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Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?

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Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?

#91
post #84

Among technical books, books by Cornelius Lanczos are some of the best (less popular) books I've read. Some quotes from his "The Variational Principles of Mechanics": From the Preface: Many of the scientific treatises of today are formulated in a half-mystical language, as though to impress the reader with the uncomfortable feeling that he is in the permanent presence of a superman. The present book is conceived in a…

A request: please don't put quotes in code blocks. It makes them completely unreadable on mobile.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?

#93
post #84

Among technical books, books by Cornelius Lanczos are some of the best (less popular) books I've read. Some quotes from his "The Variational Principles of Mechanics": From the Preface: Many of the scientific treatises of today are formulated in a half-mystical language, as though to impress the reader with the uncomfortable feeling that he is in the permanent presence of a superman. The present book is conceived in a…

A request: please don't put quotes in code blocks. It makes them completely unreadable on mobile.

I've italicized them. I wish HN had some other way of stylizing quotes.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?

#94
Morte d'Urban and Wheat that Springeth Green by J. F. Powers. Who could ever imagine that I would thoroughly enjoy a book about Catholic priests who are not even solving crimes? Subtle, funny, keen-eyed how America and its practicioners of faith change after WW II.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?

#95
Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society (La Technique) https://ratical.org/ratville/AoS/TheTechnologicalSociety.pdf

Jacques Ellul, Propaganda https://archive.org/details/Propaganda_201512

Thomas Ligotti The Conspiracy Against The Human Race https://archive.org/details/TheConspiracyAgainstTheHumanRace

and anything written by Peter Wessel Zapffe (an introduction to his work https://philosophynow.org/issues/45/The_Last_Messiah)

Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?

#96
Travels in Tartary, Thibet, and China, by Evariste Regis Huc

He's an early 1800s French Catholic monk and is possibly the greatest travel writer of all time. Not only is the trip amazing, but the way he writes about it? Incredible.

In the sequel, the Chinese empire summons him to stand trial for being a Christian, since it was mostly illegal to be so in the empire at the time. It, too, is amazing.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/32747/32747-h/32747-h.htm

Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?

#97
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's how it starts off, be warned: On my naming day when I come 12 I gone front spear and kilt a wyld boar he parbly ben the las wyld pig on the Bundel Downs any how there hadnt ben none for a long time befor him nor I aint looking to see none agen. He dint make the groun shake nor nothing like that when he come on to my spear he wernt all that big plus he lookit poorly. He done the reqwyrt he ternt and stood and c…

This sounds like the Sloosha’s Crossing last section of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas. Pretty cool.

Good spot! Riddley was influential on Mitchell.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/feb/05/featuresreview...

Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's how it starts off, be warned: On my naming day when I come 12 I gone front spear and kilt a wyld boar he parbly ben the las wyld pig on the Bundel Downs any how there hadnt ben none for a long time befor him nor I aint looking to see none agen. He dint make the groun shake nor nothing like that when he come on to my spear he wernt all that big plus he lookit poorly. He done the reqwyrt he ternt and stood and c…

so it's not a completely made up language like klingon but just a dialect of english? sounds entertaining for an amateur linguist to study!

Yeah, "made up language" was a poor choice by me - its an attempt at imagining a transformed English.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?

#99
"Matter, Space, Radiation" by Menahem Simhony.

It explains the Ether (EPOLA, Electron-Positron Lattice) and states the many proofs for that, as well as explains many hitherto unexplained physics phenomena such as Mass Inertia, the speed of light c, Gravity and the Pauli Exclusion Principle.

You'd think the concept of "Ether" is debunked but after reading the book you'll be convinced it is real.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?

#100
How To Measure Anything[1] by Douglas Hubbard.

The basic gist of the book goes something like this: in the real world (especially in a business setting) there are many things which are hard to measure directly, but which we may care about. Take, for example, "employee morale" which matters because it may affect, say, retention, or product quality. Hubbard suggests that we can measure (many|most|all|??) of these things by using a combination of "calibrated probability assessments"[2], awareness of nth order effects, and Monte Carlo simulation.

Basically, "if something matters, it's because it affects something that can be measured". So you identify the causal chain from "thing" to "measurable thing", have people who are trained in "calibrated probability assessment" estimate the weights of the effects in the causal chain, then build a mathematical model, and use a Monte Carlo simulation to work out how inputs to the system affect the outputs.

Of course it's not perfect, since estimation is always touchy, even using the calibration stuff. And you could still commit an error like leaving an important variable out of the model completely, or sampling from the wrong distribution when doing your simulation. But generally speaking, done with care, this is a way to measure the "unmeasurable" with a level of rigor that's better than just flat out guessing, or ignoring the issue altogether.

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/How-Measure-Anything-Intangibles-Busi...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calibrated_probability_assessm...

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