Book recommendations and recent reads

Be aware, I feel books worth reading are ones that should affect your thinking on the world, your world view.  That means they should impact the most controversial topics…

 

 

Latest Reads - In Progress

               Christian Bible

               (Currently going through the book of Proverbs. I find the Contemporary English Version the translation I like the best, with World English Bible  being the freely available translation I like. The section of the Gospel of John and the 1st Letter to the Corinthians by Paul are good places to start, and the whole is beneficial.)

               Security Engineering by Ross Anderson:https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/book.html

               (It is slow going for me due to time constraints and the large size, but I like it.)

 

Latest Reads finished

               Francis Bacon's New Atlantis

 

Recommended

               U.S.A. Constitution and amendments

               DVZine 

               The Cathedral and the Bazaar

               Transparent Society

(Both an article and a book. Previously shared this with some in SBD on Teams)

In the Beginning was the Command Line

               (Excellent discussion of user interfaces approaches)

             Hackers, Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy

               E-Books by Jules Verne at Project Gutenberg, https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/60

               E-Books by many other freely available at Project Gutenberg

 

Longer list (but still incomplete) available at

               https://www.librarything.com/catalog/hrabbey

               or

               https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/155915753-howard-abbey

               (My rating scale is 1 = worth reading, 3 = really good, 5 = a must read)

 

 

Another tidbit:

My wife Jodi is a voracious reader, helps with our church library, and enjoys helping people find books that they might enjoy reading.

 

Enjoy,

Howard

SuperBowl Ad that was pulled was less damaging than previously aired ones.

 Why is the exploitation of women's bodies and men's hormones more acceptable and less outrageous and less worthy of being pulled from the public eye than the exploitation of dogs?

I like dogs, but I feel the 2015 proposed SuperBowl ad by GoDaddy leads to less encouragement of inappropriate activity than the previous GoDaddy Superbowl commercials.  Puppy mill total profits vs porn industry total profits?  Number of criminals in jail for varieties of animal abuse (or even people on SPCA's not liked list) vs number of rapists in jail?

Thanks to GoDaddy for directing their pushing the limits away from the sexual limits.
Encouragement to GoDaddy in the future to find ways to entertain without pushing social limits.
Encouragement to society to reprioritize and realize the challenge appropriate sexuality is to men.
One of my biggest complaints about advertising is that it goes against the desire to keep our minds on whatever is true, pure, right, holy, friendly, and proper.

Muslim schools trying to increase enrollment by kidnapping.

Mission Network News article: College students save 19 kids from jihadist fate

Wow.  I knew offering education was one way Muslim missionaries evangelized.  I did not know that they have resorted to deceiving parents to get students.

Yet another reason to:

Pray for Muslim extremists to change.

Not support countries who support Muslim missionaries and schools, such as Saudi Arabia.

Not support gas prices which increases profits of OPEC.

Not drive a car.

To ride a bicycle for daily needs.

Federal spending info shows interest payments are main category growing recently, not defense nor healthcare

After a discussion with a co-worker on if defense or medicare grew more recently in U.S. federal spending, I did a bit of research.
It seems as a percentage, neither grew recently.  Or in-other-words, both grew equally outrageously.  This surprised me some.

Here is a link to a chart of relative federal spending categories since 1962.  It looks like the main category growing, as a percentage of total, is interest.  (And that is with the relatively low interest rates recently...)
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2010/06/~/media/Images/Reports/2010/sr0078/sr78_chart2a.ashx?w=600&h=1063&as=1

The chart is from a fairly long, detailed article that I only skimmed through from the Heritage Foundation: Federal Spending by the Numbers 2010

It looks like both defense and safety net (a.k.a. entitlement or income redistribution) are both growing about the same, very large, rates.
This page also states:
> These deficits would not only raise interest rates, they would also nearly quadruple the net interest costs of the national debt over the next decade.

The article also has a "Nowhere to Cut?" section including some items that should be easy for any politician to cut.

So default now on loans or default later or get spending under control by doing very difficult things.
My guess of the outcome, based on the self-control of our leaders and the majority of population that elect them, is default on the loans.
Hence my idea that it is better to get it over with quicker when the pain will be less.
If we could find a soft-landing method, I would be all for it.  But I doubt we as a nation have the self-control.  Recovering addicts seem to have more success with cold-turkey than gradual reduction, even though it appears very mean and unkind.

Later,
Howard

Important topics to think about

I feel some items that should be publicized, promoted, and seriously considered by all:
1. The claims of Jesus the Christ to be the way to heaven and to be the supreme leader, as expressed in Christianity, summarized in the first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 15 verses 3-8.
2. The constitution of the United States of America, including its amendments, especially the second, first, and fourth.  Eric Raymond has written up and collected good support of bearing arms.

In addition, some items that should be publicized, promoted, and seriously considered by most:
3. Dvorak keyboard layout, explained well at DVZine.
4. Freely shareable s/w, as supported by the Free Software Foundation, and other shareable content available under Creative Commons or other licensing.

If you wish any more information on any of these, or more of my personal reasoning, feel free to ask me.  There is plenty of on-line information, along with plenty of misleading on-line information.
Sincerely,
Howard Abbey