Michael's bookshelf: geek-classics en-US Thu, 10 Oct 2019 22:58:36 -0700 60 Michael's bookshelf: geek-classics 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid]]> 24113 777 Douglas R. Hofstadter 0465026567 Michael 4
I had seen this book back in college and it has been on my “probably impossible to read but then that’s why I need to read it list� list for years. Others that in the past 15 years I was able to tackle include Dosto “Brothers Karamazov (read 3 times in two languages English and French), Proust “La Recherche du Temps Perdu (read once thru all 3000 or so pages in French), Joyce’s “Ulysses� (read three times), Tolstoy’s “War and Peace� (read once in the excellent French translation), etc. GEB just never bubbled up to the top of the list until late last year. After this one, I believe the next one will be “On the Shoulder’s of Giants� edited by Stephen Hawking.

So did any of you readers ever get all the way through GEB? I am optimistic that I’ll be able to but I am already wondering whether it is already obsolete? I mean it was written 32 years ago � that is like before Java and Ruby � 5 years before Mark Zuckerberg was even born…I mean the internet didn’t even exist back in 1979…but I get the sneaking suspicion that apart from the 1984 solution of Fermat’s theorem, not all that much progress has been made over the topics that Hofstadter brings up here. I checked and still noone has been able to build a computer that can run GLooP�

I’m also curious whether my readers also have lists with seemingly insurmountable obstacles such as super long or super difficult books�

OK so now I am re-psyched � here we go for Self-Ref and Self-Rep!]]> 4.29 1979 Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
author: Douglas R. Hofstadter
name: Michael
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1979
rating: 4
read at: 2012/01/01
date added: 2019/10/10
shelves: geek-classics, non-fiction, philosophy, american-20th-c, pulitzer-non-fiction
review:
I think I mentioned in a couple of posts that I was trying to get through Gödel, Escher, Bach: A Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter. It is heady reading to be sure. I was able to follow the discussion up to BLooP, FLooP and GLooP pretty much, but he has lost me now in the proof-pair chapter. I am a self-proclaimed nerd, fine but perhaps I need to be a dweeb and geekster too to fully comprehend some of this stuff. OK, so the incompleteness theory, I got that. I understand the complexity now of fugues and appreciate the Crab/Anteater/Achilles/Tortoise dialogs especially the Aunt Hillary one. I think they are pretty ingenious � if occasionally silly too. Its just that now when he is trying to prove incompleteness by combining his various schemas of TNT and proof pairs with Gödelian numbers, I got a bit lost. I need to remotivate myself to continue though because the hardcore AI stuff is coming up as well as DNA and so forth and I think that’s going to be really interesting. Or else I am going to get lost again.

I had seen this book back in college and it has been on my “probably impossible to read but then that’s why I need to read it list� list for years. Others that in the past 15 years I was able to tackle include Dosto “Brothers Karamazov (read 3 times in two languages English and French), Proust “La Recherche du Temps Perdu (read once thru all 3000 or so pages in French), Joyce’s “Ulysses� (read three times), Tolstoy’s “War and Peace� (read once in the excellent French translation), etc. GEB just never bubbled up to the top of the list until late last year. After this one, I believe the next one will be “On the Shoulder’s of Giants� edited by Stephen Hawking.

So did any of you readers ever get all the way through GEB? I am optimistic that I’ll be able to but I am already wondering whether it is already obsolete? I mean it was written 32 years ago � that is like before Java and Ruby � 5 years before Mark Zuckerberg was even born…I mean the internet didn’t even exist back in 1979…but I get the sneaking suspicion that apart from the 1984 solution of Fermat’s theorem, not all that much progress has been made over the topics that Hofstadter brings up here. I checked and still noone has been able to build a computer that can run GLooP�

I’m also curious whether my readers also have lists with seemingly insurmountable obstacles such as super long or super difficult books�

OK so now I am re-psyched � here we go for Self-Ref and Self-Rep!
]]> Hoyle's Rules of Games 1254640
More than 250 years later, Hoyle is still the definitive name when it comes to the rules of games, from bridge to backgammon, Scrabble to blackjack. This handy reference guide has now been updated and expanded and includes rules, strategies, and playing odds for more than 250 games.

Readers will learn how to play, hone their strategies, and settle disputes with this newest edition of the classic reference guide.]]> 264 Albert H. Morehead 0451163095 Michael 5 3.83 1946 Hoyle's Rules of Games
author: Albert H. Morehead
name: Michael
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1946
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2017/05/11
shelves: geek-classics, non-fiction, technical-manuals, american-20th-c
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions]]> 433567 [sic � ed.], a mathematician and resident of the two-dimensional Flatland, where women-thin, straight lines-are the lowliest of shapes, and where men may have any number of sides, depending on their social status.
Through strange occurrences that bring him into contact with a host of geometric forms, Square has adventures in Spaceland (three dimensions), Lineland (one dimension) and Pointland (no dimensions) and ultimately entertains thoughts of visiting a land of four dimensions—a revolutionary idea for which he is returned to his two-dimensional world. Charmingly illustrated by the author, Flatland is not only fascinating reading, it is still a first-rate fictional introduction to the concept of the multiple dimensions of space. "Instructive, entertaining, and stimulating to the imagination." � Mathematics Teacher.]]> 96 Edwin A. Abbott 048627263X Michael 4
The text is a social criticism on the rigid thinking of hierarchal social ranks, the dogmatism and often anti-scientific bent of religion, and also has a feminist bent to it as well. A fascinating and mind-bending little book that has not aged a day after almost a century and a half.]]> 3.82 1884 Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions
author: Edwin A. Abbott
name: Michael
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1884
rating: 4
read at: 2017/03/23
date added: 2017/05/11
shelves: sci-fi, geek-classics, fiction, novellas, english-20th-c
review:
A curious little novella about a man a two-dimensional world thinking literally out of the box. First he explains his world in which the angles you have the higher social status you have in Flatland - Circles being the highest rank. He meets someone from Lineland (one-dimensional) who is incapable of understanding Flatland and he meets Sphere from Spaceland (three dimenions) and he is able himself to comprehend the difference between "up" and "North". However, Sphere cannot extrapolate to 4+ dimensions and when the protagonist returns to Flatland and tries to explain Spaceland, he is imprisoned as a heretic.

The text is a social criticism on the rigid thinking of hierarchal social ranks, the dogmatism and often anti-scientific bent of religion, and also has a feminist bent to it as well. A fascinating and mind-bending little book that has not aged a day after almost a century and a half.
]]> <![CDATA[TCP/IP Illustrated, Vol. 1: The Protocols (Addison-Wesley Professional Computing Series)]]> 505560 576 W. Richard Stevens 0201633469 Michael 5 4.31 1993 TCP/IP Illustrated, Vol. 1: The Protocols (Addison-Wesley Professional Computing Series)
author: W. Richard Stevens
name: Michael
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1993
rating: 5
read at: 1990/01/01
date added: 2017/01/26
shelves: technical-manuals, geek-classics
review:
A classic like all of Richard Steven's books about networking, TCP/IP Protocols Vol 1 is a critical formative text on how the internet was created. As I have said elsewhere, without TCP/IP there would be no Google, no Facebook, and no Drumpf? Oops...
]]> A Brief History of Time 3869
Told in language we all can understand, A Brief History of Time plunges into the exotic realms of black holes and quarks, of antimatter and “arrows of time,� of the big bang and a bigger God—where the possibilities are wondrous and unexpected. With exciting images and profound imagination, Stephen Hawking brings us closer to the ultimate secrets at the very heart of creation.]]> 226 Stephen Hawking 0553380168 Michael 5 4.22 1988 A Brief History of Time
author: Stephen Hawking
name: Michael
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1988
rating: 5
read at: 1996/01/01
date added: 2017/01/26
shelves: science, quantum-theory, non-fiction, american-20th-c, geek-classics
review:
A classic text where the amazing Stephen Hawking explains string theory and quantum mechanics "for dummies." Highly readable and even comical, it is a superb read. I need to go back and read this one again myself!
]]> <![CDATA[UNIX Operating System: The Development Tutorial via UNIX Kernel Services]]> 13126262 368 liu-yukun-yue 3642204317 Michael 5 3.25 2011 UNIX Operating System: The Development Tutorial via UNIX Kernel Services
author: liu-yukun-yue
name: Michael
average rating: 3.25
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at: 1991/01/01
date added: 2017/01/26
shelves: geek-classics, technical-manuals
review:
I ordered this one and got a copy printed on really poor quality paper in India. WTF? Anyway, it is for uber-geeks, this is a classic for understanding the guts of Unix (and therefore OS X and LINUX) from the lowest level. A book that changed the world as well because it makes possible the development of kernel drivers and device drivers which led to graphics adapters and libraries and via a long path to Grand Theft Auto :)
]]> The C++ Programming Language 112251 1030 Bjarne Stroustrup 0201700735 Michael 5 4.07 1986 The C++ Programming Language
author: Bjarne Stroustrup
name: Michael
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1986
rating: 5
read at: 1986/01/01
date added: 2017/01/26
shelves: technical-manuals, geek-classics
review:
Honestly, I kind of detest C++ as a language - too easy to write shitty code, too easy to lose pointers and leak memory, and it was kind of a hack to force object oriented programming onto C. All that being said, this is the C++ Bible by Stroustrup and had a vast impact on computing in the 90s and 2000s before Java and its many children and inspired cousins took over. Highly readable (for a geek computer language book), it is a nerd classic.
]]> <![CDATA[Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice]]> 603227 1200 Andries van Dam 0201848406 Michael 5 4.17 1990 Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice
author: Andries van Dam
name: Michael
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1990
rating: 5
read at: 1991/01/01
date added: 2016/11/28
shelves: technical-manuals, geek-classics
review:
If K&R is what spawned the internet and its denizens like Facebook and Google, it is this book that created the 3D graphics industry - without it, forget your PS4, XBOX, 3DS, Pixar, DreamsWorks, etc. and thus no Avengers flicks or - god forbid - Shrek movies! Hollywood would be arguably still story driven and better but video games like GTA, Minecraft, Assassin's Creed, etc would have been impossible. I actually had acquired a rare geek-boner 1st edition but it was water damaged during a basement flood when I had to leave it in storage. Many bitter tears were shed. Fortunately, I still had the bigger 2nd edition to comfort me. I actually needed code in this book for my first real job back in '92. How the world has changed. Five stars for excellence and massive impact on gamers and movie fans alike.
]]> <![CDATA[Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment]]> 603263 768 W. Richard Stevens 0201563177 Michael 5 4.31 1992 Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment
author: W. Richard Stevens
name: Michael
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1992
rating: 5
read at: 1991/01/01
date added: 2016/11/28
shelves: technical-manuals, geek-classics
review:
I gave this one 5* because it is an excellent reference for UNIX geeks and belongs in the standard IT cannon for us old farts that came up through the pre-Facebook Era of the 80s and 90s. Highly readable and with excellent examples. A classic.
]]> The C Programming Language 515601
From the Preface:
We have tried to retain the brevity of the first edition. C is not a big language, and it is not well served by a big book. We have improved the exposition of critical features, such as pointers, that are central to C programming. We have refined the original examples, and have added new examples in several chapters. For instance, the treatment of complicated declarations is augmented by programs that convert declarations into words and vice versa. As before, all examples have been tested directly from the text, which is in machine-readable form.

As we said in the first preface to the first edition, C "wears well as one's experience with it grows." With a decade more experience, we still feel that way. We hope that this book will help you to learn C and use it well.

]]> 272 Brian W. Kernighan 0131103628 Michael 5 ]]> 4.44 1978 The C Programming Language
author: Brian W. Kernighan
name: Michael
average rating: 4.44
book published: 1978
rating: 5
read at: 1986/01/01
date added: 2016/11/22
shelves: technical-manuals, geek-classics
review:
For evolution of the planet earth and our modern understanding of biology, there was Darwin's Origin of the Species. For mathematics, there was Newton's Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica. Well, for the internet, for Facebook, for LinkedIn, Twitter, Instgram, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Pornhub amd even the odious website for Justin Bieber would never have existed without Kernigan and Ritchie (more affectionately known as K&R)'s classic, The C Programming Language. What language was TCP/IP written in? C. What language inspired both C++ and Java (and the abominable C#)? C. What language are most libraries on most operating systems written in if not assembler? C. The book is the raging hardon that spawned the last 40 some-odd years of quantum leaps in computer science and changed humanity forever? Am I exaggerating? Hardly. This book is highly readable (ok a bit dry but did you try reading Darwin or Newton? They are longer and dryer believe you me!). If you want to geek out on just one book then this is the one. RIP Ritchie and long live Kernigan!

]]> Unix Network Programming 26850562 784 W. Richard Stevens Michael 5 4.46 Unix Network Programming
author: W. Richard Stevens
name: Michael
average rating: 4.46
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 1993/01/01
date added: 2016/11/22
shelves: technical-manuals, geek-classics
review:
Yes, this is geekdom at its finest. Richard Steven's book is what really created the internet. Before this book, we were lost in byzantine networks like TokenRing (!!!) and after, we finally could understand the true potential of TCP/IP and network programming. The world has never been the same since this book was published. OK, it is a technical text but it is a critical one for geeks that want to understand the nuts and bolts of networking.
]]> <![CDATA[Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything]]> 1202
These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much heralded scholar who studies the stuff and riddles of everyday life -- from cheating and crime to sports and child rearing -- and whose conclusions regularly turn the conventional wisdom on its head. He usually begins with a mountain of data and a simple, unasked question. Some of these questions concern life-and-death issues; others have an admittedly freakish quality. Thus the new field of study contained in this book: freakonomics.

Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, Levitt and co-author Stephen J. Dubner show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives -- how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. In Freakonomics, they set out to explore the hidden side of ... well, everything. The inner workings of a crack gang. The truth about real-estate agents. The myths of campaign finance. The telltale marks of a cheating schoolteacher. The secrets of the Ku Klux Klan.

What unites all these stories is a belief that the modern world, despite a surfeit of obfuscation, complication, and downright deceit, is not impenetrable, is not unknowable, and -- if the right questions are asked -- is even more intriguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking. Steven Levitt, through devilishly clever and clear-eyed thinking, shows how to see through all the clutter.

Freakonomics establishes this unconventional premise: If morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work. It is true that readers of this book will be armed with enough riddles and stories to last a thousand cocktail parties. But Freakonomics can provide more than that. It will literally redefine the way we view the modern world.
(front flap)]]> 268 Steven D. Levitt 0061234001 Michael 4


OK so enough blather. I think Burn Notice might be the funnier alternative here with perhaps a dose of Episodes or Shameless thrown in. Enjoy your weekend, dear reader]]> 4.01 2005 Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
author: Steven D. Levitt
name: Michael
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2011/01/01
date added: 2016/11/21
shelves: economics, geek-classics, american-20th-c, non-fiction
review:
I think I forgot to mention that I finished Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. I haven’t started the sequel “Superfreakonomics� yet but the first one, well, it started out really interesting but I kind of lost their logic at the end. The book is a collaboration between a “rogue� economist, Levitt, and a writer, Dubner, about trying to discount “common wisdom� and idées reçus with economic analysis and they reach some interesting and also bizarre conclusions. It starts out interesting about cheating which links teachers � perhaps the most interesting study in the book � and sumo wrestlers. The irony here is that in Japan just this year (several years after the publication of the book), the sumo match-fixing has come public and they have even been reduced to giving tickets away for free because the Japanese were so disillusioned with the revelations of corruption and links with the yakuza. Anyway, there are also interesting articles about drug dealers and real estate agents. They also talked about the Klu Klux Klan and mentioned an interesting person, Stetson Kennedy, who infiltrated that organization way back when. What they forgot to mention about him is that he actually ran for president once on an independent ticket for justice � I know that because Billy Bragg and Wilco covered the Woody Guthrie song about Stetson Kennedy on their Mermaid Avenue album (an absolute must if you don’t have it!). Then you hit the controversial section where they blame the sudden drop of crime in the 90s to abortion. I suppose that they could be right and the hypothesis is certainly interesting but I think they were going more for shock value than literary or economic value in the �1 baby equals 8 abortions� � at least I couldn’t really see where they wanted to go with that. Towards the end also, I felt that it starts to wander a bit. I didn’t know what the point they wanted to make actually was in belittling the names that african-americans give to their kids and couldn’t really see the link they were trying to make with grades and stuff. While it is a fascinating read � particularly the first three chapters � the end was a bit, well, confusing to be honest. I hope that Superfreakonomics will keep a more even rhythm.



OK so enough blather. I think Burn Notice might be the funnier alternative here with perhaps a dose of Episodes or Shameless thrown in. Enjoy your weekend, dear reader
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