Education + Books that I have read

Hi all. Just treat this as a bit of background.

Lectures, and also some concentrated reading in the fields of criminology, architecture and the history of economics. This page is a bit of an information dump.

Lectures :

I did some online lecture series as part of lifelong learning, and to make up for the fact that I never graduated from university (dropped out due to poor health). I listened to all of the lectures in these series (except for one I skipped in the epidemics course). Most of the series contain between 24-36 one hour lectures.

Lectures:

Global Geopolitics, Stanford Continuing Education, Martin Lewis, all ten lectures (approx 2 hrs per lecture)

Martin Lewis is an historical geographer, author, and academic. He is a senior lecturer emeritus in History at Stanford University.

Here is an example of one of his (casual) lectures. The ten lecture series has vanished. It used to be in iTunes University.

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China: Traditions and Transformations, HIST E-1825 Peter K. Bol and William C. Kirby, Harvard, 36 lectures (it includes from ancient history to modern times)

William C. Kirby of Harvard University is a historian and sinologist. Professor of China Studies, professor of business administration. Former Director of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, former Dean of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Peter Kees Bol of Harvard University is a sinologist and historian. He is a Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. He is the founding director of the Harvard Center for Geographic Analysis.

See Williams Kirby’s edx page for more information. Link here.

The original lecture series has vanished. See here for more information though.

OpenYale lectures:

These lecture series are each about 25 lectures long.

Epidemics in Western Society since 1600, Yale, History 234, Frank Snowden

Early Modern England: Politics, Religion, and Society under the Tudors and Stuarts, Yale, History 251, Keith E. Wrightson

The Early Middle Ages, Yale, History 210, Paul Freedman

The Civil War and Reconstruction Era, 1845-1877, Yale, History 119, David W. Blight

The American Revolution, Yale, History 116, Joanne Freeman

European Civilization 1648-1945, Yale, History 202, John Merriman

Introduction to Ancient Greek History, Yale, Classics 205, Donald Kagan

France Since 1871 - Yale, History 276, John Merriman

Link to the open Yale course list:

https://oyc.yale.edu/courses

The Great Courses from “The Teaching Company”: tertiary level/quality education, at an affordable price.

The Industrial Revolution - Patrick N. Allitt, 36 lectures, Oxford

Great Scientific Ideas That Changed the World - Steven L. Goldman, 36 lectures

The Great Ideas of Philosophy, 2nd Edition - Daniel N. Robinson, 60 lectures, Oxford 

History of India - Michael H. Fisher, 36 lectures

Understanding Japan - Mark J. Ravina, 24 lectures

Turning Points in American History - Dr. Edward T. O'Donnell, 48 lectures

(Bill Gates used to listen to these in the morning while walking on his treadmill. Google it. If it is good enough for him, it’s good enough for me).

Here are my subjects and marks from Victoria University:

// there is a list of other (educational) spoken word audio content below the books list worth looking at as well

Books:

Where did this list come from? Or these lists?

I used to keep lists of books that I have read. And I kept a list of every book I read from about 2009 to 2011. And I found that list in my email account (I email stuff like that to myself for safe keeping). I found that list 2 days ago. This is a selection of some books from that list. I can’t even remember reading some of them. It is from ages ago.. what is there is there..?? Don’t read too much into it.

Criminology:

On Crimes and Punishments - Beccaria

Punishment and Deterrence - Andenaes Johanne

Crime, Culture and the Media - Eamonn Carrabine

Introduction to Criminological Thought - Trevor Bradley, Reese Walters (introductory textbook in criminology)

In the Shadow of Prison - Helen Codd 

Drugs and Drug Policy - Clayton Mosher, Scott Akins

Race, Incarceration, and American Values - Glenn Loury

Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure - Dan Baum

Capital Punishment: The Inevitability of Caprice and Mistake - Charles Black

These are all fairly good (very good) books in the field of criminology, and were carefully selected by Amanda and I when I was in my early twenties. I also read her binder/s of course notes for her “criminology and policing” course/s at Victoria University, and one other textbook, the title of which eludes me. I wanted to find a very good selection of texts to read, and so I did. I used to take an interest in the field of criminology, policing, drugs policy, prison policy and the death penalty.

Building/architecture:

Built in NZ, the houses we live in - William Toomath

From Bauhaus to our House - Woolfe

Body, Memory and Architecture - Bloomer + Moore

Introduction to Building - Roger Greeno, Derek Osbourne (textbook)

Frank Lloyd Wright's Critical Writings in Architecture (excerpts)

The Life and Death of American cities - Jane Jacob’s

^For a brief while, I took an interest in architecture, urban planning and building. I wasn’t an expert, but I took the time to read a few books from the University Library. And I also used to read some blog/s that talked a bit about architecture. These blogs helped to recommend some books to me, which I later read. The above books are just a sample. I was unwell at the time, so needed a way to keep myself occupied, and self directed education in a focussed manner seemed like a good thing to do. I suppose I should include “Structures and why things don’t fall down” by J.E. Gordon in that list too, but it was actually from a different era.

There are more “high quality” books down below, but you might have to “hunt” through the dross to find the higher quality books. It’s just a massive dump of stuff, for those who are interested. I use the “shotgun” method, or “spaghetti” against the wall method. Although I might revise that method soon.

History+misc:
A Concise History of Italy - Vincent Cronin
The English - Malcolm Billings
The Byzantine Empire - Robert Browning
The Penguin History of NZ - Michael King
Caesar and Christ - Will Durant (story of civilisation)

These are solid books of history, from a “popular” perspective.

If on a winter's night a traveller - Italo Calvino

Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift
The Dayuma Story - Rachel Saint

The Truth about Organic Gardening - Jeff Gillman

A Force of Nature - Richard Reeves (“the frontier genius of Ernest Rutherford”, a biography)

These books^ were all very good. Especially the Dayuma Story by Rachel Saint. It taught me a lot about anthropology, language and translation.

Pratchett:

mort 

colour of magic

light fantastic

eric/faust

jingo

the fifth elephant

wee free men

hat full of sky

wintersmith

carpe jugulum

Economics:

Human Action - Ludwig von Mises

Economics in one lesson - Hazlitt

Economics for real people - Gene Callahan

Road to Serfdom - F.A. Hayek

The Fatal Conceit - F.A. Hayek

Economic Sophisms - Frédéric Bastiat

Theory of Money and Credit - Ludwig von Mises

Austrian Theory of the Trade Cycle and Other Essays - various authors

America's Great Depression - Murray Rothbard

Politically Incorrect Guide to American History - Thomas E. Woods Jr.

The Intelligent Investor - Graham, Dodd

Economic Thought Before Adam Smith - Rothbard

^Above: I went on a reading binge in the field of economics. This isn’t all that I read, it is just one era of reading.

Other:

Success through Failure - Henry Petroski
The Botany of Desire - Michael Pollan
A place of my own - Michael Pollan
The Language of Mathematics - Keith Devlin
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! - Richard Feynman
The Curious Cook - Harold McGee
The Six Wives of Henry VIII - Antonia Fraser
The Historical Atlas of Knights and Castles - Ian Barnes
Companion to the Poor: Christ in the Urban Slums - Viv Grigg
I dared to call Him Father - Bilquis Sheikh
Perfect Written English - Chris West
The Bible - multiple authors, NIV edition, Old + New Testament
Millennium Series - Stieg Larsson
LOTR - Tolkien
The Hobbit - Tolkien
The Silmarillion - Tolkein
Swiss Family Robinson - Johann David Wyss

Twilight - Stephenie Mayer

Umm. I edited some out.

From around 2009-2012 I wasn’t well enough to be in university, so I read books instead.

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Here now is just an unordered, unfiltered dump of books that I have read:

From other points in my life (not 2009-2011) 

There will be some repeats..

The Good Women of China - Xinran

Mao, the untold story - Jung Chang

Dumbing us Down - John Taylor Gatto

Amusing ourselves to death - Neil Postman 

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

Outliers - Malcolm Gladwell

Tipping point - Malcolm Gladwell

Buffet: the Making of an American Capitalist - Roger Lowenstein

Free to choose - Milton and Rose Friedman

The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money - John Maynard Keynes, a top English economist

New Science of Strong Materials - JE Gordon

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, Carlo Rovelli

The Garden Party, and other stories - Catherine Mansfield

Wild Pork and Watercress - Barry Crump

Micromegas - Voltaire

Candide, and other collected works - Voltaire

Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Long Earth - Pratchett, Baxter

Black Swan - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Fooled by Randomness - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Anti-Fragile - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

History of the Peloponnesian war - Thucydides

Histories - Herodotus

The Bone People - Keri Hulme

Three Body Problem - Cixin Liu

The Dark Forest - Cixin Liu

1776 - David McCullough (Pulitzer)

Invention by Design - Petroski

Bone Clocks - David Mitchell

Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip k Dick

The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else - Hernando de Soto

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism - Max Weber

Brave New World Revisited (1958) - Aldous Huxley

Combatting Cult Mind Control - Steven Hassan

Remains of the day - Kazuo Ishiguro

Nocturnes  - Kazuo Ishiguro

Never let me go  - Kazuo Ishiguro

Signs and symbols - Nabokov

Iliad - Homer

Neuromancer - William Gibson

The Napoleon of Notting Hill - GK Chesterton

The Long Earth by Pratchett + Baxter

The Clock of the Long Now - Stewart Brand (editor)

Discworld, all (huge fan)

John Grisham, lots

Philip K Dick, lots

Tom Clancy, a bunch

P.G. Wodehouse, lots

Omnivores Dilemma - Michael Pollan

Do Polar Bears Get Lonely - New Scientist

The Good Game Gamer's Guide to Good Gaming - Jeremy Ray

Sirens of Titan - Vonnegut

Cats Cradle - Vonnegut

Winston First: The unauthorised account of Winston Peters' Career - Martin Hame

Magician - Raymond Feist

Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins

Sense and sensibility - Jane Austen

Emma - Jane Austen

Pride and prejudice - Jane Austen

Cat Poems - multiple authors

Full Catastrophe Living - John Kabat Zinn

This Present Darkness - Frank Peretti

Piercing the Darkness - Frank Peretti

The Oath - Frank Peretti

Foundation - Isaac Asimov (three of them)

Dune - Frank Herbert (all five)

The Intelligent Investor - Graham and Dodd

Poems for a world gone to shit

The White Feather - P.G. Wodehouse

Dance, Dance, Dance - Haruki Murakami

After the quake - Haruki Murakami

Castle in the Sky - Dianna Wynne Jones

The sane society - Eric Fromm

Tale of two cities - Mark Twain

Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson

Brave new world - Huxley

Fahrenheit 451 - Bradbury

1984 - Orwell

The adventures of Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain

The Bourne Identity - Robert Ludlum

Games People Play - Eric Bernie

Great expectations - Dickens

Tale of two cities - Dickens

The Pedestrian - Ray Bradbury

Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde

Story of Philosophy - Will Durant

Old man and the sea - Hemingway

Earth Girl - Janet Edward

The Martian - Andy Weir

Handmaids Tale - Margaret Atwood

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams, all five of them

Jack: straight from the gut - Jack Welch

Why Marx was right - Terry Eagleton

Marx: I read a little bit about Marx during/after university

Theory of social contract, iirc - Locke

Neuromancer - William Gibson

The Man who was Thursday - Gk Chesterton

Northern Lights (aka His Dark Materials trilogy) - Phillip Pullman

Tales of the Otori - Lian Hearn

Bobiverse - audio - Dennis E. Taylor

Expeditionary Force: Columbus Day - Craig Alanson

History without the boring bits - Ian Crofton

As a child: Willard price adventure novels, famous five and swallows and Amazons. I loved Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome. It was my favourite series as a child. I used to get them from the Taupo library

Permaculture Home Garden - Linda Woodrow

Our Oriental Heritage (1935) - Will Durant

The Life of Greece (1939) - Will Durant 

Caesar and Christ (1944) - Will Durant

Around the World in Eighty Days - Jules Verne

Journey to the Center of the Earth - Jules Verne

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas - Jules Verne

The Mysterious Island - Jules Verne

The Cosmic Computer - H Beam Piper

Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling

Sapiens - Yuval Harari

Guns, Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond

A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson

Rich Kid, Smart Kid - Robert Kiyosaki

Rich Dad, Poor Dad - Robert Kiyosaki

The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life - Alice Schroeder

Man’s Search for Meaning - Viktor Frankl (logotherapy)

The Sane Society - Eric Fromm 

Games People Play - Eric Berne (about Transactional Analysis, pop psych)

The Tombs of Atuan - Ursula K Leguin

The ones who walk away from Omelas - Ursula K Leguin

Wizard of Earthsea - Ursula K Leguin

Favourite Poems - William Wordsworth

Selected Poems - Emily Dickinson

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

Danny the Champion of the World - Roald Dahl

Mathilda - Roald Dahl

Battlefields of the Second World War - Richard Holmes

Count of Monte Christo - Alexander Dumas

The Complete Body Massage Course - Nicola Stewart

Permaculture Home Garden - Linda Woodrow

In his steps aka wwjd - Charles Sheldon, children’s version. I read it so many times as a child

Stuff by pastors like: McManus, Keller, James Dobson Smith etc

Gentle Ben - Walt Morey

Birds of Prey - Wilbur Smith

Danny the Champion of the World - Roahl Dahl

Where the Sidewalk Ends - Shel Silverstein (my 1st poetry book)

Richard Prebble: I’ve Been Thinking - Richard Prebble

David Lange: My Life - David Lange

Getting to Yes - Roger Fisher and William Ury

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency - Douglas Adams

The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury

Dandelion Wine - Ray Bradbury

The Illustrated Man - Ray Bradbury

Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury

How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie

How to stop worrying and start living - Dale Carnegie

A biography of Newton - I forget author

Mere Christianity - C.S. Lewis

The Four Loves - C.S. Lewis

The Great Divorce - C.S. Lewis

Out of the Silent Planet - C.S. Lewis

Perelandra - C.S. Lewis

The Problem of Pain - C.S. Lewis

The Abolition of Man - C.S. Lewis

Secret Power - DL Moody

The Undercover Economist - Tim Harford

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores

the Hidden Side of Everything - Levitt and Dubner

Superfreakonomics - Levitt and Dubner

Pilgrims progress - John Bunyan

Love & Respect - Emerson Eggerichs

The Alpha Marriage Book - Sila Lee

Dr. Dobson Answers Your Questions - James Dobson

The Strong Willed Child - James Dobson

Bringing up Boys - James Dobson

The Five Love Languages - Gary Chapman

The Bell Curve - Charles A. Murray and Richard Herrnstein (but I actually understand statistics lol)

The Google Story - David A. Vise (iirc)

8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back: Natural Posture Solutions for Pain in the Back, Neck, Shoulder, Hip - Esther Gokhale

Posture Makes Perfect - Dr Vic Barker

I Am David - Anne Holm

Man’s Search for Meaning - Viktor Frankl

War Is a Racket - Major General Smedley D. Butler

Educated - Tara Westover

Demon Haunted World - Sagan

Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson

Misquoting Jesus - Bart Ehrmann

When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management - Roger Lowenstein (iirc)

Merchants of Debt - George Anders

The Elephant Vanishes - Haruki Murakami

After the Quake - Haruki Murakami

Hear the Wind Sing - Haruki Murakami

Pinball - Haruki Murakami

The Iliad - Homer

My Man Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse

Love Among the Chickens - P. G. Wodehouse

A Damsel in Distress - P. G. Wodehouse

The Moon Pool - Abraham Merrit

A Voyage to Arcturus - David Lindsay

The Time Traders - Andre Norton

Key Out of Time - Andre Norton

Storm Over Warlock - Andre Norton

Swiss Family Robinson - Johann David Wyss

Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe

Famous Five - Enid Blyton

Batwing - Sax Rohmer

Greylorn - Keith Laumer

Anything You Can Do - Randall Garrett

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion - Robert B. Cialdini

Victoria University textbook for “Introduction to Human Resources 201”

Victoria University textbook for first year law (just for general background understanding)

Tulipomania: The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower & the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused - Mike Dash

Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand

The Virtue of Selfishness - Ayn Rand

The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand

Capitalism, the unknown ideal - Ayn Rand

[I first read Ayn Rand at age of 18 going into university. My first one was Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. I read Atlas Shrugged shortly afterwards. I liked her books.]

What Makes a Man?: 12 Promises That Will Change Your Life - Bill McCartney

Engineering in the Ancient World - John G. Landels (iirc)

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain

Audible great courses: turning points in American history, 99% sure I did this one

also another one: great ideas of classical physicists, iirc. Unsure though

Everything I want to do is illegal - Joel Salatin

Mystics and Messiahs: Cults and New Religions in American History - Jenkins Phillip

Spiritual Warfare: fighting to win - John MacArthur

Weapons of mass instruction - John Taylor Gatto

The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

Nation - Terry Pratchett

The Use of the Self - F.M. Alexander

Man's Supreme Inheritance  - F.M. Alexander

Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual  - F.M. Alexander

The Universal Constant in Living  - F.M. Alexander

The Life Of Frederick Matthias Alexander: Founder of the Alexander Technique - Michael Bloch

Indirect Procedures: A Musician's Guide to the Alexander Technique - Pedro de Alcantara

A couple of others on the Alexander technique, and posture

The Dayuma Story - Rachel Saint

Through Gates of Splendor (iirc) - Elisabeth Elliot

Run Baby Run - Nicky Cruz

Purpose Driven Life - Rick Warren

Share Jesus Without Fear - William Fay

The Cross and the Switchblade  - David Wilkerson

A Promise Kept - J. McQuilkin

The Overcoming Life - D.L Moody

Short stories:

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas - Ursula K LeGuin

Bullet in the Brain - Tobias Wolff

Ministering Angels - C.S. Lewis

The Shoddy Lands - C.S. Lewis 

The Dark Tower - C.S. Lewis

The Bungalow House - Thomas Ligotti

Other short stories by Ligotti, like flowers of the abyss.

A couple of plays by Sophocles, Euripides

Misc by: Andre Norton, Marion Zimmer Bradley (horrible person), H. Beam Piper, Abraham Merrit, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jules Verne, F. Scott Fitzgerald and other misc authors

Textbooks: the psych text book for psych 114 at Victoria University, and a sociology textbook (first year), and a second criminology textbook.

University readings: a variety of humanities readings from someone else’s bound readings

Beowulf, and other old English poems - Constance B Hieatt. [Includes Beowulf, Deor, seafarer, Caedmon hymn, battle of brunanburh, dream of the rood, the wanderer, battle of maldon, Judith, fight at finnsburh]

A bunch of books about organic gardening and organic farming and growing, self sufficiency and sustainability. A little bit about agriculture/farming.

Misc smattering:

A little bit of Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Bertrand Russel

Some stoicism and epicurean stuff

I learned a ton from encyclopedias about philosophers, philosophies, and their individual works. I also learned about philosophy from free videos online sometimes. I studied philosophy by means of learning about as many philosophers as possible, their philosophies, and their major works. Plus Voltaire and CS Lewis, already mentioned. I learned a bit about postmodernism by reading fiction, like Kurt Vonnegut and Italy Calvino, and then reading essays and articles online discussing their works, and the themes ideas within their works. We also covered social constructivism in my second year financial accounting class. And postmodernism in “fcom111” (just a few classes). And the concept of “judgement” and “intrinsic motivation” in another class. I learned a lot from this course on philosophy, but increased it mostly as “background knowledge”. Durants primer was good too. I read the encyclopedia entries on both Hume and Bacon. I also did some independent reading on the “scientific method” back in university, including books that discussed the history of the scientific method, including stuff about Francis Bacon. And the epistemology(?) or research methods of the social sciences (ie, what do we know, and why, and how). We also covered the scientific method, as well as the theory and practise of “measurement” in physics class.

I’m not an uber expert in philosophy. But I just kinda picked up stuff along the way??

There are a variety of works interspersed above in the list. This statement above isn’t an ideological thing. It is just background lol.

I just wanted to give some background.

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I have other lists of “books that I have read”, but they’re on paper. And I can’t find them. 

I might tidy up this section later

This is not an exhaustive list. It is a (large) sample.

I used to binge read a lot.

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For health reasons, I couldn’t really read books between 2016 and 2022, so I did a lot of reading from Wikipedia. A lot.

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Other stuff: games and audio

Half life 1 & 2

Natural Selection

Counter Strike

Day of defeat

Halo One

Halo Two

The Sims: making magic + all expansions

RuneScape (and a lot of time in forums)

Quake 3 arena

Unreal tournament

Command and conquer: Tiberium Sun

Red Alert Two + yuri revenge

Morrowind

Diablo 2

Age of Empires Two

Tekken 3, Tekken Tag

Garry’s Mod (back when it was good, sandbox)

Worms: with all of us, Dad, Matthew, Jonathan

Liero: with Matthew, on an old Pentium 75

Dota

Guitar Hero

Gex the gecko (played it with uncle Jonathan)

Gran Turismo: mum, Jo , Matthew and Dad and Jonathan

Caesar 3

Roller coaster tycoon

Warcraft three: custom maps with friends

Icy towers

Space hogs

Tony hawk

Soul Calibre

Magic the gathering video game

Oblivion, but never finished it

Fable

Pokémon Red, shared gameboy with brother 🥲

Firearms half life

Majesty

Ragnarok

Time Splitters

Grand theft auto 2

Dr robotics mean bean machine, mini game in sonic

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I played a ton of Natural Selection. A modification built upon the half life one engine. Here are a couple of videos:

First natural selection video

Terror natural selection video

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Here is something borrowed from another page (I was trying to explain bunny hopping, one of the basic natural selection skills, to someone):

Bunny hop - example from half life, not natural selection

First natural selection video bunny hop 5:52, 7:58 one from your pov, one from the other guys 8:28, 9:48

Terror natural selection video

Ps: Jump, strafe, waggle your mouse. Bind +jump to mouse wheel. Need decent mouse and mousepad.

Also played tons of Diablo 2 and the sims at about the age of 12/13/14. Heaps of both, so whatever lol. And dumb games like majesty I had all of the expansions for the sims. I loved it. My online username used to be sims126 for other things. I wasn’t supposed to play violent games? So I loved the sims. I had to hide my Diablo 2 habit from my mum 🫠😂.

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Is a rec room that contains air hockey, a darts board, pool table, a table tennis etc a part of culture?

Are video games a part of culture?

Is fps genre similar to a rec room full of equipment?

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Are risk, monopoly, blitz, speed, polyconomy, scrabble, and upword, a part of culture?

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I love spoken word audio content. 

In our time by Melvyn Bragg

Thinking Aloud by Laurie Taylor

BBC 4 Radio documentaries, many

BBC 4: Analysis

BBC 4: Horrible histories

NPR: Snap judgement

NPR: This American life

NPR: Radiolab

99% Invisible

Backstory

NPR: Fresh air

NPR: Ted Radio Hour 

RNZ: Our Changing World

TwiT

Total Party Kill

Hardcore history - Dan Carlin

Freakonomics podcast

History of Rome - Mike Duncan

Hello Internet

The Joe Rogan Experience Podcast

How stuff works

The Tolkien Professor Podcast (lectures) - olsen

Triangulation, TwiT - lots

Meditation: podcasts by Sam Harris and also the headspace app. Idk where else to put it.

Also: some 5x5 Dan Benjamin stuff, Mule Podcast. And Tim Ferris podcast. I liked interview podcasts.

A little bit of stuff like Big Web Show by Jeffrey Zeldman’s Big Web Show I even listened to John Gruber’s show lol. I had time on my hands due to poor health.

Blogs: I used to like some right libertarian blogs, and some left wing blogs. Bowalley Road, The Standard, NotPC, Ludwig von Mises, AEIR, Kiwiblog

Hardcore history - Dan Carlin

I listened to the WW1 series, the Genghis Khan Series, and the Death Throes of the Republic Series. I learned a lot.

TwiT: I listened to the main show, and a lot of the other shows (including windows weekly, security now, this week in google, Mac break weekly, Triangulation [the interview show]). Learned a lot along the way. But pretty casual content. The quality was.. umm a little amateurish? But they had good guests.

Church leadership podcasts: Rick Warren had one, I listened to it. Also the gospel coalition church planting podcast. And a bit of leadership podcast stuff by Andy Stanley, Craig Groeschel.

Podcasts: podcasts about church management and church planting

Edit: I listened to podcasts by Mike Monteiro, and also from relay fm. Including let's make mistakes, and material, clockwise, reconcilable differences, top four, under the radar, disruption and a few others. I also listened to some podcasts with people like Christina Warren, Alex Lindsey, Andy Ihnatko, Simone de Rochefort, Jason Snell, Georgia Dow, Myke Hurley, Casey Liss and a number of others. Many others. And Gina Trapani. It was just a way of passing the time. But I sometimes learned something from podcasts. Especially about the business side of things.

I was so unwell (my body was screwed up from all the crazy electronic and non electronic stuff they had done to me) from 2012 to 2017 that I couldn’t work or do to university. So I just listened to podcasts. And did a bit of reading. The computer system will lie to you and tell you that it was psychiatric, but it wasn’t.

Some podcasts I listened to for educational purposes, some because they were funny, some because they were a train wreck. Some because they were all three.

I was actually fairly unwell back in the day. And even listening to podcasts was a problem after the year 2017 (they messed with my muscles and brain if I listened to podcasts or audio books from 2017-2022). I couldn’t do much in life but listen to stuff. So I just listened to podcasts. I listened to a lot of podcasts from 2012 to 2017. Some in technology, some in Christianity and ministry, and some in business. A lot of TwiT.

What else: wired podcast. Clock of the long now podcast, lots of audio books, maybe half of the content that this guy read out: https://librivox.org/reader/251?primary_key=251&search_category=reader&search_page=1&search_form=get_results&search_order=alpha

I listened to the accidental tech podcast

I listened to back to work with Merlin man, i listened to John Gruber’s show “the talk show” for a while, even though don’t like Apple products. I had huge amounts of time on my hands.

I sometimes think like a social scientist (which means that sometimes my use of language is atypical) and I often think like an economist. That can sometimes make someone sound insane or heartless. I very, very much think like an economist. A lot of the time. That’s a huge part of my background. I am aware of the limitations of economics, as well as how useful it is (just like statistics, sociology and psychology).

And sometimes think like a business school student (which sometimes makes me say awful things in a heartless manner, reminiscent of swift’s “a modest proposal”).

I have some of the habits of mind of a criminologist, sociologist, economist, humanities, academia guy, simply because I have consumed so much material (lectures and academic texts 🙃). And accounting. Please don’t let it out you off too much. I can sometimes be too cerebral or too abstract. Or sometimes over simplify, to try to mess with the postmodern people. I have a weird way of looking at things.

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Misc feminist stuff:

I once read a bunch of feminist stuff. And didn’t adopt the ideology/label, but was sympathetic to some of what they said about specific women’s issues. But I was sympathetic from a Christian (now formerly Christian) background.

I read about issues such as prostitution, trafficking, unpaid labour, domestic violence, access to healthcare, education, access to banking, access to education, divorce, health issues etc. I read about the intersections between things like religion, race, gender, class, socioeconomic status - and how those things relate to access to things like healthcare, education, career opportunities and political power. I can’t recall what else at the moment. But I read about the basics. Oh, and the connection between the woman’s suffrage movement and the prohibition movement. And stuff like foot binding and female genital mutilation. [Note: Foot binding is the deliberate breaking of women’s feet.]

Sorry, that was a bit of a ramble with run on sentences.

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// I like higher education, and books. What of it? 🫠

// a lot of my points of view in life have changed and/ evolved over time? But I’m not willing to explain which??

And I won the senior year trophy for “information science/systems” (aka 7th form computers) when I was in 6th form.

I also won a scholarship in 7th form for statistics and also one for accounting. The scholarship exams that I passed were worth $500 each. 

// some of this might give you information and understanding about my intellectual, educational, and cultural background