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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3393 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 12, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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So, what are you reading?

I'm going through Freinacht's 12 Commandments for extraordinary people to master ordinary life, which came out recently. I think it suffers from the gimmick of being a response to Peterson's 12 Rules, because it doesn't put the effort into that aspect. In any case, so far it's the usual combination of saturated nice-guy sentiments underpinned by a deep materialism, and it is as interesting as ever to see how the two are reconciled in Hanzi's persona. The writing could use more restraint, but it seems to be improving.

I haven't been on this site since they moved off Reddit but I used to love these threads every Friday. I'm glad they're still happening.

I've been reading a lot of textbooks. Working through the problems in Gil Strang's Introduction to Applied Mathematics; this is the third textbook of his I've used; none have been for classes. I just love the man and his presentation of mathematics, it feels so relevant, useful, and meaty. I just finished reading Principles of Vibration by Benson Tongue and highly highly recommend it - very conversational style with fun and hilarious problems.

On the non-textbook side, I just started Moon Dust, an account of the Apollo astronauts after they came back from the Moon. I love the writing style.

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