41–50 of 205 posts
I would add #4: books that are at least 10 years old. I feel like knowledge has to pass the test of time. This rule would rule out "Why We Sleep" for instance, but you'll be able to read it in 10 years if the science behind it still stands.
John Carreyrou wasn't an expert on phlebotomy or biochemistry. Roger Lowenstein wasn't an expert on hedge funds or technical finance. Eric Schlosser on nuclear command and control? Nope. Woodward and Bernstein and constitutional law? Not so much! I don't think these are very good rules. I thought it was especially amusing that this person doesn't trust journalists to write about anything but journalism. If you believ…
It doesn't help that everyone's attention is being hacked simultaneously. Nor does it help that the internet allows you to reach everyone on the planet, whether you are worthy of that reach or whether they are worthy of your words.
All I know is in such an environment in flux pointing out hypocrisy is a waste of time. Let it play out. Give it another 10 years.
My rule: no index, no sale. If the author didn't care enough to generate an index, what else did they not care enough about? A surprising number of books, especially "pop sci" books, don't include an index.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do this with informational youtube videos. I crank the speed to 1.5-2x depending on how fast the presenter is talking, but I push it to the point where I feel like I'm just barely keeping up and I try to get faster over time where I'm setting more and more videos to 2x rather than 1.5x.
Use youtube-dl and you can train yourself to go past 2x pretty easily as well.
It’s also a good idea to read some of the lowest-rated reviews first, to see what the main complaints about the book are, and whether they would put you off reading it. This goes for basically anything you purchase online. Read a couple highly positive reviews, read a couple highly negative reviews, then read some somewhat positive and somewhat negative reviews. Get the entire spectrum. Emotions or lack of considerat…
I contend that only negative reviews have information; positive ones are propaganda you read with excitement to reinforce your emotional feeling of "I want this thing to enhance my life, I want to be part of the people experiencing this 5-star feeling, I'm dreaming of who I can be if I own this product, let me join in!", they don't tell you useful things.
If you read the negative reviews looking for dealbreakers, and think you can live with the defects described, then it might be a good enough buy. If you want to read the negative reviews with an emotional view, you can use it to reject the dream and stop wanting to buy the item or anything like it entirely, but that's not mandatory.
John Carreyrou wasn't an expert on phlebotomy or biochemistry. Roger Lowenstein wasn't an expert on hedge funds or technical finance. Eric Schlosser on nuclear command and control? Nope. Woodward and Bernstein and constitutional law? Not so much! I don't think these are very good rules. I thought it was especially amusing that this person doesn't trust journalists to write about anything but journalism. If you believ…
I like the idea of the Dijkstra amnesia effect. I feel like it’s due time to birth a system like what Ted Nelson had in mind using RDF or something more novel. Ever since YC had an RFS about replacing Wikipedia I’ve thought about how it needs to change. There are many shortcomings including the fact that it is hard to edit for a number of reasons, but most importantly going to a Wikipedia page at one point in time on…
Wow. Lord knows Wikipedia has problems, but replacing it with a VC-backed startup would be a disaster.
John Carreyrou wasn't an expert on phlebotomy or biochemistry. Roger Lowenstein wasn't an expert on hedge funds or technical finance. Eric Schlosser on nuclear command and control? Nope. Woodward and Bernstein and constitutional law? Not so much! I don't think these are very good rules. I thought it was especially amusing that this person doesn't trust journalists to write about anything but journalism. If you believ…
Then there are things like economics where even the experts in their field can’t agree on either theory or in data interpretation. If they can’t reach consensus being informed and all, imagine someone in a different field like journalism trying to write expertly.
My rule: no index, no sale. If the author didn't care enough to generate an index, what else did they not care enough about? A surprising number of books, especially "pop sci" books, don't include an index.
Here's a rule: read stuff that you think is interesting.