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Except a good scientific explanation of how transistors work, how to build an amplifier given a number of constraints (power, bandwidth), how to design an antenna ... It's a nice book for hobbyists, though.
Do you recommend any alternative or perhaps complementary book?
(I'm in my late 30s, but I always try to look for "time-tested" books first. Books that seem to hold their value after decades; see also: Lindy effect.) Language and linguistics: "Metaphors We Live By" by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (1980): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphors_We_Live_By Systems thinking: "An Introduction to General Systems Thinking" by Gerald M. Weinberg (1975): https://geraldmweinberg.com/Sit…
"Capital in the 21st Century" by Thomas Piketty. No matter your opinion on his politics or the reference to Marx it's interesting and the data collected is vast.
I am not a cryptographer but I do work in security and The Code Book by Simon Singh is an excellent history of the history of cryptography/cryptanalysis presented as periods through history where the pendulum swung between giving the edge to the code makers or breakers. The code makers have been ahead since about the 1970s.
I picked that one up because of a similar recommendation, but didn't finish it. I think I was expecting an extensive collection of different ciphers throughout history with some short historical anectodes to go along with them. But it's really more about a few selected historical applications of encryption with a heavy focus on their historical context.
Physics & Mathematics - Anyone who seriously pursues these fields learns to embrace the challenges as beautiful and the struggle to unravel their nature as fulfilling. To do this, we embrace the beauty in nature and see the connection with everything around us. Four books come to mind. Physics: 1. Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character) by Richard P. Feynman 2. The Universe in a Nutshel…
Aha! GEB! Do you think a complete beginner with no knowledge in higher math should read GEB?
Yes, absolutely, without a doubt. A "spirit of mathematics" and a proficiency in the (practical) details of the discipline are very different things.
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GEB really doesn't have much complicated math. If you're willing to spend a bit of time thinking about the (logical) concepts presented, you should read it just fine.
I actually thought of GEB and did a search over all comments because I thought it might be mentioned. I'd love to hear a non-programmer/non-mathematician's take on it because I kinda didn't like it at all. I found it very elaborate and slow-developing with no real insight (maybe because the concepts weren't new or maybe because I'm more someone who prefers reading an encyclopaedia over watching a historically correct…
They young mind is opened by being shown relations it did not yet see.
Read the extreme in that direction:
Italo Calvino - Le città invisibili
(which not only masterfully connects ideas, but most of the realm of existence and experience) - you should be able to see that principle at its apex. And there is no technical teaching: just an education to see the subtle.
any physics book for hs... but without penalty of failing tests etc. Why sky is blue, how does heat get to earth from sun, how do computers work, how does magnet work, how to tell how far ball will go if i throw it, why do balloons stick to wall when rubbed, etc....
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This book is next on my reading list. One question that's come to mind before having read the book is if Singapore is an example of a highly-legible planned state's success?
I wouldn't say so. Scale matters. What worked for Singapore, may not work for China. There is this great article about the story of Singapore[0], it was also discussed on HN some time ago. I believe one of its main takes really resonates with "Seeing like a State" thesis. Decision-makers must rely on simplified models to make their decisions. All schemata are by nature imperfect representations of reality. Indeed, a…
I find this quite interesting. As a programmer I find you can only get to the real requirements by experimenting and going back and forth with the customer.
Applied to politics it would be really helpful if we could easily experiment "in the small" and then incrementally scale what works. However democratic processes, at least in my country, are so slow that most people go for the "go big or go home" approach.
It would therefore be helfpul to have incremental laws where you say start the implementation at city level, maybe in a few test cities, if that seems favorable automatically scale to a few states, and if that still works scale to the whole country.
In a complex economy you need these small "tests" to maybe patch issues before scaling it to the whole country. And you would avoid costly mistakes, trying things that sound good on paper but eventually don't work out well.
A very tough question. I feel that it might be quite hard to lure a curious person into Computer Science, who doesn't know anything about the field yet. One of the books I liked (since I actually studied Linguistics in my Bachelor's) and what drew me towards CS was "Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software" by Charles Petzold.
Mark Forsyth's Etymologicon
, which I promptly found and read: not only it is a must-read in general (if you speak, read or write), but surely it should lure one into an interest in studies concerning language.