261–270 of 399 posts
I thoroughly enjoyed “Constellation Games” by Leonard Richardson who coincidentally also wrote BeautifulSoup, the python HTML parser.
Keep in mind It isn't a programming book though and it really shouldn't be read as one.
The hidden persuaders by Vance Packard I read this book as a kid, it changed how I view the world and I've never forgotten it's lessons. It shows how the ad world is working hard to persuade you. It convinced me to always question what are represented as facts by ads or the media. A healthy skepticism has served me very well. Most people never deeply question and Packard is correct that there's an entire industry try…
Sounds very interesting, but is there a more recent book covering similar material? This dates from 1957 and I suspect there is more to say about it now.
'The Extended Organism' by J Scott Turner I've posted this repeatedly to these lists, but no one else is as enthused by it. From the GoodReads page: "Can the structures that animals build--from the humble burrows of earthworms to towering termite mounds to the Great Barrier Reef--be said to live? However counterintuitive the idea might first seem, physiological ecologist Scott Turner demonstrates in this book that ma…
He starts off with observations about well-educated, intelligent, capable people in possession of sophisticated technology starving or freezing to death when they were stranded in unfamiliar physical environments, in which other cultural groups could thrive.
If Turner thinks that your constructed habitat is part of your body, Henrich thinks that your culture is part of your intelligence, and for a wide range of purposes, the most important part.
*The Devil's Dictionary[1] by Ambrose Bierce, a collection of sarcastic definitions, some of which are still funny today: > LOGIC, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. > SELF-EVIDENT, adj. Evident to one's self and to nobody else. [1] http://thedevilsdictionary.com/
INTERREGNUM, n. The period during which a monarchical country is governed by a warm spot on the cushion of the throne. The experiment of letting the spot grow cold has commonly been attended by most unhappy results from the zeal of many worthy persons to make it warm again.
and
INTERPRETER, n. One who enables two persons of different languages to understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to the interpreter's advantage for the other to have said.
Chinese Profiles A collection of interviews with a hundred ordinary Chinese people in 1984
KJV Bible
It covers the physics, politics, motivation, cultural implications, and so much more. It's one of those books where being extremely long is a feature because it's unbelievably interesting. I highly recommend it.
The Network Revolution – confessions of a computer scientist (1982)¹ is the title which immediately springs to mind. I never see anyone else mention this book, but I liked it. One of the many interesting things it contains is an anonymized telling of what happened with Doug Engelbart and why, even after giving the dazzling “ The Mother of All Demos ”², the SRI company did not succeed in its grand plan for the future…
I remember reading about Lee Felsenstein and Community Memory in Hackers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackers:_Heroes_of_the_Compute... But yeah, I guess it came out 2 years later.
You’re right, I misremembered; there’s nothing about Lee Felsenstein or Community Memory in The Network Revolution. The story about Doug Engelbart is definitely in there, though.