Books about Richard Feynman, or essays, etc. by him. "Surely You Must Be Joking, Mr. Feynman!" in particular. I guess, this is unfair, as eventually he did get into software/hardware, but....
Ask HN: Interesting (Non software) books?
91–100 of 184 posts
Re: Ask HN: Interesting (Non software) books?
#92- David Marr: "Vision"
The foundations of computational neroscience - and lots of practial demonstrations of how your eyes and brain work.
- Daniel Dennett "Consciousness Explained"
How the mind works?
- J.E Gordon: "The new Science of Strog Materials" & " Structures, or why things don't fall down."
How is 'stuff' strong/hard?
- Steve Grand: "Creation" & "Growing up with Lucy"
The programmer behind the game 'Creatures' and his adventures in artificial life.
- Joseph Campbell: "The Hero with a Thousand Faces"
Never look at Star Wars in the same way again.
- David Deutch: "The Fabric of Reality"
Many worlds or mad as a box of frogs?
- Richard Leakey & Roger Lewin: "The Sixth Extinction"
We're doomed - maybe
- Braitenberg: "Vehicles"
Emergent behaviour from simple rules
- Ian Wilmut, Keith Cambell & Colin Tudge: "The Second Creation"
How Dolly the Sheep was made. Takes you through the background such that you can read & understand their paper which appears at the end.
- John Brunner: "The Shockwaver Rider"
Snowcrash - hah! - 1975 and this dude got it already.
Other general authors:
Martin Gardner, Greg Egan (lots of free stuff on his site).
Re: Ask HN: Interesting (Non software) books?
#93The War of Art - Stephen Pressfield - how to overcome yourself Gates of Fire - same as above, the story of the stand at Thermopylae Agincourt & 3 part series Archer's tale - Bernard Cornwell - accounts of medievil warfare StrengthsFinder 2.0 - Tom Rath - take a test and discover your strengths/things you love to do, focus on on doing those
Stephen Pressfield is fantastic. Besides "Gates of Fire," I've read "The Afghan Campaign" and "The Virtues of War," two novels about Alexander The Great. Very highly recommended.
Re: Ask HN: Interesting (Non software) books?
#94Ficciones, by Borges
Very imaginative short stories bordering on the philosophical, some of them hilarious.
Re: Ask HN: Interesting (Non software) books?
#95Risk: the science and politics of fear. By dan Gardner
I've recommended, and reviewed, it here before. Basically it is a pop-science look at how humans react and view fear. Brilliant read with lots of good referecing to scientific papers etc.
It was almost as revelatory to me as the selfish gene.
Re: Ask HN: Interesting (Non software) books?
#96If you're talented and get frustrated with stupid people, you have to read "Musashi" by Eiji Yoshikawa. I mean, you have to. Musashi was one of the greatest (maybe the greatest) swordsman of all time. He invented a Japanese longblade/shortblade mixed style of swordsmanship, at one point fighting himself out of an ambush when he was attacked by over 30 men. He was undefeated in over 60 duels, including defeating argua…
I must say you really sold the Musashi book to me. Definitely going to buy it next time I buy books. Thanks.
Re: Ask HN: Interesting (Non software) books?
#97Herman Hesse - The Glass Bead Games (though I would hazard to say any of his famous five are worth reading - haven't got round to them all myself yet, though)
I read The Glass Bead Games after I happened across Timothy Leary's "The Politics of Ecstasy" (a good read but not great - his ignorance/arrogance get's in the way all too often). The thing that switched me onto HH was TLs insistance that the man had achieved enlightenment: I figured that was not to be missed!
HH won the Nobel Proze for literature shortly after it's publication, and I cannot overstate the majesty of this book - it is simply awe inspiring. Easy to read, with a persuasive storyline that seduces the reader into an abominably utopian world of intellectual rule (Epistocracy?).
I won't ruin it for any readers. The basic thrust of the tale is the student becoming the master in a world where the highest grand masters (of "the game") are revered with something approaching religious zeal.
It changed me. Fundamentally. Before reading it I was naive and starry eyed about what education could achieve, now I'm more aware than ever that humanity, educated or not, is still just a many faced beast. All these trappings of wealth, power, and intellect are just reigns temporarily thrown around this rampaging behemoth.
It's not so much an epiphany of despair or futility, strangely it is somehow quite the opposite. It's a realease. I can't quite explain it. It's something that sends me into wild flights of lyrical rhetoric about the nature of humanity and my own part in it. I don't think there is anything better that you can ask from a book.
Re: Ask HN: Interesting (Non software) books?
#98If you'd like to understand a little bit about how our brain might process and understand numbers, get "The Number Sense" by Stanislas Dehaene
Re: Ask HN: Interesting (Non software) books?
#99If you're talented and get frustrated with stupid people, you have to read "Musashi" by Eiji Yoshikawa. I mean, you have to. Musashi was one of the greatest (maybe the greatest) swordsman of all time. He invented a Japanese longblade/shortblade mixed style of swordsmanship, at one point fighting himself out of an ambush when he was attacked by over 30 men. He was undefeated in over 60 duels, including defeating argua…
Will you post an affiliate link? If you recommend a good book to me, I'd like you to get a kickback. How do others feel about affiliate links? I've created an Ask HN on the topic: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1227196
Interesting thought. I just posted "Suggest to HN: A Hacker News Amazon Affiliate Link" -
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1227254
Basically, I don't recommend enough books to bother with an affiliate link, but if someone on the HN/YCombinator team would register a link, I'd voluntarily add it to my recommendations. It is a bit wasteful to leave the potential affiliate commission on the table when it could go to something valuable. People can discuss in that thread.
And Paul, if you're reading this, what's your take? I figure a bit of extra resources in the way of free books couldn't hurt, and it might add up. I reckon a lot of the community would be happy to give back that way.
Re: Ask HN: Interesting (Non software) books?
#100Two scifi books about turning rationality into a religion: Anathem and Altered Carbon
My all-time scifi list started out in a reddit comment: http://akkartik.name/blog/2006-06-02-08-13-58-soc