Topic: Books (Page 2)

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๐Ÿ”— Uncleftish Beholding

๐Ÿ”— Books

"Uncleftish Beholding" (1989) is a short text by Poul Anderson designed to illustrate what English might look like without its large number of loanwords from languages such as French, Greek, and Latin. Written in a form of "Anglish," the work explains atomic theory using Germanic words almost exclusively and coining new words when necessary; many of these new words have cognates in modern German, an important scientific language in its own right. The title phrase uncleftish beholding calques "atomic theory."

To illustrate, the text begins:

For most of its being, mankind did not know what things are made of, but could only guess. With the growth of worldken, we began to learn, and today we have a beholding of stuff and work that watching bears out, both in the workstead and in daily life.

It goes on to define firststuffs (chemical elements), such as waterstuff (hydrogen), sourstuff (oxygen), and ymirstuff (uranium), as well as bulkbits (molecules), bindings (compounds), and several other terms important to uncleftish worldken (atomic science). Wasserstoff and Sauerstoff are the modern German words for hydrogen and oxygen, and in Dutch the modern equivalents are waterstof and zuurstof. Sunstuff refers to helium, which derives from แผฅฮปฮนฮฟฯ‚, the Ancient Greek word for "sun." Ymirstuff references Ymir, a giant in Norse mythology similar to Uranus in Greek mythology.

The vocabulary used in Uncleftish Beholding does not completely derive from Anglo-Saxon. Around, from Old French reond (Modern French rond), completely displaced Old English ymbe (cognate to German um) and left no "native" English word for this concept. The text also contains the French-derived words rest, ordinary and sort.

The text gained increased exposure and popularity after being circulated around the Internet, and has served as inspiration for some inventors of Germanic English conlangs. Douglas Hofstadter, in discussing the piece in his book Le Ton beau de Marot, jocularly refers to the use of only Germanic roots for scientific pieces as "Ander-Saxon."

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๐Ÿ”— The Two Cultures

๐Ÿ”— Philosophy ๐Ÿ”— Books ๐Ÿ”— Philosophy/Philosophy of science ๐Ÿ”— Science

The Two Cultures is the first part of an influential 1959 Rede Lecture by British scientist and novelist C. P. Snow which were published in book form as The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution the same year. Its thesis was that science and the humanities which represented "the intellectual life of the whole of western society" had become split into "two cultures" and that this division was a major handicap to both in solving the world's problems.

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๐Ÿ”— Men Without Work: America's Invisible Crisis (Book)

๐Ÿ”— Economics ๐Ÿ”— Books

Men Without Work: America's Invisible Crisis is a 2016 book by the American political economist Nicholas Eberstadt discussing the phenomenon of American men in their prime leaving the workforce. Statistically, the labor force involvement for men twenty and older fell from 86% to 68% between 1948 and 2015. The book discusses the history, causes, and implications of the phenomenon, as well as possible solutions.

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๐Ÿ”— Gรถdel, Escher, Bach

๐Ÿ”— Philosophy ๐Ÿ”— Philosophy/Philosophical literature ๐Ÿ”— Books ๐Ÿ”— Philosophy/Logic

Gรถdel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, also known as GEB, is a 1979 book by Douglas Hofstadter. By exploring common themes in the lives and works of logician Kurt Gรถdel, artist M. C. Escher, and composer Johann Sebastian Bach, the book expounds concepts fundamental to mathematics, symmetry, and intelligence. Through illustration and analysis, the book discusses how, through self-reference and formal rules, systems can acquire meaning despite being made of "meaningless" elements. It also discusses what it means to communicate, how knowledge can be represented and stored, the methods and limitations of symbolic representation, and even the fundamental notion of "meaning" itself.

In response to confusion over the book's theme, Hofstadter emphasized that Gรถdel, Escher, Bach is not about the relationships of mathematics, art, and musicโ€”but rather about how cognition emerges from hidden neurological mechanisms. One point in the book presents an analogy about how individual neurons in the brain coordinate to create a unified sense of a coherent mind by comparing it to the social organization displayed in a colony of ants.

The tagline "a metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll" was used by the publisher to describe the book.

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๐Ÿ”— Hit Man: A Technical Manual for Independent Contractors

๐Ÿ”— Crime ๐Ÿ”— Books

Hit Man: A Technical Manual for Independent Contractors is a book written under the pseudonym Rex Feral (real name Nancy Crampton-Brophy) and published by Paladin Press in 1983. Paladin Press owner Peder Lund claimed, in an interview with 60 Minutes, that the book started life as a detailed crime novel written by a Florida housewife, and that the format was later changed to appeal to Paladin's reader base accustomed to the publisher's non-fiction books on military, survivalist, weapons and similar topics. The book portrays itself as a how-to manual on starting a career as a hit man, fulfilling contracts. However, after a number of lawsuits claiming that the book was used as a handbook in several murders, the publication of the book was stopped. It marked "the first time in American publishing history that a publisher has been held liable for a crime committed by a reader."

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๐Ÿ”— Scottish Cafรฉ

๐Ÿ”— Mathematics ๐Ÿ”— Books ๐Ÿ”— Food and drink ๐Ÿ”— Poland ๐Ÿ”— Food and drink/Foodservice ๐Ÿ”— Ukraine

The Scottish Cafรฉ (Polish: Kawiarnia Szkocka) was a cafรฉ in Lwรณw, Poland (now Lviv, Ukraine) where, in the 1930s and 1940s, mathematicians from the Lwรณw School of Mathematics collaboratively discussed research problems, particularly in functional analysis and topology.

Stanislaw Ulam recounts that the tables of the cafรฉ had marble tops, so they could write in pencil, directly on the table, during their discussions. To keep the results from being lost, and after becoming annoyed with their writing directly on the table tops, Stefan Banach's wife provided the mathematicians with a large notebook, which was used for writing the problems and answers and eventually became known as the Scottish Book. The bookโ€”a collection of solved, unsolved, and even probably unsolvable problemsโ€”could be borrowed by any of the guests of the cafรฉ. Solving any of the problems was rewarded with prizes, with the most difficult and challenging problems having expensive prizes (during the Great Depression and on the eve of World War II), such as a bottle of fine brandy.

For problem 153, which was later recognized as being closely related to Stefan Banach's "basis problem", Stanisล‚aw Mazur offered the prize of a live goose. This problem was solved only in 1972 by Per Enflo, who was presented with the live goose in a ceremony that was broadcast throughout Poland.

The cafรฉ building now houses the Szkocka Restaurant & Bar (named for the original Scottish Cafรฉ) and the Atlas Deluxe hotel at the street address of 27 Taras Shevchenko Prospekt.

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๐Ÿ”— The Society of the Spectacle

๐Ÿ”— France ๐Ÿ”— Philosophy ๐Ÿ”— Philosophy/Philosophical literature ๐Ÿ”— Books ๐Ÿ”— Politics ๐Ÿ”— Socialism ๐Ÿ”— Philosophy/Social and political philosophy ๐Ÿ”— Marketing & Advertising ๐Ÿ”— Philosophy/Contemporary philosophy ๐Ÿ”— Philosophy/Continental philosophy

The Society of the Spectacle (French: La sociรฉtรฉ du spectacle) is a 1967 work of philosophy and Marxist critical theory by Guy Debord, in which the author develops and presents the concept of the Spectacle. The book is considered a seminal text for the Situationist movement. Debord published a follow-up book Comments on the Society of the Spectacle in 1988.

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๐Ÿ”— The High Cost of Free Parking

๐Ÿ”— Books ๐Ÿ”— Urban studies and planning

The High Cost of Free Parking is an urban planning book by UCLA professor Donald Shoup dealing with the costs of free parking on society. It is structured as a criticism of the planning and regulation of parking and recommends that parking be built and allocated according to its fair market value. It incorporates elements of Shoup's Georgist philosophy.

The book was originally published in 2005 by the American Planning Association and the Planners Press. A revised edition was released in 2011 by Routledge.

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๐Ÿ”— Tsundoku

๐Ÿ”— Books

Tsundoku (Japanese: ็ฉใ‚“่ชญ) is acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in one's home without reading them.

The term originated in the Meiji era (1868โ€“1912) as Japanese slang. It combines elements of tsunde-oku (็ฉใ‚“ใงใŠใ, to pile things up ready for later and leave) and dokusho (่ชญๆ›ธ, reading books). It is also used to refer to books ready for reading later when they are on a bookshelf. As currently written, the word combines the characters for "pile up" (็ฉ) and the character for "read" (่ชญ).

The American author and bibliophile A. Edward Newton commented on a similar state.

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๐Ÿ”— Unsafe at Any Speed

๐Ÿ”— Books ๐Ÿ”— Automobiles

Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile is a non-fiction book by consumer advocate Ralph Nader, first published in 1965. Its central theme is that car manufacturers resisted the introduction of safety features (such as seat belts), and that they were generally reluctant to spend money on improving safety. This work contains substantial references and material from industry insiders. It was a best seller in non-fiction in 1966.

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