Best Guess: Popular books I've heard about, but never read

Here's my best guesses:

Secret Life of Bees

Genre: Suspense/Thriller. Ben, a beekeeper from Vermont, stumbles upon an awful, awful secret when collecting honey from his bees one day. A baffling series of hexagonal symbols are found near the murdered body of Ben's life-partner, Jerry. Ben continues to follow these strange symbols through a bizarre set of riddles and brain-teasers to discover a trail of clues leading him to the works by Georgia O’Keeffe (American painter of vagina-like flowers). Ben finds these clues to be intimately connected to the mysterious figure Melchizedek, who is mentioned in the Bible in connection with giving communion to the patriarch Abraham. Melchizedek brought three gifts to earth from the planet Venus... one of which were... you guessed it, bees. The mystery unfolds.

The Alchemist

Genre: Sci-fi Romance. An android and an alchemist... the unlikeliest love story in this steam-punk futuristic world of wizard cyborgs and clerics with guns. Will this dark and menacing environment keep the love between the android and the alchemist from blooming? Will the Council ever allow androids to be accepted as humans, and more importantly allow the marriage of two lovers?

Rich Dad, Poor Dad

Genre: Gay & Lesbian. A story of a young boy growing up with two fathers, one of whom is an oil tycoon and the other a lowly pottery maker. The poor dad cannot help but feel inadequate when compared to his rich partner, and most shameful in front of his son. But little does the poor dad know that he is actually the great grand nephew of Andrew Carnegie, American steel tycoon. Despite his new found wealth, the former poor dad realizes he was already wealthy with his love for his son.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Genre: Children's Book. The very colorful pop-up book teaches young tots some of the 7 habits of highly effective people, including eating, walking, pooping, and peeing.

The Paradox of Time Travel

"One stubborn problem with time travel is that it is riddled with several types of paradoxes. For example, there is the paradox of the man with no parents, i.e. what happens when you go back in time and kill your parents before you are born? Question: if your parents died before you were born, then how could you have been born to kill them in the first place?

There is also the paradox of the man with no past. For example, let’s say that a young inventor is trying futilely to build a time machine in his garage. Suddenly, an elderly man appears from nowhere and gives the youth the secret of building a time machine. The young man then becomes enormously rich playing the stock market, race tracks, and sporting events because he knows the future. Then, as an old man, he decides to make his final trip back to the past and give the secret of time travel to his youthful self. Question: where did the idea of the time machine come from?"

-- Dr. Michio Kaku, The Physics of Time Travel

This looks fun... let me try.

There is the paradox of the man with the ambiguous girlfriend. A man "Jack" gets in a fight with his girlfriend "Jane", get's pissed off, builds a time machine and goes back in time before he meets Jane. Then, from the past Jack sends Jane an e-mail saying he's breaking up with her. Jane is confused but highly turned on, since she hasn't gotten any ass in months. Jack and Jane start going out. Question: Should Jack offer to pay the whole bill on the "first date"?

There is the paradox of the man who friended himself on Facebook. A young man in college joins Facebook. He then receives a message from an elderly gentleman claiming he is actually him in the future. The young man is amused and drunk, so he decides to friend him. However, when he tries, a Facebook message pops up saying "You cannot be friends with yourself." Question: How did Facebook know?!!

There is the paradox of the man who is his son and his dog. A man "Jack" encounters an evil wizard who turns him into a dog "Rover". Rover then has sex with some bitch and out pops Rover Jr. A good wizard then turns Rover Jr. into a human "Jack Jr." who claims Rover as his pet. When Rover dies years later, Jack Jr. gets sad and builds a time machine and goes back in time. Jack Jr. then encounters an evil wizard. Question: Who cleans who's shit?

Brian Writes an e e cummings Poem... Using Recursion

The Algorithm:

function processEEPoem($words,$str){
if (count($words['objects'])<=1||strlen($str)>1000) {
return $str;
} else {
if (strlen($str)>20) $str = $str."
\n";
$key = array_rand($words,3);
$val = $words[ $key[0] ][ rand(0,count($words[ $key[0] ])-1) ];
$val2 = $words[ $key[1] ][ rand(0,count($words[ $key[1] ])-1) ];
$val3 = $words[ $key[2] ][ rand(0,count($words[ $key[2] ])-1) ];
$rand = rand(0,3);
switch( $rand ) {
case 0: $str .= "$val $val2 $val3 ";
case 1: $str .= "($val)$val2$val3";
case 2: $str .= "$val-$val3 ";
default: $str .= substr($val,0,2).", $val2 ";
}
if (rand(0,3)==0) $str .= "?";
unset($words['objects'][rand(0,count($words['objects'])-1)]);
unset($words['objects'][rand(0,count($words['objects'])-1)]);
return processEEPoem($words,$str);
}
}
$initWords['pronouns'] = array("thy","thee","o","mine","thou");
$initWords['verbs'] = array("pinched","poked","sprung","prodded","conceived","squeezed");
$initWords['adjectives'] = array("sweet","naughty","mighty","scraggy","rhythmic","spontaneous");
$initWords['objects'] = array("lover","fingers","death","gods","beauty","thumb");
echo processEEPoem( $initWords,"" );

and the results...

mighty rhythmic poked poked fingers prodded

(mine)fingerssweetmine-sweet mi, fingers
sprung thee lover (sprung)theeloversprung-lover sp, thee
th, squeezed ?
mine-scraggy mi, squeezed
thee pinched (thee)pinchedthee- th, pinched
prodded-thee pr,
-prodded , o ?
mighty thee (mighty)theemighty- mi, thee
, thy
pinched-thee pi,
thee rhythmic (thee)rhythmicthee- th, rhythmic
, poked
scraggy-prodded sc,
sweet- sw, thy
()sweetsqueezed-squeezed , sweet
th, pinched ?
thou poked sweet (thou)pokedsweetthou-sweet th, poked
th, ?
, sweet
o, squeezed
sprung mighty (sprung)mightysprung- sp, mighty
-conceived , o ?
thee-sweet th, prodded ?
scraggy conceived (scraggy)conceivedscraggy-conceived sc,
o, pinched
o-naughty o, pinched
thee rhythmic (thee)rhythmicthee- th, rhythmic
(thee)sprungthee- th, sprung
(thee)sweetthee- th, sweet
sp, mine
pinched thee ()pinchedthee-thee , pinched



try it out here!

The Power of Conforming and Distress

Don't get me wrong, radical and risky ideas and actions are necessary for real positive progress on the numerous and complex issues facing our planet today. Namely, radical ideas make kind-of-radical ideas sound not so bad and give perspective, breadth, and balance to our shared knowledge. Radical actions and images inspire thought, dialogue, and change. But I would like to take a moment to defend the conformists, sell-outs, and tools of our society- perhaps even argue that such individuals are actually the tools of positive change.

Now don't get me wrong again. Being a conformist, sell-out, or tool is bad... under certain conditions. In our capitalistic democracy, the dollar is the key to power. The machine is run by the man. You either work for the man, are the man, or are against the man. The man determines how the people should look, act, acquire wealth, lose wealth, what is moral, what is immoral. The man determines the rules. Play by the rules or go play somewhere else. But if you play by the rules, you are lending yourself to the machine. You will become a shiny gear and your work will dissipate into dollars and cents. Why would you ever want to conform?

First I would have to note the requirements of knowledge, education, and distress. Knowledge in the sense that you understand the issues that exist on a local and global level. Education in that you have acquired the tools to assess and implement ideas. And finally, distress would signify your uneasiness towards the fact that these issues exist and are not being sufficiently engaged.

Knowledge and education is a completely separate issue that I will not go into. I would briefly say that modern technologies like the World Wide Web can be a great tool for change in this area. But ultimately, a more structural change is needed to shake the root of this issue. So for the sake of argument, I will assume you, the conformist, is knowledgeable and educated.

So the variable here is distress. To be the right kind of conformist, you must be in a constant state of distress. Lose your distress, and become the wrong kind of conformist. The main idea here is in order to change the game, you must play the game without forgetting you're in the game. The man humors those against him, but listens to those with him.

And change from within will always be superior to change from without. Change caused by external forces will almost always be short-term change and will not address the root issues. Internal change is passive change and difficult to see immediate results, but the inches of progress is real progress and can be reaped over time. Remarkable individuals inspire and are remembered for change, but average individuals create the real change with small, cumulative actions. Just as great scientists are celebrated for breakthrough ideas, but it is the common engineer who materializes these ideas for the common citizen.

So I would say if you are a conformist, sell-out, or tool, stay on track and stay distressed. Strive for small, lasting changes. And when you become the man, help a brother out.