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What Book Are You Reading?


Wolfbane

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https://www.amazon.com/House-Doors-Surviving-Rural-South/dp/0983414483

 

This was written by my 8th grade teacher who I've remained in contact with over the years.  She collected a bunch of stories from her childhood, as well as family and friends, and patched it all together as a novel.  Basically it's a tell-all of how stuff was in rural southern states back in the day, primarily revolving around abuse.  It's pretty dark.  If you're into the subject matter it reads pretty easily but I have a hard time getting into it.  It's important to her though and she keeps wanting my feedback so I'm trying to force my way through it.  

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(Fiction--for me--makes me feel that I'm wasting my time.)

 

Not  for me.  I've got a degree in history and I can't tel you how often a good historical fiction novel has taught me something.

 

Granted the author has to do his research, but, case in point, my latest read (I average a book every other week) is Harry Turtledove's latest.  Can't claim I like the company he keeps (Newt Gingrich for example) but every 50 pages or so he drops in something I didn't know, or a factoid that makes more sense once he's chewed on it for awhile.

 

There are many, many ways to learn as we go along, and good fiction always teaches you something. 

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9 hours ago, Chris A said:

What I'm now reading (small bits at a time):

 

51vzOuc6A1L.jpg

 

 

Interesting. There is an interpretation of Gauss' Law that indicates that electrostatic loudspeakers would be preferably modeled as charge-controlled devices rather than as voltage-controlled devices. Since charge is the integral of current, it follows that current amplifiers, or transconductance amplifiers, might be the ideal drivers for electrostatics.

 

Oh, I'm reading "Exploring the Raspberry Pi", by Derek Molloy. Amazing little devices for 35 bucks. I just have to re-learn Linux.

 

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9 hours ago, Chris A said:

I never read just one book at a time.  Two-to-three is an average.  Reading takes valuable time and isn't something that I invest in lightly.  (Fiction--for me--makes me feel that I'm wasting my time.)  Why not read something that's actually useful?  I've taken heat from my colleagues over the years for this view.

 

I've spent some time on this recently:

 

Collapse_book.jpg

 

Diamond is quite deceptive (in an insightful way).  When you read his stuff it looks like window wash.  It's not.  Slow down and consider what he's saying and you'll start to realize the real value of what you're reading.  Guns, Germs and Steel, and The Third Chimpanzee have stuck in my head like an earworm.  These books fundamentally changed my perceptions of who we are (i.e., the human race, in general).   They've affected my basic views of human cultures and of history itself.

 

What I'm now reading (small bits at a time):

 

51vzOuc6A1L.jpg

 

This one is interestingly on-topic for a loudspeaker web forum (:huh2:), and while the author perhaps has issues with breath of the imagination and general lack of experience with horn-loaded loudspeakers...nevertheless the book should make you do double takes on what you consider to be good audio.  I imagine that if you're the type of person that reads "audiophile magazines", this book will help you to forever stop wasting your time on them--similar to the effect that Floyd Toole's book on loudspeakers has.

 

Chris

 

I too view most modern day fiction as mind-candy. The circus component of today's modern version of 'bread and circuses'.

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1 hour ago, Steve_S said:

Tech Manuals on something I'm interested in "I can absorb"

That's about the same for me.... I really don't read novel type books. I've only read one book in my life that I can remember it was the Amityville Horror. This was back in high school. 

Just about everything I take the time to read has something to do with my business/shop. I have little time to do the all the stuff I need to do as it is. 

Now my wife is a reading nut:laugh: She has read every Stephen King book there is, Dean Koontz, John Sandford, Jonathan Kellerman and list goes on...

 

1 hour ago, nitrofan said:

Just read Paul Klipsch biography. Enjoyed it tremendously

Despite what I just said.... I might check this out...

 

MKP :-)

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10 hours ago, Edgar said:

Interesting. There is an interpretation of Gauss' Law that indicates that electrostatic loudspeakers would be preferably modeled as charge-controlled devices rather than as voltage-controlled devices. Since charge is the integral of current, it follows that current amplifiers, or transconductance amplifiers, might be the ideal drivers for electrostatics.

Nelson Pass also mentioned that ribbon tweeters didn't really care about output transformers when using these sort of amplifiers in his treatise on transconductance (current source) amps used with full range drivers.

 

It's interesting to me that it was this subject (transconductance amplifiers) that started First Watt.  I wonder if NP ran into that "it doesn't make my lousy recordings sound very good" expectation that some audiophiles hold to be a rationale argument.  It seems that the promise of current-source amps is better hi-fi...if you can get past the "I want it the way that I want it" expectations.

 

Chris

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  • 4 months later...
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On 12/2/2016 at 9:28 AM, Rivervalleymgb said:

Another set of audio books I have enjyed over the years are the "Great Courses" series written by professors and consisting of a series of lectures on specific topics.

Which ones did you like?  Any standouts? 

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Fiction, Non-Fiction...... doesn't matter to me. A good book, is a good book, is a good book. Read time is special to me as well, that's why I prefer a good book.

 

Most of the time I read because I have too, but when I read for my personal enjoyment, that's what I do, I don't read to impress anyone, except myself. Thank goodness for the creative minds of Mark Twain, E.A. Poe, J. Salinger, E.R. Bouroughs, R. Kipling.... all fiction, all great authors of timeless, classics. 

 

 

 

open_country_mule_deer.jpg

 

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On May 2, 2017 at 7:52 PM, juniper said:

Moby Dick, with my boy, I find working through the "classics" with youngsters works well......

 

How is that going?

 

I re-read Moby Dick a few years ago.  I still can't understand why it's so highly regarded.  Melville, IMO, is too wordy.  Some sentences go on for a whole page.  The title whale doesn't even make an appearance until the very end.  It's a compelling novel, but not the best American novel ever written, IMO.

 

I'm currently reading The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis, the author of Moneyball, The Blind Side and The Big Short.  It's well written and interesting.

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5 hours ago, DizRotus said:

 

How is that going?

 

I re-read Moby Dick a few years ago.  I still can't understand why it's so highly regarded.  Melville, IMO, is too wordy.  Some sentences go on for a whole page.  The title whale doesn't even make an appearance until the very end.  It's a compelling novel, but not the best American novel ever written, IMO.

 

I'm currently reading The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis, the author of Moneyball, The Blind Side and The Big Short.  It's well written and interesting.

Dude.  The novel is a story and an education you will get nowhere else.  I struggled through the first half, and then it really took off for me.  It might not be the greatest, but it is easily in the top five.  Like biilybob, I have read his other stuff too, including the short stories.

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