Reasons and Persons by Derek Parfit I read this about the same time I read the Selfish Gene, had a similar effect. It's one of the few philosophy books that I still think about today.
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Ask HN: Books with a high signal to noise ratio?
171–180 of 213 posts
Re: Ask HN: Books with a high signal to noise ratio?
#172I generally avoid books written by Journalists, especially for technical fields. I've been told by some Professors that a journalist will contact various experts in a field for a given hot topic and write a book on their notes (I assume they get compensated). The information in the book is still useful and should be fairly well written. However if you're looking for the high signal stuff, you're better off reading a book by someone who is actually in the field vs an outsider. Preferably someone who is on the cutting edge of the field. That's important to me because I'd rather read about ideas who are active in their field vs. an outsider/generalist. (Note that I have nothing personal against journalists. I simply view what they write as second hand knowledge. i.e Do you think a journalist can capture the nuance and context of a particular subject such as Evolution? I would trust Richard Dawkins to achieve that and do a better job)
I've had pretty good success with this method. As a browse the book store, I check the author and put down books that are written by journalists. If the author is a researcher or a distinguished person in their field I take a closer look at the book and check the reviews.
Re: Ask HN: Books with a high signal to noise ratio?
#173I generally avoid books written by Journalists, especially for technical fields. I've been told by some Professors that a journalist will contact various experts in a field for a given hot topic and write a book on their notes (I assume they get compensated). The information in the book is still useful and should be fairly well written. However if you're looking for the high signal stuff, you're better off reading a…
igonvalue
Re: Ask HN: Books with a high signal to noise ratio?
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
The question then is: how do you find such books especially as a layman?
I've tried to solve that challenge a few times now. Here's what I've learned so far, from most efficient to least: * Ask an expert; this is a simple question for them. A university library's reference desk has worked well for me. For example, looking for books on Egypt, I contacted a university library referece desk and was connected to the library's Arabic Studies reference librarian, who had a Ph.D. in the field fr…
Very astute, especially the library reference idea. In the same vein:
- Avoid news brought up by social networks - people like and share what's emotionally engaging, so the story writers have a very strong incentive to embellish. Majority of the "news" on social media is either bogus or empty.
- Major newspapers check credentials of their guest authors. Those guest articles aren't always correct, but signal/noise is way higher.
- Articles in peer-review journals are usually right, especially the bigger journals with more eyes on them.
- Approaching a librarian is not as hard as it may seem. Here's UW. for example: http://www.lib.washington.edu/about/contact
- Apparently there's a "24/7 Reference Cooperative", a nation-wide librarian Q&A service: http://wiki.questionpoint.org/w/page/13839418/24%207%20Coop%...
Re: Ask HN: Books with a high signal to noise ratio?
#175Quantum Computing Since Democritus, by Scott Aaronson. It covers an astounding amount of stuff -- including complexity theory, the nature of randomness and information, and quantum information theory -- into less than 400 pages.
It's a great book (I'm more than halfway into it) but definitely not for laymen. I followed one quantum computing class as well as having had many QM classes and I find myself having to read a lot of background information to understand Aaronson. He writes well, but I lacked the proper computability knowledge to really enjoy the book in one go.
Re: Ask HN: Books with a high signal to noise ratio?
#176Gödel, Escher, Bach, by Douglas Hofstadter.
Completely disagree. GEB is the opposite of what OP was asking for. It takes pages to make points that can be done far more economically and concisely.
That was my experience as well. Another poster mentioned Quantum Computing Since Democritus by Aaronson. The latter seems more technically difficult but I enjoye it more than GED. I haven't been able to "get into" GED in the last 3 times I have started reading it. It's just long and rambling (to me). I don't "get it", but maybe I will one day, the book's still on my bookshelf...
Re: Ask HN: Books with a high signal to noise ratio?
#177Good idea. Too many these books these days read like a long-form magazine articles (or blog posts) that have been stuffed with fluff to get to a book-length.
God, yes. I still can't get over "the no asshole rule". The entire book makes literally two points: "Don't be an asshole and don't tolerate assholes". It's stuffed with so many factoids and fallacies to belabour those points that I'm still mad at the author for wasting 6 hours of my day.
So the author was... kind of an asshole?
Re: Ask HN: Books with a high signal to noise ratio?
#178Thinking Fast and Slow - each chapter summarize several others whole books on behavioral economics.
Seconded. This book has a very high signal-to-noise ratio.
Re: Ask HN: Books with a high signal to noise ratio?
#179The best history book I've read is The Origins of Political Order. Disguised as an academic political science book it is a sweeping history of human civilization starting in China and going through Arab and European states. It is chock full of intersting facts and surprising theories and implications for today.
Interesting. I'll check it out.
You might also like Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari
Re: Ask HN: Books with a high signal to noise ratio?
#180A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson
This is a good one, but it's full of tedious details, and long boring sections with names you've never heard of. It's a fun book altogether, and there's high signal in there, but also high level of noise.