everything is an experiment
This picture shows four of the most famous self-help books of all time: How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz, and The Greatest Salesman in the World by Og Mandino.
I didn’t find these books particularly inspiring or helpful… » [Expand post] [Permalink]
I suppose that this post is a continuation of the one on old software and books.
The Turing programming language (named after Alan Turing) was developed at the University of Toronto as an introductory language for teaching computer programming at the high school level. It was (and apparently still is) widely used in Ontario… » [Expand post] [Permalink]
Continuing on the Nazi theme established by the two previous posts, today we have Warren Kinsella’s Web of Hate
No related posts.
I had actually posted this to my Facebook about two weeks ago. At the time, I wrote:
I recently threw out several boxes of old computer programming software and books, because they were obsolete, and I didn’t know anyone who wanted them. For nostalgia’s sake, I took photos of the stuff I threw out. It’s such a pity that commercial software and the associated books become outdated so quickly.
I’m reposting the photos here… » [Expand post] [Permalink]
I recently gave away, sold, donated to a library, or threw out many of the books that I’ve accumulated throughout my life. Before I parted with each book, I took a photograph of it. (I apparently forgot to do this for a few of them, and for some others, the photographs did not turn out.)
The reason that I had (actually, still have) so many books is that I love reading, and for many years I was in a position where people would consult me on various subjects. In high school, people often asked me for my recommendations on general science books, and my teachers would also discuss them with me… » [Expand post] [Permalink]
Of course, I cannot speak of anyone else’s experience, but my sense is that other students of Chinese background were, like me, also pressured by their parents not to read any books outside of school. The ones I knew always seemed surprised that I was reading books all the time which were not required for school. But more importantly, their parents lead by counterexample: whenever I have visited the homes of my Chinese classmates, I have noticed that by far the majority of books on their parents’ bookshelves were of a serious technical nature. In contrast, whenever I have visited the homes of my university professors, their shelves were filled with books which, by my parents’ criteria, “had nothing to do” with their research. Similarly, the bookshelves in my non-Asian classmates’ homes were filled with fiction or books on subjects which were clearly unrelated to their parents’ work.
In my parents’ house, it was apparent which shelves belonged to my father and which belonged to me: … » [Expand post] [Permalink]