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Let Tom Francis tell you all what it's like, being male, middle-class and white.
 

 

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Chris - or maybe his commenters? - spotted one of the two remaining unannounced Pyro unlocks in the new Meet The Sniper video. Which is awesome, by the way. For the Demoman's reaction, the slowly filling jars (also featured on the title card, I notice), and "Yes, yes he did." 		 

 

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Books That Make You Dumb

 
 

Chart of the correlation between ‘favourite books’ and SAT scores among college students. Interesting: Lolita is the smartest book ever. Amusing: listing “I don’t read” suggests you’re smarter than someone who lists “The Holy Bible”. Depressing: as they’re divided here, “African American” is the dumbest genre. I’m not sure I see why it (or ‘Chick Lit’) is even a genre. Surprising: Fahrenheit 451 is one of the dumbest books ever. Shameful: I’ve only read one book listed here. But: it is the fourth smartest.

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BullDozers: 'Lolita' classified as 'erotica' --> boo.

Graham: Didn't you also read #28, Harry Potter?

Grill: I'm going to insist that my SAT score must be mammoth, as I've read so many of the books in the top part of the list. But, then, I'm addicted to books and I've read loads of them.

Zane sounds fascinating though. Anyone read / heard of it?

Pentadact: I'm only talking specific book titles - I've read some Shakespeare too, of course.

roBurky: Should there be a link with this?

Tom Camfield: Atlas Shrugged and The Alchemist are ranked 5th & 7th respectively. This *scientifically* proves students are morons. I am a student, I do not exclude myself from the implication of this assessment.

Pentadact: Rob - where/how are you viewing this? In RSS feeds and as a single page, the text and title aren't yet links to the article, but I did add an extra link to the end of the post that should work everywhere - is it not showing up?

Jason L: No Count of Monte Cristo? No Ender's Game? You poor man!

Pentadact: I should read Ender's Game. I'm not sure I'd enjoy Monte Cristo, though, assuming the various films are loosely true to the plot. I don't enjoy revenge. Morally, I'm wired wrong for it. I end up thinking "Hey, the thing that guy did to that guy is just as bad as the thing that guy did to that guy!"

Jason L: Hmm. Actually now that you mention it, it's probably over a decade since I last read COMC; it sort of got so firmly entrenched in my favourites that it didn't have to contend anymore. However, as I recall it a major appeal for me is that Dantes' 'revenge' consists entirely of carefully and starkly revealing his enemies' past and continuing wrongs to others. Their comeuppance is all wrought by their own shame or evil, a fair criminal justice system or the consequences of others' moral judgment. Basically, Batman's more vengeful than the Edmond Dantes I remember. I appear to have inadvertently set myself a reading assignment now.

As for at least the most recent film, I am pretty sure there is no big flashy sword fight anywhere in the book. I remember being mildly pissed that there was a big flashy swordfight, I remember being mildly pissed that the ending was opposite to or truncated from the book, and I remember being informed enough going in that I attached no importance to the film and remember only those two things.

Jason L: At the risk of going into everything there that I've read, one of the 'smartest' ones - Freakonomics - caught my eye on second reading. It's a hoot. Basically the coauthor is a real-life N|_|mb3rzz dude, except instead of chasing mad serial killbombers he e.g. constructs a filter for teachers who are fiddling their students' answers on standardised tests or proves sumo match fixing or (most controversially) explores the link between Roe v Wade and the crime rate. It's too short, but then at a thousand pages it would be too short for me. My mortal imagination cannot imagine you in particular disliking it.

Pentadact: Yep - that's the one I have read, the fourth smartest. It is superb. He totally sold me on the Roe Vs Wade - the worst of that is that Guiliani got all the credit that the dead babies deserved.

Kieron Gillen: I beat you by 1. Crime and Punnishment's as high as I go. Read 10 in the top 20, mainly in the teens, which probably makes me tediously middlebrow.

KG

 		 
 

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