411–420 of 434 posts
Everything from Nassim Taleb, basically "the incerto", his four books are basically one book ( https://www.amazon.com/Incerto-Fooled-Randomness-Procrustes-... )
* Elements of Statistical Learning - Hastie, Tibshisrani * (Lot's of machine learning books to list: PRML, All of Stats, Deep Learning, etc.) * Active Portfolio Management - Kahn, Grinold * Thinking, fast and slow - Kahneman * Protein Power (the Eades') / Why we get fat (Taubes) * Why we sleep (Walker) * Deep Work / So Good They Can't Ignore You (Newport) * Flowers for Algernon (Keyes) * Getting to Yes (Fisher)
Flowers for Algernon was great, but I'd strongly suggest reading the short story and avoiding the novel. The short story was lengthened in to the novel and was ruined, in my view, by all the Freudian-influenced attempts to sexualize and psychoanalyze the protagonist. It was a real let down after the brilliance of the short story, which had absolutely nothing to do with any of that.
The Six Pillars Of Self-Esteem. Even if you think you already have high self-esteem, there's no such thing as too much self-esteem. Someone here on HN first made me aware of it. It's such a great framework for self improvement. I've read it 3 or 4 times and did all of the exercises the first 2 times.
From other discussions of the book, I’ve heard it is inflected with libertarian politics. Did you find that distracting while reading it?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Haha, no to you. Except that the majority of people perceive realities that are highly, highly similar indicating that they are all perceiving a singular thing outside of their own experience. There's a reason why people who deviate too far from the norm get locked up. There's also a reason why you understand the reality that I am describing to you right now. Likely because we are both perceiving the same thing. In o…
There is no single reality. People that get locked up are just the poor souls that can't live with this fact.
The Fountainhead
Any input as to how it compares to Atlas Shrugged? Currently reading A.S., a looong read!
I think Atlas Shrugged is more likely to be what draws criticism to Ayn Rand. It plays more on extremist ideas that the elite class should cull the weak. The Fountainhead exemplifies the idea that one should master their craft, that all good work is art, that there's a real beauty to "form follows function" which requires one to actually think about what they're doing. Around the time of reading The Fountainhead I got into a debate about the architecture I took in writing nobox, a minimalist window manager
The Count of Monte Cristo - This is one breathtaking epic. I have been putting off reading this novel for quite some time and occasionally see this name popping up in HN too, but never gave a serious thought for giving it a go. Was I wrong! This is an epic in its true sense, and you will feel a sense of amazement as you progress through the novel. I'm quite a reader, and I have not experienced such amazement when rea…
The Count of Monte Cristo - This is one breathtaking epic. I have been putting off reading this novel for quite some time and occasionally see this name popping up in HN too, but never gave a serious thought for giving it a go. Was I wrong! This is an epic in its true sense, and you will feel a sense of amazement as you progress through the novel. I'm quite a reader, and I have not experienced such amazement when rea…
Completely agree for the Count of Monte Cristo, but wanted to add that I had a similar experience more recently with Shogun (James Clavell) which I found equally inescapably immersive.
Bible - Beginning with the New Testament, because the teachings of Jesus are inspiring every time I read them and show me everytime something deeper. No it did and does not make me "religious" but gives me faith.
(There are paraphrases available that might be more accessible for first-timers.)
From a few angles: * I read the Bible out of curiosity and ended up joining a church, so that's pretty consequential. * Moby Dick and Journey to the West were probably the most sheer enjoyment I got out of books * Learning C# 3.0 by Jesse Liberty is extremely dated at this point, and was dated even when I read it, but was the first book that made me "get" many basic OO concepts and taught me a language I've gotten a…
It also made me curious to read Ellsberg–his "Limits of knowledge" chapter is a marvellous read.