211–220 of 263 posts
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If this is true in general, it might have been a factor in why the scientific and technological 'revolutions' of the so-called Enlightenment occurred in the West.
How?
Kafka [1] on which types of book to read: "I believe one should only read those books which bite and sting. If the book we are reading does not wake us up with a blow to the head, then why read the book? To make us happy, as you write? My God, we would be just as happy if we had no books, and those books that make us happy, we could write ourselves if necessary. But we need the books that affect us like a disaster, t…
This reminds me of the recent "Neuromancer" discussion here on HN: The early cyberpunk writing style, and especially that of William Gibson, made extensive use of unexplained technical terms. The story was occasionally hard to follow. But that was part of "cyberpunk", at least initially. If you were really about to read a report from a different possible world, you also wouldn't understand everything. In reality not…
This is a thing game designer / writer Ken Hite always says [1], and he's absolutely right. If you dig deep enough into even the most boring corner of history, you will find more interesting details than any person could possibly invent. And if you base your creative work on an exciting part of history that people are familiar with, you have huge advantages.
[1] It's a frequent subject on his podcast, but this talk is also good introduction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwVcbZ0CKCY
It's like watching 3Blue1Brown. A look into the soul of the universe causing a sense of awe and wonder, but little understanding.
Depends on one's background, really. I understood some videos really well on the first watching, but some videos on the same technical level were like- "what?... Ooh, maybe that's okay... Oh... Yeah". Total discomfort. It's the areas of Math where you already have decent groundings, you will find that you can take more with you from 3b1b. Same with Feynman's Lectures. If you are a smart person but no formal backgroun…
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Eventually everyone is tested. I have received perfect looking resumes and cover letters, then you get the person on a call and they are… hopeless. It’s very sad. Who pushed them so far? How did they get the credentials? Who wrote and edited their materials? Eventually the “rubber meets the road” so to speak, and all of the lies and gold stars and platitudes don’t count for anything.
There are certainly people like that, but there are also exceptionally smart people that just absolutely suck at selling themselves, and you might unknowingly decided the same way in case of both. It’s very hard to fairly evaluate someone. E.g. I had interviews where I 100% know more than one of my interviewers on the specific topic (not bragging, my knowledge is ain’t a high bar), and that gap in this unusual direct…
Kafka [1] on which types of book to read: "I believe one should only read those books which bite and sting. If the book we are reading does not wake us up with a blow to the head, then why read the book? To make us happy, as you write? My God, we would be just as happy if we had no books, and those books that make us happy, we could write ourselves if necessary. But we need the books that affect us like a disaster, t…
I don’t know if I’m taking Kafka too literally here, but the books that I read that bite and sting probably fall into two categories. Things that are cynically written in bad faith and things that are hopeless and callous. Torture porn bites and stings, reading hacky partisan politics bites and stings. Anything that makes me feel stupider after reading it bites and stings. The things that I think that he wants to say…
Thats things that just knock your world view around for a brief moment in a almost confused-joyous-understanding. Make question your intuitions for a little bit.
That is one way of doing it.
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> If the way to learn things is to read a book a bunch of times, what value does my tuition money get me? The real answer? You gained a piece of paper which certifies that you are educated in a field. Depending on the school you may also gain access to an insular professional network. That's pretty much it. The notion that university degrees are worth anything more than that is moderately outdated.
I am in my fifties, a software engineer, and I am enrolled in a masters program for mathematics and really learning at a ferocious rate compared to my job, where I can alternate learning with using what I've learned. For me, learning a lot is very worthwhile. Not everyone shares that goal for education of course.
A useful habit that I've begun to follow with more complicated books—especially when reading them out of personal interest—is to actively avoid taking notes or worrying about background material on a first read. I've recently read and greatly enjoyed a historical fiction novel called "Augustus" written by John Edward Williams and published in 1972. On the surface level, it's about the events of the life of Augustus C…
> A useful habit that I've begun to follow with more complicated books—especially when reading them out of personal interest—is to actively avoid taking notes or worrying about background material on a first read. I recommend using those little sticky tabs instead. If I come across something I want to look up later, or want to come back to for whatever reason I use one on the page itself to to highlight the line, and…