I have flat feet, so I run through slippers quite quickly. I'd appreciate someone giving me a pair.
Which book are you reading now? Volume XIV
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I have flat feet, so I run through slippers quite quickly. I'd appreciate someone giving me a pair.
I have flat feet, so I run through slippers quite quickly. I'd appreciate someone giving me a pair.
Link to video.
I have so many pairs of slippers that my daughters thought were cute or funny
You have children? I didn't realise that.
I say children, the younger is at uni, the elder works in London. No grandchildren yet, that would make me feel old.
I now read (in one go, it's not a particularly long book) Hardy's "A Mathematician's Apology".
What follows is the rather excellent ending to this work:
I didn't expect the end to be quite so poetic.
Then again, Hardy does state in this book that he is fond of philosophy.
( @Ferocitus )
What follows is the rather excellent ending to this work:
I didn't expect the end to be quite so poetic.
Then again, Hardy does state in this book that he is fond of philosophy.
( @Ferocitus )
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EnglishEdward
Deity
I have just finished reading:
World Engines Destroyer
by the now Northumbrian
Stephen Baxter
It was qute good although it ended up rather ridiculous with a bizarre
space faring British empire crewed by pipe smoking Biggles types.
World Engines Destroyer
by the now Northumbrian
Stephen Baxter
It was qute good although it ended up rather ridiculous with a bizarre
space faring British empire crewed by pipe smoking Biggles types.
SS-18 ICBM
Oscillator
Board Games in 100 Moves by Ian Livingstone (co-founder of Games Workshop) begins with the list of the key 100 games. The chapters of the book are divided by the material used to make these games: wood and stone (oldest games with rules passed on by oral tradition), paper and print (higher complexity, mostly educational, includes card games), cardboard (allowed many pieces, marked the rise of well-known game companies like Milton Bradley), plastic (mass-produced, detailed figures), imagination (the rise of fantasy and science fiction themes, along with Eurogames), and future games (financed by crowdfunding or consolidated companies, digital integration, and releases from smaller countries like the Czech Republic). The appendix is a list of winners of the Spiel des Jahres award.
The book is a breezy read with colorful illustrations of the games mentioned. The writing seems rushed at the end, with the section of "Future" games including games and themes already introduced in the "Imagination" section, along with the illustrations less organized with the text that mentions their subjects. Still a great book that taught me things I didn't know like mahjong being invented mid-19th century and not hundreds of years earlier.
The book is a breezy read with colorful illustrations of the games mentioned. The writing seems rushed at the end, with the section of "Future" games including games and themes already introduced in the "Imagination" section, along with the illustrations less organized with the text that mentions their subjects. Still a great book that taught me things I didn't know like mahjong being invented mid-19th century and not hundreds of years earlier.
I hope he included Avalon Hill and SPI along with all the myriad independent designers of the 70s and 80s.
Ajidica
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The End: Hitler's Germany 1944-1945 by Ian Kershaw. I'm about halfway through the book and while it isn't a bad book, it feels like the author doesn't really know what he wants the book to be about. It isn't about the collapsing Nazi military position, but that has to be covered. It isn't about the economic situation, but that has to be covered. It isn't about the political maneuverings of Nazi scum, but that has to be covered. It isn't about the homefront, but that has to be covered. Ostensibly the book is about why Germany, particularly the civilians and Wehrmacht soldiers, kept fighting and working in the face of the clear loss of the war. However, for obvious reasons there is no single answer so Kershaw's thesis feels a bit like a school presentation where you didn't really do the reading. (ie "The reasons Germany kept fighting are many and varied.")
Perhaps I was expecting the book to answer questions Kershaw didn't intend it to, but it feels like it started out life as a collection of interesting events in the last months of Nazi Germany forced into a theme.
I will say Kershaw doesn't do a great job integrating diary entries and letters from the "man on the street". He clearly has access to those documents, and sprinkles them throughout, but no "case study" or background of who was writing those documents and why they might have thought that. I suppose I was spoiled by the quality of the use of primary sources in David Kynaston's Austerity Britain.
Perhaps I was expecting the book to answer questions Kershaw didn't intend it to, but it feels like it started out life as a collection of interesting events in the last months of Nazi Germany forced into a theme.
I will say Kershaw doesn't do a great job integrating diary entries and letters from the "man on the street". He clearly has access to those documents, and sprinkles them throughout, but no "case study" or background of who was writing those documents and why they might have thought that. I suppose I was spoiled by the quality of the use of primary sources in David Kynaston's Austerity Britain.
I'm reading The Invisibility Cloak by Ge Fei, a small novel about contemporary life in Beijing. Delightful and entertaining. It is only 125 pages so I'll finish it up tomorrow.
EnglishEdward
Deity
I thought this was pretty clear. The SS shot anyone they considered as exhibiting defeatism.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
"In conclusion, Hitler's Germany was a land of contrasts, thank you."
Ajidica
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There were only so many SS officers, and even if people were terrorized into overt compliance, it does nothing to explain why, in private diaries, people still believed they should keep fighting.
The clearest thesis I'm getting out of Kershaw is that because there was no conceivable mechanism for the German people to end the war, they just went along with it.
You have no idea how glad I am someone got that reference.
From what I've read the Gestapo had considerably less resources including manpower than the Stasi. Nazi Germany depended on informers and petty officials like blockwardens.
Even when it became apparent that Germany was losing the Allied insistence on total surrender discouraged many from opposing the Nazis.
EnglishEdward
Deity
If I'd have been an ordinary german in WW2 I'd have been very careful about what I put in my private
diary, certainly not anything that would have encouraged the Gestapo if they read it, to shoot me.
And some no doubt bought into the Nazi propaganda hook, line and sinker.
And isolated dissenters can not cooperate and organise mass dissent so a
fast active Gestapo can terrorise locally, and doesn't actually need great numbers.
diary, certainly not anything that would have encouraged the Gestapo if they read it, to shoot me.
And some no doubt bought into the Nazi propaganda hook, line and sinker.
And isolated dissenters can not cooperate and organise mass dissent so a
fast active Gestapo can terrorise locally, and doesn't actually need great numbers.
Ajidica
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The thing is though, Kershaw indicates we have plenty of diaries where people were writing things that, if discovered, would get them shot; but those people still in those diaries indicated a willingness to keep on fighting.
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