2013-04-15 Books

Word of the day: Moral Hazard. It's basically one person's willingness to stick out another person's neck.
It always makes me smile when I find out there is a simple word for something that I thought about occasionally, but can't quite describe adequately. Another one of those is "passive aggressive". There is no good German translation for it (and in fact the German Wikipedia article describes an actual disorder, not a mere mood or character trait), but I think it's fairly self-explanatory.

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Things I'm currently reading:

William Gibson's "Neuromancer"
It's really old, and I've only read the first chapter so far, but I can already see why it's said to be a ground-breaking work. It's from the library, so I can't put it off indefinitely. Good.

Joe Bennet's "Where Underpants Come From"
The author bought a pair of boxer briefs in a department store and, being an author, thought it might be a good idea to write a book about where they come from, how they're made and how they can be sold so cheaply. I've read one and a half chapter so far (I own the book, so it might take me a while to finish it), and I must say it's rather interesting. Somewhere between Bill Bryson and Douglas Adams (Last Chance To See, not the Hitchhiker or Dirk Gently series).
Turns out the guy is from Lyttleton, which is less than 15 kilometers away from Christchurch.

Ohba Tsugumi + Asami Yuuko's "Death Note"
From the authors of Bakuman. I've seen the anime, and unlike with Bakuman, their first work seems to differ a little from its anime. I'm currently at chapter 10 (of 108). Not sure why they didn't make Yagami Raito at least a little likeable. He's smart, but he's a real jerk.

Bunnie's "Hacking the Xbox"
Great book, sad occasion. I can't say I'm particularly interested in hardware, but I like how the idea of decompiling and deobfuscating other people's code just to see how it's made can also be applied to hardware.