Kindle and hacking heroes

1449388396 After a very long break I am back into reading books. I must say my attention span has reduced. I had to concentrate hard for the first twenty pages to get into the groove. No internet (actually avoiding it) helped. I was at Hyderabad airport and flight was delayed by an hour. I generally plan well and hence I was there an hour before. I started reading Hackers - Heroes of computer revolution. Its an interesting book which gives history of computer hackers and how the culture grew. I cant believe I hadn't read it until now. The definition of hacker I found in this book is one of the best

Hackers believe that essential lessons can be learned about the systems—about the world—from taking things apart, seeing how they work, and using this knowledge to create new and even more interesting things. They resent any person, physical barrier, or law that tries to keep them from doing this. This is especially true when a hacker wants to fix something that (from his point of view) is broken or needs improvement.

I couldnt resist, I switched on the tethering on my Nexus 1, connected my kindle to internet through wifi and shared this quote with my twitter followers. All this from with in Kindle and with out getting distracted. I am not sure if this is called social reading(?). First two chapters are available on Project Gutenberg for free download and whole book costs $11 on Kindle store. Its a must read book for anybody who want to know about hackers.
Some pictures I clicked. This is unpacking
kindle_unpack

Clicked inside the flight
kindle_coke
May be this year I will read more books. Probably because I carry the whole library all the time. Kindle is the best thing I have bought in recent times.
BTW this wired article hackers will be the heroes of the next revolution by the same author Steven Levy is an interesing read.

3 Responses

  1. Shweta says:

    Nice post! I liked the idea of social reading. It reminded me of when I attended something called Pratham Sabha, a meeting of Pratham Books authors and illustrators. An author, a grandmother of two who are US citizens, was thoroughly ruffled that her grandkids will never enjoy feeling a dead tree in their hands or the crisp sigh a page makes when you turn it. She cutely called herself a conservative thinker, but I think the way that generation connects to an actual book with pages, Kindle and touchscreen flicks are fast replacing it. Now you have got me thinking :) Might do a post on this as well :)

  2. Praveen says:

    Are you able to buy the Books for Amazon Kindle from in India , or are there any restrictions. btw Heard that the next kindle would be running android honeycomb.

    • Thejesh GN says:

      I can buy most of the books except some publishers who dont sell books to Indians. But there are many e-book stores where you can buy books.