Post: #326

Erich Maria Remarque - All Quiet on the Western Front.

Good book. Stirs a lot of emotions and meaningful thoughts.
Makes you less militaristic, if you think war is a good thing.
Makes you understand, human lives are more important than one country's ambitions.
Sad subject, and very sad ending but Remarque somehow manages to write it is a such way that you still at some moment have a smile on your face.

Post: #327

I Just finished reading "Make it Stick"
http://www.amazon.com/Make-Stick-Science...e+it+stick
The Book is about the science of how we learn and then it goes through empirical and practical lessons for learning effectively. Personally i found it was a must read book if you're someone who is always looking for improvement. This book tells you the optimal strategies to maximize your learning. Well worth the $20 i paid for it.

Post: #328

"Kingpin" How one hacker took over the billion-dollar cybercrime underground.

http://www.amazon.com/Kingpin-Hacker-Bil...B004IK8Q2M

This book was about a guy who lived dual lives as both a white hat hacker and black hat hacker.

Definitely recommend.

From the blurb:

Through the story of this criminal’s remarkable rise, and of law enforcement’s quest to track him down, Kingpin lays bare the workings of a silent crime wave still affecting millions of Americans. In these pages, we are ushered into vast online-fraud supermarkets stocked with credit card numbers, counterfeit checks, hacked bank accounts, dead drops, and fake passports. We learn the workings of the numerous hacks—browser exploits, phishing attacks, Trojan horses, and much more—these fraudsters use to ply their trade, and trace the complex routes by which they turn stolen data into millions of dollars. And thanks to Poulsen’s remarkable access to both cops and criminals, we step inside the quiet, desperate arms race that law enforcement continues to fight with these scammers today.

Post: #329

22 Immutable Laws of Marketing

For someone like me who has zero knowledge on marketing, this book taught a lot of principles that makes a lot of sense. It also brings a lot of examples.

Post: #330

How to get Rich by Felix Dennis-Immensely insightful. He pulls no punches and lays out very important concepts and the cost that comes with pursuing wealth. He lays some blueprints, strategies, and mindsets to adapt. Most of all, he highlights money as one component of your life. Dennis is an extremely strong writer and has that cheeky british charm which makes it an easy read.

Rationale Male By Rollo Tomassi, good overview on tenants of underlying ideas of "Game". Proposes good ideas on the importance of putting yourself first. Two things about Rollo's vibe are his ungodly, unnecessary tendency to write in dissertation speak and his focus on "clinical" game. He keeps things in a vacuum and I always come away from his writing feeling like I know more about male/female dynamics but with a slightly less happy soul. Regardless, any newbie should read.

The Curse of a High IQ by Aaron Cleary. Its a quick read. I breezed through it in two days. Its more topical than his other books and gives an overview of challenges faced by more analytical peeps. On a personal level, it made me reconsider a lot of things from my past and in particular with school. If you've ever felt like there is an untapped resource within but have had little support or outlets in your life maybe its for you. To a degree the book is a "I feel you" head nod to mavericks.

Post: #331

Finished Ziglar on Selling by Zig Ziglar (shouts to WallStreetPlayboys for the recommendation)

I'm not a salesperson but the skillset required to be a good salesman is something I'd like to have and Game can be viewed as simply selling yourself. Tons of stuff that's very translatable into Game advice.

"If you're making a call on your last prospect, the feeling you transfer is one of desperation and personal need and not value"

The last chapter is the best in the book and is about changing yourself into the type of person who would succeed in sales, lots of good mindset stuff

"Logic will not change an emotion but action will! Call reluctance ([b]or approach anxiety[b]) is an emotion and it will not be overcome consistently by logic. Get into action, support the action with logic, and sales success is sure to be yours."

Overall it was pretty good, I think I'm going to come back to again later because I read it in fits and starts and I think it'd be more beneficial if the ideas built on each other in my head instead of reading a few chapters per month

Post: #332

Ziglar, I always insisted that game is related to sales. I never understood why people who say they are great salespeople struggle at game. If you can sell ice to an eskimo (an entity who basically doesn't want snow since he/she has it in abundance) why cannot one simply complete the paradigm shift and apply that same principle to game. Lizards need dick more than an eskimo needs ice, right?

Post: #333

Merchants of Doubt.
Interesting book about intentionally creating doubt on subjects like dangers of smoking, 2nd hand smoke, acid rain and global warming.
Written by scientists, thus full of facts but, not entertaining. Feels like the whole book could be 10 times shorter and convey the same amount of information.

Post: #334

Thomas E. Ricks - Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq

Strong recommend for those interested in geopolitics or the Middle East.

Post: #335

The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri.

I can see why it still gets referred to even now: some of the images Dante chooses (saw?) for the punishments of the damned in Hell are disturbing even now, seven hundred years down the line. The punishments are generally what might be called sort of karmic retribution according to the nature of the sin involved, but they're a lot more inventive than standard hellfire and brimstone. Many great works of literature borrowed or stole outright from it, from Milton to Shakespeare to Boccacio.

One example, which probably springs to mind because of its disturbing nature: the punishment for suicide. Basically, suicides are transformed into living trees and made to stand where they are, subject to the winds of hell and suffering if someone breaks a branch off them. Why a tree? Because it's actually a preface to the Last Judgment: when Christ returns, the living and the dead will be called back up to their bodies and Christ will decide whether they go to Hell eternally or not. Suicides, the Poet reckoned, having spurned the gift of life given to them, will therefore be brought back to the Last Judgment ... and then their spirits sent back to their tree prisons, with their body (which they rejected) hanging before them from a noose tied to one of their own tree branches for all eternity.

Most people like to ignore the Purgatoria and the Paradiso, where Dante is brought step by step up into the highest realms of Heaven. Dante's story of Purgatory is a balance of light and shadow, as purgatory itself is said to be: there are punishments, some disturbing, but at the pinnacle of Purgatory lies Eden - the paradise on Earth, reached after passing through the last boundary of Purgatory: fire, the cleansing and refining fire that sums up all of Purgatory itself. The Paradiso is more heavily concerned with theology: it's primarily drawn off Thomas Aquinas if I remember right, but there are moments and turns of phrase that are still moving or thought-provoking within that.

That said, at some points I confess I did skip ahead. The Comedy was written while Dante was in exile from Florence and is a very contemporary text: a lot of people Dante knew personally are represented in various parts of Hell and/or Heaven, and he spends a lot of time having heavenly and/or hellbound figures castigating contemporary Florentines for their political and/or public errors. To me that takes away from some of its universal applicability funless you're prepared to read hard and allow for most of the people in it being unknown to you or largely by reputation. Don't engage on it without bibliographical notes; Dante makes a lot of historical and religious allusions that are not simple to pick out. That said, the Paradiso is where Dante hits his most lyrical and it's a poem that melds intellectual and religious thought together in a beautiful vision. Maybe the most surprising thing that jumped out at me was his passing reference to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary; I'd thought that belief was only relatively new, but Dante refers to it openly and the poem was written in the late 1300s.

God save us from people who mean well. -storm

Post: #336

The Way Of Men
by Jack Donovan

What can I say, a red pill classic.
Especially relevant in these days of crisis.
Would recommend everyone who hasn't read it yet to do so.

Post: #337

The Curse of the High IQ - Aaron Clarey

Good book. Explains how the world is setup for 100 IQ people. Anyone either side of that will come up against problems that others won't.

If you go around thinking that most people are retarded, it's because relative to you they probably are.

Post: #338

^Damn that sounds like a good read. Can I download the Curse of the High IQ?

Post: #339

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.

Long- very long. Perhaps.... too long.

Post: #340

Ulysses, Did Not Finish. I gave it 37 pages. It feels like Irish turn of the century Seinfeld except without the comedy, and featuring a proto-hipster asshole who refused to even kneel down and pray with his mother as she lay dying because he didn't believe in God. And the main character, Leopold Bloom, I've learned, is a gigantic cuckold. Morose Irishmen pissing and moaning about their pathetic lives. Prose to top yourself by. The book made a resounding thud as it hit the far wall.

God save us from people who mean well. -storm

Post: #341

Making it to page 37 is pretty good though.

Post: #342

I will try to read Ullyses and see how far i can get.

Post: #343

(02-17-2016 05:52 AM)thedarkknight Wrote:  Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.

Long- very long. Perhaps.... too long.

Far too long. Lots of gratuitous escapades. I think a few businessmen disappearing would have gotten the point across the complex economies require incentive for execs to deal/navigate with the monumental challenges the orgs present. Also, Rearden vs. the govt saga could have been condensed.

The movies are worth checking out if you have some time to kill.

Post: #344

(02-17-2016 02:28 AM)Pride male Wrote:  ^Damn that sounds like a good read. Can I download the Curse of the High IQ?

It's available on kindle, but I had to change my country to USA in the Amazon settings to get this link to work.

http://www.amazon.com/Curse-High-IQ-Aaro...8&qid=&sr=

Post: #345

Finished two books today:

Curse of the High IQ by Aaron Clarey. Already mentioned above, so here's my two cents. I enjoy Clarey's writing, and this is probably some of his best work. Very relatable if you're constantly feeling like the smartest guy in the room.

And On That Bombshell by Richard Porter. Porter is the former script editor on Top Gear. He started work with "old" Top Gear and stayed in with "new" Top Gear. A light, fun look behind the curtain of one of my favorite shows. And it makes me all the more excited for the new "Clarkson, Hammond and May Motoring Program" coming on Amazon.

Post: #346

Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Fascinating read about ancient civilizations and Egyptian pyramid architectures.
At the end of the book there is a lot of skepticism on how Ancient civilizations could have died out due to floods, ice age, and other natural disasters. Suggesting that under the Antarctic ice there is a civilization frozen in time that could have possessed advanced knowledge.

My mind was blown to say the least, I never really looked into this or watched those ancient aliens shows.

Post: #347

The Mystery of the Grail: Initiation and Magic in the Quest for the Spirit by Julius Evola

A rather elaborate presentation of an idea that he thought that was behind the Grail myth, which he considered almost universal. A little subjective approach that displays his affinity towards what he describes as "Hyperborean tradition" of spirituality, that sees fusion of temporal and spiritual power under a masculine principle - The principle of "Empire", as opposed to feminine principle.

Post: #348

I've been reading a ton lately(barely at all by some of your standards). It's a good feeling!

Read The Alchemist in 3 sittings. Really enjoyed that one. Will read again.

Just finished Brave New World as well. That was sort of a difficult read for me but it was enjoyable nonetheless. Interested in reading more from Aldous Huxley.

Post: #349

I just finished The Way of the Superior Man.

Absolutely loved it. Saved my life.

I caught myself getting way too caught up in building my business, and started slipping on my social life. The book reinforces that you can leverage your alpha capital (game) and your work ethic (entrepreneurship) at the same time.

Basically, the idea that you have to pursue one at a time was probably the single biggest limiting belief that I had. The idea that you have to work 80 hours a week to make your start-up biz successful is all Hollywood. The time that you invest in something is irrelevant. You either make it happen or you don't. Stop waiting, start working on the right things instead.

Post: #350

Also finished two of Trump's books - His Think Big book and The Art of the Deal.

Both were great. The Art of the Deal was better though. Detailed his entire day-to-day life pretty much. It's like his entire life is broken up into 15 minute blocks where he's either making shit happen, meeting with movers and shakers, or performing hostile corporate takeovers lol. That man is a legend.