| 1 | #title The Printed Word Is Stronger Than Nuclear Arms |
| 2 | |
| 3 | I enjoy classical literature and works of philosophy and politics with |
| 4 | a side of cyberpunk novels for when my brain is tired. When I was in |
| 5 | High School I read technical books for fun, but now I tend to find |
| 6 | most of them useless (thank you Internet) excepting a few really well |
| 7 | written ones (*L.i.s.p*, *TAOCP*, ...). |
| 8 | |
| 9 | I spend most of my time reading. A full list of things I have read |
| 10 | would be impossible to compile, but here I am collecting links and |
| 11 | small summaries of things I have read and find interesting enough to |
| 12 | mention, but not always recommend, to others. |
| 13 | |
| 14 | * Authors |
| 15 | |
| 16 | ** William Blake |
| 17 | |
| 18 | His poetry is the result of spending too much time etching copper |
| 19 | plates and breathing the fumes. Quite wonderful indeed. |
| 20 | |
| 21 | ** Kahlil Gibran |
| 22 | |
| 23 | Kahlil Gibran is fairly interesting; his earlier works do not agree |
| 24 | with my æsthetic sense (blah blah), but *The Madman* onward are all |
| 25 | rather nice. So far I've read *A Tear and a Smile* (not so good |
| 26 | excepting the last poem), *The Madman*, *The Prophet* (both excellent), |
| 27 | and *Sand and Foam* (an interesting little book of aphorisms). A few of |
| 28 | his works are [[http://leb.net/~mira/][online]], but I recommend scouting used book stores for |
| 29 | old hardcover editions. The (late 90s onward at least) *hardcover* |
| 30 | versions from *Alfred A. Knopf* are in fact permabound paperbacks with a |
| 31 | hardcasing, and are of seriously inferior quality to the editions from |
| 32 | the 50s and 60s (and cost quite a bit more, naturally). |
| 33 | |
| 34 | * Fiction |
| 35 | |
| 36 | ** General |
| 37 | |
| 38 | *** Luke Rhinehardt - The Dice Man |
| 39 | |
| 40 | <quote> |
| 41 | And it's his illusions about what |
| 42 | constitutes the real world which are |
| 43 | inhibiting him... |
| 44 | His reality, his reason, his society |
| 45 | ...these are what must be destroyed |
| 46 | </quote> |
| 47 | |
| 48 | A quotation from one of my [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughter_of_the_Soul][favorite metal songs]] inspired me to grab |
| 49 | this book; at worst it would be a waste of time. Much reward was found |
| 50 | in this random stab in the dark. The book is framed as an |
| 51 | autobiography of the author as a psychoanalyst, and his progression |
| 52 | through life as a Dice Man after deciding to live his life through |
| 53 | random chance. |
| 54 | |
| 55 | The style, plot, and content are equally neurotic; part comedy, part |
| 56 | attack on psychoanalysis, and part deep philosophy. It was often |
| 57 | difficult to put down, and was read in under a week of spare time. |
| 58 | |
| 59 | ** Philosophical |
| 60 | |
| 61 | ** Sci-Fi |
| 62 | |
| 63 | *** Neal Stephenson |
| 64 | |
| 65 | **** Cryptonomicon |
| 66 | |
| 67 | I read *Cryptonomicon* when it was new, and at the time I thought it was |
| 68 | good. It could have lost a hundred or so pages without detracting from |
| 69 | the plot, but it was easy reading and didn't take very long to |
| 70 | finish. The story was enganging, and the continual switching between |
| 71 | the 1940s and present day slowly unravelled the tale in a nice way. |
| 72 | |
| 73 | I'd still have to recommend *Snow Crash* if one wished to read only one |
| 74 | Stephenson novel. |
| 75 | |
| 76 | **** Snow Crash |
| 77 | |
| 78 | As one must read the *Bible* to understand English literature, so one |
| 79 | must read *Snow Crash* today to be a nerd. In the realm of modern pop |
| 80 | fiction this is one of the better books I've read; it was devoured in |
| 81 | a mere four nights. Neal Stepheson may not be Milton, but he does come |
| 82 | up with enganging tales. *Snow Crash* has a nice undertone of (quite |
| 83 | accurate) political and social commentary that makes it worth reading |
| 84 | as more than mere cyberpunk fiction. |
| 85 | |
| 86 | * Non-Fiction |
| 87 | |
| 88 | ** Education |
| 89 | |
| 90 | *** John Taylor Gatto - [[http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/toc1.htm][Underground History of American Education]] |
| 91 | |
| 92 | Contained within this book (available online for free, but the printed |
| 93 | copy sits wonderfully on a shelf) is a detailed and seemingly well |
| 94 | researched history of American Education with a particular focus on |
| 95 | the transformation that has occured before our eyes in the last |
| 96 | century. I am unsure if Gatto is entirely correct and not exaggerating |
| 97 | anything; I have failed to find any negative criticisms, but it is not |
| 98 | clear to me if that is because he is entirely correct or if no one |
| 99 | cares enough to write a counterargument. I am in the process of |
| 100 | tracking down as many of his sources as possible (a good number of |
| 101 | them are out of print and not in the public domain yet), and will make |
| 102 | an attempt to verify his argument over the course of the next year |
| 103 | (that being 2007). |
| 104 | |
| 105 | If he is correct then every one of us has had the first eighteen years |
| 106 | of our lives stolen from us, and we have collectively suffered massive |
| 107 | intellectual damage. My intuitions tell me he is correct (which is why |
| 108 | I am driven to verify; I cannot trust myself because I *want* to |
| 109 | believe) for my individuality and intelligence were nearly stolen from |
| 110 | me. The only reason I survived relatively unscathed is because I |
| 111 | became completely socially withdrawn for the last half of elementary |
| 112 | school until late in high school due to the abuse I received at the |
| 113 | hands of my peers creating a deep fear of social interaction in |
| 114 | me. The downside is that I had the confidence crushed from my soul, |
| 115 | but now that I have begun to regain it (the good that bicycling |
| 116 | enabling me to stand straight and gradual realization of my own worth |
| 117 | as a human have done) I would never trade the ability to think freely |
| 118 | for the social skills I lack. |
| 119 | |
| 120 | ** Philosophy |
| 121 | |
| 122 | *** Chinese |
| 123 | |
| 124 | **** Tao Te Ching |
| 125 | |
| 126 | **** Confucianism |
| 127 | |
| 128 | ***** The Analects |
| 129 | |
| 130 | *** Marcus Aurelius - Meditations |
| 131 | |
| 132 | I enjoyed reading this collection of meditations on Stoic |
| 133 | philosophy. It is a fairly quick read; I read each of the twelve books |
| 134 | before sleeping over the course of two weeks. Toward the end of the |
| 135 | collection things get a bit topically repetetive (e.g. acting |
| 136 | according to the nature of man is reflected upon over and over), but |
| 137 | each repetition looks at the topic in a slightly different light. A |
| 138 | number of passages I found quite inspiring, and scratched them down in |
| 139 | my notebook to ponder further. |
| 140 | |
| 141 | *** Søren Kierkegaard - The Sickness Unto Death |
| 142 | |
| 143 | I purchased this when I was looking through books at a store after |
| 144 | being unable to find the book I really wanted, and I must say that it |
| 145 | was better for me to have found this one. |
| 146 | |
| 147 | Contained within is a beautiful analysis of despair in the context of |
| 148 | Christianity (really theism in general). Even if the argument offends, |
| 149 | the presentation cannot. The dialectical nature of despair is |
| 150 | reflected in every aspect of the work, and the method of presentation |
| 151 | forces reflection. |
| 152 | |
| 153 | ** Politics |
| 154 | |
| 155 | *** Thomas More - Utopia |
| 156 | |
| 157 | I read most of Utopia in high school with the TI-89 ebook reader, but |
| 158 | the way the book was split up made it a bit difficult to grasp the |
| 159 | overall structure. I found a copy at a used book store one day, and so |
| 160 | I read it again, and found it much more comprehensible. It is a quick |
| 161 | read, and decent piece of literature. The interesting social system |
| 162 | espoused resembles resembles state communism (even if perhaps as a |
| 163 | negative ideal), but with an strange blend of 14th century European |
| 164 | social customs. |
| 165 | |
| 166 | ** Religion |
| 167 | |
| 168 | *** [[William James - The Varieties of Religious Experience]] |
| 169 | |
| 170 | |
| 171 | ** Technical |
| 172 | |
| 173 | *** C J Date - Database in Depth |
| 174 | |
| 175 | This was a complete waste of time. The author rants on for 180 pages |
| 176 | and presents the information in a disorderly and shallow manner. It |
| 177 | could be rewritten in about fifty pages and contain the same amount of |
| 178 | information if it were organized properly and the off topic commentary |
| 179 | were minimized. |
| 180 | |
| 181 | *** Gregor Kiczales - The Art of the Metaobject Protocol |
| 182 | |
| 183 | AMOP is useful as a reference to the CLOS MOP (although less so with |
| 184 | the online MOP spec), but the true value of the book lies in the first |
| 185 | half of the book. It presents the design of the CLOS MOP through a |
| 186 | series of revisions that fix limitations of earlier implementations |
| 187 | and gradually work toward a generic and well designed MOP for |
| 188 | CLOS. Through that process one is made more aware of a few general |
| 189 | object protocol design skills, and gains insight into how to cleanly |
| 190 | make mapping decisions customizable. |
| 191 | |
| 192 | |
| 193 | * Reports |
| 194 | |
| 195 | ** [[http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2006/2006483.pdf][2003 National Assesement of Adult Literacy]] |
| 196 | |
| 197 | A depressing view of American literacy rates. Literacy skills |
| 198 | decreased across almost every population segment in the US between |
| 199 | 1993 and 2003; a mere 31% of college graduates are considered |
| 200 | proficient in quantitative literacy (defined as being able to do |
| 201 | things as terribly complicated as comparing two editorials). |
| 202 | |
| 203 | |
| 204 | * Books That I Cannot Find |
| 205 | |
| 206 | If you know anyone who has copies I'd appreciate an email. I'm willing |
| 207 | to buy books for a reasonable cost, and for ones that are more than 25 |
| 208 | years old and out of print I am not opposed to *piracy* (no one is |
| 209 | making money from them, and I feel that long copyrights are unethical |
| 210 | and therefore feel no pangs of moral guilt). |
| 211 | |
| 212 | - *Crystallizing Public Opinion* by Edward Bernays |
| 213 | - A supposed classic in the field of public relations. Curiosity |
| 214 | demands that I read the writings of the father of the field to |
| 215 | better understand the way the international media works. |
| 216 | - Another example of out of print books clearly having a market, |
| 217 | but no publisher due to copyright (used copies go for nearly a |
| 218 | thousand dollars in poor condition and hit five thousand or so |
| 219 | for ones in good shape). |
| 220 | |
| 221 | * Essays |
| 222 | |
| 223 | ** Computing |
| 224 | |
| 225 | *** Design |
| 226 | |
| 227 | **** [[http://deadhobosociety.com/index.php/Essays/ESSAY12][Confucianism and Technical Standards]] |