Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List?

#301

Post by cncrnd » Fri, Jul 13, 2018, 3:11 PM UTC

saryant wrote: post #42

1) Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation by Edward Chancellor Everything from the tulip craze to the dotcom boom. 2) If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look On My Face? by Alan Alda Alan Alda of MASH fame teaches you how to build more empathy and improve your communication skills. 3) Bad Blood by James Carreyou Theranos. Enough said. 4) Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America's Secret Wars in…

Bad Blood is crazy stuff. Stayed up reading it last night after seeing the recs here.

Not sure what I learned other than people are carried away easily, but it was very entertaining.

Re: Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List?

#302

Post by cncrnd » Fri, Jul 13, 2018, 3:15 PM UTC

misiti3780 wrote: post #289

paraschopra wrote: post #35

- The Origin of Wealth. Fantastic book on the new field of complexity / evolutionary economics - The Language Instinct. How mind creates language. - The Elephant in the Brain. I’ve posted notes here https://invertedpassion.com/notes-from-the-elephant-in-the-b... - Existential Cafe. History of existential thought. Excellent book. - 12 rules of life. Highly opiniated but well argued book on how to live life - Skin in t…

i love taleb but i thought skin in the game was the most disappointing of all of this books.

I could never get into Taleb for some reason. Am I the only one who thinks his writing is extremely long winded?

Re: Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List?

#303

Post by wellpast » Fri, Jul 13, 2018, 3:16 PM UTC

Brett Easton Ellis recommended Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth, so I read it, just finished it -- devoured it, really -- and fully agree w/ his assessment [1].

[1] I just finished reading The House of Mirth, which I had tried reading as an eighteen- year-old college boy and just didn’t get. Now at fifty-four, it’s crushing. Absolutely crushing. And the writing is just stupendous. I also love Age of Innocence and The Custom of the County. Just going to Edith Wharton every morning was fantastic and blew away any television or movie that I could find online. https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/bret-easton-ellis-...

Re: Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List?

#304

Post by calebm » Fri, Jul 13, 2018, 3:17 PM UTC

"Hardboiled Wonderland and The End of the World" (by Haruki Murakami). I love every book I've read by Haruki Murakami, but I think this may be my favorite. I suspect that, for a work of literary surrealist/magical realism fiction, it will appeal to the HN crowd.

Re: Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List?

#305

Post by m-i-l » Fri, Jul 13, 2018, 3:19 PM UTC

paraschopra wrote: post #35

- The Origin of Wealth. Fantastic book on the new field of complexity / evolutionary economics - The Language Instinct. How mind creates language. - The Elephant in the Brain. I’ve posted notes here https://invertedpassion.com/notes-from-the-elephant-in-the-b... - Existential Cafe. History of existential thought. Excellent book. - 12 rules of life. Highly opiniated but well argued book on how to live life - Skin in t…

> The sci-fi book that anticipated what rouge blockchain like programs can do.

It would have to be a fantasy book to truly go rogue - if it was sci-fi it would get bogged down in network congestion or high transaction fees, or consume all of the planet's energy production, before it could do much damage.

Re: Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List?

#306

Post by wetback » Fri, Jul 13, 2018, 3:22 PM UTC

adamch wrote: post #298

1: Diaspora (Greg Egan). Brilliant sci-fi where computer science concepts like cellular automata, computation complexity etc are major plot points. Starts with a highly detailed explanation of AI personality creation. Super geeky and a brilliant plot. 2: High Performance Browser Networking. Really explained a lot of modern networking. I was already familiar with the basics of the OSI stack, but this explained a lot o…

Diaspora is fascinating, it captured me from the first page. Permutation City is pretty good as well.

Re: Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List?

#307

Post by wellpast » Fri, Jul 13, 2018, 3:25 PM UTC

moretai wrote: post #278

anacleto wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1: Hero With A Thousand Faces Unusual. The first time, I - happily - see someone on HN mentioning Joseph Campbell and this book. As a following up lecture, I'd recommend: The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life & Work. [0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/242530.The_Hero_s_Journe...

Probably a result of Jordan Peterson becoming famous. He mentions Campbell a lot.

Had the same thought. On this note, Peterson's reading list [1] is worth pursuing, however I'd dovetail it with less serious books for the sake of levity -- his reading list, like himself, can be pretty serious + severe.

[1] https://jordanbpeterson.com/books/book-list/

Re: Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List?

#308

Post by stefantheard » Fri, Jul 13, 2018, 3:26 PM UTC

I am going to finally read Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain.

Re: Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List?

#309

Post by lurcio » Fri, Jul 13, 2018, 3:28 PM UTC

The Revelation of Jesus Christ Perhaps the most 'contested' words put to paper (in the academic sense of the word, such as "Europe is a contested concept")

Re: Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List?

#310

Post by dumb2223 » Fri, Jul 13, 2018, 3:29 PM UTC

gjm11 wrote: post #235

dumb2223 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I followed your advice and read chapter 9 of Rationaly from Ai to Zombies. This chapter title is "Expecting Short Inferential Distances", my summary is that if you are using a scientific language and your audience is not used to it then you should explain basic terminology. So from this piece I should estimate content with low density of information.

"I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia." -- Woody Allen I mean, yes , Yudkowsky is pretty verbose, but that's not what I'd call a super-accurate summary and there's definitely more in that chapter than your one-sentence summary. (It's about understanding as well as knowledge , and in so far as it's about knowledge it's not only about terminology or only about scien…

I think that there more interesting examples to ilustrate the fact that communication require to explain the basic to those that don't work in the field. Any good teacher knows that you have to motivate students and explain things adapting your classes to the knowledge of your students. Also, those who sell services or products know very well how to communicate the value of products. Perhaps some empathy is necessary for communication, but chapter 9 sound voiceless to me.