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If you haven't read the book "Gödel, Escher, Bach" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del,_Escher,_Bach - you need to do yourself a favor and do so. It explores the ideas of recursion, logic, infinity, and so much more in one beautifully written book.


If you've read the book it's worth it to also watch the free online MIT coure material on them: http://ocw.mit.edu/high-school/courses/godel-escher-bach/vid... (and maybe even if you haven't)

They are very non-technical (annoying so at times), but interesting. Definitely gave me a more in depth understanding of GEB.


I thought it would be fun to watch these when I had some downtime during a flight I'm taking next week. Two problems - they stream them and they are real one files. No idea why they make it so difficult.

Solution for .rm files -> VLC [1]

Solution for streaming -> tweak the url [2]

http://mfile.akamai.com/7870/rm/mitstorage.download.akamai.c...

to

http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/hs/godel_escher_bach/OCW_7.01.07_...

References

[1] http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

[2] http://all-streaming-media.com/streaming-media-faq/faq-downl...


I picked up this book yesterday and I'm starting to worry about what I got myself into.


You should. It's a real time investment but it pays off I assure you.


I'm 550 pages in after about 3 months of reading at an extremely casual pace. I'm wanting to speed up so I can finish before school starts in late August.


caveat: GEB might make your brain explode




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