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Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2022 21:17:46 GMT
During holidays I read - Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey.
He had a very different life and very different environment growing up than what I grew up in. So I had a hard time relating to it. Though later on in the book I started appreciating many of things in his life. Usually I read biographies of scientists, engineers, doctors and entrepreneurs which are very very different.
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Post by alvinthechipmunk on Jan 10, 2022 1:11:43 GMT
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Post by chang on Jan 10, 2022 1:28:09 GMT
Reading "An Introduction to Thermal Physics" by Daniel V. Schroeder. I need a refresher on statistical mechanics and the second law of thermodynamics.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 10, 2022 2:28:39 GMT
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Post by chang on Jan 10, 2022 2:53:23 GMT
Both superb series. I used the Berkeley Series Vol. 2 in my freshman course on E&M, written by Nobel laureate Edward Purcell. Still regarded as one of the best introductions to E&M. I have the revised edition onmy shelf. I also have Vol. 5 ("Baby Reif"). I have the Feynman lectures, of course. Probably the one set of books I would choose if I were stranded on a deserted island and could only pick one thing to read.
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Post by richardsok on Jan 12, 2022 11:34:46 GMT
Both superb series. I used the Berkeley Series Vol. 2 in my freshman course on E&M, written by Nobel laureate Edward Purcell. Still regarded as one of the best introductions to E&M. I have the revised edition onmy shelf. I also have Vol. 5 ("Baby Reif"). I have the Feynman lectures, of course. Probably the one set of books I would choose if I were stranded on a deserted island and could only pick one thing to read. People like you two leave me speechless, contemplating my limited abilities -- an old feeling that dates back to high school; back when envy started contending with admiration. I feel I know you two well enough to be confident you have used your skills for worthwhile endeavors. Not all our brightest do, you know. I'll stop right here before I embarrass myself. - - - - - - WOBEGON BOY by Garrison Keillor. A light and pleasurable read. John Tollefson, Norwegian and recovering Lutheran, goes east to manage a college town radio station. Finds elusive love but loses his restaurant investment and his job when he runs afoul of political correctness and militant feminism. Returns to Lake Wobegon for father's funeral to face family and staid, crusty old neighbors in a bittersweet reunion after many years. All familiar matter for fans of NEWS FROM LAKE WOPBEGON. Keillor has wonderful moments of humor, irony and sweetness.
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Post by Chahta on Jan 12, 2022 13:37:42 GMT
What type of engineer? I am an ME.
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Post by Chahta on Jan 12, 2022 13:43:38 GMT
Watching Get Back 6 hour Beatles documentary starting tomorrow on DIS+. It is amazing Let It Be was created in 4 weeks time. The 60 hour of video has never been shown .....Let It Be sessions. Finally finished the 3rd part. The roof top concert was so cool. It was fun watching. The Beatles had fun and the people below had fun. No one knew how historical it would be. It was also fun watching the cops get frustrated and how "up-tight" London was back then. It was The Beatles last public appearance and the neighbors were complaining about noise....go figure. The "Let It Be" album was my last 8 track tape as I remember.
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Post by shipwreckedandalone on Jan 12, 2022 20:19:47 GMT
I thought the chord combinations the Beatles came up with were ahead of their time. Amazing talent. Their last 4 albums were written and released within a 19 month time frame '68-70. McCartney told a story that Pink Floyd recorded Dark Side at Apple Studios during that late 60's time frame. He would drop in to hear some of it. I heard McCartney also talk about songs came to him in dreams. Nobody went out on top like the Beatles.
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Post by chang on Jan 12, 2022 21:44:51 GMT
“Nobody went out on top like the Beatles.”
I would argue that Jackie Gleason, Audrey Meadows and Art Carney went out “on top” after only 39 episodes of The Honeymooners. I watched an old interview with J. G. yesterday, and he said it was his decision to stop because he felt that they could not sustain the humor and emotion of the show indefinitely, and he sensed they were “on top”. I also read somewhere that he didn’t learn his scripts very well, and ad-libbed a good deal, sometimes flying by the seat of his pants, which made his co-stars’ job that much more challenging.
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Post by Chahta on Jan 12, 2022 22:51:11 GMT
“Nobody went out on top like the Beatles.” I would argue that Jackie Gleason, Audrey Meadows and Art Carney went out “on top” after only 39 episodes of The Honeymooners. I watched an old interview with J. G. yesterday, and he said it was his decision to stop because he felt that they could not sustain the humor and emotion of the show indefinitely, and he sensed they were “on top”. I also read somewhere that he didn’t learn his scripts very well, and ad-libbed a good deal, sometimes flying by the seat of his pants, which made his co-stars’ job that much more challenging. True, but apples and oranges in a good way. Gleason was a genius.
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Post by johntaylor on Jan 12, 2022 23:35:07 GMT
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Post by richardsok on Jan 13, 2022 3:07:51 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jan 13, 2022 4:16:03 GMT
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Post by richardsok on Jan 14, 2022 12:42:04 GMT
A sad follow-up. Just read that Ronnie Spector died yesterday. Forever young at age 78.
Now she can charm the angels.
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Post by alvinthechipmunk on Jan 14, 2022 23:54:55 GMT
WOBEGON BOY richardsok, I shall make a request at the library for this title. LOVE Keillor.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2022 1:11:09 GMT
What type of engineer? I am an ME. I did Electronics and Communications Engineering - Analog and digital circuits, Semiconductors, Electro Magnetic Theory, Microwaves, RADARS, embedded systems etc. But now working in Software - ML and Big Data.
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Post by richardsok on Jan 16, 2022 2:48:07 GMT
Paul Fussell was the real deal: an infantry second lieutenant platoon leader who fought his way from Normandy in summer of 1944 and on into Germany itself. He's written several gritty non-fiction accounts of war's horrors and personal combat. I just finished his THE BOYS' CRUSADE, a short work detailing the terrible lot of 17 and 18 year old kids who were taken late in the war and pushed piecemeal into tattered units as replacements. The longer the war went on, the less effective army units became as veterans became casualties and were replaced by frightened kids. Infantrymen knew there was no walking away from the war. The only exits were a wound or death..... unless one deserted. In Europe desertion was more common than in Pacific where there was no where to run to. Mass US surrender at the start of the German attack on The Bulge was the most embarrassing US event. It had previously been unthinkable. Fussell describes blunders in training, blunders in tactics and in intelligence; costly mistakes little reported to the public. Example: the horror of the Hurtgen Forest offensive--- the army gave up the advantage of spotter planes; in the forest the Germans well hidden could not be spotted from the air nor could American armor get through the forest. So the US attacked well prepared Nazi positions with infantry only and gave up all its advantages of air and mobile armor -- a needlessly stupid mistake. In 1864-65 the Union used black combat troops extensively. Their participation probably tipped the balance. The French used African units in WWI -- and probably would have collapsed without them. But the US staff could never agree to use black ground combat soldiers in WWII -- no matter how depleted units were getting. There had been a universal hatred for the Japanese of course, right from the start. But the average GI felt relatively indifferent about Germans -- a problem that the staff worried about often. Attitudes changed sharply after the Malmedy massacre and the discovery of the death camps, after which, it became infinitely more dangerous for a German to surrender. (The Brits were generally civil to their prisoners all through the war.)
A short, grim read by an author who witnessed it all.
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Post by richardsok on Jan 18, 2022 19:12:28 GMT
Quickly thumbed my way through THE RUB OF TIME, by Martin Amis. Greatly enjoyed pieces on Travolta and Christopher Hitchens. Wonderful brief piece on Diana's death.
Learned about DIEGO MARADONA and his “Hand of God” cheating goal against England in the world cup --- perhaps the greatest theft in soccer history. Late in life his belly grew to monstrous basketball size and he hob-nobbed with Castro and his ilk.
As the debate club bully he evidently is, Amis boldly claims "everyone knows" that Saul Bellow and John Updike are the greatest modern novelists – and verily challenges you to contest it. Nary a word for Hemingway, Faulkner or Fitzgerald, etc. “Everyone knows.” Nonsense.
A FEW QUOTES:
Philip Roth: “the remorseless unforeseen.”
“He has traded in his Fiasco for a second hand Culprit.:”
What Diana tried to bring about was an alliance between herself and the common people against the Royal Family. She could touch and soothe; perhaps she believed she could heal. Equipped with no talent, Diana evolved into the most celebrated woman alive. What does that tell us?
Certainly believed she had a talent for love.. She felt she could inspire it. “After all I've done for that fucking family.” In the end, horribly, what she did for the family was to die. It was a little Restoration.
Paris; world HQ of cerebral gloom.
Bannon: a recognizable type; the high IQ cretin, the Mensa moron.
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Post by Chahta on Jan 18, 2022 19:45:45 GMT
I am watching “1883” on Paramount+ and the new season of “All Creatures Great and Small” on PBS (redo of 1980s program). It has outstanding writing.
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Post by alvinthechipmunk on Jan 21, 2022 6:52:42 GMT
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Post by richardsok on Jan 21, 2022 16:40:44 GMT
Pimpernel?? What possessed you? I'm ashamed to admit I've never read it. As a kid I saw the 1934 version on TV with Leslie Howard (played Ashley in Gone With The Wind). Wonderful sparkling dialog .... "They seek him here, they seek him there, / Those Frenchies seek him everywhere. / Is he in heaven? Or is he in hell? / That damned elusive Pimpernel." "So that is why you ceased to love her. What a tragedy." "Ceased? I shall love her until the day I die. That's the tragedy." "Can't you rise above trivialities for once?" "Can't rise above anything more than three syllables, my dear; never could."
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Post by johntaylor on Jan 24, 2022 2:19:22 GMT
Reading Robert Ruark's article "Nothing Works and Nobody Cares" (Playboy, Dec 1965)
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Post by richardsok on Jan 31, 2022 23:45:54 GMT
Narratives of tough guys trying to go straight and leave checkered and violent pasts behind have a long pedigree in Hollywood. And from ON THE WATERFRONT to GODFATHER 3, movies of this sort seem to have been eminently watchable, or even great.
I just saw a gem of such a flick directed, co-written and starring Ben Affleck titled THE TOWN. A thug, part of a professional gang of Boston thieves, tries to put his past behind him when he meets and falls in love with a victim of a previous bank heist. The girl, deeply shaken by her ordeal, remembers just enough of the robbers to possibly identify one of the gang (played tough and scary by that bomb disposal guy in HURT LOCKER) --- and that gang member realizes she's seen something and he wants to “fix” it. Lots of drama and tension here, including the best high-speed urban car chase scene since FRENCH CONNECTION.
The determined FBI agent tracking them down is played by Jon Hamm, the lead in the MAD MEN television series. When Hollywood won't give you roles you want to act, some guys are big enough to just go out and CREATE the films they want to do. Kudos to Affleck for his guts. Honestly, I thought he was just another pretty boy. Didn't know he had it in him.
Travolta did just the same thing, remember. When his career was flagging, he went out and created the wonderful GET SHORTY, starring himself and Danny DiVito -- and a bunch of fun cameos by famous actors who pop up when you least expect them; a plot-twisty gangster half-comedy that was actually a Valentine to Hollywood films and the people who make them.
No football until next weekend, guys. If you want something great to watch – THE TOWN is a good bet …. and now playing right on Netflix.
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Post by shipwreckedandalone on Feb 6, 2022 19:07:51 GMT
after a 2 year wait....BC Saul final season 6. estimated start April/May 2022. Trailor has to be created first and aired for a month. S6 has 13 episodes instead of 10 standard. AMC rumored to split season 6 into 2 parts. Will get to finally know the story behind how BC S connects with Breaking Bad and the how slippin' jimmy mcgill's life resolves. Rumors are more BB characters will show up as the timelines begin to slowly merge. I just hope they don't move it to streaming video last minute.
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Post by richardsok on Feb 6, 2022 19:48:06 GMT
after a 2 year wait....BC Saul final season 6. estimated start April/May 2022. Trailor has to be created first and aired for a month. S6 has 13 episodes instead of 10 standard. AMC rumored to split season 6 into 2 parts. Will get to finally know the story behind how BC S connects with Breaking Bad and the how slippin' jimmy mcgill's life resolves. Rumors are more BB characters will show up as the timelines begin to slowly merge. I just hope they don't move it to streaming video last minute. Well, that's good news! Looking forward to it. We know Jimmy's older brother died in the house fire but, as I recall, the blonde lawyer girlfriend is still around, but never appeared in BBad. So I hope we'll see a farewell to her in the final season of BC Saul.
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Post by richardsok on Feb 9, 2022 17:59:46 GMT
Feb 9, 2022. It was a long, long read, this working my way through J. B. Priestley's LITERATURE AND WESTERN MAN. But I did it, underlining and highlighting my way through his 1960 magnum opus survey of the written arts and western thought from the 14th century to the present. This book is the sort of Western Civ course that used to be taught to freshmen at good colleges – but will never be taught again
No one buys this book anymore – even if you can find it. Truth to tell, I found mine in the “throwaways” bin of my local library about twenty years ago. It has been on my “must read” list all that time. In my later years I've had the time – that great luxury of retirement; leisure. But I did generally skip past Germanic Romanticism – that was asking too much.
There is far too much for even the most cursory of comments. So I'll leave just one thought: The high Middle Ages, the two centuries when the great gothic Cathedrals were built, was the very last time Western Man was certain of his place in the Universe – “Imperfect as we may be, we are here. This Earthly Life, its riches and possessions are not intrinsically a reality at all, but are a shadow of realities eternal, infinite...This Time-World an air-image, fearfully emblematic, flickers in the grand, still mirror of Eternity.... and man's little life has duties that are great... and go up to Heaven and down to Hell..”
Even with my juvenile-level understanding, this brings to me the kind of helpless awe that comes when I read about the vast distances and profound mysteries of astronomy.
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Post by richardsok on Feb 22, 2022 19:54:49 GMT
Finished APROPOS OF NOTHING, Woody Allen's autobiography. Recounting his early life he is most interesting in his stories of his semi-gangster/gambler/ne'er do well father, his hatred of school and his love of the neighborhood cinemas “I had a terrible education. I went to a school for dysfunctional teachers.”
The stories of his 20s when he got started as a comedy writer and later a very hesitant stand-up comedian, are equally good. My greatest impression is his sheer luck; it was the great age of American showbiz, the flowering of Television and pop culture and young Allen was rubbing shoulders with the greats: Carson, Paar, Gleason, Sid Caesar, Bob Hope, Jack Benny, Groucho Marx, S. J. Perelman, Mel Brooks, Zero Mostel, Neil Simon, Carl Reiner, Milton Berle, Mort Sahl, Hefner, Jack Lemmon, Orson Welles, Carol Burnett – and on and on. And here's Woody starting out, and in the middle of it all with the parties and the women.... WHAT a life. Just reading the list reminds us how far we have declined as a culture with today's vulgar, untalented nobodies as “entertainment”.
Of his second wife he says, “ Satan weighed in with uppers, amyl nitrate, Quaaludes and a cluster of new positions to try out with any male registered to vote in the tri-state area.”
"If 80% of life is showing up the other 80% yogi Berra might say, is chance.”
“... no one will ever top her as she sized up the crowd at a Hollywood party, referring to them as Schindler's B- list.”
But what you really want to read about is, did Woody really abuse his own daughter and seduce and marry his wife's adopted child, Soon-Yi?
I won't get into this part except to say Allen makes a convincing case that he is innocent and that Mia Farrow is semi-insane, abusive to her kids, world-class manipulative, and wildly vindictive. In her family, one brother died behind the controls of a plane, another brother committed suicide and the third brother was convicted of molesting boys and sentenced to prison. “ I know what you're thinking -- what kind of fool am I, given the profile I just rattled off, why didn't I bail?” Mia's son Thaddeus committed suicide; this was not long after she had locked him in a shed over night.
Fun fact you didn't know: When in his teens, Mia put her son Ronan in the hospital to have his legs broken and extended two inches. Why? Because she wanted Ronan to be a politician and successful politicians must be tall.
If interested in the world of showbiz, here's a book worth reading.
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Post by Norbert on Feb 23, 2022 10:57:17 GMT
I've been watching Guy Ritchie's movies. Great entertainment with British humor. My ranking:
- The Gentlemen
- The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
- ROCKnROLLA
- Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
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Post by alvinthechipmunk on Feb 24, 2022 9:49:15 GMT
Just re-watched Jeff Bridges in "The Big Lebowski." The average Everyman, who gets along in spite of himself. It even prompted me to go ahead and buy some of "The Dude's Threads." In response to the geniuses from both major political parties in the USA, one Tee states: LEBOWSKI 2024. "This Aggression Will Not Stand, Man." Another: LEBOWSKI RUG CO. est. 1998. "Rugs That Really Tie The Room Together." Lastly: THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS, LARRY. *Any other fans of The Dude out there? www.imdb.com/title/tt0118715/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1Among the ones I did not purchase was this great one: A tow truck is pictured. Sobchak Towing. "You want a tow? I can get you a tow." LOL. In a whole different direction: "The First Thousand Years. A Global History of Christianity." Robert Louis Wilken. (2013.) I've only just begun, but I like his style. Crisp, sharp, insighful. Not afraid of commas and compound sentences. Not dumbed-down, though quite readable. www.amazon.com/First-Thousand-Years-History-Christianity/dp/0300198388
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