Recommended reading: Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds MacKay, 1851. One of the best books ever written. Goes through several historical examples of society losing its collective mind. Interesting fact is that the Salem Witch trials were the tip of the iceberg vs what was going on in Europe.
https://www.amazon.com/Extraordinary-Popular-Delusions-Madness-Crowds/dp/1463740514
Yeah, Su's not just reading off a script. Her English has come really far; she's at the point of having enough vocabulary to feel like she can express what she wants to express once she picks the right words out of her dictionary. So she still has to do a translation of concepts into a smaller set of words (sort of like the book Thing Explainer) but she's got the confidence to do so.
Heres a good book on general city planning: https://www.amazon.ca/Works-Anatomy-City-Kate-Ascher/dp/0143112708/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1602205578&sr=8-2
It'll give you a good overview to start thinking about all the moving pieces that have to be considered. It's a great coffee table book.
Have you ever read Unuseless Japanese Inventions? You remind me of this and it's probably why I enjoy your content so much.
Hearstian Yellow Journalism. Plus
"Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madnesses of Crowds." MacKay 1841.
https://www.amazon.com/Extraordinary-Popular-Delusions-Madness-Crowds/dp/1463740514
A Galileoscope and books. I currently like Thing Explainer, which seems really good for that age. Any space book will do though.
Update with Amazon link to book
November 24. A few people seem to have early copies though.
I would further recommend a pass through Thing Explainer for general knowledge with simple explanations. With reading through the BOFH stories to give you mind a place to go when knowledge fails because of someone elses lack of imagination.
I rarely buy books and just use publicly available information to setup and troubleshoot.
Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words Maybe he was one of the source materials for Randall Munroe's book (the guy who makes the XKCD comic)
Random comment / thought on the whole "meme" label, forum humor, etc.
The original crayon eaters are the United States Marine Corps. Self-deprecating humor is in widespread use throughout the world's militaries, not just the US, and you would be hard pressed to find a politician or government official who'd dare say having a sense of humor makes you unprofessional, unintelligent, etc.
For example, ELIA - in the military, we'd call that "break it down Barney style", meaning describe something complex in terms simple enough for Barney to explain to a child. If you don't know who the fuck Barney is, well, I guess I'm old. Kids show, TV purple dinosaur, super annoying. Anyway.
This same concept is used to great success by XKCD, by all measures a highly intelligent and successful webcomic artist who delves into some pretty decently thorough mathematical hypotheticals for fun. He also wrote a book called The Thing Exlainer : Complicated Stuff in Simple Words, where among other things he breaks down the complete functions of a nuclear reactor using only the 1,000 or so most common words in the English language.
My point : SELF DEPRECATING HUMOR AND MEMES SHOULD BY NO MEANS BE AUTOMATICALLY ASSOCIATED WITH LOW INTELLIGENCE, UNPROFESSIONALISM, OR A LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY AND RESPONSIBILITY.
If we can trust our nation's military to think fart jokes are still funny on a nuclear submarine, we can trust retail investors to do whatever the fuck they want with their money when it comes to a stock that's been on the publicly traded exchange for over 2 decades.
Ooh, this is a tough one to come up with the right search keywords for.
Is it more straightforward, like this (written by a man, 14 years too late)
https://www.amazon.com/Panatis-Extraordinary-Origins-Everyday-Things/dp/0060964197/
Or is it more like humor columns that occasionally toss in a “here’s the history of the topic, which is why we are all wearing these horrible shoes” kind of take?
You mentioned high heels specifically. Was the book particularly aimed at a female audience, or is that the essay that happened to jump out of your memory?
There's a book called Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey. It chronicles how a lot of famous artists, mostly writers, did their work.
You'd be shocked at how little some of the all-time greats got down on the page every day (and how much fucking around they did).
As long as you're consistent, don't sweat the output.
I concur! An Incomplete Education is a terrific resource. I’ve had my copy since 1987 & I still enjoy looking through it. Whenever I find topics in that book that are of more interest to me I then turn to the internet for further study. It’s much easier now than it was in the 80’s, when we next turned to encyclopedias & the library. That book gives an appetizer portion of information on an amazing array of topics, just enough info to make you sound informed. These snippets can spark your interest so you know which topics you’d like to pursue further. It’s a wonderful place to start. I highly recommend it!
While I haven't actually read it, I trust the author - both on the science and on the entertaining.
https://www.amazon.com/Thing-Explainer-Complicated-Stuff-Simple/dp/0544668251/
XDCD's Randall Monroe's "Thing Explainer." In it he explains interesting things using only his line drawings and the 1,000 most commonly used English words.
Should be reasonably accessible to a 5 year old niece, especially with their parents help. The concepts may be complicated but the language, at least, won't be. Though this, itself, is something of a downside because some words like "salt" aren't as commonly used as you might hope, so things like describing salt flats without using the word salt might fly over her head.
But how can we make this seem like the best country in the world if we don't "whitewash" (not saying make every character white, before people misinterpret me) history and get rid of all the horrible shit?
Chris Columbus was a great guy and everyone loved him! The Pilgrims and Indians really did stop fighting and ate a nice, traditional Thanksgiving with each other! Racism no longer happens!
The De-Textbook: The Stuff You Didn't Know About The Stuff You Thought You Knew is a great book that uncovers a lot of the bullshit we learned in school. I actually have it right next to me.
In the 1950's the public was enthralled by extraordinary popular mass delusions of UFO's. In the 1980's we had the satanic panic. Today, we've got whatever this is. The good intentions of using social media to shape public behaviors stoked tensions to such heights that we have whatever, this, is.
Recommended reading, "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and Madness of Crowds". We're living new chapters.
Oh MAN! Do I have a book suggestion for you! https://www.amazon.com/Underground-Education-Unauthorized-Outrageous-Supplement/dp/0385483767
All the best NSFW facts from arts and business to sex and medicine. One of my favorite pieces is on Mark Twains defense of small penises when invited to a Big Dick Boat Cruise. There are pieces of erotic pieces of church art. It is great for dinner parties. I can't suggest the book enough.
Elephants on Acid ( Link). I started reading again as an adult and started with this book. Its about experiments throughout history. There are some that you would be shocked about! The stories are short and it actually helped me finish the book. It's on Audible too!
It was taught in Ireland as well.
I got this book later and it's great, the De-textbook.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Textbook-Stuff-Didnt-about-Thought/dp/0452298202
This isn't really what you asked for, nothing like Alex Jones type stuff, but it's the first book that came to mind, and it's great:
https://www.amazon.com/Underground-Education-Unauthorized-Outrageous-Supplement/dp/0385483767
This one is also great and closer to what you might be looking for:
There’s this book called Unuseless Japanese Inventions and this is one of the inventions, except the book put a handle on the bed of the plunger
I'd say look in to pulling off something based on Thing Explainer. It's a book that explains complicated things using only the 1,000 most common words in english. You could probably turn it up a little to maybe 2,000 words so they don't sound as weird.
Yeah, he ate a lot of the front cover and destroyed the first 20-30 pages of my hardback HP and the Deathly Hallows. But he removed the dust jacket first without damaging it, so at least I can put that on and cover the damage.
He also destroyed the Thing Explainer by Randall Munroe, which I highly recommend as a gift for anyone, including kids, who likes cool drawings and nerdy things. Or maybe for dogs who eat hardback books. My dog found it extra tasty and super chewy.
King and Asimov both wrote for a living. If writing is your day job and how you pay your bills then obviously you'll spend a lot of your time doing it.
For most writers though, that isn't the case. Most are likely juggling day jobs, children and whatever else takes up the hours in the day. To hear about what cluttered lives many creatives led, check out the book Daily Rituals
The important thing with acquiring any skill or finishing a project is to start with small goals, do a bit each day and build momentum. I set a goal of writing a few crappy pages each day. If I feel like doing more I'll keep going. Sometimes I'll outline or rework a bit of writing instead, but every day I do something.
Also when you feel you've taken your long term plan forward you'll feel way better during your down time. ;)
What's also important to realize is that a lot of writing happens away from a keyboard or pen. I get ideas while sitting on a bus or picture a scene I'm working on while walking. That way I'll ideally have a good idea of what I want to write before I start.
not a subreddit but I think you'd enjoy An Underground Education
There are lots of general knowledge books-- back in the day people did this by reading encyclopedias --but I would recommend <em>An Incomplete Education</em> for general knowledge as a starting point. It's really well written and you can work your way through a few topics each night before bed.
This is a good example what you get in the most 1000 common words in English:
https://xkcd.com/1133/ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0544668251/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0544668251&linkCode=as2&tag=thekcs-20&linkId=S4XRZJJKSMHOWEQU
It's probably something similar in Japanese.
That being said, by knowing 1000 words you'll understand a lot more than by knowing 0. Keep trying to learn 500 words and if you succeed try to learn 500 more. If you can keep it up over many years you'll learn a lot.
I like books - this year I've asked for Thing Explainer and Welcome to Night Vale, along with some linguistics books, but I'm a language nerd.
My boyfriend's family asks each other what they want for gift-giving holidays. It does kind of spoil the surprise, but I'll take knowing what I'm getting over getting a bunch of ugly-ass clothes or shitty soap gift sets. Again.