Brain Rules for Baby by John Medina, because it made me a better father; Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker, because it taught me of the importance of something that I’d occasionally dismiss as a nuisance; Pain Free and Pain Free at Your PC by Pete Egoscue, because it completely changed the way I understood posture, pain, and how repetition influences my body; and Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke, because it…
Re: Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker, this critique of the book is worth a read: https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/
Funnily enough, there's also a completely different book by the very same name, written by a German sleep researcher. And this one's actually really good (imo). [1]
The Count of Monte Cristo - This is one breathtaking epic. I have been putting off reading this novel for quite some time and occasionally see this name popping up in HN too, but never gave a serious thought for giving it a go. Was I wrong! This is an epic in its true sense, and you will feel a sense of amazement as you progress through the novel. I'm quite a reader, and I have not experienced such amazement when rea…
It is a great book but I honestly felt like nearly all the action in Rome could have been done without.
I'll second the recommendation of The Count of Monte Cristo . There's a user on HN who learned French just so he could read it in the original, and I can see why. If you read it, make sure to read the unabridged edition, and not any of the many abridged editions, which are often targeted at children and are a travesty to the mature themes in the original. I can personally recommend David Clarke's reading of it on Lib…
Counterpoint: I prefer the abridged version. Dumas was originally paid by number of pages and it shows IMO.
He was paid by the number of lines -- which actually does show by, for instance, the number of dialogues with Noirtier, a mute who mostly responds "yes" or "no."
but can't you define your grouping by the disapproval for other group. eg: You are a red group if disapprove blue group. Even in your own example you can fall into either group by selecting what you care about the most and giving up others. Group where others in the group have made similar compromises. Otherwise how can you possibly form a group, there is no one else is the world that has the precisely the same prefe…
you can fall into either group by selecting what you care about the most and giving up others. Group where others in the group have made similar compromises. Sure, you could do that, and people do. The point though, is that it makes these terms mostly useless for actually describing anything. Let's say I chose to define myself as "right" because I care more about the second amendment than abortion. You see me self-id…
> That said, of course there are some people who just happen to fit exactly into the bucket of "right" or "left" as defined by colloquial usage.
Exactly, Unless @smitty1e knows the person personally, a generic response
> The whole left/right dichotomy is a bugaboo.
is invalid. since, as you noted, it does apply to some people.
I'd like to give this a more thorough read, but so far this critique strikes me as done in bad faith. I read the book. I'm also in the middle of a biophys PhD, so I like to think my opinion is "extra super special". Here are my comments: Point 1: the chart bottoms out at 7, which falls within the range the book recommends. I'm fairly sure he recommends 7-9, and that the required amt varies from person to person. Anot…
'Point 2: Depression is an incredibly complicated topic. It is a psychological construct, the net result of thousands and thousands of genes, filtered through a modern technological world, and then filtered through inventories, interviews, and assessments. For this reason, I am not at all surprised that Guzey was able to find studies that suggest that sleep deprivation might have some benefit for some people. I would…
This is also a very strange claim to make. I am pretty sure that you should be surprised - the anti-depressant/sleep thing is well known in part because it's so unique: I've never heard of even a single study finding sleep deprivation to be a striking temporary treatment for schizophrenia, autism, bipolar disorder, psychopathy, etc, all of which are influenced by 'thousands and thousands of genes, filtered through [etc]', the way it is for depression to the point of being meta-analyzable. (And if they exist, I don't recall them being mentioned anywhere in the sleep/depression papers.) It's a really strange finding!
"Calmer, Easier, Happier Parenting" by Noël Janis-Norton was the most helpful parenting book for me. Includes the main principle to replace punishment with descriptive praise and teaches lots of other methods to improve relationships with your children.
Hi, I'm the author of that critique. >Point 1: the chart bottoms out at 7, which falls within the range the book recommends. I'm fairly sure he recommends 7-9, and that the required amt varies from person to person. Another thought I had: metabolism and longevity go hand and hand. I mean, I just read a brand new paper from George Church's Harvard lab, showing that they reversed several chronic ailments in mice by ins…
Hey Guzey, thanks for hopping in. I like your blog. Walker's book is sloppy. The graph you mention last is egregious. No disagreements here. Honestly I agree with you at least partly on all of your points. So why did I miss your points? I was trying to give better evidence/info relevant to the topic of each point. My hope was people would read it and continue to respect sleep as an open and very interesting biologica…
Got it. I apologize if my tone was too harsh. I do stand by all of the bold-font headings, but yes, primarily the post is directed at Walker.
My current stance on sleep is that we don't know much about it and we don't know much about how much exactly we need to sleep. I'm collecting some notes on sleep (very preliminary so far) here: https://guzey.com/sleep/
Haha, no to you. Except that the majority of people perceive realities that are highly, highly similar indicating that they are all perceiving a singular thing outside of their own experience. There's a reason why people who deviate too far from the norm get locked up. There's also a reason why you understand the reality that I am describing to you right now. Likely because we are both perceiving the same thing. In o…
How do you know that the realities the majority of people perceive are highly highly similar? Language alone cannot be used to deduce this since perceiving and constructing realities is rooted in the domain of qualia and the psyche. How do you now there are people for that matter other than brain(s) in vats ? The fact that you are willing to assume so much does not invalidate parent’s argument, merely exposes the fla…
Fiction: * Jack Reacher: I've read all but the latest one. I would recommend it if you liked the story in both movies. * Discworld: I'm currently on The Truth. These books have been really entertaining and witty. Non-Fiction: * The Doors to Perception by Aldous Huxley: The book covers Aldous' thought about his experience while under the influence of mescaline. edit: formatting
I'll add my opinion -- don't read Blue Moon (the latest one) as your first Jack Reacher book. It's really bad, I want to pretend it's non-canon.