Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Book Recommendations?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 85 posts

Re: Ask HN: Book Recommendations?

#71

Post by criddell »

billybofh wrote: post #48
criddell wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance I really enjoyed the parts of that book that were actually about the motorcycle trip. Pirsig's thoughts on quality didn't resonate with me, at all.

Have you tried the follow up - 'Lila'? It goes at it somewhat differently.

No. I'm not really looking for more Pirsig.

My reading list is already probably a decade long (I'm a slow reader). I've recently started to abandon books that don't grab me after an hour or so and I'm wondering why I didn't do this years ago. Previously I finished anything I started.

Re: Ask HN: Book Recommendations?

#72

Post by grkvlt »

max_ wrote: post #39

I recommend Dan Drown's first book, Digital Fortress: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Fortress the book is filled with Cryptography, Quantum computing, NSA, Assasins....... Was perfect for me and will be for any other hacker!! :D

I started reading it, and put it down almost immediately. The 'technical' aspects of the book are half-understood gibberish. I would expect it would just annoy or even enrage any hacker with its inaccuracies, misconceptions and general dumbing-down to meaningless of the subject matter.

0/5 - would not recommend to anyone.

Re: Ask HN: Book Recommendations?

#73

Post by goc »

nextos wrote: post #63
goc wrote: post #6

I am reading CTM by Van Roy/Haridi and watching Van Roy's edx vids. Very nice explanations that require a lot of filling in the holes. If someone else is familiar with Oz/Van Roy stuff, I have a question.

I am, but I read it many years ago, so I might not be able to help

In this video[0] Van Roy claims that the function Three "resolves" to 3. It's at around 8:45 minute. I tried working that out, but can't seem to get it correct. What I tried

   {Inc {Inc {Inc Zero}}}
   {Inc {Inc 1}}
   {Inc {1} + 1}
   {{{1} + 1} + 1}
Can we consider {{{1} + 1} + 1} to be 3 or what are my mistakes? Thanks.

[0] https://youtu.be/Arh_6J5_fWU?t=8m46s

Re: Ask HN: Book Recommendations?

#74

Post by ivansavz »

In a flagrant act of self-promotion, I'll recommend my own book on math and physics: No bullshit guide to math and physics. What is remarkable about it is the interlinked explanations of mechanics and calculus, so you get a picture of why it all works. Great review if you ever wanted to learn these topics. Comes with a review of high school math too, in case you need it.

https://minireference.com/ 4.5 stars on amazon http://www.amazon.com/No-bullshit-guide-math-physics/product... If you're getting a print version, I recommend the version through lulu.com, since the print quality is better.

Re: Ask HN: Book Recommendations?

#76

Post by max_ »

grkvlt wrote: post #72
max_ wrote: post #39

I recommend Dan Drown's first book, Digital Fortress: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Fortress the book is filled with Cryptography, Quantum computing, NSA, Assasins....... Was perfect for me and will be for any other hacker!! :D

I started reading it, and put it down almost immediately. The 'technical' aspects of the book are half-understood gibberish. I would expect it would just annoy or even enrage any hacker with its inaccuracies, misconceptions and general dumbing-down to meaningless of the subject matter. 0/5 - would not recommend to anyone.

An example of the "inaccuracies, misconceptions and general dumbing-down to meaningless of the subject matter" ? cause I don't recall any.

Re: Ask HN: Book Recommendations?

#77

Post by veddox »

davej wrote: post #7

This comes up quite often, here are two helpful links: http://ramiro.org/vis/hn-most-linked-books/ http://www.hnreads.com/

I prefer HN Reads. Though both are good sites (and the first is aggregated automatically, which is a plus), ramiro.org only finds books that are linked to Amazon. IMO this gives a rather skewed result, as most books mentioned on HN are only mentioned by the title. (And the more famous the book, the less likely it is to be linked to Amazon, since everyone is assumed to know about it already - e.g. TAOCP, SICP, etc.)

Re: Ask HN: Book Recommendations?

#78

Post by trost »

I'm reading James Altucher's Choose Yourself Guide To Wealth right now and I really like it, although it's quite verbosely written (I'm about halfway through). This book is about business and monetizing ideas. I haven't read Choose Yourself, which is more of a self-help book, I think.

Re: Ask HN: Book Recommendations?

#80

Post by pedrodelfino »

_lpa_ wrote: post #13

I made http://www.hnreads.com a while ago to help find book suggestions from threads on hacker news. I expanded the idea to look at subreddits related to books, at http://www.bookbot.io - the eventual plan being to unify the two. There are quite a few things I would like to add, but they will have to wait until I finish my thesis!

Great invention. Congratulations and thanks.
Post reply on HN