What Books Are You Reading?

I read books. I haven’t been able to accept the digital format!

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There are some books about dinosaurs on Kindle Unlimited too :wink:

I don’t know why they haven’t made a device that allows the reader to write in the margins. I think all they can do now is highlight passages.

I have to say, I much prefer physical books. But the convenience of carrying an entire library around with me in my pocket far outweighs the disadvantages of e-books.

I think dragging an essentially weightless device stuffed with hundreds of books I haven’t read would just make me sads.

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OK I remember this book. By a journalist.

I’ll have to give it a look when I’m in that mod.

There’s an audiobook version on YouTube.

You can add notes to Kindle books, indicated by a little symbol; you then have to press the little symbol for the note to pop up. Super easy to do an an iPad or iPhone, slightly more of a pain on the Kindle device.

Drawback: not the same as margin notes - can’t easily see it at same time as text. Advantage: you can see all of your notes at once, and export all of them into other files, if that’s your thing. Plus you can search them.

For the actual reading experience, I still prefer paper books, but am mostly electronic now because with e-books it’s so much easier to go back and find things. And since I’m supposedly an academic that’s important.

(FWIW you can also scribble the heck out of PDFs on either a computer or an iPad, and those ARE margin notes. I like those. Much better for quick skimming / review than a Kindle book.)

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All good points, but I can tear out the last blank page and use it as a shopping list.

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If you’re not familiar with Christopher Hitchens, he was a smart dude with some interesting opinions. Very opinionated, and in my opinion off the mark in some areas, but definitely worth a few minutes on Wikipedia or YouTube

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That’s the one. It’s only a short book. I just finished it.

As I said, I think it’s worth reading for the evidence he presents, but having gone through all of it I think Hitchens gets somewhat obsessed with his overarching theme (a lot of bad people use religion as a figleaf, ergo religion is the underlying cause of bad people).

Mother Teresa, IMO, was a misguided soul with warped morals (the instance where she knowingly accepts stolen money is an interesting case in point; likewise her homes where she deliberately rejects medical “dogma” in favour of her own brand of haphazard treatments). She had an obsession with contraception which (fortunately) a lot of people ignored, but which (unfortunately) has a huge level of acceptance in the Third World, partly because of proselytizers like her. I don’t think she was the Antichrist, and she isn’t the case-study that illustrates the problem with religion.

Atomic Awakening, Whole Earth Discipline, Seeing the Light and Power to Save the World
download (5) download (6)

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I always get a bit suspicious of books with “The Truth About…” in the title. I’ve read several of those and found them to be written by people who know little about their subject matter (the phrase “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” springs to mind).

As for nuclear power being the solution to the world’s energy problems, I present exhibit A:

God help us if they ever try to fire that thing up. It gets talked about now and then.

How far have you got? What’s your impression?

I’ve finished all of them and enjoyed them. The one in question is great because it has lots of information direct from Rip Anderson in his own words. Here’s a video I found during a quick Google search.

After reading these books I’m positive nuclear energy is the only way for the world to rid itself from fossil fuels, provide heat for industrial uses and provide a sustainable hydrogen economy.

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I’ll see if I can get them on Kindle. I like reading these books because I find it helps me formulate coherent arguments against them :slight_smile:

My general opinion (FWIW) is that anyone who argues for some cookie-cutter magic bullet for every location on earth is usually wrong. Solar power isn’t going to work in Norway, because dark. Wave power is unlikely to ever work, because the sea. Centralised power systems of any sort aren’t going to work in Nepal, because mountains. Nuclear reactors aren’t going to work in the Philippines, because Filipinos. And so on. Technology has to be very carefully matched to the circumstances.

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I think it’s GE that makes small reactors for remote villages that are virtually maintenance free and can be buried and provide power for about 30 years. Those would be perfect for some of those remote areas with no grid structure.

The US Navy program designed by Admiral Rickover seems to be the way to go regarding training but like you said people will be people. That said, a worst case nuclear disaster is nothing remotely as destructive for the population, their health or the environment as the past and continued usage of fossil fuels.

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Lol can you expand on this point? I agree with your position that “cookie-cutter magic bullets” regarding renewable energy won’t do the trick, but I could not figure out this bit.

I think he considers Filipinos incapable of taking the training seriously and maintaining it impeccably.

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No, it doesn’t-it has these as a blue-sky concept and says they’ll be perfectly safe. I’m fairly pro-nuke and believe it is a necessary part of the power grid, but they did oversell it in the past, and people are suspicious of their modern claims.

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I don’t consider them as such. They’ve demonstrated over multiple decades that that is indeed the case. Read the Bataan Reactor story.

Like almost any big project, the people managing it see it as nothing other than an opportunity to steal as much funding as possible. Unlike (say) roads, you can’t fill a nuclear reactor with old tin cans or car tyres and expect it to work until someone notices you stole all the money.