The Grind How much time do we spend on the routine grinds of everyday life? From “Nine to Five” we’re engrossed in tasks such as navigating software, Internet research or managing email. From work, we commute home to find household chores like cooking, cleaning or laundry (or kids!). Even leisure activities like catching up on […]
The internet is vast playground where every opinion is aired, fiction can masquerade as fact, and the answers to your most bizarre questions can be just a google search away. This abundance of cheap information and ideas is overwhelmingly positive even as there are latent problems. One problem is that the internet can encourage and […]
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill BrysonIt took me a shamefully long time to complete A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson — multiple months, in which I even put it down for long periods of time and read other books (For shame!). The book is a monstrous undertaking that serves […]
Future Imperfect by David D. FriedmanPlowed through Future Imperfect by David D. Friedman during my last week in India. David Friedman is a legal scholar, economist, anarchist and cook, who happens to the be son of the late, great Milton Friedman. I’ve previously read DDF’s Machinery of Freedom and Law’s Order. I also subscribe to […]
The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas AdamsRead The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (UHG2G) by Douglas Adams while abroad for three weeks in India. The UHG2G is five books by Adams all follow our human protagonist Arthur Dent along his adventures with Ford Prefect, Zaphod Beeblebrox and other fun characters (like […]
Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey by Chuck Palahniuk Just read my third Chuck Palahniuk book Rant, which is an “oral biography” of a rabies-infected, super-messiah named Buster Casey (nicknamed “Rant”) who lives in a dystopic future where people plug-in to “boost peaks” (like watching a movie for all the senses), something that reminded […]
A common question I get nowadays is “What should I invest in?” My best answer to that question is probably not what you’d expect. My default financial response to this query over the past two years has been to go long on commodities, particularly gold, silver and energy, short the stock market, particularly financials and […]
(CNN) A picture is worth a few hundred thousand people. Comparing the mass of humanity (as observed from space) at Obama’s inauguration to ants might be interpreted as criticism or distaste for our new President. That isn’t the case — I have no love for any President or politician (and any reader of autodogmatic.com knows […]
Starship Troopers by Robert HeinleinJust finished Starship Troopers, which I was first introduced to a number of years ago by the movie of the same name. Suffice to say that the movie is quite different from the book; however, I don’t think having seen the movie detracts from the book — probably because the book […]
Demian by Herman Hesse Just read Demian by Herman Hesse (buy at amazon). The book is a fictional first-person account of a German youth named Sinclair who is going through a period of awakening/enlightenment, working through issues of good and evil, at the hands of certain mentors (Max Demian throughout, Demian’s mom ultimately). The book […]