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C Primer ++
Stephen Prata

I got to Page 62. And this is where I am bailing. My notes say I started reading in November. It is April. And I haven't touched this book in months... months.

What's perhaps even more amazing is that I did not make a single note.

Trust me.

It's not the book.

It's me.


DISCLAIMER: The above entry was probably (hopefully) pretty straightforward. Many that follow are not. Often, I will have a book in hand and a thought (a string of words) pops into my head and I will write it down. Sometimes the thought is a direct response to something in the book, an explanation, a complimentary note, a paraphrase, something I want to remember, something I want to forget, or argue against, so it can be a contradiction, a counter-argument, a counter-example, an expansion of an idea, or a trip sideways off into La La Land, 'Oh, look, the sun is out.' And at other times, it has even less to do with either reality or the material at hand. Truthfully, at this point, I see this all (any book Running Thought commentary section or similar) as a game for AIs... real AIs. Given this book and these comments, match the comment to the relevant section (copy, image, text, page) of the book (and then, of course, interpret it all, you Genius AI, you). As such, the clues (if we want to call them that) can be as backwardly twisted as a crossword puzzle clue. And at other times, the notes are fairly simply and straightforward: 'Oh, that's a nice looking cat.' Or more likely, 'I had a cat once... and she had me.'

But mostly (often, sometimes, it really does change from book to book and entry to entry), it's just the feel, how I felt when I paged through the tome, which as we all know is far more a reflection of the self than anything else... certainly, far more than any book before me.

Does your book suck?

Eh, maybe it was I who sucked at that particular moment in time... and your book just happened to be there.

Easter for Easter

Easter issue ideals

IDEALS PUBLISHING, CO
---- - -- ---- ---
Milwaukee 1, WIS

Six Issues In Binder
1950-1959 Not In Order

Garfield

The Eleventh Fat Cat 3-Pack
Jim Davis

Basic BASIC

An Introduction to Computer Programming in BASIC Language
James S. Coan

The book was written in 1970 (even if the copy I have is from 1985). So, it's old information. In fact, the information is so old (so amazingly old), one of the appendixes concerns itself with Paper Tape (as opposed to punch cards) for the input and (surprisingly, as well) the output of computer programs.

Clerks
Two Screenplays
Chasing Amy

Kevin Smith

The Introduction was pretty good. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Clerks. And had no intention of ever reading (and therefore did not read) Chasing Amy.

And before we get into my notes, let me note that another had made notes, via a sticky note attached to the front page. It's sort of ironic, since I made my notes on the back page... sans sticky note.

The aforementioned notes by another contained:
And now, my (incredibly detailed) notes:

The Far Side Gallery

Gary Larsen

APS Science 2016

Research and Engineering Highlights
from the
Advanced Photon Source
at
Argonne National Laboratory

As my life goes on, I become less and less science oriented. I like the idea of knowing what is contained within the pages of this Survey. But this book (more like a giant pamphlet) has been sitting unread for a half-year. It is time to move on... somewhere around page fifty out of two hundred.

Grid Perplexors

Deductive Logic Puzzles
Level A


These are Brain Teaser Puzzles where one crosses out the impossible and what remains is the right answer.

When I acquired the book, four of the puzzles were completed. Over the next two months, I completed eleven of them, leaving a grand total of thirty-five unsolved as the book hits the trash bin.

Managing Software Requirements

A Unified Approach
Dean Leffingwell
Don Widrig

I got a stack of ten or so of these old hardback computer books. I got a few chapters into this one. But let us be honest, I do not care about computers all that much anymore. I mean, I was studying for a potential future programming job. But I'm not really interested in working anymore. So, I only got a few chapters into this book. And as for the rest of the stack, they will be lucky if they get fifteen minutes each... written up in that space where I do hyper-fast reads.

Let us say that (at this point, at this juncture in time) I have four level of reads when it comes to commentary and write-ups. Those books which I ignore, which I do not write up. Those that I only plan to give a few moments to, but which may get as much commentary as those here (A Fast Fifteen). Books which I intend to comment upon as I page through slowly (or read word for word), which is what this page is about. And those bits of writing which get an entire web-page devoted to their consumption. For the most, which category a book falls into is decided in advance.
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I'm not going through nearly the diverse array of books I once was. But then, I'm spending a lot more time writing... a far more diverse array of content than I ever was before.

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