41–50 of 316 posts
The book that has changed my life the most, so far, has been The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs by Abelson and Sussman. In 2010 I started a job that was far, far ahead of my skillset. I'd written fewer than 10,000 lines of code in my life, and I was completely ill-prepared for the work I was supposed to be doing. I picked up SICP about a month or two into that job. Fast forward a year, and I felt t…
"The Joy of Cooking" is great for learning how to cook.
I own it, and used it until I realized how much time I was wasting on unnecessary complications. Try "How to Cook Everything" by Mark Bittman — it cuts out the cruft and the results are just as good.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Cook-Everything-Basics-Photos/dp/0...
The book that has changed my life the most, so far, has been The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs by Abelson and Sussman. In 2010 I started a job that was far, far ahead of my skillset. I'd written fewer than 10,000 lines of code in my life, and I was completely ill-prepared for the work I was supposed to be doing. I picked up SICP about a month or two into that job. Fast forward a year, and I felt t…
The 4-Hour Chef is probably not a surprising choice since it's a recent release and Amazon has been pushing it heavily (Amazon are also the publisher). I'm just over 60% through the book so I don't want to give it a ringing endorsement just yet but it fits the category of "developing a new superpower" quite nicely and it's definitely worth a particular mention on HN for two reasons. 1. Ferriss, the author, is very mu…
This is a function of the way he writes the book. If you read four-hour work week he basically describes his process, which is that he develops the headline structure for the book and each chapter and then outsources the actual writing online via elance or equivalent. Presumably the writers read a bunch of stuff on the topic and essentially write crib notes. Quite a clever way for Ferris to make money, but not the hi…
The book that has changed my life the most, so far, has been The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs by Abelson and Sussman. In 2010 I started a job that was far, far ahead of my skillset. I'd written fewer than 10,000 lines of code in my life, and I was completely ill-prepared for the work I was supposed to be doing. I picked up SICP about a month or two into that job. Fast forward a year, and I felt t…
Interestingly, the book jokingly uses sorcery as an ongoing analogy for computing. Programs and algorithms are "spells," computational processes are "spirits" which are conjured and controlled by spells, programming languages are the arcane symbols and runes wizards use to compose their spells, and software bugs are the flawed spells which novice sorcerers often cast (sometimes with disastrous consequences).
It's pretty ridiculous, but I think it puts the person back into the comfortable mindset of control. Rather than learning a big, scary thing that is beyond you, you are merely manipulating the world with your powers to accomplish tasks. For whatever reason, that paradigm is more intuitive for certain people.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
paperbackswap.com is a decent book exchange. The major advantage is not that you save money on books, but that you can find a lot of obscure older books.
Good call. I noticed they have a lot of the older Executioner (Mack Bolan) books (the original 1-50 series) which I'd like to check out. I still have the first printings of the first five books in the series.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a function of the way he writes the book. If you read four-hour work week he basically describes his process, which is that he develops the headline structure for the book and each chapter and then outsources the actual writing online via elance or equivalent. Presumably the writers read a bunch of stuff on the topic and essentially write crib notes. Quite a clever way for Ferris to make money, but not the hi…
I've read Work Week and Body, and I know he advocates outsourcing, but did he ever actually mention that the books themselves were outsourced?
It's the best superpower: read that book first, then all the rest here in 1/5th the time!
Funny how a chain of thought goes: 1. I read a few titles and thought "Hmm, I'll go and buy a few of these on Amazon." 2. Then I thought: "I already have some of these books that I never read, I could gift them to others." 3. Perhaps I could set up some sort of book exchange where HN users can share books. 4. It would barely be worth the hassle and cost of postage. 5. Couldn't we share digital copies and avoid the po…
You can. There's a service called "Lendle" that facilitates sharing (lending) Kindle books. http://lendle.me/