The Art of electronics. Learned more from that than I did doing an EE degree at university. It gets used to this day even though I bought this copy in 1995. I have the latest edition arriving today.
I don't know. I'm doing an EE degree at the moment (second year) and AoE isn't that helpful from my view to understand the theoretical side. It'll tell me what an op-amp bandwidth is and the significance of 3dB but it won't tell me why it's that way, or go into why there is a decay at 20dB/decade. It's been more helpful on the practical side of building circuits rather than their analysis, but I don't know if that's the point or not.
You’ll find when you get into industry that a big chunk of the theoretical side is discarded and most of the job runs on intuition and knowing the gotchas and gluing bits of data sheets together then writing software. That’s what the book covers.
Occasionally you’ll need to dig deep into it and particularly if you do RF stuff but that’s about it.
I was disappointed for about six months when I landed my first position at a defence contractor when I found out their senior analogue design engineer had a circuit crib book and most of the designs were sourced or bodged from that and then adjusted on a breadboard. I was simply amazed at how informal it was. The stuff worked, was in budget and performed well. Surprisingly mathematical and theoretical knowledge was rarely discussed.
The signal processing and software guys did all the legwork really.
Me, I ended up writing engineer ERP systems to replace paper and then jumped into the software market.
Now I play around with things and I’ve built a lot of stuff without even firing up a calculator or thinking about the theoretical side of things. Everything has a computer in the middle with a little bit of analogue stuff around the edge which you can usually just pick out of the book.
Edit: to be clear I know Laplace, Nyquist, how to do FFT/DFT, network theorems etc but I just don’t need them most of the time.
> Surprisingly mathematical and theoretical knowledge was rarely discussed
Sounds like some direct parallels there with the software industry. I think I have heard CS stuff mentioned precisely once in the last decade, ironically by someone whose code I regarded as overly complicated gobbledygook.
The ratio of people who actually use maths and "hardcore" CS in their programming job to those who literally never do is probably 50 to 1.
Yes it’s exactly the same. I tend to get some of the difficult and fun tasks like writing parsers and things and that comes along once every couple of years or so :(
Amen. AoE, a desk drawer packed with assorted components and a couple of veroboards basically got me through university.
Heck, I even got called to an EE professor's office after a circuit design exam - was told a couple of my answers clearly showed I had spent more time studying AoE than the curriculum. "So - we're going to have to give you a mediocre grade, but no worries, you'll do brilliantly in industry; I'd be happy to write you a recommendation to that effect."
He actually did; it is framed and proudly displayed on my office wall.
Haha similar. I had my own lab of skip dived kit in halls. I got told my lab assignment looked like something out of AoE. Couldn’t complain because it worked and had a cheaper BOM than they expected.
This little collection of essays from the 20s by a chemical engineer is astounding. For anyone interested in cognition, engineering, language, there are mind-blowing insights packed throughout.
He's the guy for whom the Sapir-Whorf hypotheis - that the languages we use can themselves shape what we say and even how we think, an idea I think is 100% true.
Which brings me to one of my favourite scifi epics - the Culture series, the titular people (and machines) of which consciously designed their language Marain to encode desirable aspects of reasonableness and peaceableness according to that very hypothesis. Nice connection!
The art of game design: Even if you're not aspiring to be a game dev, this book teaches you a lot about project scope, management, psychology, mechanics, balance and user experience.
Flight of the buffalo: An excellent book about leadership.
Moneyball: I'm not into novels, so this might be the closest thing to it. It's a fantastic book about thinking creatively and working with what you have. It's about baseball, but even if you don't like it, it's quite entertaining and insightful.
I started reading GEB, and enjoyed hearing about things like Goedel's incompleteness theorem, but Hofstadter is really hard to get through. What did those who persevered get from it?
The Incerto series by Nassim Taleb. They taught me about the importance of tail events, and started my interest in probability theory. More importantly, they taught me how to live a good life.
It's been ~8 years since I read it, but I think "The Sciences of the Artificial" by Herb Simon might make my list. It's about design, engineering, intelligence (artificial or human), and building things.
Name of the Wind - Patrick Rothfuss I am not a fantasy fan in general, but this is my favorite story of all time. The story within a story within a story, characters, world just about perfect.
Daemon - Daniel Suarez So little of the SciFi I read is memorable. This book explores SO many topics in memorable ways that I am blown away.
I don't know if it's one of my favorite books, but Daemon is really fun.
Unlike a lot of scifi it doesn't shy away from getting deep into technical details. But unlike most writers he doesn't get tech concepts wrong or use jagon in awkward, non-standard ways. It's obvious that computer tech is is native to him.
I liked Name of the Wind because it's a perfect counterpoint to Lord of The Rings, in a way.
LOTR reads like a classical history book, sometimes literally. Everything is true, everything is tied together. The narrator disappears for omniscience.
Name of the Wind is an obvious post-modern slant with an unreliable narrator. The story Kvothe himself tells obviously makes him seem like a superhero and Rothfuss manages to (whether intentional or not) tell a story about a story that doesn't all add up. I can't say it's my favorite book. But, reading it against LOTR was fascinating.
I've always had a soft spot for Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. Here's what I wrote about it:
Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy.
Worth reading for the landscape descriptions alone, McCarthy transforms the American west into a hellscape of inhuman violence, savagery, and evil; and yet, it's a beautiful descent into madness.
His character of the Judge is as captivating as he is horrifying. Some choice quotes from him:
> "Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent."
> "War is the ultimate game because war is at last a forcing of the unity of existence. War is god."
> "Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak. Historical law subverts it at every turn. A moral view can never be proven right or wrong by any ultimate test. A man falling dead in a duel is not thought thereby to be proven in error as to his views. His very involvement in such a trial gives evidence of a new and broader view."
> "The freedom of birds is an insult to me. I'd have them all in zoos."
> "All progressions from a higher to a lower order are marked by ruins and mystery and a residue of nameless rage."
Just be prepared for McCarthy's writing style if you decide to read him. He uses long sentences for effect; the long sentences where words seem to tumble over one another in an endless rush evokes movement and the distant horizon of the open desert as well as traditional oral ways of storytelling. His diction is also...archaic.
Kvothe being awesome at everything irritated me, it actually went over my head that he might be an unreliable narrator...
I liked Name of the Wind for the most part but some of the characters were flatter than pancakes. That bad guy student (Ambrose?) has no motivation beyond just being a deliberate antagonist
> That bad guy student (Ambrose?) has no motivation beyond just being a deliberate antagonist
Ambrose is a bully. You've never met a bully?
"The researchers found that children who bullied were often motivated by a desire to increase their popularity and that they chose generally unpopular victims to avoid losing social status... Bullies tend to be aware of the social hierarchy within the class and are seeking the admiration of specific people." [0]
Amrbose (unknowingly) thwarts Kvothes QUEST as part of a petty prank to put him in his place. Kvothe fights back. Once that antagonistic relationship is established, it gets out of hand and there is plenty of motivation to keep it going.
Absolutely, but you MUST watch from the beginning, in sequence, as the characters are developed and backstories unfold. Clunes does a brilliant job of being a total jerk.
At first.
It's far more than your typical fish-out-of-water setup.
We used to live in the country side, and I had to chop wood for our family, our neighbours, and my aunt who lived nearby. It's almost meditative. You start with a big pile of logs, and a sharp ax, and you end with more wood on the stack. It's surprising how quickly you can burn wood, especially if you're using it to cook food and heat your home.
Blindsight, by Peter Watts. It's a sci-fi novel that asks fascinating questions about sentience and intelligence, and made me stare at the ceiling for weeks after I finished it.
SICP (Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs). Structured very well. Each exercise builds on a concept of the previous exercise, getting increasingly difficult.
1984 by George Orwell. I am told that we're increasingly moving towards a mix of 1984 and Brave New World (I haven't read the latter).
Catch-22
East of Eden
Remains of the Day
Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman
These threads where people suggest multiple books are good to run through. If you see one in a comment that someone else liked, probably try to read the others they listed.
Such a beautiful execution of a great story set in a captivating world, packing a pageful of storyline, images and innuendos into every line of text. It feels like Gibson was on a strict word diet, but the result is a one of a kind masterpiece of story telling.
There's a recording[0] of Gibson reading Neuromancer that I really enjoyed. His reading is very stylistic and might be off-putting for some people, but I think it captures the spirit of the story better than a dry narration.
Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis is the only book I've ever read that actually made me laugh out loud. I'm told Catch 22 is like that, but I haven't read it.
'Q' by Luther Blissett. A fictional romp through the Reformation written from the perspective of a protagonist who is on the losing side of every struggle. Low farce, high politics, a bit of sex, lots of death, and a fabulous take on how Western Christianity came to be how it is today.
Written by a collective of Italian anarchists, bizarrely, and named after a former AC Milan and England footballer. You couldn't make it up. Fabulous.
I love just about every one of Robert A. Heinlein's juvenile science fiction novels [1] and still love them as an adult. When I was a teenager, Time for the Stars [2] was probably my favorite, but as an adult, I've come to appreciate Citizen of the Galaxy [3] more.
* A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy: Taught me much about myself and reinforced a healthy pattern of practicing will power.
* The End of Your World: After discovering spirituality and meditation I had lingering questions. This is a frank book on the trappings of the spiritual journey. The break-down of abiding vs. un-abiding enlightenment helped me navigate through fascinating times.
110 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 168 ms ] threadOccasionally you’ll need to dig deep into it and particularly if you do RF stuff but that’s about it.
I was disappointed for about six months when I landed my first position at a defence contractor when I found out their senior analogue design engineer had a circuit crib book and most of the designs were sourced or bodged from that and then adjusted on a breadboard. I was simply amazed at how informal it was. The stuff worked, was in budget and performed well. Surprisingly mathematical and theoretical knowledge was rarely discussed.
The signal processing and software guys did all the legwork really.
Me, I ended up writing engineer ERP systems to replace paper and then jumped into the software market.
Now I play around with things and I’ve built a lot of stuff without even firing up a calculator or thinking about the theoretical side of things. Everything has a computer in the middle with a little bit of analogue stuff around the edge which you can usually just pick out of the book.
Edit: to be clear I know Laplace, Nyquist, how to do FFT/DFT, network theorems etc but I just don’t need them most of the time.
Sounds like some direct parallels there with the software industry. I think I have heard CS stuff mentioned precisely once in the last decade, ironically by someone whose code I regarded as overly complicated gobbledygook.
The ratio of people who actually use maths and "hardcore" CS in their programming job to those who literally never do is probably 50 to 1.
Heck, I even got called to an EE professor's office after a circuit design exam - was told a couple of my answers clearly showed I had spent more time studying AoE than the curriculum. "So - we're going to have to give you a mediocre grade, but no worries, you'll do brilliantly in industry; I'd be happy to write you a recommendation to that effect."
He actually did; it is framed and proudly displayed on my office wall.
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/language-thought-and-reality-...
This little collection of essays from the 20s by a chemical engineer is astounding. For anyone interested in cognition, engineering, language, there are mind-blowing insights packed throughout.
Which brings me to one of my favourite scifi epics - the Culture series, the titular people (and machines) of which consciously designed their language Marain to encode desirable aspects of reasonableness and peaceableness according to that very hypothesis. Nice connection!
Thank you for reminding me to read the Culture series. I've put it on my list for many other reasons, and now I have a new one :)
Flight of the buffalo: An excellent book about leadership.
Moneyball: I'm not into novels, so this might be the closest thing to it. It's a fantastic book about thinking creatively and working with what you have. It's about baseball, but even if you don't like it, it's quite entertaining and insightful.
2. Godel, Escher and Bach - Hofstadter
3. On Intelligence - Jeff Hawkins
It blew my mind from beginning to end. Loved every shred of concept and potential.
Glasshouse is close 2nd
Demon Haunted World is a solid 3rd
Deep examination of the human meta-mind.
Daemon - Daniel Suarez So little of the SciFi I read is memorable. This book explores SO many topics in memorable ways that I am blown away.
Unlike a lot of scifi it doesn't shy away from getting deep into technical details. But unlike most writers he doesn't get tech concepts wrong or use jagon in awkward, non-standard ways. It's obvious that computer tech is is native to him.
LOTR reads like a classical history book, sometimes literally. Everything is true, everything is tied together. The narrator disappears for omniscience.
Name of the Wind is an obvious post-modern slant with an unreliable narrator. The story Kvothe himself tells obviously makes him seem like a superhero and Rothfuss manages to (whether intentional or not) tell a story about a story that doesn't all add up. I can't say it's my favorite book. But, reading it against LOTR was fascinating.
Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy.
Worth reading for the landscape descriptions alone, McCarthy transforms the American west into a hellscape of inhuman violence, savagery, and evil; and yet, it's a beautiful descent into madness.
His character of the Judge is as captivating as he is horrifying. Some choice quotes from him:
> "Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent."
> "War is the ultimate game because war is at last a forcing of the unity of existence. War is god."
> "Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak. Historical law subverts it at every turn. A moral view can never be proven right or wrong by any ultimate test. A man falling dead in a duel is not thought thereby to be proven in error as to his views. His very involvement in such a trial gives evidence of a new and broader view."
> "The freedom of birds is an insult to me. I'd have them all in zoos."
> "All progressions from a higher to a lower order are marked by ruins and mystery and a residue of nameless rage."
Just be prepared for McCarthy's writing style if you decide to read him. He uses long sentences for effect; the long sentences where words seem to tumble over one another in an endless rush evokes movement and the distant horizon of the open desert as well as traditional oral ways of storytelling. His diction is also...archaic.
I liked Name of the Wind for the most part but some of the characters were flatter than pancakes. That bad guy student (Ambrose?) has no motivation beyond just being a deliberate antagonist
Ambrose is a bully. You've never met a bully?
"The researchers found that children who bullied were often motivated by a desire to increase their popularity and that they chose generally unpopular victims to avoid losing social status... Bullies tend to be aware of the social hierarchy within the class and are seeking the admiration of specific people." [0]
Amrbose (unknowingly) thwarts Kvothes QUEST as part of a petty prank to put him in his place. Kvothe fights back. Once that antagonistic relationship is established, it gets out of hand and there is plenty of motivation to keep it going.
[0] https://www.webmd.com/parenting/news/20100325/what-motivates...
Then, a few episodes in, you meet his parents.
At first.
It's far more than your typical fish-out-of-water setup.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Milk-Sulphate-Starvation-Martin-Mil...
This book was given to me by my first girlfriend. She died some time later, and I've found her death hard to deal with.
A few things bring back really strong memories of her - drinking tea and eating buttery pikelets and jam, listening to Ivor Cutler or Tallulah Gosh.
This book (and his others) do that.
The new Guide to Self Sufficiency by John Seymour. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/1405345101/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?i...
We used to live in the country side, and I had to chop wood for our family, our neighbours, and my aunt who lived nearby. It's almost meditative. You start with a big pile of logs, and a sharp ax, and you end with more wood on the stack. It's surprising how quickly you can burn wood, especially if you're using it to cook food and heat your home.
Franny and Zooey
1984 by George Orwell. I am told that we're increasingly moving towards a mix of 1984 and Brave New World (I haven't read the latter).
Kind of the ethical codex for samurai warriors. Little stories about what to do and not to do which you can translate to a modern daily life.
Catch-22 East of Eden Remains of the Day Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman
These threads where people suggest multiple books are good to run through. If you see one in a comment that someone else liked, probably try to read the others they listed.
I don't agree with everything in it, but it is one of those books that really makes you rethink your life when read at the right time.
Such a beautiful execution of a great story set in a captivating world, packing a pageful of storyline, images and innuendos into every line of text. It feels like Gibson was on a strict word diet, but the result is a one of a kind masterpiece of story telling.
[0] http://www.bearcave.com/bookrev/neuromancer/neuromancer_audi...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRxn3pDMCc4
Written by a collective of Italian anarchists, bizarrely, and named after a former AC Milan and England footballer. You couldn't make it up. Fabulous.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinlein_juveniles
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_for_the_Stars
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_of_the_Galaxy
* A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy: Taught me much about myself and reinforced a healthy pattern of practicing will power.
* The End of Your World: After discovering spirituality and meditation I had lingering questions. This is a frank book on the trappings of the spiritual journey. The break-down of abiding vs. un-abiding enlightenment helped me navigate through fascinating times.