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Thanks, Bill. One reason I read outside the field is to get ideas for inside the field, but reading is also more fun and less frustrating that surfing the Web, since the ease of copying on the Web means that disinformation replicates at warp speed. For example, I was engaged in an interchange on comp.programming and a poster accused me of using what he called "argumentam at 'autoritatem'". It sounded wrong to me, since Father Weiland in 1965 had taught us St. Viator sophs that the Latin for "authority" is auctoritatis. I went to a Latin dictionary I could trust since it was at Notre Dame University, and confirmed that the other poster was wrong. He claimed that he'd seen the incorrect spelling 315 times which only meant that one error propagated at light speed. "Instant publishing" in other words, doesn't guarantee the sort of accuracy that Dan enfoced during his tech edit. I also think there's a political aspect to the speed of the net: for more on this see Larry Lessig's book CODE and the Laws of Cyberspace, and Cass Sunstein's book Republic.com. Lessig points out that cyberspace enforces real law despite its "libertarian" presumptions and that this "law" need not advantage the most powerful players. I reviewed his book on Amazon, sent Larry a courtesy copy, and received a very gracious thank you note. Sunstein points out that the ease "filtering" information means that it's TOO easyt to form your own picture of the world. Both "liberals" and conservatives do this, but conservatives to a much greater extent. I was invited to an online discussion of Sunstein's book along with Mike Godwin, a net.libertarian: see http://pup.princeton.edu/sunstein/sun_forum.txt.
Bill: Cool to see how small the world really is (either that or Edward is stalking you!?!?). I agree on the book being better for resourcing than the web, well in most cases anyways, as i'm always covering my face with one book or another - usually of a technical nature (studying for my MS certs or development based) but for a quick one i've found google's groups beta (or version 2) to be fairly good and not throw in thousands of duplications. Anyways, i might swap down and have a look at books from Edward there, though i'm not entirely sure they've made it this far south just yet. cheers!
No, he's probably not cute enough. One of the problems in writing a computer book is you get at best the attention of geeks, not supermodels. But I don't even have any geeks stalking ME. I DID get invited to an Academy Awards party in 2003 for Russ Crowe fans in Chicago based on my working with Nash.
Yes, I know what you mean Edward. Football players, Hockey Players, Soccer Players, Movie Stars, Rock Stars, they have groupies and everything. Programmers get squat. And the only way to get chicks from Recursive Decent Grammar is if you can get Eminem and Fifty Cent to include it in one of their videos. Now that Russ Crowe thing..... I bought the original A Beautiful Mind back a while ago and thought is was just a really great and interesting book. Nash was a truly amazing person and although he had a lot of sadness in his life (from what I read), he was a pretty complex fellow. I wanted to barf when I saw the movie - and the worst part is everyone running around quoting it like it was gospel and yet not bothering to read the book or learn about him. I've been a game theory lover ever since i went to grad school - and when I heard about Nash Equilibrium I put two and two together - he's the dude everyone was talking about at CMU. So anyway, when I went to the bookstore and saw they took Nash's picture off of the newer releases of the book and put Russel Crowe on it - I was like WTF? This is the cheapest form of whorishness I've ever seen. Whoever made that decision should be hung. The dude was amazing and not a whole lot of folks even know about him. And considering it's pretty much completey acceptable, if not expected, to the 'Bad at math' here in America, we really should do a little more to give props to our geniuses. And I promise, if I find a Supermodel who's totally fascinated with Compiler theory, you get first dibbs. (My girlfriend would kill me and the Supermodel would figure out I'm only a rookie at it and dump me anyway).
Hey, I appreciate the thought about the supermodel who's into compilers. Nash was an unprepossessing guy for most of the time I worked at Princeton. I was a nonsmoker...who about once a week would nip down to the loading dock for a smoke, and like as not there he'd be, since like many schizophrenics, his drug regime made him an addictive smoker. He would occasionally ask questions about using the Internet but I had no idea he was "Nash" until in 1992 when I was instructed to help him with C. As far as putting Russ Crowe on the book. If it would help my sales, they could put J Lo on my book for all I care: that's how you think when you get a piece of the sales. Furthermore, the author of the book, who interviewed me on Nash, told me she gave half her National Book award cash to the Nash family to help them get back on their feet. When I knew John, he and Alicia were living in a handyman's special down by Princeton Junction, and Alicia had had my own job, as programmer, years before to support herself, John and their son. The movie seemed to be emotionally true to the facts. A big oversight was the way in which Nash was socialized, from the Phantom of Fine Hall to somewhat fit to be received into polite society, by his being drawn during his delusional phase to work at the university information centers. We were all told that he was a former grad student who was an exception in that he'd been given a charity guest account, and not to molest him. His interactions I think helped him to recover. However, the computer aspect is missing from the film. Most guys in data systems get renumerative but boring jobs. I haven't made a lot of cash (and I've given most of it to my ex in the form of child support) but I've had interesting jobs, including working in China, working with Nash, and developing onboard ship simulators. I'd like to write a book about it, perhaps called Call Security!