The many questions-not-worth-their-own-thread question thread XIX

[Chukchi Husky]

Because it is largely subjective. Like TV shows, movies, or paintings.

But they can at least say if a show or a movie is good or bad, but somehow every single book is good.

 

[Mango Elephant]

Oh, I read a lot and I can tell exactly what makes a good book.

Morbid and sexy scenes
Humble author (you can tell when an author is pretentious and it absolutely ruins it)
Humor
How easy it is to understand
Interesting ideas

There are some more, too, but those are the main ones.

 

[cardgame]

A lot of books are not any good, so they are simply not talked about.

Relative to the TV and movies demographic, most people who read and talk about books are quite similar and a good book to one is usually a good book to another. There are obvious exceptions (Stephanie Meyer comes to mind) but for the most part they agree.

 

[Traitorfish]

Whoever was reading will say that every book they read is good, but can't give any reasons for why the books are good or if any book is better than another.

Is that the case? I've never really encountered that. Certainly, it can be quite hard to communicate the experience of reading a particular book, not least because most of us have a very poor understanding of how long-form prose is actually constructed, but it shouldn't be that hard to at least sketch out the reasons why you find it interesting. Maybe your acquaintance, if he's not really big on books, doesn't find himself having this conversation in circumstances where it's possible to articulate it very easily?

But they can at least say if a show or a movie is good or bad, but somehow every single book is good.

Well, when you classify a work as "good" or "bad", what you're usually saying is whether or not it's worth the time required of it. Films or tv shows don't require much of an investment of time (or, in the latter case, not much of a short-term investment), so people can afford to gamble, but with books people are unlikely to pick it up in the first place unless they're confident it's worth the bother.

 

[caketastydelish]

Whoever was reading will say that every book they read is good, but can't give any reasons for why the books are good or if any book is better than another.

Considering the fact that lots of people say negative things about the books they have read, your answer should be apparent. There are a handful of books I personally read that I thought was pure garbage.

 

[Chukchi Husky]

Maybe your acquaintance, if he's not really big on books, doesn't find himself having this conversation in circumstances where it's possible to articulate it very easily?

I get the feeling he'll pay more attention to books if there was a Metacritic style website for them.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Why does cheese make diarrhea go away.

 

[Dachs]

Why does cheese make diarrhea go away.

Cheese plugs you up. Not in a good way.

 

[Quackers]

This may seem ike an odd observation, but everytime i read about a controversial (usually in the negative sense) male individual who has done something quite unpopular with the rest of society, or the present government there is almost always a rumour that they were a "promiscious homosexual"(i'm only considering an era of 1800 - 1970). Now is this just a coincidance or are these men being deliberately smeared?

 

[cardgame]

Either that or he was a damned commie

 

[caketastydelish]

This may seem ike an odd observation, but everytime i read about a controversial (usually in the negative sense) male individual who has done something quite unpopular with the rest of society, or the present government there is almost always a rumour that they were a "promiscious homosexual"(i'm only considering an era of 1800 - 1970). Now is this just a coincidance or are these men being deliberately smeared?

I've noticed this as well. All I can say is people have too much time on their hands, and love conspiracy theories.

 

[Cutlass]

This may seem ike an odd observation, but everytime i read about a controversial (usually in the negative sense) male individual who has done something quite unpopular with the rest of society, or the present government there is almost always a rumour that they were a "promiscious homosexual"(i'm only considering an era of 1800 - 1970). Now is this just a coincidance or are these men being deliberately smeared?

Few things more completely discredit someone in that time frame. If you really want someone to be driven out of the mainstream, that's one effective way to go.

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

Of all the beaches in the world, how many are natural, and how many are artificial?

inb4 accusations of vagueness.

 

[Arakhor]

Are you seriously expecting anyone to have even the vaguest idea? Not to steal a line from Kochman here, but there is Google for a reason.

 

[Traitorfish]

If you don't mind rounding, it's straightforward enough: ~100% is natural, ~0% is artificial.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Any Europeans here that can tell me about any American-themed restaurants (i.e. not chains) in their countries? What are they like? What reasons do people eat at them for?

 

[Synobun]

Throughout my life, I always assumed I had never been in contact with poison ivy because, alas, I've never gotten a rash from being in the woods or the like.

Today, I read an article about natural plants that are bad for you on Yahoo, and poison ivy was one of them, and I realized something... I have walked through countless bushes of this stuff, broken off stems, pulled the leaves apart, etc. Is there something specific in poison ivy that creates the rash, and if so, how much of humanity does it create a rash on?

Just wondering what the statistic of that is.

 

[Dachs]

Poison ivy leaves secrete a chemical called urushiol. Something like eighty percent of humans suffer some degree of allergic reaction when they encounter unsaturated urushiol. You could just be one of the lucky twenty percent.

 

[Synobun]

Poison ivy leaves secrete a chemical called urushiol. Something like eighty percent of humans suffer some degree of allergic reaction when they encounter unsaturated urushiol. You could just be one of the lucky twenty percent.

Hmm, that's interesting. I was always curious why I never seemed to get rashes from plants in the wild, I guess that's why.

Thanks!

 

[caketastydelish]

I've noticed theres a conservative user group for members on this site.

Are there left wing groups as well? I think I'd like to join.