11–20 of 85 posts
Ed is an incredible human being! Go read it!
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It's about Stewart Brand, but really more about the scenes he was involved in, it's not a biography. Covers the Whole Earth Catalog and the WELL, but also talks about the influence of systems theory and Bucky Fuller, and clarified, for me at least, the difference between the New Communalists and the New Left, which were somewhat conflated in my mind. It also puts Stewart Brand as a character, if not an essential one, at some key events. The mother of all demos and the founding of the Homebrew Computer Club are what I'm referring to here.
Structures: Or Why Things Don't Fall Down. About the engineering of various things, mostly buildings. Highly recommend.
The Elements of Computer Systems (better known as NAND to Tetris). Describes a computer from the bottom up.
A History of the Arab Peoples
The Quran
The Bible
Space and Time in General Relativity by David Mermin
Feynman QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter
Some people I have spoken to say his method isn't for them but I've found it useful, even if I haven't implemented everything he suggests.
I'd also recommend "Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software" by Charles Petzold. It starts at simple circuits and builds up a picture of how computers work. It has really helped me get my mental models of what's going on inside a computer straightened out!
This is a novel, but Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind is fantastic.