The Autobiography of Mark Twain

What Hacker News says

1. SnoJohnDec 2023
   Books in Charlie Munger's Library: Influence by Robert Cialdini, Einstein by Walter Isaacson, Go East Young Man (memoir of William O. Douglas), Eugene Meyer bio (Father of Kay Graham, Chair of Fed in 30s), Max Planck bio, John Kenneth Galbraith’s Ambassadors Journal, Set of the Harvard Classics, Copey of Harvard by James Donald Adams, Autobiography of Mark Twain, Federalist Papers, Capital (history of Capital Group) by Charley Ellis, Current Value Line Binder, Set of Shakespeare at the top, Possibly a set of Balzac.

   From a photo of his last interview in the WSJ.

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2. zaatDec 2018
   Consider the lobster - David f. Wallace (good)

   Brief Interview with Hideous Men - David f Wallace (better)

   Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep -Philip K. Dick (better than I expected)

   A Scanner Darkly - Philip K. Dick (even better)

   The Goal, It's Not Luck, Critical Chain - Goldratt (OK, easy read)

   The Phoenix Project - (bad prose, not inspired)

   Grimus - Rushdie - (Amazing)

   Autobiography of Mark Twain ( oscillating between amazing to boring, worth the effort)

   Foundation (the whole series) - Asimov - (ok)

   The Blank Slate - Steven Pinker - (Interesting, good read).

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3. lIl-IIIlApr 2023
   I think that comment was about Twain's autobiography, not Grant's:

   https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobiography_of_Mark_Twain#....

   I remember when it first came out, which was surprisingly recently, in 2010.

   They published it in secret in 2001 so that it is not considered "unpublished" and doesn't enter public domain in 2003. Although I don't understand how "publishing in secret" is still considering publishing.

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4. acabalJan 2023
   In the US, copyright status is determined by when something was published, not how old it is. The two are not related. That's how we get stupid things like the University of California and the Mark Twain Foundation claiming a copyright on his autobiography, written circa 1909, until 2047 - 137 years after his death.[1]

   [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobiography_of_Mark_Twain#Ma...

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5. logfromblammoJul 2019
   Why should a development studio have to wait years before they can pay off the costs of production? The only people who have some inherent right to enjoy their product are the ones who created it. Samuel Clemens directed that the Autobiography of Mark Twain be published 100 years after his death, which was 2010. Why did we have to wait for that? Because of intellectual property laws.

   Poorer people have to wait, because the developers have high rent and daily expenses, and price discrimination helps the supplier capture enough of the trade value of their good that they can pay those expenses.

   A software program is unlikely to have repeat buyers. It's not like corn or toilet paper, where you use one up and buy another. So, if you hypothetically line up every potential buyer by the price they are willing to pay, you can capture the maximum value of trade by walking down the line and selling one copy to each person at their price. Once you sell one copy to everyone in line, you're done. But buyers keep their price secret, or lie about it, and paying your walking salesperson would eat up all that extra money. So instead, you put your price up on a big board, decrease it over time, and when it drops below a buyer's price, they just step up to the counter and purchase.

   Paying more allows a customer to buy earlier. Waiting in line longer allows a customer to pay less. How is this unfair? And if it is unfair, how is that the supplier's fault, rather than being inherent in the copyright system?

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6. andrewemJul 2015
   There's lots more about this in The Autobiography of Mark Twain.

   See http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520267190 or http://www.amazon.com/Autobiography-Mark-Twain-Complete-Auth...

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