less_retarded_wiki/books.md

Books

Here there will be a constantly WIP list of books that might be of interest to supporters of LRS:

{ Let's aim for quality rather than quantity here, don't put any book that has some connection to our cause here, but rather the ones you've read and which you judge as a quality book that enriched you in some way. ~drummyfish }

• Blackout (2017, Elsberg): Fiction, telling a story of a large blackout in Europe that shows to really be caused by bloated tech. For collapse enjoyers this is an interesting read if only for the detailed description of the consequences a sudden loss of electric power.
• Einstein: His Life and Universe (Isaacson, 2008): Einstein's biography, quite a nice read about a pretty awesome man who's image has been so distorted by the mainstream shit.
• Flatland (Abbott, 1884): Absolutely amazing fantasy story set in two dimensional land with characters being geometric shapes, while being a critic of society to a big degree, it discusses practical and mathematical aspects of actually living in two dimensions, how the characters see, how they build their houses etc. It is now absolutely public domain!
• Free as in Freedom (Sam Williams, 2002): Free-licensed official biography of Richard Stallman, contains many historical details about how free software came to be, how open source spoiled it etc.
• Free Culture (Lessig, 2004): Creative-commons licensed (non-free but gratis) book by the founder of Creative Commons and free cutlure, goes into details on how copyright became abused by capitalism, why public domain is being smothered and why we must support free culture.
• Game Engine Black Book: Doom (Sanglard, 2019): Gratis, very nice book dissecting all the details about the legendary Doom engine and its internals -- how it worked, why was it so fast, what hacks went into it, written so that a reader of any programming skill (even none) will find something interesting. A must read for fans of oldschool game programming.
• Game Engine Black Book: Wolfenstein 3D (Sanglard, 2019): Same as the Doom engine book from the same author, just about the older game Wolfenstein 3D, also amazing.
• Industrial Society and Its Future (Kaczynski, 1995): A bit boring read by the famous Unabomber, criticizing rapid technology advancement, but an important read for those who are more into politics, if only for the memes :)
• Just for Fun (2001): Official biography of Linux Torvalds, the original creator of Linux. It recounts valuable historical moments with comments by Linus himself, revealing many interesting details and also a bit of Torvalds' personality (shows some of his evil side).
• Masters of Doom (Kushner, 2003): Another nice book for Doom fans, this time not really technical but rather just retelling the story of the game's development -- quite comfy, a lot if interesting trivia.
• The Jargon File (1975...): Hacker culture dictionary, a lot of wisdom, inside jokes, and things related to oldschool hacking.
• Rebel Code (Moody, 2001): A bit of a mainstream view at the whole "open source" history -- though it's a small brain business view which we have to keep in mind at all times, it's a nice introduction to the whole FOSS world for the newcomers, as the book covers most of the relevant projects and people.
• The Pig and the Box (2009, MCM): A short story for kids showing the dangers of DRM, released under CC0!
• Tricks of the Game Programming Gurus (1994): Very nice, readable book, that implements a whole 90s shooter game in C, without drowning the reader in tons of equations and smartass talk. It's written with the 90s mindset and in common language, contains many practical tricks for optimizing the code etc.
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