cool book

Lucky you. Burnie - population 15,000 at the time - never had much in the way of a book store.

Launceston (also in Northern Tasmania) where I got sent to boarding school wasn't much better.

Melbourne - where I went to university - was much better.

When I finally did get to Cambridge (very much later - 1982-93) I did get to Heffers, and spent quite lot there.

That isn't information. At best it is raw data, of a rather unreliable sort.

I'm not sure that John Larkin realises that he is peddling creationism - we've told him often enough - but I think all the feedback gets classes as "insufficient admiration" and is comprehensively discarded.

In Dutch it merely means "poison".

I was dragged up in Epsom on the outer fringe of London. The decent technical bookshops were all in central London, an hour away.

Just so, although I think "data" is even overstating it :( Antidata or noise, perhaps.

There's none so deaf as them's won't hear.

I find avoidance of learning baffling, along with the placebo/nocebo effect and other denial phenomena.

I'm deaf, so I occasionally poke people's behaviour by referring to myself as an "invalid" using the wrong pronunciation.

His writing is a bit showy, but it's often entertaining.

But he thinks hard and asks some cosmic questions. I enjoyed most of it.

People aren't all the same, which concept annoys some other people. Some people read poetry, apparently voluntarily. Some just watch TV.

It entertained me for about 300 miles on I80. There were many laugh-out-loud moments.

(Mo doesn't like my driving... it makes her car sick so she prefers to drive long stretches and let me read or design. Objectively, the dynamics of her driving is if anything more jerky than mine.)

(And I can read in a moving car; she can't.)

That is projecting without cause. Mr B is not a Christian.

Or hang out in libraries.

New Orleans had excellent public libraries, plus school and university libraries with open stacks. A kid could get a library card at Tulane or LSUNO. (I was student number 20,000 at LSUNO, a bogus registration to get me student priviliges.) They spotted interested kids and helped.

There used to be at least one "technical bookstore" in every major city, the grand example being Powell's technical annex in Portland.

As a kid I read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica cover-to-cover, skipping only some of the culture-type stuff, The Lake Poets sort of thing. That was when Britannica was serious.

And the whole RadLab series.

OK thanks. I still have to read "the selfish gene". GH

Yes.

RadLab. That explains a lot.

Joe Gwinn

As noted in another response...

Later on the local library staff somewhat sheepishly told my parents that I was using my junior card to get books from the adult library. Of course I was: juniors weren't fined for late return of books

But once I'd exhausted the local stock of whatever interested me, I had to get other books by inter-library loan. That took weeks, not least because often someone had to return the book first.

For a general reader, I prefer "The Blind Watchmaker", which is subtle (if you are prepared to take the time to think with a humble mind ;} ) and beautifully written

"The Ancestor's Tale" is more of a reference book to dip into. Wherever you start you will learn something interesting - just like TAoE :)

I just reread "Tuxedo Park" so am motivated to read RadLab again. I have the whole set.

The MIT RadLab invented modern electronics. It was a deliberate act to publish the series, and to sell kilotons of surplus electronics cheap, to kick-start kids like me.

They had to know that the Russians would buy a few sets too.

It's pretty obvious and pretty boring.

Dawkins has said that a prime virtue of Darwinism is that it reinforces his militant atheism. He's an atheist first, a scientist second.

There are many methods:

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There are many many more, but the above are a good place to start. The first two or three are the most common these days.

Joe Gwinn

I agree there. I dropped it two-thirds of the way through. That rarely happens. When I start a book, I usually read it all.Maybe I'll finish it later.

I found the 'The god delusion' more captivating.

Jeroen Belleman

Indeed both are telling enough, "girls' stories". Then take "Pride, Prejudice and Zombies" - and it tells something completely different. Not a book title and it was watchable BTW, I sort of enjoyed it. The original "Pride and Prejudice" - the book, I mean - got its chance in my early 20-s, not sure it survived even the first page. The title "Darwin whatever" is also telling enough, goes into the same category like the rest of UFO-logies, aliens among us etc. Not all titles are telling enough of course, "Catch-22" would give you no clue for example if you have never heard about it before. And yes, it is a masterpiece. They say no masterpiece has been written in English since Shakespeare and I say this is nonsense. The American literature of the 20-th century is full of such, Catch-22 being just one of them. Less so that of the

Dimiter

====================================================== Dimiter Popoff, TGI

It's all the same. As is the watchmaker thing. He's actually a preacher with one sermon. B has a lot of fun with him.

Haven't read that. Sounds like a religious rant.

I found if from a NYT opinion piece by the same name.

Why such a political kerfuffle. Liberals can't tolerate any view that isn't part of their orthodoxy.

George H.

Boys can be romantic too. Nothing to be ashamed of.

The most recent P+P movie, with Kiera Knightley, is a beautiful film. The first proposal scene in the rain is amazing. There is also one very complex scene, at a ball, that is a continuous 2.5 minute shoot.

Try Wodehouse, specifically A Damsel In Distress.