Manny's Friend Comments

Thank you Dustin, and very happy to be friends with someone who gives five stars to No Country for Old Men!

Greetings, Manny!

I hope all's well with you and yours.:)


I really appreciate your friendship, thank you for accepting. I look forward to discussing many great books with you.



Have a wonderful day and an awesome week!

There are 35 copies available on Abebooks...

Matthew wrote: "Hey Manny, thanks for accepting my friend request.

I notice you must be a chess and go player, and I was wondering if you had a recommendation for a Very Good first book on Go since I have only st..."

Hi Matthew!

I have indeed spent rather too large a part of my life playing chess and Go. Haruyama and Nagahara's Basic Techniques of Go is quite good, and reasonably easy to get hold of...

Rowena wrote: "Hi Manny,

I came across these book reviews on Amazon and thought you might like them :)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/cdp/member..."

Damn! Why didn't I think of that!

Hi Manny,

I came across these book reviews on Amazon and thought you might like them :)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/cdp/member...

Vijai wrote: "Thanks bro for accepting! Gotta ask, are you on chess.com?"

I only play on ICC - handle is RegGuy. Does that work for you?

Thanks bro for accepting! Gotta ask, are you on chess.com?

Chessbase is quite strict with disconnects and with my choppy connection I get kicked out every other month. Would love to play a game with you. I am a noob with 1156 rating though.

They have now fixed the spelling. Thank you for alerting me!

Thirteenth Peer wrote: "If you scroll down in this article there's a guy named Manny Raynard who looks like your picture on here only older who is commenting in Geneva. It's not you by any chance is it?

http://www.chess..."

Aaargh! They have misspelled my name! I will ask them to fix it.

Yes, my profile picture is a bit out of date :)

If you scroll down in this article there's a guy named Manny Raynard who looks like your picture on here only older who is commenting in Geneva. It's not you by any chance is it?

http://www.chessbase.com/Home/TabId/2...

You're right about branded. I saw this movie 30 years ago, and I can still remember the scene in vivid detail!

We got around to viewing Montenegro the other night. The image of the phallus-equipped remote-control take is forever branded into my mind. Thanks!

Manny wrote: "Jurafsky and Martin is universally agreed to be The Book... "

It looks perfect! Thanks so much.

Kyle wrote: "In my linguistics class, my professor cut out the section on computational linguistics, claiming he was "lucky to get the damned thing turned on," and hence ill-suited to teach us about it. Do you ..."

Jurafsky and Martin is universally agreed to be The Book...

In my linguistics class, my professor cut out the section on computational linguistics, claiming he was "lucky to get the damned thing turned on," and hence ill-suited to teach us about it. Do you have any good intro/survey-level book recommendations on computational linguistics?

Peer, I have replied on this review - thought it would be better to create a separate thread.

Manny, as I see it you already had collected and preserved your favorite reviews by making your book. (Of course the same functions could be accomplished by simply copying to your own harddrive or even printing them out.). I think it's cool that you decided to make a book out of them and I certainly don't object to you charging a few dollars.

On the other hand it really kind of bothers me that you put up a "pay wall" where your reviews are no longer accessible to people like me. That seems to me a separate issue from the gr amazon deal making.

Now I will be clear, it's not my business really what you choose to do. On the other hand as someone who has looked up to you and appreciated your contributions to the community, I'm having a "Say it ain't so Joe" moment with you using the amazon acquisition as a pretext to "monetize" your writings.

I certainly feel some sense of betrayal due to the amazon acquisition of gr. on the other hand I'm still thinking about what it means to me and have been reading other people's postings on the topic with interest. I would certainly like to hear your opinions on the topic as well. But I wanted to register with you personally my feeling of disappointment with your choice.

Peer, I respect your opinions, but I am collecting my favorite reviews and preserving them where our new corporate masters are unable to tamper with them. They are available as nicely formatted PDFs or as printed books. I am just asking for a few dollars to recompense me for the time my editor and I have invested.

I strongly encourage others to do the same thing. There are plenty of people on this site whose reviews I would be prepared to buy on similar terms.

I propose we boycott Manny till he returns his content to the community that fostered him with our "likes". Let's hit him where it hurts and refuse to "like" any more of his reviews and even remove our old "likes"!

Thank you Michelle! You are possibly making the right choice. I don't know why, but several people who read my review of Bishop Barnes's 715 page Scientific Theory and Religion and then bought the book have unaccountably expressed disappointment. It's very strange, but facts are facts.

I am never quite sure of the rules here. Thank you, that was very reassuring.

You do know that 'The Bible' and 'Burt Reynolds' Five Steps to Perfect Chest Topiary' don't count, right? You are forgiven.

Thank you Pixie! That is one of the nicest things anyone has said to me this week. In the interests of complete honesty, I do have a couple of books on my shelf with covers featuring bare-chested men, but you may have to search carefully to find them.

Thanks for the add. I noticed you through a mutual friend, and the mixture of your erudition and the lack of books on your page covered in flowery fonts and bare-chested man vomit was refreshing.

MJ wrote: "Your name anagrammizes to: A merry nanny."

I prefer "Emmanuel Rayner" = "My unreal rename"

Your name anagrammizes to: A merry nanny.

oops! Belated Happy New Year to you and yours - all the best for your 2013 Projects and beyond.

Thank you Helton!

Marvin wrote: "Manny since we discussed it before I thought you would like to see the major changes in the DSM.

http://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/dsm-v..."

Hey, thank you Marvin! Very interesting reading, and I am indeed surprised that they failed to include Internet Addiction Disorder. I wonder what the reasoning was?

Manny since we discussed it before I thought you would like to see the major changes in the DSM.

http://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/dsm-v...

The big surprise to me is Internet Addiction Disorder did not make the cut.

I just don't know what to say! If only I knew how to assemble the makings into a more complete version of the real thing, I would try to do so. Meanwhile, thank you!

Manny, the sparks of genius reside within that majestic head of yours, and the makings of a gentleman within that valiant chest.

Rowena wrote: "I just received your book today :)"

I am glad to hear that Lulu are so efficient!

I just received your book today :)

Nice to be friends, Linda! I've been seeing you around as well :) If you're looking for an update on our UFO-expert guest, I've reviewed his book here...

Thank you for accepting my friend-vite. I have been following you for a while, so thought I might ask. A while ago you mentioned a dinner - I can't find if you posted results about how it went. Something about alien abductions I think?

I've only just found this link. Well, I suppose it must be a Good Thing. The only thing worse than being listed in Forbes is not being listed in Forbes, right?

Congratulations: http://www.forbes.com/sites/markfidel...

Oh no... despite my constant refusals, the Green Things have finally invaded my update feed. Where's the Don't Want To Read button?

But wouldn't we have noticed that amount of inflation by now? The value of the US dollar has declined, but surely not as much as you'd get from printing $16T of new money?

By the way, I noticed that A.D. White, who wrote the excellent History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, also wrote a book on fiat money. If it's anywhere near as good, you might want to check it out.

I know nothing about it beyond what I learned in the course of a ten minute Google search! But $16T is such a staggering amount of money that it's hard not to feel suspicious. If there isn't some kind of multiple counting going on, as the 'Squashed' article suggests, how could even the Fed have that much available to lend out?

Bird Brian wrote: "This may be of interest to Quigley readers (and others)."

Just been looking around. This page claims the story is bogus...

Bird Brian wrote: "This may be of interest to Quigley readers (and others)."

I am struggling to believe it. First question: is this genuine?? Second: what implications for the election?

Subjects needed to test Swedish-language software

I am looking for a few subjects to test some Swedish-language software. It takes less than an hour and many people have said it's fun. We need people with varying degrees of expertise in Swedish, from beginner to native speaker. As a thank you, I would be happy to send you a paper copy of my recent book What Pooh Might Have Said To Dante, or another book of equal value if you prefer!

If you're interested, full details are available here. It needs to be done before Thursday evening though, due to a conference deadline.

Kris wrote: "Thanks so much for accepting my friend request!"

Thank you for sending it!

Thanks so much for accepting my friend request!

Bird Brian wrote: "Your discussion of Galeleio and Copernicus (sp?) reminds me of this cool graphic:

http://www.businessinsider.com/a-comp..."

That is indeed rather good! Though I am not sure I agree with Russell's placing. He should be closer to Frege, Quine and Wittgenstein.

Manny wrote: "Bullet chess is all about getting confused! If you're not confused, you're doing something wrong. "

LOL, well, at least playing it with a 'real' person makes for lots of fun and laughter!

You must find the Tao of Chess and think without thinking. .."

I like that thought, and am glad you introduced me to the concept of Bullet Chess, Manny!

Bullet chess is all about getting confused! If you're not confused, you're doing something wrong. The trick is to be less confused than your opponent... and yes, it's patterns, patterns, and more patterns. You must find the Tao of Chess and think without thinking.