non-fiction

All posts tagged non-fiction

Band of Brothers - (2001 television show) image

Entertainment > Television >

(on Wikipedia)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0185906/
https://www.hbo.com/band-of-brothers

Follows a unit in the 101st Airborne Division during World War 2.

Quite a good story. It’s full of faces I know. Great acting and spectacular realism.

  • Note: This video style is shaky.

  1. Band of Brothers – (2001 show)
  2. The Pacific – (2010 show)



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the-prince-1910-by-niccolo-machiavelli-cover

Entertainment > Reading >

(on Wikipedia)

A tactically-minded man creates an instruction manual for action and understanding in the realm of high-lords of kingdoms.

At under 70 pages, this book may be thin but it’s incredibly dense. I found myself reading paragraphs three times before moving on. Although nothing in it surprised me, I can still easily recommend it. It’s been, somehow, given a bad name. I only found a slight tinge of “evil” creeping in at about the half-way mark, but nothing inexcusable.

I understood it well enough to add strong commentary, and to give much improved explanation in the latter half which draws from the former. It’s interesting to me that the author himself didn’t catch on to the trends in his own advice.

Like The Art of War – (~476 BC book), by Sunzi, people have interpreted this text for all manner of uses such as the business world.



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bushido-1924-01-03-book-minoru-tanaka-cover

Entertainment > Reading > samurai >

(on Wikipedia)

A book on Bushido, the old way of the samurai, as created in conversation with an old master-turned-monk.

In a time when the others were softening up, a samurai who had lost his master and left to live in a monastery spoke in hushed tones to a friend about the old ways he grew up in. Although he and others insisted the manuscripts be burned, the promises were broken when they were kept secret. They would be later compiled and published, and even later translated from its original Japanese.

A particularly interesting book. Although most of it is definitely not directly-applicable today, I think anyone who already has a sufficient “wisdom” (whatever that means) will find bits and pieces of insight.



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propaganda-1928-by-edward-bernays-cover

Entertainment > Reading >

(on Wikipedia)

The author works to sell the notion of propaganda as a skill and service, inventing what is best described as “ethical propaganda”. He used this to manufacture his relevancy and sell his career. This book is particularly interesting in that the author and what he writes can itself be understood by what is written. The teaching can be used on itself.

Its first half is boring as hell to me, but I guess it would have been fascinating back then. A little after the half-way point it has grown very dark, talking about leaders instead of elected officials and manipulation instead of representation.

It does show its age in a number of places, but its stories are trivially generalizable.

So far I guess I’d put this on an intellectual’s book shelf, though it all seems obvious and not even particularly collectible. I’m not sure if it would “red pill” an everyday person or even be interesting to one.

TODO – re-read and especially the other essays.

Not the cover of my edition.
Not the cover of my edition.

Entertainment > Reading >

I’m either stupid or arrogant to say that this isn’t particularly good. I’ll have to re-read it yet again before I can either give a description or a proper opinion.

  1. 1942 – The Myth of Sisyphus

    • First translated into English in 1955.
  2. (other essays noted below) TODO

nightwork-2003-book-by-t-f-peterson-cover

Entertainment > Reading >

(on Wikipedia)
hacks.mit.edu

A book on a particular aspect of culture and events in the history of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

It glimpses into one aspect of “playful hacking“, pranks and practical jokes.



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TODO – import more of its archived text

This is on my list of books to re-read.

freax-volume-1-2005-by-tamas-polgar-cover

Entertainment > Reading >

www.freax.hu [ 1 ] on archive.org
http://www.maz-sound.com/FREAX/en/Intro/

A book on the history of the demoscene.

This is on history and itself has become a collectable piece of it. I bought and read this years ago.. probably in 2007 or thereabouts.

  • aka Freax volume 1. – A brief history of the computer demoscene
  • by by Tamas Polgar, aka Tomkatz / Madwizards
  • Copyright and published by CWS Verlag
  • ISBN (blank)
  • Available as an e-book.



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Footnotes

sjws-always-lie-2015-08-25-cover

Entertainment > Reading >

(on Wikipedia)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B014GMBUR4

A sort of “Art of War” on the the topic of the more recent so-called “Social Justice Warriors”.

Highly recommended, though not necessarily because of its topic. With history and opinion, and descriptions of tactics and rhetoric, it’s a fascinating set of opinions, positions and stories. I didn’t understand half of its references, but this sort of book reveals a kind of contemporary philosophic writing that I find fascinating.

I read this just after Free Speech Isn’t Free – (2016 book), by Roosh V, which I think helped a lot.



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free-speech-isnt-free-2016-book-by-roosh-v-cover

Entertainment > Reading >

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B01GMQZ5ZA
https://www.rooshv.com/free-speech-isnt-free

Free Speech Isn’t Free – How 90 Men Stood Up Against The Establishment And Won, by Roosh Valizadeh

I like free speech, and already know the phrase “free speech isn’t free”, so this caught my attention.

It was cheap, and I’ve been making a habit of getting some more books in dead-tree format. I was bumbling around on Amazon when I found this. I have neither an idea who the author is nor do I know anything about this topic. I like that it’s “recent”.

After reading: It’s good storytelling, and even after its lengthy description of events I have definitely not heard of any of it. It describes the sorts of things people are willing to do once they succumb to an ideology, and the “two minutes of hate” they participate in. Even politicians must follow suit, if only with hollow rhetoric. Media are wholly in on it, as they are at best ambulance-chasers for entertainment-news, and at worst willing to start and stoke a fire to have any sort of relevancy.



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