A book I consider important

http://dump.udderweb.com/CODE.pdf

http://www.amazon.com/Code-Language-Computer-Hardware-Software/dp/0735611319

The author, Petzold, has been mentioned on /prog/ before, but AFAIK only in the context of his MS Windows books.

This one is different, because it helped me understand the nature of information, how it is part of reality and was so even before people existed.  In that way, it helped me understand what functional programming is.  (I'm sure that there is more than one path to that place, but this is the one I took.)

>>13
You can't copyright a number, that's just silly.

>>15
A PDF is not a book, it's a sequence of ones and zeroes.

>>13
It's not stealing because you are not depriving anyone of their property. You are using a work made by an author without giving the author compensation. If alternatively you would have never bought the product for as long as you lived, then this makes no difference to author. But, if pirating has exposed you to material that you otherwise would not have taken the risk of buying, and if you later pay for the product or related products made by the author, then pirating actually helps the author. The increase in circulation makes the work more popular and makes its probability of being bought higher. This is assuming that there are people that still buy things they could otherwise pirate, or people that don't know how to pirate but are exposed to the products that are pirated by other.

tldr; pirating increases consumption and circulation. As long as everyone doesn't pirate, it can help get your product in use and more likely to be bought.

There's no theft if you don't trick yourself into thinking there's property. Do you think Earth claims ownership of the beings it constructs? Will Earth try to imprison Mars if Mars happens to take one of its cute little creatures? I don't think so! The Earth doesn't even try to imprison you when you take a large branch from it, carve it into a dildo, and put it in your anus. If the Earth can be so kind as to allow us to do these wonderful things, why can't we learn from its example?

Similarly with 'piracy', you can only believe in it if you also believe in 'intellectual property'. The kool thing with 'intellectual property' is that it also relies on the concept of property, then twists and stretches it in a bunch of weird ways just for the sake of fucking with The Human and laughing at how easily it can be deceived.

BUT THESE IDEAS ARE BAD FOR INNOVATION, DAMMIT! HOW WE GONNA GET ON MARS IF WE BELIEVE IN A BUNCH OF HIPPIE-CRAP?