156 items in 3 years? That is obscene. He averaged one purchase per week from amazon over this time period, which basically makes Amazon.com PB's religion.
I concurrently read 2-3 books per week; just finished one since yesterday morning. And it's not a hobby.
Everything Paul Buchheit has bought from Amazon in the last 3 years
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Re: Everything Paul Buchheit has bought from Amazon in the last 3 years
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
I concurrently read 2-3 books per week; just finished one since yesterday morning. And it's not a hobby.
What do you mean when you say it is not a hobby? Is it your job?
Re: Everything Paul Buchheit has bought from Amazon in the last 3 years
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
my lame speculation: a.) once you're that wealthy, i don't think you care too much about 'get rich quick' or 'crazy investment strategies of the week' books anymore. you probably stash your money somewhere safe b.) i'm sure paul cares a lot more about hacking than the latest fads in finance/investment
Not to mention he is an active angel investor, which is basically as risky as it can get, so that makes sense to safely diversify.
Re: Everything Paul Buchheit has bought from Amazon in the last 3 years
#24I think real geeks can't understand the benefits of social networking because we are not really that social. We should accept it already: technology's main use in the next decade will be for ego inflation and vanity with Twitter, Blippy and the rest being on the leading edge. Triumph of empty form over substance.
Re: Everything Paul Buchheit has bought from Amazon in the last 3 years
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you s/Amazon.com/public library/, that is fairly typical of people who read a lot. There is a LiveJournal community called 50bookchallenge that encourages people to read 50 books a year, keep track of them, and share what they're reading with others. It has 7000+ members. My reading lists for 2003-2006: 2003: http://nostrademons.livejournal.com/24851.html 2004: http://nostrademons.livejournal.com/60579.html 2005:…
The money isn't my primary problem with buying so many books, though it is a factor...it's the weight of having all those books. When I moved from Austin I sold 26 boxes of books and several bookshelves. I promised myself I would never collect that many books again. I'm moving into an RV this week, and so had to sell all the remaining books (and any that I'd collected since that last move), and I sold 8 boxes of book…
Re: Everything Paul Buchheit has bought from Amazon in the last 3 years
#26Maybe I'm not seeing the obvious but how do you get a list with past purchases? Er, I do know you can log into your account and check your past purchases very easily but that isn't very convenient if you want to post that list on your blog with links to the books. Is there a convenient API call or do you have to resort to html scraping? Can't find anything like that in the Amazon API documentation but maybe I'm just…
Re: Everything Paul Buchheit has bought from Amazon in the last 3 years
#27Just a few non-books though, and people has been sharing book lists for years. If Paul really wants to test the privacy implications of this trend and see what it feels like, he should post a history of his bank accounts, yeah by all means edit it but still. I think real geeks can't understand the benefits of social networking because we are not really that social. We should accept it already: technology's main use i…
It's interesting how this corresponds with the most idolized caste in society at the time. From 500-1500, it was the clergy. From 1500-1900, it was the financier/plantation-owner/prospector/industrialist. From 1900-1995, it was the starlet. From 1995-present, it's the geek.
Substance is nothing more than empty form that nobody likes. (Or, as the musician sometimes says it, "What does it say about classical music that its antonym is 'popular' music?")
Re: Everything Paul Buchheit has bought from Amazon in the last 3 years
#28Re: Everything Paul Buchheit has bought from Amazon in the last 3 years
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you mean when you say it is not a hobby? Is it your job?
Not a job, but it's stuff that keeps the job/company/vision straight. Broke into an industry all on my own with no training, mentor or previous experience.
Re: Everything Paul Buchheit has bought from Amazon in the last 3 years
#30156 items in 3 years? That is obscene. He averaged one purchase per week from amazon over this time period, which basically makes Amazon.com PB's religion.