The Printed Word Is Stronger Than Nuclear Arms

Authors
William Blake
Kahlil Gibran
Fiction
General
Luke Rhinehardt - The Dice Man
Philosophical
Sci-Fi
Neal Stephenson
Non-Fiction
Education
John Taylor Gatto - Underground History of American Education
Philosophy
Chinese
Marcus Aurelius - Meditations
Søren Kierkegaard - The Sickness Unto Death
Politics
Thomas More - Utopia
Religion
William James - The Varieties of Religious Experience
Technical
C J Date - Database in Depth
Gregor Kiczales - The Art of the Metaobject Protocol
Reports
2003 National Assesement of Adult Literacy
Books That I Cannot Find
Essays
Computing
Design

I enjoy classical literature and works of philosophy and politics with a side of cyberpunk novels for when my brain is tired. When I was in High School I read technical books for fun, but now I tend to find most of them useless (thank you Internet) excepting a few really well written ones (L.i.s.p, TAOCP, ...).

I spend most of my time reading. A full list of things I have read would be impossible to compile, but here I am collecting links and small summaries of things I have read and find interesting enough to mention, but not always recommend, to others.

Authors

William Blake

His poetry is the result of spending too much time etching copper plates and breathing the fumes. Quite wonderful indeed.

Kahlil Gibran

Kahlil Gibran is fairly interesting; his earlier works do not agree with my æsthetic sense (blah blah), but The Madman onward are all rather nice. So far I've read A Tear and a Smile (not so good excepting the last poem), The Madman, The Prophet (both excellent), and Sand and Foam (an interesting little book of aphorisms). A few of his works are online, but I recommend scouting used book stores for old hardcover editions. The (late 90s onward at least) hardcover versions from Alfred A. Knopf are in fact permabound paperbacks with a hardcasing, and are of seriously inferior quality to the editions from the 50s and 60s (and cost quite a bit more, naturally).

Fiction

General

Luke Rhinehardt - The Dice Man

And it's his illusions about what constitutes the real world which are inhibiting him... His reality, his reason, his society ...these are what must be destroyed

A quotation from one of my favorite metal songs inspired me to grab this book; at worst it would be a waste of time. Much reward was found in this random stab in the dark. The book is framed as an autobiography of the author as a psychoanalyst, and his progression through life as a Dice Man after deciding to live his life through random chance.

The style, plot, and content are equally neurotic; part comedy, part attack on psychoanalysis, and part deep philosophy. It was often difficult to put down, and was read in under a week of spare time.

Philosophical

Sci-Fi

Neal Stephenson

Cryptonomicon

I read Cryptonomicon when it was new, and at the time I thought it was good. It could have lost a hundred or so pages without detracting from the plot, but it was easy reading and didn't take very long to finish. The story was enganging, and the continual switching between the 1940s and present day slowly unravelled the tale in a nice way.

I'd still have to recommend Snow Crash if one wished to read only one Stephenson novel.

Snow Crash

As one must read the Bible to understand English literature, so one must read Snow Crash today to be a nerd. In the realm of modern pop fiction this is one of the better books I've read; it was devoured in a mere four nights. Neal Stepheson may not be Milton, but he does come up with enganging tales. Snow Crash has a nice undertone of (quite accurate) political and social commentary that makes it worth reading as more than mere cyberpunk fiction.

Non-Fiction

Education

John Taylor Gatto - Underground History of American Education

Contained within this book (available online for free, but the printed copy sits wonderfully on a shelf) is a detailed and seemingly well researched history of American Education with a particular focus on the transformation that has occured before our eyes in the last century. I am unsure if Gatto is entirely correct and not exaggerating anything; I have failed to find any negative criticisms, but it is not clear to me if that is because he is entirely correct or if no one cares enough to write a counterargument. I am in the process of tracking down as many of his sources as possible (a good number of them are out of print and not in the public domain yet), and will make an attempt to verify his argument over the course of the next year (that being 2007).

If he is correct then every one of us has had the first eighteen years of our lives stolen from us, and we have collectively suffered massive intellectual damage. My intuitions tell me he is correct (which is why I am driven to verify; I cannot trust myself because I want to believe) for my individuality and intelligence were nearly stolen from me. The only reason I survived relatively unscathed is because I became completely socially withdrawn for the last half of elementary school until late in high school due to the abuse I received at the hands of my peers creating a deep fear of social interaction in me. The downside is that I had the confidence crushed from my soul, but now that I have begun to regain it (the good that bicycling enabling me to stand straight and gradual realization of my own worth as a human have done) I would never trade the ability to think freely for the social skills I lack.

Philosophy

Chinese

Tao Te Ching
Confucianism
The Analects

Marcus Aurelius - Meditations

I enjoyed reading this collection of meditations on Stoic philosophy. It is a fairly quick read; I read each of the twelve books before sleeping over the course of two weeks. Toward the end of the collection things get a bit topically repetetive (e.g. acting according to the nature of man is reflected upon over and over), but each repetition looks at the topic in a slightly different light. A number of passages I found quite inspiring, and scratched them down in my notebook to ponder further.

Søren Kierkegaard - The Sickness Unto Death

I purchased this when I was looking through books at a store after being unable to find the book I really wanted, and I must say that it was better for me to have found this one.

Contained within is a beautiful analysis of despair in the context of Christianity (really theism in general). Even if the argument offends, the presentation cannot. The dialectical nature of despair is reflected in every aspect of the work, and the method of presentation forces reflection.

Politics

Thomas More - Utopia

I read most of Utopia in high school with the TI-89 ebook reader, but the way the book was split up made it a bit difficult to grasp the overall structure. I found a copy at a used book store one day, and so I read it again, and found it much more comprehensible. It is a quick read, and decent piece of literature. The interesting social system espoused resembles resembles state communism (even if perhaps as a negative ideal), but with an strange blend of 14th century European social customs.

Religion

William James - The Varieties of Religious Experience

Technical

C J Date - Database in Depth

This was a complete waste of time. The author rants on for 180 pages and presents the information in a disorderly and shallow manner. It could be rewritten in about fifty pages and contain the same amount of information if it were organized properly and the off topic commentary were minimized.

Gregor Kiczales - The Art of the Metaobject Protocol

AMOP is useful as a reference to the CLOS MOP (although less so with the online MOP spec), but the true value of the book lies in the first half of the book. It presents the design of the CLOS MOP through a series of revisions that fix limitations of earlier implementations and gradually work toward a generic and well designed MOP for CLOS. Through that process one is made more aware of a few general object protocol design skills, and gains insight into how to cleanly make mapping decisions customizable.

Reports

2003 National Assesement of Adult Literacy

A depressing view of American literacy rates. Literacy skills decreased across almost every population segment in the US between 1993 and 2003; a mere 31% of college graduates are considered proficient in quantitative literacy (defined as being able to do things as terribly complicated as comparing two editorials).

Books That I Cannot Find

If you know anyone who has copies I'd appreciate an email. I'm willing to buy books for a reasonable cost, and for ones that are more than 25 years old and out of print I am not opposed to piracy (no one is making money from them, and I feel that long copyrights are unethical and therefore feel no pangs of moral guilt).

Essays

Computing

Design

Confucianism and Technical Standards

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Last Modified: January 21, 2013