Some more goodies for Christmas!

Yesterday, I recommended a bunch of the best iPhone Games and Apps for the holiday season. Now, if you have a fresh new Amazon Gift Card or Kindle and are looking to fill it up, here are some great suggestions. For always-up-to-date list, check out the book section visit the full “Trey’s Book List“.

The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation

by Matt Ridley
I think Matt Ridley is one of the most awesome people on Earth. I really do. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting him and even got some quotes from him for my book, which you may have noticed. Of his many books, which are all awesome, please start on this one! From Amazon: “Human life, scientific journalist Matt Ridley suggests, is a complex balancing act: we behave with self-interest foremost in mind, but also in ways that do not harm, and sometimes even benefit, others. This behavior, in a strange way, makes us good…”

A Short History of Nearly Everything

Bill Bryson
Oh god this must sound boring – but it is really a wonderful story of everything, even if you are already a smarty pants…you’ll still have an amazing time. From Amazon: “From primordial nothingness to this very moment, A Short History of Nearly Everything reports what happened and how humans figured it out. To accomplish this daunting literary task, Bill Bryson uses hundreds of sources, from popular science books to interviews with luminaries in various fields. His aim is to help people like him, who rejected stale school textbooks and dry explanations…”

Jacobson’s Organ: And the Remarkable Nature of Smell

Lyall Watson
A fascinating book about an organ we all have that hardly anyone knows about. There’s little doubt that smell plays a significant role in the lives of humans. Jacobson’s Organ, also called the vomeronasal organ, consists of two small pits in front of the nasal septum with nerves feeding directly to the most primitive, limbic area of the brain. Scientists believe that the vomeronasal organ in humans, as in reptiles, can sense large molecules that have no impact on our ordinary sense of smell…

Daily Photo – Christmas at The Rock in the Rain

Beautiful Rockefeller Center in New York has one of the most amazing Christmas displays in the world. It’s famous, and always presents a majestic scene right in front of the ice skating rink.

As soon as the guards see me with a tripod, they come over and escort me away. Damn them! Actually – it’s not their fault – it’s the goddamed lawyers who feed off a tort-happy system. The tripod may trip someone, you see. And then they can file a law suit against the property owner. We increasingly live in a world where you have to second-guess the most natural of actions for fear of being looted by the organized wealth redistribution system of tort-happy lawyers.

Anyway, to spite them all, I kept coming back and setting up my tripod in the thundering rain until I got the shot. Let them try to arrest me some day – I’m obviously a real threat to society as a photographer. It’s amazing how hard we all have to work in the USA, land of the free, to be creative and capture beauty… just another reason I’m Coming to New Zealand, where there are no tort lawsuits!