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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

#151

Post by adql »

seniorThrowaway wrote: post #150

The quality of content on the internet has gone way down in my opinion. There is a proliferation of content that is so adwords optimized as to be useless, AI or cheapest content farm written, an annoying ad filled video, or some combination of all of those. It's still ok for computing and programming topics, but for almost any other non-fiction or reference type material I greatly prefer books, and older books at tha…

Counter-point - it didn't, SEO services quality went up.

Internet was always full of shit but when everything linked to everything else there was a way for search engines to find the valuable posts, with search engine being a gateway to everything that is no longer the case.

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

#152

Post by nafizh »

ploum wrote: post #149

That’s why I used Pocket and now Offpunk (disclaimer: it’s my own project). When I find something that looks interesting, I place it in my "toread" list in offpunk. Then I go through that list, picking random articles and reading them… in less (the terminal pager). It means no scrolling (hit space to display next page), no images, no cruft. Only text. I really read. And a majority of "looks interesting enough to read…

If you can connect it to pinboard, that would be something really big.

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

#153

Post by mancerayder »

I find it difficult to read online in depth.

I was trying to force myself to read a book about probability, and I despise math (especially proofs down to first principles) but I made it a duty. However even on Kindle it's brutal.

News articles seem purposely long in words, but thin in information.

Hacker news posts are one of my favorite go-tos, but admittedly I find myself embroiled in the back and forth of people's comments, like I'm seeking out a deep argument I can glean information from in a sort of Socratic-method-by-voyeurism.

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

#154

Post by CodeIsMyFetish »

peepee1982 wrote: post #133
runjake wrote: post #125

I feel the opposite. I'm reading fewer non-fiction books and more articles and blog posts. Non-fiction books are bloated with fluff to increase the page count to increase the perceived marketability of the book. A lot of the ideas presented in those books could be adequately presented in a 10th of the number of pages. A huge time-saver has been reading the article versions of stuff that has been turned into a book. Y…

I feel like this really depends on the topic. When I see a 1000 page tome about every single feature of Photoshop, then nope. I'll google it thanks. History is non-fiction, too. And I'd definitely rather read a book than some blog, because there will be a long thread of things that build up on each other, and I think books are just better suited for that. So, things that require prolonged attention because of an over…

Couldn't agree more. And with tools such as Photoshop, it's much more efficient to learn as you go after being able to understand enough to navigate around the tool and its basic associated terminology.

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

#155

Post by thumbelina »

vorpalhex wrote: post #117
chairmanwow1 wrote: post #109

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 lar…

I've been on a kick of reading parenting books. I do a thing when I read where I fact check books when I read them (only things which are claims, usually only if cited or very specific). Out of 7 or 8 books, only a minority have passed without deep deep factual errors. One specific one comes to mind - a book on "Danish Parenting" that cited a monkey study about kids and peer groups. I looked up the original study and…

Any parenting books you recommend? Thanks!

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

#156

Post by nineplay »

vorpalhex wrote: post #117
chairmanwow1 wrote: post #109

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 lar…

I've been on a kick of reading parenting books. I do a thing when I read where I fact check books when I read them (only things which are claims, usually only if cited or very specific). Out of 7 or 8 books, only a minority have passed without deep deep factual errors. One specific one comes to mind - a book on "Danish Parenting" that cited a monkey study about kids and peer groups. I looked up the original study and…

Parenting books are the worst. I read one of the pro "cry it out" books on the recommendation of friends and at one point the author had a chart of how the rise in juvenile delinquency corresponded to rise in attachment parenting.

The funny thing is that the friends who recommended it to me are both engineers but IME even a lot of smart people don't question "scientific" studies. Parenting books in particular rely on a whole lot of readers willing to take everything at face value.

Aside: I knew a women who had a PhD and studied sleep patterns. Her pediatrician told her she needed let her baby cry it out. When she asked for justification they handed her a study that she had participated in, it was about mama cats and their kitted - completely irrelevant to any sort of human behavior. She was pretty upset by the whole thing. How many parents had been convinced by doctors completely misinterpreting her research?

A lot of justified scorn was thrown at the anti-MMR vax crowd, particularly pre-covid, but I think it's hard to understand how many people just don't have the background to look at a bunch of charts and numbers with a skeptical eye. I don't know how we are going to manage it when these days everyone can find a chart somewhere justifying everything that they already believe.

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

#157

Post by SuoDuanDao »

beej71 wrote: post #121
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…

> 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. (One trick here is to buy short/small non-fiction books.) Looking at books to use in class, I'm constantly surprised at how many words they use to convey so few concepts. Teaching is an optimization problem, and i…

I'm interested in the statement 'teaching is an optimization problem'. I enjoy teaching (did it professionally for a brief and happy time in my life) but this is the first time I've encountered the idea it's an optimization problem. Could you speak a bit more on that?

Regarding making money, I've found at least one way that I think aligns the different needs - some of the videos on my youtube channel are book reviews and summaries of books I've genuinely enjoyed and find worth recommending. Easy way to put an affiliate link in front of people who'd appreciate it, and it's not enough of a concern for me that I'd ever be tempted to recommend a book I didn't personally love just to create content.

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

#158

Post by sasha_fishter »

sibeliuss wrote: post #144

For me its easy: Sitting on the computer reading makes me feel depressed. Reading books makes me feel happy. And so I've gradually reduced my footprint on the internet to basically zero -- no social media, only a few sites (mostly HN) bookmarked -- in an effort to make the internet less of a thing. It's working. Sometimes I'm staring at my screen and I have no clue what to even do or where to go, and I close it and t…

Exactly what I've felt. I have started a new project for tennis, and that keeps me going. Reading a book about topics that I need for project, exploring different ideas, etc. What I found most interesting is that reading a book opens up a totally different world of thinking. More ideas, enrichment of creative thinking, clear thinking, focus... I was sitting in front of computer and try to think what to do next, while ending in endless worthless SM scrolling... I can feel you :)

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

#159

Post by twapi »

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…

> I stopped reading non-fiction books. Most of them have about a blog post worth of ideas

Totally agree with you on this. Best example of this is much hyped "Atomic Habits". I appreciate this book's ideas, and have huge respect for the author.

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

#160

Post by ploum »

nafizh wrote: post #152
ploum wrote: post #149

That’s why I used Pocket and now Offpunk (disclaimer: it’s my own project). When I find something that looks interesting, I place it in my "toread" list in offpunk. Then I go through that list, picking random articles and reading them… in less (the terminal pager). It means no scrolling (hit space to display next page), no images, no cruft. Only text. I really read. And a majority of "looks interesting enough to read…

If you can connect it to pinboard, that would be something really big.

If pinboard offers a RSS feed, then it’s already connectable.
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