can not have real freedom if you don't have the right to own a gun. The reason being if you don't have a gun and I do then you are under my control. you do what I say or I can shoot you or someone you love. the only way to defend from a gun is to have one, that being so then every one should have a gun. you are right the Japanese would not be the enemy today our own government is more than anyone else. the fact still remains our government can't take us over as long as we have our guns, that is why they want to outlaw them.

[John P. Myers]

"The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature, they disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
- Thomas Jefferson (quoting 18th century criminologist Cesare Beccaria)

[Duke of Buckingham]

Duke, many Americans if not most believe you can not have real freedom if you don't have the right to own a gun. The reason being if you don't have a gun and I do then you are under my control. you do what I say or I can shoot you or someone you love. the only way to defend from a gun is to have one, that being so then every one should have a gun. you are right the Japanese would not be the enemy today our own government is more than anyone else. the fact still remains our government can't take us over as long as we have our guns, that is why they want to outlaw them.

That is because we have a difference of opinion and that we have for very long shiva :o and in fact is about what we consider self defense or what we consider freedom.


"The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature, they disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
- Thomas Jefferson (quoting 18th century criminologist Cesare Beccaria)

"If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.
George Washington

[FourOh]

The Tennessee Valley Authority is asking electricity users in its 7-state region to voluntarily reduce their power consumption until Thursday afternoon as a result of frigid temperatures causing high demand across the Southeast...

Consumers can reduce their power consumption and lower their power bills by:

- Turning down the thermostat. Lowering the temperature just one degree can result in a savings of up to 3 percent.

- Postpone using electric appliances such as dishwashers, dryers and cooking equipment.

- Turn off nonessential lights, appliances, electronics and other electrical equipment.

http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/business/story/2015/jan/07/tva-asks-people-use-less-power-until-thursday-afternoon/281455/

I guess I could underclock my GPUs and throttle my CPUs for a few days... ;)

[Maxwell]

Well, they said "nonessential... electronics", and I'm pretty sure BOINC is essential. So you're fine. =))

[John P. Myers]

A computer that uses 1000W puts out exactly the same amount of heat as a heater that uses 1000W. Turning off your computers just makes the heater run more often. Same amount of power used either way :p


Unless you have gas heat, but i've found electric heat to be cheaper.

[FourOh]

A computer that uses 1000W puts out exactly the same amount of heat as a heater that uses 1000W. Turning off your computers just makes the heater run more often. Same amount of power used either way :p

Unless you have gas heat, but i've found electric heat to be cheaper.

My cruncher is in the wife's home office... who needs a space heater when you have an OC'd 7970 blasting away! :D

The trick is that the thermostat is also in that room... meaning the rest of the house is several degrees colder than the set point. Which is all fine and good, as long as she stays in the office :p

[John P. Myers]

Needs 2 more 7970s :D

Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk

[Duke of Buckingham]

I am reading "Common Sense" by Thomas Paine, a very impressive book of a very impressive man.

“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.”

“One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise, she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ass for a lion.”

― Thomas Paine, Common Sense

[Duke of Buckingham]

I am reading “Our Souls at Night,” the last novel by Kent Haruf.

Holt, Colorado: Addie Moore pays an unexpected visit to a neighbor, Louis Waters. Her husband died years ago, as did his wife, it is the beginning of this novel, a light reading.

[shiva]

Killing Patton, learning a lot of history I didn't know about him.

[Duke of Buckingham]

Killing Patton, learning a lot of history I didn't know about him.

Killing Patton by Bill O'Reilly is very good, a conspiracy to kill Gen. Patton and the hypothetical reasons for it.

And Shiva of course if they killed Patton they wouldnt post about it on the next day ewspapers.

I had listen someone that was saying that Patton was murdered because he wanted to attack the Russian Army on Germany, that makes some sense to me also but all conspiracy theories have to make some sense.

[Shadowlurker]

I don't know how I missed reading this in school but I am reading David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. Now I know where Uriah Heep got the name for their band. ;)

[Duke of Buckingham]

I don't know how I missed reading this in school but I am reading David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. Now I know where Uriah Heep got the name for their band. ;)

Damn :)

[Duke of Buckingham]

I am reading "The Creators" a non-fiction work of cultural history by Daniel Boorstin.

The Creators, subtitled A History of Heroes of the Imagination, is the story of mankind's creativity. It highlights great works of art, music and literature but it is more than a recitation or list. It is a book of ideas and the people behind those ideas. It encompasses architecture, music, literature, painting, sculpture, the performing arts, theater, religious expression and philosophy.

[Duke of Buckingham]

I am reading "The Global Minotaur"

America, Europe and the Future of the Global Economy, is the subtitle of the new edition (cover on the left above). The original, 2011, edition’s subtitle was America, the True Causes of the Financial Crisis and the Future of the World Economy.

RECOMMENDATIONS

‘The book is one of those exceedingly rare publications of which one can say they are urgent, timely and absolutely necessary.’ - Terry Eagleton

‘Yanis is one of the best, brightest and most innovative economists on the planet’ – Steve Keen, author of ‘Debunking Economics’

‘In the most comprehensive guide to the contemporary economic crisis yet written, Yanis Varoufakis traces out the path from post-war US economic supremacy to the current predicament. This book’s provocative thesis, written in lively and impassioned prose, is that which neither the US nor the EU nor any other nation can now restore robust global growth. Whether you agree or disagree, this book’s lively and impassioned prose will engage you both heart and mind, and hold you in thrall to the last word. The Global Minotaur is a masterwork that registers for all time the challenge of our time.’ – Prof. Gary Dymski, University of California, Riverside

‘If you want to know how serious the current crisis is, you should read his book. With much eloquence, Yanis Varoufakis argues that the current financial problems are connected to the emerging fault lines of the international monetary system. The US (the Minotaur) used to govern the international monetary system, but no more; and this crucially means that there is no surplus recycling mechanism that can reliably stabilise the world economy. The elephant in the room, so to speak, is a stumbling Minotaur.’ – Prof. Shaun Hargreaves-Heap, University of East Anglia

‘Yanis Varoufakis is a rare economist: skilled at explaining ideas, happy to join in public debates and able to put his discipline in a broader context. You may not agree with what he says, but you’ll enjoy the way he says it.’ -
Aditya Chakrabortty, The Guardian lead economics writer

DESCRIPTION

In this remarkable and provocative book, Yanis Varoufakis explodes the myth that financialisation, ineffectual regulation of banks, greed and globalisation were the root causes of the global economic crisis. Rather, they are symptoms of a much deeper malaise which can be traced all the way back to the Great Crash of 1929, then on through to the 1970s: the time when a ‘Global Minotaur’ was born. Just as the Athenians maintained a steady flow of tributes to the Cretan beast, so the ‘rest of the world’ began sending incredible amounts of capital to America and Wall Street. Thus, the Global Minotaur became the ‘engine’ that pulled the world economy from the early 1980s to 2008.

Today’s crisis in Europe, the heated debates about austerity versus further fiscal stimuli in the US, the clash between China’s authorities and the Obama administration on exchange rates are the inevitable symptoms of the weakening Minotaur; of a global ‘system’ which is now as unsustainable as it is imbalanced. Going beyond this, Varoufakis lays out the options available to us for reintroducing a modicum of reason into a highly irrational global economic order.

An essential account of the socio-economic events and hidden histories that have shaped the world as we now know it.


So far, also available in German, in Greek, in Italian, in Spanish, in Czech and, most recently, in Finnish

[Duke of Buckingham]

Politics (Aristotle) - Book I

Aristotle discusses the city (polis) or "political community" (koinōnia politikē) as opposed to other types of communities and partnerships such as the household and village. The highest form of community is the polis. Aristotle comes to this conclusion because he believes the public life is far more virtuous than the private. He comes to this conclusion because men are "political animals." He begins with the relationship between the city and man , and then specifically discusses the household. He takes issue with the view that political rule, kingly rule, rule over slaves and rule over a household or village are only different in terms of size. He then examines in what way the city may be said to be natural.

[Duke of Buckingham]

I am reading "The Once and Future King" an Arthurian fantasy novel written by T. H. White.

[Duke of Buckingham]

A mother and son died when they fell from a fifth floor last week. The mother, 63 and ill with Alzheimer's, and son, 27, had no income after stopping receiving a small deficiency pension, three and a half years ago and could not pay the rent. The landlord knew of the family problems and helped also they had a small support of an aid fund of the municipality of Chakida on the island of Eboia, where they lived.
The death was treated as another suicide of people who have given up because they can not have enough to live.

[shiva]

just finished Killing Jesus,
reading The Revolution -- From Egypt to Armagedoon

[Maxwell]

just finished Killing Jesus,
reading The Revolution -- From Egypt to Armagedoon
That's a much scarier sentiment when you take it completely out of context. "Shiva just finished Killing Jesus." Let's just hope he hid the body well... =))

[shiva]

:o yea lets not take that literally. but I never saw it. =))=))

[Duke of Buckingham]

There are two and a half weeks that Ayyan Ali, one of the most famous models of Pakistan, is in Adiala prison. Was arrested at the airport in Islamabad on money laundering charges on 14 March. The 21-year-old model had over $ 500,000 in your bag (455,000 euros), which exceeds the legal limit that can be withdrawn from the country in cash.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2dt8ai_super-model-ayyan-ali-you-and-i-official-video-ft-f-charm_people

[Duke of Buckingham]

What Must Be Said

Why do I stay silent, conceal for too long
What clearly is and has been
Practiced in war games, at the end of which we as survivors
Are at best footnotes.

It is the alleged right to first strike
That could annihilate the Iranian people--
Enslaved by a loud-mouth
And guided to organized jubilation--
Because in their territory,
It is suspected, a bomb is being built.

Yet why do I forbid myself
To name that other country
In which, for years, even if secretly,
There has been a growing nuclear potential at hand
But beyond control, because no inspection is available?

The universal concealment of these facts,
To which my silence subordinated itself,
I sense as incriminating lies
And force--the punishment is promised
As soon as it is ignored;
The verdict of "anti-Semitism" is familiar.

Now, though, because in my country
Which from time to time has sought and confronted
Its very own crime
That is without compare
In turn on a purely commercial basis, if also
With nimble lips calling it a reparation, declares
A further U-boat should be delivered to Israel,
Whose specialty consists of guiding all-destroying warheads to where the existence
Of a single atomic bomb is unproven,
But as a fear wishes to be conclusive,
I say what must be said.

Why though have I stayed silent until now?
Because I thought my origin,
Afflicted by a stain never to be expunged
Kept the state of Israel, to which I am bound
And wish to stay bound,
From accepting this fact as pronounced truth.

Why do I say only now,
Aged and with my last ink,
That the nuclear power of Israel endangers
The already fragile world peace?
Because it must be said
What even tomorrow may be too late to say;
Also because we--as Germans burdened enough--
Could be the suppliers to a crime
That is foreseeable, wherefore our complicity
Could not be redeemed through any of the usual excuses.

And granted: I am silent no longer
Because I am tired of the hypocrisy
Of the West; in addition to which it is to be hoped
That this will free many from silence,
That they may prompt the perpetrator of the recognized danger
To renounce violence and
Likewise insist
That an unhindered and permanent control
Of the Israeli nuclear potential
And the Iranian nuclear sites
Be authorized through an international agency
By the governments of both countries.

Only this way are all, the Israelis and Palestinians,
Even more, all people, that in this
Region occupied by mania
Live cheek by jowl among enemies,
And also us, to be helped.


Nobel-winning German writer Günter Grass

[Duke of Buckingham]

Wine Snobs Are Right: Glass Shape Does Affect Flavor
Scientists show glass geometry controls where and how vapor rises from wine, influencing taste
April 14, 2015 |By Jennifer Newton and ChemistryWorld

http://www.scientificamerican.com/sciam/cache/file/DB9055E3-F0C7-4AD5-9CE06E4382545ECF_article.jpg?0837A
Different glass shapes and temperatures can bring out completely different bouquets and finishes from the same wine.
Credit: Courtesy Ozz13x Flickr

Seeing is smelling for a camera system developed by scientists in Japan that images ethanol vapour escaping from a wine glass. And, perhaps most importantly, no wine is wasted in the process.

Kohji Mitsubayashi, at the Tokyo Medical and Dental University, and colleagues impregnated a mesh with the enzyme alcohol oxidase, which converts low molecular weight alcohols and oxygen into aldehydes and hydrogen peroxide. Horseradish peroxide and luminol were also immobilised on the mesh and together initiate a colour change in response to hydrogen peroxide. When this mesh is placed on top of a wine glass, colour images from a camera watching over the mesh on top of a glass of wine can be interpreted to map the concentration distribution of ethanol leaving the glass.

Different glass shapes and temperatures can bring out completely different bouquets and finishes from the same wine. So Mitsubayashi’s team analysed different wines, in different glasses – including different shaped wine glasses, a martini glass and a straight glass – at different temperatures.

At 13°C, the alcohol concentration in the centre of the wine glass was lower than that around the rim. Wine served at a higher temperature ...

Read more on http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/wine-snobs-are-right-glass-shape-does-affect-flavor/

[Duke of Buckingham]

Sleep naked, body at a cool temperature increases the production of anti-aging hormone, melatonin. Furthermore, no inconvenience with buttons and seams. If you prefer, take out a sheet or blanket.

Do not look at your phone, Artificial light of television, mobile phone, the tablet and computer functions as a stimulant amending the internal clock. Avoid looking at such displays, especially when you are in the dark.

Hide the alarm clock, There is nothing more counterproductive than to be looking at the minutes pass. Think of the hours cause anxiety, so keep the watch where you will not see while sleeping.

Work out but ... Exercise is great for relieving stress and muscle tension, but preferably out between 16h and 19h. Do not even think about going to the gym in the four hours before its time to go to bed, because the body temperature and adrenaline levels will be very high.

Spread lavender is evidence that the aroma of this plant reduces the heart rate and blood pressure and has a relaxing effect. Pour a few drops on the pad may result.

Type your concerns, Anxiety raises the levels of stress and takes sleep away. Write a list of concerns before go to bed can relieve some pressure.

Breathe deeply the most important in the process of falling asleep is to calm the mind. Breathing exercises can help because not only slow down the heart rate and the nervous system as concentrate the mind on something else. Here is an example that should be repeated three times, exhale through the mouth, close your mouth and inhale through your nose for four seconds. Hold your breath for seven seconds and exhale for eight seconds.

Do not smoke at night, a cigarette before going to bed does not relax. Rather, nicotine increases heart rate and keeps the brain alert.

Even if you think that does not affect, do not drink coffee. Caffeine remains in the body for eight hours. If you are a large consumer of coffee, a spout in the afternoon can no longer prevent you from falling asleep, but disturbs the deep sleep, preventing it from rest.

Forget that alcohol helps sleep, It is true that alcohol can help you fall asleep deeply, the problem is then, when it interrupts the sleep cycle in the late evening. Moreover, the alcohol can cause interruptions in breathing, which may wake you up.

Drink a cup of hot milk, you knew? Great. But you know why it works? Because dairy products are rich in amino acid called tryptophan to induce sleep and contributes to the production of serotonin and melatonin, substances that cause drowsiness.

Eat a banana, is because of the melatonin and tryptophan that the banana becomes also a good sleep aid.

Check the mattress, the mattress Change every eight years is crucial to have good nights sleep without high or bothersome pits. In addition, the mattress should be adapted to each individual. The best is to test a minimum of 15 minutes in the store, experiencing the comfort of the back and stomach down.

[Duke of Buckingham]

Trial of Rafael Marques. "They are there to mine diamonds, but are killing people"
Inhabitants of Lunda went the court to confirm accusations made by Rafael Marques in "Blood Diamond.", Inhabitants of the Lunda diamond provinces in northern Angola interior, traveled more than twelve hours to witness this Thursday in Luanda court alleged cases of human rights violations committed in the diamond exploration. At issue is the trial opposing Angolan generals to journalist and activist Rafael Marques, who denounced these cases publicly, resumed Thursday in the Provincial Court of Luanda, happening behind closed doors.
http://img.s-msn.com/tenant/amp/entityid/BBjNeFn.img?h=408&w=728&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f
The article is in Portuguese, here goes the link anyway http://www.msn.com/pt-pt/noticias/other/julgamento-de-rafael-marques-est%C3%A3o-ali-para-explorar-diamantes-mas-est%C3%A3o-a-matar-as-pessoas/ar-BBjNcbw?ocid=mailsignoutmd

[Duke of Buckingham]

I am reading "Sonhos de uma Rapariga Quase Normal" or “Dream On Girl” Rita Redshoes a very surrealist book and also a music.

Rita dreams and remembers everything. For every dream she made an illustration. 40 illustrations, 40 dreams: it is of these dreams we wanted to be made of.

http://images.portoeditora.pt/getresourcesservlet/image?EBbDj3QnkSUjgBOkfaUbsI8xBp%2F033q5Xpv56y8baM 6JddDA8H6AYQCI6z8%2FShi9&width=440


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD7D6zKuVrs

[Duke of Buckingham]

One study concluded that the Earth is entering a new phase of extinction. Three US universities led the research, the results show that the human race can be one of the most at risk of being lost.

Deforestation and climate change are cited as the main threats. In previous moments of mass extinction - taking as a basis the study of fossil and the history of the planet - the rate of disappearance species was more than 100 times higher when compared with other phases of the Earth.

The destabilization of biodiversity and the threat to ecosystems is one of the most serious environmental problems today, recalls the report. Scientists from the universities of Berkeley, Princeton and Stanford concluded now that vertebrates are currently disappearing at a rate 114 times higher than the normal.

[Duke of Buckingham]

I am reading an article with this title:
It has begun Chinese festival where 10,000 dogs are eaten.

It is very sad this life of dog
http://images2.fanpop.com/image/photos/13200000/Cute-Dog-dogs-13286656-1024-768.jpg

[Duke of Buckingham]

Despite the ceasefire established on 15 February this year, after the signing of the Minsk peace agreements, eastern Ukraine was the scene of escalating violence in early June. The intensity of the fighting then decreased, but there is still bloody clashes taking place regularly.

[Duke of Buckingham]

The Global Minotaur: America, Europe and the Future of the Global Economy.
Yanis Varoufakis

In this remarkable and provocative book, Yanis Varoufakis explodes the myth that financialisation, ineffectual regulation of banks, greed and globalisation were the root causes of the global economic crisis. Rather, they are symptoms of a much deeper malaise which can be traced all the way back to the Great Crash of 1929, then on through to the 1970s: the time when a ‘Global Minotaur’ was born. Just as the Athenians maintained a steady flow of tributes to the Cretan beast, so the ‘rest of the world’ began sending incredible amounts of capital to America and Wall Street. Thus, the Global Minotaur became the ‘engine’ that pulled the world economy from the early 1980s to 2008.

Today’s crisis in Europe, the heated debates about austerity versus further fiscal stimuli in the US, the clash between China’s authorities and the Obama administration on exchange rates are the inevitable symptoms of the weakening Minotaur; of a global ‘system’ which is now as unsustainable as it is imbalanced. Going beyond this, Varoufakis lays out the options available to us for reintroducing a modicum of reason into a highly irrational global economic order.

An essential account of the socio-economic events and hidden histories that have shaped the world as we now know it.

[Duke of Buckingham]

Greek islands are being sold at a loss. You want to buy?

http://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/AAd5CnH.img?h=373&w=624&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f
It has a cost of 5.5 million euros. Location: Jónico.A Sea island has a wide valuable forest and there are huge privacy.

And many more on http://www.msn.com/pt-pt/viagens/artigo/ilhas-gregas-est%C3%A3o-ser-vendidas-ao-desbarato-quer-comprar/ss-AAd5fGN?ocid=mailsignoutmd

[Duke of Buckingham]

I am reading ...

http://img.s-msn.com/tenant/amp/entityid/AAaiMqV.img?h=373&w=624&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f&x=1314&y=565
1. Japan
Average: 86.2 years (Men: 85 Women: 87.3)

http://img.s-msn.com/tenant/amp/entityid/AAaiTR7.img?h=373&w=624&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f&x=1300&y=742
2. Andorra
Average: 84.2 years (men: 80.8 Women: 87.6)

http://img.s-msn.com/tenant/amp/entityid/AAaiOTI.img?h=373&w=624&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f&x=1604&y=929
3. Singapore
Average: 84 years (Men: 82 Women: 87)

...

http://img.s-msn.com/tenant/amp/entityid/AAaj3H0.img?h=373&w=624&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f
33. Portugal
Average: 80 years (men: 76.9 Women: 82.8)

...

http://img.s-msn.com/tenant/amp/entityid/AAaj15c.img?h=373&w=624&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f
36. United States
Average: 79.8 years (men: 77.4 Women: 82.2)

Learn about the 50 countries to live a long life.
http://www.msn.com/pt-pt/saude/medico/saiba-quais-s%C3%A3o-os-50-pa%C3%ADses-para-viver-uma-vida-longa/ss-AAauiLd?ocid=mailsignoutmd#image=4

[Duke of Buckingham]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/f9/Seveneves_Book_Cover.jpg/220px-Seveneves_Book_Cover.jpg
Begin my reading of one of President Obama book for his vacation (no, I don't believe that he is reading it).
The book is a kind of what would happen if the world were ending? Yes in the line of the many dooms day books, an interesting reading till now (I am on the second chapter).

[artemis8]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/f9/Seveneves_Book_Cover.jpg/220px-Seveneves_Book_Cover.jpg
Begin my reading of one of President Obama book for his vacation (no, I don't believe that he is reading it).
The book is a kind of what would happen if the world were ending? Yes in the line of the many dooms day books, an interesting reading till now (I am on the second chapter).

I am actually reading this same book right now. I'm about 2/3 done. I'm liking it a lot.

[pinhodecarlos]

Finished this weekend "The Black Widow" from Daniel Silva and now reading "The Mayan Secrets" from Clive Cussler.

[Bok]

I'm almost finished the second book in the Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson. Great set of fantasy books.

[pinhodecarlos]

Since I got unemployed I've been reading a lot. When I first came here to UK we bought a bunch of small kids books so we could improve our English. Two years after all of them are read. This last Sunday we went back to the library and bought discarded books, 5 for one pound. First one is done, ''Kill me Once'' by Jon Orborne and now starting ''Deception'' by Jonathan Kellerman. All thrillers...lol

[pinhodecarlos]

''Deception'' is done, tomorrow I will start ''The Odin Mission'' from James Holland.

[STMahlberg]

I'm actually reading this again; I thought this was a really great book... very enlightening.

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[pinhodecarlos]

''Deception'' is done, tomorrow I will start ''The Odin Mission'' from James Holland.

The Odin Mission is done, now reading ''Keeping The Dead'' from Tess Gerritsen.

[pinhodecarlos]

Meanwhile I read Jack Higgins's ''Tough The Devil'' and ''The Iron Tiger'' and from Carlos Ruiz Zafon ''The Angel's Game''. Now starting ''The Hostage'' from Duncan Falconer. After I will try to read the three books of Fifty Shades (not sure if I will like it) but two were gifts from a charity shop my wife worked for and the third one only costed 50p on a car boot sale.

In the meantime I went to a job interview and fingers crossed, should have a decision this Friday.

Finally my doubt is if I should buy this collection

https://www.thebookpeople.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/qs_product_tbp?productId=490168&storeId=10001&catalogId=10051&langId=100&searchTerm=jack+higgins

or next Saturday go to a city near by here to the square market where there's a guy who sells used books for less than one pound each.

Carlos

[STMahlberg]

Meanwhile I read Jack Higgins's ''Tough The Devil'' and ''The Iron Tiger'' and from Carlos Ruiz Zafon ''The Angel's Game''. Now starting ''The Hostage'' from Duncan Falconer. After I will try to read the three books of Fifty Shades (not sure if I will like it) but two were gifts from a charity shop my wife worked for and the third one only costed 50p on a car boot sale.

In the meantime I went to a job interview and fingers crossed, should have a decision this Friday.

Finally my doubt is if I should buy this collection

https://www.thebookpeople.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/qs_product_tbp?productId=490168&storeId=10001&catalogId=10051&langId=100&searchTerm=jack+higgins

or next Saturday go to a city near by here to the square market where there's a guy who sells used books for less than one pound each.

Carlos

You are quite the prolific reader. Good luck on the job! :)

[pinhodecarlos]

You are quite the prolific reader. Good luck on the job! :)

This Monday went to a second interview and now awaiting for the job offer letter this Friday.

In the meantime I just keep reading and reading. 'The Hostage'' from Duncan Falconer is completed (very good book). Also finished ''Black Daffadoll'' from Katherine John and ''A Fine Night for Dying'' from Jack Higgins.
Reading now ''Paper Money'' from Ken Follett. In the queue more than 15 books. Went again to the library last week for 6 books per one pound and this saturday a used book sell at church, another 5 for 1.80 pounds. lol I love this country, cheap books!!!!!

[Duke of Buckingham]

A Portuguese book from my uncle (Jose Medeiros Ferreira) published after is dead called: "A Liberdade Interventiva" some thoughts and desires of a man in our world.
https://img.wook.pt/images/jose-medeiros-ferreira-a-liberdade-interventiva/MXwxNjE2ODM4MnwxMTcxMzg3NXwxNDIxNzEyMDAwMDAw/320x

[DrPop]

Currently reading: Programming & Customizing the Multicore Propeller Microcontroller: Official Guide. :))

2840

[shiva]

Currently reading: Programming & Customizing the Multicore Propeller Microcontroller: Official Guide. :))

2840

your not reading Jeb, your working.

[shiva]

I'm reading Patriots by James Wesley Rawles

[Duke of Buckingham]

I am reading the words of my father, with his beautiful letter, made with his hand, on a lecture to the University of Azores. Feeling very proud of his brain (still young), I hope I can get his age and never give up.
http://img.picturequotes.com/2/49/48342/at-this-very-moment-life-is-perfect-quote-1.jpg

[Duke of Buckingham]

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