131–140 of 316 posts
1a) A Guide to the Good Life is an easier introduction to Stoic philosophy if you don't want to dive straight into Epictetus
2) The Black Swan by Taleb to change the way you think about risk
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Any suggestions on what books? I've been looking to go further with mathematics.
Might be fun (depending on your temperament! but you asked...) to go through Principles of Mathematical Analysis by Walter Rudin (RIP). Also known as 'Baby Rudin.' (Try to forget that there's a 'Big Rudin'; it will only depress you.) Baby Rudin is a tough book if you're not used to a spare definition-theorem-proof style. It's many people's first experience with real math. It demands a lot from you--when people say re…
I haven't read anything in this style before (gotta love download speeds). I'll be working my way through this for awhile.
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"A year since then and I've picked up half a dozen new languages" Definitely not an attack or a skeptic, indeed, it may play into your assessment of the worth of the book... But 12 months, 6 languages - how well do you feel you've mastered any/all of those?
I certainly don't think I've mastered any of them - even the languages that I use every day. But I can write real-world, useful programs in all of them. The 'superpower' that the book gave me was a set of tools to think about computation in a language-independent way. Once I had that, then every new language was "oh, here's a nice syntax for doing something I already know how to do in Scheme". The new languages I lea…
That's a very nice line. I like that very much.
Frank Herbert, Dune - Changed my outlook on politics and complex systems full of complex issues.
Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Got me to understand why West is so different to the East and what is the true root cause to our current Western problems.
Sun Tzu, The Tao of War - If there was one and only one book I could have, this would be it.
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You mean, the guy who raised life expectancies in his country from ~35 (and stagnent for about 100 years) to ~65? Real asshole.
Yes, he means the guy who starved 39 million people to death during his reign of terror. Yes, he means the guy who made my wife spend three years of her childhood in constant hunger. Yes, the guy who sent my father in law to a labor camp for ten years for making a joke about him. At least, that's what his best friend told them when they were torturing him. Yes, * that * Mao. Still, I'd like to thank him for inventing…
Just code. Seriously, just write code. You will come across a lot of books that influence your thoughts, behaviors, patterns. I have, everyone does. But the only thing that actually has any effect on your psyche is doing , whatever the doing is. So you want to learn how to build a better body, great, read books on building muscle. It won't have nearly as much effect as going to the gym and swimming for a half hour th…
The discipline to step back, reevaluate, and think conceptually rather than pragmatically is much more difficult to accomplish when there's always so much lying around that needs doing.
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Revising it to "I am willing to do whatever it takes within my existing system of values to get what I want" makes it less pithy.
I mean this tongue-in-cheek, but.. that is still compatible with Mao: I am everything. Everything exists for me. I have only an obligation towards myself, not towards others. I am only responsible for my own reality, not for past or future. I am only responsible for that which I know. I have my needs and I follow them. This is the way great heroes live. -- Mao Tse Tung in an essay he wrote as student (describing his…
If you value being flexible or adaptable, then you will certainly expand your goals and change things along the way. But the one thing that should never change is the vigor with which you pursue your goals (you should take breaks, rest, etc., but breaks and rest are arguably also just ways to optimize the pursuit of a goal).
And I agree with you, Mao was quite evil, and it would require a very twisted set of goals to lead to the death toll of his regime.
I would say it depends? Arguably, even if you read books on body training, you won't become even close to Hanma Yujiro. And assuming you have the time and the ressources, you will still be comparable to the many gym lovers in a few years. Your life will be probably better but you won't be a superhuman. Then there's martial arts? I've done kung-fu and karate but I never felt like I was getting superpowers either. Many…