Today's Items

Sun, Sep 18, 2005

Books read:

• Coker, Christopher. The Future of War: The Re-enchantment of War in the Twenty first Century.. Blackwell, 2004.

Contains many suggestive ideas, particularly about considering the digital/biological synthetico-imaginary of war. Makes somewhat puzzling and undocumented claim that SAS troops take Viagra to increase testosterone and thus aggression.

• De Bono, Edward. The Use of Lateral Thinking. Cape, 1967.

This was suggested to me by Nick Montfort’s Twisty Little Passages (MIT, 2004), which I finished last week and hope to have something more to say about shortly, and contained several provocative anecdotes. The “L” and “T” diagrams went on for too long. Not surprised to learn that management consulting figured in De Bono’s future.

Books noted:

• Geary, David C. The Origin of Mind. APA, 2005.

• Kelso, J. A. Scott. Dynamic Patterns: The Self-Organization of Brain and Behavior. MIT, 1995.

• Gumbrecht, Hans Ulrich. The Powers of Philology : Dynamics of Textual Scholarship. Illinois, 2003.

• Leland, John. Aliens in the Backyard: Plant and Animal Imports into America. South Carolina, 2005.

• Monestier, Martin. Duels : les combats singuliers des origines a nos jours : les gages de bataille, les tournois, les jugements de Dieu, les gladiateurs, les duels judiciaires, les duels du point d’honneur. Sand, 1991.

• Lloyd, Dan. *Radiant Cool: A Novel *[get it?] Theory of Consciousness. MIT, 2003.

Contains a Professor Grue, q.v. Montfort, supra.