Soooo....

[CoasterMatt]

Originally Posted by Morrigoon

That is officially the geekiest thing I have EVER seen on YouTube.

And I mean, geekier than the choreographed Christmas lights, geekier than a million mentos and diet coke videos, hands down THE geekiest youtube entry EVER.

Well, this isn't on YouTube, but it's the next bit of UberGeekness being added to the Atomic Cookie Blast Furnace - A cooling fan that uses LEDs to project the ambient temperature (and a note if it's "cool" or "warm" or "TOO DAMN HOT!") on to the blades of the fan.

[BarTopDancer]

I had to toss a few hundred books that I didn't store properly. That was a sad sad day.

[blueerica]

OK, so...

While everything is under control... Can I just say that I can't wait until this project is over. Once I'm done with the presentation I have to do with Mr. A$$hat that I'm grouped with, he's getting a big middle finger for being a no good SOB. I hate to call him an SOB, because I'd hate to blame this on his mom.

Ugh.

/start rant

I don't mind picking up the bulk of the work, but when sending me the works you cited for your pretty-much-plagiarized, rest-written-at-a-3rd-grade-level crap I had to re-write, the very least you could do for me is give all the information you *know* is needed for a works cited page. For crying-out-loud, we spent 2 whole class sessions going over this basic bullsh!t...

And I know you'll just take all the credit like you did for everything else you glory-hogging waste of a desk space.

/end rant


OK.... Now onto fixing crap.

[Alex]

Yes, there is such a thing as too many books. I was semi-apprenticed with a Seattle rare books dealer for a while and he was very familiar with people who destroyed their lives with books. Essentially the same hording disease that results in the cat lady with 163 cats on the premises half of whom are sick and dying because you can't actually take care of them all.

The goal should not be too have a lot of books but to have a reason for each book you have. That was a very important lesson I learned. I'm now pretty aggressive at getting rid of books that don't have a purpose. Pseudoscience and junk science books have a free pass to my shelves. Everything else has to earn its board. The way he phrased it was "are you a book collector or are you a book accumulator?"

[alphabassettgrrl]

Originally Posted by Not Afraid

No such thing as too many books.

I'm coming to resemble that remark. I love my books and I can't stand to get rid of so many of them, though I know I'll never read them again.

I think I just like buying and reading new books. There's something cool about cracking it open, and that new book smell. Of course, it's cool to get a book that has a history to it as well, and to open it knowing someone else read it a long time ago. Thinking about all the people who've held this same book in the time between then and now.

[CoasterMatt]

I always like to have my "Illustrated Encyclopedia of Serial Killers" and the "Faber Book of Murder" on the coffee table - especially when relatives visit.

[wendybeth]

Why would anyone have books that they don't want? I mean, unless you inherited them or obtained them in some passive way. Nearly every book I have I wanted, have read and will re-read when the mood or occasion strikes. I have a lot of books, but they all mean something to me and I value them highly.

[Alex]

A lot of people own books that they want but don't actually have any reason for wanting beyond the fact that it is a book.

A lot of people will say "I can't stand the thought of throwing away a book" which is as silly as "I can't stand the thought of throwing away a newspaper."

Part of it is that a lot of people have a very misguided sense of how rare books are. That they are difficult to replace or to find another copy if you ever need to look something up. They think all first editions are valuable and that a "limited edition" of 5000 is a rarity (if they made more than 500 it isn't rare and at 500 it isn't likely to be valuable). They also tend to overestimate how often they actually reread books or use them as reference materials. For most people with thousands of books, if you put them in boxes and kept them out if used for any reason, 95% would still be in the boxes 20 years later.

I saw many people come into that shop to liquidate their holdings (usually because they had to move into smaller housing) and be crushed when they found out that their "collection" was pretty much worthless, not so much that is wasn't worth any money but the realization that the books they thought so important really aren't.

I'm not saying anybody here has too many books, I certainly wouldn't know, but just like any other fetish, book fetishes can be damaging when they get out of control.

(And being a non-practicing librarian this comes up for me a lot because people think being a librarian is about books and will therefore be impressed that they still have every scrap of bound paper that ever came in their front door, when it has **** all to do with books. Books are just a medium for information; when they become valuable as artifacts then they're the realm of curators and archivists.)

Anyway, hot topic buttons pressed. I too have lots of books and each has a reason for being in the house, be it informational, artifactual, or emotional (except Lani's, her Patricia Cornwell paperbacks violate every retention guideline I have). But a lot of people just accumulate.

[blueerica]

Too many books is such a subjective thing. I have a shelf-full, and I don't even come close to too many books.

My challenge, which will resume this weekend, since it seems to be a lull in the chaos, will be to do "the office" <insert snicker> and then try to go see a movie if I can manage the chore.

What I need to do is actually organize my books. I have a tendency to organize in various fashions. As I've done with my CDs, etc, I've organized alphabetically, by genre, alphabetically by author/artist. I've really neglected my obsession with putting things in order. My books are mixed with magazines, a couple of DVDs, and other miscellany placed in front of it from lack of space. Luckily, I've been getting rid of things, bit by bit, but I need to start up again. If I get really into cleaning this weekend, I may give up the movie to keep the ball rolling on getting rid of crap.

[wendybeth]

Heh heh....Alex has Patricia Cornwall books in his house.*

I agree with regards to misguided valuation of books- we do have some rare ones, but they are books I love anyway and I don't have them because of their rarity alone. Pretty much any books I own have value to me based on a variety of factors, but not because of any perceived market value.



* I have no idea who that is.