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Ask HN: What nonfiction books do you keep rereading?

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Re: Ask HN: What nonfiction books do you keep rereading?

#51

Post by ghshephard »

nutrie wrote: post #16

Isaacson's Steve Jobs. It's incredibly well executed in terms of writing and structure. A piece of art.

As an incredible addition to that, I would strongly recommend listening to the two-part (he couldn't get it done in one) hypercritical podcast with John Siracusa. I definitely enjoyed the book - but it's useful to get the insight from those who are, shall we say, very deep in the weeds just to center our understanding.

https://medium.com/hyperlinked/john-siracusa-tells-us-what-i...

Re: Ask HN: What nonfiction books do you keep rereading?

#52

Post by _yb2s »

Froedlich wrote: post #11

I'm re-reading Tracy Kidder's "The Soul of a New Machine" at the moment. It's about Data General and the development of a new minicomputer. I read it at the dawn of my IT career in the 1990s and found much of was still relevant then. (the book was written in 1981) Thirty years later, I'm mostly just nodding as I follow along; yep, yep, yep. "Engineering" is a distant second to corporate politics and office pecking or…

As for David Goggins, I mostly agree, his level of drive is impressive at some level, but also just insane- he pushes himself to do things likely to cause permanent lasting injuries just because he can. It seems like he couldn't even get along with other Navy Seals, because they weren't disciplined and motivated enough for him, and wouldn't accept ideas like training to the point of serious injury or disability. But it makes zero sense- how can you be ready for a mission when you're injured? Ultimately, it seems like he's addicted to self harming to escape emotional trauma/pain, not because he's disciplined.

Jocko Willink is a similar "Navy seal teaching you the secrets to becoming a badass" but his approach seems a lot more sane and useful, and has been more effective in his own life.

Re: Ask HN: What nonfiction books do you keep rereading?

#54

Post by runjake »

kibae wrote: post #25

Atomic Habits. It's a simple book that can be summarized in an essay, but listening to it repeatedly while driving helps me keep my life on track.

Has someone properly summarized Atomic Habits in an essay or perhaps a podcast episode? I'd rather just read an essay or listen to an episode repeatedly.

Re: Ask HN: What nonfiction books do you keep rereading?

#57

Post by office_drone »

Handprint4469 wrote: post #49
_benj wrote: post #39

For me is the psychology of money getting things done, first edition How to Win Friends and Influence People (Unfortunate title for one of the best books on plain common sense when it comes to interacting with people)

getting things done, first edition Is the first edition better than the newer ones?

"The one book we encourage startup founders to read is Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. It's critically important for anyone in business. Try to get a used copy printed before the 1960s; after Carnegie died, the book continued to be "updated" by a committee, and the changes were not for the better."

https://paulgraham.com/startupfaq.html

Re: Ask HN: What nonfiction books do you keep rereading?

#58

Post by codazoda »

ghshephard wrote: post #18

Interconnections: Bridges, Routers, Switches, and Internetworking Protocols 2nd Edition - Radia Perlman Every 2-3 years, particularly in the periods when I'm not actively in network engineering, I re-read this book from start-finish - and it just completely centers my mindset with regards to pretty much every fundamental topic in Network Engineering. There almost didn't need to be a 2nd Edition - most of the major to…

I don’t know if my understanding is correct but I always thought of a switch in contrast to a network hub. A hub broadcasts incoming packets to all its ports while a switch keeps a table and broadcasts only to the port that MAC is plugged into. That table is likely called a “routing table”, which probably drives some confusion. I always thought of a router as an internet connected switch. In addition, I always thought of a modem as something that can speak the language of the line (phone lines originally) instead of just the network protocol.

I’m not a network pro and these concepts could be totally wrong in my mind. Not sure why I’m spewing them out, other than to give myself something to solidify in the future.

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