For me it was "The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity" by C. Cipolla. A very short book that illustrates, in a subtly-humorous way, how stupid people are far more powerful than one would think.
Ask HN: What was a book that changed your life?
121–130 of 143 posts
Re: Ask HN: What was a book that changed your life?
#122If you're still religious, and you think maybe you shouldn't be, read Critique of Religion and Philosophy by Walter Kaufmann. It cured me.
On the other hand, if you are not spiritual and somehow feel life is about more... maybe try one of the holy scriptures.
I myself have been profoundly affected by The Bible. It has inspired many people over the centuries and remains the best selling book of all time. It provides innumerable famoous quotes. It's been credited with amazing things.
If that's not your cup of tea, try scripture of a different sort. Religion in general is said to be associated with increased generosity, well being and peace of mind. (Backed by many studies, of course.)
It's by nature a topic fraught with controversy. No matter which scripture you choose, it will be highly offensive to somebody. (But maybe if somebody else knows about it, you may not be doing it right.) You'll never know unless you try. In this day and age, religion is a source of comfort to many.
Re: Ask HN: What was a book that changed your life?
#123New Testament. Incredible how many levels/cross-reference it has.
Re: Ask HN: What was a book that changed your life?
#124Without any doubt The Art of Doing Science and Engineering by Richard Hamming. I have accomplished more in 5 years after reading it than I did in 15 years before. Much of it I attribute to the change of perspective the book brought about for me and to the fact that I have a vision of my future now. It also helped develop my own style. Second would be The Language of Mathematics by Baber. As someone who did not do wel…
Is The Art of Doing Science and Engineering similar to Richard Hamming's talk You and your research[1]?
[1] https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html
Re: Ask HN: What was a book that changed your life?
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
While it hasn't "changed my life", I'd like to post a solid +1 for this here. I just blasted through the audiobook version (which is excellent, btw!) of the 20th anniversary 2nd edition two weeks ago, and might be able to share another perspective on this. As someone who hasn't been in the industry since the 90ies, I find absolutely astonishing how basic some of the stuff is, yet my own workplace environment is full…
What do you or the author mean by "implement things orthogonally? I (somewhat) know what the word "orthogonally" means, but not sure what the phrase means in this context.
That's an interesting metaphor because I picked it up somewhere else, but it might well be that Hunt and Thomas actually coined this phrase in "The Pragmatic Programmer".
If you think of orthogonality in geometry, you can describe any N-dimensional vector space through a set of N orthogonal vectors (say the unit vectors in X, Y, Z). "Orthogonal" in this case means that moving something along one of those (say the X axis) won't alter its position from any other base vector's perspective.
In the same way, "orthogonal implementations" is a way of saying that the things are independent from each other. You can find their explanation in the Google preview for the book [1].
So, say you write utility code for a couple of applications, for example: Message transmission and subscription management. Then, you should try and keep both as independent as possible from each other, so that as a downstream user I won't have to pull in or even "massage" both just to use one of them.
As I wrote before, that sounds totally obvious when said out loud; yet I constantly find new examples where someone found a way to unnecessarily "complect" [2] multiple things.
[1]: https://books.google.ch/books?id=LhOlDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT70&dq=ort...
[2]: If that word also seems strange to you, I highly recommend watching https://youtu.be/oytL881p-nQ
Re: Ask HN: What was a book that changed your life?
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have a link? When searching for this I am getting a lot of Avengers related material but no related books.
The author is Leigh Louey-Gung (LoGun) and I would not recommend reading it. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22663642-end-game
I don't know if I would recommend it liberally to anyone nowadays. But it influenced me a lot in how I perceive the world, myself and my relationships with other people.
Re: Ask HN: What was a book that changed your life?
#127Endgame, by "LoGan". My older brother was into PUA stuff, I was dumped recently so he recommended me to read some things. All the other books and blogs were like "you have to do this one trick to get laid", but this book was a bit deeper. It changed my mind about being a happier and more fulfilled person by myself, and don't stress over being liked by other people, which in turn makes you more likeable.
Do you have a link? When searching for this I am getting a lot of Avengers related material but no related books.
I think the author's website got down a long time ago, but you could probably find it pirated in some PUA forums.
Re: Ask HN: What was a book that changed your life?
#128My recommendation is "Stop Drinking Now" by Allen Carr.
Watched Nikki Glaser explain it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LUm51Z-Ii0 (8min)
Ordered the book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stop-Drinking-Now-Allen-Carrs/dp/18...
Now I so much more energy and feel so much better all the time.
Re: Ask HN: What was a book that changed your life?
#129The Fountainhead, but not for the cult reasons. I found it a beautiful book about staying true to your vision / life even when the rest of the world is giving you shit and trying to shut you down. I love Atlas Shrugged for the same reason. I read it as the importance of doing what you love, even in the face of massive adversity.
Read them multiple times in my late teens / early 20s.
Re: Ask HN: What was a book that changed your life?
#130HN and tech spheres can tend to have more people (especially male) who struggle with socialising with others and romance on top of every other part of the human condition. To that end, I recommend (in order): Robert Glover - No More Mr. Nice Guy Mark Manson - The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck Mark Manson - Models For those looking into reading into masculinity (to understand yourself or other masculine people: Davi…
Jeez I've read most of those.
Personal favourites are David Deida's book which is great on understanding relationship dynamics; and Zan Perrion's book which is great in cultivating and perceiving depth in relationships.