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I don't read web articles anymore, but I read books

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Re: I don't read web articles anymore, but I read books

#101

Post by MisterTea »

sasha_fishter wrote: post #38
MisterTea wrote: post #28

Are the books you read similar in subject to the blog posts you read? I bet they are not. To me it sounds like you are bored or tired of reading about the same material. It's burnout really. It might be the simple that there isn't much new or interesting material in your area of interest and most blog posts are rehashing the same info you already know. Taking a break is fine. Maybe its time to explore hobbies you've…

It's similar. I.e. psychology of users, building startups as I'm right now building one, so I want to learn as much as possible. Blogs are not bad, I personally just loose ambition to read it and absorb it like I do when I read the book. I know it's totally different medium, and blogs are fast, books are slow, but I just waisting time scrolling through post, while I can read a book meanwhile.

Perhaps the issue is the style of writing? SEO speak has ruined many blogs in an attempt to bring in more ad money resulting in low quality content called blogspam.

Re: I don't read web articles anymore, but I read books

#102

Post by jackschultz »

lexoj wrote: post #70
jackschultz wrote: post #68

I've made a change recently, where if there's a blog post, web article, magazine articles, or even watch a video, I need to take notes on it. Obsidian is great for that, where I can put a link in, and it pops out a page for me to write any thoughts that come to mind from it, even if it's a single sentence or two. It's a slight barrier, but makes the feeling of reading something much more worthwhile, and also is inter…

Which plugin pops out a page from a link?

QuickAdd and Templater. It's a custom macro that takes the url, does a request, pulls the relevant information (site name, title) from the head, and then uses a capture to use the template to put the file in the correct path. Lowers the number of steps required to get a good page to take notes.

Re: I don't read web articles anymore, but I read books

#103

Post by dasil003 »

jasonladuke0311 wrote: post #56
NikolaNovak wrote: post #37

Depends how you define "Blog Post". There are web pages / articles I still read - I'll check out things by Derek Sivers, Patrick McKenzie/Bits About Money, Money Stuff by Matt Levine, all by local HN recommendations. Similarly, I find a lot of good one-off recommendations on HN; is the hit ratio 100%, or even 50%, goodness no. But signal-to-noise ratio is still worth my time. I will read Thom Hogan on photography mor…

> I actually read a lot LESS books than I used to. Fewer. - Stannis Baratheon (I’m not actually a grammar nazi, I just can’t resist the joke.)

LOL, I just watched this episode yesterday

Re: I don't read web articles anymore, but I read books

#104

Post by jackschultz »

sasha_fishter wrote: post #72
jackschultz wrote: post #68

I've made a change recently, where if there's a blog post, web article, magazine articles, or even watch a video, I need to take notes on it. Obsidian is great for that, where I can put a link in, and it pops out a page for me to write any thoughts that come to mind from it, even if it's a single sentence or two. It's a slight barrier, but makes the feeling of reading something much more worthwhile, and also is inter…

That's a good idea. I've seen Obsidian, but I'm taking notes on notepad, just to be sure I write it with hand. It's so hard for me because I was typing more than writing, so I kinda forget to write :). But I like your approach, notes are great because 5 minutes after reading something you forget almost all of it :)

Notepad works too! I think the key is to force yourself to actively think when reading, and if you don't want to do that, then don't bother reading. Obsidian helps because of the ease to linking other notes, and that I think it a big benefit when you start having a bunch of notes.

Re: I don't read web articles anymore, but I read books

#105

Post by hgsgm »

a13o wrote: post #34

I stopped reading non-fiction books. Most of them have about a blog post worth of ideas, but the publisher had the author pad it out to X00 pages because that's what makes their business model make sense. I haven't fully sworn off blogs, but I will skim anything brought to my attention on Medium, a corporate site, or from search results. My default assumption for these is that I'm reading content marketing and not an…

You seem to be referring to "pop" nonfiction books about one specific claim, not biography or history or a textbook or a monograph. There are many great accessible nonfiction books, like those from Isaacson or Gleick.

What makes such a nonfiction book different from a fiction book, which is usually just a bag of tropes?

Re: I don't read web articles anymore, but I read books

#106

Post by w1nst0nsm1th »

medvezhenok wrote: post #93
jventura wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One podcast I really like is The Art of Manliness podcast [0]. I learn about a lot of interesting topics and get good book recommendations from it. All episodes are interviews with book authors regarding a specific book. Brett, the interviewer, seems to be very well prepared for the questions and the conversation has always a good pace with every episode mostly under 50 minutes. [0] https://www.artofmanliness.com/pod…

Two podcasts that I like, and pay monthly for both (more econ/macro/geopolitics-focused): The first does a lot of research for every episode, and the second has ~30 years of knowledge about markets, trading, and goes into such depth in his episodes that it's hard to find equivalent level information elsewhere. I also subscribed to Real Vision at some point, but I find that I simply don't have enough time to utilize a…

Seems to be financial letters subscription 'grift' remastered in podcast.

Pass.

Re: I don't read web articles anymore, but I read books

#108

Post by 4ggr0 »

D13Fd wrote: post #96
wellanyway wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> most information dense things these days. Followed by podcasts Funny you should say that. I can't bring myself to listen to any because of all of the filler and gimmicks.

Exactly. If I'm listening to a podcast on a specific subject matter, I want discussion of that subject matter. I don't want 30 minutes of irrelevant back-and-forth about personal issues by the hosts before they get to the relevant stuff (or, even worse, tons of filler interspersed with the relevant content).

Don't forget the multiple minutes long part about "This podcast is sponsored by X". Bonus points if there are multiple ad-breaks.

Re: I don't read web articles anymore, but I read books

#109

Post by chairmanwow1 »

I have been in a recent period of intense non-fiction book reading recently (6 / month for past 3 months) and I realized a couple of things:

1. High-quality writing relaxes me to the point that I can enjoy learning at a much deeper level

2. It’s extremely arduous to keep my BS filter constantly deployed, which it is 95% of the time I'm reading unfiltered content (blogs, Twitter, news etc)

A well-written book is a large lake of high-quality information, and so I can generally develop some trust for the author and can relax and think about things I don't know well.

There is a torrent of knowledge, but panning for wisdom is exhausting. So I think for me, rather than the form factor (blog vs book vs podcast), it really comes down to the level of refinement of the information. There are some authors that blog / write newsletters that I have developed a sense of trust for, so I can also enjoy their without the BS filter fully engaged. (Matt Levine, Ben Hunt, Scott Alexander etc)

Re: I don't read web articles anymore, but I read books

#110

Post by antegamisou »

Bluntly put; the vast majority of blog posts, no matter what the subject is about, are low quality platitudes. This has been the norm ever since Blogger/Wordpress emerged.

Books on the other hand, especially literature, are usually the exact opposite. Money-grubbing self-help/how-to-become-world's-greatest-entrepreneur/Paulo Coelho tier prints are excluded.

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