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Summer Reading List

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Re: Summer Reading List

#271

Post by provost »

di4na wrote: post #261
mecredis wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks – I'm the one that picked The Nix for the list (I work for YC on their admissions team). One reason I picked it is that is indeed a great book that I have been recommending plenty to friends. Another is that I do think it's incredibly important to be able to enjoy and indulge and make time for fiction, especially when you work in tech. It's too easy to "read for facts / information / theory" and forget the joy…

Blond Sight by Peter Watts. Available in CC license on his website rifters.com There are a lot of fiction books that will make you think differently more than non-fiction.

> Blond Sight

Blindsight* ... I was trying to CTRL+F for "Blond" and couldn't fint it =). Finally found the link here: http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm

And downloaded it. Thanks.

Re: Summer Reading List

#272

Post by ryanar »

jdp23 wrote: post #228

17 books by guys. 2 books by women. Both recommended by women.

Looking for diversity? More than one book list in the world. I started following susanjfowler.com and her reading club after the uber interviews came out

Re: Summer Reading List

#273

Post by emodendroket »

jackschultz wrote: post #81

I know this is a technical site, but for all of these I always get a little sad with how few fictional books are listed on these types of posts. Going over it, seems like there's just one, "The Nix" (may be more where I just missed them). I like seeing fictional books since I can relate to the people writing them. If I enjoyed some of the fictional books that people talk about, then I'll go along with their non-ficti…

Even the nonfiction strikes me as a bit narrow in interest.

Re: Summer Reading List

#274

Post by mehrzad »

perfmode wrote: post #266
mehrzad wrote: post #73

Do they ever choose any radical literature to test their beliefs? Kropotkin's The Conquest of Bread would be a good choice.

Thanks for the recommendation. Found a Kindle version on sale for $1.19. https://www.amazon.com/Conquest-Bread-Peter-Kropotkin-ebook/...

I'm pretty sure it's out of copyright!

Re: Summer Reading List

#275

Post by baldfat »

greenshackle2 wrote: post #45
Danihan wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still one of the best books I've read, period. Can't recommend it highly enough.

I'm about one third of the way through, but I was turned off by him dismissing Kant and Bentham's moral theories because they are autistic ("diagnosed" on the basis of circumstantial evidence). I see the value of bringing systematizing vs empathizing in the picture, but you can do that without character-assassinating them. It was really bizarre to read him bring up their autism, then insist he didn't commit Ad Homine…

As a person who has a son named Soren in honor of Kierkegaard YEAH! Kant was and is still the enemy of thought for individualism.

Re: Summer Reading List

#276

Post by aweiland »

chadgeidel wrote: post #99
eliben wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :)

I've listened to 2 or 3 Audiobooks and nearly every one of them (short of Wheaton reading his own "Just A Geek") was unbearable to listen to. I don't know what the percentage of readers interject their own "emphasis" outside of just reading the words, but it's too many for my tastes. I don't want a robot to read the book, but I also don't want the reader adding "color" by reading some characters with different voices…

The reader(s) can really make or break a book.

James Marsters reads the Dresden Files books and he is amazing. It really is a performance by a good actor and (IMHO) adds to the book. He does use "voices" for different characters and it works really well. Most other readers will try to do this has well. It can be hit or miss.

A really good ensemble book is World War Z by Max Brooks. The cast is incredible (Alan Alda, Martin Scorsese, Simon Pegg, and more)

Re: Summer Reading List

#277

Post by ethbro »

qntty wrote: post #245
ethbro wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So much of modern philosophy seems like the task of obfuscating an illogical argument with unrelated logical ones until the reader forgets and assumed the original argument must have been proved logically. I believe it was Apollo Robbins who said one of the brainjacks he uses is the "A, B, C, 7" pattern, where people with distracted attention tend to leap to assuming the next object is like the former ones.

>So much of modern philosophy seems like the task of obfuscating an illogical argument with unrelated logical ones until the reader forgets and assumed the original argument must have been proved logically. Can you give an example of this?

Other than parent's gripe, nothing modern comes to mind as I haven't read modern philosophy since college (for reasons mentioned). But I'd cite some of Aquinas' work as evidence of incredibly logically stout edifaces built on top of a single suspect assumption.

Re: Summer Reading List

#278

Post by mvleming »

glenstein wrote: post #242
mvleming wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't checked out Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection but if you want another book that I think speaks from a similar angle, and that I know has a scientific grounding, check out A Guide to Better Movement by Todd Hargrove[1]. The crux of some recent research into pain can be summarized in a few points: * Sometimes you'll hear patients talk about pain and look at their area of pain and find nothing in the…

For another example, VS Ramachandran has shown that some people who have lost a limb experience significant pain in a phantom limb. And the pain can over time be significantly reduced and even eliminated with mental exercises. With that in mind, I don't think it's anti-scientific to think there may be legitimacy to other mind-centered approaches to pain relief.

Yep great example, didn't remember to mention that too.

To expand on your point for others about mental exercises: if you experience pain, say, in your leg during a squat, if you mentally visualize doing a squat, and imagine doing it while not feeling pain, and practice doing that visualization, that will help you feel less pain when you actually get around to doing a squat.

Another way I've heard people treat phantom limb is by getting a tall standing mirror, so that their other limb in the mirror looks like their missing limb. And then they will move their limb and that will help treat the pain they feel in their phantom limb.

Re: Summer Reading List

#279

Post by Danihan »

baldfat wrote: post #275
greenshackle2 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm about one third of the way through, but I was turned off by him dismissing Kant and Bentham's moral theories because they are autistic ("diagnosed" on the basis of circumstantial evidence). I see the value of bringing systematizing vs empathizing in the picture, but you can do that without character-assassinating them. It was really bizarre to read him bring up their autism, then insist he didn't commit Ad Homine…

As a person who has a son named Soren in honor of Kierkegaard YEAH! Kant was and is still the enemy of thought for individualism.

Could you expand a bit on this comment?

Re: Summer Reading List

#280

Post by padobson »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #255
toufka wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I agree, but I don't think there's a difference whether the initial idea is consumed as fiction or non-fiction.

And it's certainly true that writers of hard-to-grasp ideas often use both - fictional examples in non-fiction books, historical examples and exposition in fiction books.

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