Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What’s the strangest thing you ever found in a book?

noctslackv2.wordpress.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 481 posts

Re: What’s the strangest thing you ever found in a book?

#141

Post by MollyRealized »

shepherdjerred wrote: post #129
gostsamo wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recently I read HPMOR and this paragraph was one of many delights there: The cold in the room seemed to deepen. “A sixth-year Gryffindor cast a curse at one of my more promising students, a sixth-year Slytherin.” Harry swallowed. “What...sort of curse?” And the fury on Professor Quirrell’s face was no longer contained. “Why bother to ask an unimportant question like that, Mr Potter? Our friend the sixth-year Gryffind…

Do you recommend HMOR? I’ve never heard of it, but the Wikipedia page sounded interesting

Completely agree with other commenter. It's a very interesting read. I don't necessarily agree with every statement but it's a learning experience that is made exceptionally enjoyable by fantastic writing.

Re: What’s the strangest thing you ever found in a book?

#142

Post by imadethis »

pugworthy wrote: post #140

I have some old (1800's) student primers (textbooks) which I value for the doodles and illustrations past owners have done. Perhaps the most fascinating is a drawing of an early steamship with smokestack and paddle wheels, but also masts for sails. This style of ship didn't exist for that long, and some student long ago must have seen them and been fascinated by them enough to make the drawing in the book.

If you haven't seen it yet, a relevant thread on Twitter from the Museum of English Rural Life: https://twitter.com/TheMERL/status/1048541160271237120

Re: What’s the strangest thing you ever found in a book?

#143

Post by kzrdude »

floren wrote: post #123
acomjean wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went through a couple years where I was finding cash kind of a lot. Not life changing amounts, but something. At work in the secure area when locking up I found a 10 inside the door. I didn't know what to do with it so I tacked it on the bulletin board by the door. Really obvious. Nobody took it for 2 weeks (which is kind of remarkable), so I took it back to buy lunch. I found a twenty in the snow on the street in…

> At work in the secure area when locking up I found a 10 inside the door. I didn't know what to do with it so I tacked it on the bulletin board by the door. Really obvious. Nobody took it for 2 weeks (which is kind of remarkable), so I took it back to buy lunch. When I've worked in secure areas, I've never had the slightest concern about theft. We even did an experiment where we left a couple $1 bills out on the tab…

Very nice but what about repeating it with $100? :)

Re: What’s the strangest thing you ever found in a book?

#144

Post by D-Coder »

shepherdjerred wrote: post #129
gostsamo wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recently I read HPMOR and this paragraph was one of many delights there: The cold in the room seemed to deepen. “A sixth-year Gryffindor cast a curse at one of my more promising students, a sixth-year Slytherin.” Harry swallowed. “What...sort of curse?” And the fury on Professor Quirrell’s face was no longer contained. “Why bother to ask an unimportant question like that, Mr Potter? Our friend the sixth-year Gryffind…

Do you recommend HMOR? I’ve never heard of it, but the Wikipedia page sounded interesting

It's very funny. Every chapter has something. From Chapter 48 (about two pages long):

And when Harry had offered that hypothesis, Draco had claimed that he could remember a story - Harry hoped to Cthulhu that this one story was just a fairy tale, it had that ring to it, but there was a story - about Salazar Slytherin sending a brave young viper on a mission to gather information from other snakes.

If any snake a Parselmouth had talked to, could make other snakes self-aware by talking to them, then...

Then...

Harry didn't even know why his mind was going all "then... then..." when he knew perfectly well how the exponential progression would work, it was just the sheer moral horror of it that was blowing his mind.

And what if someone had invented a spell like that to talk to cows?

What if there were Poultrymouths?

Re: What’s the strangest thing you ever found in a book?

#145

Post by waltwalther »

I have been fascinated with books for as long as I can remember. In the early seventies we were one of the only families that I knew of who had an encyclopedia set, and we had both World Book and Britannica. I loved looking through those pages and learning things about the world.

The first book that was ever mine, was an old copy of Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People, given to me by my grandfather, who, and I do not know why I remember this, had just taught me the meaning of the word diplomatic. I was in first grade.

My grandfather, who was a blue collar lineman for the university, was always coming home with books, both new and used. I inherited his collection when he passed away in the early nineties. I still-to-this-day find little notes written in the margins and sometimes newspaper clippings inserted in between the pages..just waiting to be found.

Re: What’s the strangest thing you ever found in a book?

#147

Post by burlesona »

shepherdjerred wrote: post #129
gostsamo wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recently I read HPMOR and this paragraph was one of many delights there: The cold in the room seemed to deepen. “A sixth-year Gryffindor cast a curse at one of my more promising students, a sixth-year Slytherin.” Harry swallowed. “What...sort of curse?” And the fury on Professor Quirrell’s face was no longer contained. “Why bother to ask an unimportant question like that, Mr Potter? Our friend the sixth-year Gryffind…

Do you recommend HMOR? I’ve never heard of it, but the Wikipedia page sounded interesting

I thought it was quite good. If you basically like Harry Potter but find it infuriating how often the protagonists problems could have been solved in five minutes if they would have just told the adults... then HPMOR might interest you. Now, it's a didactic book, it's rather long, and you may or may not agree with the author's worldview, so whether you'll really enjoy it I can't say. But it's very well-written and in some ways tells a more "believable" Harry Potter story than the originals.

Re: What’s the strangest thing you ever found in a book?

#148

Post by hbn »

karmelapple wrote: post #121

A bar I frequented had books on every shelf on every wall. When visiting I usually wouldn't touch them, but once in awhile after a beverage I'd grab a random one and peek inside. One I opened had on the inside cover someone's full name and social security number. I brought it up to the bartender so they could rip out that page and throw it away. Was there a time when putting your SSN inside a book was common?

I keep mine as a little note on my phone's lock screen so if it's ever lost, there's zero confusion as to who the true owner is!

Re: What’s the strangest thing you ever found in a book?

#149

Post by buildsjets »

karmelapple wrote: post #121

A bar I frequented had books on every shelf on every wall. When visiting I usually wouldn't touch them, but once in awhile after a beverage I'd grab a random one and peek inside. One I opened had on the inside cover someone's full name and social security number. I brought it up to the bartender so they could rip out that page and throw it away. Was there a time when putting your SSN inside a book was common?

When I went to college (graduated 1999) our SSN was our student ID. Professors used to publicly post our names, SSN, and grade on the bulletin board after exams.

Re: What’s the strangest thing you ever found in a book?

#150

Post by parenthesis »

I've commented on this before (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2670735):

In the late 2000s, inside a university library copy of the 2003 edition of the Clocksin and Mellish book Programming in Prolog I found a print-out (dot-matrix, by the look of it) of an email sent in 1988 from one of the authors of the book to the other, regarding how to revise it for a future edition.

Post reply on HN