Stars in my pocket like grains of sand
by Samuel R. Delany · first published 1984
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2012–2023first – last mentioned
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When I saw (actually, misread) the title I was hoping it would be about Samuel R Delany's "Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand" which is a complete knock-out SF book and probably the best thing Delany ever did. Oh well. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Stars_in_My_Pocket_Like_Grains_o...
on “The author of ‘The Stars in Our Pockets’ on eschewing the internet” ↗…He felt he "owed" it to the author to finish it if started. I just can't think that way. It took me three tries to get past page 100 of Dune but once I did, I absolutely loved the book. Same goes for Stars in my pocket like grains of sand: I took over five years to finish that book and it was really good. Feel "guilty?" No, guilt is reserved for when you hurt someone.
on “Productivity vs. Guilt and Self-Loathing” ↗…most books are crap. But Sturgeon's Law is a thing, so that should not be surprising. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law It took me years to get past the first 100 pages of both Dune and Stars in my Pocket like Grains of Sand but once I did, both turned out to be excellent. The only reason I kept trying is that I'd heard they were both good and I couldn't figure out what I was missing until I found it. IME, the only way to…
on “Ask HN: Are a lot of books just... useless?” ↗"Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand" really messed me up as a young lad, I had no business reading that at that age. As an adult I went back and read most of his stuff, it aged really well, Star Pit and Einstein Intersection are two favorites…
on “Samuel R. Delany’s Life of Contradictions” ↗…spread, but what is lacking is the idea of things like Wikipedia where there is an overall level of trust, but that certain subject areas will be much less reliable. The closest I can think of is Delany’s Stars In My Pocket Like Grains Of Sand where some subject areas of General Information (a system run by the Web) are notoriously out of date, but were probably accurate when written. I have often wondered if Tim Berbers-Lee read that book.
on “In 1953 a telco executive predicts the rise of smartphones and video calls” ↗This idea is taken from "Stars In My Pocket Like Grains of Sand" by Samuel Delaney. http://www.amazon.com/Stars-Pocket-Like-Grains-Sand/dp/08195...
…Soviet Union, so it wasn't all bad. [edit] just googled it and Time Considered was written shortly after I was born. So much for that! [second edit]Yeah, I'm old. The book I was thinking of was actually Stars in my pocket like grains of sand which was actually published in the 80's. So win one, lose one :-)
on “Ask HN: What made the 80s so pleasant?” ↗