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Summer Reading List

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Re: Summer Reading List

#251

Post by ArlenBales »

misiti3780 wrote: post #15
kilroy123 wrote: post #6

Slightly off topic, but how many books do you all read a month? I have a hard time getting past 1 a month.

I have read 4-6/month basically consistently for the past 3 years - I don't believe in audiobooks because you don't retain the same amount of information as you do from read words. I live in NYC and read about 2 hours a day

> I don't believe in audiobooks because you don't retain the same amount of information as you do from read words.

Huh, I'm the opposite, but I think it depends on the subject matter and how much you're reading. I have read about 70+ fantasy and science fiction audiobooks in the last year, but only each one once, and remember most details of all the books. Some characters from some series I've no doubt forgot their names, but soon as I listen to passage from the series my memory is brought back and I remember the details.

Non-fiction on the other hand I don't do too well with audio books. e.g. listening to an audio book on programming is never going to happen for me.

Re: Summer Reading List

#252

Post by thisrod »

I'm currently reading Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce by Anthony Reid. It's well written history, and the topic has some interesting aspects.

The view of Europe from 20 thousand kilometres is quite insightful. The big patterns stand out, as power shifts from the Spanish to the Dutch and then to the British. The different things that those people are trying to achieve in Asia neatly summarise the different things that they might have valued at home.

It's also interesting to see a long term situation where land is abundant, and labor is the scarce resource. Women get liberated (or so Reid claims). Battles are fought in order to take the other army from its land, not the land from the army. Labour productivity is so high, and construction materials so easily available; 3 days after an event like Hurricane Katrina, the city has been rebuilt and life is back to normal.

Re: Summer Reading List

#253

Post by sumedh »

gregwebs wrote: post #84
arnioxux wrote: post #34

No opinion on "The Man Who Knew" but kind of bummed that it will now beat "The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan" in autocompletion.

Also a pretty ironic title considering Greenspan did not see the major finanical crisis of his time and instead pushed for continued de-regulation. There are some Frontline stories about this: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/

I cannot take the list seriously because of that.

I really don't understand why people respect Greenspan. His excuse for not having regulations was that he thought companies wont make mistakes so there is no need to regulate them.

Re: Summer Reading List

#255

Post by TeMPOraL »

toufka wrote: post #185
b_emery wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making a compelling argument for writing fiction - but not for reading it.

Reading is the 10 hour version of the above multi-year exercise - as all books are. Instead of deriving Newton's laws, you read what Newton spent a lifetime to come up with. Instead of deriving the implications of a situation where sentient alien races can communicate between stars, read about the solution arrived at when they spent years thinking about. Sure, it's not as technically difficult (nor probably rewarding…

There's a caveat though: through just reading, it's easy to fall into the illusion that you learned anything. Maybe for some this is enough, but I'd wager that for vast majority of people (myself included), to internalize some idea even on the most basic level, you have to do something along the lines of:

- rehearse it after a time, or

- try to derive it by yourself (applies to e.g. math and physics), or

- explain in your own words (whether by teaching someone, or just writing a blog post), or

- code a working demo of it

Basically, you have to apply the idea somehow to actually learn it.

Re: Summer Reading List

#256

Post by TeMPOraL »

Osmium wrote: post #121
asdffdsa321 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, I keep those circles separate. Programmers usually don't discuss or care about literature in my experience. Like any hobby, just gotta find the people that do.

Self-fulfilling prophecy. If we shut down the conversation about literature when it starts, then yes we'll never discuss it ;) I'm always pleased to see posts on literature show up on the HN[0], but often disappointed to see so few comments. But enough people are up-voting them that they do regularly appear on the front page, so there's clearly enough interest around here. [0] e.g. see https://news.ycombinator.com/fr…

Self-fulfilling prophecy indeed, and also very self-limiting. Personally, I got some of the best fiction recommendations from people here on HN, and I'm very thankful for them.

Re: Summer Reading List

#257

Post by TeMPOraL »

markdog12 wrote: post #218
axplusb wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond offers an interesting and academically quite solid perspective.

It was an interesting book, lots of good points that contributed to the west's success. But, it's certainly not without its critics. He gives almost no credit to human agency. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnthropology/comments/1rzm07/wha...

Interesting discussion there, thanks for linking!

RE "He gives almost no credit to human agency", I wonder what's the current state of that discussion. My current belief (as always, subject to change) is in technological determinism - i.e. available technology level shapes the "parameter space" of social and economical structures, and individual agency is a secondary factor. This seems to match my knowledge of history and history of science, as well as observations of current social dynamics. I'm not a scholar in the area though, so I don't know what's the best criticism of that view.

Re: Summer Reading List

#258

Post by TeMPOraL »

tgb wrote: post #235
ThomPete wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great summary but also important to note that Kuhn didn't believe (unlike Popper) that science moved towards some final destination or explanation. Instead he saw each paradigm as optimal for what it was trying to express.

Yeah, I think I was struggling with this aspect. I recall my professor saying something like "it's not that general relativity is correct and newtonian mechanics was wrong, it's that when a general relativist says 'mass' they are talking about something different than when a Newtonianist says 'mass' - after all, you have to measure mass differently in those two things, they behave differently, etc. It's more that gen…

Personally, I learned to think of scientific ideas along two axis - precision and usefulness. To reuse your professor's example, in so far as you accept that Einstein and Newton were really talking about the same concept of "mass", general relativity is much more precise than newtonian mechanics - but newtonian mechanics is much more useful than relativity, is the sense that it's precise enough for 99.9% of applications (including sending spaceships around the Solar System) while also being significantly easier to use.

Re: Summer Reading List

#259

Post by TeMPOraL »

eliben wrote: post #9
kilroy123 wrote: post #6

Slightly off topic, but how many books do you all read a month? I have a hard time getting past 1 a month.

Audiobooks are a great way to increase your book intake considerably. "Reading" while washing dishes, other house chores and commuting can easily get you through 2-3 extra books a month (depending on the length of the commute :)

E-book readers like Kindle are another neat trick. In my case, it increased the amount of reading sixfold, because it's just so convenient to read on an e-book reader during commute, waiting in queues, or just going down the street.

Benefits of an e-book reader over a phone or a tablet include a better screen for reading, and it being a dedicated device that doesn't distract you with notifications or the ability to start browsing random shit on the Internet.

Re: Summer Reading List

#260

Post by MattGrommes »

engi_nerd wrote: post #241
MattGrommes wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because diversity of thought is important. You're missing a lot if you only read books by people with similar views and experiences. For example, if you're a white man and you ask all your white male friends for book recommendations, you're going to end up with a pretty homogeneous list.

Boy, you sure don't think highly of my friends. Diversity of THOUGHT is important, but how is that directly correlated to skin color?

People with different skin color have vastly different life experiences which leads to diversity of thought.
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