This article seems to operating with a definition for engineer that is much different than mine. So I went to wikipedia.

An engineer is a practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics, and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical, societal and commercial problems. Engineers design materials, structures, and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality, regulation, safety, and cost.

It certainly seems like a programmer would meet that criteria.

God damn, his is tight! thanks for hippin' me to this guy.

Composers definitely have intentions when writing a piece and, if they're any good at all, some of those thoughts and feelings are conveyed to the listener. However, I think the issue is less about what the music was designed to do and more about people's general perception of music. Here's two things that I've observed and believe to be true usually:

1. Repetitive music is harder to ignore.

2. Music with words in your language is harder to ignore.

If I put on music to concentrate on something, it would need to be music that can be temporarily ignored and then refocused on when I finish the micro-task at hand. Rinse and repeat and those moments eventually build up to your finished essay or math homework. I'd say this is why concentration music, for me, is almost always classical or jazz. Don't misunderstand me, I have a deep affection for both of those genres and have been moved deeply by certain tunes from both of them. But that doesn't stop me from admitting that often they work equally well as background.

Here, I'll trade ya. Not KEXP but I think the duo has a similar vibe to metric, especially when they're doing they're electric stuff.

Beautiful, I think I'll order it tomorrow.

Good to know

How would you describe the guy's bias?

So I've heard it said that many Islamic cultures were at the forefront of scientific investigation sometime after the Greeks but before Europeans. I never hear about any specific Islamic scholars or their accomplishments though. Does the book touch on anything like that?

I'd love some good academic books too. Long books and big words don't scare me. The only thing is I'll probably get read them farther in the future. It only seems to make sense to go through the shorter digestible one's before diving into a phone book written for experts. Plus I'm already in the midst of like three other thick pieces of tree. I hate to spread myself too thin because I just end up not finishing the books.

Much appreciated. By the way, have you read Chaos by James Gleick? It's an exposition on Chaos Theory for the layperson (which I realize you probably aren't after glancing at your profile). He goes pretty in depth about Hendrik Lorentz and the origin of your username.

I've got no answer for you, but to be honest if the CIA didn't consistently do things that people found baffling they wouldn't be much of an intelligence agency.

Hahaha I just looked it up and the CIA has an official position on the book. Don't know if this makes it more or less credible but I'm still down to read it.

Check it Y'all:

https://www.cia.gov/news-information/press-releases-statements/press-release-archive-2007/legacy-of-ashes.html

Ooh have you made it through Genghis Kahn? I've heard so many legends about the man but never read a single book on him and certainly never covered him in school.

Legacy of Ashes looks right up my alley. Thanks

Much appreciated. I literally just found another book on my shelf called The Indian Heritage of America by Alvin M. Josephy Jr. and got really excited at the prospect of diving into that oft neglected side of things.

Thank you. It should have occurred to me that this question would have been asked before. That second list looks particularly interesting. My dad knew a guy back in college who dropped out, but before he did he went to all his professors and asked for a list of the 10 most important books in their respective subjects. I think the dude became a CEO or something eventually.

Sounds comprehensive. And with blackbootz recommendation, I'm sure it's a page turner.

Fair point. I suppose it'd be hyperbole for me to say I don't know anything in the subject, but certainly less than I'd like. But at the end of the day, a textbook is still a book. Which ones did you like? Which would you avoid? Heard of any good ones but haven't read them? I still wanna hear about it.

Destiny Disrupted looks like a great read. I've been looking for something just like it

OH YEAH BABY, I'M ABOUT TO GET MY LEARN ON!!!

This was an absolutely fascinating read. I was on the edge of my seat through the whole story. I'm gonna come back to read it again dry so I can really digest my feelings about it.

Gotta agree with you. and of course in his later years Tesla was known for making some strange claims, but at some point I'd like to try and decipher what he was getting. Despite the sensational article this is still very interesting because I have never seen this diagram before, and I've had my fair share of math classes.

Like any major discovery in history, Einstein's did not happen in a vacuum. The were actually quite a few people thinking about relativity at the time. Off the top of my head I believe David Hilbert, Henri Poincare, Hermann Minkowski and Hendrik Lorentz were all investigating in the general direction of gravity's effect on electromagnetic waves and curving of space time. A couple of these dudes might even be able to stand as contenders for the "smarter than Einstein" competition if such a thing weren't patently absurd. Hilbert in particular is immensely respected by mathematicians and occasionally physicists. It also wasn't even the first time relativity was incorporated into scientific theory. Galilean relativity had been considered for many years (since Gallileo?) and was incorporated into the theories of Newton. The point is, I don't think anybody has ever possessed incomparable genius. Einstein wasn't some kind of scientific hercules and I'm not even convinced it would have taken even one decade for somebody else to propose relativity let alone several. I leave you with this, it's a bit long but well worth the read if you can get through. Then you can impress all your science friends by claiming, "Yeah, Einstein wasn't that great," and being able to argue the point convincingly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_priority_dispute#The_candidates_for_credit

P.S. I have nothing but admiration for old Albert, I'm just not into hero worship.

I thinks it's telling also how distinctly askew the two fields are in terms of 'progress'. Economics (after checking wikipedia really quickly) was practiced by multiple ancient civilizations including the Mesopotamians and the Greeks. Thomas Aquinas was born in 1225 and he's apparently called by some the founder of "scientific economics". To contrast, penicillin was discovered in 1928. The germ theory of disease goes back to 1546 at the latest but more reasonably could be dated to 1808. When you compare the amount of time that people have spent thinking about these respective fields to the number of concrete answers a specialist could give to questions one might ask, there can be little doubt about who is coming from a place of knowledge and who chose to study a system of inherently irreducible complexity and would like you to believe they have the answers you seek.

Not a bit of sarcasm. There has been a massive increase in witches ever since those Harry Potter films and the same thing will happen with terrorists!

...Okay, yeah it was sarcasm. But, I'm surprised that you've met people carrying on that sentiment about Star Wars. I'm pretty sure the author of the article was joking, there were a couple lines that had me doubled over. Not a fleeting internet chuckle, but like honestly guffawing out loud. I've heard people attack the news, video games, television, or movies for somehow encouraging domestic terrorism through violence. But never the Star Wars franchise in particular.

When December 17th rolls around the latest installment in this terrorist propaganda machine disguised as a "beloved family franchise," will be shown in theaters across the nation. I expect that this event will be remembered for generations as the spark that ignited an explosion of grassroots terrorism in our beloved country, as little jihadi Janes and Joes start to pop up in unsuspecting communities with unprecedented frequency and vigor.

It's the Harry Potter/witchcraft fiasco all over again. God help us all...