Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)
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Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)
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Re: Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)
#2A thread from 2013: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4992595
Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1078652
Re: Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)
#3Interesting that in the old linked discussion from 2013, someone claims that publishers can't complain, because they had a record year financially. I wonder how well they are doing now.
My gut feeling is that publishers these days face problems not from privacy so much as from 1) the sheer glut of content, making it hard to stand out, and 2) shortening attention spans and people preferring to read snackable content on their phones instead of longform books.
When Kindles appeared, they seemed to augur a golden age for reading (and sure, you could load them up with pirated ebooks). Nowadays I am conscious at the beach or on public transport of usually being the only person with a Kindle while everyone else around me is looking at their phones, and it would be hard to believe any significant number have an EPUB reader open on those phones to read actual books.
Re: Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)
#4These days if the book is not already on LibGen, will obtain it through inter-library loan until someone uploads it to one of their mirrors.
Over the years, have scanned a few technical titles on a high-speed photocopy machine at the university and then made sure to turn around and "do the right thing" ... in order to thank others for sharing :)
Re: Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)
#5I can sympathize with the desire to see your favorite books put online for more people to read.
I for example, am a big fan of the book "Waves & Beaches" by Willard Bascom, a long out-of-print book on the physics, dynamics of the ocean (and the spirit of longing to understand the nature of the sea), but which always only could be found for >$30 on Ebay or something like that.
I finally bought a copy (out of nostalgia) and actually enjoyed it again so much, I went to the trouble of sawing off the spine, scanning it and OCRing it to produce an eBook and prolong its life. For myself.
I have been tempted to share it, but have no idea how. But I imagine there's tons of books and people like this.
Re: Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)
#6Book piracy is a big reason I've been able to learn as much as I know about ML.
I don't know how to feel about it. All I know is that I'm more effective than I would've been if I had to pay for the books, since I wouldn't have read anything.
It's common on HN to pretend that everyone here is an affluent programmer working for FAANG with $500k/yr in stock vesting. In reality, I've spoken to many who are more along the lines of "month to month paycheck." Dropping $50 on a book about Tensorflow just isn't in the cards.
Yet the outrage is extreme, and probably justified: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18047297#18049297
I apologize to the authors of the books I've absorbed. No doubt you've worked exceptionally hard. For what it's worth, I do recommend your books to others who may be in a position to buy them.
I like:
- Hands-on Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn, Keras, and Tensorflow, 2nd Edition
- IPython Interactive Computing and Visualization Cookbook 2nd Edition
- Nick McClure - TensorFlow Machine Learning Cook (2017)
These are easily found on Library Genesis, which has become my de facto study.
Re: Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)
#7Book piracy is a big reason I've been able to learn as much as I know about ML. I don't know how to feel about it. All I know is that I'm more effective than I would've been if I had to pay for the books, since I wouldn't have read anything. It's common on HN to pretend that everyone here is an affluent programmer working for FAANG with $500k/yr in stock vesting. In reality, I've spoken to many who are more along the…
Piracy. The ultimate market segregation.
Re: Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)
#8I buy a lot of books, more than what I read. But I have to confess that the lack of pdf versions and the sometimes obscene cost of text books does sometime lead me to peruse alternatives.
Re: Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)
#9Interesting that in the old linked discussion from 2013, someone claims that publishers can't complain, because they had a record year financially. I wonder how well they are doing now. My gut feeling is that publishers these days face problems not from privacy so much as from 1) the sheer glut of content, making it hard to stand out, and 2) shortening attention spans and people preferring to read snackable content o…
I bought one of the first Kindles and loaded it up with a hundred DRM-liberated ebooks and read it avidly. Since then, phones have gotten bigger screens with higher pixel density and longer battery life, and my Kindle now sits is a drawer unused. The best ebook reader is the one you have on you.
Re: Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)
#10I can sympathize with the desire to see your favorite books put online for more people to read. I for example, am a big fan of the book "Waves & Beaches" by Willard Bascom, a long out-of-print book on the physics, dynamics of the ocean (and the spirit of longing to understand the nature of the sea), but which always only could be found for >$30 on Ebay or something like that. I finally bought a copy (out of nostalgia…
Upload to libgen is the best way to share things like that.
I'm not goint to upload the latest JK King Grisham page turner but an obscure gardening book where the author is long dead? Yes that is getting uploaded.
For the culture.