I recently stumbled across a link in another thread to "Economics in One Lesson" and thought it was incredibly interesting.
https://mises.org/sites/default/files/Economics%20in%20One%20Lesson_2.pdf<p>What are some other interesting reads—whether PDF, website, doc, etc—that are freely available?<p>One of my favorites that I find thought-provoking is the "Procedural Content Generation in Games" book (http://pcgbook.com/).
I built <a href="http://hackershelf.com" rel="nofollow">http://hackershelf.com</a> just for this. It's a crowdsourced listing of legally free books on just about any topic.
Just a bit of caution. The Ludwig von Mises Institute is a group devoted to specifically advocating one branch of economics, Austrian Economics. Part of this branch is staunch Libertarianism, but they don't believe in several aspects which are typical in mainstream economic branches, such as using statistical modeling and mathematics to draw conclusions about economic status or action.<p>I'm not here to debate the merits of the Austrian branch compared to other branches. I just think that it's important to have a general and unbiased understanding of the other branches of economics before reading a text which is effectively a criticism of those branches and an advocacy for one specific branch.
I love "Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces":<p><a href="http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/OSTEP/" rel="nofollow">http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/OSTEP/</a><p>Really useful book and really accessible (both because it's available for free and also because it's written with a lot of skill and friendliness towards the reader).<p>I recommend it in particular to those who for whatever reason never took an operating systems class (e.g., you were self-taught or didn't major in CS). This book will really demystify a lot of stuff for you without overwhelming you at the same time.
Sicp is available for free<p><a href="https://sicpebook.wordpress.com/ebook/" rel="nofollow">https://sicpebook.wordpress.com/ebook/</a>
Warning: Shameless self promotion.<p>LinuxVoice magazine is available for free nine months after publication. The issues can be found here: <a href="http://www.linuxvoice.com/creative-commons-issues/" rel="nofollow">http://www.linuxvoice.com/creative-commons-issues/</a><p>Quite a bit of our content is about programming and tech in general, so you may find something you like even if you're not a Linux user.
A few of these are already posted (or will be) but here you go:<p>- <a href="https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/" rel="nofollow">https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/</a><p>- <a href="http://www.withouthotair.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.withouthotair.com/</a><p>- <a href="http://www.harriman-house.com/book/view/1057/business/dave-coplin/the-rise-of-the-humans/" rel="nofollow">http://www.harriman-house.com/book/view/1057/business/dave-c...</a><p>- <a href="http://hpmor.com/" rel="nofollow">http://hpmor.com/</a><p>- <a href="http://www.linuxvoice.com/creative-commons-issues/" rel="nofollow">http://www.linuxvoice.com/creative-commons-issues/</a>
... and when you've done educating yourself for the day, relax with a superb novel, licensed under CC: <a href="http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm</a>
Javascript Allongé is one of my favorite programming books ever: <a href="https://leanpub.com/javascript-allonge/read" rel="nofollow">https://leanpub.com/javascript-allonge/read</a>. I think it's a great book even if you don't program Javascript, because the way Braithwaite talks about programming language techniques is so interesting. I had been programming Javascript for a long time before I read this back, and afterward, it changed my whole point of view on how it could be used.
Some classic poems, they're short, but you'll find yourself rereading the ones that really engage you occasionally throughout your life. Here's some I found to be immediately accessible, to get you going.<p>Poe's Raven - <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178713" rel="nofollow">http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178713</a>
Dulce et Decorum Est - <a href="http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/owen1.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/owen1.html</a>
The Charge of the Light Brigade - <a href="http://poetry.eserver.org/light-brigade.html" rel="nofollow">http://poetry.eserver.org/light-brigade.html</a>
<a href="http://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/" rel="nofollow">http://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/</a><p>An example-driven guide to design patterns used in Games. Some overlap in to more general design patterns, but it provides especially tangible examples for those, too.
"Introduction to Statistical Learning" (<a href="http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~gareth/ISL/" rel="nofollow">http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~gareth/ISL/</a>) gives an excellent foundation for all machine learning approaches.
Eloquent JavaScript. A delightful introduction to JavaScript and programming in general. <a href="http://eloquentjavascript.net" rel="nofollow">http://eloquentjavascript.net</a>
Mises.org is a Libertarian propaganda site. That PDF hardly contains everything you need to know about Economics, unless you only want to learn a bunch of Libertarian talking points.
Marx's Capital is available here: <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/" rel="nofollow">https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/</a>, and there's a great free/open course to help you get through it here: <a href="http://davidharvey.org/reading-capital/" rel="nofollow">http://davidharvey.org/reading-capital/</a>.<p>It's a fairly hard read, but I've gotten through the first few chapters so far and found it very insightful.
"The Macroscope" by Joël de Rosnay, a book on the systems approach<p><a href="http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/macrbook.html" rel="nofollow">http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/macrbook.html</a><p>This book is an excellent, easy to read introduction to cybernetics and systems thinking, with applications to living organisms, the economy and the world as a whole. The main theme is that the complex systems which govern our life should be looked at as a whole, rather than be taken apart into their constituents. The different systems, processes and mechanisms are beautifully illustrated with examples and pictures.<p>Although the text is over 20 years old, this visionary document is still highly relevant to our present situation and state of knowledge.<p>It is particularly recommended to people who wish to get an understanding of the basic concepts and applications of systems theory and cybernetics.
The Nature of Code is one of my favorites free reads <a href="http://natureofcode.com/book/" rel="nofollow">http://natureofcode.com/book/</a>
It addresses topics from physics and math, and how to apply them to your code to make it more <i>natural</i>
Oldie but goodie. A contrarian view of business from a prototypical hacker, Don Lancaster. I re-read this every few years to regain perspective.<p>The Incredible Secret Money Machine <a href="http://www.tinaja.com/ebooks/ismm.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.tinaja.com/ebooks/ismm.pdf</a>
more of Don: <a href="http://tinaja.com/" rel="nofollow">http://tinaja.com/</a><p><pre><code> -G</code></pre>
If you're already at Mises.org you should read<p>Ethics of liberty
<a href="http://anarcho-capitalist.org/wp-content/pdfs/Rothbard%20%28Murray%29%20-%20The%20Ethics%20of%20Liberty.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://anarcho-capitalist.org/wp-content/pdfs/Rothbard%20%28...</a><p>For a new liberty
<a href="https://mises.org/sites/default/files/For%20a%20New%20Liberty%20The%20Libertarian%20Manifesto_3.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://mises.org/sites/default/files/For%20a%20New%20Libert...</a><p>If those are to your liking they contain some great reading lists. A lot of the books in those lists are also available for free at mises.org
Magic Ink: Information Software and the Graphical Interface, by Bret Victor <a href="http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/" rel="nofollow">http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/</a><p>(or PDF: <a href="http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/MagicInk.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/MagicInk.pdf</a>)
'Rationality: From AI to Zombies' is available on a pay-what-you-want basis. It talks about cognitive science, ethics, human (ir)rationality and how to improve it, among other things. It stems from the Lesswrong Sequences [2], which have a lot more content, but are a bit messy.<p>[1] <a href="https://intelligence.org/rationality-ai-zombies/" rel="nofollow">https://intelligence.org/rationality-ai-zombies/</a><p>[2] <a href="http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Rationality_materials" rel="nofollow">http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Rationality_materials</a>
<i>Debt: The First 5000 Years</i> [1] Anthropological analysis of finance.<p><i>With Each & Every Breath</i> [2] Highly practical primer on meditation and how it works, from a Thai Forest tradition perspective.<p>[1] <a href="https://libcom.org/files/__Debt__The_First_5_000_Years.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://libcom.org/files/__Debt__The_First_5_000_Years.pdf</a><p>[2] <a href="http://www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/Writings/EachAndEveryBreath_v130123.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/Writings/EachAndEveryBrea...</a>
All of Cory Doctorow's books are free online: <a href="http://craphound.com/" rel="nofollow">http://craphound.com/</a><p>I enjoyed Little Brother and its sequel Homeland quite a lot.
These are fiction, but they're really enjoyable futurist sci-fi. The first one is about the singularity, and the second one is a really unique and interesting take on artificial intelligence.<p><a href="http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelerando/accelerando-intro.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelera...</a><p><a href="http://lifeartificial.com" rel="nofollow">http://lifeartificial.com</a>
Higher Order Perl: <a href="http://hop.perl.plover.com/" rel="nofollow">http://hop.perl.plover.com/</a>
On Lisp: <a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/onlisp.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.paulgraham.com/onlisp.html</a>
Also <a href="http://it-ebooks.info/" rel="nofollow">http://it-ebooks.info/</a> has a wide selection of free ebooks with ads.
The first amazing thing I found on the internet:<p><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page" rel="nofollow">https://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page</a><p>in early 1994 over gopher at 9600 baud for a penny per minute. Still amazing.
How to Design Programs 2E<p><a href="http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/matthias/HtDP2e/" rel="nofollow">http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/matthias/HtDP2e/</a><p>This book is much more than the intro to programming that it appears to be. It is a foundational approach for producing robust programs, regardless of your implementation language or level of experience.
This repo maintains list of free programming books [0].<p>Many of the books at Green Tea Press[1] are available for free:<p>- Think Python: How To Think Like a Computer Scientist<p>- Think Bayes: Bayesian Statistics in Python<p>- Think Complexity: Exploring Complexity Science with Python<p>- Think Stats: Probability and Statistics for Programmers<p>- The Little Book of Semaphores<p>- Physical Modeling in MATLAB<p>- Learning Perl the Hard Way<p>few others. Do check the site.<p>Secondly, books by Al Sweigart[2] are also freely available. They include:<p>- Automate the Boring Stuff with Python[3]<p>- Hacking Secret Ciphers with Python<p>- Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python<p>- Making Games with Python & Pygame<p>[0] - <a href="https://github.com/vhf/free-programming-books" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/vhf/free-programming-books</a><p>[1] - <a href="http://www.greenteapress.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.greenteapress.com/</a><p>[2] - <a href="https://inventwithpython.com/" rel="nofollow">https://inventwithpython.com/</a><p>[3] - <a href="https://automatetheboringstuff.com/" rel="nofollow">https://automatetheboringstuff.com/</a>
<a href="http://learncodethehardway.org/" rel="nofollow">http://learncodethehardway.org/</a>
Great books not just about the language, but the tools that help make utilizing the language that much easier.
The novels and short stories of Peter Watts (scifi) <a href="http://www.rifters.com/real/shorts.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.rifters.com/real/shorts.htm</a>
The Art of Unix Programming:
<a href="http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/taoup/" rel="nofollow">http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/taoup/</a>
"A Pattern Language" by Christopher Alexander<p><a href="https://archive.org/details/APatternLanguage" rel="nofollow">https://archive.org/details/APatternLanguage</a>
(1) <i>Lions on Unix</i> (PDF and source), <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/Documentation/Lions/index.php" rel="nofollow">http://www.lemis.com/grog/Documentation/Lions/index.php</a><p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lions%27_Commentary_on_UNIX_6th_Edition,_with_Source_Code" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lions%27_Commentary_on_UNIX_6th...</a><p><i>"Lions' Commentary on UNIX 6th Edition, with Source Code by John Lions (1976) contains the complete source code of the 6th Edition Unix kernel plus a commentary. It is commonly referred to as the Lions book. Despite its age, it is still considered an excellent commentary on simple but high quality code."</i><p>(2) <i>Harper's dictionary of classical literature and antiquities</i> (1898), 1750 pages, <a href="https://archive.org/details/harpersdictiona00peckgoog" rel="nofollow">https://archive.org/details/harpersdictiona00peckgoog</a><p>(3) <i>Oxford English Dictionary</i> (1888), 15000 searchable page scans in a Windows app, <a href="https://archive.org/details/oed11_201407" rel="nofollow">https://archive.org/details/oed11_201407</a>
Butterick's Practical Typography <a href="http://practicaltypography.com" rel="nofollow">http://practicaltypography.com</a> is a must read for anyone in design or UX field.<p>Everyone should read and take to heart the condensed version <a href="http://practicaltypography.com/typography-in-ten-minutes.html" rel="nofollow">http://practicaltypography.com/typography-in-ten-minutes.htm...</a>
The Tao Te Ching is available for free [0].<p>It's the basis for the Eastern philosophy of Taoism. Religious or spiritual or not, I find this collection of verses to encourage different forms of lateral and vertical thinking that I may otherwise miss.<p>Anyways, might not be for everyone, but I enjoy it.<p>[0] - <a href="http://www.taoism.net/ttc/complete.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.taoism.net/ttc/complete.htm</a>
Self Service Linux: Mastering the Art of Problem Determination
<a href="http://ptgmedia.pearsoncmg.com/images/013147751X/downloads/013147751X_book.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://ptgmedia.pearsoncmg.com/images/013147751X/downloads/0...</a><p>Great book on debugging issues on Linux \w strace, gdb, core dumps, etc.
We send a daily newsletter with one really interesting thing to read. Here are the past 40 or so that we've sent: <a href="http://readthisthing.com/archive" rel="nofollow">http://readthisthing.com/archive</a><p>I think you're more talking about books, but still thought this might be relevant to what you're after.
CQRS Journey<p>"This guidance is designed to help you get started with the CQRS pattern and event sourcing. It is not intended to be the definitive guide to the CQRS pattern and event sourcing. Instead, it's a journal that describes the experiences of a development team with no prior CQRS proficiency in building, deploying (to Microsoft Azure), and maintaining a sample real-world complex enterprise system as a reference implementation (RI) to showcase various CQRS and ES concepts & techniques."<p>available as PDF: <a href="https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj554200.aspx" rel="nofollow">https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj554200.aspx</a>
Steal This Book: <a href="https://leanpub.com/stealthisbook" rel="nofollow">https://leanpub.com/stealthisbook</a> (Apparently no longer available from LeanPub... heres's a dropbox link: <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/qm6vkabvd8jc3le/stealthisbook.pdf?dl=0" rel="nofollow">https://www.dropbox.com/s/qm6vkabvd8jc3le/stealthisbook.pdf?...</a> )<p>Don't Just Roll the Dice: <a href="http://download.red-gate.com/ebooks/DJRTD_eBook.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://download.red-gate.com/ebooks/DJRTD_eBook.pdf</a>
Papers We Love[0] is an interesting collection of computer science papers.<p>[0] <a href="https://github.com/papers-we-love/papers-we-love" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/papers-we-love/papers-we-love</a>
<i>"What are your recommended reads that are available for free?"</i><p>Ask Professor Steve. [0]<p>I ran into Steve on HN back in 2010 and went for a walk with a mob of economists. [1][2] The key thing I got talking to Steve? Economics is fundamentally flawed. Read with caution.<p>Reference:<p>[0] <a href="https://twitter.com/ProfSteveKeen" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/ProfSteveKeen</a><p>[1] <a href="http://seldomlogical.com/kw.html" rel="nofollow">http://seldomlogical.com/kw.html</a><p>[2] <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1126054" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1126054</a>
This translation of Suvorov's "Inside the soviet army" was a real treat to a history buff<p><a href="http://militera.lib.ru/research/suvorov12/index.html" rel="nofollow">http://militera.lib.ru/research/suvorov12/index.html</a><p>Actually quite topical given russias recent escapades - this details pretty well the society and the power dynamics that gave birth to the current situation. Also reads like an alternate version of "Catch-22" except the content should be 100% autobiographical.
Fixed To Flexible – The Ebook by Todd Sattersten. It is about cost, price, margin, and the options we have for how to sell. <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/26237737/Fixed-to-Flexible-The-Ebook" rel="nofollow">http://www.scribd.com/doc/26237737/Fixed-to-Flexible-The-Ebo...</a>
Perhaps not sequential reading on your laptop but very useful none the less...<p><a href="https://openstaxcollege.org/students" rel="nofollow">https://openstaxcollege.org/students</a><p>Selected excerpts from the Physics and Biology volumes have been used by colleagues of mine to support background reading for pre-university students in the UK.
I'm giving away "Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software" book for anyone who wants to pay shipping, <a href="http://www.shareprogrammingbooks.com/books/0201633612" rel="nofollow">http://www.shareprogrammingbooks.com/books/0201633612</a>
Warren Buffett's letters to sharelhoders:
<a href="http://berkshirehathaway.com/letters/letters.html" rel="nofollow">http://berkshirehathaway.com/letters/letters.html</a><p>This is pure wisdom (a lot of economic subjects, but not only).
Test-Driven Development with Python
[<a href="http://chimera.labs.oreilly.com/books/1234000000754/index.html" rel="nofollow">http://chimera.labs.oreilly.com/books/1234000000754/index.ht...</a>]
Tuning for Speed by Phil Irving - <a href="http://tuningforspeed.com/files/Tuning_for_Speed.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://tuningforspeed.com/files/Tuning_for_Speed.pdf</a><p>Combustion engine tuning. Very accessible yet deep.
Self Plug. I maintain a list in my personal web page for reference<p><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/jestinjoy/free-books" rel="nofollow">https://sites.google.com/site/jestinjoy/free-books</a>
On the Shortness of Life<p><a href="http://www.forumromanum.org/literature/seneca_younger/brev_e.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.forumromanum.org/literature/seneca_younger/brev_e...</a>
The writings of Mencius Moldbug: <a href="http://moldbuggery.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow">http://moldbuggery.blogspot.com/</a> Mind-bending writings on politics, history and economics.
You and Your Research by Richard Hamming<p><a href="http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html</a>
Underground by By Suelette Dreyfus <a href="http://www.encyclopaedia.com/pdfs/9/518.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.encyclopaedia.com/pdfs/9/518.pdf</a>
<i>The Law</i> - Frédéric Bastiat. <a href="http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html" rel="nofollow">http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html</a><p><i>Capitalism - A Treatise on Economics</i> - George Reisman. <a href="http://www.capitalism.net/Capitalism/CAPITALISM_Internet.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.capitalism.net/Capitalism/CAPITALISM_Internet.pdf</a><p>The Works of Lysander Spooner. <a href="http://lysanderspooner.org/node/2" rel="nofollow">http://lysanderspooner.org/node/2</a><p><i>The Machinery of Freedom</i> David Friedman. - <a href="http://daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf</a><p><i>Democratizing Innovation</i> - Eric Von Hippel. <a href="http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/democ1.htm" rel="nofollow">http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/democ1.htm</a><p><i>The Sources of Innovation</i> - Eric Von Hippel. <a href="http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/sources.htm" rel="nofollow">http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/sources.htm</a><p><i>Introduction to Information Retrieval</i> - <a href="http://nlp.stanford.edu/IR-book/html/htmledition/irbook.html" rel="nofollow">http://nlp.stanford.edu/IR-book/html/htmledition/irbook.html</a><p><i>Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms</i> - David MacKay. <a href="http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/itprnn/book.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/itprnn/book.html</a><p><i>Introduction to Cybernetics</i> - William Ross Ashby. <a href="http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/books/IntroCyb.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/books/IntroCyb.pdf</a><p>"Man-Computer Symbiosis" and "The Computer As A Communication Device" - J.C.R. Licklider. <a href="http://memex.org/licklider.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://memex.org/licklider.pdf</a><p><i>Design For A Brain</i> - William Ross Ashby. <a href="https://archive.org/details/designforbrainor00ashb" rel="nofollow">https://archive.org/details/designforbrainor00ashb</a><p>The Writings of Douglas Engelbart. <a href="http://www.dougengelbart.org/library/library.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.dougengelbart.org/library/library.html</a><p>and if you like maths, don't miss this great list of free maths texts by George Cain: <a href="https://people.math.gatech.edu/~cain/textbooks/onlinebooks.html" rel="nofollow">https://people.math.gatech.edu/~cain/textbooks/onlinebooks.h...</a>