The Assayer: User bcrowell

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About This User

user number	1
login name	bcrowell
real name	Ben Crowell
fake e-mail (optional)	crowell09 at stopspam.lightandmatter.com (change 09 to current year)
home page (optional)	http://www.lightandmatter.com
sig (optional)	Information wants to be free, so make some free information.
bio (optional)	I have a Ph.D. in physics from Yale, but I more fondly remember my undergraduate days at Berkeley, where I majored in math and physics. These days I teach physics and astronomy at Fullerton College, a community college in Southern California. If you're ever in need of a non-chemical, nonaddictive sleep aid, you can read my free Light and Matter physics textbook series. I run The Assayer, and I'm also an amateur violist.

Reviews by This User

Yorktown High School Hypertext Markup Language Course - Needs work
Lessons in Electric Circuits - An excellent practical and intuitive introduction
Jazz Improvisation Primer, A - Useful, but not perfect
Linear Algebra - Excellent applications, modern approach
Making Photographs - Amusing, clear, and informative
Essential Physics - Fails to connect with reality and experiments
Maximum RPM: Taking the Red Hat Package Manager to the Limit - not "maximum" enough
Python for Software Design: How to Think Like a Computer Scientist - It's good. It's free. It matters.
Open Source Development With CVS - Useful
Cathedral and the Bazaar, The - interesting and influential, but flawed
DocBook: The Definitive Guide - dull
CGI Programming on the World Wide Web - I wish I'd known about this book
Conspirators' Hierarchy: The Story of the Committee of 2000 - Crackpot conspiracy stuff
Fisherman and His Wife, The - An interesting experiment
E-Mail 101 - obsolete
Not So Short Introduction to LaTeX2e, The - Short, sweet, and to the point
Linux System Administrators' Guide, The - obsolete
Grokking the GIMP - hard to use without reading from cover to cover
Homeomythology - Why is this useful?
Art Of Unix Programming, The - a quick introduction to the culture
GNU Autoconf, Automake, and Libtool - a complete guide to some tools I wish we didn't need
Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide - a good intro
FreeBSD Handbook - best of both worlds
Conceptual Calculus - sloppy and incomplete
Calculus Bible, The - dry, and short on applications and motivation
Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software - Is it right?
Elementary Mechanics and Thermodynamics - not a good solution to the problem
Classical Electrodynamics for Undergraduates - strange order of topics; no figures
Developing Applications with Objective Caml - dry and technical, doesn't answer the big questions
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom - not the same old stuff
FreeBSD Unleashed - where is it?
Elementary Calculus: An Approach Using Infinitesimals - I wish I'd learned calculus from it!
First Year Calculus Notes - more than lecture notes, less than a stand-alone text
Lectures on Calculus - Re: Re: Who is going to use this? (THIS IS NOT A FRESHMAN CALCULUS TEX
Difference Equations to Differential Equations: An Introduction to Calculus - a roundabout approach
Fields and Galois Theory - nice complete textbook; sometimes a little crisp for my taste
Calculus Unlimited - limits unlimited?
Age of Einstein, The - platonistic
Thermal and Statistical Physics - nice, but incomplete
Uncivil War, The - not much of a book
OpenTextBook - Re: OpenTextBook starting with college math but with big plans
Version Control with Subversion - pretty good for such new software
G-Dimensional Theory & The Smarandache Quantum Paradoxes: Comparative Logic and Modern Quantum Theory - crank literature
Programming in Lua - nice introduction to the language
Communication (Talking) With Help Advice, From My Cosmic Friends - crank literature
Complex Variables - nice, complete textbook
Ada Programming - one of the best products of Wikibooks so far
Complete FreeBSD, The - my favorite BSD book
Geometry Unbound - no figures
What’s Up 2007: 365 Days of Skywatching - ok, but some flaws
Ripper: Redux, The - subliterate
How to Brew - excellent book
My Choice to Abuse Drugs - lame
Love for Manufactured Things, The - English poetry by someone whose English is horrible
Abstract Algebra: Theory and Applications - very high quality
Ubuntu Pocket Guide and Reference - seems decent

Total reviews

The contents of this web page, except the parts contributed by members of The Assayer, are copyright (c) 2000 by Benjamin Crowell, and are copyleft licensed under the Open Publication License 1.0, without options A or B.