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Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?

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431–440 of 532 posts

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?

#431

Ultralearning by Scott H. Young https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/ultralearning/ > Combining stories of dramatic ultralearning feats with the detailed science on how to learn anything effectively, ULTRALEARNING will transform how you work, live and learn. It made me realise that for most of my life, the things I was doing to try and learn new skills, techniques or technologies was actually more akin to entertainment t…

Would this be useful to someone that's not neurotypical?

YMMV, but I did not find the book to be super insightful or particularly helpful for how my brain works.

It spells out a framework that (roughly) boils down to:

0) Pick one topic at a time

1) Learning by doing

2) The doing has to be exercises of deliberate practice that push you

3) Create some type of deadline or pressure to make sure you actually stick to the task.

My experience with being self-taught is that I tend to just bounce around arbitrarily to different subjects or interests and drop them when I get bored and then all that knowledge bouncing around eventually becomes cohesive once I repeat that cycle enough times. So the concepts of picking a single topic, creating a strategy for only focusing on that topic, and then executing were difficult to apply.

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?

#432
post #101

The Dawn of Everything, by Graeber and Wengrow. Refutes most of the claims made by Harari in Sapiens, and shows everything you though you knew about prehistory is plain wrong. It's a great book, very well written and well informed. Made me think that humanity's history isn't an arrow pointing in the direction of progress; we make experiments. Our current way of life is not the "best so far", it's but one arrangement…

I'd like to add Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. Borrowed from wikipedia: The book attempts to explain why Eurasian and North African civilizations have survived and conquered others, while arguing against the idea that Eurasian hegemony is due to any form of Eurasian intellectual, moral, or inherent genetic superiority. Diamond argues that the gaps in power and technology between human societies originate pr…

It's an engaging book. It's also really, really rejected by historians from just about every possible angle. The AskHistorians subreddit has an entire "frequently asked questions" section dedicated to it:

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/historians_views...

And don't let the reddit part fool you, AskHistorians is arguably one of the most high quality history forums out there, as the mods mercilessly enforce really, really strict rules that demands giving in-depth answers with sources. That page has lots of other in-depth answers on other popular "big history" books too, quite a sobering read honestly.

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?

#433
post #79

Never Split The Difference by Chris Voss, on negotiation tactics. Much better than "Getting to Yes". The Genius of The Few by Christian and Barbara Joy O'Brien, an alternative take for garden of eden and Anunnaki compared to Sitchin Built To Sell by John Warrillow, on how to build a business you can exit with a profit. I read 30+ books in the last and this year so there are others but three is enough for this list.

I didn’t find a single practical take away in the Voss book. The entire thing was him boasting about his “accomplishments”. I’d go as far as saying it was totally useless.

Completely disagree. I recall within the first few chapters using the line “How am I supposed to do that?” on a crazy exec I worked with, which had them reflect on their ridiculous ask of me. They thought about the task some more and dropped it… like magic. Very practical book.

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?

#434
post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, a key part of No more Mr. Nice Guy is that "Nice Guys" operate on "Covert Contracts." They do things for other people with the (unstated/secret) expectation of something specific in return, especially, e.g. being nice or giving gifts and compliments to women, and expecting romantic interest, friendship, loyalty, etc. in return- and they get upset and act out when they don't get what they expected, which isn't re…

> I do take issue with your idea to "put others' interests ahead of their own." I don't believe that putting "others first at the expense of yourself, and then silently expect[ing] other people to somehow take care of your interests for you" is actually "put[ting] others' interests ahead of [your] own". That's still self interest, it just utilizes the Covert Contracts you mentioned. I think good leadership is self sa…

I think we're actually in agreement, but these issues are hard to discuss clearly because the words and ideas surrounding them are pretty muddled together.

I would argue that the type of leadership you are talking about is still ultimately self interest- it is still putting your own ideals or goals first, and being willing to endure hardship or difficulty to accomplish them. Wanting your family, relationships, etc. - things you care deeply about- to thrive is hardly self sacrifice.

This is a philosophical argument as old as the hills... but it seems that often what one calls altruism, another calls self interest, and they can be talking about the same thing. For example, in Ayn Rands books she emphasizes "selfishness" as a virtue, and yet her "selfish heros" are usually people working on some hard technical problem that would mostly benefit other people, and her "altruistic villans" are doing some type of empty posturing to make themselves look good, to gain personal social status and power. So her concepts are pretty muddled as well- was Stalin really evil because he put others needs before his own? That seems like a pretty silly take for someone mass-murdering their political opponents while living in multiple palaces.

Ultimately, I don't find the dichotomy of selfishness vs altruism to be a very meaningful distinction- it seems like people can easily categorize anything into either category. Things I think are "good" usually involve taking seriously both your own and others needs, looking for good solutions with creativity and an open mind, and being willing to endure hardship to make things better.

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?

#435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any guides on what kind of equipment and set up is needed to get started? I've been having thoughts of having a "slice of nature" like you said. But I don't know what's the way to get as close to a self-sufficient and passive system as possible.

Get a 20 gallon tank with grow light hood, add dirt (organic potting soil), cover with aquarium rocks, add aquarium plants, 6-12 shrimp, and 4+ snails, add a sponge filter, enjoy your little ecosystem.

This is pretty much it! The book promotes sand over aquarium rocks (ideally living sand from a lake, pond, or river bank, laws permitting), but I’ve seen people have success with fine gravel/coarse sand as well. If it goes in ‘dead’, it’ll be live within a month for sure.

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?

#437
post #22

Finished reading The Three-Body Problem (Book 1) and it's such a fascinating read! https://www.amazon.com/Three-Body-Problem-Remembrance-Earths...

I have mixed feelings about it, the premise is interesting but the writing is very bad in my opinion. The pacing is all over the place and the dialogue is like aliens trying to imitate normal human conversation... I would still recommend it to sci-fi fans, just don't expect a literary masterpiece.

It is incredibly difficult to translate Chinese well into English. Now that I'm thinking about it, I don't think I've ever read a Chinese novel with good dialogue in English.

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?

#438
post #354

I’ve also been getting back into fantasy and sci-fi. I’m reading through the Wheel of Time series right now and it’s the best series I’ve ever read. I’m on book 7 and really glad there’s still 7 books left. If you liked Eragon, then you’ll probably love this series. Contrast that to Dune, which I heard so much praise for and was very very disappointed by. The first Dune book was ok, but it just went downhill from the…

Opposite, I liked the first two Dune books, bounced off of WoT hard.

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?

#439
post #369

The City & the City by China Meiville. Meiville normally write weird fiction with a heavy handed communist slant e.g. mutant railroad workers revolt against their capitalist masters and escape by laying and digging up tracks as fast as the train moves, they form a collective and live happily ever after. The City & the City is his style, but constrained to the structure of a noir mystery novel. Classic gritty cop, loo…

I've enjoyed his speculative fiction / sci-fi far more than his fantasy so far.

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?

#440
post #420

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality which I approached doubtfully and have been enjoying the heck out of it. It's not some cutesy juvenile fanfic, it's about a alt-universe Harry Potter who grows up in a healthy family surrounded by books of science. He goes into the wizarding world with a heavy dose of skepticism and a mind well trained in the scientific method. The author is a AI researcher. https://hpmor.c…

If that's the Yudkowsky book it reminds me that Hotz and Yudkowsky just did an interesting debate about AI on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/live/6yQEA18C-XI

I'll have to check it out once I've finished. I've been avoiding any information about him in case of inadvertent spoilers
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