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You must read at least one book to ride

ludic.mataroa.blog

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Re: You must read at least one book to ride

#41

Post by Arcanum-XIII »

chupy wrote: post #36
thundergolfer wrote: post #31

I love this guy's cynicism and no-bullshit attitude. As someone who lived in Melbourne and has suffered Deloitte's "technology" department, the frustration and anger is warranted. Like everyone else, Australia has tech brain drain and loses its best software engineers to USA. But unlike almost everyone else it's a very rich country and so can still afford to spend billions of dollars training and deploying engineers…

Most of EU countries havr some kind of consultancy embedded deep into the their core financial and governments and other critical institutions. The EU commission is full of barely competent consultants developing some sort of applications. Probably getting EY or Accenture to solve the problems is one of the key steps in becoming accepted as a 1st world country.

Honestly, being a freelance consultant is also the only way to have a high wage… that fact alone explains a lot.

Re: You must read at least one book to ride

#43

Post by huijzer »

skybrian wrote: post #29

He's a good writer, but I think he underestimates the implicit skills that an experienced engineer has that beginners don't have. Sometimes it just seems like common sense, but it isn't, and the result is often a lack of empathy. To build up that empathy, being around children or the elderly probably helps. Also, helping a relative who is struggling but you're on their side . Also consider the difference between a na…

Yes probably a bit like chess masters. They surely know theory and theory can surely help, but often they just “feel” that one way is more right than another way. How does this “feeling” arise? Tons and tons of deliberate practice.

Re: You must read at least one book to ride

#44

Post by thoroughburro »

pocketarc wrote: post #26
slothtrop wrote: post #14

Prefacing that I agree - The returns probably manifest at a senior level, where job security is already a non-issue and one has the privileges and power to make this knowledge actionable. This could be why the readers find it redundant and stick to coasting. I'd like to finish reading the Algorithm Design Manual, SICP and others, but it won't get me my next job, because I won't even be in the same room as someone who…

I always think about this - how many great engineers might be out there that are hard to spot/hire because there's no indication anywhere that they're great? And simultaneously, how many crap engineers out there are hired simply because they know how to play the "thought leader" game? And as a thought exercise: How would you yourself like to be found / hired? What would you do to show the company that you are indeed…

Find them in their social life and offer them a job. These people are satisfied with life; they are not looking for more. Many of them are so effective because they see through problems; however, this can also make it easy to see how empty a corporate career is.

Your question sounds like, “How can I convince people who are already winning at life to win at life for me instead of for them?”

Re: You must read at least one book to ride

#45

Post by [deleted] »

deergomoo wrote: post #39

> Then there are engineers [...] who never try for the entirety of their careers This matches my experience 100%. I am not a brilliant developer by any measure. I'm competent enough, I can put together good solutions to the admittedly low-scale problems I'm assigned, and I like to think I have a pretty good sense for the right and wrong ways of going about doing so. But I'm not even sure I could land an interview wit…

[deleted]

Re: You must read at least one book to ride

#46

Post by yellow_lead »

vundercind wrote: post #40
yellow_lead wrote: post #21

The section about reading "the right books" is important. I tried reading some self-help books in high school, but after reading a few, you'll realize they are mostly "fanfic" as the author says. I noticed some other patterns in these books. 1. Constant self-questioning while reading - "Is this obvious? did I already know this?" 2. Lots of examples or stories 3. Try to turn a simple metaphor/slogan into a complete ph…

You might enjoy the If Books Could Kill podcast. They mostly cover self-help and pop-business or pop-science books. They talk a lot about the recurring patterns and sometimes surprising shared topics among the books.

Thanks, will check it out.

Re: You must read at least one book to ride

#47

Post by idoubtit »

righthand wrote: post #13
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #4

I very much agree with this premise. My skills fall into three camps: That which I have invented myself, from first principles; That which I have read one book on; and That which I am bad at. One of the things I am bad at is finding books. Books are everywhere, most books are rubbish, and yet every book I've had recommended has been amazing . So, does anyone have a good book on finding good books?

Gnod is the classic reccomendation engine that works great and doesn’t harvest your data. It has a search for books: https://www.gnooks.com/faves.php General Gnod: gnod.com

I was interested in this, but my 3 runs in their recommandations engine were almost complete failures.

Their author list is plagued with homonyms.My first search had Dostoievsky in my 3 favorites. He was then recommended twice to me. It seems there are 7 distincts transliterations of his name.

Then I put 3 Italian novelists as favorites, starting with Curzio Malaparte. I was first recommended a Scandinavian poet. Other recommendations had 2 poets and one philosopher. Overall, nothing useful: either known, or definitely not for me.

My last run had 3 Russian classical novelists as favorites. The recommendations were a bit better, with two authors I'll try to read. There were obvious errors, like recommending Anrei Platonov then Andrey Platonov. And I really don't understand why I was recommended most of them, like Guillermo Cabrera Infante, or David Foster Wallace.

BTW, the site "doesn’t harvest your data" but their links to booklists are blacklisted by UBlock as adware sites.

Re: You must read at least one book to ride

#48

Post by nerdponx »

harrall wrote: post #38

Reading a book is like a mechanic learning how to work on cars without ever touching a car. Is reading helpful? Absolutely. Does it mean you would trust them to work on your car? Absolutely not. Would you trust a mechanic who didn’t read any books? I sure wouldn’t discount them because of that. At the end of the day, there is no signal of someone’s effectiveness better than their history of getting results. Measures…

> Would you trust a mechanic who didn’t read any books? I sure wouldn’t discount them because of that.

Machinist or woodworker might be a better analogy.

Re: You must read at least one book to ride

#50

Post by aksss »

harrall wrote: post #38

Reading a book is like a mechanic learning how to work on cars without ever touching a car. Is reading helpful? Absolutely. Does it mean you would trust them to work on your car? Absolutely not. Would you trust a mechanic who didn’t read any books? I sure wouldn’t discount them because of that. At the end of the day, there is no signal of someone’s effectiveness better than their history of getting results. Measures…

> work on cars without ever touching a car.

I don't believe the author is saying you should trust someone who has only read about a job to do the job.

Maybe your illiterate mechanic is great. In every case, a professional will be better by absorbing the experience of others, even if just marginally. Learning from experience of others without having to spend the same 1:1 time and cost is a huge win. Certainly we would all agree on that point.

Reading is how knowledge gets transferred indirectly across time and space. I agree there's no better signal of effectiveness than history of results, but with two people who 'get results', considering what can get lost in such metrics, the one who is driven to keep learning from others outside their direct circle is almost certainly better at what they do.

As applied: Two mechanics who 'get results' exist. One spends their spare time pouring over Internet forums to learn about emerging issues, diagnosis techniques, tools improvements, part performance over time, etc. The other goes home and plays WoW, their only new input comes from what arrives at or emerges in their shop. I would always favor the former type. No different with any domain.

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