They say you can tell a lot about a culture by what it considers valuable.
The other day, I walked by the bench near the Jolley elevator on the ground floor. I saw three books piled on the bench, and it looked like they were up for grabs. So I took a look, and discovered two books about Java programming and one book about the life of a professional wrestler -- how he went from bad to badder. It had pictures of him being beaten with a chair and suplexing the hell out of some newcomer wannabe. The Java books had pictures of class hierarchies and syntax diagrams. It showed how a programmer could hack the hell out of a class to manage linked lists.
In the evening on my way home, I passed the same bench. The Java books were there, but the wrestler's book was gone.
Maybe it's less about what's valuable and more about what's entertaining. Personally, if I picked up a book on Java, I'd lack the knowhow and the resources to actually use it. Of course, I have no interest in wrestling whatsoever, so I suppose that all three would lie there after I looked them over until someone else came along.
Posted by: The Phantom Reviewer at October 2, 2003 3:39 PM
Well, blog fans, Phantom Reviewer has given himself or herself away -- "no interest in wrestling whatsoever". That narrows down the field dramatically.
Posted by: rkc at October 3, 2003 8:30 AM