{"id":1195,"date":"2008-07-07T22:42:44","date_gmt":"2008-07-08T02:42:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/?p=1195"},"modified":"2008-07-07T22:43:34","modified_gmt":"2008-07-08T02:43:34","slug":"books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/07\/07\/books\/","title":{"rendered":"Books"},"content":{"rendered":"

The other day, I decided to go to my local bookstore and look for some computer books. I’d read Jeff Atwoods’s recommended reading list<\/a> (as well as the latest podcast from StackOverflow which mentions “must read” programming-type books<\/a>), and I decided it was time to update my library.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, most of the books weren’t available in-store – which is a shame. I don’t like ordering big, expensive books sight-unseen – call me old-fashioned, but I like to flip through some pages before I commit to buying a book.<\/p>\n

I was able to find some other books on the list – although not many of them struck my fancy. The great age of reference books is behind us, thanks to the power of the Internet (and Google).<\/p>\n

However, I did find one book that I really liked – “The Design of Everyday Things<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

After reading it, I’m amazed that we get anything done at all in our modern world, what with all the poor design everywhere.<\/p>\n

Even if you’re not a computer programmer or a product designer, you should read this book – it’ll really give you an insight into why some things seem frustrating (and what effect that can have on you). Also interesting – the book was originally titled “the Psychology of Everyday things.”<\/p>\n

Very interesting!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The other day, I decided to go to my local bookstore and look for some computer books. I’d read Jeff Atwoods’s recommended reading list (as well as the latest podcast from StackOverflow which mentions “must read” programming-type books), and I decided it was time to update my library. Unfortunately, most of the books weren’t available… Continue reading Books<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[130,23],"class_list":["post-1195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","tag-books","tag-computers","entry"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/simUj-books","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3756,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2012\/01\/28\/same-picture-different-lenses\/","url_meta":{"origin":1195,"position":0},"title":"Same Picture, Different Lenses","author":"Keith Survell","date":"January 28, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"More experiments with digital photography - this time, learning the differences that different lenses (and different focal lengths) produce!","rel":"","context":"In "Photography"","block_context":{"text":"Photography","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/pictures\/photography-pictures\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"my manga shelf 3","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7172\/6614872947_155e0cba2d.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":253,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2004\/10\/20\/neal-stephenson-responds-with-wit-and-humor\/","url_meta":{"origin":1195,"position":1},"title":"Neal Stephenson Responds With Wit and Humor","author":"Keith Survell","date":"October 20, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"This is INSANELY funny. I have a couple of Stephenson's books - they are all amazingly amusing, perhaps because the narrative always sounds like something I'd say (or think).","rel":"","context":"In "fun stuff"","block_context":{"text":"fun stuff","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/fun-stuff\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1177,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/06\/16\/little-brother\/","url_meta":{"origin":1195,"position":2},"title":"“Little Brother”","author":"Keith Survell","date":"June 16, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Go here and download this free e-book and read it as soon as you can. Be sure to set aside a lot of time for it; if you're anything like me, you won't be able to put it down. You may not even want to break to go to the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "society"","block_context":{"text":"society","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/society\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1501,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/11\/05\/desktop-madness-vol-61\/","url_meta":{"origin":1195,"position":3},"title":"Desktop Madness Vol. 61","author":"Keith Survell","date":"November 5, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The entire cast of \"Azumanga Daioh - The Animation\" stars in this installment of Desktop Madness.","rel":"","context":"In "Wallpapers"","block_context":{"text":"Wallpapers","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/pictures\/wallpapers\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2008\/11\/azu-manga-daioh-the-animation2-800x640.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2008\/11\/azu-manga-daioh-the-animation2-800x640.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2008\/11\/azu-manga-daioh-the-animation2-800x640.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1073,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/03\/30\/clothing\/","url_meta":{"origin":1195,"position":4},"title":"Clothing","author":"Keith Survell","date":"March 30, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I was re-reading Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon again last night (for about the 5 millionth time) and I thought I'd share this lovely passage, which really, um, speaks to me. ;-) \"It is trite to observe that hackers don't like fancy clothes. Avi has learned that good clothes can actually be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "personal"","block_context":{"text":"personal","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6023,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2023\/05\/09\/keith-isms-or-stuff-keith-says\/","url_meta":{"origin":1195,"position":5},"title":"Keith-isms (or: Stuff Keith Says)","author":"Keith Survell","date":"May 9, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"If you talk with me long enough, you'll start to notice that I use some odd turns of phrases. I've picked most of them up from media of some sort - sometimes books, sometimes movies or TV shows - but they aren't the sort of phrases you commonly hear repeated.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "personal"","block_context":{"text":"personal","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1195\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}