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Ask HN: What are you reading these days?

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Re: Ask HN: What are you reading these days?

#211

Post by indigo0086 »

TexanFeller wrote: post #208
Scarblac wrote: post #129

_Regenesis_, by George Monbiot. About how we can realistically feed everyone on the planet long term, in a way that doesn't destroy nature, keeps soil healthy and more able to deal with climate change, and is also affordable. Very good. Very well sourced, sceptical of romantic ideas that just don't scale. Given that we currently use 60% of our agricultural land to feed livestock, that we then use to produce 12% of ou…

Steaks and bacon are some of the few things that make life worth living. I'd rather talk about population control for humans to achieve sustainability(maybe necessary in the end anyway) than deprive ourselves of the joy of a burger.

You'd rather deprive someone else of a burger then

Re: Ask HN: What are you reading these days?

#212

Post by indigo0086 »

tobbe2064 wrote: post #143

A deepness in the sky - Vernor Vinge It's actually too good. I have a habit of reading before going to sleep, and this book is so hard to put down that I am becoming sleep deprived

This is on my audible queue. I bought it after a fire upon the deep. Great reader.

Re: Ask HN: What are you reading these days?

#213

Post by indigo0086 »

titaniumtown wrote: post #142
SeanAnderson wrote: post #4

I just finished reading Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky I'm currently reading Designing Games: A Guide to Engineering Experiences by Tynan Sylvester. A good friend of mine gifted me Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin and I'm planning on getting into that one soon.

Children of Time is a really good novel. Was scrolling through the comments to see if anyone was going to mention it.

Seconded

Re: Ask HN: What are you reading these days?

#214

Post by Jedd »

padjo wrote: post #158
Jedd wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, using land to produce feed to ship to CAFOs where animals experience almost nothing but suffering for their short lives is clearly reprehensible. But George Monbiot quite famously adjusted his position[0] in response to - and since this is a thread about books - one of my favourite works on the subject, 'Meat, A Benign Extravagance' by Simon Fairlie (2010). (My copy was signed by the author when I attended one…

Based on reading that article I think his position is still that we should be eating far less meat than we currently are.

> Based on reading that article ...

I reiterate my recommendation of Fairlie's book, which goes into much more detail than George Monbiot's brief article where he responds to same in the Guardian some 13 years ago.

I note in that article, however:

"If we stopped feeding edible grain to animals, we could still produce around half the current global meat supply with no loss to human nutrition: in fact it's a significant net gain."

I guess 'half the current global meat supply' probably is 'far less', as you say.

Re: Ask HN: What are you reading these days?

#215

Post by ilvez »

Seattle3503 wrote: post #136

Been reading a lot of Romance books lately. They are like a cozy blanket. For a to be considered Romance, are required to have a "happily ever after" eg no sudden character death. It ensures the author isn't going to mess your day up. Also, a lot of them have sex, which is nice.

You got me thinking about Bob The Skull in Dresden Files. :D

Re: Ask HN: What are you reading these days?

#216

Post by jmopp »

laserbeam wrote: post #201

The bible - am not a religious person, don't want to become one, and I mean no shade to religious people. However, as I now read it, I'm surprised by how much western culture references it. People use examples, names and scenes from the bible much more often than I realised and it helps to recognize that. American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. Oppenheimer was an ok movie, the book it's based on is bet…

This, in my opinion, illustrates the value in studying classics: a lot of modern society is based on the stories we have been telling each other for thousands of years. Not just the Bible, though: also the Ancient Greek and Roman texts, and (if you're being adventurous) the Talmud, and the Quran + Hadith to see how the West's sister cultures developed. The modern atheist would do well to study religion.

Re: Ask HN: What are you reading these days?

#217

Post by hermitcrab »

atombender wrote: post #193
hermitcrab wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>short stories unearthed after his death. Very disappointing Perhaps that is why he never published them?

He did. They were published in newspapers in the 1970s, under the pseudonym Patrick Kearns [1]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/oct/11/a-stroke-of-th...

Thanks for the clarification. I guess he was still polishing his craft 50 years ago.

Re: Ask HN: What are you reading these days?

#219

Post by hermitcrab »

sigilis wrote: post #173
AlecSchueler wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cigarette use is plummeting in the west.

Meat eating should also plummet if meat eating is banned in restaurants and there’s a minimum meat eating age that increases a year at a time. Bonus if there’s a health insurance question about meat eating and special meat taxes. There is no societal structure to disincentivize meat eating. Social pressure from vegetarians (which is so very slight) and logical arguments are the only thing we’ve got. Tradition, conven…

It is difficult to ban something that has been an integral part of a culture for centuries.

But societal attitudes can change quite quickly. For example, homosexuality has gone from being illegal, to being tolerated and now (I think for a lot of people in the UK) pretty much a non-issue in 50 years.

Re: Ask HN: What are you reading these days?

#220

Post by PaulRobinson »

riquisimo wrote: post #167
PaulRobinson wrote: post #127

My non-fiction pile is very peculiar to me (maths, probability, gambling, Rust and Elixir books, a backlog of a load of recent Humble Bundle deals), but I have some solid fiction recommendations: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin is the sort of novel where you start to get sad as the weight of unread pages in your right starts to lighten. A novel about some friends who build some games (set in the…

I can't for the life of me understand Piranesi. I've read so many good reviews but I just couldn't stay focused reading it. It was very slow for me.

It's a slow fantasy. Maybe. There are lots of different ways of reading a book. I err towards looking at the use of language, the turn of phrase, at least as much as I do the plot. Piranesi suits me, if you're more plot oriented, it might be quite a jarring story.
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