<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0"
	xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
	xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/"
	xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
	xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
	xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"
	xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/"
	>

<channel>
	<title>Victus Spiritus &#187; altruism</title>
	<atom:link href="http://www.victusspiritus.com/tag/altruism/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>http://www.victusspiritus.com</link>
	<description>a blog by Mark Essel on web technology, startups and design philosophy</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:33:20 +0000</lastBuildDate>
	<language>en</language>
	<sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod>
	<sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency>
	<generator>http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1</generator>
<atom:link rel="hub" href="http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com"/><atom:link rel="hub" href="http://superfeedr.com/hubbub"/><cloud domain='www.victusspiritus.com' port='80' path='/?rsscloud=notify' registerProcedure='' protocol='http-post' />
		<item>
		<title>Positive Karma, little things that change the world for the better</title>
		<link>http://www.victusspiritus.com/2010/02/28/positive-karma-little-things-that-change-the-world-for-the-better/</link>
		<comments>http://www.victusspiritus.com/2010/02/28/positive-karma-little-things-that-change-the-world-for-the-better/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 28 Feb 2010 13:51:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mark Essel</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[altruism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[inspiration]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[leadership]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[startups]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.victusspiritus.com/2010/02/28/positive-karma-little-things-that-change-the-world-for-the-better/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>While reading on <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/">Hacker News</a> I came across a shining example of positive karma. HN member <a HREF="http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=dawson">dawson</a> (<a href="http://www.Twitter.com/dawson">@dawson</a>) is making a transition from IT (he cofounded a tech startup) to pursue other interests back in school. I wish &#8230;</p>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>While reading on <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/">Hacker News</a> I came across a shining example of positive karma. HN member <a HREF="http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=dawson">dawson</a> (<a href="http://www.Twitter.com/dawson">@dawson</a>) is making a transition from IT (he cofounded a tech startup) to pursue other interests back in school. I wish him good fortune while he shifts his focus, and formulates his next master plan. He&#8217;s worked on some high utility applications, one example a gigabyte emailer which lead to an acquisition. But it&#8217;s not his accomplishments that caught my attention this morning. Instead it was a short <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1156716">post</a> he made:<span id="more-3165"></span></p>
<blockquote><p>
Tell HN: Giving away programming books to HN members</p>
<p>Due to a sudden decision to quit my day job and return to being a student (leaving IT), I have been sorting through all my books and deciding what I&#8217;m going to give to charity etc. The following books I felt would be better served within the HN community. They&#8217;re all as-new condition, most have never been opened. I&#8217;m not asking for any money, I will even pay the shipping costs as I know a lot of us here are bootstrapping start-ups and or students themselves. I do live in the UK though, so if you&#8217;re asking me to send a book to the other side of the world, it would be nice if you did paypal me at least some of the postage <img src='http://www.victusspiritus.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_razz.gif' alt=':P' class='wp-smiley' /><br />
The only rule I have is one book per HN user (it might be good to just say why you want the book / how it will be helpful)! I will update each listing below with a username of the receiver.</p>
<p>Books as follows:</p>
<p>[1] Principles of Biomedical Informatics (Hardcover) &#8211; http://www.amazon.co.uk/Principles-Biomedical-Informatics-PhD/dp/0123694388/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&#038;s=books&#038;qid=1267352239&#038;sr=1-1</p>
<p>[2] Ruby Programming for Medicine and Biology &#8211; http://www.amazon.co.uk/Programming-Medicine-Bartlett-Biomedical-Informatics/dp/0763750905/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&#038;s=books&#038;qid=1267352284&#038;sr=1-1</p>
<p>[3] Bioinformatics for Dummies &#8211; http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bioinformatics-Dummies-Jean-Michel-Claverie/dp/0470089857/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&#038;s=books&#038;qid=1267352308&#038;sr=1-1</p>
<p>[4] Ferret &#8211; http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ferret-David-Balmain/dp/0596519400/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&#038;s=books&#038;qid=1267352339&#038;sr=1-1</p>
<p>[5] The Ruby Programming Language &#8211; http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ruby-Programming-Language-David-Flanagan/dp/0596516177/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&#038;s=books&#038;qid=1267352356&#038;sr=1-1</p>
<p>[6] Java All-in-one Desk Reference for Dummies (Paperback) &#8211; http://www.amazon.co.uk/Java-All-one-Reference-Dummies/dp/0470124512/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&#038;s=books&#038;qid=1267352380&#038;sr=1-3</p>
<p>[7] Building Bioinformatics Solutions: with Perl, R and MySQL (Paperback) &#8211; http://www.amazon.co.uk/Building-Bioinformatics-Solutions-Perl-MySQL/dp/0199230234/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&#038;s=books&#038;qid=1267352412&#038;sr=1-1</p>
<p>[8] Beginning Ruby on Rails (Wrox Beginning Guides) (Paperback) &#8211; http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beginning-Ruby-Rails-Wrox-Guides/dp/0470069155/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&#038;s=books&#038;qid=1267352434&#038;sr=1-2</p>
<p>[9] Designing Virtual Worlds (Paperback) &#8211; http://www.amazon.co.uk/Designing-Virtual-Worlds-Richard-Bartle/dp/0131018167/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&#038;s=books&#038;qid=1267352457&#038;sr=1-1</p>
<p>[10 GONE klaut] Founders at Work &#8211; http://www.amazon.co.uk/Founders-Work-Startups-27-Startups-Problem-Solution/dp/1430210788/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&#038;s=books&#038;qid=1267352477&#038;sr=1-1</p>
<p>For those willing to contribute to shipping, my paypal is (*** &#8211; don&#8217;t worry if you can&#8217;t afford postage, I&#8217;ll still send the book to you.
</p></blockquote>
<p>Dawson is offering a few technical programming books to a community of proto-founders. You may be asking, &#8220;so what?&#8221; Books symbolize the greatest example of knowledge transfer and inspiration. I may only read a dozen or two a year, but I constantly refer to technical web documents and PDFs or eBooks. The fact that Dawson was willing to give out a set of programming books and cover shipping to support bootstrapping entrepreneurs is a shining symbol of his gravitas. There&#8217;s an outside chance that one of the recipients of the books may go on to create a tech business that changes our future.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s important that we pay attention to even small examples of generosity. Each act of kindess feeds back into the creative <a href="http://www.victusspiritus.com/tag/startups/">startup ecosystem</a> in ways we can&#8217;t predict or imagine.</p>
<div style="float:right;margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;"><a title="Post on Google Buzz" class="google-buzz-button" href="http://www.google.com/buzz/post" data-button-style="small-count" data-url="http://www.victusspiritus.com/2010/02/28/positive-karma-little-things-that-change-the-world-for-the-better/"></a><script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.google.com/buzz/api/button.js"></script></div>]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.victusspiritus.com/2010/02/28/positive-karma-little-things-that-change-the-world-for-the-better/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
		</item>
	</channel>
</rss>

