There's a good book called Take Your Eye Off the Ball: How to Watch Football by Knowing Where to Look. I read the first edition, but I link the latest one I could find. It's the book I recommend to people if they want to learn about the nuts and bolts of football. And it's been my experience, the more you know about the sport you're watching the better the overall experience is.

Edit: Thank you for the gold anonymous redditor

Common Beginner Mistakes Continued

• Playing too hard of a course. There is no need to make golf any more frustrating by introducing narrow fairways and lots of hazards. Consider starting on a short course with few hazards while you’re learning the basics.
  
  
• Playing from the wrong tee box. There is no shame in not teeing off from the pro tee boxes. Unless you’re a low handicapper, don’t abuse yourself by pushing your limits too early. See this thread for more.
  
  
• Losing your stuff. When you go to putt, you'll often lay your wedge down off the green and forget it when you finish up. This is a great tip that will save you major headaches in the future. If I don't lay it on the the flag, I'll be sure to drop my wedge highly visibly on a line between the hole and the cart.
  
  

  Improving at Golf
  

  
  

• Course Management (Strategy). Instead of “going for it” every time, set yourself up for shots that have a high-percentage chance of landing properly. So, go for the fat parts of the fairway, the middle of the greens, easy tee shots, and safer approach shots. Conservative golf is good golf, and is guaranteed to improve your game as a high handicapper.
  
  
• Track Your Stats. How will you know if you're improving if you don't keep track of how you've done? There are lots of phone apps that include stat tracking and more. If you want to use a computer, try out OOBGolf.com. The more detailed you get, the more you'll know what areas you need to work on. Also consider just tracking the number of good shots you make in a round (shots where you made good contact and the ball basically did what you wanted it to). That will help prove to yourself that you are improving over time even if your scores are still pretty bad.
  
  
• Be Honest with Yourself. A continuation of the track your stats tip is to maintain honest stats. So, SO many people don't properly count strokes and penalties, allow themselves mulligans, and take gimmies all day long. Inevitably their scores are way lower than their real scores. If you're not playing me for money, it's no skin off my back, but if you're looking to improve, lying to yourself about your score is only robbing your future self of satisfaction. As you improve, you will legitimately hit those lower scores, but you won't experience the satisfaction that you would have since you already allowed yourself to say you earned that score artificially. Make sense?
  
  
• Range Routine. Going to the range without a plan for practice is going to be mostly a waste of time. Check out these threads ([link]( http://www.reddit.com/r/golf/comments/u4fwn/hey_golfit_whats_your_routine_at_the_driving_range/
  ), Link, Zelda).
  
  
• Improve Your Short Game. About 50-75% of your shots are going to be pitching, chipping, and putting. The big shots look cool, but if you really want to improve, you’re going to have to practice your short game a lot. Here is one helpful thread but there are LOTS of good videos out there. Consider watching Phil Mickelson’s Secrets of the Short Game which is an excellent resource. Here's a short video of his on the Hinge & Hold chipping method.
  
  
• Fixing Problems in Your Swing. If you’re slicing, shanking, hooking, and so on, just Google your particular problem. There are so many golf instructional videos online that will help you cure these problems, it’s ridiculous. And if you can afford it, an hour with a coach can be very beneficial.
  
  

  Reddit Tips
  

  
  There have been lots of past threads with advice and tips. Here are some of the ones that stuck out to me:
  
  

• The most important part of the golf swing IMO.
  
  
• Practice Tips.
  
  
• What I learned at a 3-day Dave Pelz short game clinic.
  
  
• Why you don't need to need to work on your wrists and hands in the full swing.
  
  
  
  
• Best tip or drill you heard in 2012.
  
  
• Contrary to popular belief, I believe long game is more important than short game for most golfers.
  
  
• Just a simple tip to help check your ball contact.
  
  
• Now perhaps more golfers will "waggle"...
  
  
• Avoid deceleration when pitching.
  
  
• Just some friendly advice to the novice and high handicappers out there.
  
  
• How do I hit a ball that's 50-70 yds away from the green?
  
  
• Any good inside 30 yard advice? Help!
  
  
• My Amateur-ish Advice (Dropped from 19 to a 9 handicap in one summer).
  
  
• Post your hard won golf wisdom. Help your brothers and sisters.
  
  
• Tips / advice for a beginner.
  
  
• What is the best simple golf tip you have ever received?
  
  

  Other FAQs
  

  
  

• Training aids. There’s been lots of discussion in the past if you’re interested.
  
  
• Golf Apps. There’s a lot of cool ones with built in GPS and statistics tracking.
  
  
• Getting fitted. Getting fitted involves having your clubs professionally adjusted for your build and swing and is not generally necessary for high handicappers.
  
  
• Range Finders. There's been lots of threads on these in the past.
  
  

  Saving Money
  

  
  Golf is an expensive hobby. Here are some ways to make it less so. Thanks to Aco- and TheGhostRedditor with this section.
  
  

• Use Discount Tee-Time Sites. Sites like Golfnow.com, EZLinks.com, and Golf18Network.com offer discounts anywhere from 10-80% off normal retail rates. They're a godsend. And be sure to search Google for coupons too (and if you're so inclined, create more accounts to use the coupons multiple times).
  
  
• Get a Course Membership. Many courses will offer annual memberships that offer significant discounts for the regular player. Some offer unlimited play for $150-200/mo. Definitely worth looking into.
  
  
• Play During Slow/Twilight Hours. Most courses offer discounts during their slow times.
  
  
• Walk with a Push-Cart. Invest $150 in a three-wheeled caddy and you'll never need to spend $15 on cart fees again. Plus you get more exercise. Many people swear it's a whole new game after getting a push-cart.
  
  
• Buy Discounted/Used Gear. If you hang out on /r/golf, you'll see pretty much daily thrift store/craigslist hauls where the person got a crazy good deal. But you can also buy discounted stuff online at RockBottomGolf.com and used balls at LostGolfBalls.com.
  
  
• Get a Ball Retriever. If you lost your ball in a water hazard, you may be able to snag it with a retriever. Some courses frown on these and be sure to not slow the pace of play.
  
  
• Get Golf Clothes at Marshalls or Costco. Last year's clothes end up at Marshalls and Costco sells good synthetic polos for $15-20.
  
  
• Daily Deal Threads on /r/Golf. There is thread posted every day by Golpher (manually mind you) with some good deals. Also check out FatWallet's Golf Deals and Sport.Woot.com has the occasional deal.
  
  
• Play By Yourself. If you're off work, but your buddies aren't, play a round by yourself when it's cheap. Many people, including me, find it to be very relaxing. Consider playing two balls for extra practice.
  
  

  Recommended Reading/Watching
  

  
  

• Ben Hogan’s Five Fundamentals of Modern Golf. A timeless classic covering all stages of the golf swing.
  
  
• Dave Pelz's Short Game Bible.. An absolutely essential read IMO. I guarantee it will dramatically improve your scoring at almost any level.
  
  
• Golf is Not a Game of Perfect. Getting your head in the right place.
  
  
• Advice for Beginners from a Pro. Very good Q&A worth reading.
  
  
• Golf Digest’s Beginner’s Guide. A lot of basic info, some of which may not be covered here.
  
  

  Check Out My Other Guides
  

  
  If you liked this guide, consider checking out my other guides.
  
  

• Build a PC Beginner’s Guide.
  
  
• StarCraft 2 Beginner’s Guide.
  
  
• Poker Beginner’s Guide.
  
  ---
  
  Thanks for reading. I hope this helps you to enjoy the great game of golf. And again, if you have any thoughts, suggestions, or compliments, I'd love to hear them. Good luck!
  

Have you heard of the Nicaraguan Sign Language? A number of deaf Nicaraguan students, unable to communicate with other hearing-abled people, began to develop a crude sign language when placed in a community together. The younger students further refined the pidgin into complex syntax structures. It's, near as we can tell, the most recent natural birth of a new language.

Also, I suggest reading The Language Instinct. Although some ideas in Pinker's book are debatable, he makes an extremely good case for the instinctual nature of language—that it is a biological cognitive adaptation of humans on the level of dam-building in beavers.

It is an immensely narrow field of study. Everything I've posted so far comes out of my studies into mythopoetics in college. In essence, it is the study of the historical development of human consciousness through myth and what few written works remain. Ultimately, it's the study of the plasticity of human consciousness and how language and cultural conception develops your reality for you.

I'll link more books which touch on this subject!

Mircea Eliade - The Sacred and the Profane

Julian Jaynes - The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (Some of the science he employs has been brought into question, but his stuff on language and historical analysis of myth is super interesting and on point)

I think philosophy still has a lot to offer. Especially in the fields of morality, epistemology, and psychology. I have a minor in Philosophy of Science, so I'm practically an expert ;).

EDIT:
>Which explains why philosophy hasn't came up with anything new on the last 2 x centuries

Hell, I would argue that some of the most philosophically important ideas were had in the 20th century (Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is a great example) and in many ways, those ideas have shaped science into what we know it as today. I hate to say it but it seems to me that if they said "philosophy is dead," they are saying it in ignorance of modern philosophy's very important contributions to science and society.

This is what your looking for: https://www.amazon.com/Take-Your-Eye-Off-Ball/dp/1629371696/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1466245848&sr=8-1&keywords=take+your+eye+off+the+ball




It's a book called "Take Your Eye off the Ball", and it will comnpletely change football for you forever (in a good way)!

Comes with experience. It's probably the most complex team sport there is, with games being more chess matches than anything.

You can accelerate your learning by reading books like Take Your Eye off the Ball if you're really invested in learning more, but even something like getting into the Madden games can help a lot. Plenty of online resources as well for concepts and formations and whatnot.

While you'll learn plenty just by watching, without a bit of background on the fundamentals, a lot of stuff is gonna be lost on the average viewer.

tldr; There are millions of us that feel the same way. I hope you don't forsake Christ in name in response to those around you who are forsaking Christ in deed.

__

I'm writing this during a break at work. Since I have to make it quick, I'll be recommending a lot of books. There is really too much here anyway to do justice to all of the questions you've put up, so even if I were to give a real, detailed response, I would probably have to resort to suggesting books anyway.

> 1.) I don't think that all of the Bible can be taken literally. I strongly believe in the sciences, so I think that Genesis was written either metaphorically or simply just to provide an explanation for creation. Are there others here that believe that or something similar? How do others respond to your beliefs?

There are many, many, many others who believe similarly. And not just recent people responding to evolution, there has long been a tradition of taking Genesis metaphorically. For a good group of scholars and prominent Christians that take a stand for a reading of Genesis that respects the way that science currently understands origins, see the Biologos Forum.

For a good book that shows the error of inerrancy, how it stunts your growth as a Christian and a moral agent, and how inerrancy limits either human free will or God's sovereignty see Thom Stark's excellent new book The Human Faces of God.

> 2.) Why does it seem that Christianity is such a hateful religion? I am very disappointed in many Christians because they spew hatred towards other instead of spreading love. I think that the energy that is going into the hatred that many spew could be used for good. Why aren't we putting these resources towards helping others? This would help bring people in instead of deter them away.

Again, millions of us feel the same way. It makes me sick as well. However, I don't think the answer is forsaking Christ in name in response to others forsaking Christ in deed.

There are many strands of the Christian faith that have strongly opposed violence of any sort. Look into the Anabaptists, the Mennonites. Podcasts from Trinity Mennonite are pretty good.

For a good book about Jesus and nonviolence see Jesus and Nonviolence by Walter Wink.

> 3.) How can people be against gay rights still? This is clearly religious issue and not an issue of morality. If you choose to follow the parts of the Bible that are against homosexuality, then why do you not feel the need to follow many of the other ridiculous laws that are in the Old Testament?

I'd like to stress that, again, there are millions of us that feel the same way. And many, many of those who still believe it's a sin think that we have no place emphasizing that in a world where LGBT teenagers are killing themselves from the humiliation. There are many, many of us that think that whether their lifestyle is "sinful" or not the only thing we should show them is love.

For more about interpreting the Bible in light of today's social issues, see Slaves, Women & Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis by William J. Webb and Sex and the Single Savior by Dale B. Martin.

> Do you believe that the government has the right to say who can and cannot get married? Why can't this just be left up to each individual church?

I'm actually strongly in favor of civil unions for everyone. I wholeheartedly agree that I don't want the government defining marriage... and the only way for the government not to define marriage is for the government to take its hands off marriage altogether; whatever the sexual orientation of those getting married.

> 4.) This was a question that I was asked in my other post that I was unable to answer.

Yes, the penal satisfaction view of atonement has its shortcomings. It's not a completely bankrupt idea, but it takes a lot of nuance to convey it in a way that isn't altogether abhorrent and senseless.

The first Christians believed something similar to what we call today "Christus Victor" atonement.

For a picture of the varied atonement theories available for understanding what Jesus did on the cross, see A Community Called Atonement by Scot McKnight. For a list of ways to understand atonement in a contemporary context, see Proclaiming the Scandal of the Cross by Mark D. Baker. For more on a view of God that is consistent with the love of God as revealed in Jesus, see Rob Bell's Love Wins: A book about heaven, hell, and the fate of every person that ever lived.

> 5.) I asked this in the other post, so I feel that I should ask it here. How many of you do or will teach your children about other religions? Will you present them as options or will you completely write them off?

I'd be wholeheartedly open to exposing them to other religions. And I'd want to do it in a way that does them justice. Most Christian "worldviews" books frustrate me due to the way they portray other's religions. In the long run if you don't accurately portray the rest of the world and you try to shelter your children from it, they'll simply feel betrayed when they grow up and finally learn what's out there.

I believe Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. I actually believe this. Why wouldn't I try to raise my children as Christians?

But again, I wouldn't want to misrepresent the other religions and I certainly wouldn't want to shelter my children from them. For a book that I feel shows the good from many of the world's most prominent religions, see Huston Smith's The World's Religions.

If I were hiring for this position and you had a strong resume, I would be nervous about your lack of domain knowledge -- but that's something that software engineers are expected to pick up! So I would go in with:

• I know my role (SWEng) and I'm excited to learn more about the sport ... that's normal in software engineering, and you can expect me to be up to speed by the start of the season.
  
  Now, you can also cram. Read this Wikipedia article to learn the names of the positions and formations. Make flash cards! Study hard! Then dive into any of the following books:
  
  
• Take Your Eye Off the Ball - how to watch the game to learn more than a casual fan does
  
• The Art of Smart Football - big-picture strategic writing about how coaches and QBs plan for games
  
  A reasonable bar for a non-casual fan would be to be able to answer questions like:
  
  
• (Casual / Bare minimum) Discuss the recent history of the team you're visiting, and the recent strengths and weaknesses of their division rivals.
  
• (Casual / Bare minimum) Explain the three choices that a coach has on fourth down, and discuss recent (>2005) changes in attitudes toward that decision.
  
• (Casual / Bare minimum) Explain why a "nickel" or "dime" defense is a reasonable choice against a "two-minute" offense.
  
• (Casual / Bare minimum) There are five offensive linemen, usually divided into three position names. Name the positions and the differences between their skills. Explain why having a good offensive line is critical.
  
• (Moderate) Describe the set of games that makes up a team's schedule. Can you, as a SWEng, quantify which games have the most impact on a team's playoff chances?
  
• (Moderate) Outline rule changes over the last 15-20 years surrounding the concept of the "extra point" including the 2-point conversion.
  
• (Moderate) If you analyze the play-by-play data, you might notice that when a QB has many negative-yardage plays it correlates with losing, but when a QB has exactly three negative yardage plays, it correlates strongly with winning. Why? How could you adjust your software to remove this weird bias in the data?
  
• (Moderate) The Ravens have two victories in the last ten years that were both secured by deliberate late-game safeties -- that is, giving up two points to the other team. Explain how and why that strategy worked, and why it isn't viable anymore.
  
• (Moderate) Explain how player salaries are determined. Explain what someone means when they say "he's on his rookie deal" or "we can't cut him because of the dead money" or "they tagged him". Explain, using examples from around the league, what makes someone a "franchise QB" and what the reasonable market value is for a better-than-average QB.
  
• (Advanced) Read this three-part study and then discuss how you, as a SW engineer, can help me (the GM) select the best offensive line talent.
  
• (Advanced) A few years ago, in a NE@IND night game, everyone assumed New England would spend the evening passing the ball. Why? They ended up running the ball instead, and winning. What unusual wrinkle did they add to their offense that made it effective?
  
  Also... if the team you're applying to is the Ravens, I'll be happy to help you get up to speed.

Read Keep Your Eye off the Ball. Read The Essential Smart Football. Pay for NFL GamePass. Watch the Coach's Film (All-22). They've archives going back to 2011. It's especially helpful if you watch a game (or series of plays) you're already familiar with. Get pen and paper out and take notes. Watch what each player is doing, both before and after the snap, and be ready to rewind over and over and over and over.

There's a lot of good analysis on YouTube too, if you are a learn-by-watching type.

>Start here, on Brett Kollman's channel. He's a former NFL Network production assistant. Most of his videos are story heavy and analysis light, but that video is about how to watch film.
>
>Sam's Film Room, with Samuel Gold, a writer for the Athletic. Good for beginners. I think he started out at r/nfl.
>
>The QB School, with former Patriots QB, JT O'Sullivan. Focuses on quarterback play, both good and bad.
>
>Dan Orlovski's Twitter has a bunch of quick analysis videos, usually focusing on QB play.
>
>Peyton Manning's Detail is wonderful show, but is stuck behind a paywall at ESPN.com. There are two short videos free on YouTube. Resourceful people can find it elsewhere as well.
>
>Strong Opinion Sports, with Division III NCAA QB Zac Shomler. He has a lot of football video podcasts, but also a QB film analysis playlist.
>
>Baldy Breakdowns, with former Cowboys OLineman and current NFL Network analyst Brian Baldinger. No true focus, but has great insight into offensive line play.
>
>Gamepass Film Sessions. NFL Players and coaches analyze their own plays. The full version is on NFL Gamepass. I'm a particular fan of the one with Joe Thomas.
>
>Voch Lombardi. Focuses on talent evaluation and line play. Funny as fuck.
>
>The New England Patriots YouTube channel has Belichick Breakdown and Coffee with the Coach. Breakdown is the more analysis focused of the two.

If you're REALLY interested, the resources are out there. Good hunting.

Everytime someone asks this I always recommend this book: "Take Your Eye Off The Ball" ~ Pat Kirwan

Explains a bit of everything you could ever want to know.

Actually, most "professional academic linguists" don't create language learning tools at all. Theoretical linguists are busy analyzing data and coming up with theories about language. Experimental linguists are busy designing and running experiments to test these theories in the lab. Field linguists are off collecting more data to invigorate this cycle (and to document languages). And so on and so forth.

So (most) language learning books are not written by linguists in the standard, academic sense. In other words, "linguist" means something more specific than just language learning/teaching enthusiast, even though some (maybe many) linguists do enjoy learning and teaching languages.

What some professional linguists do, which may be of interest to you, is publish comprehensive descriptive grammars. They're not necessarily meant for learning a language; they're more for reference (for language learners and linguists alike). One book that comes to mind is the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language by Huddleston and Pullum (both linguists). Only problem is that, most likely, any descriptive grammar will actually be written in that very language, so for a beginner, it's unrealistic as a learning tool.

tl;dr Basically, as far as I can tell, the people best trained for creating language learning tools (linguists) actually don't because they're busy with (or interested in) other stuff, so the tools that are created are often created by people with insufficient training (and who probably do it mostly for the money), hence the poor quality. So it's not linguists who are dropping the ball!

1. The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language - Stephen Pinker
   
   
2. 9/10
   
   
3. Linguistics, popular science/neurology
   
   
4. Someone recommended it in connection with linguistic development in toddlers, and it just completely blew my mind - not just about this subject, but about just about everything other topic in the book (ASL, BEV, the formation of pidgins and creoles, just to name a few). This is an absolute must-read for anyone even remotely interested in the subject; Pinker is a highly regarded figure in his field and a riveting writer. Fair warning - a couple of the chapters which deal with grammatical structures are a bit sluggish, but they're essential to understanding the rest of the book (plus they taught me more about formal English grammar than high school and college combined).
   
   
5. http://www.amazon.com/The-Language-Instinct-Mind-Creates/dp/0061336467/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347042996&sr=8-1&keywords=language+instinct

Hi, not Wiccan, but eclectic druid, which is also a subset of Paganism. There are loads of online communities to check out! Firstly, I'd say browse the r/wicca, r/pagan, and r/druidism (shameless plug lol) subreddits, as they're filled with loads of info and opinions. Be warned on r/pagan, since there are LOADS of different types of pagans, you'll get some wildly different opinions. There's plenty of other subreddits (r/witchcraft, for example), but those were the ones I started with.

I also love the Pagan channel on Patheos, which if you haven't browsed before, is a really interesting conglomeration of religious blogs. While I don't use it very often, WitchVox is also referenced as a really good online hub for finding local groups.

For books, this one is a fucking fantastic introduction to Paganism as a whole. It was my first real read on the topic. For Wicca in particular, Scott Cunningham is typically the one people point to for learning how to practice solitary. I also found Wicca for Beginners to be a super quick but useful intro. If you want a more general history of witchy goddess nature-worshipy religions, I am currently reading Drawing Down the Moon and love it.

Finally, if you have any Unitarian churches in your area, reach out-- they frequently have pagan or earth-centered study groups you can always visit!

Like I said before, I'm way more druidy, so if you want suggestions for learning about that (or just want to talk pagan-y things to admittedly a baby pagan), lemme know! :)

Exposition. Writing. When you read math books, some are clear and well-written and interesting. Others are boring and/or incomprehensible. The difference is a learnable skill. Start here.

I'm not. Dean Oliver is. John Hollinger is. If anyone reading this hasn't read basketball on paper, change that right now...
https://www.amazon.com/Basketball-Paper-Rules-Performance-Analysis/dp/1574886886/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1541703073&sr=1-1&keywords=basketball+on+paper

Not exactly what you asked for, but I got Keep Your Eyes Off the Ball off Amazon for just a few bucks a couple years ago, and it really helped me a lot with this very thing. The spiral bound "playbook edition" comes with a three hour DVD as well. The spiral version isn't dinky/flimsy so don't be scared.

Before that book, I never knew where I was supposed to be looking and missed out on a lot. Problem solved.

Edit to Add: There is an updated/newer version now, but Amazon reviewers are unclear about whether it has a DVD, if that matters to you--I think the book is pretty clear on its own.

Greg Wyshynski's new book "Take Your Eye Off the Puck: How to Watch Hockey By Knowing Where to Look") will probably be helpful. I can't say for sure because I just started reading it last night and am only a handful of pages in.

If you're new to football then I couldn't recommend this book more. Once you get a basics for the rules and general flow of the game, this will take your knowledge of schemes and ability to see the on-field strategic battle in real-time to an entirely new level. Even longtime NFL fans should read it if they haven't as everyone can still learn more.



https://www.amazon.com/Take-Your-Eye-Off-Ball/dp/1629371696

Take Your Eye Off The Ball is pretty much the go to literature on this.

If you're a new fan (like me) then this one I would say is definitely worth it to get a better understanding of the nitty gritty that goes on during games.

Apart from that, I have seen numerous recommendations for Fan Notes (That I haven't read yet) as a good intro to football culture at large. This is currently on my reading list (About 3rd at the moment).

Here is a list of books by NFL's Chris Weaselling that you might find useful. I hope that is a useful enough introduction, and happy reading.

Keep your eye off the ball NFL edition is good

Take Your Eye Off the Ball 2.0: How to Watch Football by Knowing Where to Look https://www.amazon.com/dp/1629371696/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i.vWAbRA5EMJN

Also the art of smart football

The Art of Smart Football https://www.amazon.com/dp/069244825X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_qawWAb8X0RP9W

Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct is a strong layperson's introduction to lingistics.

Ohio State has a huge undergraduate linguistics program and publishes an omnibus introductory linguistics textbook to boot. I've heard good things about it: Language Files.

You knew what it meant. ;) Descriptive grammar is a bitch, ain't it?

For one, I can make sure that your reputation among this subreddit's user base is trash. But you're already doing a fine job of that. For another, I can ride every comment you make in this thread until you get positively sick of dealing with me. Neither of us seems to want that.

Let me tell you why you're a fucking moron in the terms that the academics use though, since you want so badly to be schooled. What you posit is that orthodoxy is problematic, and then you make a huge leap of logic by applying orthodoxy to all religion. However, all religion is not orthodoxic, only the dominant religions of western culture. So right off the bat, half the globe doesn't prescribe to your naive take on religion.

Let me familiarize you with orthopraxy, since your Dunning Kruger is showing. The difference between orthodoxy and orthopraxy is that orthodoxy describes a religion as "having proper belief", while orthopraxy describes a religion as "having proper practice". Furthermore, there is the additional component of whether any faith is dogmatic or non-dogmatic. There are orthodoxic and orthopraxic religions that are dogmatic, but many more orthopraxic religions are non-dogmatic.

So what does that look like? A good example of a dogmatic, orthodoxic religion is Christianity (and really any Abrahamic faith). Even Confucianism is arguably some degree of orthodoxic, however the teachings of Confucius have much more to do with how one lives, so it would fall under orthopraxy. You can be a great Buddhist without ever believing in Buddha, as well. There are Hindu sects that don't dogmatically believe in the gods, but they do place emphasis on "right practice".

Most, if not all, pagan faiths (allowing for marginal ones with which I haven't yet become acquainted; there are hundreds if not thousands of ancient world cultures and attempts to reconstruct their faiths start every day it seems) have no doctrine, and what's more, many of them de-emphasize the divine or even don't believe in them at all. What is common among most, if not all pagan faiths is do ut des, or "I give so that you may give". For some this is a direct exchange with the gods - myself, for example. For others this is a means of connecting with a higher consciousness. This forms the basis of ritual, offering, and sacrifice. Before you foolishly squall "herp derp nobody sacrifices in the modern day", yes they fucking do, it is legal to kill livestock in many parts of the world, even the US, and furthermore sacrifice has expanded to encompass giving up anything of value, not just life.

>You can't hold all pagan beliefs simultaneously, so please if you really had that much research on the topic it would show.

In point of fucking fact, yes I can. I don't personally - I primarily practice Norse heathenry. This is another piece of evidence of your perception of world religions through a Christian lens, that to worship divinities outside of one's religion is blasphemy. Very few pagan religions have any concept of blasphemy. Roman and Greek civic cultus focused primarily on "what was good for society", which is why the Jewish diaspora was possible, while Rome had a big problem with Christianity. Because, and only because, Christians were a threat to the civic cultus of the society in ways that Judaism was not.

This concept, the admittance of syncretism and the worship of many - even all - pantheons, is called "pluralism", and it is almost universal to paganism. There is no doctrine (see that word again?) or dogma (oh and that one) that demands or demanded historically that pagans only worship one pantheon. In fact, to think that pantheons existed discreetly from nation to nation in the first place is reductive and downright foolish, especially among tribal cultures. There is documented evidence that the Suebi in Germany for example worshipped Isis. Possibly interpretatio romana, but this is one of many examples. Another would be the similarities between Frigg and Freyja, between Ingvi and Freyr, and the many syncretisms between Greek and Roman gods. No one would have any reason to object to a person making cult offerings to another god, so long as that other god didn't demand exclusivity (like the Christian god).

So shut the fuck up.

Edit:

Reference Materials:

• Marcel Mauss - The Gift
  
  
• Paul C Bauschatz - The Well and the Tree
  
  
• Mircea Eliade - The Sacred and the Profane
  
  
• M. Avrum Ehrlich - Encyclopedia of the Jewish Diaspora
  
  
• Tacitus - Agricola and Germania

That's one of my favorite popular science books, so it's wonderful to hear you're getting so much out of it. It really is a fascinating topic, and it's sad that so many Christians close themselves off to it solely to protect their religious beliefs (though as you discovered, it's good for those religious beliefs that they do).

As a companion to the book you might enjoy the Stated Clearly series of videos, which break down evolution very simply (and they're made by an ex-Christian whose education about evolution was part of his reason for leaving the religion). You might also like Coyne's blog, though these days it's more about his personal views than it is about evolution (but some searching on the site will bring up interesting things he's written on a whole host of religious topics from Adam and Eve to "ground of being" theology). He does also have another book you might like (Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible), though I only read part of it since I was familiar with much of it from his blog.

> If you guys have any other book recommendations along these lines, I'm all ears!

You should definitely read The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, if only because it's a classic (and widely misrepresented/misunderstood). A little farther afield, one of my favorite popular science books of all time is The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker, which looks at human language as an evolved ability. Pinker's primary area of academic expertise is child language acquisition, so he's the most in his element in that book.

If you're interested in neuroscience and the brain you could read How the Mind Works (also by Pinker) or The Tell-Tale Brain by V. S. Ramachandran, both of which are wide-ranging and accessibly written. I'd also recommend Thinking, Fast and Slow by psychologist Daniel Kahneman. Evolution gets a lot of attention in ex-Christian circles, but books like these are highly underrated as antidotes to Christian indoctrination -- nothing cures magical thinking about the "soul", consciousness and so on as much as learning how the brain and the mind actually work.

If you're interested in more general/philosophical works that touch on similar themes, Douglas R. Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach made a huge impression on me (years ago). You might also like The Mind's I by Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett, which is a collection of philosophical essays along with commentaries. Books like these will get you thinking about the true mysteries of life, the universe and everything -- the kind of mysteries that have such sterile and unsatisfying "answers" within Christianity and other mythologies.

Don't worry about the past -- just be happy you're learning about all of this now. You've got plenty of life ahead of you to make up for any lost time. Have fun!

Start with a good algorithms book like Introduction to algorithms. You'll also want a good discrete math text. Concrete Mathematics is one that I like, but there are several great alternatives. If you are learning new math, pick up The Princeton Companion To Mathematics, which is a great reference to have around if you find yourself with a gap in your knowledge. Not a seminal text in theoretical CS, but certain to expand your mind, is Purely functional data structures.

On the practice side, pick up a copy of The C programming language. Not only is K&R a classic text, and a great read, it really set the tone for the way that programming has been taught and learned ever since. I also highly recommend Elements of Programming.

Also, since you mention Papadimitriou, take a look at Logicomix.

You wouldn't be doing much mathematics if you stuck to writing about those topics.

You could take a look at The Princeton Companion to Mathematics (or some other source that contains a lot of mathematics), find a topic that piques your interest (even if initially you don't understand much about it), try to figure out as much as you can about it (you could ask questions on this subreddit), and then try to write an introduction to it at the level of your fellow students.

Not a textbook per se, but I'll go with the Princeton Companion to Mathematics. It's a coherent (and surprisingly accessible) overview of just about all of pure math.

The Princeton Companion to Mathematics is a really good resource for understanding the broad landscape of what's currently big in math research. It goes into great detail about the history of different branches, biographies of famous mathematicians, small summaries of key concepts, and applications in the modern world. The list price is close to $80, but there might be other ways of finding a copy (wink).

http://www.amazon.com/Princeton-Companion-Mathematics-Timothy-Gowers/dp/0691118809

Welcome to the jungle, we got fun and games.

So on fun fact to note is from here on out you are in charge of developing your relationships with the Gods / Your higher power / Whatever. There’s no dogma. Even if you decide to go with a group or tradition or go it alone there’s no hie holy book or judgmental spirit that will damn you or tarnish you. There’s only the path you choose, and every direction holds lessons to learn if you’re open to it. Specific traditions do have rules you must adhere to to be a member, but you’ll also find there’s a lot of creativity. You don’t need to buy any expensive ritual gear or altar stuff, keep weird herbs or bedazzle yourself in pentacles and Birkenstocks (that’s still a thing right?)

So what to do now?

First thing, you read books. You’ll find plenty of reading lists (like in the side bar). When deciding on a book, check the index and look at the sources and probably the amazon reviews too. There seems to be a switch that flips in half of 5 year pagans where they decide to write a book about Wicca/magic and some actually succeed. Some have poor scholarship and others are just bad. Like I said there aren’t ‘rules’, but folks like to fudge historical facts. Paganism in general often involves learning mythology & the stories of the Gods, and lots of folks like to romanticize the history of Wicca, so you want books that have good scholarship. A book I still recommend to beginners to read first is Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America. It was last updated in 06 but still is useful in learning about the modern pagan movement and many of its flavors. It’ll start you off.

Learn the basics of the different types of meditation. Most rituals have a time where visualization is used, and group rituals often use [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guided_meditation](guided meditation) as a technique. You decide how much or how little you do it in your own practice, but it’s a thing pretty much every tradition has in one from or another. It’s good to be aware of anyway.

Go for walks in nature, at least once a week if you can. Paganism and Wicca are nature based so, go outside.

I personally suggest you dig outside of pagan books for reading material also. I know, a lot of reading right? Wicca some say is called the craft of the wise, and since we drive our own spiritual busses we have to be proactive in knowing stuff. To point you in a direction there I’d suggest you start with Joseph Campbell, especially his ‘hero of a thousand faces and power of myth series. If you dig you can find full lectures of his on YouTube https://youtu.be/bny-U3XlqxY

Last pagan groups. Well there are all kinds and they’re everywhere. http://www.witchvox.com is still a place to poke around outside of Facebook. Lots of pagans are kinda off the grid a little so sometimes they can be hard to find. If there’s a local pagan or new age shop, pay them a visit. The clerk may seem standoffish, don’t take that personally. Lots of wackadoodles visit those places and become a huge annoyance or time suck for them. Usually just mentally ill folk that are pretty much harmless. All religions attract crazy people, but Wicca/pagans attract crazy fringe people that support each other in their delusions. It’s not anything to worry about,, just many shop folk have learned to be a midge guarded. Most are cool, and if you ask how to find resources and groups in your area they will point you in the right direction. Just don’t expect them to be gurus.

Note on that. Remember you are ultimately your own teacher, and never to accept the word of anyone blindly, even if it sounds good. No writer, teacher, coven leader, or grand poobah has ‘the way’. Anyone who says they do, ignore them. I personally have never ran into any cults in the last 20 years of being in the pagan community, but there are shysters that will take advantage of the naive. The Isaac Bonewits cult o meter (also a pagan author) is a handy tool for groups. In all things though follow your gut. Someone or a situation feels creepy, trust that. If someone asks you to do something, like give you money or pushes you to be naked in rituals when you aren’t comfortable with that, know you don’t have to and you have the right to say no. I have not ever ran into that personally but it has to people I know. Pagan culture likes to challenge people to be themselves and will tap at comfort zones because in challenging ourselves we grow, but pagans are also HUGE on consent. Trust your instincts. You have them for a reason.

I don’t mean to squick you with warnings, most folks are cool. The neopagan movement is a vast group with a mishmash of different subcultures, and Wicca is a mishmash of different traditions within paganism. Nobody is in charge, so sometimes you find assholes, as you would in any group. Only with paganism you get dicks who claim they’re a powerful shaman taught by some sorcerer Native American chief who is also the reincarnated soul of Alister Crowley n they have a coven that uses ritual circle jerks to increase their psychic powers to to battle on the ethereal plane where they fight demons and shit. Also for them to be your high priest/ess you need to give them 10 bucks. I’m mostly joking, but yeah ther are some weirdos out there.


Anyway. Lots to chew on. Enjoy the rabbit hole! Most folks are pretty awesome really. You’ll never find a group more accepting. Good luck.

A little bit of background first .. I grew up on a bike, caved into peer pressure to join high school cross country, and never did any sort of lap swimming until a college intermediate swim class (even though my dad was a near Olympics alternate for backstroke in the early 60's). I've been a runner since, picked up triathlon at age 35 for three years when our first was 4mo old. Then went on hiatus for three years until our second was 18mo old with some running stints mixed in. Now I'm 44 and just finished my third straight season. I started back three years ago with focusing on a half Ironman in August of 2016.

Training Plan - A 20 week training plan is just right, and you will do fine to just finish. I recommend the Matt Fitzgerald Essential Week-By-Week Training Guide as it has a ton of training plans for beginners to near pros for each of the four triathlon distances. I have exclusively used this for training since my second year in 2011. He has a new book out called 80/20 Traithlon that I picked up and may use for the 2019 season. His reason for 80/20 is that you spend at least 80% of your time training at easy to aerobic capacity and no more than 20% of your time at higher intensity. This helps reduce injury risk. I also follow the 10% rule of not increasing consecutive weeks in time/distance by more than 10% (with the exception of a one-off week every 4+ weeks depending on training peaks/valleys).

Triathlon Club - Find and get into a local triathlon club. You will gain a world of experience being around those people. I joined the Ann Arbor Triathlon Club in 2014 just to do open water swimming during the summer, and I wasn't even racing in triathlons for another two years! Now I'm the mentor program leader.

Time - I am a family guy as well with a full time job and wife who also works. We have maintained alternate schedules since 2010 so that we do not have the need for third party daycare. School has been a relief that the kids are in 3rd grade and preschool, and their grandparents pick up the preschooler for a few hours a couple times a week so that we can maintain a somewhat healthy schedule. What I've done for training is include the kids! I think I pushed the youngest in the baby jogger over 100 miles each the 2016 and 2017 seasons. I'll sometimes do that while the older child rides her bike on a paved trail. Get a smart trainer! I have a Tacx Vortex Smart trainer I picked up in February of 2016, and it has made a world of difference! It allows me to ride any time (usually after "bedtime"), be safe off the roads (important as a dad!), and do specific interval training.

Training Volume - You should first build up your base for at least three months prior to your 20 week ramp-up schedule. Most of these schedules expect you to be able to jump right in. Otherwise, you'll risk injury and/or disappointment. Getting up to 6-8hrs per week before this ramp-up is good. You can achieve that with 2/discipline workouts per week (6 total). The max you'll reach with a "just finish" schedule is in the 10-12hr/wk range, and that is pretty tough. I think I've only crossed the 12hr mark once, and that was because of having a long workout delayed to the next day into the start of the next week. Three hours is about the max you'll do in a workout, and that would be on the bike. You'll hit around 2hr max run and 1hr max swim.

Nutrition - I swear by Hammer Nutrition products. I use their HEED electrolyte drink several times a week for workouts and Perpetuem for workouts over 2hrs. Their Endurolytes Fizz is great for on-the-go to carry with you in case you need to squeeze in a workout and don't want to pack ziplocs of HEED powder. Keep snacks handy! You will be burning 4000+ extra calories per week! Quick snacks like fruit, figs/dates, crackers with peanut butter or hummus, dry cereal, oatmeal, veggies, and more will help stave off the between meal hunger. At peak training, I think I eat five meals per day with snacking between and am on a 4000+ per day calorie need. Make sure to up your protein and water intake as well. Keep water around at all times. This article by Hammer Nutrition is good for figuring protein need.

Have Fun - You will have ups and downs along the way. Don't let a bad day or even bad week get to you. These will happen! Just remember to stay the course and focus on the goal. And, most importantly, have fun!

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Happy Training!

Adrian

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Better tell the linguists:

>The use of they with a singular antecedent goes back to Middle English, and in spite of criticism since the earliest prescriptive grammars it has continued to be very common in informal style... The prescriptive objection to examples like [25v] and [29] is that they is a plural pronoun, and that such examples therefore violate the rule of agreement between antecedent and pronoun. The view taken here is that they, like you, can be either plural or singular. Plural is of course the primary sense, but the use we are concerned with here involves a secondary, extended sense, just as purportedly sex-neutral he involves a secondary, extended sense of he. The extension to a singular sense has not been reflected in subject-verb agreement, just as the historical extension of you from plural to singular (replacing thou) did not have any effect on the form of the verb. With they we therefore have a conflict between the number it has as an agreement target (plural or singular) and the number it has a source for subject-verb agreement (plural only): the former is more semantically oriented.

The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, pp. 493-494

See also: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?cat=27

Beware of the errors, though: see here, here, and here. Fry is not terribly reliable on linguistics. If you want a good introduction to the field for non-specialists, check out Steven Pinker's book.

>increase my likelihood of getting hired abroad

Getting hired doing what? Where abroad?

Why do you want a minor in French? There are at least a few million other Haitians who are bilingual in French, so how are you bringing extra value to the marketplace with that minor? Wouldn't a Spanish/German/Russian/Chinese/etc. - Haitian bilingual be a rarer commodity?

This all really depends on where you want to go and what you want to do.

As for books:
My intro to ling. class used the book Language Files.
The Language Instinct is pretty good.
I really liked The Unfolding of Language.
The Power of Babel doesn't get too technical, but is an introduction to language change.

The reason you can't do this is because there is a cutoff point of child language acquisition. Essentially, children acquire language without any real instruction (no one is really sitting their kids down and going over conjugation rules). Around the time of puberty though, this critical period of language acquisition shuts off, and it's at that point that you now have to actively learn a new language through study and practice.

I would suggest taking a look at Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct for a more in depth look at it all.

Under the "Stats and Data Analysis", this should be reading for those that don't have a bachelors in NBA or a masters: Basketball on Paper by Dean Oliver

Reading: Ben Hogan's Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf I've always been all arms in my swing, but want to (need to) bring my game in the next level.

Hit a new indoor spot this past weekend and Jesus does that make a difference.

Using a shitty old banged up Wilson driver (still haven't pulled the trigger on my Cobra F7) and bringing rotation into it, I was hitting 240-270yds reliably and straight, which is about 30 yards better than my best drives. Felt great too.

Can't wait to get comfortable with it and pair it with a new driver and some decent soft balls and really drive the green.

Boom, just bought it. Thanks!

http://www.amazon.com/Ben-Hogans-Five-Lessons-Fundamentals/dp/0671723014/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1367940434&sr=8-1&keywords=ben+hogan%27s+five+lessons

I heard good things about Princeton Companion, but I have never read it.

Be careful going down this road, as grouping deities by superficial similarities often ignores the more complex nuances that make each of them unique, and can lead to erroneous comparisons. If you're going to do so though, a book like Michael Jordan's Encyclopedia of Gods has an index where you can search for deities by "subject," such as agriculture, funerary, war, youth, etc.

Here's the reason to take an axe on an extended trip.... It's safer. The longer the axe, the safer it is. The short arc of the hatchet means it'll hit your body before almost anything else, an axe however, has a better chance of hitting the ground before it hits your body.

Then pick yourself up a copy of Mors Kochanski's Bushcraft and see his diagrams and descriptions of it.

I say, get a boy's axe, one that if holding the head in your palm the handle fits into your armpit.

buy and read this book

This book helped me immensely when I first wanted to know what was actually happening on the ice.

Small correction, but I think you mean "Take Your Eye off the Ball"

https://www.amazon.com/Take-Your-Eye-Off-Ball/dp/1629371696/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1536642049&sr=8-1-fkmr1&keywords=Keep+Your+Eye+Off+the+Ball+2.0

Pat Kirwan's Take your eye off the ball is amazing.

Worth every penny.

I would have to strongly caution against both Bill Bryson and Bragg's The Adventure of English. I like Bryson as much as the next guy--he's super easy to read--but PumpkinCrook's on the money with this one. As for Bragg... oof, what can I say? I read it before I had ever taken a Linguistics course and even then it bothered the hell out of me. The style is unscholarly to a fault and it's also mind-numbingly anglocentric (didn't you know that English is the most versatile and resilient language?!). It's fine, I guess, but you could do so much better.

I'd recommend The Origins and Development of the English Language or The Stories of English. The former is more of a textbook; and the latter is daunting in its size, I know, but it's so lovingly done that you can't fault him--with both books, you can more or less hop around according to your fancies.

As for general background, I'd second Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct. It's over 15 years old by now and assuredly outdated, but it reads so easily and you learn so much (without devolving into the sloppiness of Bryson or Blagg!) that I must recommend it almost with affection.

Then question, search, and (hopefully) find. That doesn't mean discard.

I'd suggest starting with this book by Huston Smith which is a sympathetic overview of what the major religions are striving for. Just as an introduction, before you start delving into too much frustrating and often misrepresented material from each. Then, for Christianity, this book is a good read for an overview. Namer98 may be able to provide similar for Judaism, and somebody else for Islam?

Then decide if it matters. I'm of the mind that it doesn't matter that much, for various reasons.

Good luck!

Philosophy is a big field, and without good guidance it's really difficult to make progress. Thus, if you're really interested in the subject I recommend eventually taking classes. You don't need to be enrolled in a University to take classes; there are many online courses available. For example, Shelly Kagan and Tamar Gendler (both excellent teachers, as well as first-rate researchers in their sub-disciplines) teach online philosophy classes through Open Yale Courses. iTunes U has some good stuff too; you can search around for particular topics that might interest you.

As for books, I recommend starting with something accessible, like Bertrand Russell's Problems of Philosophy. Depending on your interests, you might also enjoy Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions and A.J. Ayer's Language, Truth, and Logic. In all cases, though, I recommend having some guidance as you read, which would require some kind of teacher, as in the online resources I mentioned above.

Do you want to become a theist (start believing in one or more gods) or just find a community and set of rituals? I think you can have either one without the other, depending on what your goals are. There are things like the Unitarian church as well as Sunday Assembly (essentially church for atheists).

For me personally, I didn't feel like I had found purpose in life until after I became an atheist and had to discover for myself what I found important in life. Having a family also helps provide purpose :)

That all said, I really enjoyed the textbook we used in my World Religions course in college (note, I linked to the "smile" version of the Amazon link, which is a small way you can have 'purpose' by having Amazon contribute a portion of a purchase price to a charity of your choice)

Check out Drawing Down the Moon for a good primer on the history of modern witchcraft. Here's the description

>Almost thirty years since its original publication, Drawing Down the Moon continues to be the only detailed history of the burgeoning but still widely misunderstood Neo- Pagan subculture. Margot Adler attended ritual gatherings and interviewed a diverse, colorful gallery of people across the United States, people who find inspiration in ancient deities, nature, myth, even science fiction. In this new edition featuring an updated resource guide of newsletters, journals, books, groups, and festivals, Margot Adler takes a fascinating and honest look at the religious experiences, beliefs, and lifestyles of modern America's Pagan groups.

You have a tiny fraction of the bases covered, but you're better off than many people. Some people only read Scott Cunningham's Wicca: A Guide and call it a day.

You really ought to learn of the history of religious witchcraft in the 20th century, the many layers of symbolism and tradition in Gardnerian and Alexandrian witchcraft of the 50s and 60s, then the spread and change of the newly arrived Pagan and witchcraft scene of the 70s and 80s in America, which leads to Dianic Wicca, Eclectic Wicca, and finally the form presented in Scott Cunningham's books and most, if not all books published in the past ten years (and continuously) by Llewellyn.

Drawing Down the Moon by Margot Adler: https://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Down-Moon-Witches-Goddess-Worshippers/dp/0143038192/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469827845&sr=8-1&keywords=drawing+down+the+moon

Then eventually learn of the history not of the religious traditions of witchcraft which have caught on by many, but the figure of the witch as a religious follower (as opposed to an evil baby-killer, a Halloween decoration, or something dreamed up in the minds of the Catholic church with no foundation in actual religion).

Aradia: Gospel of the Witches by Charles Leland: https://www.amazon.com/Aradia-Gospel-Witches-Charles-Godfrey/dp/0982432356/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469828055&sr=8-1&keywords=aradia

Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches' Sabbath by Carlo Ginzburg: https://www.amazon.com/Ecstasies-Deciphering-Witches-Carlo-Ginzburg/dp/0226296938/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1469828085&sr=8-4&keywords=carlo+ginzburg

The Witch Cult in Western Europe by Margaret Murray: https://www.amazon.com/Witch-Cult-Western-Europe/dp/1515244024/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1469828141&sr=8-2&keywords=witch+cult+western+europe

and then, in a timeline-fashion,

Witchcraft Today by Gerald Gardner: https://www.amazon.com/Witchcraft-Today-Gerald-Gardner/dp/0806525932/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469828213&sr=8-1&keywords=witchcraft+today

Then learn how religious witchcraft, as presented by Gerald Gardner and his covens, was and is practiced, the meaning behind the practices, and why the meanings matter.

A Witches Bible by Janet and Stewart Farrar: https://www.amazon.com/Witches-Bible-Complete-Handbook/dp/0919345921/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469828310&sr=8-1&keywords=witches+bible

Also inserted in this section might easily be Buckland's Book of Witchcraft, but I don't personally recommend that book as it does stray from Gardnerian tradition in many respects, sometimes changing whole chunks of traditional texts to a more Pagan or celtic format, and conveniently brushes over the use and symbolism of an important tool, the scourge, in witchcraft. But there are many good pieces of knowledge in that book.

Its also important to read up on influential figures in the Craft movement, and their thoughts, opinions, and reasonings behind their beliefs.

Firechild by Maxine Sanders: https://www.amazon.com/Fire-Child-Magic-Maxine-Sanders/dp/1869928784/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469828518&sr=8-1&keywords=maxine+sanders

King of the Witches by June Johns: https://www.amazon.com/King-Witches-World-Alex-Sanders/dp/B000NT7OYI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469828547&sr=8-1&keywords=king+witches+june

And there's so much more, probably more books than anyone could ever read and find all of.

And one of the best sources of knowledge of the Craft is an experienced High Priest(ess) within a coven that knows their stuff. Much of witchcraft's knowledge comes from its mysteries, which must be experienced to understand.

Good luck on your journey.

I like Szekeres's A Course in Modern Mathematical Physics for referencing intro-grad-level material. It covers abstract linear algebra, differential geometry, measure theory, functional analysis, and Lie algebras, and teaches you some physics along the way.

More generally, the best "breadth" book on advanced mathematics is Princeton Companion to Mathematics by Gowers et al. and its slightly underachieving younger brother of a companion text, Princeton Companion to Applied Mathematics by Higham et al.. You won't properly learn advanced mathematics this way, but you'll get the bird's-eye view of modern research programs and the math underlying them.

If you want a more algebraic take on Szekeres's program to teach physicists all the math they need to know, check out Evan Chen's Napkin project, which is intended to introduce advanced undergrads (it's perfectly fine for grad students too) to a wide variety of advanced mathematics on the algebra side of things.

Since you're doing probability and statistics, check out Wasserman's All of Statistics and Knill's Probability Theory and Stochastic Processes for good, concise references for intro-grad-level material.

I will second what /u/Ovationification said, though. I didn't really learn anything with the above books, I just use them occasionally for reference or to think about pedagogy.

Someone requests a guide and the response is there is no one comprehensive compendium? (a) Learn to fucking read - OP's not asking for a comprehensive compendium. (b) There are comprehensive compendiums of many, much more general subjects than "people of North East India" (eg. mathematics, history of the fucking world).

TLDR: STFU

ITT: /r/DebateReligion sucks.

I'm not trying to defend bad philosophy or poor debating in general, nor am I trying to excuse any specific instance, but this is an open subreddit, not a philosophy journal. If you come here expecting anything even approaching a similar level of debate, you're going to have a bad time. Additionally, there seems to be several comments here taking atheists, specifically, to task for poor form. There's certainly a lot more of them here (and on reddit in general), but I've not found the average level of discourse here to be poorer for atheists as opposed to theists.

That all being said, I do have vague memories that this place used to be a bit more rigorous.

Personally, I'd say one of the largest changes to my own beliefs as a result of this sub has been to start emphasising the secular, humanist & sceptic labels over the atheist one - atheism being more a conclusion of scepticism than the other way round, secularism/humanism being more practical applications of this kind of position etc. Another specific change would be that I'm leaning towards gnosticism on 3O Gods (don't find any satisfactory solutions to the PoE), which wasn't the case before.

Generally, as the OP says, I feel better-informed about religion and religious topics in general (that is, specific religious positions as well as non-religious arguments and so on) and - probably like the vast majority of people here - my time on /r/DebateReligion has served to better sculpt and refine my positions, rather than to radically change them.

EDIT: whoops. 3O like three-oh, not 30 like thirty. I guess I lack belief in closer to 3,000.

http://www.amazon.com/Bushcraft-Outdoor-Skills-Wilderness-Survival/dp/1551051222/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1368375342&sr=8-2&keywords=kochanski

http://www.amazon.com/The-Outdoor-Survival-Handbook-Navigation/dp/0312093594/ref=pd_sim_b_5

http://www.amazon.com/Survive-Essential-Skills-Tactics-Anywhere/dp/0061373516/ref=pd_sim_b_22

http://www.amazon.com/Wildwood-Wisdom-Ellsworth-Jaeger/dp/0936070129/ref=la_B001K8CVQW_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368375505&sr=1-1

Wyshynski wrote a book like that. Take Your Eye Off The Puck: How to Watch Hockey by Knowing Where to Look

This book. Take Your Eye Off the Ball, by Pat Kirwin.

https://www.amazon.com/Take-Your-Eye-Off-Ball/dp/1629371696/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1503432953&sr=8-1&keywords=pat+kirwan

I used this book:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1941234518/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I only prepped for the math section, because that's all I really cared about, and got 170. The problems they include are pretty good

Hi there,

For all intents and purposes, for someone your level the following will be enough material to stick your teeth into for a while.

Mathematics: Its Content, Methods and Meaning https://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Content-Methods-Meaning-Volumes/dp/0486409163

This is a monster book written by Kolmogorov, a famous probabilist and educator in maths. It will take you from very basic maths all the way to Topology, Analysis and Group Theory. It is however intended as an overview rather than an exhaustive textbook on all of the theorems, proofs and definitions you need to get to higher math.

For relearning foundations so that they're super strong I can only recommend:

Engineering Mathematics
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Engineering-Mathematics-K-Stroud/dp/1403942463

Engineering Mathematics is full of problems and each one is explained in detail. For getting your foundational, mechanical tools perfect, I'd recommend doing every problem in this book.

For low level problem solving I'd recommend going through the ENTIRE Art of Problem Solving curriculum (starting from Prealgebra).
https://www.artofproblemsolving.com/store/list/aops-curriculum

You might learn a thing or two about thinking about mathematical objects in new ways (as an example. When Prealgebra teaches you to think about inverses it forces you to consider 1/x as an object in its own right rather than 1 divided by x and to prove things. Same thing with -x. This was eye opening for me when I was making the transition from mechanical to more proof based maths.)


If you just want to know about what's going on in higher math then you can make do with:
The Princeton Companion to Mathematics
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Princeton-Companion-Mathematics-Timothy-Gowers/dp/0691118809

I've never read it but as far as I understand it's a wonderful book that cherry picks the coolest ideas from higher maths and presents them in a readable form. May require some base level of math to understand

EDIT: Further down the Napkin Project by Evan Chen was recommended by /u/banksyb00mb00m (http://www.mit.edu/~evanchen/napkin.html) which I think is awesome (it is an introduction to lots of areas of advanced maths for International Mathematics Olympiad competitors or just High School kids that are really interested in maths) but should really be approached post getting a strong foundation.

While it's not on the bleeding edge, the Princeton Companion gives a good overview of recent mathematics.

You might enjoy skimming through the Princeton Companion to Mathematics (amazon, princeton, maa review, wikipedia), which gives an overview of the main areas of mathematics.

Garbage time, or playing up or down to a team, can be accounted for.

I don't wanna sound elitist but the explanation requires more math than I'm willing to do. If you're interested in it I would HIGHLY recommend Basketball on Paper by Dean Oliver. He has a chapter devoted to this subject that is really good and is eminently readable. The book itself is inspirationally good.

There's a lot of other sports stats guys who talk about the same thing. I think Wages of Wins talks about it a lot.

tl;dr: if you run the numbers and test which stat is more predictive, win record or point differential, it's point differential.

I picked up some finer points watching the game live, pretty close to the benches. Finally the whole When Do They Do Line Changes and Why made sense (especially as a soccer player, it's weird to watch a game that they don't blow the whistle to make changes)

This book was helpful.

I recommend picking up a used copy of Greg Wyshynski's book.

https://www.amazon.com/Take-Your-Eye-Off-Puck/dp/1629371203

Got a PM asking about books, might as well share what I've read/enjoyed:

Most people recommend Pat Kirwan's Take Your Eye Off the Ball. Some bits of it can be simplistic, but based off what you told me it should be a good read. It basically breaks down each position group chapter by chapter, and has some extra details about coaching, front offices, scouting, etc.

https://www.amazon.com/Take-Your-Eye-Off-Ball/dp/1629371696/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1472878540&sr=8-1&keywords=take+your+eye+off+the+ball

Next I'd put SI's Blood, Sweat, and Chalk. It's a great balance between storytelling and technical detail. It basically chronicles significant advances in tactics on offense and defense over the decades. For example, offensive chapters start with the single wing, then goes on to the wing T, wishbone/flexbone, Air Croyell, west coast offense, spread, etc. (and many more)

https://www.amazon.com/Blood-Sweat-Chalk-Ultimate-Football/dp/1603200614/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1472878672&sr=8-1&keywords=blood%2C+sweat+and+chalk

Lastly I'd recommend Chris B Browns two books (and his blog) - The Essential Smart Football and The Art of Smart Football. These are similar to Blood, Sweat, and Chalk but more detailed and less about story. Still great reads.

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=chris+b+brown

For web reading, I loved Matt Bowen's Football 101 series on BleacherReport.com. Unfortunately he works for ESPN now, but he has two years worth of excellent beginner articles on B-R.com He breaks down tons of big picture concepts which can really help fill in details.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2024638-nfl-101-introducing-the-basic-route-combinations

I would recommend, in order:

Take Your Eye Off the Ball by Pat Kirwan

The Essential Smart Football by Chris Brown

The Art of Smart Football by Chris Brown

Blood, Sweat, and Chalk by Tim Layden

For the most basic and easy to understand introduction, I highly suggest the book Take Your Eye Off the Ball 2.0: How to Watch Football by Knowing Where to Look by Pat Kirwan.

Youtube channels -

Samuel Gold

Brett Kollmann like /u/browntown6969 pointed out as well

Blog -

Smart Football (also his books) along with the other blogs linked to on that website

All of those are really great and helped me when I first starting learning about football on a deeper level.

Read one of my favorite books, Take your eye off the ball

This book is amazing. It taught me almost everything when I read the first version. I was so into it I read it in one sitting.

This may be just what you're looking for

Have you seen their Highlights for High School feature?

Also, there are sites like Academic Earth that might be useful.

Here are a few blogs with potential. You'll have to decide for yourself if they have inappropriate content.

Here are a few book recommendations covering various fields, in no particular order (though they should all read #1):

1. A Short History of Nearly Everything
   
2. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
   
3. Einstein: His Life and Universe
   
4. The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
   
5. The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood
   
6. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
   
7. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
   
8. The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer
   
9. This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession
   
10. Cosmos
    
11. The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language
    
12. The Theory That Would Not Die: How Bayes' Rule Cracked the Enigma Code, Hunted Down Russian Submarines, and Emerged Triumphant from Two Centuries of Controversy
    
13. Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind
    
14. The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human
    
15. The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
    
16. Thinking, Fast and Slow
    
17. Chaos: Making a New Science
    
18. Isaac Newton
    
19. Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain
    
20. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales
    
    And here's a video interview with Richard Feynman they might enjoy.

>I am specifically looking at writing systems, vis-à-vis Right to left and Left to right and their role in development or impairment of cognitive skills like empathy, humaneness and certain emotional attributes.

There is no evidence for this. However, there is considerable evidence about a more basic difference in languages: the subject verb order. People whose mother tongue has one SVO like Japanese or Chinese, find it very difficult to learn the opposite kind like English. It should be the same for Hindi/English but speaking multiple languages helps overcome the SVO divide. Secondly if Hindi speaking children are exposed to English between ages of 4-6 they will find it easier to learn multiple languages.

The part about symmetrical facial development is crap. Must of the muscles used for speaking are invisible. Whether children smile in their childhood has a much larger impact on their facial structure.

Speakers of one language having accent in another is due to similar phonemes having subtly different sounds. For example the Hindi

र phoneme is very different from the 3 different phonemes represented by the English R, which is again different from the spoken R in French. The Chinese Ri phoneme falls in between
र and ड़. But the speakers typically use the more familiar tongue position making them sound different giving people an accent.

Incidentally in most languages R represents a range of sounds that are in Hindi covered as
य र ल व

If you are actually interested in linguistics, instead of just bakchodi, then try reading Steve Pinker's The Language Instinct

William Shunn's format is pretty much the standard, so much so that some magazines/publishers refer to it in their submission guidelines.

And, as others have commented, English prose is written in paragraphs. Some style guides to English writing:

Short handbook: Strunk & White, Elements of Style. 4th Edition

Exhaustive reference: Chicago Manual of Style. 16th Edition which is kind of expensive. Or get the 15th Edition for the price of a latte.

You should read Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, arguably the most important work in the philosophy of science (yes, this is a real and respected field of study within the discipline of philosophy) of the last century. It won't undercut or jeopardize your confidence in the utility of science as a practice, but it will give you a much better understanding of how science is practiced and why science is useful. It's not very long and you'll be a better scientist for having read and understood it, as well as a better thinker in general.

To follow up on the atmospheric effects thing, the amount of radioactive carbon in the atmosphere is critical for radiocarbon dating. Notice the plot of carbon in the atmosphere. Compare it with this (possibly paywalled, sorry if it is) paper on carbon since the early 1900s here. This kind of bump should be noticeable if our ancestors were engaged in large scale nuclear weapon use.

Even small scale use should be noticeable as well. Uranium ore is relatively noticeable, due to its radioactive properties. If our ancestors were mining it, we probably would have noticed (information on the ore here). Furthermore, Nuclear weapons require pretty pure isotopes, particularly of uranium. The process of isotope separation is a long and complex, requiring complex devices such as distillers and centrifuges that probably need to be made out of metal. Considering the scale and complexity of the operation, it is difficult to believe mines and distilleries would go unnoticed.

And last of all, the technology required for producing nuclear weapons has other uses as well. The distillation process is key in the creation of almost every chemical we use, from alcohol to polymers to dies to soaps. If our ancestors were so skilled at this process that they could create nukes, why not create nylon too?

Our ancestors were most certainly not stupid, but we stand on the shoulders of giants. Our knowledge today is built on the knowledge of those before us. It is a long discussion to catalog all the scientific advances that led us to where we are today, here and here are a couple decent books to start.

This is probably your best bet. There is a lot of literature out there on this, but just to name a few sources:

UCMP Berkley has a pretty decent overview.

If you can get a hold of it at your local library, The Dinosaur Heresies by Robert T. Bakker helped popularize the notion, and his prescience may help you out a bit. It's dated, but the chapter on dinosaur-bird similarities holds up pretty well today.

Tom Holtz's Dinosaurs has a couple chapters detailing metabolism and bird evolution that should pretty useful.

Finally, there are a lot of paleontology blogs out there written by working paleontologists that talk about this subject in great depth. Use Dave Hone's Archosaur Musings as a starting point then search for your desired subject using the search box, and for more simply check out the links to the right of the page to go to other fairly reputable sites.

Happy homework!

u/WavesWashSands made some good suggestions, but they're are focused on linguistic theory rather than the grammar of English. Many of the concepts they cover apply to English too, but they might not do exactly what you want. You would also need a good grammar of English. I have heard good things about this one:

https://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Grammar-English-Language/dp/0521431468

This is a descriptive grammar, which means that its purpose is to describe English. It's not a lesson book that tells you how to improve your English.

If you're worried about your grammar - well, it's fine. I looked over your post history and you don't look like you have any issues that need language learning help. You know this stuff, intuitively, as a speaker of English. I suspect that what you're really worried about is your ability to use (sensible, logical, coherent) rhetoric and an appropriate writing style. This is largely outside of the realm of linguistics. You'd want to look at resources on rhetoric and composition.

From a personal standpoint, I think basic training/learning in philosophy is a very good way to learn the principles of logical argumentation - that may also be something to pursue.

That's not to say you shouldn't learn about grammar! I think it's very useful and interesting.

A very good book on this (has been the most popular introduction to comparative religions for over 50 years now) is The World's Religions, by Huston Smith

>Or a book that compares religions thoroughly.

I'd suggest The World's Religions by Huston Smith.

My parents were very a-religious. My Mother took us to church approximately twice in our lives, and besides celebrating the normal holidays (Christmas, even Easter to an extent), religious sentiment never entered our lives: no prayer, no bible, no discussion about God whatsoever, etc.

I don't believe my Father has ever darkened the door of a church, and is even more a-religious. If you asked him, now, he'd say that Christianity is necessary to the fabric of being American, but that's more to do with his sense of patriotism and the history of rule-by-law than by any sense of an omnipotent being in control of his destiny. That is, he'd say that the value of Christianity is a cultural force and not a spiritual one.

I'd feel comfortable telling either of them that I'm atheist, although honestly it's a non-issue so it just hasn't come up.

FWIW, one of the features of this upbringing is that I majored in Religious Studies in college. I wanted to learn more about what it was all about, why people espoused this particular set of beliefs, what the foundation of their psychology was based on. Since I had very little informal exposure to it.

What I can say is that, for a significant part of humanity, they need to feel that there is "A Plan", or the effort and suffering that they go through with just isn't worthwhile. And someone that can still manage to get up everyday, who has actively resisted a sense of having A Plan, is very disturbing to their psyche. It's as alien to their way of thinking as an ascetic.

Some of the best (but dense) reading on this is Mircea Eliade's The Sacred and the Profane.

the tl;dr is that an ungrounded existence is terrifying for a large part of humanity, so they have established religious constructs and rituals, and imbued them with meaning, to give them a sense of grounding. To them, someone that can live ungrounded may as well be able to defy gravity at will.

> the ancient ritual of slaying Tiamat wasn't simply a dummy show, a pantomime of what happened in ancient times, it was actually a recreation of what happened. Since the world was made from Tiamat's corpse, if they didn't re-kill the dragon the world might end!

May I recommend M. Eliade's The Sacred and the Prophane (originally published 1957), not the latest and greatest but a good read none the less.

In some ways institutions are like people. (They are, after all, made up of people.) Imagine that you personally had been giving incorrect advice for fifty years, and the correct advice turns out to be almost the opposite of what you've been saying. You are approaching retirement, and you are being asked to admit that your whole career was based on a lie, to admit that you have been giving advice that kills people this whole time. You'd be in denial. You would fight with the new studies. You would point to ambiguities in the data. You would look for any alternative before, finally, admitting that your life was worse than a waste, because it caused immense harm to thousands, millions, of people. I don't disagree with other comments that money is part of the issue, but I believe it goes much deeper than that.

Thomas Kuhn wrote a famous book about how difficult it is for science to shift from one "paradigm" to another. Sometimes a whole generation of old scientists must die before the new model can be accepted. The classic example is believing that the Earth goes around the Sun. (Also see here.)

Also, much of the science is apparently not as clear cut as it seems. Gary Taubes has probably done as much to promote the carb/insulin/obesity hypothesis than anyone, but even admits that more studies need to be done to really prove the hypothesis. That's why he started, with Peter Attia, The Nutrition Science Initiative to fund those studies.

The bad news is, it could be many years before the national nutritional institutions come around. The good news is, we don't have to wait! I'll be really curious to see how this plays out, when it finally comes time for the old fogies to admit that they've been giving exactly the wrong advice for fifty years.

A bit more suitable for younger audiences might be Tom Holtz's Dinosaurs, which is pretty nice (albeit slightly out of date).

EDIT: other recommendation would be Greg Paul's Field Guide.

My favorite book is definitely Dr. Holtz's Dinosaur Encyclopedia; it's geared towards a high school level, but I know professional paleontologists who use it, it's just an awesome book.

The next step up is The Complete Dinosaur. It's a solid book, technical, but not as highly praised as ...

The Dinosauria

The Dinosauria is the gold standard, but it's incredibly dense. My best suggestion though is to read primary literature about subjects/clades that interest you. Google scholar is pretty useful for this, although paywalls will be an issue off-campus

https://smile.amazon.com/Triathlete-Magazines-Essential-Week-Training/dp/0446696765/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1481295174&sr=8-3&keywords=triathlon+training

$6 used. Has 10 different plan levels for HIM. I'm using it for my 70.3 next summer. I suppose you can pay much more if you want, but this is a decently detailed set of plans and, IMHO, much better than the free options I've found.

The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language is essentially the gold standard here, but it is pretty overwhelming.

Instead, the same authors have a much smaller and more manageable guide, A Student's Introduction to English Grammar, which I highly recommend. It's geared toward beginners and covers pretty much everything your average English speaker needs to know.

Quirk et al is good but Huddleston & Pullum is better: https://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Grammar-English-Language/dp/0521431468

> [Strunk and White is] a horrid little compendium of unmotivated prejudices (don't use ongoing), arbitrary stipulations (don't begin a sentence with however), and fatuous advice ("Be clear"), ridiculously out of date in its positions on appropriate choices among grammatical variants, deeply suspect in its style advice and grotesquely wrong in most of the grammatical advice it gives.

— Geoffrey Pullum (one of the authors of The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, so he sort-of knows his stuff)

If I'm not mistaken this is the draft of his article for the PCM.

This is a compilation of what I gathered from reading on the internet about self-learning higher maths, I haven't come close to reading all this books or watching all this lectures, still I hope it helps you.

General Stuff:
The books here deal with large parts of mathematics and are good to guide you through it all, but I recommend supplementing them with other books.

1. Mathematics: A very Short Introduction : A very good book, but also very short book about mathematics by Timothy Gowers, a Field medalist and overall awesome guy, gives you a feelling for what math is all about.
   
   
2. Concepts of Modern Mathematics: A really interesting book by Ian Stewart, it has more topics than the last book, it is also bigger though less formal than Gower's book. A gem.
   
   
3. What is Mathematics?: A classic that has aged well, it's more textbook like compared to the others, which is good because the best way to learn mathematics is by doing it. Read it.
   
   
4. An Infinitely Large Napkin: This is the most modern book in this list, it delves into a huge number of areas in mathematics and I don't think it should be read as a standalone, rather it should guide you through your studies.
   
   
5. The Princeton Companion to Mathematics: A humongous book detailing many areas of mathematics, its history and some interesting essays. Another book that should be read through your life.
   
   
6. Mathematical Discussions: Gowers taking a look at many interesting points along some mathematical fields.
   
   
7. Technion Linear Algebra Course - The first 14 lectures: Gets you wet in a few branches of maths.
   
   Linear Algebra: An extremelly versatile branch of Mathematics that can be applied to almost anything, also the first "real math" class in most universities.
   
   
8. Linear Algebra Done Right: A pretty nice book to learn from, not as computational heavy as other Linear Algebra texts.
   
   
9. Linear Algebra: A book with a rather different approach compared to LADR, if you have time it would be interesting to use both. Also it delves into more topics than LADR.
   
   
10. Calculus Vol II : Apostols' beautiful book, deals with a lot of lin algebra and complements the other 2 books by having many exercises. Also it doubles as a advanced calculus book.
    
    
11. Khan Academy: Has a nice beginning LinAlg course.
    
    
12. Technion Linear Algebra Course: A really good linear algebra course, teaches it in a marvelous mathy way, instead of the engineering-driven things you find online.
    
    
13. 3Blue1Brown's Essence of Linear Algebra: Extra material, useful to get more intuition, beautifully done.
    
    Calculus: The first mathematics course in most Colleges, deals with how functions change and has many applications, besides it's a doorway to Analysis.
    
    
14. Calculus: Tom Apostol's Calculus is a rigor-heavy book with an unorthodox order of topics and many exercises, so it is a baptism by fire. Really worth it if you have the time and energy to finish. It covers single variable and some multi-variable.
    
    
15. Calculus: Spivak's Calculus is also rigor-heavy by Calculus books standards, also worth it.
    
    
16. Calculus Vol II : Apostols' beautiful book, deals with many topics, finishing up the multivariable part, teaching a bunch of linalg and adding probability to the mix in the end.
    
    
17. MIT OCW: Many good lectures, including one course on single variable and another in multivariable calculus.
    
    Real Analysis: More formalized calculus and math in general, one of the building blocks of modern mathematics.
    
    
18. Principle of Mathematical Analysis: Rudin's classic, still used by many. Has pretty much everything you will need to dive in.
    
    
19. Analysis I and Analysis II: Two marvelous books by Terence Tao, more problem-solving oriented.
    
    
20. Harvey Mudd's Analysis lectures: Some of the few lectures on Real Analysis you can find online.
    
    Abstract Algebra: One of the most important, and in my opinion fun, subjects in mathematics. Deals with algebraic structures, which are roughly sets with operations and properties of this operations.
    
    
21. Abstract Algebra: Dummit and Foote's book, recommended by many and used in lots of courses, is pretty much an encyclopedia, containing many facts and theorems about structures.
    
    
22. Harvard's Abstract Algebra Course: A great course on Abstract Algebra that uses D&F as its textbook, really worth your time.
    
    
23. Algebra: Chapter 0: I haven't used this book yet, though from what I gathered it is both a category theory book and an Algebra book, or rather it is a very different way of teaching Algebra. Many say it's worth it, others (half-jokingly I guess?) accuse it of being abstract nonsense. Probably better used after learning from the D&F and Harvard's course.
    
    There are many other beautiful fields in math full of online resources, like Number Theory and Combinatorics, that I would like to put recommendations here, but it is quite late where I live and I learned those in weirder ways (through olympiad classes and problems), so I don't think I can help you with them, still you should do some research on this sub to get good recommendations on this topics and use the General books as guides.

The Princeton Companion to Mathematics is essentially a really general dictionary for most topics in known math. Entries vary from one half-page to three or four pages long, covering definitions, theories, and sometimes deeper understanding of certain subjects. I believe each entry is also personally written by a professional in the field.

The Princeton Companion to Mathematics. Seriously. This book is amazing. It gives a high-level overview every major branch of mathematics.

It's the best tool I've found for rapidly expanding the breadth of one's mathematical knowledge. A good starting point to find what really interests you.

While not a strictly historical book, The Princeton Companion to Mathematics is a good one to have handy for all sorts of light mathematical reading and has a pretty extensive section on mathematicians.

If you really want to get a feel for what (pure) mathematics is and how it all interrelates, you should read the Princeton Companion to Mathematics. This book is kind of like wikipedia for pure math, though extremely well written (and by prominent mathematicians). I think the best audience for the book are undergraduate students in math, but anyone really interested in learning what "real" mathematics is about should enjoy it.

My Bible.

I also have the freedom to post wherever I want; and I have the freedom to say fuck, despite it bothering you so much.

I'm also going to leave this here:
https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Style-William-Strunk-Jr/dp/1557427283

Please, educate yourself. Calling someone uneducated doesn't work if your grammar is bad.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Elements-Style-William-Strunk/dp/1557427283

The Elements of Style. It's dirt cheap and a short read, check it out I think it'd help you hone the conversational voice you're looking for in your post!

Introducing English Grammar by Borjars and Burridge is a great overview of English grammar for someone without much background in linguistics.

The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language by Huddleston and Pullum is VERY comprehensive, but also significantly more difficult.

Also, check out this introduction to English linguistics

In my experience, taking lessons will help, but there is no quick fix.

I got back into the game about 2 years ago, and started taking lessons. They improved my swing, slowly but surely. I bought a few books and kept working at it. Progress was slow and frustrating at times when I would backslide, but there was progress for sure.

I eventually hit a wall with my first instructor though. I tried a few more guys, and even a lesson with robogolf, but none of it clicked. I would still recommend a robogolf lesson if you have one around you, for someone trying to find the basics of a swing its very helpful analysis.

What finally did click for me was going back to the books and really understanding the swing. Its a chain reaction of things, and if you dont understand that chain and set yourself up for success at each step then you wont every have a consistent repeatable swing. The two books that helped me the most are:

Ben Hogan's Five Lessons:
https://www.amazon.com/Ben-Hogans-Five-Lessons-Fundamentals/dp/0671612972

Hank Haney's Essentials of the Swing
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470407484/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Check this out: Ben Hogan's Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf Booklegger https://www.amazon.com/dp/0671612972/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_awdb_4IZ-zbXWHF1Z2

Best book i ever read. Will teach you a ton about form and consistency.

Honestly, I had a huge slice issue until this year when I actually started trying to fix it instead of playing into it.

Grip was stage one (don't go too strong, that causes a whole new set of slicing issues potentially), backswing check points have been stage 2 (face angle at parallel, club angle at the top, wrist at the top). Ive hit quite well on the range lately since I havent been able to get out due to weather, but with my lesson saturday I'm hoping to get out the next weekend.

If you need something to read:

https://www.amazon.com/Ben-Hogans-Five-Lessons-Fundamentals/dp/0671612972

If you need people to watch:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFHZHhZaH7Rc_FOMIzUziJA - great resource on club face, swing path, and face to path

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNk5S5zjcX9iyOmbK2AzdVA - just really good resource for later tinkering

Looks good for 2 weeks. Maybe a touch closer to the ball while standing a little taller at address. Shorter swing and fire down and through.

Read this on the beach: https://www.amazon.com/Ben-Hogans-Five-Lessons-Fundamentals/dp/0671612972

Read this book if you have the time. Worth it and will assist in grip issues. https://www.amazon.com/Ben-Hogans-Five-Lessons-Fundamentals/dp/0671612972/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1492457995&sr=8-1&keywords=ben+hogan+5+fundamentals+of+golf

Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf

https://www.amazon.com/Ben-Hogans-Five-Lessons-Fundamentals/dp/0671612972

One of my favorite golf books of all time.

I had a similar request to yours, except I wanted to go beyond Calculus to get a broad survey of mathematical topics, using a ground up approach. The Princeton Companion to Mathematics is exceptional, I can't recommend it enough! It covers all the topics you wish your mathematics teachers had instilled in you, all within a comprehensive & comprehensible form. It has been years since I studied math. I've long since forgotten a majority of what I was taught but, I can still easily progress in this book and I feel like I finally understand many of the ideas that were impenetrable before.

I'm not alone in my positive review. You'll note that people have been heaping praise onto this volume on Amazon and in more formal book reviews as well.

Working your way through a beginning discrete math class is kind of an overview of the history of math. But here are some stand-alone books on it. Writing quality varies.

The World of Mathematics

A History of Mathematical Notation. Warning: his style is painful.

Journey Through Genius

The Princeton Companion to Mathematics. A reference book, but useful.

> I'm not looking for a book to help me become a set theory pro, I'm literally just looking for a book that will give me some challenging, enjoyable bedtime reading.

Are you sure that you want to read a book on axiomatic set theory or are you happy with any math subject and it's just that set theory is the only one that comes to your mind?

In the latter case, I would recommend Mathematics and its history by John Stillwell for bedtime reading (and it does have a bit of set theory, too). Also, the The Princeton Companion to Mathematics is highly recommended.

And in any case, the mathematics section of your local library provides more low cost bedtime reading than I could ever note here. :-)

The closest thing I know of to what you're asking for is the Princeton Companion to Mathematics. It is over a thousand pages long.

You will never be able to obtain complete mastery over mathematics as a whole, certainly not in just one year. People spend their entire careers on tiny sub-areas of a single topic within mathematics.

However, if your goal is to attend college and study physics, you actually don't need anything like this. Instead, what you need to do is look up the physics program at the college you want to attend, see what level of mathematics they expect you to know coming in, and then use something like Khan Academy to work up to that level.

http://www.amazon.com/Princeton-Companion-Mathematics-Timothy-Gowers/dp/0691118809

5.4 lbs of math goodness.

Right now I'm making my way through The Princeton Companion to Mathematics and it's a very good overview of all the different mathematical fields, going through what they work on and examples of how it's done.

This might also be some use to you: The Princeton Companion to Mathematics. Incredibly comprehensive math encyclopedia.

This?
https://www.amazon.com/Fixing-Your-Feet-Prevention-Treatments/dp/0899976387

You're likely to have your shoes or boots submerged at some point during any GORUCK event, but especially so as the events get longer. Blisters are pretty normal for long marches or hikes or whatever, but they become more likely if your feet are wet.

You want to try and reduce friction so blisters are less likely. This means having your shoes or boots appropriately tight, but not too tight. It might mean wearing a liner sock to help keep sand or dirt or whatever away from where it can cause problems. It might mean using Trail Toes or something like Body Glide that can help keep things moving smoothly.

During a 12ish-hour event, if it takes you 6 or 8 hours to get a blister, then you can just suffer through the last 4 or 6 hours or whatever. It might be painful and it might get worse but it's less likely to stop you completely. If you get the same blister at hour 6 or 8 of a 24ish-hour event, then you're looking at 16+ hours of trying to carry heavy loads with blisters on your feet. That's a lot more time for things to get a lot worse, and it may not be manageable by the end.

There are other considerations, too. Carrying a heavy load over long distances will put extra pressure on the soles of your feet and may cause some pain if you haven't trained properly and toughened up those muscles and tendons. If you haven't trimmed your toenails, you might end up with a very painful stabbing with each step, particularly when your feet swell. Being on your feet that long will make your feet swell at least a little, and if there's water hanging around your shoes/boots, that can make swelling worse.

To avoid this, you want to have a couple pairs of dry socks to change into (at appropriate times; don't do it right before cadre gets you wet again). During a break, you can take your shoes off to let them and your feet air out. You can lie down and elevate your feet (put them on your ruck or whatever) to help the swelling go down a bit. The goal should be to avoid all those problems before they occur. If your feet are wet but you don't have blisters yet, you should still dry your feet off.

GORUCK has a good primer on taking care of your feet. Mark Webb has a good one on his site. I haven't read it but have heard this book meant for ultrarunners has lots of good information.

If you want to see how ugly it can get you can Google "foot maceration."

I know I'm late to the game, but here's my contribution.

I do and have used a Mora, actually the same exact knife, essentially as my only fixed blade for about five years (with a backup when I go out alone); the first year as a student at a survival school and the next four as an instructor. My school sells and recommends Moras as well, so I've seen a lot of them and a lot of other knives and I've seen a lot of abuse. I've never seen a Mora break, but I've seen other knives break (Buck, specifically). Recently I've begun carrying another knife that someone made for me as well with my Mora as my backup. Here are my thoughts on your questions:

• The model I carry is the Bushcraft Triflex. It's carbon steel with a hardened spine. I've never carried a stainless steel knife, but we sell those too and I've never seen any rust, though we're in a pretty dry environment. I agree with XELBRUJOX's comments on stainless. Mora claims their stainless knives stay sharp longer, and I agree, but they also take more effort to sharpen.
  
• Any oil will work. When I have my choice I use mineral oil.
  
• Do an image search for "mora tang" and you'll get plenty of results, and add the specific model if you want to see that
  
• Other than me, Mors Kochanski and Cody Lundeen both carry or have carried Moras as their main knife. In Mors' book Bush Craft, he talks about his test for a good knife is that if you can burry it to the hilt in to a tree and stand on it, then it's a good knife. He does that with his Moras with no problem. Here's a video of his technique for cutting down a small tree with a Mora. Incidentally, I've batonned and billetted my Mora regularly for five years with no problem. I don't pry with it, but I'm never afraid to apply force in the same direction as the cutting edge.
  
• I've never used my spine with a ferro rod, but I do regularly throw sparks from chert and other hard rock (stainless won't work for that). I think flattening it would work for the ferro rod.
  
• I haven't used the #1, but Mors actually cuts the finger guards off of his knives that had one, and I think he preferred the #1. If you've never seen his book check it out, it's a great resource.
  
  Here are my other thoughts:
  
  
• The worst thing about Moras are the sheaths. They're cheap and won't last, so do yourself a favor and make one that works or get one made. I have seen people lose their knives because of shitty sheaths.
  
• My favorite thing about Moras is the grind. A Scandinavian grind is the most versatile bevel for what I find myself doing, like carving fire sets, splitting wood, cutting food, butchering large game (sheep, deer, elk), skinning, carving traps, etc. My second favorite thing is the steel. That said, there's nothing magical about a Mora, it's just that the majority of readily available knives have a steeper compound/double bevel that's harder to sharpen with a stone (for beginners) and doesn't work as well for fine carving, like for fire spindles. Mora knives do everything I need them to do in my environment. I don't carry a saw or axe, and don't feel like I need to, but you're requirements might be different.
  
  edit - formatting
  

Bushcraft by Mors Kochanski: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bushcraft-Outdoor-Skills-Wilderness-Survival/dp/1551051222

Not only is it great read, if you take a good knife with you, you'll never be bored

I'm going to go ahead and take the easy answers: On Writing Well and Elements of Style. Both a must for any writer.

Not a book, but Nylon Calculus 101 is a good introduction to analytics. You could print it out if you want.

Dean Oliver's Basketball on Paper is a classic. Although published in 2004, it's still relevant.

You're already doing two of the best things you can do. The video games will help you learn the rules and going to the live games delivers the excitement. If you enjoy reading, I'd also recommend Take Your Eye Off The Puck by Greg Wyshynski.

Take Your Eye off the Puck: How to Watch Hockey By Knowing Where to Look by Greg Wyshynski

There's a pretty good book called Take Your Eye Off the Puck which is pretty good at explaining hockey rules and culture on and off the ice.

How about this book? I just read it and I really liked it alot

The book is Take Your Eye Off the Puck by Greg Wyshynski

i haven't read [this] (https://www.amazon.com/Take-Your-Eye-Off-Puck/dp/1629371203) because I'm a cheap bastard but the author is a pretty respected guy I think and it looks like its not too expensive.

book

I'm not a newbie to the sport or anything, but just for the Hell of it I picked up the following book: Take Your Eye Off the Puck by Greg Wyshynski

It's just a fun read and it'll give you some insight into things you might not pick up just by watching the surface. The author is a blogger for Yahoo! and he does a pretty decent job.

I've been reading Take Your Eye Off the Ball. It's definitely NFL-focused, but really gives a lot of insight into the things going on that we don't normally look at during the plays--specifically O-Line and D-Line gamesmanship and QBs reading coverage and pressure pre-snap. I'm only about 1/3 of the way through it, but I'd recommend it so far.

> "Take your eye off the ball" is a great book for learning about the game, positions, systems, the draft, training and everything else.

I've heard this said as well but haven't bought it ever -- amazon us link is here...

I picked up a copy of Take Your Eye Off the Ball, and I'm learning how to make reports so I can apply some of it to the playoffs. Just the DVD alone has opened my eyes tremendously!


https://www.amazon.com/dp/1629371696/ref=cm_sw_r_other_awd_rvZJwb1AVSST5

These are the GRE books I'm using:

[Prep book from ETS, the test writers] (http://www.amazon.com/Official-Guide-Revised-General-Test/dp/007179123X?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00)

[Kaplan Prep book] (http://www.amazon.com/GRE-Premier-2016-Practice-Tests/dp/1625231326/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1464258601&sr=1-1&keywords=kaplan+gre)

[Big book of practice problems] (http://www.amazon.com/Practice-Problems-Manhattan-Strategy-Guides/dp/1941234518?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=ox_sc_act_title_1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER)

ETS PowerPrep II, which is software that includes 2 practice tests with standard testing conditions.

If anyone has other suggestions, please share.

Hey, same boat as you but I did an arts degree after highschool (did not really push my already lacking math skills).

At 32 (10 years out of school) I started my compsci degree at Carleton. The summer before hand I decided to write the GRE which is a "graduate student placement exam" that used to be more of a requirement to get into grad programs. Truth is though, it tests skills that everyone should have at the end of grade 12. I didn't need to write it, but I figured it was the perfect thing to study for to build back those skills.

You can even just study the math side of it and not bother taking it but if you can do or at least understand the problems in a prep book for each section it tests, you will not have a problem with CS math. So GRE prep book (one that explains the solutions) saved me and is my recommendation.

The programming aspect is just practice, asking TAs or prof if you're stuck and learning how to google efficiently. You won't be hopelessly behind on that.

Edit: Here's a link to the book I used

Good luck!

If you're looking for a more academic counter argument, Steven Pinker is a loud advocate for "common use defines language" in linguistics, and he's not exactly radical (he agrees with Chomsky on a lot of things). There's a pop-psychology/lay book with a few chapters that touch on it called The Language Instinct.

It's okay for other people to ID however they will. If it has a negative impact on your access to care and your social transition, it might be a problem, but self determination is very important.

I did my master's degree thesis on this when I graduated from university -specifically, my topic was "The evolution of language in homo sapiens". Most of what I posting here is from research papers that I read at the time; but I also read a lot of books on the topic. I highly recommend Kanzi: The Ape at the Brink of the Human Mind for information about Kanzi, How Monkeys see the World for information about vervet monkeys, and Steven Pinker's excellent book The Language Instinct for an overview of some of the best science dealing with human language. I basically agree with Pinker's view (and indicentally, the view that ecaward posted a little higher) that primates and some other animals are capable of communicating with symbols; but that the real power of language lies in our ability to recombine symbols through syntax and so alter the meaning, and this escapes primates: it's a uniquely human evolutionary adaptation.

Recommended these a while back, great, assessable reads.

The Language Instinct by Stephen Pinker
http://www.amazon.com/The-Language-Instinct-Mind-Creates/dp/0061336467/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1343383543&sr=8-1&keywords=the+language+instinct

Patterns in the Mind by Ray Jackendoff
http://www.amazon.com/Patterns-Mind-Language-Human-Nature/dp/0465054625/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1343383561&sr=1-1&keywords=patterns+in+the+mind

And if you are into etymology, check out

The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way, by Bill Bryson
http://www.amazon.com/Mother-Tongue-English-How-That/dp/0380715430/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1343383614&sr=1-1&keywords=the+mother+tongue

The Unfolding of Language: An Evolutionary Tour Through Mankind's Greatest Invention, by Guy Deutscher
http://www.amazon.com/The-Unfolding-Language-Evolutionary-Invention/dp/0805080120/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1343383676&sr=1-2-fkmr0&keywords=guy+deucher+language

Again, all superb books.

Such an experiment was done (unintentionally) with deaf children. In absence of an official program, they invented their own sign language.

Noam Chomsky and Universal Grammar suggest all humans are born with grammar built in. The concept of number, noun, action/being verbs, past and future tense, and descriptors are part of all but one known language (and that's a weird culture). This suggests we evolved some communication early on in human evolution.

An interesting book on the topic is The Language Instinct

> The idea that the mind is in some way non-physical.

The mind is a product and an element of the physical brain. It may not be concretely tangible (i.e., you can't hold a mind), but that does not mean it is not a part of the physical universe. Physics explains the mind quite well, actually. The neurons in our brain are developed in compliance to the laws of physics and biology, the neurochemicals in our brain are physical substances, and the electric currents in our brains that communicate signals between neurons operate in compliance to the laws of physics.

Evolution also provides insight into the development of consciousness. While, sure, humans are the only terrestrial species with advanced enough consciousness to develop religious and philosophical ideas, we know now that many animals have forms of consciousness and proto-consciousness like what we would expect if humans evolved consciousness from simple origins. The mind is perfectly explainable through naturalistic sciences, and our naturalistic model of human consciousness makes predictions that are falsifiable.

I'd suggest reading Steven Pinker's How The Mind Works. Here's a talk he gave on the book. I'd also suggest his The Stuff of Thought, The Language Instinct, and The Blank Slate.

I'd also suggest Sam Harris' The Moral Landscape. While it's main thrust is to show how science can inform morality, it offers some pretty decent layperson explanation of consciousness, and it is written by an accomplished neuroscientist (whatever your opinion on his religious works may be). His pamphlet-esque Free Will also covers some good ground here.

> All able-bodied humans are born with the ability to learn language.

Not at all true. You can be able-bodied and learning disabled. There was a nonverbal autistic student at my middle school years ago who ran track. Trivial point, but still incorrect.

> I would argue humans also have a Spiritual Acquisition Device.

I would argue that this argument is SAD. (pun; sorry.)

You're positing a massively complex hypothetical neurological infrastructure to link human brains to a divine alternate universe or dimension that has never been shown to exist. Not only has this neural uplink never been observed, but it is entirely unnecessary, as neuroscientists and psychologists have a perfectly functional, testable model of consciousness without it. You're adding a new element to that model that is functionally redundant and untestable. Occam's Razor would trim away your entire posited element out of extraneousness and convolution.

Very good book is Huston Smith's The World’s Religions.

It's "the definitive classic for introducing the essential elements and teachings of the world's predominant faiths, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, as well as regional native traditions".

The World's Religions (Plus) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0061660183/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_gR8CDbZGYCSRP
This is one of the better books of religions of the world. I have an older copy..... somewhere. This explains well and has great reviews. Check it out.

May I ask why use that book, and not the older and more popular one by Huston Smith? Your flair says you are a TA, so I suppose you just use whatever book the department instructs you to use, but would you know why they prefer that book?

Reading a bunch of Nietzsche and then psychology. He can be interpreted in support of that position too, so you have to be careful how you read him. Find some secondary sources and check them after coming up with your own interpretations so you're not too off base. Fundamentally he hated nihilism and saw it everywhere, and was trying to find ways around it. If you struggle with it at all, he's the go to guy. He gets the fundamental problem down really well. His solutions are a bit untenable, as he had this idea of creating your own values. That's pretty much impossible because you're biologically and culturally programmed to have specific arbitrary values and there's nothing you can do about it. That's where the psychology comes in, as you learn what they are and what to do with them. Specific books that helped a lot:

Nietzsche: Beyond Good and Evil, Genealogy of Morals, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Twilight of Idols

I'd also read some Kierkegaard for good measure. The west of western philosophy builds up to and later refutes Nietzsche's ideas. Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Aquinas and Hegel are probably the biggest people I can think of that he is responding to, so you'd want to be familiar with the gist of what they were saying or Nietzsche won't make much sense. After him you can go to Heidegger who expanded on a lot of his ideas. There are tons of good overviews of this stuff online if you don't feel like wading through primary texts for months. You just need to know enough to get the references.

Psychology books:

Interpretation of Dreams Freud;
The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker;
Man and His Symbols, and Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious by Jung; Maps of Meaning by Jordan Peterson

Also a book I really liked was Saving the Appearances by Owen Barfield. It's mostly psychology with a little christian apologetics tacked on, but it lays out a phenomenological case for what is real and what isn't in a way that's simple and unique. I think about that book pretty much all the time.

Also check out this book on religion. This book is dense and cuts right into the philosophy of each religion. A grounding in all the major religious philosophies does wonders for this kind of thinking. Buddhism only goes so far. Assuming you're a westerner I'd learn as much about Christian philosophy as possible, since most of your values (probably) come from there. It's a very dark religion and people have been thinking about these exact problems for a very long time. The book of Ecclesiastes and the book of Job in particular are insightful. The meditation practice of Christian monks also comes to the same conclusions as the Buddhists but with a little more philosophical sophistication. Read "The Cloud of Unknowing" if you're interested in that.

I think the gist of the position is just to take your own values seriously, since they're the fundamental makeup of reality. Your reaction against them is just a language game. The rest of the philosophical construct is just a way of refuting that language game. Eventually you get to the point where the thought process seems a bit absurd to you (since you spent hundreds of hours painstakingly figuring out why), and you wonder why you had any issue in the first place.

> I picked up my first book on religion from the school library. It's called "Gods and Rituals: Readings in Religious Beliefs and Practices." It is a collection of passages written by different authors on religions, mainly ancient religions. How should I go about my possible conversion to Wicca, assuming I keep the door open?

Is that the Middleton book? I think if you're interested in modern paganism that "Drawing Down The Moon" by Margot Adler would be of more use to you. It addresses the diversity among Neopagan religions and will give you a better handle on Wicca and other modern paganism.

There is also a reading list on the sidebar regarding Wiccan-related practices. I'd suggest also picking up "The Witches God" and "The Witches Goddess," both by Stewart and Janet Farrar. They're a good introduction to understanding deity from a Wiccan perspective. Their "A Witches Bible" also has useful information overall and is an example of coven-based practices.

If after reading Adler you find another form of paganism or witchcraft interests you, there are other subreddits to check out: r/witchcraft, r/realwitchcraft, r/pagan, and r/paganism. There are also subreddits that are for specific forms of paganism, like r/HellenicPolytheism.

> Is this really offensive? If it is, please explain it to me. It's not enough to tell me it is, I've got to know why.

For some it will be, for others not so much.

If you asked me if you could approach paganism, but dropping the "supernatural" stuff from it, I'd say "Hell yeah!" because I do just that. I don't really have much use for divination or crystals or anything like that, so I just don't use them in my practice. I can see why some would use it and I understand how some use them practically, but I just don't feel the need for it.

For me, Paganism is really about the Natural world. The Earth is my Mother (My goddess, if you might like to say so), and the Sun is my Father (My god, if you will). I know a lot of other pagans do this do, but not all. Some pagans use pantheons for deity, but deity is not a necessity in paganism.

I still like ritual, though I don't do much pagan ritual in my personal practice, because the symbols used in it represent natural forces and things going on in the world. A "supernatural non-believer" could find use and spiritual meaning in ritual (as well as gods and crystals and magic), because to me (and surely others out there) they're just symbols, but symbols have a lot of personal power. They can help you change your mindset, help you understand things better.

Some will find calling things "supernatural" offensive, because some pagans do believe "supernatural" things exist, and don't view them as "supernatural." This is perfectly okay, to me, it's just not my way of approaching things.

TL;DR It will vary from person to person, and can be a sensitive topic for some. Not for all, though.

As for books without too much of a supernatural inclination about Paganism, I'd try out Ronald Hutton. His Triumph of the Moon is more about the history and roots of paganism, but he's very detailed and descriptive, as well as academic.

Margot Adler's Drawing Down the Moon is of the same vein as Triumph of the Moon. Both are pretty heavy and tome-like, but are filled with invaluable information.

If you're looking into Wicca theology, I found Bryan Lankford's Wicca Demystified to be a great in depth explanation, especially for an "outsider." A lot of the "beginners" books on Wicca you'll find are heavy on ritual and magic, and seeing how you don't have much fondness for it, I think Lankford's book might be better suited for you.

And I haven't read it, but Dana Eiler's Practical Pagan might be of interest to you. It seems to have the less "magicy-supernatural" and more of a mundane, practical approach to paganism. Not sure about it, though. You might find some good info in the amazon's review section of the book.

I feel like there's another book or two that I've read that taps into what you're looking for, but I just can't think of it. There are some cool anthologies full of essays of paganism in the real world, which I find are invaluable for their information, and not so heavy on the "supernatural side," like Pagan Visions for a Sustainable Future and Celebrating the Pagan Soul.

PS

>I'm use to kinda being primed to attack fundamentalism in Christianity and I've got little good to say about Islam at all.

I wouldn't be so dismissive of Christianity and Islam in general. Interfaith can be a very important. You don't have to agree with what they believe, but personally I know a few Muslims who are very kind and generous, and if they give credit to their religion for their kindness and generosity, I wouldn't say there's nothing good to say about Islam. But that's neither here nor there.

Agreed--just fin(n)ish already. But if you want theory: Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane. Classic, good read, Amazon comments & reviews can give you a sense of what's there.

http://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Profane-Nature-Religion/dp/015679201X/ref=la_B000AP85TS_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395197838&sr=1-1

I would skip Lewis, honestly. He's popular among certain Potestant trends of thought, but the Anglicans consider him something of an embarrassment, and he himself readily admits that he's no theologian. If you really want a pop-theology argument, I'd go to Chesterson's Orthodoxy instead, but even that's pretty low tier apologetic.

If you want serious theology and apologetic, Lewis has plenty of contemporaries that are worth reading. I'd suggest the following:

• Rudolph Otto, [The Idea of the Holy][1], which deals specifically with the numinous argument for theism -- that is, the argument that religious belief should be couched in the experience of the ineffable;
  
  
• Tielhard de Chardin, [The Divine Milieu][2], which addresses theism from the other side of a secular worldview, integrating a scientific and philosophical world view into a holistic religious sense;
  
  
• Paul Tillich, [The Dynamics of Faith][3], which begins with an examination of the phenomenon of faith and explores the notion of God as the logical terminus of faith;
  
  Even the longest of those three is still less than 300 pages, so they shouldn't be too daunting in terms of bulk, but they're all three packed with some very serious and challenging thought, so they should give you plenty to chew on. My only caution is that all three of them veer in their latter thirds towards a bias for specifically Christian theism, and particularly Protestant varieties. It's a bit of a disappointing given how they all three start out admirably ecumenical.
  
  All of those are specifically books written by theologians with the intent of making the 20th century comfortable with religion again, but while I'm at it I thought I'd throw out a few books that don't quite fall into the group:
  
  
• Mircea Eliade, [The Sacred and the Profane][4], which is not an argument for theism so much as an anthropological and sociological exploration into the nature of religion;
  
  
• Terry Eagleton, [Reason, Faith, and Revolution][5], which is novel precisely because it features a Marxist atheist arguing against the "New Atheists" to the effect that religion is valuable;
  
  
• Charles Taylor, A Secular Age, which I haven't actually read yet, but intend to, because the reviews that I've read of it mark it as one of the thorniest and most grandiose defenses of religion written in recent history.
  
  Good luck.
  
  [1]: http://www.amazon.com/Idea-Holy-R-Otto/dp/0195002105/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253024930&sr=8-1
  [2]: http://www.amazon.com/Divine-Milieu-Pierre-Teilhard-Chardin/dp/1903900581/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253025127&sr=1-3
  [3]: http://www.amazon.com/Dynamics-Faith-Perennial-Classic-Tillich/dp/0060937130/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253025305&sr=1-3
  [4]: http://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Profane-Nature-Religion/dp/015679201X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253025876&sr=1-1
  [5]: http://www.amazon.com/Reason-Faith-Revolution-Reflections-Lectures/dp/0300151799/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253025995&sr=1-1
  

Holy crap, that title!

> They point me to foundations and think tanks that publish "creation science" and credentialed scientists who don't agree with the "mainstream" conclusions in their field.

I challenge you to read On the Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn. In his book, Kuhn presents his theory on Scientific Revolutions, how they start, how they end, and all the in-between. Kuhn is not a Creation Scientist, but a secular philosopher. What I'm about to suggest is not my own personal view, but I do find it interesting and challenging. I'm not a proponent of Creation Science nor am I a denier of Climate Change.

What I think Kuhn's book will do is show you a different way of looking at Science and challenge what you think you may know about how it works. His thesis somewhat goes like this: In the past Science always works within a certain paradigm, or worldview, but at some point the most recent research begins to contradict the paradigm, leading to a crisis. Some new "revolutionary" idea comes along that makes sense of the crisis and a new paradigm is established, leading to a Scientific Revolution. A good example is when Galileo proposed a Heliocentric model of the Solar System. Previously, the paradigm proposed a Geocentric model, but Galileo's idea was revolutionary. He was greatly persecuted because of his break with "Established" science. However, today we know that Galileo was indeed correct.

Some proponents of Creation Science use Kuhn's theory to show that this movement by many credentialed scientists in opposition to Darwinism indicate that we're on the verge of a crisis. They're betting that Creation Science could be the next Scientific Revolution as theorized by Kuhn. The big takeaway here is a different way of looking at current science and the scientists that oppose it. Now, this does not mean that any or all "unorthodox" scientists are right, but when a large body of them openly oppose the established paradigm and a large body of research exists that contradict it, one can rightly say that a crisis is at hand.

> Why is climate change any different?

What makes climate change different is that there is not a large body of science that contradicts the mainstream views nor a large body of scientists that oppose it. This could be argued in the case of Darwinism, but not so in the case of climate change.

I'd encourage anyone interested in the topic to read The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn.

You'd be surprised. Take it from a PhD physics student that is also interested in history. I recommend this book (link to Amazon page) for a short overview.

> knowledge of philosophy, so I was thinking that reading in that area may be helpful but I wouldn't know where to start.

If you're looking for a primer on the philosophy of science, Oxford University Press has a great introductory book (in fact, many of the "Very Short Introductions" are worth a read).

There is also, of course, the classic "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" by Thomas Kuhn that questions the supposed linearity of scientific progress.

For two of the most well know (albeit conflicting) looks at how science changes over time, you can check out Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge by Karl Popper and The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Khun.

See also the Philosophy of Science, Science Studies, and the History of Science.


And there are also subreddits devoted to /r/PhilosophyofScience, this is a good introductory post

Also, this comic

I've really enjoyed Dinosaurs by Dr. Holtz et al., especially because the authors do their best to publish free supplementary material & corrections online.

Mr. Rey's Illustrations aren't everyone's cup of tea, though.

Last time I asked this question I was directed to this:

https://www.amazon.com/Dinosaurs-Complete-Up-Date-Encyclopedia/dp/0375824197

It's a 2007 publication...there may be something more modern out there now. But it seems really informative and comprehensive to me.

The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language is pretty good, but expensive.

This is a great question, but it's so complex and there's so much going on, I'm not sure if it can be sufficiently answered in an ELI5 thread. If you're interesting in the topic of language in general (which, imho is extremely fascinating), I highly recommend The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker. It's a very accessible book and, at the very least, would make anyone appreciate how awesome the human's ability to communicate really is.

I have heard good things about The Language Instinct from a friend of mine. But I haven't read it myself though.

Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk - A fashion model gets her jaw shot off in a terrible situation, and so the silent protagonist must reclaim her life. (Highly recommend reading the first chapter in the preview on Amazon. Also highly recommend Haunted by Palahniuk as well.)

The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker. Wonderful book that delves into the psychology behind language. Incredibly informative while maintaining entertainment.

Read "The Language Instinct" by Steven Pinker. He does an amazing job of explaining how humans learn language. I read it when my daughter was about your son's age and it made me a better parent, appreciate smaller milestones, and really understand how amazing those first years of life are.

The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language (P.S.) (Harper Perennial Modern Classics) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0061336467/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_L-A6CbG9QS34T

Is that the same Steven Pinker that wrote The Language Instinct? Just curious; that's the only Steven Pinker book I've read. I don't have anything to add to the discussion on that point. But just looking at the titles of some of his other books, man I need to go find some!


> when given a choice between super amazing paranormal things that cant be proven by science or the much more simple explanation of a massive brain fart you choose paranormal? makes no sense to me.

There's a lot that's been explained and proven by science. But we're always learning, discovering, and explaining new things. Is it impossible to believe that at least some of what has been called "paranormal" actually does have some scientific explanation that no one has discovered yet?

There are many sporadic things in this world that can be difficult to repeat on demand. I sometimes get psychogenic tremors. We (a combination of me, my doctors, family, and friends) have been able to find no exact cause or situation that sets them off. They get worse with stress, but usually only if they've already been occurring recently. My tremors can also occur without any stress at all. There are a number of things that make them worse and a few that make them better, but nothing to really explain why they're happening in the first place. That doesn't mean they actually happen just randomly, just that we can't find a trigger. My first doctor didn't believe I had them at all and told me to stop wasting his time because I couldn't demonstrate the problem, and it didn't happen again when I had access to a camera for months so I couldn't get proof, but it was most definitely a problem.

Ugh, I'm not sure I'm making my point clear. I'm trying to say, there are sporadic things that can't necessarily be done on demand and don't have any clear cause, but which do exist. Some of these, like my tremors, probably have a mundane explanation, while others are classified as "paranormal".

Steven Pinker's "The Language Instinct" is a very entertaining read. The thesis (language is innate) and style have received the kind of criticism that all science-popularizers get, but it's hard to know how much of that is sour grapes over the book's commercial success.

Check out Huston Smith's The World's Religions.

Smith is not a Dawkins or a Hitchens. He's probably not even an atheist. What he is (as I remember the book anyway) is objective and fair.

The World's Religions is exactly that--a (light) history of major world religions with a more in-depth look at the tenets and practice of each. He's not out to convince anyone of anything, and for some people that's a very good thing.

When I read it (going on 10 years ago), it really gave me a lot of perspective and helped me step outside the bubble of christianity that I'd been raised in.

The World's Religions, by Huston Smith. It covers: Hinduism, Buddhism, Confusianism, Taoism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and various aboriginal religions. It comes in at under 400 pages for 11 bucks at Amazon.

You might also like reading The World's Religions by Huston Smith. It's used as a textbook in many university comparative religion classes and should help you understand the similarities and differences in the major world religions. (the good news is that its only $10 too :-) )

First thing that comes to mind is this: https://www.amazon.com/Worlds-Religions-Plus-Huston-Smith/dp/0061660183

But I'm sure there are other recommendations that other people could make.

Exploring the world's many religions is a fun and enriching activity. I'll tell you what I tell everyone who makes this post here:

First, you should start out by perusing one or both of the following websites - [BBC Religions] (http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/) and [Harvard University's Pluralism Project] (http://pluralism.org/religions/). Both of these sites offer high-quality, scholarly yet accessible introductions to most of the world's major traditions. These sites alone can keep you occupied for days.

Once you're ready to jump into books, you have two options. Your first option is to find a book that offers an overview of what's called "comparative religions." The classic is Huston Smith's [The World's Religions] (https://www.amazon.com/Worlds-Religions-Plus-Huston-Smith/dp/0061660183/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1536540983&sr=8-2&keywords=huston+smith+the+world%27s+religions). There are others that are newer and probably more up-to-date, but this is a beloved book for a reason, and won't disappoint.

Your other option is to dig into one particular tradition that you've identified as of special interest from your internet search. If you go that route, which has its advantages and disadvantages, I'd encourage you to do some research online (including on the tradition's individual subreddit) to see what books are recommended. If you have specific questions on this, I may be able to help as well.

Hope this was helpful - good luck!

It was suggested I post here. I have to say it's pretty outside of my location and timeframe. Most of my reading is centered around Buddhism and what I know about India that's not political in nature is mostly centered around Buddhism. Even the concepts I know of Hinduism are usually through a Buddhist lens.

What I do know about the development I also can't provide a source. I studied at the Royal Thimphu College and once sat down with a Bengali professor who explained her own dissertation to me about the development of the Varna system in India, which ended up being a primer on "Brahmanism." (Which then led to a long discussion on the inaccuracy of the term "Hinduism" which was developed post-independence as a response to the development of Pakistan for Muslims, India for Hindus. When I presented the irony that "India" and "Hindu" both stem from the "Indus River" which is currently in Pakistan, Runa, aforementioned professor, winked at me and said "Exactly. Hindus are political, Brahmanists are religious." The logic being that Brahmanists derive religious authority from the Brahmin Varna, just as Christians derive religious authority from Christ, and Muslims from submission to God.)

Anyway, I'll just point out some of the books that have helped me in understanding this complex religion and maybe you can go on with your search from there.

Originally I was interested in Wendy Doniger's The Hindus: An Alternative History but found out it was full of selective information and skewed perspectives. I was more interested in a general history of India and fell upon John Keay's India: A History which he describes as "A historiography of India as well as a history." And he does go over developments of Brahmanism threaded with the rise and fall of conquerors through the region.

My introduction to Brahmanism (though he DOES refer to it as Hinduism) was Huston Smith's The World's Religions which doesn't go over the history as much of any of the religions, but is a nice starting point, especially when comparing say Buddhism with Brahmanism, which most people regularly do. It's also a good outliner for the different Brahmanist traditions (or at least the major trends in Brahmanism).

Finally, probably the most accurate to your original question though it has a broader focus and a point to make, Karen Armstrong's *The Great Transformation remains one of my favorite books on the Axial Age in which she covers the religious shifts that occurred more or less simultaneously in Greece, the Levant, India, and China. Of interest to you would be the Vedic response to the growth of Buddhism and Jainism, the development of the Mahabharata, and the changing understandings of the Vedas and Upanishads. It's a pretty great book, and Karen Armstrong can of course lead you further down the path of Indian religious history.

Hope that helps at all.

I have this one and it's great if you don't know about other religions:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0061660183/

There's not much unity within paganism. We're a constellation of different faiths, each with their own sometimes very different branches. If you really want to boil it down, then arguably the "Big Three" pagan religions are Wicca, Druidry, and Heathenry, the latter of them being sort of the flagship of the "reconstructionist" movement which is an umbrella of pagan faiths which includes non-Germanic cultures as well.

While I haven't read either of these books myself, I have heard that Bonewits's Essential Guide to Druidism and Drawing Down the Moon are reputable surveys of Druidry and Wicca, respectively, though they are probably a bit dated at this point (especially Drawing Down the Moon). I'm not sure if an equivalent overview of Heathenry has been published.

Bonewits on Witchcraft and Wicca is probably an excellent start. It gives a detailed rundown on the history of Wicca, has a chapter on classifying different traditions, and is a great way to go for researching the different options out there. Adler's Drawing Down the Moon is also an excellent starting place. Either of those books will go a long way to familiarizing you with Wicca and helping you figure out where you want to go from there.

This is one subject I bet we have > 90% consensus on.

Natural flying herb recipes are obsolete in 2015. We've now got LSD and DMT. Progress is not monotonically increasing in all dimensions but in this one it is.

> Even the creation process is pretty dangerous.

There is a story in Margot Adler Drawing Down the Moon about a woman overdosing on beladonna while mashing it together and it got into her bloodstream through her skin. This I think is probably false but datura and it's ilk are poisons and people do die from ingesting them.

Margot Adler's Drawing Down the Moon (http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Down-Moon-Witches-Goddess-Worshippers/dp/0143038192) is an amazing look at Paganism and it's many iterations.

Richard Cavendish - The Black Arts (http://www.amazon.com/Black-Arts-Witchcraft-Demonology-Throughout/dp/0399500359/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376693481&sr=1-1&keywords=the+black+arts) is a really interesting look at the many facets and practices of the Occult.

I recommend those for laymen.

The Following list is taken from the Witches & Warlocks FB page. (This is Christian Day's group)

Witches and Warlocks Recommended Reading List
This is a collection of books recommended by our admins and participants in the group. Books must be approved by the admins so if you'd like to see one added to the last, please post it in the comments at the bottom of this list and, if it's something we think is appropriate, we'll add it! We provide links to Amazon so folks can read more about the book but we encourage you to shop at your local occult shop whenever possible! :)


BEGINNER'S WITCHCRAFT BOOKS

Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft
by Raymond Buckland
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0875420508

Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America
by Margot Adler
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0143038192

Grimoire of the Thorn-Blooded Witch: Mastering the Five Arts of Old World Witchery
by Raven Grimassi
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1578635500

The Inner Temple of Witchcraft: Magick, Meditation and Psychic Development
by Christopher Penczak
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0738702765

The Kybalion: The Definitive Edition
by William Walker Atkinson (Three Initiates)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1585428744

Lid Off the Cauldron: A Wicca Handbook
by Patricia Crowther
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1861630328

Mastering Witchcraft
by Paul Huson
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0595420060

Natural Magic
by Doreen Valiente
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0919345808

Natural Witchery: Intuitive, Personal & Practical Magick
by Ellen Dugan
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0738709220

Old World Witchcraft: Ancient Ways for Modern Days
by Raven Grimassi
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1578635055

The Outer Temple of Witchcraft: Circles, Spells and Rituals
by Christopher Penczak
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0738705314

Power of the Witch: The Earth, the Moon, and the Magical Path to Enlightenment
by Laurie Cabot
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0385301898

Solitary Witch: The Ultimate Book of Shadows for the New Generation
by Silver RavenWolf
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0738703192

Spirit of the Witch: Religion & Spirituality in Contemporary Witchcraft
by Raven Grimassi
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0738703389

Witch: A Magickal Journey
by Fiona Horne
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0007121326

Witchcraft for Tomorrow
by Doreen Valiente
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0709052448

Witchcraft Today
by Gerald Gardner
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0806525932
The Witches' Craft: The Roots of Witchcraft & Magical Transformation
by Raven Grimassi
http://www.amazon.com/dp/073870265X
The Witching Way of the Hollow Hill
by Robin Artisson
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0982031882

WITCHCRAFT HISTORY AND RESOURCE BOOKS

Aradia or The Gospel of the Witches
by Charles Godfrey Leland
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0982432356

Encyclopedia of Mystics, Saints & Sages: A Guide to Asking for Protection, Wealth, Happiness, and Everything Else!
by Judika Illes
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0062009575

The Encyclopedia of Witches, Witchcraft and Wicca
by Rosemary Ellen Guiley
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0816071047

Etruscan Roman Remains
by Charles Godfrey Leland
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1494302519

The God of the Witches
by Margaret Murray
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0195012704

The Weiser Field Guide to Witches, The: From Hexes to Hermione Granger, From Salem to the Land of Oz
by Judika Illes
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1578634792

ADVANCED BOOKS ON WITCHCRAFT AND MAGIC

Blood Sorcery Bible Volume 1: Rituals in Necromancy
by Sorceress Cagliastro
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1935150812

The Deep Heart of Witchcraft: Expanding the Core of Magickal Practice
by David Salisbury
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1780999208

Teen Spirit Wicca
by David Salisbury
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1782790594

Enchantment: The Witch's Art of Manipulation by Gesture, Gaze and Glamour
by Peter Paddon
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1936922517

Initiation into Hermetics
by Franz Bardon
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1885928122

Letters from the Devil's Forest: An Anthology of Writings on Traditional Witchcraft, Spiritual Ecology and Provenance Traditionalism
by Robin Artisson
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1500796360

Magical Use of Thought Forms: A Proven System of Mental & Spiritual Empowerment
by Dolores Ashcroft-Nowick and J.H. Brennan
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1567180841

Magick in Theory and Practice
by Aleister Crowley
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1500380679

The Plant Spirit Familiar
by Christopher Penczak
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0982774311

Protection and Reversal Magick
by Jason Miller
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1564148793
Psychic Self-Defense
by Dion Fortune
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1578635098
The Ritual Magic Workbook: A Practical Course of Self-Initiation
by Dolores Ashcroft-Norwicki
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1578630452
The Roebuck in the Thicket: An Anthology of the Robert Cochrane Witchcraft Tradition
by Evan John Jones, Robert Cochrane and Michael Howard
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1861631553

The Satanic Witch
by Anton Szandor LaVey
http://www.amazon.com/Satanic-Witch-Anton-Szandor-LaVey/dp/0922915849
Shadow Magick Compendium: Exploring Darker Aspects of Magickal Spirituality
by Raven Digitalis
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003VS0N5K
The Tree of Enchantment: Ancient Wisdom and Magic Practices of the Faery Tradition
by Orion Foxwood
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1578634075
The Underworld Initiation: A journey towards psychic transformation
by R.J. Stewart
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1892137038

HERBALISM, CANDLES, INCENSE, OILS, FORMULARIES, AND STONES

A Compendium of Herbal Magic
by Paul Beyerl
http://www.amazon.com/dp/091934545X

Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs
by Scott Cunningham
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0875421229

The Enchanted Candle: Crafting and Casting Magickal Light
by Lady Rhea
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0806525789

The Enchanted Formulary: Blending Magickal Oils for Love, Prosperity, and Healing
by Lady Maeve Rhea
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0806527048

Incense: Crafting and Use of Magickal Scents
by Carl F. Neal
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0738703362

Magickal Formulary Spellbook Book 1
by Herman Slater
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0939708000

Magickal Formulary Spellbook: Book II
by Herman Slater
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0939708108


SPELLCASTING AND SPELLBOOKS
Crone's Book of Charms & Spells
by Valerie Worth
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1567188117

Crone's Book of Magical Words
by Valerie Worth
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1567188257

Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells
by Judika Illes
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0061711233

Everyday Magic: Spells & Rituals for Modern Living
by Dorothy Morrison
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1567184693

Pure Magic: A Complete Course in Spellcasting
by Judika Illes
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1578633915
Utterly Wicked: Curses, Hexes & Other Unsavory Notions
by Dorothy Morrison
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0979453313
The Voodoo Hoodoo Spellbook
by Denise Alvarado
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1578635136

The Voodoo Doll Spellbook: A Compendium of Ancient and Contemporary Spells and Rituals
by Denise Alvarado
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1578635543


THE ANCESTORS AND WORKING WITH THE DEAD
The Cauldron of Memory: Retrieving Ancestral Knowledge & Wisdom
by Raven Grimassi
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0738715751

The Mighty Dead
by Christopher Penczak
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0982774370

Speak with the Dead: Seven Methods for Spirit Communication
by Konstantinos
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0738705225
The Witches' Book of the Dead
by Christian Day
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1578635063
_____
TAROT

78 Degrees of Wisdom
by Rachel Pollack
http://www.amazon.com/dp/157863408

Is it the Chicago Manual of Style? There's a new one out.

Another site to check out is MediaBistro. You can also post on freelancing sites like Elance, Upwork, and even FiveGig if you're really just trying to build your portfolio. However, the best way to go if you're wanting to learn more is an internship, perhaps through a university or small press if you're near either. Some offer remote internships, but you'll learn the most if you can go into an office, ask questions, and watch others do things like book design.

Plus, there are tons of resources online (and books) to teach you the basics of design, editing, etc. Youtube is good, but if you have a way to get a Lynda account for free, they also have a lot of tutorials for InDesign (the main layout software in the industry) and Photoshop/Illustrator (the main graphic design software).

I'd also recommend of picking up or checking out a copy of the following:

• The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition (They have an online version, which is really helpful for looking things up while you're at your computer.)
  
  
• The Subversive Copy Editor by Carol Fisher Saller (even though many people prefer "copyeditor")
  
  
• Copyediting, Third Edition, by Carol Judd (perhaps a bit outdated, but still a good resource. Just make sure to double-check CMoS when possible.)

No problem. I recommend The Structure of Scientific Revolutions if you want some insight into how ideas in science change and how old theories are replaced with new ones. Honestly, that correspondence is so so so so so so so so wrong.

​

>The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962; second edition 1970; third edition 1996; fourth edition 2012) is a book about the history of science by the philosopher Thomas S. Kuhn. Its publication was a landmark event in the history, philosophy, and sociology of scientific knowledge. Kuhn challenged the then prevailing view of progress in "normal science". Normal scientific progress was viewed as "development-by-accumulation" of accepted facts and theories. Kuhn argued for an episodic model in which periods of such conceptual continuity in normal science were interrupted by periods of revolutionary science. The discovery of "anomalies" during revolutions in science leads to new paradigms. New paradigms then ask new questions of old data, move beyond the mere "puzzle-solving" of the previous paradigm, change the rules of the game and the "map" directing new research.[1]
>
>
>
>For example, Kuhn's analysis of the Copernican Revolution emphasized that, in its beginning, it did not offer more accurate predictions of celestial events, such as planetary positions, than the Ptolemaic system, but instead appealed to some practitioners based on a promise of better, simpler solutions that might be developed at some point in the future. Kuhn called the core concepts of an ascendant revolution its "paradigms" and thereby launched this word into widespread analogical use in the second half of the 20th century. Kuhn's insistence that a paradigm shift was a mélange of sociology, enthusiasm and scientific promise, but not a logically determinate procedure, caused an uproar in reaction to his work. Kuhn addressed concerns in the 1969 postscript to the second edition. For some commentators The Structure of Scientific Revolutions introduced a realistic humanism into the core of science, while for others the nobility of science was tarnished by Kuhn's introduction of an irrational element into the heart of its greatest achievements.

I took two phil of science courses during undergrad. The first covered Philosophy of Science: The Central Issues by Cover, Curd, and Pincock. The second (by a different instructor) covered Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction followed by The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, The Scientific Background of Modern Philosophy, and more readings from the Cover, Curd, and Pincock book. Though it required more reading, the second was more beneficial and clarified issues brought up in the Cover, Curd, and Pincock book. I hope that helps.

Thomas Kuhn explored the subjectivity of science in this seminal work 50 years ago.

Ever heard the word "paradigm" thrown around by idealogues? The concept of paradigm thought came from this book about science, not from post-modern social sciences.

This was one of the chief books in my contemporary political theory course in college.

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is the go-to for Kuhn's ideas.

While these are not all specifically about religion, here are a few things that I think everyone should read at some point in their lives.

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (this is where the term 'paradigm shift' came from).

Karl Popper on politics

Karl Popper on science

Get some historical perspective on the philosophy of science

The Power of Myth

A History of God

A couple books I can give off the top of my head that I have would be

1. The Complete Guide to Prehistoric Life by Tim Haines, it's basically a field guide to all of the prehistoric life in the BBC dinosaur shows
   
   
2. A Field Guide to Dinosaurs: The Essential Handbook for Travelers in the Mesozoic by Henry Gee with illustrations by Luis V. Rey is one of my personal favorites and is a really cool field guide with great drawings and a really updated assortment of dinosaurs. Big recommendation on this one!
   
   
3. Dinosaurs: The Most Complete, Up-to-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages by Dr. Thomas R. Holtz Jr. and more illustrations by Luis V. Rey (easily one of the best dino artists ever) is also sick and worth the mention just as much
   
   Also
   
   
4. [Encyclopedia Prehistorica Dinosaurs : The Definitive Pop-Up] (https://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Prehistorica-Dinosaurs-Definitive-Pop-Up/dp/0763622281/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8) and Encyclopedia Prehistorica: Sharks and Other Sea Monsters are the best pop up books I've ever read and are so multi-layered, colorful and impressively informative, the perfect ting for a coffee table book to show people
   
   I just realized you didn't really ask for dinosaur books but more future animals field guides, not really sure why I did that lmaoo still check those out

I use to bring a book about dinosaurs to school every day. Something like this. I read whatever version I had cover to cover hundreds of times.

I'm just over half way through one of Matt Fitzgerald's plans to get me ready for Austin in October. It's going great so far. Weekly load is anywhere from 6-11 hours, 8-9 workouts per week. It takes you through base phases of long, low intensity workouts, as well as build phases of some intense intervals. The plan I'm on was published in the Feb (I think) issue of Triathlete magazine, but he also has a very comprehensive book I'll be using one of the more intensive plans from this next year to improve my time.

As for using a trainer, I'm a big fan for two reasons: 1) If you're doing intervals, you can be sure to hit them when you need to, and make every minute of your workout count. 2) I live in a city, so it takes me 20 minutes just to get to some reasonable cycling roads. If I only have a one hour ride, I'd much prefer to do a more focused indoor workout.

I love my tri book by matt fitzgerald

http://www.amazon.com/Triathlete-Magazines-Essential-Week-Training/dp/0446696765/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_9

Others have already mentioned Friel's "Triathlete's Training Bible", which I highly recommend. Would also recommend checking out Matt Fitzgerald's Essential Week-by-week training book - a good friend of mine used it exclusively and ran a 5:08 HIM.


I, too, am stuck on an indoor trainer and I also no longer have the option of spin classes. So I use the Sufferfest and Spinervals to get me through. They're fun and keep you working. Spinervals usually has a defined goal, and the Sufferfest has gotten a lot better in terms of structure over the past while.

Others have suggested watching TV or Netflix, etc.,. while on the trainer but I disagree. Every workout should have a purpose and sitting in front of a TV mindlessly spinning your legs only serves to make you a slow rider IMHO. And on this note, I strongly believe that you should take your cadence up to around 95 rpm or higher on the trainer, and always practice good form on the trainer as it really gives you a jump on the road. An Ironman might be a long grind, but it definitely shouldn't be seen as a casual ride.

I currently XC ski on the days that are nice to get off the trainer or treadmill, if that is an option for you I'd say go for it!


Running, well you are trying to get your body used to running after a swim and bike so incorporate some brick workouts. I will fully admit my ignorance on running, and I just follow my training plan. It worked last time, though this year I plan on incorporating more speed workouts than last year. I will also include more trail runs, rather than all road runs as I finished the season running XC 10kms and each one beat the hell out of my legs - I see great cross training benefit and potential mental refreshers. Again, though, I am a 3:45 marathoner on the best days, so I don't expect to carry a lot of sway in this area...


Swim lots, with various tempos including 400-600m interval speed sets. /r/swimming has had some ironman training questions in it recently, and it is a great resource for that end of things.


I think an underused resource is the training peaks plans as a lot of them are available in book form or other places -so you don't need a TP account to get them. And it lets you preview the training plan and get an idea of what is out there.


Other great resources include Joe Friel's Blog, USAT, and even the Ironman site.

If you're a podcast listener, try searching for triathlon podcasts - there are a bunch out there. Lastly, I like to thumb through issues of Lava Magazine and Runner's World to get some neat training ideas to spice things up.


The most important things are to stick with a training plan once you've made one - it can be hard to keep faith in it sometimes and we all experience lows and highs in the training periods. And, stay consistent!

Good luck, hope you make it to the finish line ;)


EDIT: formatting

As a newbie you should be concentrating on your basic week and completing easy workouts consistently.

Elements to a basic week for newbies.

Swim 3 to 4 days a week
Bike 3 times a week for an hour each
Run 4 days of 40 minutes

If I was to recommend cookie cutter plans I would say use this:

https://www.amazon.com/Triathlete-Magazines-Essential-Week-Training/dp/0446696765/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1482614751&sr=8-1&keywords=matt+fitzgerald+triathlon+training

I am currently using the "Triathlete Magazine's Essential Week-by-Week Training Guide" for my first HIM. Less than 3 weeks to the race and I think it has prepared me very well. It has 10 plans that range from beginner to advanced for each distance.

I learned traditional grammar when I learned Latin and Ancient Greek. As others
have said, learning a foreign language (especially a dead one) is a great way
to bulk up on grammatical knowledge in general... at least as long as the
foreign language is sufficiently similar to English. (For example, I'm not sure
if learning Mandarin would help your knowledge of English as much as learning,
say, German or Latin would, but maybe.)

That being said, if you want to learn standard, traditional, but up-to-date,
descriptive English grammar, I suggest Huddleston and Pullum's A Student's
Introduction to English
Grammar.
It's written by two highly respected and prolific linguists/grammarians. It's
based on their much more comprehensive tome The Cambridge Grammar of the
English
Language.

Read this book: Ben Hogan’s 5 Fundamentals of Golf

Then once you get the right clubs, start practicing with a purpose. Try to get to the driving range at least once a week even if you just hit a small bucket. Work on a specific part of your game with every range session (grip, posture, specific club, putting, chipping, etc). Don’t just go and hit balls randomly. Muscle memory is key.

Try to play at least 9 holes once a week too. I love the post-work 9 holes myself. Take it seriously, but not too seriously, and enjoy the process. Good luck!

Edit: I also agree with getting an instructor. You get what you pay for in a coach too. You don’t need to see them every week. Take a couple lessons and work on everything your coach tells you. When you feel comfortable with those improvements, see you coach again for your next focus.

http://www.amazon.com/Five-Lessons-Modern-Fundamentals-Golf/dp/0671612972/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313517044&sr=8-1

This is my bible.

At first glance it just looks like your swing is a bit rough. Almost robotic. This is very similar to how I was hitting a year or two ago. To get more consistent, I would work on having a more fluid motion with your swing.

I read a book called Ben Hogan's Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf - https://www.amazon.com/Ben-Hogans-Five-Lessons-Fundamentals/dp/0671612972. It is a very easy read which breaks down all pieces of the golf swing in detail with pictures. In this book he explains not only the what but the why. I highly recommend this book, since it has helped me become a decent and accurate ball striker almost over night. I am not saying I am a great golfer by any means, but I am much more consistent with my shots which has opened up a whole new world of golf for me. Now I am able to focus on my range with different clubs and situational shots and my scores have vastly improved.

Good luck.

Buy this and read it. Spend a few months practicing what this book tells you before trying to do a full strength swing. There’s a lot fundamentally that is wrong with your swing and you’d be better served starting from scratch instead of making small tweaks. This was the first thing that started vastly improving my swing, even after I had a lesson.

https://www.amazon.com/Ben-Hogans-Five-Lessons-Fundamentals/dp/0671612972

everyone is saying your swing is flat, but not really giving you advice with how to fix it: i'll try. first thing i noticed is you're standing too far away from the ball (this shows up more in the driver than the 8-iron). i had this problem last year, and my instructor said the arms should just hang down in a natural position. when you put a club in your hands, then you address the ball and you should be at a proper distance away from the ball (trust me it's tough getting used to standing that close, but worth it). i also had an issue with swaying my hips from back to front instead of rotating them around my spine. i believe this was caused by my standing too far away from the ball; along with too wide of a stance. from the front driver angle, it's kind of hard to see if you are doing the same, but it looks like you do on your down swing and through impact; i think can also bring your feet together a little (shoulder width apart). about rotating vs swaying was something my instructor said that really clicked (finally!) with me was a quote from (Ben Hogan's book)[http://www.amazon.com/Ben-Hogans-Five-Lessons-Fundamentals/dp/0671612972]. he says "imagine you are hitting a shot inside a barrel." basically if you are in a barrel that is as wide as your hips and you have to swing, you will rotate your hips as you cannot sway back and forth. from there, work on your take away ... set down an alignment rod and take the club back on the shot line. this should help you improve your flatness if you incorporate what i've already mentioned. i hope this helps a little, and i hope you get to your goal to be scratch. cheers

Ben Hogans 5 Lessons - Solid foundations from one of the games legends. Great for beginners or those with funky swings, grips, stances, etc (which your <10 handicap dad likely doesn't need) but it's a classic golf instruction book with fundamentals in mind and the first golf book i read. Best part is it's full of really cool old illustrations to describe what he's talking about in each segment.

Next is Harvey Penicks Little Red Book - It's a good coffee table or bathroom book. Each "chapter" is a page or two usually. Harvey Penick was a legendary instructor and he famously had a small red book full of one-liner lessons that he finally published late in life. Another classic golf instruction book that keeps it super simple.

Then we have Golf is not a game of perfect by Dr. Bob Rotella It's written by a sports psychologist who specializes in "the mental game". Ideal for the weekend warrior that wants to have more fun while shooting better scores. I read this when i felt like i had all the skills but was getting in my own way mentally. Helped me work on consistency, course management, and managing expectations for those hot-head moments.

After that i read Dave Pelz' Short Game Bible Written by a now short-game guru and former actual nasa rocket scientist, this book is thicker than most bibles and is super (exhaustingly) detailed. Honestly it is solid science that would work for everyone if they had the time and discipline to practice and implement. But it burned me out before i could finish it. I'm just not at the level where i need to know all of the "how's" and "whys" to every shot ever imaginable inside 150 from every lie to every landing.

Next up is Zen Golf: mastering the mental game by Dr. Joe Parent Another sports psychologist who specializes in thinking smarter/better. A very interesting read. Lots of tips that helped and i plan to re-read very soon. It actually has many lessons that translate well to everyday life, not just golf.

Finally, Lowest Score Wins This last one is a more modern approach to the game. Very simple and straight forward. Very data driven. Kind of like a fundamentals book but more aggressive and concerned with one thing, lowering your score. There's some great chapters on "seeing the course differently" that really helped my course management and it's great for drills on every aspect of the game.

I think the last two are the best all-around.

Do yourself a favor and learn to at least have a good initial grip and posture when learning how to play. Either get lessons or read the following:

Ben Hogan's Five Lesson's: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf

Good Luck!!

Maybe this is just kinda situational for me but a couple of the courses in my area do a range pass deal for a month/year. I paid $65 for unlimited range balls for a month. Putting and chipping greens are (typically) free at golf courses as well. I usually hit 75 balls and then do 30min to an hour on short game and that cost only the $65 a month that I paid for the range pass.

As far as actually playing, check if any of the courses in your area do twilight fees. That'll probably be somewhere around $15-$20 after 6pm and you just get as many holes in as you can.

Then for instruction, YouTube videos and I highly recommend Ben Hogan's book "Five Lessons" to learn the proper swing. Can't beat it for $7

You mean Ben Hogan's Five Lessons, right? Didn't want anyone to think you meant "go get five lessons" -- the book is a fantastic resource and was my first thought, too.

Rick Shiels is a PGA coach that posts a lot of content on Youtube. He did a complete swing guide that is a very good starting point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LG1vJJAceYM&list=PLKnkfgDBi62mkWMNmNipPUUep6vcj8nYm

Check out Ben Hogan's book called The Five Lessons. It is pretty much the beginner's bible as it sets you up with the fundamentals: https://www.amazon.com/Ben-Hogans-Five-Lessons-Fundamentals/dp/0671612972

Don't be afraid to ask your buddy LOADS of questions. If he did paid lessons at some point, you are getting all that information for free. Take advantage of it.

Don't worry about "new technology" in the newer clubs. A set of irons from 10 years ago will be just fine. Get a putter you like and feel comfortable with. Possibly don't even think about swinging a driver until you are able to consistently make good contact with irons/hybrids/woods.

Ben Hogan's 5 Lessons-great for fundamentals
Tiger Woods: How I Play Golf -great for teaching you different shots
Harvey Penick's Little Red Book-great for learning fundamentals and interesting little stories

You should be able to find all 3 for >$50

"don't have a driving range within 30 miles of my house"

I just threw up in my mouth. This is my nightmare.

Ben's got you covered.

https://www.amazon.com/Ben-Hogans-Five-Lessons-Fundamentals/dp/0671612972

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQESBJB-vyQ

Also easiest way to get good around the green... Google Jim Furyk Chipping

That there is excellent advice, I got lessons and was told my grip was jacked. Corrected it and started playing TERRIBLE, gave it time and kept with it and I'm starting to get my confidence back in my shots. Now I'm finally playing better than previously and more consistent striking. Keep at it and it will get better. Also check out this book: http://www.amazon.com/Ben-Hogans-Five-Lessons-Fundamentals/dp/0671723014 Good luck!

You won't believe how much this book will help give you a solid basis. From these basics you can tweak your swing to your style and comfort level, but I'm similar to you and needed to find somewhere from which to start. Ask around, you'll hear a lot of people talking about Ben Hogan and how this book is practically canon for those who want to actually learn.

I thought Ben Hogan's Five Lessons was the Bible 'round here.

lol

In the first half of the twentieth century a great deal of energy was expended trying to provide a foundation for mathematics by mathematicians and philosophers. These efforts precipitated the development of both logic (mathematical and philosophical) and also played an important role in us developing our understanding computation (i.e.the Church-Turing thesis) because many philosophers and mathematicians believed that a mathematical proof should be able to be verified computationally.

Some major figures:

• Gottlob Frege
  
• Bertrand Russel
  
• David Hilbert
  
• Alonzo Church
  
• Kurt Godel
  
• Henri Poincare
  
• L. E. J. Brouwer
  
  Here is a section from the wonderful Princeton Companion to Mathematics that discusses this period but focuses more on the foundations of math than computation.
  
  

For math history I enjoyed Journey Through Genius. Also, check out this thread linked in the r/math FAQ for some others.

As for books that survey the whole of higher mathematics at a layman's level... you might have a hard time finding one. That stuff isn't exactly easy to talk about without an assload of prior knowledge. The closest thing I can think of is The Princeton Companion to Mathematics, but that certainly isn't written for a general audience.

Here's another thread from a few weeks ago with some other book recommendations. Actually, Keith Devlin's Mathematics: The New Golden Age (see review in that thread) might be more what you're looking for.

I recommend the following book for getting a good overview of modern mathematics: The Princeton Companion to Mathematics although it is a bit pricey (though less expensive than the average textbook). It is extremely well written, even if it doesn't necessarily hit all the details. It focuses more on an intuitive understanding of many modern mathematical concepts so that more formal and detailed treatments. The authors wrote the book to help math students get up to speed about various different fields of math as well as help working mathematicians better communicate across different disciplines.

Martin Gardeners books are good too. I specifically like The Colossal Book of Mathematics and The Colossal Book of Short Puzzles and Problems. His books tend to be very problem oriented rather than theory building, whereas the Princeton Companion is more expository. While Gardeners Colossal books are quite a bit shorter than the companion, I read them more slowly since I often stop to work on the problems he presents.

I think it helps to realize that there isn't any particular order to learning different kinds of math. High School and elementary schools set math up like there's a clear hierarchy to all the material, but that's not necessarily the case. For example, you don't need Calculus to do basic Graph Theory or elementary Set Theory.

There are lists of textbook recommendations on /r/math but these are the books I would recommend without knowing much about your current skills or interests.

The Princeton Companion is an excellent source that introduces you to an absolute ton of topics in a readable way. It's not cheap, but IMHO it's the type of book everyone should have, whether you're a professor or an aspiring student.

Talk to professors in your university. Also, check this book out.

This is a far more advanced version of what you're looking for, as a survey of "real" research level math topics. You would need far more than just calculus to be able to understand it though. I would say some of the videos by Numberphile, 3blue1brown, etc. would maybe suit your interests?

"edgy atheist" is a disparaging term used only by theists.

>Most atheist I know try to be optimistic despite their own awareness of the meaningless of life

Because no meaning of life is ascribed to us, doesn't mean we cannot ascribe our own.

so these gods are the different faces f your god?

https://owlcation.com/humanities/10-Weird-Gods-and-Goddesses

https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-13-biggest-assholes-in-greek-mythology-1454132475

https://www.toptenz.net/10-gods-of-death-destruction-and-the-underworld.php

so now we don't have to just disprove one god, we have to disprove every god that ever existed.

2,500 in this book.

I own this book. Has a lot of obscure gods from all over the world. Hard cover looks good on a shelf. There is also Manual of Mythology. If you can find a hard cover it is a simple but classic design.

Encyclopedia of Gods

Pick up or download a copy of Fixing Your Feet. There isn't a specific solution for everyone, but this book has a lot of great recommendations that your girlfriend can try out to find the solution for her.

Everyone's physiology is different and this will basically boil down to finding a footwear system that works for you. (And unfortunately figuring this out while already on the trail will be problematic)

John Vonhof's "Fixing Your Feet" does a great job of covering your available options:
https://www.amazon.com/Fixing-Your-Feet-Prevention-Treatments/dp/0899976387

But short term you are going to need to let your feet heal- and when you do get back on the trail you'll want to keep your mileage in check until you figure out your system.

Good advice. I can also recommend Fixing Your Feet, which is incredibly comprehensive.

My usual plan:

• Tuff Foot (Tuff Paw if you can still find it) - http://smile.amazon.com/Tuf-Foot-8-oz/dp/B0002XI6GU
  
• Leukotape to pretape any known dicey areas.
  
• Aquaphor - lightly grease up right before putting on socks.
  
• Injinji socks as a base layer with something more padded/insulated if terrain or weather dictates. I like Swiftwick Pursuits for an other sock if it's above 30ºF, or Smartwool hiking socks if it gets colder.
  
  
  Others:
  
  
• Fixing Your Feet - http://smile.amazon.com/Fixing-Your-Feet-Prevention-Treatments/dp/0899976387
  
• Mark Webb's big old post on the matter - http://overld.me/2014/03/30/feet-keeping-your-wheels-turning/
  
  If an event is under 12 hours, personally, I just lace up once and don't touch my feet until afterwards. I'll stretch this out to 18-20 hours if they feel good.
  
  For longer events, I do a full sock change and regrease every 10-14 hours, when I get some downtime. Shoes and socks come off, feet are left to air out/dry, tape stays in place. Only takes me about a minute per foot to be 100% ready to go, so I try to give them as much breathing time as possible.

If you've lanced and are doing the salt bath to dry them out - dress them with abx cream in between. Especially since you have lanced to prevent infection.

KT tape on the heel site with zero stretch works great. (And less extreme than duct tape).

Toe - a well-sized bandage is probably best. For this I would lather up with abx cream to make the skin supple underneath the bandage.

Also check out Fix Your Feet Great book to read through and have on hand for reference.

I actually picked up a original style wooden Mora after reading this. You can still get the laminated carbon steel/wooden handle full tang Mora at Ragnar's.

You should check out:

Cody Lundin 98.6 Degrees: The Art of Keeping Your Ass Alive

Dave Canterbury Bushcraft 101: A Field Guide to the Art of Wilderness Surviva

Mors kochanski Bushcraft: Outdoor Skills and Wilderness Survival

Lofty Wiseman SAS Survival Handbook: The Definitive Survival Guide

George Washington Sears Woodcraft

Horace Kephart The Book of Camping and Woodcraft: A Guidebook for Those who Travel in the Wilderness

Warren H. Miller The Sportsman's Workshop

I also compelled a list of youtube channels that are worth checking out for another thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bushcraft/comments/40e53a/field_dressing_game_rabbit_for_meat_fur/cytpjd5

And lastly the common sense answer go out and enjoy the wilderness.

• [BushCraft 101] (http://www.amazon.com/Bushcraft-101-Field-Wilderness-Survival/dp/1440579776) by [Dave Canterbury] (https://www.youtube.com/user/wildernessoutfitters)
  
  
• [BushCraft: Outdoor Skills and Wilderness Survival] (http://www.amazon.com/Bushcraft-Outdoor-Skills-Wilderness-Survival/dp/1551051222) by [Mors Kochanski] (https://www.youtube.com/user/morsKochanski)
  
  
• [Essential BushCraft] (http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Bushcraft-Ray-Mears/dp/0340829710/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1425230789&sr=1-1&keywords=ray+mears) by [Ray Mears] (http://www.raymears.com/)
  
  *** EDIT: Adding
  
  
• [BushClass] (http://bushcraftusa.com/forum/forumdisplay.php/132-BushClass-USA) by BushCraftUSA

You can improve your grammar and fix all these issues in about 60 days. That's it. Two months. Consider buying this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Style-William-Strunk-Jr/dp/1557427283

He needs this so bad:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Elements-Style-William-Strunk/dp/1557427283

It's ok, this might help with your confusion

bruh "scare quotes" aren't a real thing. Show me where it mentions "scare quotes" in The Elements of Style and I'll eat my hat.

The difference with what you said and that guy's example is that "film noir" isn't a thing that's said in movies of that style. You were referring to a style of joke (which would qualify it for quotes) whose name happens to be the text of the joke (which disqualifies quotes). See?

I know I know, nobody cares.

the book of basketball by Bill Simmons is a good book that puts how good certain players were in context at the time it was written.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Book-Basketball-According-Sports/dp/0345520106

Bballbreakdown http://www.youtube.com/user/bballbreakdown

on youtube is a cool channel that explains how certain offensives work and what is actually happening on the court.

basketball on paper by dean oliver is a good start to a statistical analysis of basketball.

http://www.amazon.com/Basketball-Paper-Rules-Performance-Analysis/dp/1574886886/ref=pd_sim_b_14?ie=UTF8&refRID=1ZM4AQKYZC4K42KYFDME

Of the books I've read:

• A Season on the Brink - John Feinstein Feinstein's chronicling of Bob Knight the 1985-1986 Indiana Hoosiers. The book was very successful and Feinstein followed it up with a number of inside looks at college basketball. 10/10
  
• The Last Amateurs It's about the Patriot League which, at the time of publication, was one of two conferences that didn't award athletic scholarships (Ivy was the other). 7/10
  
• Basketball on Paper - Dean Oliver Oliver is the granddaddy of basketball analytics. His examples are primarily focused on the NBA, but it's an interesting read that might change your perspective on how you watch basketball. 8/10
  
• Don't Put Me In Coach - Mark Titus Maybe it's just because I was a big fan of Club Trillion back in the day, but I think it's a really funny and interesting read about what big time college basketball is like today. Like A Season on the Brink, it helps you realize that, regardless of the era, these guys are just college kids. 7/10
  
• Playing for Knight - Steve Alford There are some interesting Indiana stories in here. But whereas A Season the Brink is enjoyable and a must read for any college basketball fan, this one is probably just worth reading if you're an Indiana fan. 5/10
  
• Last Dance: Behind the Scenes at the Final Four - John Feinstein Eh. Not as good as some of the other ones I've read by him. 4/10.
  
  On my bookshelf but I haven't read them yet:
  
  
• Underdawgs - David Woods The story of Butler's first trip to the Final Four. This is the one I'm most excited to pick up next.
  
• Rising from the Ashes - Terry Hutchins It's about Indiana's dumpster fire leading up through it's return to the Top 25 in 2011-2012. Honestly, I only bought it because Hutchins and Woods were selling them side by side at a Butler Indiana game and I felt weird buying just the Butler book while wearing Indiana gear. It's a story that I already know by heart because I lived through it so I might never get around to reading it.
  
• The Last Great Game - Gene Wojciechowski About 1992 Kentucky - Duke. Haven't read it yet. Although I certainly plan to.

I think we may have miscommunicated about your ambitions. What you're referring to is a scorekeeper and I don't think it requires much, if any, formal statistics training. You had mentioned getting a master's degree so I was talking about something different. Those who are trained as statisticians or related fields and hired by NBA teams are called many things but often has "analytics" in the title. Think Daryl Morey, Warriors, Sam Hinkie, etc. Using numbers to inform play style, acquisitions, trades, etc. Here is a book about it that seems aimed towards the layperson. This one is considered the "Moneyball" of basketball but is quite dated. This is by Kirk Goldsberry and is specifically about the 3-point shot and probably has the highest production value and approachability.

if you're into reading, I received this book as a gift recently and it's supposed to help with getting a better understanding of the game

It's not exactly what you are looking for but I've enjoyed what I've read of Greg Wyshinski's Book. It's a guide to the game, it breaks down the game and some of the things you wouldn't think of - the little moves to get an open shooting lane for another player, etc.

Greg is a good writer, and a funny guy. Check it out!

If you just started following the sport, don't concern yourself with learning players from a mock draft. Sure, some will land on your team but just wait it out a bit. Also, read this: https://www.amazon.com/Take-Your-Eye-Off-Puck/dp/1629371203

I read this book for general hockey info - it is beyond fantastic as a primer for all parts of the game https://www.amazon.com/Take-Your-Eye-Off-Puck/dp/1629371203/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1520231712&sr=8-1&keywords=take+your+eye+off+the+puck

Then you can read this one if you want to go deeper in the game mechanics - yes it is about advanced stats, but it really helps you understand the way the game works as they go through how these are effective: https://www.amazon.com/Hockey-Abstract-Presents-Stat-Shot/dp/177041309X/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=177041309X&pd_rd_r=95WZ602VZZPEVN4HHYXW&pd_rd_w=W2ZUk&pd_rd_wg=F2J4k&psc=1&refRID=95WZ602VZZPEVN4HHYXW

These two are great books about the sport.

If you're really serious about getting to understand the details of the game, this is a fantastic book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1629371203/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_-PSzybKJWY4KB

The book Take Your Eye Off The Puck does a good job of explaining some of the finer points.

Take Your Eye Off the Ball 2.0: How to Watch Football by Knowing Where to Look https://www.amazon.com/dp/1629371696/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_mfpDybGTMBM85

You can start there and once you're finished with it I can send you some more resources.

The speed of the game and athletic ability of the players goes up 10-fold.

NFL defenses are fast. D-linemen and edge rushers get to the QBs quickly. DBs cover the field better. Offensive schemes are usually more complex and most successful college QBs simply can't adapt.

Although I have a home team that I root for I love watching any good team play. Unless it's your thing I wouldn't get caught up in any of the drama which is what most mainstream media headlines will contain. It ruins it for me.

• I found a couple of books that helped me: Take your Eye off the Ball and The Essential Smart Football
  
• I'd highly recommend against going to r/NFL unless you want memes and sh1tposting. I can only handle it in small doses. There is an occasional good analysis but you've got to wade through a lot of garbage to find it.

This book by the late Dr. Z is one of the best football books I've read. I also like Take Your Eye Off the Ball.

This book really helped me.

EDIT: Here's the UK link

These are some books I bought a few months back as a recommendation from someone on this sub and they're fantastic.

[Take Your Eye off the Ball 2.0] (http://www.amazon.com/Take-Your-Eye-Off-Ball/dp/1629371696/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1453326704&sr=8-4&keywords=smart+football)

[The Art of Smart Football] (http://www.amazon.com/Art-Smart-Football-Chris-Brown/dp/069244825X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1453326704&sr=8-1&keywords=smart+football)

[The Essential Smart Football] (http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Smart-Football-Chris-Brown/dp/1470125595/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1453326704&sr=8-2&keywords=smart+football)

ETS, the makers of the GRE, publish their own guide but you will need many more practice questions that it can provide.

On the other hand, I've done what you are starting out to do and started with Khan Academy to get a place to start and then found materials elsewhere in accordance with my results from there.

https://www.amazon.com/Practice-Problems-Manhattan-Strategy-Guides/dp/1941234518/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1494776807&sr=1-3&keywords=gre+math

I highly suggest The Official Guide to the GRE and using this thread for anymore information you need. However, if you're tight for money look at older editions (the one I hyperlinked is the second edition) or PM me if you're really desperate.

Take some considerations when using/buying the book because MOST OF the information in the ETS book is available on their website. However, your situation says you aren't able to get online often so I can understand the advantage, however I'd like you to be aware of this. I also forgot to mention I've used the Manhattan and Princeton and liked those as well.

The Manhattan 5-lb book is amazingly cheap (sub $15) and has a really impressive weight to it. It's really helpful especially for the Quant section.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1941234518/ref=dp_ob_neva_mobile

Might be great if you don't want your whole gift to be about the GRE!

Yeah, you're definitely going to need more than 4 hours. I highly recommend getting a copy of FE Electrical and Computer Review Manual (FEEERMP) by Michael R. Lindeburg.
It's not cheap, but if it's anything like the mechanical version (Mechanical Engineer here) it's a comprehensive guide to the exam, and a handy resource to have around afterwords.

Also, if you decide to prep for the GRE, I recommend 5 lb. Book of GRE Practice Problems.
And if you want to get a perfect score on the verbal reasoning section, find a copy of the "Barron's GRE wordlist - 4814 word" Anki deck and give yourself a few months to crank through that.

It's completely neutral.

In human languages, a sentence typically is made of a verb and its arguments. Very roughly, a sentence describes an event or situation; the verb specifies what kind of event or situation it is, and the arguments are the phrases that describe what the participants were in the situation. So for example, in Joe kicked the door, kicked is the verb, Joe and the door are arguments.

Different participants play a different role in the situation that a sentence describes. In our example, Joe is the "kicker" and the door is the "kicked"; in grammatical theory we say that Joe is agent ("doer") and the door is the patient (the thing that receives the effect of an action).

And in addition to that, there's the concepts of the subject and object of the sentence. In school you may have been taught that the subject is the "doer" of the sentence, but that is in fact incorrect. The subject is a phrase in the sentence that enjoys a number of special properties; in English, some of these properties are that the subject appears before the verb, and that subject pronouns must occur in a special form (I/he/she/we instead of me/him/her/us).

Now, in English, there is a complicated set of rules that determines which of the participants of a sentence is the subject. But to simplify, one of the rules is this: unless the sentence is a passive, the agent is always the subject. So basically the passive is this: a special way of constructing a sentence that allows you to use a participant as the subject when you wouldn't be able to do so in a "normal" sentence.

What good is the passive? Well, something that is very common in languages is that people construct sentences according to something called "topic-comment": sentences typically start by mentioning some thing that has already been discussed in the conversation, and then say something new about that thing—something that hasn't been mentioned earlier about that thing.

In English, the subject of a sentence tends to plays the role of "topic"—a thing that's already been mentioned earlier, and the sentence is saying something new about it. This is the use of the passive in English—to "break" the rule that the agent is always the subject. So for example:

• Did you hear about Joe? He just got fired from his job!
  
  The first sentence introduces Joe as a new topic into the conversation. The second sentence adds some new information about Joe. That second sentence is a passive, because He is both a patient (recipient of the action) and a subject.
  
  Does all that sound very complicated? Well, it is. One of the things you should understand, however, is that the people who go around saying that passives are bad are full of crap, and don't understand even half of all of this. In fact, it's even very common that these people are actually not able to recognize whether a sentence is passive or not. Here are some examples:
  
  
• A college T.A. "corrects" a student for 10 "passives", only 3 of which are actually passive.
  
• Geoff Pullum gives a much more accurate (and complicated) description of the English passive than the simplified version I gave above.
  
• Geoff Pullum points out that Strunk and White, authors of the famous Elements of Style book, were not actually able to identify passives accurately.
  
• More Pullum on passives. (Why do I quote him so much? Well, he writes a lot about this, and he's also co-author of one of the best grammars of the English language.)
  
• Blogger Brad DeLong identifies 5 sentences as "passives," gets all 5 wrong.
  
  So my advice to you is this: the people trying to give you a hard time over it don't know what they're talking about, and if you can ignore them, you should.

>> For questions of usage, one must consult a prescriptive grammar.

> Er, say what?

Here are some definitions and comparisons of prescriptive and descriptive grammars:
google english grammar prescriptive vs descriptive.

From Chapter 1. Preliminaries of The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language that you have been citing:

> The aim of this book
>
> Description versus prescription
>
> Our aim is to describe and not prescribe: we outline and illustrate the principles that govern the construction of words and sentences in the present-day language without recommending or condemning particular usage choices. Although this book may be (and we certainly hope it will be) of use in helping the user decide how to phrase things, it is not designed as a style guide or a usage manual. (emphasis mine) [page 2]
>
> Standard versus non-standard
>
> That is not to say that controversy cannot arise out of points of grammar or usage. There is much dispute, and that is precisely the subject matter for prescriptive usage manuals. (emphasis mine) [page 4]

The authors of the book you have been citing from themselves would seem to think you are misusing their book ("without recommending or condemning particular usage choices"), and would direct you to a prescriptive guide ("precisely the subject matter for prescriptive usage manuals"). The sections I quoted from are visible using Look Inside on Amazon, and as pointed out below, in the online preview of chapter 1

Edit: Added references to the Cambridge Guide Grammar.

Edit2: Corrected the name of the book in question, elaborated on the two quotations, and linked to the online preview.

Ben Hogan: An American Life

Ben Hogan's Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf

Power Golf

I received the advice of my life on my drive last weekend. Flex your right leg the entire time and use it to push your weight forward as you come down.

Other tips:

Keep your head down staring at the ball.

Don't be afraid to take a step forward on your drive swing. Literally swing and step forward with your right foot.

Squeeze your elbows as close together as possible throughout the entire swing.


BUY THIS BOOK

This book.

This will be the best $10 you will ever spend in your life. Buy Ben Hogan's "Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf." The only real training aide I've ever used. Has a lot of good illustrations regarding swing plane, grip, and the chain of events which must take place for a proper swing. Just about every instructor out there lives by it.

http://www.amazon.com/Five-Lessons-Modern-Fundamentals-Golf/dp/0671612972

https://www.amazon.com/Ben-Hogans-Five-Lessons-Fundamentals/dp/0671612972

CUCK AMAZON but this is a great book

Like everyone else is saying here, Hogan-esque swing. You look stuck/jammed at impact though, imo which gave you the little pull there. Just hold on to that spine angle. Setup/tempo/backswing looks pretty great!

If youre trying to be like Hogan gotta read Hogan's swing.

You're in a really good spot right now because you're just getting started out and you don't have to unlearn any bad habits.

First thing I would say is learn what makes a good swing. Not what makes your swing good, but what makes a good swing. Watch the pros. Read books. Get a much information as possible and don't try and replicate what they do, but learn what makes a truly good swing and learn how to make your swing the best it can be.

Here are a couple things to think about:

Right now you're swinging with about 90% your upper body. Your taking the club back with your shoulders and arms and chest, and it's quite visible. When you swing through you are swinging through with your arms and shoulders and your lower body is following your upper body. A proper golf swing is almost exactly the opposite.

Try and think of the swing as something that happens from your hips, torso, chest, and shoulders.

The backswing should start with the big muscle in your left shoulder. Move your left shoulder across your chest for the first movement and when you can't move that shoulder anymore you start rotating your chest. The backswing is complete when your back is facing the target. Do not swing your arms, infact, try and squeeze your arms to your chest (if you lift weights, like when you're doing dumbell flys). Your hands should and arms should always be directly in front of your chest.

This is a good example.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cajtJHmEw3A

Don't try and swing with your arms, the shoulders lead the swing with your chest and then your hips will turn. Also, as you are moving through the backswing, the weight should be able 60-70% of your weight on your right foot.

Now the important part:

Once you've got a good backswing the downswing and impact are the most important part of the golf swing. Infact there are plenty of pro tours who have an unorthodox, or frankly bad backswing, but their downswing and impact position are perfect.

Once you're at the top of your backswing, your swing should start from your LEFT foot, knee, and most importantly your HIPS. Smoothly bring the weight to your left foot and as you do so, twist and rotate your hips. You should feel like someone is pulling on the belt loop at your left hip, and they are pulling it backwards as if they are trying to turn you around. (hope that makes sense). It is this twist that creates the proper downswing and speed for a good swing.

Watch this swing of Rory Mcillroy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qir6STNfJec

Really pay attention to his hips. Notice at the top of his backswing how he loads his legs (like a mini squat) and his HIPS really start that swing. It will look like he's swinging his arms but I promise you, he isn't putting any energy into them at all. His hands and arms are just along for the ride. His arms are just following his body, as his legs squat and his hips start to turn, so does his torso, followed by his chest and arms and hands and the club.

If you pause the video at impact, (during the slow motion part) You will see his belt buckle looks like it is almost pointed at the target, and it's probably about 40 degrees from center but all pros are well through the turn at impact. If you can start to understand that 99% of the golf swing is done by the lower body, the feet, the quad muscles, and the hips, you will be well on your way my friend. It all starts with the lower body, the stronger your legs, the more powerful your swing will be.

I know that this is a TON of information to take in all at once, but as you learn more and read more you will incorporate more of this into your own swing. And you will do it YOUR way, not Rorys, not mine, but yours. Everyone has a unique swing, but there are certain fundamentals that every good golfer has, and that's the hip turn, and the point of impact.

If you're interested in learning more from the pros, these are the 2 books you need to get. And they will explain it far better than I can. Glad you've found golf, it's a lifetime's worth of never ending learning and fun.

The Impact Zone

Five Fundamentals

Buy this book and read it five times while adjusting your swing. Then read it every spring.


r/https://www.amazon.com/Ben-Hogans-Five-Lessons-Fundamentals/dp/0671612972/

I learned to golf when in my early twenties, and I think Ben Hogan's book is fantastic: http://www.amazon.com/Five-Lessons-Modern-Fundamentals-Golf/dp/0671612972

I found that book was really helpful.

Read this book. It’s quick, to the point, and better advice than any of us can provide.

Ben Hogan's Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0671612972/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_MYORCbT80DQQG

I am in the process of getting my wife to learn how to play golf so we can start going out together. We are starting with this book

http://www.amazon.com/Five-Lessons-Modern-Fundamentals-Golf/dp/0671612972/ref=la_B000APRZ1W_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1369609342&sr=1-1

its amazing on how simple and easy it is to read and follow and how solid the information is in the book. And then follow that up with a bunch of easy par 3 courses. So you can then go over the etiquette and the subtle unwritten rules of the course. And also it shows her that a lot of other people suck at golf also and its just fun to go out and smash some balls

If i were to suggest you getting new clubs they are going to have to be beginner ones like Taylor Made Burners. Those clubs are forgiving and are for people who are fairly new to the game. The ones your teammates sounds like they are talking about are blade type clubs or just other clubs in general for people who shoot decent scores. Having said that if you already have clubs i would stick with them until you can shoot a lower score. I would suggest going to the range a few times a week and playing at least one round per week. A lot of people will set a goal on this sub reddit of shooting a certain score and then they will buy themselves irons. Shooting 110-120 isnt obviously the best but honestly the average golfer shoots around 110. I woul say maybe if you can get down to breaking 100 or around there i would see why you couldnt look for some new clubs, HEck you can buy used ones for pretty cheap as well. MY current training schedule has me on the range 2-3 days a week and playing a round on sat and sometimes second on Sunday(depending how my sat night goes). As far as a book... ive heard this one is pretty good from a few people. THE MODERN FUNDAMENTALS OF GOLF

https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0671612972

LIIIIIINK!?!?!?

Nah, just playing. Here it is for those interested in purchasing it used.

Agreed. It's been awhile since I've read it, but I believe this is one of the lessons in Ben Hogan's Five Lessons.

I use it every shot.

Also, read this book. It's been more valuable to me than anything anyone ever tried to teach me.

Discrete mathematics with ducks!

Contemporary Abstract Algebra

An Illustrated Theory of Numbers

Visual Complex Analysis

Number-Crunching

The Magic of Math: Solving for x and Figuring Out Why
The Princeton Companion to Mathematics
The Number Devil: A Mathematical Adventure

Professor Stewart's Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid

One Two Three . . . Infinity: Facts and Speculations of Science

Recently made a move and these are a few books on my shelf that stand out more.

There are so many beautiful mathematical images that could be chosen though and I do wish more publishers would have more creative book covers also.

Rather than give descriptions of each of the fields you named, I'll just mention that you might want to peruse The Princeton Companion to Mathematics.

I think there could do some really cool analysis tracing lines of thought and how they developed or comparing what was in vogue in math to world developments at the time. This book might be a good overview for modern developments and this one has a overview of the development of math through history

I myself received a classical (danish) gymnasium education in the liberal arts; 3 germanic languages and a romanic language, latin, philosophy, history, theology, mathematics, physics - almost the whole works, but I never seemed to pick up on too much of the math. It seemed otherworldly and irrelevant to me at the time.

I've 'rediscovered' the beauty of math partly through my interest in history (we where never presented with the historical context of mathematical inventions - or their technical implications) and through a personal curiosity that was never satisfied in the rigid classes.

I found the following book useful to my personal studies: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Princeton-Companion-Mathematics-Timothy-Gowers/dp/0691118809/

Have you considered buying him a book on mathematics? I know they can be expensive but there are some interesting ones out there.

For example, the bible of the mathematics.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Princeton-Companion-Mathematics-Timothy-Gowers/dp/0691118809

Expensive, but worth it.

Best thing you can do is read your little heart out. Find a copy (electronic or library) of something like the Princeton Companion and browse it over the course of a few weeks/months and pick out a few fields that particularly interest you. Then hit up How To Become A Pure Mathematician and start on your reading.

Eventually - and by this I mean "in a year or two" - you want to be able to email the prof in your dept who shares your interest and say "Hey, I've read the foundational texts on xyz, what would you recommend next?" and from there develop a relationship that'll hopefully lead to some undergrad "research" and a glowing letter of recommendation in your final year.

The other, equally important thing is to be a likable, sociable person. Unless you're some kind of wunderkind, collaboration is the name of the game and it gives you a huge advantage over the smelly nerd that no-one really wants around.

e: also lol undergrad pure maths research hahahahaha. if you can read a contemporary research paper in most pure maths subfields by senior year, you're ahead of the game.

this book ? http://www.amazon.com/dp/0691118809/ref=asc_df_06911188091498544?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=asn&creative=395093&creativeASIN=0691118809

I suggest The Princeton companion to Mathematics (wiki).

I've got this book in pdf format called "The Princeton Companion to Mathematics". It's got a very nice overview of all of Mathematics in it. It's extremely brief but very broad. I don't think you'll learn much mathematics but it gives you an idea of what everything's about.

I didn't get the PDF by "traditional" means and I'm sure you could acquire it the same way.

Yeah. Part of me feels like I've just been lucky in finding easy problems that the "real" scientists in my field hadn't bothered to try yet.

I still don't really understand linear algebra or vector calculus, for instance. I have Linear Algebra Done Right, Div, Grad, Curl, and all that, and the Princeton Companion to Mathematics on my wish list, which may help.

Princeton companion to mathematics https://www.amazon.com/Princeton-Companion-Mathematics-Timothy-Gowers/dp/0691118809?

Of course. More just generalizable/widely applicable fundamentals.

Example: https://www.amazon.com/Princeton-Companion-Mathematics-Timothy-Gowers/dp/0691118809

I used it for college calc and linear algebra, but if you are looking for past that then no, they probably don't have much.

One book I'm unwilling to part with is the princeton companion to mathematics. It's an incredible book with an entry by well known mathematicians in their field, writing on every major field of math, in a way that is accessible to people with a college level math background. It would be a really good starting point to find some sub-topics you were interested in.

Something to find from the public library maybe?

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0691118809/

Maybe you are thinking of The Princeton Companion to Mathematics?. I believe he wrote and reviewed a number of sections to it.

The Princeton Companion to Mathematics contains exactly what you're asking for, but restricted to the world of math. It has hundreds of short articles on many of the most important pure and applied math topics, and they're written by top experts in a way that's accessible to someone with a little bit of college math knowledge.

We're going in circles now.

God has the means and the will to reach out to the world, yet he doesn't. I have on my own reached out to -him- and even then he -still- doesn't show himself.

This isn't the stuff of reality. The world does not look like how the Bible describes it. The only reasonable thing to conclude is that maybe the Christian god isn't real, just like the rest of the 2 500+ gods humanity has believed in.

> He does not want to force you to believe.

Apparently he does not want me to have a shred of evidence of his existence. That's the real problem. Adam and Eve had direct evidence, so did Lucifer. They weren't forced to believe because they all went against God, but they at least had direct evidence of his existence. We don't have any of that, even though God -can- give us that.

There's over 2500 just in this book.

I'd add that over many years of hiking and adventure racing, including in remote parts of Australia and New Zealand, the only injury that has ever stopped someone hiking/ running has been blisters in my experience. (apart from one scary case of over hydration in our party) Hence I've spent a lot of time trying different solutions. I also have tried these special patches which you can attach to the inside of your shoes in hot spots which reduce friction (can't recall name) which worked well. This book is also good.https://www.amazon.com/Fixing-Your-Feet-Prevention-Treatments/dp/0899976387. Worth reading before you go.

A lot of good advice here.

In summary:

Friction is the primary cause of blisters. Whether it's from too big/small shoes, sliding and rubbing are he primary cause. Do whatever you need to do to prevent / minimize the cause of the friction.

Wet feet, excessively dirty feet, improper shoe size are the main problems.

Tougher feet = endure more friction

But reducing friction is key as well.

Here are any number of methods to reduce friction. Here are a few:

• well-fitting shoes - not too big, not too small, just right
  
• Tie your shoes properly ever see that extra hole at the top of your shoes? This is what's for.
  
• keep your feet dry, they rub differently/more when wet
  
• can't keep your feet dry, try putting Vaseline or a similar lubricant (body glide) where you're getting blisters (Vaseline works wonders for me - no lie, not messy, easy to apply and has multiple uses).
  
  Also, trying giving the book Fix Your Feet a read. Good advice galore in there.

If you want more footcare knowledge than you even knew existed in the world, check out the book Fixing Your Feet. It's the resource for fixing foot problems. There is way more knowledge in that book than you can put to use intially...but, as you read it, bits and pieces will click(i.e. 'so, that's how I could have prevented losing my toenails!). you'll also be glad to have it as a resource when you run into new problems in the future

I've seen a lot of people swear by: https://www.amazon.com/Fixing-Your-Feet-Prevention-Treatments/dp/0899976387 but that is more for general care (and prevention). I just picked this book up and so far seems pretty good.

My advice is do not buy shoes that you've never tried on. The same pair of shoes fit different on everyone and the right fit depends on a variety of factors; gait, pronation, width, arch, etc. Go to a running store that has professionals who can help you determine this. It's common for them to stick you on a treadmill and video tape you to tell you exactly what food type you have. If you have the time pick up a copy of Fixing Your Feet. This book is written for long distance hikers, regular hikers, runners, etc. There is a ton of great advice from shoe fit, sock choices and benefits, foot type, blister treatment and prevention, and so on. I was on the hunt for a couple of years for a good pair of hiking shoes and bought several pairs off of online reviews and what was popular (La Sportiva Ultra Raptors, Saucony Peregrines, North Face Hedgehogs, and so on) before finally biting the bullet and taking the time to do what I outlined above. I've finally found a good shoe for me (Keen Versatrails) and I have no doubt that my feet would be a mess and my hike in jeopardy if not for taking a bit of time out of my week.

You're welcome. It's more expensive and I only tried it because there was some in the house from my GF in her triathlon gear. But it worked well, especially on the heel, as it adds a layer of protection that is thinner than most tapes. The benzoin came into play as my feet sweat buckets.

final tip: I hear good things about this book for feet, but haven't bought it yet myself to see.

I suggest The Elements of Style by Strunk and White. It will help with grammatical ambiguities such as this.

Generally with a noun phrase you can't just pick and choose which adjective phrases attached to it will carry over when referred to with a pronoun later.

How am I supposed to know if you mean, Federal Minimum Wage, Minimum Wage, or just Wage? I can't possibly read your mind. Yes, sometimes context can give one clues and perhaps I was being a bit flippant. However, one should still adhere to pragmatic phrasing and careful avoidance of ambiguity in sentence structure. When you assume, you make an ass of both of us.

This may sound cliche, but I personally found The Elements of Style by Strunk & White to be the most concise and informative reference on writing effectively. It's a tiny book that packs a punch. It's a short read and you can find it just about anywhere.

Quite a while ago, I also read a book on writing by Stephen King. IIRC that focused more on storytelling and how he personally writes fiction, but the way he explained his writing process is interesting. Oh, and he hates adverbs, which is something I've adopted myself over time. He argued that for just about any verb modified by an adverb, there's a much better verb that could be used entirely. (For ex, "dashed" instead of "ran swiftly" or whatever.) Fun times.

Pardon? Here before you do anything else, genius, read this first:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Elements-Style-William-Strunk/dp/1557427283

These stats are from Dean Oliver's 2004 book (and earlier, on his website):

https://www.amazon.com/Basketball-Paper-Rules-Performance-Analysis/dp/1574886886

OK so my first really interesting read has been Mathletics by Wayne Winston and Basketball on Paper by Dean Oliver.


What I have learnt so far is that it really comes down to knowing your statistics, knowing how to apply them and building a spreadsheet from there, identifying patterns along the way.

Not Kings-specific, but if you're just getting into the sport, Greg Wyshynski's book Take Your Eye Off the Puck is a great place to start.

https://www.amazon.com/Take-Your-Eye-Off-Puck/dp/1629371203

I grew up in Tennessee (family in Hunstville and Selma, though!) and moved here about ten years ago. I got dragged to a Sabres game and they beat the Leafs 8-1, it was fucking great and I was hooked on hockey. What has helped me is watching a ton of games and seeing who is playing with who, who was on the "top" line versus the fourth, etc. The most confusing thing to me was understanding line changes and trying to see that since you miss the transition on tv sometimes. /r/nhl is a pretty great sub. I keep meaning to buy this: https://smile.amazon.com/Take-Your-Eye-Off-Puck/dp/1629371203/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1466940939&sr=1-1&keywords=wyshinski too, since even a decade in I sometimes feel lost.

Picking a team, I would just watch games and see who you like. Maybe pick up one of the NHL video games and do the same. I know it's not the best advice but nobody else can really tell you who to root for. I agree to pick a team in your time zone so you can watch the games. A good book is Take your Eye off the Puck, although it might be better once you know the basics already

I read this book and he did an AMA in /r/hockey not too long ago. I cant remember the exact percentage that a dump and chase ends up into a goal, but its bad.

Missing two big ones imo:

• Breaking Away - Patrick O'Sullivan
  
  
• Take Your Eye Off the Puck - Greg Wyshynski

Not a film, but this is a great place to start.

https://www.amazon.com/Take-Your-Eye-Off-Ball/dp/1629371696/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1473064556&sr=8-1&keywords=take+your+eye+off+the+ball+2.0

I'm making plenty of changes to how I'm living my life; some small, some larger. One thing is I've wanted to get back into reading; I'm slowly working through it, but I have so much I want to go through. Should I stick to one book at a time, or can I juggle back and forth between multiple?

For those who are curious, this is what I'm working on right now, and I'm about 1/5 of my way through the first read (because I know I'll come back to reference it all the time).

https://www.amazon.ca/Take-Your-Eye-Off-Ball/dp/1629371696/ref=pd_sim_14_1?ie=UTF8&dpID=51pLTOLGs1L&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR107%2C160_&refRID=1YNHY8PQNQGHFT5KBJKH
This is a pretty good book, doesn't go over the head of people who don't know about football and still teaches those who do without seeming dumbed down.

Take Your Eye Off the Ball

By reading books like this...

I'd start buying this book

Guessing plays is only possible by a limited basis, cause thats what football is all about.
If you wanna guess you must

a) know formations
b) know tendencies teams use in regards to personnel on the field, down & distance and also vs the clock
c) know strengths & weaknesses of the opponent, also in conjunction with b)

football is all about matchups, who blocks whom and who can win his matchup against whom
where are weak areas of the defense, can the offense read them and can they attack them

so it all starts with personnel on the field and what formation it is
the linked book helped me tremendously understanding these basics and how to read them on the fly (as good as it gets)

My apologies that is the link to the old version, here is the more updated one.


Book!

Has anyone read any football strategy books? I'm interested in this one but I want to know if it's even interesting

Book is $20 -https://www.amazon.com/Practice-Problems-Manhattan-Strategy-Guides/dp/1941234518/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=5S7QAMC3V8PN93YTY630

First test is free. For all 6 costs $40. Good luck!
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gre/store/online-resources/gre-practice-tests/

5lb book link

I loved these two books for practicing (especially Magoosh!! I bought them on Amazon, but look around--you may find a better price), but I'll admit I really focused on the math part since that's what I needed the most practice on. The Magoosh book really breaks down the math section into the different concepts you need to know, a lot of which I hadn't talked about in school for a long time, haha. I also recommend taking practice tests in the same setup/format as you're going to take the real test.

I was on mobile before and couldn't answer as thoroughly as I'd have liked.

Basically, I take the approach that my kid hasn't read the books and doesn't know how they're "supposed" to act regarding sleep or potty training or anything else. So I read as many books on as many subjects as I can, figuring that there will be something useful from every expert. So for example I read all the big sleep books out there, from Ferber to Pantley to Sears, and I picked and chose what worked for me. I read about attachment parenting AND Babywise. I read Baby-Led Weaning and Super Baby Food. And it's ALL come in handy - my oldest hasn't fit a single mold perfectly, but having all those tools in my toolkit helped me help her (and myself).

For baby development, one of my favorites is [Baby Meets World] (http://www.amazon.com/Baby-Meets-World-Journey-Through/dp/0312591349) because it talks about what happens in the baby's first year but also gives a really good historical overview of different practices like feeding (from wet nursing to pabulum to the current breast/bottle debate), which helps me stop freaking out about the latest trends - basically, it gave me perspective. Touchpoints is another great development book, and The Language Instinct is a fascinating read on how language and cognition develop.

For blogs, I like Ask Moxie's archives.

• "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared Diamond
  
• "The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals" by Michael Pollan
  
• "The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language" by Steven Pinker
  
  Isaac Asimov wrote quite a few books on physics, some more textbook-y than others.

Cognitive scientist and linguist Steven Pinker actually argues for "I could care less" in his book The Language Instinct and in this related article. His argument is that "I could care less" is sarcastic: You're essentially saying "Well yeah, sure, I guess I could care less, but I really don't care much".

If you want to just know buzzwords to throw around, spend a bunch of time clicking around on Wikipedia, and watch stuff like Crash Course on YouTube. It's easy to absorb, and you'll learn stuff, even if it's biased, but at least you'll be learning.

If you want to become SMARTER, one of my biggest pieces of advice is to either carry a notebook with you, or find a good note taking app you like on your phone. When someone makes a statement you don't understand, write it down and parse it up.

So for instance, write down "Social Democracy", and write down "The New Deal", and go look them up on simple.wikipedia.com (Put's all of it in simplest language possible), it's a great starting point for learning about any topic, and provides you a jumping board to look more deeply into it.

If you are really curious about starting an education, and you absolutely aren't a reader, some good books to start on are probably:

"Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words" by Randall Munroe

"A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson

"Philosophy 101" by Paul Kleinman, in fact the ____ 101 books are all pretty good "starter" books for people that want an overview of a topic they are unfamiliar with.

"The World's Religions" by Huston Smith

"An Incomplete Education" by Judy Jones and Will Wilson

Those are all good jumping off points, but great books that I think everyone should read... "A History of Western Philosophy" by Bertrand Russell, "Western Canon" by Harold Bloom, "Education For Freedom" by Robert Hutchins, The Norton Anthology of English Literature; The Major Authors, The Bible.

Read anything you find critically, don't just swallow what someone else says, read into it and find out what their sources were, otherwise you'll find yourself quoting from Howard Zinn verbatim and thinking you're clever and original when you're just an asshole.

i know a professor and she did give this multiple book series for history a pass, the author is not an orientalist as well, the Venture of Islam:

https://www.amazon.com/Venture-Islam-Classical-Age/dp/0226346838/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1523804477&sr=8-1&keywords=the+venture+of+islam&dpID=51KRFoNyv9L&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

Quran.com you can read, also see the text and listen as well.

Oh, a friend also used this when researching religions:


https://www.amazon.com/Worlds-Religions-Plus-Huston-Smith/dp/0061660183/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1523804928&sr=8-1&keywords=huston+smith+world%27s+religions

In case anyone is wondering this is from Huston Smith's "The World's Religions" in the section about Religious Taoism

My "Philosophy of Asian Thought" class used this. The professor might've just been a fan of Smith, but it's a good book for your collection, regardless.

Huston Smith. He was the biggest influence in my walk back to faith. He was so passionate about teaching the world about religion; it was truly inspiring. His book, The World's Religions, is a wonderful primer for anyone looking to expand their knowledge of their own faith and the faiths of the world.

Logged comment posted by /u/Genesisbook1 at 01/31/15 03:51:22:

> I believe in god not that kike Jesus was a savior

... in response to comment posted by /u/US_Hiker at 01/31/15 03:04:15:

> > Still love god though
>
> Jesus is God is a Jew. Still love God?

____

Removed comment posted by /u/Genesisbook1 at 01/31/15 06:35:37:

> I don't know. I'm still going to go you church because I love church even though I don't fit in or talk to anybody but I don't know. I have to talk to god tonight. Appreciate it brother

... in response to comment posted by /u/US_Hiker at 01/31/15 04:54:23:

> >What do you mean by fringe beliefs?
>
> Well, anti-semitism isn't that rare, but it's not mainstream. It's less common yet to talk to somebody who unapologetically identifies with it, much less is willing to leave a religion for it.
>
> I suggest you get this book: http://www.amazon.com/Worlds-Religions-Plus-Huston-Smith/dp/0061660183
>
> A local library should have it if you can't afford it. It's a good, scholarly but sympathetic look at the major religions in the world.
>
> Many religions may give you solace for this personal hell of yours, but do remember that each demands much of you, often quite similar things.
>
> I'm off to bed for the night. I'd welcome any more details you're willing to share, by PM or otherwise. Cheers.

There's a pretty great book called "World Religions" by Houston Smith (not an affiliate link) that goes over all of the major faiths with a great deal of fairness. His empahsis is on foundational beliefs and not on 'church institutions'. I found it to be one of the most well-written books on the subject, ever.

I'm 34 and finally diving into my spirituality after mom passed away. My parents were conservative Christian and did not like me owning tarot cards...or even Magic the Gathering Cards! I moved out in my early 20's but always felt guilty finding my own faith. [Drawing Down the Moon](Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America https://www.amazon.com/dp/0143038192/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_Gn4QybJK9C7TV) helped me figure out who I am. The Kindle version is updated with social information. I now live in a fairly large city with Wiccans, Druids and eclectic witches so I'm lucky to have that resource. Meetup.com helped me find friends who mentored. Try several ideas out! It is overwhelming because there are lots of information out there. Figuring out if you want to practice solitary or with a group is a good question to start with. I'm in between, I like to practice alone but discuss ideas with friends.

This is a really difficult question to answer, but it's still a totally fair question.

As others have said, paganism is an umbrella term for several specific traditions, and there are many different lenses through which to view and practice paganism. Some pagans are drawn to their religion out of concern for the environment, others want to connect with specific Gods, while others are seeking to honor their ancestors, and still others want to develop a variety of magical skills. Without knowing your specific interests it's hard to make any really specific recommendations. However, regardless of your interests I can pretty confidently recommend Drawing Down the Moon by Margot Adler and Seeking the Mystery. Both books give broad overviews of the history and world view of paganism writ large.

Thing is though, Paganism is about more than just reading books. I'd also recommend that you start trying out some simple rituals and meditations (Google is your friend here). You can make yourself a very simple alter with stuff you've probably got lying around the house. Finally, if you find that this is something that you want to continue to pursue, I'd strongly recommend trying to find some like-minded people in your area. Search meetup.com, or if there is a metaphysical shop in your area just go there and start asking around. There are pagan communities absolutely everywhere, and it's worth getting to know the pagans around you.

https://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Down-Moon-Witches-Goddess-Worshippers/dp/0143038192 its a little old but still good

You won't regret it =)

Here's the Amazon link; I'll let the reviews speak for themselves.

> How did you come from

Simple. I'm interested in the structure of myth, the structure of what Jung called the unconscious archetypes, and why the brain creates them, perhaps as some consequence of the human realization that we are destined to die. The dread of non-existence.

Most "pagan" religions in practice were deliberately invented in the 1960s. So to me they're not very interesting in that regard. The Wicca I've knowns are interested in is what color candle one should use to cast a love spell, and pretending that the Christians killed off the so-called Mother Goddess Witch Cult in the Middle Ages, rather than realizing Margaret Murray was just dead wrong about her theories.

> Have you been involved in nepoaganism? Do you know the research that goes into the recontruction of each branch? The books they base their research on?

You can't reconstruct what never existed in the first place. Wicca, the most popular form of modern paganism, is a sham. As is anything with "druid" in the name.

There are very few sources of authentic non-Christian religious practices from medieval Europe, never mind earlier. Most of the Norse sagas are all filtered through Christian tradition. The Slav religion is mostly lost to history except for a handful of names. Everything that survives is corrupted by Christianity.

With other gods? Well you cannot worship Aztec gods unless you perform blood letting and human sacrifice. Huitzilopochtli demands it to make the sun move. If you're not doing that, you're not "authentic".

If you argue that the gods can "update" what they want and no longer require scarification, bloodletting or ripping out the heart of a willing sacrifice, then any historical "reconstruction" is pointless to begin with -- because the gods may want something new or have changed over the centuries. So why bother? It's also a very convenient excuse to get rid of the parts you don't like (human sacrifice, which incidentally the Norse also are known to have practiced) and stick in parts you do. Of course, Christians have been doing this same thing for centuries.

> I mean, had you been a profane I would've brushed it aside, but you studied these things, you have no excuse.

Lol, a "profane"? Sounds good. One of my favorite scholars in this regard.

> You studied the documents upon which Hellenists and Asatruars base their knowledge.
And somehow, somehow you managed to dismiss them altogether.

Somehow? More like exactly because. I can actually read ancient Greek, and I know enough Old English to pretend I can read Old Norse :D

I contend it's actually impossible for anyone in the West to believe in these gods in the way they were historically worshiped, simply because we no longer live in a world where the dichotomy between the sacred and the profane was distinct. We humans of the 21st century cannot ignore our knowledge of the universe.

That is why these are merely "toy" religions. People light candles and say "norse prayers" and ask to get a job promotion, an easier pregnancy, do well on an exam.

For people practicing these religions in the Iron Age and later, their worship was a matter of absolute survival against the supernatural. For them, human sacrifice and other such barbarities was a necessity.


> Mind if I ask you exactly what you studied in occultism and Greek religion? You sound like someone who hasn't studied it.

Well, just looking at that bookshelf I count about 40 scholarly books on what I deem "mythology". So take that as you will. Most of what i know about Greek religion is about Gnosticism and Neoplatonism, which are of course later developments of the Eleusian mysteries, etc., and intercalated with earlier Christianity.

> It's not like Occultism is one singular path. Hermeticism, LaVeyanism, the Greek mysteries....get particular. What did you study?

Anton LeVey was an atheist and Hedonist. He uses Satan as a symbol in one part to represent hedonism, and in a second part to annoy the fuck out of Christians.

Otherwise I'm not sure what you're asking. I'm interested in the history and the myth, not in digging a pit in my back yard to do the taurobolium. Anton LeVey's Necronomicon is gibberish. I should know, because I've seen the real thing.

I highly recommend The Sacred and The Profane and The Myth of the Eternal Return.

http://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Profane-Nature-Religion/dp/015679201X/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Is this the right book?
EDIT: Formatting

Depends on how much work you're willing to put into it, and what your current skill level is.

Read more. Write more.

Listen to the way people speak, the rhythm of language, in various situations.

Learn the hard-and-fast rules of grammar. Despite what anyone tells you, it's not subjective. People can tell whether you're flaunting convention or just unaware of it.

There are many ways to do this. You can actually order grammar textbooks and workbooks.

You can invest in commonly accepted resource books such as The Elements of Style and The Chicago Manual of Style.

And you could always take a class.

You could also choose to begin with some online resources such as https://www.grammarly.com/ or http://www.grammarbook.com/.

There's a pretty good list of other resources here.

I know a man who improved his grammar solely by typing into various word processors, looking at the errors they highlighted, and studying them. Not just that they were wrong, but researching why they were wrong.

But above all else, read and write. Take editorial criticism. Then read and write some more. ;)

I recommend the Chicago Manual of Style.

https://www.amazon.com/Chicago-Manual-Style-16th/dp/0226104206/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=Chicago+english&qid=1557929956&s=gateway&sr=8-3

Chicago Manual of Style

Heh, it's a hell of a lot easier to write walls of text. Anyone can take a dozen sentences to say something, but taking one to say the same thing it's trickier. Most aren't willing to put in the effort. And some people are just naturally verbose....butI'm sure my education didn't hurt my ability to write. I got a degree in philosophy which was basically "Write a hundred papers about a subject you don't really understand in such a way you can convince someone you do". As a writing exercise, it's pretty useful. If I learned anything from my years in college, it's how to argue, which comes down to writing cogently. Well, it also gave me the tools to win arguments the wrong way, with sophistry. Which I kind of delight in doing. It's like being given powers and using them for evil...

I always intended to write, but then my chronic illness came along and with it went my ability to concentrate well and most of my motivation (case in point, I just had to look up "motivation" because I couldn't remember the word). As far as writing goes, I say work from the ground up. Get something like this or this. Just my personal opinion, but I believe it's all about a good foundation. But you know what works best for you. The only other advice I'd give is just keep doing it. Like anything else, the best way to get good is practice. Even if the piece it isn't up to your standards it's a step.

God, fucking star signs. People are willing to believe the STUPIDEST shit. So everyone born in the same hospital as me at the same time should have identical lives and personalities? Yeah, evidence REALLY bears that out...garbage.

I'm a firm believer in the jack of all trades as a lifestyle choice. I find too many different things interesting to pick one and ignore the rest. I mean, almost all of the things I'm interested in would fall under "Academia", but so many different fields are fascinating. I don't think it's a character flaw, but then again, I wouldn't, since I'm right there with you. It's not indecisive if you find many things interesting yet none interesting enough to choose. You've chose the many over the one, a completely valid choice.

Ah, yeah, my parents were pretty lax too. Very few hard and fast rules. Probably kept me hanging around longer, but I also just really like both of my parents.

I've read a bit about mormonism, and how "The Temple" is super reserved for the elites. I've also driven past the one in DC with the overpass preceding it saying "Surrender Dorothy" because it looks like fricking Oz. I'd heard about people getting married in the temple but a lot of their family couldn't attend because they didn't count as "Mormons in good standing." Crazy. Not very "community" oriented at that point. I also remember seeing this youtube video of a guy who got pretty far up in the hierarchy before losing faith and he showed a bunch of the weird behind the scenes stuff. There's this whole ceremony with a LITERAL "secret handshake" and everyone is robed and your blindfolded. SO masonic. Interesting stuff.

I think "Humanist" sounds kinda....hippy dippy. It certainly doesn't imply "spiritual" in anyway. And certainly not compared to "Deist" which clearly posits a god from the word go. The lines between ALL spirituality branches are pretty blurry. I mean, on the whole, the big three religions are worshiping the same guy, the arguments merely boil down to how. And every religion basically says "There's a god and he wants you to be good" with the rest being window dressing.

Entrepreneur Reading List

1. Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble
   
2. The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win
   
3. The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It
   
4. The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything
   
5. The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products that Win
   
6. Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers into Friends and Friends into Customers
   
7. Ikigai
   
8. Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition
   
9. Bootstrap: Lessons Learned Building a Successful Company from Scratch
   
10. The Marketing Gurus: Lessons from the Best Marketing Books of All Time
    
11. Content Rich: Writing Your Way to Wealth on the Web
    
12. The Web Startup Success Guide
    
13. The Best of Guerrilla Marketing: Guerrilla Marketing Remix
    
14. From Program to Product: Turning Your Code into a Saleable Product
    
15. This Little Program Went to Market: Create, Deploy, Distribute, Market, and Sell Software and More on the Internet at Little or No Cost to You
    
16. The Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Giving and Getting Advice Successfully
    
17. The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth
    
18. Startups Open Sourced: Stories to Inspire and Educate
    
19. In Search of Stupidity: Over Twenty Years of High Tech Marketing Disasters
    
20. Do More Faster: TechStars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup
    
21. Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business
    
22. Maximum Achievement: Strategies and Skills That Will Unlock Your Hidden Powers to Succeed
    
23. Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days
    
24. Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant
    
25. Eric Sink on the Business of Software
    
26. Words that Sell: More than 6000 Entries to Help You Promote Your Products, Services, and Ideas
    
27. Anything You Want
    
28. Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers
    
29. The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business
    
30. Tao Te Ching
    
31. Philip & Alex's Guide to Web Publishing
    
32. The Tao of Programming
    
33. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values
    
34. The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity
    
    

    Computer Science Grad School Reading List
    

    
    

35. All the Mathematics You Missed: But Need to Know for Graduate School
    
36. Introductory Linear Algebra: An Applied First Course
    
37. Introduction to Probability
    
38. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
    
39. Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society
    
40. Proofs and Refutations: The Logic of Mathematical Discovery
    
41. What Is This Thing Called Science?
    
42. The Art of Computer Programming
    
43. The Little Schemer
    
44. The Seasoned Schemer
    
45. Data Structures Using C and C++
    
46. Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs
    
47. Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
    
48. Concepts, Techniques, and Models of Computer Programming
    
49. How to Design Programs: An Introduction to Programming and Computing
    
50. A Science of Operations: Machines, Logic and the Invention of Programming
    
51. Algorithms on Strings, Trees, and Sequences: Computer Science and Computational Biology
    
52. The Computational Beauty of Nature: Computer Explorations of Fractals, Chaos, Complex Systems, and Adaptation
    
53. The Annotated Turing: A Guided Tour Through Alan Turing's Historic Paper on Computability and the Turing Machine
    
54. Computability: An Introduction to Recursive Function Theory
    
55. How To Solve It: A New Aspect of Mathematical Method
    
56. Types and Programming Languages
    
57. Computer Algebra and Symbolic Computation: Elementary Algorithms
    
58. Computer Algebra and Symbolic Computation: Mathematical Methods
    
59. Commonsense Reasoning
    
60. Using Language
    
61. Computer Vision
    
62. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
    
63. Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
    
    

    Video Game Development Reading List
    

    
    

64. Game Programming Gems - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
    
65. AI Game Programming Wisdom - 1 2 3 4
    
66. Making Games with Python and Pygame
    
67. Invent Your Own Computer Games With Python
    
68. Bit by Bit

The most influential philosophy book I ever read was "The Structure of Scientific Revoloutions" by Thomas Kuhn.

This single book affected my worldview more than any other book or course. It deals specifically with the nature and process of scientific revolution, but reaches much further than the title claims. I highly recommend this book.

Edit: Added author

This really depends upon your interests, but my own "Hey read this" list includes:

Sophie's World for a general and accessible introduction to various philosophical systems.

Ethical Theories: A Book of Readings with Revisions for a survey of ethical works.

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions for some history and philosophy of science.

Consciousness Explained for some philosophy of mind.

A more traditional, analytical, list might include:

Plato's Republic

Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, Metaphysics

Aquinas' Summa Theologica

Descartes' Meditations

Hume's An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

Mill's Utilitarianism

Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Prolegomena to Any
Future Metaphysics

Nietzshe's Beyond Good and Evil, The Birth of Tragedy

Ok, so before I get into everything I have to preface this with some details about me.

I debated for 4 years in college and have been a debate judge ever since, this means I have 7 years of continued debate experience and most of my friends are debaters. The type of debate I did was called British Parliamentary which is perfectly tuned to train you to do well on the writing portion of the GRE. It was all about encountering impromptu topics and being able to make well structured and well sourced arguments while having no physical evidence at your disposal. This taught me to think of very complex and detailed arguments very quickly, I think this is the key to getting a six on the exam.

So, look up BP debate online or on youtube and watch some of the debates and you'll get an understanding on how people like me think about arguments. If you expose yourself to these ideas/habits you'll be fine. I did about 45 minutes of preparation for the test in total not including the 3-4 practice essays I wrote in the practice tests I took leading up to the test.

You can also go to intelligencesquaredus.org and they have a bunch of great debates with experts that also think in the same fashion.

Now to the pointers. First, if you want to learn how to use the Toulmin model to structure your arguments, cut down on fluff and bring your salient points to the table feel free to PM me since it's an entirely different post all by it self.

Before you even get to the test, I would suggest you familiarize yourself with some science philosophy because questions about scientific institutions or fields of inquiry or business come up all of the time and the lessons taught in these books teach you content you can use in the argumentative section, and things to look out for in the assumption/logic section. I based the bulk of my argument section on "The Structure of Scientific revolutions, by Thomas Kuhn. I would also highly suggest checking out [The Logic of Scientific Discovery, by Karl Popper] (https://www.amazon.com/Logic-Scientific-Discovery-Routledge-Classics/dp/0415278449/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1474048437&sr=1-3&keywords=karl+popper). Both of these texts not only give you a great picture of how science functions, they also give you substantial insight into the reasoning behind science and other ventures. This is crucial to pull from in the logic/assumption section.

Before we go on, I'll give you the essay topic that I recently encountered, I'll refer back to it throughout the post: "In regards to fields of inquiry, younger professionals are more likely to make massive contributions to their fields than older professionals".

Before I start actually writing the essay, I take scratch paper and outline my argument. I give myself about 7-8 minutes for this (we used to get 15 minutes to make a 7 minute argument in BP, which includes getting to your room, you can practice this ability by looking up BP topics. If you can't find some, PM me and I'll send you some). I don't put together all of my arguments in full form, I just write "tag lines" pertaining to the gist of my argument. For example, in my essay I would write:

I: Kuhn, structure of sci revs: Paradigm. How young=better

A. What is paradigm

1. same data seen differently=different qualitative result/sci impact
   
   B. Young scientists unique to push paradigm
   
   
2. Based on livelihood of seeing things different
   
   a. Older scientists base livelihood on old assumption/paradigm
   
   This is more words than you need. You're not going to refer back to this word for word, instead it's a mental exercise to keep you organized. You came up with the ideas, so you're not going to forget why you put something in the linear order if it is linearized. I wouldn't forget what I was going to talk about in regards to assumptions/paradigms if I put down old scis base livelihood on old stuff.
   
   This model helps organize your thoughts so you don't have to waste time thinking of what's coming next, you can just throw a narrative down on the page. I think I wrote about 1000 words per essay this way. Most guides say you need to write above 600 words to get above a 5.
   
   When I'm thinking of arguments, I put myself in the shoes of the people I'm being asked to discuss. I think about the obstacles that an old or young professor or business owner confronts when trying to make a massive contribution. I think about what their crisis is, along with what their strengths are. I balance the strengths and weaknesses of the competing parties. I also think about the people in their environments, how are they going to treat the people in question. Will their peers respect them, not respect them, will they engage with them or let the researchers show that they should be paid attention to first. There's a lot to think about with this, but if you put yourself in their shoes, all of these characteristics play themselves out in front of you very quickly. This is why practicing those debate topics are so important, it trains your mind to think quickly about these alternatives.
   
   At the top, I used a phrase to begin that was relevant to the topic at hand. I probably started off saying something along the lines of "the life of a researcher is chaotic, the notion of publish or perish lies in wait, hovering over everything you do". This is preferable to simply restating the prompt. Remember that graders only spend a couple minutes on each essay, and if you seem boiler-plate from the get go, you're going to get a boiler-plate grade.
   
   Like many debaters, I like to do an overview at the top of my essay. Once I get my introduction finished with a hint of where I'm going to go with my arguments, I then make just the claims of my arguments and perhaps the impacts/solvency (check out Toulmin) in the second paragraph. This provides the reader with a clear line of what he/she expects to see in my essay and it makes the arguments seem more clear to them because they know what to expect.
   
   This was something along the lines of: "The arguments present in this paper will consist of analysis of the notion of the paradigm and how it contributes to advancement of the entire pursuit of science. Following this, the ramifications of tenure on a scientists career will be expressed and critiqued. Finally, the idea on how infrastructure access could hamstring younger scientists and thus, allowing for older researchers to take command will be discussed." This takes very little time to write, but it's very helpful for the grader because now they know where to look for, for development of arguments and the power of your reasoning. If you don't do this, it's possible that the grader will overlook some of your points and you may get a worse grade by human error.
   
   The rest of the paper writes itself if you have a solid outline. You just need to make sure that all of your points have a "why" to them. Why is your claim (assumption at the beginning of your argument) correct, you should use reason and substance to make these seem true. Don't leave anything as an assumption.
   
   Furthermore, I think the single most important characteristic in making a great argument is establishing what we call uniqueness. This is establishing why the thing you say is happening is actually CAUSING the thing to happen. You make it clear through your arguments that there are no other justifications for what your saying is true is actually true. I have a couple arguments on this one. First that older scientists have built their livelihood and careers on the assumptions and paradigms that they helped create/maintain, so they have developed a unique myopia to other alternatives that younger scientists haven't yet developed. Furthermore, young scientists are in a unique position to need to see things differently so they can make the contributions that lead to tenure. My entire second argument is about how tenure forces younger scientists to make big contributions and how it makes older scientists lazy because I ground the discussion in terms of publish or perish, up until you get tenure. The emphasis here is on mutual exclusivity, if "this" happens "that" can't happen. If a person doesn't have tenure, they're not safe and they have to publish exciting new things. If a person has developed or instilled a paradigm, they (I would argue) can't find another paradigm because it threatens everything they've worked for so they develop a selective myopia. Now this may not be the objective truth, but it comes across as a solid argument.
   

> Science. Religion has been fighting it for thousands of years.

I'm afraid that to even assume that science and religion existed as distinct concepts or endeavours thousands of years ago is a bit naïve, and this idea that they are eternally opposed is a very simplistic view that reflects the biases of anticlerical 19th Century historians more than the actual facts—it's only really been defended by people with a grudge against religion since a reappraisal of the subject in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s (and especially since the reappraisal by James Moore in The Post-Darwinian Controversies). Here are a few books that could help you develop a richer understanding of the historical relationship between science and religion.

• David C. Lindberg, The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, Prehistory to A.D. 1450 (University of Chicago Press, 2007)
  
• E. A. Burtt, The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science (Routledge, 1931)
  
• Gary B. Ferngren, ed., Science and Religion: A Historical Introduction (John Hopkins University Press, 2002)
  
• Ronald L. Numbers, ed., Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths About Science and Religion (Harvard University Press, 2009)
  
  These would probably be illuminating reading as well.
  
  
• Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (University of Chicago Press, 1962)
  
• Brian Davies, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion (Oxford University Press, 2004)
  
  > Here is just another surrender by a guy at the top of the money chain.
  
  No one interested in the subject should be under the impression that what the Pope has said is anything new. Eminent Catholic theologians like John Henry Newman found Darwin's theory of natural selection consistent with Christianity when it was published, and Pope Pius XII very famously affirmed that there was no intrinsic conflict between them in his 1950 encyclical Humani generis. As for the Big Bang, it is downright foolish to characterise the Church as "surrendering" to a theory that was formulated by a Catholic priest in the first place.

https://www.amazon.com/Code-Language-Computer-Hardware-Software/dp/0735611319

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0226458121

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0226750213

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0201835959

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393306763

https://www.amazon.com/dp/039331152X

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393061329

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn


Wikipedia article

Amazon

If you are going to go around the internet insulting people over something you don't understand, at least read a book on the topic

https://www.amazon.com/Structure-Scientific-Revolutions-50th-Anniversary/dp/0226458121/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1521034395&sr=8-1&keywords=the+structure+of+scientific+revolutions

You may discover that science doesn't actually demand blind devotion to its theories, it doesn't respond to scrutiny of measurements with insults, and trying to shout down people who disagree with your interpretation of a dataset is not only unscientific, it's a sad and pathetic way to waste of time (especially when you clearly don't even understand the measurements themselves, you just think "measurements=science=ultimate unquestionable truth"). Quite the opposite, science is composed of people questioning things that are supposed to be taken for granted, trying to break theories, and trying to falsify ideas so that those theories can pull an Obi-Wan "if you strike me down I will only become more powerful" and we build a better theory out of the ashes of the old one. and if someone disagrees with a widely accepted theory, that can be a good thing because it forces those who do accept that theory to stay on their toes and to keep their shit straight.

My guess is that born in another time and era, you'd be the religious type, eager to force whatever belief was passed onto you down someone else's throat, despite having a tenuous and superficial grasp on its core tenets.

I'm in the same boat as you and have been researching on Amazon. So far I've come up with:

http://www.amazon.com/Princeton-Field-Guide-Dinosaurs-Guides/dp/069113720X

http://www.amazon.com/Dinosaurs-Prehistoric-Animals-Smithsonian-Handbooks/dp/0789493616/

http://www.amazon.com/Dinosaurs-Complete-Up-Date-Encyclopedia/dp/0375824197/

http://www.amazon.com/Dinosaurs-Concise-Natural-David-Fastovsky/dp/052171902X/

I still need to grab that one! The other standard is Dinosaurs

How about this one?

I don't know if there's a newer edition available, 2007 seems awfully old in this field. :D

I have been. I have a hefty book about dinosaurs that I'm trying to read but I haven't been able to get past the first page. It's this book

This book: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375824197?ie=UTF8&tag=laelaps-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0375824197

​

The author, Tom Holtz, is honestly one of the most enthusiastic people in the field and this is a book that can grow with your son.

​

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0142411930?ie=UTF8&tag=laelaps-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0142411930

​

This one is aimed at slightly younger audiences (squarely at the 8 year old demographic, actually) and is full of the sorts of facts and stuff that kids love to trot out when talking to grownups.

​

Another thing I would recommend is, before you go to the museum, try get in touch with the curators or somebody in charge of outreach programs. We're all busy people but most of us are willing to take a moment out of our day to show a kid around behind the scenes, and if there's an active docent program at the museum you can also get a special tour of front of house stuff too.

https://www.amazon.com/Triathlete-Magazines-Essential-Week--Training/dp/0446696765/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1474549019&sr=8-1&keywords=week+by+week+triathlon+training+plan

This book has training plans from sprint level up to full distance. It goes from absolute beginner level to elite. The book can be difficult to understand as there are a lot of abbreviations, but for $15, it should last you indefinitely.

I think I can help you as I'm in a similar situation. I train BJJ on the side of my endurance sports. Before triathlons I used to bike on the side of my BJJ with an occasional run.


Last year I made the jump to triathlons. I signed up and did a sprint with no training beyond what I was already doing. I figured I can do a 5k pretty fast and 10 miles of biking was peanuts compared to what I was doing weekly. The only issue was the swim. I had taken lots of swim lessons as a kid and will swim a mile a year in a pool when I get a chance, so I didn't think anything of it...Big mistake. I got 200 yards into the 600 yard open water swim when I realized there was no pool wall to rest on (duh!). I ended up having a minor panic attack but got through it by doing a combo of front crawl, side, and back stroke. I aced the bike and run for a decent time once out of the water.


Fast forward to this year and my advice to you. I signed up for a half ironman in September. I ordered Matt Fitzgerald’s Essential Week by Week training guide. This book has 42 tri plans inside of it. 10 per distance (sprint, oly, half, full). I am using this book for the half but you would get just as much use out of it for the sprint. The 10 plans for each distance are in order of how much volume you want to do (1 = low, 10 = high).

https://www.amazon.com/Triathlete-Magazines-Essential-Week-Training/dp/0446696765/ref=sr_1_11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1551116595&sr=1-11&keywords=matt+fitzgerald

Buy the book, pick a plan # that has enough rest days for you to still do muay thai or simply replace one or two of the workouts per week with Muay thai.

edit: my half plan will require me to put bjj on hold for the training duration but I'm guessing the sprints wouldn't require you to

Got my 4:43 in Augusta with an average of 15 hours/week of training (starting off from 3:08 marathon / 5:10 70.3 shape), but 5.5 shouldn't require anywhere near that level (guessing 7-10 hours/week build before final taper).

Your plan (attached) w. the first 10 weeks of data looks OK, but run a few times after your bikes (even for 10 min). Not sure what you mean by swim 5 (as 5000m is a bit absurd to start at). Otherwise, seems like realistic distances/frequencies to start a ramp up.

The few free ones I've seen online (triathlete magazine, or just combine garmin connect olympic + garmin connect HM if you own a garmin watch), are pretty decent.

The fitzgerald/triathlon magazine book is pretty solid as well ($15 on amazon - https://www.amazon.com/Triathlete-Magazines-Essential-Week-Training/dp/0446696765/) as I've been using elements of it for my first full IM.

I mean, it's damn complicated. I'm not gonna lie. Grammar is stupid.

First of all, this isn't meant to be cheeky or whatever, but you've already made a grammatical error. You made a comma splice which is a very known error of grammar. That's when you connect two independent clauses with a comma WITHOUT a conjunction.

I bring this up just to state that it's actually completely related to what I said, and there are well established terms for it all.

Also I think you've taken away the wrong idea. You CAN use 'and' to connect two clauses without the comma, but one of them has to be a dependent clause.

But again, I must state, this is all by the [book](
https://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Grammar-English-Language/dp/0521431468).

Casually, you probably don't have to worry so much. But we got here because the guy I was replying to wanted to know what the deal was. This is the official deal, and that's all. Where it should be applied depends on context.

The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language
by Rodney Huddleston (Author), Geoffrey K. Pullum (Author)

.

[Aside: In "Anne tied a rope around [herself/her]", both options are equally grammatical when they both refer back to "Anne".]

The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Tons of detailed information on how English actually works, much of which will surprise you if you've only been exposed to standard prescriptive "grammar."

Practical English Usage by Michael Swan is the most widely used grammar reference that I have seen.

On the "Elements of Style" by Strunk and White- this is not a grammar book, it is a style guide. That is to say, the intent of this book is to inform people who possess little to no training in document writing with standards in the hope that they will write better.

It should be noted that while William Strunk Jr. was a professor of English, E.B. White was not. White was an author of fiction most remembered for Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little.

Strunk first compiled a style guide for his own students at Cornell in 1918 (presumably in an attempt to head off grammatical errors and poor stylistic choices before they occurred, thereby saving him some headaches with constant error correction- a wise decision).

E.B. White happened to be a former student of Strunk, and after remembering the "little book" of his teacher, was tasked with revising it by his publisher 40 years later. He did, also adding a lot of material which was not in the original 40-odd pages.

E.B. White was not a grammarian, and some of the advice in "the Elements of Style" are just plain wrong (split infinitives, not using "which" to introduce a restrictive relative clause, beginning a sentence with "however"). As a guide to writing style for high-schoolers and some university students, this book is ok. As a definitive grammar book it falls decidedly short and actually does some harm (this book is the reason that many people refuse to say "than me" or "it was given to John and me").

This all discussed in more detail in an article called 50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice by Geoffrey K. Pullum, a British-American linguist and Professor of General Linguistics at the University of Edinburgh.

Pullman is also co-author of The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, which I haven't used personally but am sure is a good choice.

The point about me being a theoretician was that I research the theoretical side of the field, as opposed to engaging in French-Academy-style prescriptivism, and thus the fact that I'm a linguist should not bare on whether or not my grammar is atrocious, as I don't profess to have good grammar.

Moving on to your issues:

The sentence you quote is not a run on sentence. Yes, it's somewhat long, but half of that is in a parenthetical and therefore doesn't qualify as part of the sentence proper, and thus-thus doesn't add to its run-on-iness. The length outside of the parenthetical is not all that long, all things consider. Let's compare my horrendously long sentence to a number of sentences found in written English literature:

Mine:
>Yes, English orthography is a bitch, this is undeniable, tho it's not as crazy as people think, given the awesome capacity of the human brain to learn things.

This NYT article
>President Obama and House Democratic leaders on Saturday closed in on the votes needed to pass landmark health care legislation, with the outcome hinging on their efforts to placate a handful of lawmakers who wanted the bill to include tighter limits on insurance coverage for abortions.

The second sentence of Charles Dickens' David Copperfield:
>To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o`clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.

You:
>I understand that you aren't interested in following every rule of English, but I expected one who specializes in "the study of human speech" to be familiar with not only the precepts of English but also their necessities.

All three of these examples are longer than mine, and the last one is especially humorous. This point aside, run-on sentences are not ungrammatical, they're stylistically "bad" --- yet another thing that English teachers love to harp on about.

To continue:

>This run-on sentence is also an example of how a misplaced "do" can add confusion to an already unnecessarily complex thought.

Well I'm sorry my thought is too complex for you; I'll try to dumb it down in the future.

>it's just not in good taste to misspell "grammar" in an argument revolving linguistics.

OH NO A TYPO IN A COMMENT THREAD!

>Also, don't try to tell me that these are "silly [non-issues]." You claim to be a fucking linguist, so these kinds of things should be important to you. I understand that you aren't interested in following every rule of English, but I expected one who specializes in "the study of human speech" to be familiar with not only the precepts of English but also their necessities.

The problem with this sort of arrogance is that I am all too familiar with the precepts of English, as well as the fact that noone has any clue what "every rule of English" actually constitutes. The most complete descriptive grammar of English, the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language is a whomping 1860 pages and is incomplete due to the vastness of English. And this doesn't even begin to cover the enormous wealth of dialectal variations, nevermind detailed facts about finer points such as those mentioned above. But forget all that, because what it really comes down to is whether or not, as a linguist, I should care about things like run-on sentences, and the answer is definitively no. You see, firstly, as a linguist, I study what people actually say, not what they "should" say, and therefore if people use run-on sentences well tough like for me. Secondly, run-on sentences are a phenomena that only exist thanks to orthography and, more importantly, punctuation --- in spoken language these sentences, when uttered, invariably have appropriate prosodic contours that distinguish the subclauses. Given that punctuation is so much fashion (consider the central and eastern european use of the comma to set of relative clauses, compared to its use in the English-speaking world), it's no more the job of the linguist to care about it (punctuation, that is) than it is the biologists job to care about what makes a skirt hang nicely off the hips. Thirdly, addressing the "necessities", you and everyone else understood what I said, and so the communicative necessities were met. The necessities that weren't met were those laughable stylistic ones placed on language use by prescriptivists such as yourself. It's easy to write out a list of rules that you proclaim to be "proper English"; any halfwit with a pencil can do that, and many of you have.

And, for what it's worth, studying speech is far and away the minority of actual theoretical linguistics, except in some abstract sense. The big goal of theoretical linguistics, especially in my particular areas of interest, syntax and semantics, is to discover the space of possible human languages and how to best describe their constraints, often in terms of computational complexity on the (refined) Chomsky hierarchy. Speech is merely the necessary raw data, but we no more care about speech than a physicist cares about bubble chamber traces.

> Compared to some other languages, English is already virtually devoid of grammar.

Completely and laughably wrong. Read this. Or for a quicker read, try this. Hell, just read some posts from LanguageLog.

> It's not the occasional typo I mind per se, but the cultural propagation of progressively devolved grammar, gradually reducing the language to a hybrid of hillbilly, valley girl, inner-city slang and various grunts.

Your hysteria is based on superstition and moronic suppositions. Non-standard and non-prestige varieties of language have existed for the entirety of recorded history alongside standard varieties. Sometimes they even make the leap to being standard languages. Ever heard of the Romance languages?

Do some research before you post next time!

Buy a training plan off amazon and follow it rigorously.

Something like
this
or this

You can go to a pro, get lessons, and all that, yes. Everyone here will tell you that.

I'll try to give you some help that I wish someone had given me. People will say "keep your right arm tucked on the down swing" or variations of this.

What it boils down to is two things. Proper plane on the back swing, and proper turn of the hips on the down swing.

The problem is mostly on the backswing. If you cannot get on the right plane on the backswing, no matter what you do on the downswing, you will be outside-in. Where most people go wrong is that they assume if they swing the club back on the inside, they must likewise swing inside on the downswing. This is NOT THE CASE. It's counter-intuitive.

So, first, try taking an exaggerated backswing where you push the club back by keeping the head as far out as you can. Pretend you are pointing it at a point directly behind you.

Next, concentrate on starting your downswing with your hips, following through your shoulders, then arms and down to your hands. This should naturally keep your right arm inside, but pay attention to make sure.

I strongly suggest this book to anyone trying to get a proper swing.

You want the Princeton Companion to Mathematics

You will probably like this.

For every believer I recommend this so they can choose better god that drivers their agenda https://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Gods-Over-Deities-World/dp/0816029091