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6 <title>The Printed Word Is Stronger Than Nuclear Arms
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16 <h1>The Printed Word Is Stronger Than Nuclear Arms
</h1>
17 <div class=
"contents">
20 <a href=
"#sec1">Authors
</a>
25 <a href=
"#sec2">William Blake
</a>
28 <a href=
"#sec3">Kahlil Gibran
</a>
33 <a href=
"#sec4">Fiction
</a>
38 <a href=
"#sec5">General
</a>
43 <a href=
"#sec6">Luke Rhinehardt - The Dice Man
</a>
48 <a href=
"#sec7">Philosophical
</a>
51 <a href=
"#sec8">Sci-Fi
</a>
56 <a href=
"#sec9">Neal Stephenson
</a>
63 <a href=
"#sec10">Non-Fiction
</a>
68 <a href=
"#sec11">Education
</a>
73 <a href=
"#sec12">John Taylor Gatto - Underground History of American Education
</a>
78 <a href=
"#sec13">Philosophy
</a>
83 <a href=
"#sec14">Chinese
</a>
86 <a href=
"#sec15">Marcus Aurelius - Meditations
</a>
89 <a href=
"#sec16">Søren Kierkegaard - The Sickness Unto Death
</a>
94 <a href=
"#sec17">Politics
</a>
99 <a href=
"#sec18">Thomas More - Utopia
</a>
104 <a href=
"#sec19">Religion
</a>
109 <a href=
"#sec20">William James - The Varieties of Religious Experience
</a>
114 <a href=
"#sec21">Technical
</a>
119 <a href=
"#sec22">C J Date - Database in Depth
</a>
122 <a href=
"#sec23">Gregor Kiczales - The Art of the Metaobject Protocol
</a>
129 <a href=
"#sec24">Reports
</a>
134 <a href=
"#sec25">2003 National Assesement of Adult Literacy
</a>
139 <a href=
"#sec26">Books That I Cannot Find
</a>
142 <a href=
"#sec27">Essays
</a>
147 <a href=
"#sec28">Computing
</a>
152 <a href=
"#sec29">Design
</a>
162 <!-- Page published by Emacs Muse begins here --><p>I enjoy classical literature and works of philosophy and politics with
163 a side of cyberpunk novels for when my brain is tired. When I was in
164 High School I read technical books for fun, but now I tend to find
165 most of them useless (thank you Internet) excepting a few really well
166 written ones (
<em>L.i.s.p
</em>,
<em>TAOCP
</em>, ...).
</p>
168 <p>I spend most of my time reading. A full list of things I have read
169 would be impossible to compile, but here I am collecting links and
170 small summaries of things I have read and find interesting enough to
171 mention, but not always recommend, to others.
</p>
173 <h2><a name=
"sec1" id=
"sec1"></a>
176 <h3><a name=
"sec2" id=
"sec2"></a>
179 <p class=
"first">His poetry is the result of spending too much time etching copper
180 plates and breathing the fumes. Quite wonderful indeed.
</p>
183 <h3><a name=
"sec3" id=
"sec3"></a>
186 <p class=
"first">Kahlil Gibran is fairly interesting; his earlier works do not agree
187 with my æsthetic sense (blah blah), but
<em>The Madman
</em> onward are all
188 rather nice. So far I've read
<em>A Tear and a Smile
</em> (not so good
189 excepting the last poem),
<em>The Madman
</em>,
<em>The Prophet
</em> (both excellent),
190 and
<em>Sand and Foam
</em> (an interesting little book of aphorisms). A few of
191 his works are
<a href=
"http://leb.net/~mira/">online
</a>, but I recommend scouting used book stores for
192 old hardcover editions. The (late
90s onward at least)
<em>hardcover
</em>
193 versions from
<em>Alfred A. Knopf
</em> are in fact permabound paperbacks with a
194 hardcasing, and are of seriously inferior quality to the editions from
195 the
50s and
60s (and cost quite a bit more, naturally).
</p>
199 <h2><a name=
"sec4" id=
"sec4"></a>
202 <h3><a name=
"sec5" id=
"sec5"></a>
205 <h4><a name=
"sec6" id=
"sec6"></a>
206 Luke Rhinehardt - The Dice Man
</h4>
210 And it's his illusions about what
211 constitutes the real world which are
213 His reality, his reason, his society
214 ...these are what must be destroyed
</p>
218 <p>A quotation from one of my
<a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughter_of_the_Soul">favorite metal songs
</a> inspired me to grab
219 this book; at worst it would be a waste of time. Much reward was found
220 in this random stab in the dark. The book is framed as an
221 autobiography of the author as a psychoanalyst, and his progression
222 through life as a Dice Man after deciding to live his life through
225 <p>The style, plot, and content are equally neurotic; part comedy, part
226 attack on psychoanalysis, and part deep philosophy. It was often
227 difficult to put down, and was read in under a week of spare time.
</p>
231 <h3><a name=
"sec7" id=
"sec7"></a>
235 <h3><a name=
"sec8" id=
"sec8"></a>
238 <h4><a name=
"sec9" id=
"sec9"></a>
241 <h5>Cryptonomicon
</h5>
243 <p>I read
<em>Cryptonomicon
</em> when it was new, and at the time I thought it was
244 good. It could have lost a hundred or so pages without detracting from
245 the plot, but it was easy reading and didn't take very long to
246 finish. The story was enganging, and the continual switching between
247 the
1940s and present day slowly unravelled the tale in a nice way.
</p>
249 <p>I'd still have to recommend
<em>Snow Crash
</em> if one wished to read only one
250 Stephenson novel.
</p>
255 <p>As one must read the
<em>Bible
</em> to understand English literature, so one
256 must read
<em>Snow Crash
</em> today to be a nerd. In the realm of modern pop
257 fiction this is one of the better books I've read; it was devoured in
258 a mere four nights. Neal Stepheson may not be Milton, but he does come
259 up with enganging tales.
<em>Snow Crash
</em> has a nice undertone of (quite
260 accurate) political and social commentary that makes it worth reading
261 as more than mere cyberpunk fiction.
</p>
267 <h2><a name=
"sec10" id=
"sec10"></a>
270 <h3><a name=
"sec11" id=
"sec11"></a>
273 <h4><a name=
"sec12" id=
"sec12"></a>
274 John Taylor Gatto -
<a href=
"http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/toc1.htm">Underground History of American Education
</a></h4>
276 <p class=
"first">Contained within this book (available online for free, but the printed
277 copy sits wonderfully on a shelf) is a detailed and seemingly well
278 researched history of American Education with a particular focus on
279 the transformation that has occured before our eyes in the last
280 century. I am unsure if Gatto is entirely correct and not exaggerating
281 anything; I have failed to find any negative criticisms, but it is not
282 clear to me if that is because he is entirely correct or if no one
283 cares enough to write a counterargument. I am in the process of
284 tracking down as many of his sources as possible (a good number of
285 them are out of print and not in the public domain yet), and will make
286 an attempt to verify his argument over the course of the next year
287 (that being
2007).
</p>
289 <p>If he is correct then every one of us has had the first eighteen years
290 of our lives stolen from us, and we have collectively suffered massive
291 intellectual damage. My intuitions tell me he is correct (which is why
292 I am driven to verify; I cannot trust myself because I
<em>want
</em> to
293 believe) for my individuality and intelligence were nearly stolen from
294 me. The only reason I survived relatively unscathed is because I
295 became completely socially withdrawn for the last half of elementary
296 school until late in high school due to the abuse I received at the
297 hands of my peers creating a deep fear of social interaction in
298 me. The downside is that I had the confidence crushed from my soul,
299 but now that I have begun to regain it (the good that bicycling
300 enabling me to stand straight and gradual realization of my own worth
301 as a human have done) I would never trade the ability to think freely
302 for the social skills I lack.
</p>
306 <h3><a name=
"sec13" id=
"sec13"></a>
309 <h4><a name=
"sec14" id=
"sec14"></a>
312 <h5>Tao Te Ching
</h5>
315 <h5>Confucianism
</h5>
317 <h5>The Analects
</h5>
322 <h4><a name=
"sec15" id=
"sec15"></a>
323 Marcus Aurelius - Meditations
</h4>
325 <p class=
"first">I enjoyed reading this collection of meditations on Stoic
326 philosophy. It is a fairly quick read; I read each of the twelve books
327 before sleeping over the course of two weeks. Toward the end of the
328 collection things get a bit topically repetetive (e.g. acting
329 according to the nature of man is reflected upon over and over), but
330 each repetition looks at the topic in a slightly different light. A
331 number of passages I found quite inspiring, and scratched them down in
332 my notebook to ponder further.
</p>
335 <h4><a name=
"sec16" id=
"sec16"></a>
336 Søren Kierkegaard - The Sickness Unto Death
</h4>
338 <p class=
"first">I purchased this when I was looking through books at a store after
339 being unable to find the book I really wanted, and I must say that it
340 was better for me to have found this one.
</p>
342 <p>Contained within is a beautiful analysis of despair in the context of
343 Christianity (really theism in general). Even if the argument offends,
344 the presentation cannot. The dialectical nature of despair is
345 reflected in every aspect of the work, and the method of presentation
346 forces reflection.
</p>
350 <h3><a name=
"sec17" id=
"sec17"></a>
353 <h4><a name=
"sec18" id=
"sec18"></a>
354 Thomas More - Utopia
</h4>
356 <p class=
"first">I read most of Utopia in high school with the TI-
89 ebook reader, but
357 the way the book was split up made it a bit difficult to grasp the
358 overall structure. I found a copy at a used book store one day, and so
359 I read it again, and found it much more comprehensible. It is a quick
360 read, and decent piece of literature. The interesting social system
361 espoused resembles resembles state communism (even if perhaps as a
362 negative ideal), but with an strange blend of
14th century European
367 <h3><a name=
"sec19" id=
"sec19"></a>
370 <h4><a name=
"sec20" id=
"sec20"></a>
371 <a href=
"William%20James%20-%20The%20Varieties%20of%20Religious%20Experience.html">William James - The Varieties of Religious Experience
</a></h4>
376 <h3><a name=
"sec21" id=
"sec21"></a>
379 <h4><a name=
"sec22" id=
"sec22"></a>
380 C J Date - Database in Depth
</h4>
382 <p class=
"first">This was a complete waste of time. The author rants on for
180 pages
383 and presents the information in a disorderly and shallow manner. It
384 could be rewritten in about fifty pages and contain the same amount of
385 information if it were organized properly and the off topic commentary
389 <h4><a name=
"sec23" id=
"sec23"></a>
390 Gregor Kiczales - The Art of the Metaobject Protocol
</h4>
392 <p class=
"first">AMOP is useful as a reference to the CLOS MOP (although less so with
393 the online MOP spec), but the true value of the book lies in the first
394 half of the book. It presents the design of the CLOS MOP through a
395 series of revisions that fix limitations of earlier implementations
396 and gradually work toward a generic and well designed MOP for
397 CLOS. Through that process one is made more aware of a few general
398 object protocol design skills, and gains insight into how to cleanly
399 make mapping decisions customizable.
</p>
405 <h2><a name=
"sec24" id=
"sec24"></a>
408 <h3><a name=
"sec25" id=
"sec25"></a>
409 <a href=
"http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2006/2006483.pdf">2003 National Assesement of Adult Literacy
</a></h3>
411 <p class=
"first">A depressing view of American literacy rates. Literacy skills
412 decreased across almost every population segment in the US between
413 1993 and
2003; a mere
31% of college graduates are considered
414 proficient in quantitative literacy (defined as being able to do
415 things as terribly complicated as comparing two editorials).
</p>
420 <h2><a name=
"sec26" id=
"sec26"></a>
421 Books That I Cannot Find
</h2>
423 <p class=
"first">If you know anyone who has copies I'd appreciate an email. I'm willing
424 to buy books for a reasonable cost, and for ones that are more than
25
425 years old and out of print I am not opposed to
<em>piracy
</em> (no one is
426 making money from them, and I feel that long copyrights are unethical
427 and therefore feel no pangs of moral guilt).
</p>
430 <li><em>Crystallizing Public Opinion
</em> by Edward Bernays
433 <li>A supposed classic in the field of public relations. Curiosity
434 demands that I read the writings of the father of the field to
435 better understand the way the international media works.
</li>
436 <li>Another example of out of print books clearly having a market,
437 but no publisher due to copyright (used copies go for nearly a
438 thousand dollars in poor condition and hit five thousand or so
439 for ones in good shape).
</li>
444 <h2><a name=
"sec27" id=
"sec27"></a>
447 <h3><a name=
"sec28" id=
"sec28"></a>
450 <h4><a name=
"sec29" id=
"sec29"></a>
453 <h5><a href=
"http://deadhobosociety.com/index.php/Essays/ESSAY12">Confucianism and Technical Standards
</a></h5>
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