181–190 of 283 posts
I'm hoping to enable people to get into this amazing field of ours so that they can enjoy a better life with better options and long term economic prospects.
A very tough question. I feel that it might be quite hard to lure a curious person into Computer Science, who doesn't know anything about the field yet. One of the books I liked (since I actually studied Linguistics in my Bachelor's) and what drew me towards CS was "Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software" by Charles Petzold.
Eloquent JS, for coding, On Photography by Sontag for Photography, Anything James Baldwin for literature, Anything Angela Davis or Emma Goldman for political theory, A blank (perhaps square lined, Rhodia brand) notebook and a pack of Stabillo pens for creativity.
Physics & Mathematics - Anyone who seriously pursues these fields learns to embrace the challenges as beautiful and the struggle to unravel their nature as fulfilling. To do this, we embrace the beauty in nature and see the connection with everything around us. Four books come to mind. Physics: 1. Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character) by Richard P. Feynman 2. The Universe in a Nutshel…
Aha! GEB! Do you think a complete beginner with no knowledge in higher math should read GEB?
The book that got me into neuroscience was Phantoms in the Brain by V. S Ramachandran and Sandra Blakeslee. A 22-year old book that wowed 20-year-old me. Principles of Neural Design by Peter Sterling and Simon Laughlin is a more recent book. It is brilliant, beautifully written and probably should be required reading for anyone looking to do graduate studies in neuroscience. In a field inundated with data and siloes and jargon, it bats for a focus on jargon-free understanding of principles that can explain much of the complexity. It was hugely inspirational for us when doing our own book (plug alert!).
I hope that Journey of the Mind: How Thinking Emerged from Chaos, a book I co-authored, a book which drew inspiration from these two books, is able to do the same for many looking to study neuroscience and AI now.
Phantoms in the Brain https://www.amazon.com/Phantoms-Brain-Probing-Mysteries-Huma...
Principles of Neural Design https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Neural-Design-MIT-Press/dp...
Journey of the Mind https://www.amazon.com/Journey-Mind-Thinking-Emerged-Chaos/d...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not a book but CNBC's series "American Greed" is great. My favorite episode was about a guy who was (on paper) the second largest biodiesel producer in the country. He was literally just making up fake green energy credit numbers in a spreadsheet and selling them to companies looking to buy green energy credits. The EPA was made aware of him but did nothing even after they physically inspected his biodiesel "factory"…
> The EPA was made aware of him but did nothing Did the EPA give any reason?
I think there ought to be a book that explains how the modern world works at large, that'd include many many fields of study and explain how they all work together. I'm not aware of anything of the sort. If anyone else knows, let me know :)
About David Fleming and the book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Fleming_(writer)
Apparently there's also an online version of the whole work: https://leanlogic.online/