BOOK! (Hardcopy edition)

[machinebacon]

Good point. Identity could be part of anthropology, then. Something like how a certain culture, its traditions, its music, its religion, its tales influence ones own identity. Thanks for mentioning this, adds a bit of colour :)

[pidsley]

I am only part-way through this book, but I have already learned several interesting things I did not know. For example, I knew that Edward Teller was a Hungarian Jew, but I learned that Theodore von Karman, John von Neumann, and Eugene Wigner* were all Hungarian (and Jewish). I also learned that the Hungarian language (or more properly magyar) is a "Finno-Ugric" language, with grammar and name construction very different from Indo-European languages (Wigner's name in magyar is "Wigner Jenő Pál" and von Karman is "Szőllőskislaki Kármán Tódor").

Also lots of fascinating history from the very early days of digital computing and the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. Written by George Dyson, the son of Freeman Dyson*.

*If you don't recognize these names, I will have to confiscate your nerd card.

"We are Martians who have come to Earth to change everything -- and we are afraid we will not be so well received. So we try to keep it a secret, try to appear as Americans...but that we could not do, because of our accent. So we settled in a country nobody has every heard about and now we are claiming to be Hungarians." -- Edward Teller

[rhowaldt]

*hands in nerd-card to Pidsley* - you deserve it more than i do bro. no idea who these people are.

[GekkoP]

^^ Looks awesome to me. Added to my wishlist (I'll never get to the end of it, I'm sure)

[hinto]

-Hinto

[machinebacon]

offtopic()
{
@pidsley, thanks for the spotlight ;)

Hungarian history should actually be split in three parts:
1) most recently, in late 890 AD, the conquest of the Karpathian Basin. Some researchers report that there were probably two waves, the other one around 600AD into a territory that had some existing population.
2) The period around 500-860 AD in which the different (seven?) Hungarian tribes moved from a territory called Etelkoz towards West
3) and the "original" homeland of the Magyars in the territory of today's Xinjiang province in China, around 2600 years ago. The Jews were already in (today's) Hungarian territory at that time (around 200AD). Greetings to the Romans.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of ... in_Hungary

This is maybe the biggest problem of Hungarians: the lack of a real homeland or identity. The language is classified as "Finno-Ugric" though it has nothing to do with Finnish, the former territory of Greater Hungary is now under foreign administration ("Treaty of Trianon"), the genetical mish-mash of 1000 years, the aftermath of 60 years Communist mismanagement, the parallel societies with Jews and Gypsies without the will of mutual integration... all of these are reasons why nobody wanted (and wants) to live in Hungary - just like the gentlemen you mentioned before :)
}

[kiiroitori]

I have started this book and I'll be reading it for a while because of the number of pages and the writing style that prevents fast reading. I am expecting to know more about machinebacon psyche and be able to picture him more accurately in his chinese environment after having read the book.

[linuxbbq]

^ Bacon lives in a cloud of smoke between flat-chested MILFs. You can imagine how fucked up his psyche is :)

[rhowaldt]

kudos if you can get insight into his psyche. i have known him for a couple of years now and still can't always grasp the sickening depths of his mind. all i know is that he is one of the "good guys", whatever that means ;)

[machinebacon]

Amicus meus, inimicus inimici mei

[GekkoP]

Just ordered these two:

shcloj2_xlargecover.jpg (16.36 KiB) Viewed 17025 times

9781617291418_p0_v2_s260x420.JPG (13.55 KiB) Viewed 17025 times

Need to catch up with IT-business and update my CV.

[twoion]

Once again, I ventured out to grasp yet another idea of Western European philosophy and thought. It is magnificent: however, I do not whether whether an English translation exists that is even remotely on par with this very fine piece of writing; to-day, one can only seldom find a new book (I haven't, and I doubt they exist) in which the German language is used with such great analytical accuracy while still coming out as beautiful.

Oswald Spengler 〜 The Downfall of the Occident: Attempt at a Morphology of World History, 1922 edition.

[ivanovnegro]

^ Oh yeah. Something I have to lecture for my students.

[machinebacon]

@gekko:

http://filepi.com/i/a2AxPKd

http://filepi.com/i/KgauAs7

http://filepi.com/i/uj23586

http://filepi.com/i/clL3o1T

[GekkoP]

^ woah! Thanks.

[p120d16y]

I have another Nesbo novel to finish, but in the meantime I've started Pevear December 2nd, 2008 Vintage Classics version of Tolstoy's War and Peace. Excellent so far, very large, and I've already been a fan. Read Karenina a couple years ago and recently finished The Death of Ivan Ilyich.
I'm planning on Crime and Punishment - Dostoyevsky, next, because I'm a masochist.

[ivanovnegro]

^ Good election.

[machinebacon]

Got a book today as gift: The Caves of Dunhuang

It cover the topics around the Dunhuang manuscripts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunhuang_manuscripts) and the findings of caves like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mogao_Caves

Nice food for people interested in archaeology.

[pidsley]

More interesting than it sounds, this is a fascinating look at the global scrap-metal market. Lots of interesting stuff about China.

[GekkoP]

Another birthday present. Someone must really know me well.