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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

#281

Post by chairmanwow1 »

pighive wrote: post #255
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…

Nice, do you have any recommendations for non-fiction? TIA.

Here are 5 I have recently read that I really enjoyed:

1. "When Genius Failed": about the failure of the hedge-fund LTCM

2. "The First Tycoon": Detailing Vanderbilt's life (he was a bad-ass businessman). Far more interesting than I expected.

3. "Made in America": I didn't really care about walmart or Sam Walton before reading this, but he's a man to be admired.

4. "Barbarians at the Gate": Private equity tries the largest hostile takeover ever (dramatic and exciting with a hilarious group of characters).

5. "The Smartest Guys in the Room": Enron was an absurd company run by absurd people. Jeff Skilling claims he didn't do anything wrong.

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

#282

Post by radu_floricica »

vchynarov wrote: post #278
radu_floricica wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This, 10 times. I have such good blogs in my inbox, with easily the quality of the best books I could read, and I don't even have time to go though them. And I don't see any that I'd like to remove - if anything, I'm sure I could easily add to them if I go through each one's blogroll. The last non-fiction books on the other hand were huge disappointments. Even Daniel Kahneman, to my surprise: Noise had a good idea an…

I’m constantly astonished “Thinking Fast and Slow” is so highly recommended - I question if the advocates actually read the book in depth. I remember reading most of the book and skipping a couple of chapters. While the results and ideas are great, I feel most of the chapter is the historical background, Ie “Tversky and I were doing this in the 60s …” It could be heavily reduced and still get the point across.

At least Fast and Slow had half a dozen concepts. Well, imagine that Noise is also book sized, but only has one concept to present.

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

#283

Post by molly0 »

dredmorbius wrote: post #262
molly0 wrote: post #18

I’m a firm believer that the UX of reading physical books beats every other alternative. Looking forward to when this is no longer the case.

What's underappreciated by many is how much the book is a highly-crafted and optimised product . There's very little about a book that's innate, rather, conventions from size to font to structure and organisation, contents, indices, notes, pagination for eff's sake, all had to be arrived at and designed . That's happened over centuries, and represents a great deal of embedded wisdom. I become painfully aware of this…

You explained it very well, and “The Book” looks interesting.

But… Apart from being nice to look at, a (very big) bookshelf is such a waste of space I wish there where something in between a real book and an ebook.

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

#284

Post by jklinger410 »

dredmorbius wrote: post #279
jklinger410 wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many books are written with less care than an investigative journalist writing their big reveal. Many books follow your process as a go-to market strategy, and not crafting a work of art. Mike Tyson dictated his book. Self help gurus pay editors and writers to spin their 10 steps into a full "book." Not all books use such a prestigious process. In fact, most don't. Per my initial comment, it is not books but well cra…

Investigative journalists writing a big reveal ... write with more care than most journalists and columnists. You're cherry-picking the epitome of good journalism and comparing it as a class to all books. The same things that go into writing a good incisive investigative journalism piece or series (many of which ... eventually emerge as books) is what makes a good book a good book . And a book offers time for that pr…

No need for us to continue this back and forth because I feel like I've already made and proven my point, and you yours.

The process of good literature is not unique to book writing, but it does skew long. The attempt to distill knowledge or storytelling into its shortest form does have severe limitations.

Writing that is short in length is more likely to lack value, and vice verse. As a rule.

However I still must insist my original point, that saying you are reading a "book," while on average means what you are reading is more valuable than say a tweet, is not NECESSARILY indicative that you are reading something GOOD. The term "book" is not a synonym for "good literature."

It is possible, however unlikely, that reading a great piece of relatively short journalism can be infinitely more valuable than reading a book written by a complete idiot.

But of course I will cede that books are usually better, and long form content is usually better.

Although I have to say the dream of many writers is to be as succinct as possible, which means shortening language. The idea here is that good writing would become shorter and shorter over time.

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

#285

Post by dredmorbius »

jklinger410 wrote: post #284
dredmorbius wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Investigative journalists writing a big reveal ... write with more care than most journalists and columnists. You're cherry-picking the epitome of good journalism and comparing it as a class to all books. The same things that go into writing a good incisive investigative journalism piece or series (many of which ... eventually emerge as books) is what makes a good book a good book . And a book offers time for that pr…

No need for us to continue this back and forth because I feel like I've already made and proven my point, and you yours. The process of good literature is not unique to book writing, but it does skew long. The attempt to distill knowledge or storytelling into its shortest form does have severe limitations. Writing that is short in length is more likely to lack value, and vice verse. As a rule. However I still must in…

I think we understand each other and even agree substantially, though both of us seem inclined to not admit that last ;-)

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

#286

Post by dredmorbius »

molly0 wrote: post #283
dredmorbius wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's underappreciated by many is how much the book is a highly-crafted and optimised product . There's very little about a book that's innate, rather, conventions from size to font to structure and organisation, contents, indices, notes, pagination for eff's sake, all had to be arrived at and designed . That's happened over centuries, and represents a great deal of embedded wisdom. I become painfully aware of this…

You explained it very well, and “The Book” looks interesting. But… Apart from being nice to look at, a (very big) bookshelf is such a waste of space I wish there where something in between a real book and an ebook.

The storage density differential between paper/print and digital storage is ... staggering.

One of my favourite illustrations is that of the Central Social Institution of Prague. From photos of it, you'll understand where Futurama got its flying desks from:

https://www.vintag.es/2020/01/central-social-institution-pra...>

I've guestimated the total possible data storage capacity at about 500 GB, with a likely achieved storage of far less, probably more on the order of 25 GB. You could tuck the whole archive into a microSD card on your mobile phone or tablet.

Some discussion here:

https://toot.cat/@dredmorbius/108388654028938414>

The problem with digital archives is discoverability and browseability. Shelf-scanning books in a good library really is a pleasure, though there are alternatives in the digital world, mostly involving traversing bibliographies, references, and citations. Not the same, but similar.

There's also the Star Trek convention of electronic documents being bound to a specific tablet or reader, rather than being data beamed or transmitted between devices. Yet another case of visual storytelling trumping technical rigour, though it has a certain charm.

The brutalism of a large array of bound books is appealing, but particularly hard to accomplish with digital systems, though some sort of digital signage showing a sampling or overview of a collection might offer some visibility.

I've recently made the acquaintance of Bill Janssen, retired from Xerox PARC, who worked on their digital library management tools in the 1990s and aughts:

https://www.parc.com/technical-publications/uplib-a-universa...>

Fediverse thread: https://writing.exchange/@billjanssen/109321080797522794>

On my tablet / e-reader, I've collected a number of images of libraries, including one that seems to have roughly as many books visible as I have on my device (roughly 10,000). Just as a sort of visual contextualisation.

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

#287

Post by jklinger410 »

dredmorbius wrote: post #285
jklinger410 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need for us to continue this back and forth because I feel like I've already made and proven my point, and you yours. The process of good literature is not unique to book writing, but it does skew long. The attempt to distill knowledge or storytelling into its shortest form does have severe limitations. Writing that is short in length is more likely to lack value, and vice verse. As a rule. However I still must in…

I think we understand each other and even agree substantially, though both of us seem inclined to not admit that last ;-)

xD

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

#288

Post by DavideNL »

odysseus wrote: post #201
hyperjeff wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same experience for me. Viewing screens, with their unnatural light and uncanny hyperrealism, rattle my nervous system, and I can feel a subtle internal fight in my brain about what I’m doing. Somehow it’s also easy to get trapped, like you get magnetized. I see this in everyone. It can sometimes cause arguments trying to get someone to break the spell and have them reengage with the world. It’s not just the normal a…

Agree with your second paragraph, but for some books, I've gotten too used to being able to look up words/topics directly from the ebook. I find myself annoyed I can't long press a word with a physical book. I then end up grabbing my phone and looking up the word/topic, and then it's back to the electronic device that I was trying to get away from with the paper book.

Read on a Kindle (/KOreader) and put your phone far enough so it becomes annoying to go grab it :-)

The solution with these addicting things is always to create some kind of barrier…

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

#289

Post by readonthegoapp »

i feel like blog posts, like those on substack, medium, etc., are so low-quality that i barely make it a sentence or two before abandoning them.

in theory a site like HN should pre-filter them for me so that i'll only see stuff i'm likely to like, but mostly does not work.

i generally like professional, paid work that has been edited -- fact-checked, etc. -- it's just a lot more likely i will like that work because the quality is generally much higher. but you sacrifice a lot, namely, instead of getting the raw viewpoint of the author, you get viewpoint of the publication owner.

i'd guess the solution is manifold, but prob includes publicly-funded authorship.

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

#290

Post by longnguyen »

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…

I feel the same. I switched to reading articles on my Kindle and now I enjoy reading web content again.
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