BOOK! (Hardcopy edition)

[machinebacon]

Jules, y u no listen to Meatbeard telling you what to do!?!? ---> https://stallman.org/amazon.html

Of course I didn't buy these titles from amazon (remember, i am in China where you get everything for a tenth of the price as copy), but it was the only 'working and easy' way to link the shit visually and with ISBN.

RMS eats toenails, I prefer spicy beef slices with Sichuan pepper, bean sprouts, a cold beer, a cucumber salad with a load of garlic on top, some dumplings and a cold chicken salad to it. To each his own :)

[simgin]

^ Julius you sound healthier :)

[rhowaldt]

RMS' take on things is only relevant if you really care about Freedom. of course RMS doesn't care that much about Freedom in general, just about Digital Freedom. that is why he rages against Amazon and Facebook and the like, but not so much against, well, every other fucking thing in life that somehow inhibits us from doing whatever the fuck we want. so RMS' take on things is only relevant if you really care about Digital Freedom. if not (and i don't, particularly, because i think anything inevitable will come to pass anyway at some point in time, and trying to force change through is too much faff for me), then buy wherever the fuck you like. obviously, since Amazon needs to use a business model that actually makes people want to buy from them, there are a lot of good things to say about the company - probably as many as there are bad things to say. so either way, this just comes down to a simple decision, and we all know it's best not to let those be made by anyone else but you.

[simgin]

^ Amen Rho :)

[GekkoP]

A friend from the US is staying in Italy for a while and brought me this as a present. 1941 edition of Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. Those are not my photos, but it is exactly that edition. Awesome gift.

Take that Amazon! ;)

[rhowaldt]

RMS thanks you and your friend from the bottom of his filthy heart.

[bones]

^^ Wow, that's very cool, good book.

[Dr_Chroot]

Thought provoking 4,300 word short story by the same author of Shogun and Gai-Jin. Easily read aloud in 15 minutes, perfect for a book club or such to instigate dialogue.



Fantastic work on the political tactics and personality of Abraham Lincoln. Well worth the time to read; about half-way through.

[Dr_Chroot]

Just finished The Idiot last night. Quite a nice piece of literature, really. I liked it better than Notes From the Underground, but perhaps not as much as Crime and Punishment or The Brothers Karamazov. The protagonist is Dostoevsky's conception of the "perfect" man and his interactions in the society of that day. Interesting concept to think about: how would you describe such a person? How would he respond the the dramas of everyday life? How would society see that person as? I very much enjoyed it and would have loved to know how Dostoevsky would have described Prince Myshkin if he was living in our modern era.



And then I just started this one, Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven. I love Sir J.E. Gardiner's interpretations of much of Bach's works and I have enjoyed some of his work with the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists. His perspective on Bach from the eyes of a conductor himself really makes the book quite nice (at least so far ;) I am only a chapter into it, though, so time will tell...

[rhowaldt]

thanks for that, useful information to have. i've never finished anything by Dostojevski - yet. have you read "Godel, Escher, Bach", Dr?

[Dr_Chroot]

I have not read Hofstadter's book but I have heard great things about it. I am definitely planning on looking at it in the near future :)

[rhowaldt]

indeed, it is very good :)

[elixir]

You all recommend such great books. I cannot wait until I have a break from university so I can actually sit down and take a look at some of these :)

[pidsley]

Trying to work my way through this one. It's 700 pages and there is a lot of math mixed in with the history, so we will see if I make it.



I am also reading some light fiction, and have plans to re-read the Utilitarian philosophers (Bentham and Mill) but who knows. At the very least I will pull this one off my shelf and read it again:



And I need to find another copy of this and read it again. If you have never read any John McPhee, just pick any one of his books and start there.



Where is pidsley? On the couch with an interesting book.

[rhowaldt]

@pids: i had a similar problem with the maths in Godel, Escher, Bach. i simply kept reading while trying to at least understand the gist of what was being said during the maths-chapters. it took some effort, but it worked. i think if you find the book interesting, maybe do the same thing: skip over most of it, but keep going :)

[GekkoP]

A lovely collection of thoughts and tips about writing.

[pidsley]

[elixir]

Looks interesting, pidsley. I might give that one a try. It still amazes me about what we grow up with and what food sources are available truly shapes the foods we like to eat.

[pidsley]

[pidsley]