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Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?

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Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?

#181

Post by hutzlibu »

iQuercus wrote: post #140
mindcrime wrote: post #100

How To Measure Anything [1] by Douglas Hubbard. The basic gist of the book goes something like this: in the real world (especially in a business setting) there are many things which are hard to measure directly, but which we may care about. Take, for example, "employee morale" which matters because it may affect, say, retention, or product quality. Hubbard suggests that we can measure (many|most|all|??) of these thin…

It’s a good recipe for making a lot of estimation errors. Worse, it will leave you feeling more confident than you should be. Then, when you least expect it, it’ll blow up in your face.

It also sounds a bit like real life parody to me. How to find out employee morale?

Well, you need to hire some statistical experts, who model everything and than give you an estimate and if they got the callibration right, the result might be even close to reality.

Definitely easier than the other solution. Like talk to your employees once in a while and have a culture where they are not afraid to speak up if something is bothering them.

Ah no, too complicated. Back to math. That works better when dealing with those irrational emotional humans.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?

#182

Post by MinusGix »

Electrons and Valence: Development of the Theory, 1900-1925[1] by Anthony N. Stranges I picked this up at a Texas A&M (It is published by A&M) book sale for cheap. This book caught my eye as it was one of the few actual books on any form of science I had seen there (many of the books were history, and often specifically about Texas, which did not interest me). As the title suggests it is a part History, part Chemistry, book about the development of theory of electrons and the steps it took to get there. It explains various theories, and state of the Chemistry world at certain times in History. It often quotes and references older books, and provides the citation at the bottom. While my Chemistry knowledge is really lacking, it was still quite an interesting read. I haven't yet completed it, but I'm slowly working my way through it, and it's reinvigorated some of my interest in Chemistry that I had lost in schooling.

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/Electrons-Valence-Development-Theory-...

Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?

#183

Post by memetomancer »

iQuercus wrote: post #140
mindcrime wrote: post #100

How To Measure Anything [1] by Douglas Hubbard. The basic gist of the book goes something like this: in the real world (especially in a business setting) there are many things which are hard to measure directly, but which we may care about. Take, for example, "employee morale" which matters because it may affect, say, retention, or product quality. Hubbard suggests that we can measure (many|most|all|??) of these thin…

It’s a good recipe for making a lot of estimation errors. Worse, it will leave you feeling more confident than you should be. Then, when you least expect it, it’ll blow up in your face.

based on your lack of suggested alternative, I'm gonna guess you are just cutting shit down out of hand. i mean, what are you saying? _don't_ try to quantify stuff? rely on intuition?

weak comment pal.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?

#185

Post by mjklin »

heyhouletsgo wrote: post #46
mjklin wrote: post #32

The Priceless Gift by Cornelius Hirschberg, a very down-to-earth book by a man who gave himself an education by reading books on the New York subway. Although a bit dated, it includes great recommendations on how and what to read to become a widely read and curious person. Very motivating too!

It sounds great by your description. Unfortunately I couldn't find any version online, so far. I got interested because I have a pretty significant commute now, that I use to read books. Would be interested in what he recommends!

Here's a [pdf](https://www.dropbox.com/s/oca3awkis0ql830/book%20%20The%20Pr...)

Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?

#187

Post by eyegor »

hutzlibu wrote: post #181
iQuercus wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a good recipe for making a lot of estimation errors. Worse, it will leave you feeling more confident than you should be. Then, when you least expect it, it’ll blow up in your face.

It also sounds a bit like real life parody to me. How to find out employee morale? Well, you need to hire some statistical experts, who model everything and than give you an estimate and if they got the callibration right, the result might be even close to reality. Definitely easier than the other solution. Like talk to your employees once in a while and have a culture where they are not afraid to speak up if somethi…

Unfortunately this only works with a small set of workers, in a physical location. If you have 500+ employees, some remote, spanning different countries/cultures, it's not easy to tell how "company morale" is. You can try to send out anonymous surveys and such, but then you run into reporting bias, etc. It's a complicated problem at scale.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?

#188

Post by oska »

rland wrote: post #92

Shipwrecks, by Akira Yoshimura. It's short, cold, meditative, and harsh. The author has won several awards in Japan but isn't widely known otherwise. I read all his other books (those that were translated) after it.

This is interesting, from his wikipedia page [1] :

> After the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, Yoshimura's nonfiction chronicle of three previous tsunamis on the coast of Sanriku, Sanriku Kaigan Otsunami received an influx of orders, requiring a reprint of 150,000 copies. Yoshimura's wife and author in her own right, Setsuko Tsumura donated the royalties from the book to the village of Tanohata, which was heavily impacted by the tsunami. Tanohata was a favorite place of Yoshimura's to visit and inspired him to begin research on the historical tsunamis of the area.

Thank you for the recommendation.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akira_Yoshimura

Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?

#190

Post by eyegor »

memetomancer wrote: post #183
iQuercus wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a good recipe for making a lot of estimation errors. Worse, it will leave you feeling more confident than you should be. Then, when you least expect it, it’ll blow up in your face.

based on your lack of suggested alternative, I'm gonna guess you are just cutting shit down out of hand. i mean, what are you saying? _don't_ try to quantify stuff? rely on intuition? weak comment pal.

Please edit this to be less disparaging. I agree with your complaint, it's just presented in a mean spirited way. From the guidelines,

> Be kind. Don't be snarky.

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