Ask HN: What book changed your life in 2014? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life in 2014?

#261

Post by MrMattWright » Tue, Dec 09, 2014, 10:47 AM UTC

joshux wrote: post #257

MrMattWright wrote: post #122

Inspired to do: Connected http://www.amazon.com/Connected-Surprising-Networks-Friends-... I was utterly amazed by the concept of Social Network Analysis, how emotion travels through a network, how the 6 degrees thing works. Did you know someone you have never met can affect your weight? I was so amazed I started a company building a CRM from the ground up using graph theory. We launch in Q1 2015. Inspired to be: The…

Connected is on my audible that I'm planning to listen to. I'm also interested in networks, 6 degrees..etc. May I ask how you apply what you learned from the book to your startup? I'm quite curious.

A lot of it is encapsulated in my talk at a neo4j meetup: https://skillsmatter.com/skillscasts/5179-private-social-net...

Which was a while ago (April), I'll be doing a new one soon with what we have learnt since then. My main learning is around Mark Granovetter works on "the strength of weak ties" when it comes to job hunting and recruitment. That and the concept of triadic closure are really useful when trying to build technology that maps the recruitment process from first principles.

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life in 2014?

#262

Post by xsquare » Tue, Dec 09, 2014, 11:26 AM UTC

calebm wrote: post #143

Ulysses by James Joyce: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_%28novel%29 For most of my life, I focused on the logical, external, left-brain side of life. I saw little value in art (and even spurned it as something pretentious people did to seem more cultured). And so, I defined myself as “logical”, “left-brain”, “scientist”, etc and rejected the tags: “right-brain”, “artist”, etc. Leading up to reading Ulysses, I ha…

Great to see James Joyce mentioned on HN!

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life in 2014?

#263

Post by mrfusion » Tue, Dec 09, 2014, 1:24 PM UTC

humpt wrote: post #148

The 4-hour-body changed my life. It changed how I look, how I eat, my health, my self esteem/confidence, my mood. I am a completely different person now.

Which parts helped you the most? I didn't get a whole lot from it.

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life in 2014?

#264

Post by vkb » Tue, Dec 09, 2014, 2:16 PM UTC

joshux wrote: post #250

vkb wrote: post #15

Two: 1)Antifragile by Taleb. It has given me a whole new framework with which to think about the world. He is consistently one of the only "modern thinkers" that I trust, and who delivers no b.s. 2)Confessions of an Economic Hitman by Perkins. Not a new book, and I didn't read it this year, but when I did read it, it made me realize that the world works much differently than I understood it to on the surface, and tha…

+1 for Taleb's books. His Black Swan book actually inspired me to pursue a startup. However, his ideas are not actually that original (which is not a bad thing). One might get similar level of knowledge(albeit takes more time) from reading stoic philosophy, Popper's philosophy of science, tacit knowledge (Michael Polanyi) and complex system sciences.

One might, but how many books to read is that? Taleb compresses these ideas very concisely and in a relatively easy-to-read manner.

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life in 2014?

#265

Post by Flenser » Tue, Dec 09, 2014, 2:51 PM UTC

shenanigoat wrote: post #179

Evgeny wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you'd be better off reading something like Marcus Aurelius' Meditations instead, or some of the other classics. Incidentally, I'm trying to read Meditations now, but it's not an easy reading and it goes very slowly. Maybe I'll be able to put in on my 2015 list of influential books?

This is a fantastic translation of Meditations: http://www.amazon.com/The-Emperors-Handbook-Translation-Medi...

Have you read any other translations and can you say in what way this translation is better than them?

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life in 2014?

#266

Post by ausername_ohhai » Tue, Dec 09, 2014, 4:54 PM UTC

Waking Up by Sam Harris http://www.samharris.org/waking-up

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life in 2014?

#267

Post by pcvarmint » Tue, Dec 09, 2014, 5:14 PM UTC

Not yet released, but I got to read a preprint of The End of Error: Unum Computing by John L. Gustafson.

There are some slides of his online which introduce the concept of Unums.

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life in 2014?

#268

Post by elementai » Tue, Dec 09, 2014, 5:56 PM UTC

jimduk wrote: post #99

Life and Fate - Vasily Grossman Russian epic following multiple characters through WW2. It shows how serious, good people can have very different and legitimate views on life; It characterises some eternal types of criminal or charlatan. It reminds you about fate and about how lucky we are now.

Many think of it like "War and Peace" of 20th century.

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life in 2014?

#269

Post by kirang1989 » Tue, Dec 09, 2014, 8:52 PM UTC

The short history of nearly everything - Bill Bryson

This book rekindled my interest and love for science.

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life in 2014?

#270

Post by api » Tue, Dec 09, 2014, 10:22 PM UTC

reubensutton wrote: post #178

"Zero to One" by Peter Thiel

I'd second this, though it's from a small sample -- haven't had time to read very many non-fiction books this year.

Not only was it clear and inspiring, but it was also a little vindicating. I've believed for many years that we entered some kind of minor dark age around 1970, and it was great to hear someone else put forward the same idea.