Slashdot Mirror

You can see THOR in action in the "David's Sling", along with the first information war. You can buy the book but I noticed a reference that it might have also been in Hypercard. Anyone know more about the electronic form? If I buy a copy, is there a Linux viewer?

Now that we've established that, take a look at the history of copyright and authors vs publishers at: http://dvd.picketwyre.com/~hthor eau/css.html#history. Copyright was first established as a right of publishers over the authors and public. It didn't work. Copyright was established in the US to be a bargain between author and public, not between publisher and public.

Online distribution of music will completely homogenize music...

Like having 4 record companies and 5 radio station chains hasn't?

because it is so expensive to deliver music...

The typical "big label deal" costs about 250k-1m to produce. 19 times out of 20 the deal ends up with the artist in debt to the label - the album must sell more the 2m copies! Basically musicians are forced into indentured servitude for two or more albums more by the legalize in their contracts at that point. Ever wonder why the 2nd album sucks? It's because the artist is broke and still has to fill his contract.

The odds of success and profits are much better at the indies. An album might cost 50k to produce, and is manufactured in small quantities. A working musician like Christine Lavin can tour, fill small halls, sell a few dozen CDs a day, and make an honest living. With the decline in price of a good home studio (you can build a good 24 track home studio for less than 10k these days), it is perfectly feasible to self produce your own albums. MP3 cuts the labels and distributors and radio stations out of the distribution problem entirely - with MP3 there is no dependence on airplay, bribes, distribution, at all!! And I for one, and every last musician I know that has had the music industry suck on their tit - say - "Good Riddance, Music Industry. Don't let technology's revolving door hit you on the way out. Have a nice day. Don't call us, we'll call you."

I think with the advent of MP3s homogenized music such as the Backstreet Boys and Nine Inch Nails will go the way of the dodo. Instead of a few dozen mega-stars we will see tens of thousands of musicians finally able to make a modest living in music.

As for the delivery costs of radio stations... who cares? They can go the way of the dodo, too....

Say goodbye to creative and innovative acts...

The creative and innovative acts will always get produced. An artist is not driven by money but by the need to creat art. Further, widespread MP3 availability will make it possible for these acts to be heard and to get gigs.

Say goodbye to creativity...

We've already said goodbye to creativity. Albums using sampled music are so dangerous to produce due to various claims to copyright on "licks" that it's amazing any new music is being produced at all in the United States. This is a case where music as property has been taken too far. Can you imagine a world where every time you play a lick from Professor Longhair or Eric Clapton you have to pay a royalty?

Usher in a new era of commoditized downloads... I admit that I'm bugged by the sites that destroy or cut various Mp3s that they are distributing in the name of advertising. This is destroying art. This is treating art as property. I have to point out that LONG before mp3s existed there was the informal concert taping community (DAT-Heads) - who've been trading tapes for a long time and many bands support our efforts!!

It is the labels that are against concert taping and MP3s because they believe in a law of artificial scarcity, that somehow there being one and only one copy of "Sensitive New Age Guy" somehow increases its value, which is dead wrong. Music evolves. Every live performance is different.

As for your last point about the future of recorded classical music, do you have any idea how much money recordings net most orchestras? Zip. Nada. Nothing. Zilch. I think high quality MP3s of classical music will do more to open up peoples ears to classical and into attending classical concerts than any number of snooty PBS shows.

A future where good music is distributed commercial free via MP3s, where an artist can make a decent living playing live and from selling albums at shows - that is the world I want to live in.

(I buy CDs at every show I go to - why? because I can get them autographed, I always find CDs I had never heard of, and I'm supporting the artist)

I, Rhysling

and it has nothing to do with the availability of information. How many Americans would ever read the Communist Manifesto? How many Americans would read Atheism: A Philosophical Justification or consider polyamory? Some, I admit, but the fact of the matter is that if you teach them young enough and from all angles that one view is right and the other is absurd, fringe, radical, or evil, the vast majority will reject that view outright, regardless of whether the information is readily available; they simply won't be willing to read it, or take it seriously in the rare case that they do. They certainly won't wait to read both sides before coming to a conclusion. There's more than one way to prevent a society to read, and it seams the censorship of the future is to grind it into them at a young enough age not to question the authority of the government. A few will slip by, but not enough to convince the rest. 90% of the world's humans practice the religion of their parents - the lasting and enormous power of childhood censorship and propaganda cannot be seriously denied.

There were plenty of tyrants, its just that they varied greatly in the degree to which relied on hypocritical moral indoctrination of their subjects.

Tell me how is evolution politically correct.

On the contrary, the open and honest study of evolution is almost the definition of what is politically INcorrect. Reread what I said.

Most of what I have seen in the world in terms of political correctness has essentially been groups whom they think are under represented are suddently in a position to exploit a government or a faction for their own self interest.

Exactly, and this is within a society that has, as a cultural norm, placed examination and open dialogue of the genetic drivers of such groups in about the same class of moral bankruptcy as child molestation. Hence, hypocrisy and self-deception is the goal of the current eugenics progrom conducted by the Politically Correct Empire as it is with all heterogenous empires built primarily on moral control of their subjects.

What exactly is a "genetic self-interest".

The behavior of organisms that appears to place propagation of their genes above their individual well-being -- such as a male frequently engaging in sex without a condom with lots of partners of the opposite sex, as one minor but graphic example. Cynics might try to give such a character a "Darwin Award" but the laugh would be on those cynics -- evolution doesn't always select for intelligence.

See Dawkins The Extended Phenotype.

Tell me why nationalism is hypocritical

Nationalism is certainly is less hypocritical than JudeoChristianity, Marxism and Political Correctness, but a very good example is the difference between pre-unification Prussia (attacked by Marx) and post-unification Germany (that spawned National Socialism):

Prussia represented a smaller set of tribal groups (root word of demography) that had a lot more in common than did Hitler's unified Germany, so it was less hypocritical to be a Prussian Nationalist than a Nazi just as it is less hypocritical to be a Nazi than a Marxist. These days, we have this "european identity" hypocrisy in the form of the European Community, the Euro, etc. which is bound to get worse as it takes hold.

The last part of that sentence translates (again correct me if I'm wrong) says:

"The people who don't agree with the program and feel united are then enslaved by the people who don't get with it."

That is a bad translation.

The Prisoner's Dilemma is about people having a choice to cooperate and share big winnings, vs one exploiting the other, in which case the exploiter wins bigger than he would if he had cooperated and the exploited loses big, or, in the ultimate degeneration, they both try to exploit the other, and everyone loses big.

Real life is a lot like that, which is why that particular scenario is studied so heavily in game theory.

By the same token, since real life is a lot like that, there many who would rather not study the genetic evolutionary implications of the Prisoner's Dilemma. One exception to that rule is Michael Oliphant, and I strongly suggest reading his stuff.

Now I am a little confused about what you mean by "morality" in this case.

I mean the capacity to take on a system of morals and abide by it with fidelity, even when it runs counter to one's self interest or the self interest of one's genes.

So are you saying that anarchy is the best form of government

No. I'm saying tribal/clan/kindred identities are rooted in evolutionary history more than are national identities and national identities are more rooted in evolutionary history than are universalist ideologies. If you want to see how I would handle governance, please read what I have to say about the nature of money and government.

Yup. Howard Rheingold. Ex-boss of mine back in 96-97 for a start-up called Electric Minds, writer of an excellent book called Virtual Reality and IMHO an even better one (and more topical) called The Virtual Community : Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. More of the Rheingoldian one can be found at his website, here

Before Slashdot turns into a beehive of apprentice philosophers about the question ``is it me if my brain is copied inside a computer?'', take the time to read, reread or at least consider reading ``The Mind's I'' by Doug Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett (Fantasies and Reflections of Self and Soul). There could hardly be a better written book on the subject. Also of related interest is ``The Society of Mind'' by MIT AI lab's cofounder Marvin Minsky.

Personally I don't believe in the workings of the human brain being replicated by a computer in the near future, but I do believe the philosphical questions raised by that possibility are of interest.

Before Slashdot turns into a beehive of apprentice philosophers about the question ``is it me if my brain is copied inside a computer?'', take the time to read, reread or at least consider reading ``The Mind's I'' by Doug Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett (Fantasies and Reflections of Self and Soul). There could hardly be a better written book on the subject. Also of related interest is ``The Society of Mind'' by MIT AI lab's cofounder Marvin Minsky.

Personally I don't believe in the workings of the human brain being replicated by a computer in the near future, but I do believe the philosphical questions raised by that possibility are of interest.

The concept of virtual clones, no matter what form they assume, opens a great number of ethical and moral issues. What rights should a clone of you have? Is your electronic clone a person while you are still alive, or only after your demise? What if your electronic clone wishes to commit suicide, should it have that right?

I simultaneously find this concept appealing and appalling. It's hard to imagine ever feeling a sense of unity with running code, no matter how closely it mirrors my own brain image. Bottom line, such technology is equivalent to forking another process in unix. Sure, it's a perfect replica, but it's not me. If it walks like a nugget, and talks like a nugget, that's just not sufficient in my eyes.

I can smugly tell myself that such a creation isn't me. After all, wouldn't I continue to retain my own consciousness after the creation of a virutal facsimile of my brain? In Egan's book, it's explained that typically the human is rendered unconsious during the transfer, and never regains consciousness after the transfer.

In effect, people commit suicide to give their "copies" life. On the surface, this is most unsatisfying. To the person involved, how is this any different than simply dying? Is the knowledge that a clone of yourself will continue to persist sufficient?

Without a seamless, unbroken consciousness, can you maintain your identity? I tell myself no, that I am me and I know that because yesterday I was me, and the day before. But am I just tricking myself? For all practical purposes, the hours I spent last night sleeping are a complete cessitation of consciousness. The "me" who woke up this morning isn't in any way linked to the "me" that went to sleep last night, other than the fact that I remember and believe that I am the same consciousness that provided my memories.

I don't claim to have anything close to answers or even a solid theory. I just find the concepts involved very compelling, and I found Egan's book to be a wonderful way of exploring these issues. I highly recommend it.

(Here's a Barnes and Noble link, if amazon.com offends you.)

Well, there will always be people in it for the wrong reasons. Not much anyone can do.

There is a flavour of gcc called mingw32 which does _most_ of the stuff that Borland compilers do. Get FLTK or GTK+ for free and you have a similar development environment. Not as polished as the commercial offerings but good enough for students to fiddle with.

Well, what's wrong with that? It seems to me that students (most of whom are probably broke like me :) wouldn't shell out the money for the commercial alternatives in the first place, so most times the companies aren't losing any money. The same can be said for a lot of the piracy going on... most of them wouldn't pay for it anyway. If I want to learn how to program, I shouldn't have to get reamed by some big corporation to do so.

This is insulting. I develop commercial software for living and we DO NOT stick bugs in it do get people to buy upgrades and we are always honest about our bugs and shortcomings.

That's not what I'm saying at all. What I meant is, it is commonplace for software vendors to ship software with hundreds of known bugs without fixing them. This is well documented, just check out BugNet. If you havn't read The Software Conspiracy by Mark Minasi, I'd recommend checking it out. He does a very good job of pointing out just how fsck'ed the commercial software world can get.

We are very quality oriented and have some of the best developers on the team I ever had a chance to work with. No commercial software needn't be bad or expensive. It is all a matter of managers' attitudes.

Well, good for you. Allow me to clarify: of course not all companies are like that, but it is business as usual, sadly.

The '80s cartoon, while it had potential, was incredibly lame in a lot of ways. Its plot was Yet Another Gilligan's Island Retread, it bore only an orthagonal resemblance to the game, because it had to be sanitized of all those "nasty nonChristian elements" like, say, clerics...and by giving each character a "magic gadget," it seriously detracted from believing in the characters' own innate skills. To say nothing of breaking the fourth wall by having the characters interact with a "Dungeonmaster". (Hey, guys! Free clue...the Dungeonmaster is the one who's controlling everything! Of course he could send you home if he wanted...)

This movie, on the other hand, is one of the things I've been looking forward to for the longest time...there's been so little good D&Dish stuff available.

(By the way, for any who like the same sort of fantasy as D&D in books, look into Elizabeth Moon's Deed of Paksenarrion trilogy, and P.C. Hodgell's Godstalk and Dark of the Moon.)

I really enjoyed Childhoods End . It's not the "perfect" novel, but I found it an enjoyable read, and a book that had some interesting points to make. I'd give it an 8/10.

My favorite book by Arthur C. Clarke would have to be a more recent (and fairly unsung) work of his, The Songs of Distant Earth . I strongly recommend it.

----

I really enjoyed Childhoods End . It's not the "perfect" novel, but I found it an enjoyable read, and a book that had some interesting points to make. I'd give it an 8/10.

My favorite book by Arthur C. Clarke would have to be a more recent (and fairly unsung) work of his, The Songs of Distant Earth . I strongly recommend it.

----

There was a great book that came out a little over a year ago (March 1998). It's called Hal's Legacy, edited by David Stork. It's basically a collection of essays written by members of the AI community on the current state of AI research with respect to the various aspects of HAL (e.g. lip reading, vision, chess playing, etc.) Many of the basic building blocks for HAL are there, but aren't quite ready to be integrated. Regardless, it's an interesting read.

I first found out about The Hacker's Diet a few years ago. It is an entertaining read and makes a lot of sense. It inspired me to go out and buy a scale, which I didn't own up until then.

I was happy to discover the new Palm tools last month. I had been using a program called WeightLog, which I didn't like much. The "Eat Watch" program with its moving averages is excellent and gives you pretty swift feedback on what your diet is doing to your weight. (It has been progressing steadily downward this month, but the Godfather's pizza I had on Saturday already made a noticeable blip on the chart!)

But I must say I have some issues with the exercise program (even though I have been trying to get into the habit of doing it just to do some kind of exercise). Walker claims to have based it on the Royal Canadian Air Force's "5BX" exercise program. When I did some rudimentary Web research on this program, I discovered that the RCAF itself recommends not using this program anymore: "...the exercise principles of the program have long been proven invalid--or even hazardous--by scientific advances in modern exercise physiology." Going by the ACSM Fitness Book from the American College of Sports Medicine (a book I had for years before reading The Hacker's Diet), the exercises that are ineffective or potentially hazardous appear to be the standing toe touches, the full sit-ups, and the jumping jacks.

It would be nice if The Hacker's Diet exercise program could be reworked into something like the program recommended in the ACSM's book. Admittedly, that program is more complicated and it might take more convincing to get the average hacker to stay on it. Maybe a happy medium could be found. I'm envisioning a new document: Hacking the Hacker's Diet. :-)

Our deacon recommended this book to me a few months back. In fact she (I'm Episcopalian) didn't stop pestering me until I read it. Since then I've made several folks read it from a wide variety of backgrounds, all of whom ate it up. This includes my wife who is ordinarily not very fond of SF.

Having said that, I should warn anyone who reads it that it is quite an emotional roller-coaster if you care about the characters. I usually describe the book to people as starting off as a mix of L'Engle and Sartre and eventually doing a sudden nose dive through Stephen King and ending up reading like Elie Weisel. She does truly awful things to some of her characters that make you have to put the book down and stare at a wall for a while.

The comparison with Weisel is also a good reason for recommending the sequel Children of God. Weisel's life did not stop at the end of Night , and Sandoz's does not stop at the end of The Sparrow. The end of his journey (and that of the other characters) is as important as the beginning.

So please read it, but brace yourself.

A good part of this discussion reminds me of that "Time Magazine/Amazon.com" issue discussed a few days ago. The average understanding was that journalists are in general pretty ignorant on tech matters. Fair, you were in your element, they weren't.

• This is way off topic, the guy is asking about what software is available for Linux.

  Most opinions on taxation (calling for regressive consumption-based taxes) seem to be as well informed as the average CNN reporter's on how to configure a firewall.

For those of you interested in what are the goals and consequences of a tax system, I suggest this book. There are a many others, but this one is not U.S. intensive.

As for the guy asking about what software there would be, I don't know of any, but I strongly advice him not to rely on anything that is not liable, it may not be worth the savings.

-------------------------

A little background knowledge would go a VERY long way

Michael Abrash was one of the engine coders at id during Quake development. His Graphics Programming Black Book, Special Edition contains not only most of his stuff on the Zen of ASM but also several (nearly a dozen) chapters on the mathematical and design underpinnings of Quake.

fatbrain claims this book is "out of stock indefinitely", but if you can get your hands on a copy, it should give you a leg up on the rendering engine, at least. Barnes and Noble claims to have it in stock.

• Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book, Special Edition at Barnes and Noble.
• Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book, Special Edition at fatbrain.com

Knuth has done some other non-computer stuff. For instance the book Surreal Numbers
or 3:16. Lots of interesting things.
--Ben

Knuth has done some other non-computer stuff. For instance the book Surreal Numbers
or 3:16. Lots of interesting things.
--Ben

There's more to hydration than you realize. Dr. F. Batmanghelidj was at one time held prisoner in Iran. He was about to be executed, but they kept him around because he was usefull for treating other prisoners. A prisoner came up to him with severe abdominal pain from a peptic ulcer. Lacking traditional "medicines", Dr. B. perscribed two glasses of water. The pain disappeared in eight minutes.

From WaterCure.com:
AMAZING SECRETS FOR HEALTH AND WELLNESS
Cure # 1: Water prevents and cures heartburn.
Cure # 2: Water prevents and cures arthritis.
Cure # 3: Water prevents and cures back pain.
Cure # 4: Water prevents and cures angina.
Cure # 5: Water prevents and cures migraines.
Cure #6: Water prevents and cures colitis.
Cure # 7: Water and salt prevents and cure asthma.
Cure # 8: Water prevents and cures high blood pressure.
Cure # 9: Water prevents and cures early-adult-onset diabetes.
Cure # 10: Water lowers blood cholesterol.
Cure # 11: Water Cures Depression, Loss of Libido, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Lupus, Multiple Sclerosis, Muscular Dystrophy.

For explanations of how water can be used to treat all these conditions you'll have to buy one of his books, Your Body's Many Cries For Water, availible from Amazon, Barnes and Noble or from watercure.com. The recommended amount of water is 1/2 your weight in ounces every day. I way 180 pounds, so I should be drinking 90 ounces of water a day.

You can buy Neil Stephenson's Cryptonomicon at B&N at B&N URL http://shop.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/results. asp?title=cryptonomicon&match=exact&opti ons=and&userid=2UTEZHA05P&srefer=
You can buy it at Amazon for the same price at Amazon URL http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0380973464/ slashdotorg0f/
and if you look at that URL you can see that it's tied to slashdot, presumably some kind of affinity program. Similarly, the URLs for The Perl Cookbook had the same thing, and presumably most of the other book reviews on /. have them.
Is this what we want to do, or can /. add some non-Amazon pointers as well?

And just fill out the form.

promote himself as a "Marxist" and then not have the huevos to reveal HER identity.

Obviously Marx and Engels were too difficult, and you STILL didn't get why marxism and communism BOTH suck.

May I suggest Animal Farm? Perhaps that won't challenge your feeble mind, and you can really begin to grasp why communism ALWAYS fails.

A couple of books to read:

Kip Thorne's "Black Holes and Time Warps", which simplifies the discussion by removing the issue of free will. He describes situations where a billiard ball is sent back in time through a wormhole, coming out on a trajectory where it deflects itself from entering the wormhole in the first place. This is a simple enough problem that it can be solved mathematically.

Robert L. Forward's "Timemaster ", which (without discussion of its literary merits) contains an interesting bit where the protagonist figures out a way to save his family from harm by filtering the information going back in time.

The key seems to be that whatever happens, must be self-consistent. So, Forward's version of your scenario might go like:

1. I know how to travel through time
2. A third person says "your friend and a car were involved in an incident at [place] and [time]"
3. I travel back to that place and time, and pull my friend back just before the car hits him, but it still runs over his shopping bag.
4. The third person reports that "your friend and a car were involved in an incident at [place] and [time]".
5. I travel back [....]

In this scenario, I do not change any known [to me] facts about the universe. However, I do ensure that any ambiguous situations are resolved in my favour.

A couple of books to read:

Kip Thorne's "Black Holes and Time Warps", which simplifies the discussion by removing the issue of free will. He describes situations where a billiard ball is sent back in time through a wormhole, coming out on a trajectory where it deflects itself from entering the wormhole in the first place. This is a simple enough problem that it can be solved mathematically.

Robert L. Forward's "Timemaster ", which (without discussion of its literary merits) contains an interesting bit where the protagonist figures out a way to save his family from harm by filtering the information going back in time.

The key seems to be that whatever happens, must be self-consistent. So, Forward's version of your scenario might go like:

1. I know how to travel through time
2. A third person says "your friend and a car were involved in an incident at [place] and [time]"
3. I travel back to that place and time, and pull my friend back just before the car hits him, but it still runs over his shopping bag.
4. The third person reports that "your friend and a car were involved in an incident at [place] and [time]".
5. I travel back [....]

In this scenario, I do not change any known [to me] facts about the universe. However, I do ensure that any ambiguous situations are resolved in my favour.

Do you mean Phillip K. Dick's novel "Galactic Pot-Healer"? (Stupid title, I know). In it, bored office workers sending a book title or folk saying through multiple translator machines, and challenging their friends to guess the original title.

• Some of the examples:
• The Cliche is Inexperinced - The Corn is Green
• The Chesspiece made Insolvent - The Pawnbroker

It's just called "The Game" in the book.

Neverwhere

I really enjoyed this book. You start with the feeling that you don't know what's going to happen, and when you finish.. you can't really believe what happened. Truly a trip into the 'Alice through the looking glass' side of life.

Now, a career later, I find an annoyingly high frequency of supposedly "libertarian" friends and acquaintances ditching their principles when it comes to exactly one man: Bill Gates. These are the same people who have been trying, unsuccessfully, to get me to read Ayn Rand for years. What would Her-Enlightened-Self-Interestedness have thought of Bill Gates and the "principles" of her followers?

from the author of The Complete FreeBSD:

if you peers are using bsd, use bsd. have no freinds? use linux instead

In Heinlein's "The Man Who Sold The Moon", a few different ideas are kicked around - one of them is that the moon "belongs" to those countries over which it orbits (intersected by a line from the moon to the center of the earth). Over the course of a year this would sweep out a band of equatorial countries, but would also touch a bit of the USA (though not the USSR). A good story, and an early reference to the idea of using the moon as an advertising billboard. :-)

I think (but I'm not certain) this story is contained in this collection (at barnesanddnoble.com).

Here is the book and Barnes and Noble. Suprised amazon doesn't have it.

Particularly as regards making effective use of your point 1 (Kids enjoy learning) Look especially at "How to Multiply Your Babies' Intelligence" and "How to Make Your Baby Physically Supurb" Though there are quite a few books in their "Gentle Revolution" series of books, these two are from what I've heard the most comprehensive. I've read a couple, including the first one there, and it was the best book on teaching and learning that I've read. I hope that he's wrong about losing your ability to learn later in life!

One of the points that they make is that Mothers make the best Mothers. There is no more effective teacher/student pair than a mother (parent) and her child. These people have done the research.

You can look at the books online here: Amazon or look on Barnes and Noble. Or, do the tightwad thing and visit your local library.

OK, back on topic.

The USA's public school system isn't malfunctioning! It is doing exactly what it was designed to do, thus it meets the spec, and by definition works well. The basic idea was to help out the world by churning out herd-behavior disinterested in learning factory workers. It was designed to be ruled by the bullies, and to discourage learning. It's supposed to be a somewhat traumatic experience for everyone and if a few get more chewed up than most, well, that's just part of the price for such a wonderfully effective system. All things considered, the rate of defective parts is fairly low. ("Defective" in this case includes both the non-fuctional and the free thinkers.) (In fact, the more those categories overlap the better!) This mode of thought is obviously outdated and would have (IMHO) been replaced, if it weren't for the large businesses realizing that they have an interest in having an easily controlled population.

If we want to fix it we will have to take a good hard look at what the purpose of a publicly funded educational system is. First, why does society have a interest in my children's education? They will shape society. Children about the only way to bring about widespread social change. Most adults will be too set in their ways to accept radical new things. Even Hitler (famous example) recognized that with his youth program. It's fairly obvious education is the place to start for anyone who has a social agenda to push. And lots of very unpleasant and very well funded people have a social agenda to push! What will be the aim of this educational system? Given the combination of democracy, apathy, and capatalism, the aim will be to keep the money in the hands of those who now have it. Or in other words, the aim will be to preserve and even enhance the social and especially the monetary inequalities in society. Does it coincide with the best interests of the children? No, obviously not. (Given my assumptions :) If you see hope for any publicly funded educational system in today's world, get your head out of the sand.

As you can probably tell, I'm a bit bitter about the situation. I'm all for homeschool! Or no school, or private school, or whatever. Just NOT the public system!

Ok, so it was only kinda on topic.

Another book on this subject that you all may find interesting is Anti-Patterns

From the website(s):

• Boxed set includes 106 cards, 4 blank cards, 160 money tokens, two dice, and a rulebook
• ISBN 1-55634-091-5
• Price $34.95 (pre-orders)

Not yet listed at amazon.com or bn.com, but you will find the lowest price with PriceSCAN

In steps Rocket eBook which encrypts and protects each document by keying it to every individual e-reader. Even if you send a friend your file, their e-reader can display it because their e-reader has a different key...

That's why many publishers are starting to back the Rocket eBook and why they have over 1200 titles available already.

And, you can check out a virtual Rocket eBook by downloading eRocket and visiting RocketLibrary.com which has nearly 1000 free titles.

And while you're playing with your eRocket, try applying the built-in "skins" and get some new skins here.

You can even create a skin and upload it to the NuvoMedia site!

A great dedicated reader: Rocket eBook
See also: eBooks at Barnes & Noble

Wow, I'm surprised that there isn't more of a discussion going on about this book. Steve Litt's artice seems to be a very brief synopsis of Steven Levy's 430+ page book. Those of you looking for Kernigan and Ritchie to be included will still be disappointed, but the people/machines this book does cover, it covers well.

From Levy's page, linked to above:

The book is in three parts, exploring the canonical AI hackers of MIT, the hardware hackers who invented the personal computer industry in Silicon Valley, and the third-generation game hackers in the early 1980s.

Having been written in 1984, the more recent heros aren't included. However if you want to know what life was like at MIT, from what they ate, to where they slept, to their ethics (winners and loosers), to the TMRC. Or, if you want to know about the Homebrew Computer Club, or what life was like at Sierra-Online and the sinful history of it's founders. If you want info on Richard Garriott (Lord British), Steven "Woz" Wozniak, Steve Russell (creator of the first arcade game, written on the PDP-1), David Silver (not from 90210), Richard Greenblatt and Tom Knight, Lee Felsenstein, John Draper (Captain Crunch), and a slew of others. Or if you're interested in a bit of history on the early machines such as the IBM 704, Altair 8800, Apple II, PDP-x, TX-0, Atari 800, plus some more.

This isn't a text book, but rather a non-fiction story about "a unique new breed of American hero."

Barnes and Noble have the book for online ordering for $10.36.

I don't like any of the proposed e-books - either they have proprietary formats so you cannot create your own material to read, or they are too bulky, or they have a short battery life... and they are all too expensive.

Some, like the RocketBook, are even more expesive than you might think. If you look at the comparison prices for the RocketBook version of "Monica's Story" at B&N (blast this /. editor, it's inserting a space in the link - either remove the space or use the full text of link printed below), the list price is the same for hardcover and the RocketBook, but the actual prices render the hardcover version cheaper than the RocketBook!! I just chose that as the currently featured RocketBook. There's also examples like "The Heart of Darkness", which is $1 for a paperback and $5 for a RocketBook.

Why on earth should an electronic version of something cost even as much as a paperback version of a book? They should at least cost a bit less than the current printed version.

My dream machine is this - a Pilot like the Palm V, but with an attachable large format screen. You just dock the Pilot into the large fold-away screen for serious reading sessions, then whisk the screen into storage for normal on-the-go use. You could have all sorts of different sized displays for different uses...

Here's the "Monica's Story" link in full text:

http://shop.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/result s.asp?userid=2OBWQOS6R9&mscssid=1G964C49VJ SH2LGP00CGND08MP6TDX5B&pcount=0&title=Monica%27s+S tory

Mike
--

I don't think this is a joke, barnesandnoble.com has it for the same price here.

Click here