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The Hacker News Top books of 2023

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Re: The Hacker News Top books of 2023

#91

Post by reducesuffering »

partomniscient wrote: post #81
theusus wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My issue with the book is that it asks because to pretend that they are nice.

It should be titled "How to win friends and influence people by being insincere".

I’m conflicted because on one hand I think, “did you people even read the book?” And on the other, if multiple people have this experience, the book was not written well enough to have a lasting impression of its intentions.

Carnegie specifically mentions in the book how you need to be sincere and genuinely cultivate interest in people.

Re: The Hacker News Top books of 2023

#92

Post by kaycebasques »

ioseph wrote: post #67
jackthetab wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other two books are _that_ good? I just finished the first book. The three body problem and its ramifications was interesting, as was the social background. Other than that, it was a decent YA novel, nothing more. If the other two are that much better, I'll give 'em a shot but otherwise...

IMO the first book was the strongest, followed by the third, I found the 2nd a slog to get through.

The second was a slog for me too BUT weirdly enough the ideas and events that I'm thinking about the most come from that book. I have wondered many times whether the second book would have been a more enjoyable read if they had stuck with the translator from the first book, who also translated the third book.

Re: The Hacker News Top books of 2023

#93

Post by kaycebasques »

mkatx wrote: post #61
kaycebasques wrote: post #18

Just finished The Three-Body Problem trilogy. What a saga. I finished the last book a month or two back and I still find myself randomly thinking about various ideas that I picked up in those books. If you're "serious" about sci-fi, I would say that you really do have to read those books as part of your "curriculum".

How accessible is this? My mom loves sci-fy, but she probably doesn't have the math/physics chops to hit something too deep in those topics.

I can recall only a few physics-heavy moments in the trilogy. Don't recall any math-heavy moments.

Re: The Hacker News Top books of 2023

#97

Post by aspenmayer »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #45

A Modern Anarchism: Anarchist Analysis by Anark (2023) Web version: https://libcom.org/article/modern-anarchism-part-1-anarchist... // https://libcom.org/article/modern-anarchism-part-2-anarchy

Part 3

https://libcom.org/article/modern-anarchism-part-3-revolutio...

Re: The Hacker News Top books of 2023

#98

Post by sfpotter »

rramadass wrote: post #84
titanomachy wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think the Princeton Companion is good for an amateur/casual audience? I've been thinking of picking up a copy. I've taken like 8-10 undergrad math courses, but no advanced topics.

Definitely! I have both the Princeton Companion to Mathematics and Princeton Companion to Applied Mathematics and both are well worth the money. One of the difficulties in studying the breadth of mathematics is that the huge amount of jargon/notation of the different branches/models/tools all seem complex/unrelated and hence a single volume where you can jump back and forth between different views is very much necess…

Definitely unnecessary for them to be a part of every educated person’s library. This is a pretty absurd viewpoint. The reality is that there are loads of educated people who contribute vast amounts to the world without even the most passing familiarity with “modern math”.

I also don’t agree with the sentiment of the rest of the post, sorry. If someone is casually or recreationally interested in math, building a comprehensive view of modern math just… isn’t important. If you’re interested in spending more time with math, just do it—don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. There’s no right approach other than the one that makes you happy.

Re: The Hacker News Top books of 2023

#99

Post by jiscariot »

ioseph wrote: post #67
jackthetab wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other two books are _that_ good? I just finished the first book. The three body problem and its ramifications was interesting, as was the social background. Other than that, it was a decent YA novel, nothing more. If the other two are that much better, I'll give 'em a shot but otherwise...

IMO the first book was the strongest, followed by the third, I found the 2nd a slog to get through.

Seems like everyone disagrees with the ranking of 3PB books. Probably a good thing. On 2 read-throughs, I vastly prefer 2 then 3, and consider 1 a bit of a slog.

Re: The Hacker News Top books of 2023

#100

Post by jiscariot »

jackthetab wrote: post #59
kaycebasques wrote: post #18

Just finished The Three-Body Problem trilogy. What a saga. I finished the last book a month or two back and I still find myself randomly thinking about various ideas that I picked up in those books. If you're "serious" about sci-fi, I would say that you really do have to read those books as part of your "curriculum".

The other two books are _that_ good? I just finished the first book. The three body problem and its ramifications was interesting, as was the social background. Other than that, it was a decent YA novel, nothing more. If the other two are that much better, I'll give 'em a shot but otherwise...

If you've already read 1, you really should read 2/Dark Forest.
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