-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Tim wrote: Duncan wrote:

...

This is why books are still needed and why Slash Dot readers should think about learning to read them.

Tim,

It's not so much books qua books but the habits of mind that book reading inculcates. Most of the necessary information is up on the Universal Library these days but many have a hard time reading or writing long form "material". The discipline of paper books is a useful one to employ. Better even than free weights.

Perhaps those in the best postion are those in our birth cohort who are old enough to have learned to read but young enough to have computed.

Bah! You actually think old people are the only ones who read books? When was the last time you asked someone in graduate school about it, must've been awhile. You want to know the last book I read cover to cover? "Uncertianty: A Guide to Dealing With Uncertainty in Quantitative Risk and Policy Analysis", (Morgan and Henrion, 1990, 332 p.) You want to know when? Yesterday. Four more on related subjects in the last seven days. All that on top of a 40-hour work week, homework, and and trying to get my head around a new language for an advanced simulation modeling and analysis class. But then, since I don't waste time on vapid TV shows, I have more time than you'd think. The last non-work related hardback: The Tristan Chord: Wagner and Philosophy (Bryan Magee, 2001, 397 p.) When? Last week. VCR: the old BBC productions of Shakespeare's Timon of Athens, The Merchant of Venice, Richard II, and Henry IV part 1, one a night. Some C-SPAN, bookTV on C-SPAN 2. So the next time you feel like sniffing at somone else's reading and leisure habits on the basis of age alone, perhaps it would be helpful to trouble yourself to learn the tiniest little bit about what they are, eh? Agh, back to work. :) ~Faustine. *** Our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty. - --Samuel Adams -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: Hush 2.1 Note: This signature can be verified at https://www.hushtools.com wl4EARECAB4FAjxDmUEXHGZhdXN0aW5lLkBodXNobWFpbC5jb20ACgkQGwpHwwWoj8Ws SQCfYUbQ50zXnj6T/3KCsn8yFJpA96gAoL7GduoIg7io961Ib5GCHzBzdIHi =f/6r -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----