Leaves of grass by Walt Whitman is something that I feel calls to me at times, and my bibleworn copy often sits on my workbench. I even have some sections memorized.
The Boglehead's Guide to Investing, mostly because my coworkers frequently ask for advice regarding their 401ks and IRAs, and it's a solid baseline for frugal investing.
I keep ~10 books at my desk. 9 of them are related to Javascript / Python / Probability etc [1]., There is one book though, that I really love to see everyday. Arabian Nights. That was the first book that was gifted to me when I was 11. I always had it with me. It reminds me of my childhood when things get too stressed and I read excerpts out of this book.
Among the books, you included Thinking, Fast and Slow which really stands out, and I was wondering what you gained from it, and how you'd summarize its relevance/value?
I've been meaning to read it, and I think it's really interesting that it provides enough value to be among the others.
This book has helped me recognize various cognitive biases and heuristics that I or the people around me are demonstrating. Sometimes people say things that just "feel" wrong and this book has helped me identify and name why it feels wrong. It can get a little dry at times, but for the most part the research and examples are memorable. I also find the framework of the "two systems" to be a simple reminder to slow down and think about things that surprise/frustrate me before arriving at conclusions (or responding to that frustrating coworker :P).
This is a fantastic book. It's essentially a summary of the author (Daniel Kahneman's) academic career, worth reading because he's one of the founders of "behavioral economics" - the idea that economic-decision making should be studied using real people and experiments--how they do it in psychology--rather than a bunch of mathematical models on a blackboard which may or may not accurately capture human behavior (despite being mathematically usable/tractable).
If you read this book, you'll learn how absurdly influential Kahneman has been: he did the original research on the endowment effect, anchoring, loss aversion, and tons of other stuff you'll see quoted around here all the time. He's also heavily cited by Taleb.
I wish more academics would write like this. It's a hard book to summarize because it's long and completely free of bullshit. It's more or less 400 pages of "here's the question, here's what we did, here were the results, we were surprised because" 20-30 pages at a time. It's an outstanding book by an outstanding professor.
Although the book still has tremendous value (FWIW, I've read it too), I hope more people also read the above blog (& the comment on it by Kahneman himself), to keep a balance of perspectives and the current "replication crisis" in psychology studies.
Kahneman writes:
[quote]
What the blog gets absolutely right is that I placed too much faith in underpowered studies. As pointed out in the blog, and earlier by Andrew Gelman, there is a special irony in my mistake because the first paper that Amos Tversky and I published was about the belief in the “law of small numbers,” which allows researchers to trust the results of underpowered studies with unreasonably small samples.
[/quote]
Which translation of Arabian Nights do you have? I've been wanting to read it for a few years now but haven't got around to it. I think this will the next book I read. Any suggestions are appreciated!
The Zen Teaching Of Huang Po is a wonderful. I have Record of Linji (Huang Po's student) and Radical Zen: Sayings of Joshu (Huang Po's and Linji's contemporary) on my desk.
It's one of the most informative books I've ever read with a really valuable perspective to view information through. I find myself applying it more frequently the more recently I've re-read it.
Sure! As the book is from a very abstract point-of-view, it's challenging to have specific anecdotes. It feels more like a small adaptation to your perspective / addition to your base of reasoning.
Although it covers a plethora of topics, what really binds it together is the idea of 'strange loops,' and how loops are existent in most everything, how they signal information, how they come in various steps, etc, etc, etc.. I'm sure the author would disagree with that summary actually, but it's the best I can do.
In finance for example, it's prompted me to more actively search for loops in any given analysis, and sometimes at a much more macro level. In politics, I've ended up thinking a lot more deeply about some loops of how civilizations progress and ideologies change.
To summarize: The book does a fantastic job at showing you how all of these loops are present throughout computer science, physics, chemistry, music, art, and practically everything imaginable. Once you realize the existence of these loops that you were previously oblivious to, you start to search for them more actively. You should definitely check it out if this sounds interesting!
I am probably even less worthy of offering a summary of the book than you are, but I'll take a stab as well.
The author is interested in how meaning can arise from meaningless components. For example, any one cell in the brain doesn't seem to have awareness, intelligence, etc. -- so why is it that a brain's worth does seem to have these abilities? To take it further, one could consider the constituent atoms and such.
There are analogies with music, visual art, and more subjects. How is it that a single musical note conveys so little, yet certain arrangements convey so much?
The author has a rough idea about how this happens. He thinks this event (meaning arising from meaningless parts) is the core scientific-philosophical question for developing strong AI.
Motion seconded. I read it first when I was barely ten, and even though I barely understood a word of it, I made a vow to myself to keep coming back to it until I did. I've been coming back to it constantly ever since, and I think I finally get it. I think.
I am freakishly hooked on this book and the thing I find, is that every 5 to 10 years I read it again, there are parts that realise I never understood (or even truly read) when I read it before.
Mind you, I have that with particular novels & movies I return to, too.
It is difficult for me to imagine its utility as a desk reference, but it is certainly just as rich and unusual a piece of literature as its reputation suggests.
Hofstadter's 2007 book "I Am A Strange Loop" develops one of GEB's themes in more depth. It's written in a more straightforward style than GEB, so it's less remarkable as a reading experience, but its perspective has stuck with me in a pretty fundamental way, so I would recommend it to anyone who enjoyed GEB and wants to dig further into the puzzle of consciousness.
"One exception is The Cuckoo's Egg, which I reread every ~5 years."
I do too, others I like to reread "hackers" by Steven Levy and Showstopper by G. Pascal Zachary. I don't know why but I always find these books highly entertaining.
The Cuckoo's Egg is such a good read, at the time it came out there was a television program in the UK about it and I have been rereading the book every couple of years since watching that.
The only negative is the biscuit recipe isn't very good.
It has been a really long time (years) since I had to use any printed book as reference material. For any question I have concerning a random factual matter, I am always able to find an adequate answer online in less time than it would take to reach for a book, look up the topic in the index, and then turn to the appropriate page.
Where I still find books useful is in learning a new subject from scratch. Reading an entire book from cover to cover gives me a broad mental overview of the whole subject, and that is extremely helpful when trying to put the random bits of knowledge I find online into context.
A few Chinese language books (to help communicate with co-workers)
A few Algorithmic Trading related books as well as a few math books.
And, laugh if you wish, a few Buddhism books to help remind myself patience, no negative energy, etc. If I am feeling frustrated I can read a few quick thoughts.
I would be interested to know if there was a 'gold standard'/'bible' of finance books for someone who knows very little, but doesn't mind a technical read.
This isn't general finance, but 'The Intelligent Investor' by Benjamin Graham is recommended a lot - some of it's uninteresting, but there are a few really useful/interesting sections!
"Programming: Principles and Practice Using C++", Stroustrup
Quant:
"Quantitative Trading", Dr. Ernest Chan
"Algorithmic Trading", Dr. Ernest Chan
"Machine Trading: Deploying Computer Algorithms to Conquer the Markets", Dr. Ernest Chan
"Advances in Financial Machine Learning", Marcos Lopez de Prado
"Options, Futures and Other Derivatives (10th edition)", John C. Hull
Buddhism:
"Open Heart, Clear Mind", Thubten Chodron
"Buddhism For Beginners", Thubten Chodron
"Working with Anger", Thubten Chodron
Reading For Pleasure:
"Naked Statistics", Charles Wheelan
"Algorithms to Live By", Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths
"Dark Pools"
"The Quants", Scott Patterson
"The Physics Of Wall Street", James Owen Weatherall
Plus some Chinese books, I wont bore with the details, unless anyone wants to know. Fun Fact, while I was in China for 8 weeks in late 2017 I bought 60 Chinese books and stuffed them in a suitcase. It cost me $4,000RMB (~$604 USD) to check all of my stuff and purchases home :-)
The Math books are:
"Discrete math", Susan Epp
"Discrete with Ducks"
various Calc books. If you want to learn math, find books that work for you. We all learn differently here.
My opinion: The Chan books are just amazing. Thought provoking and motivational. I am still reading the Prado book.
My opinion 2: If you ever want to slow down in life and learn what you are about, read about Buddhism. I'm not trying to start a flame war. It just works for me. It isn't being told what to believe because that is the way it is. I feel Buddhism lets me explore myself to find the right answers that work for me. Since studying my anger levels are in check. I am a better Husband. My wife comes first always.
I have been learning Chinese for a few years now :-) I was sick of translating e-mails and documents and not being in on the "inside office humor and wechats". Plus learning Chinese is a stress release for me as I spend time practicing writing with a pen and paper.
That's fair game. I got the comments for being veggie and meditating. Others will have it for some other reason. Teasing is alright as long as it's not done again and again.
Practicing Buddhism is a scale not a binary thing. I’ve been a veggie since birth and meditated on and off. What I do like about Buddhism is less “do what I told you in a book” but more of “look inside yourself, find what works for you, and do that”.
What attitude can you expect from rationalists towards those who decide to believe in claims without requiring evidence or justification? The moral high ground which you seem to think exists for you, does not.
That which works is sufficient evidence unto itself. The whole idea that what is beyond the capabilities of reason doesn't exist is laughable, except when it becomes inhuman.
Yes, that’s why I said “requiring evidence”. I didn’t say we had to understand it. We don’t even understand our own brains, but they work. Now, prayer, does that work? I can’t really believe I have to explain this here.
I'm not sure if you're using the strict philosophical definition of rationalist or not (the "requiring evidence" phrasing makes me think not -- that would apply to empiricists, not that they're mutually exclusive though they were at odds in the past). If you are, I'd suggest that the body of early Buddhist work contains lines of thought that aren't dissimilar from Plato who was most definitely a rationalist.
If you're using the term in a more general sense, then social science provides evidence for the efficacy of various Buddhist practices (e.g. mindfulness). I know the state of affairs in the social sciences are suboptimal (e.g. the replication crisis) but it's the body of knowledge we have to work with now.
Religious faith is by definition believing in hypotheses without valid reason. That’s all I’m saying. If Buddhist mindfulness is effective then that’s great. But I’m talking about evaluating the truth of hypotheses using faith.
At this point no one may even read this, however I’d like to get it off of my chest. Philosophy, the fundamental study of reason, existence, knowledge, values, etc., has been around a very long time and yet is still more valuable to us an individuals and in a society then it has ever been. Religion is a lovely and long studies framework for studying those philosophical principles. It’s not the only framework but it is an exceptionally accessible framework to use.
Philosophy does not require evidence. Philosophy does not require justification. In fact at times it’s best to remove those from your philosophical thought experiments in order to better understand some principle or thought.
Rationalism as a philosophy isn’t without its faults. And many lovely arguments have been made around it. Keep that in mind.
Programming Python from O'Reilly. It helps lift my monitor nicely.
Honestly, I've yet to find a physical book that has proven to be a useful reference in the long run. Programming languages just change too quickly; it's the web or the code.
As for more meta-programming/business/interpersonal books, the few that I've read are not ones I've ever had any real desire to go back to.
>> Honestly, I've yet to find a physical book that has proven to be a useful reference in the long run. Programming languages just change too quickly; it's the web or the code.
In the old days you might use a compiler for 3-4 years. Nowadays, something you'd buy a book on could change versions in less than a year. Anything I bought in the early days of XCode/iOS was obsolete before I knew it. I bought a JQuery book and it was already a point release behind.
For real study, I find books better than online references, even if many do go out of date quite quickly these days. Something about printed words on paper that helps with focus. Online references are great for quick questions, but when I want to take some time to understand something in depth, I always prefer a book, or if one is not available, I will print the online material for study.
I have 2 of the 7 books of the X Window Programming Reference in that role.
Apart from K&R, there are very few programming books which are worthwhile; up to about 10 years ago the ORA series were worthwhile, but nowadays especially with StackExchange it's just far better to get the one fragment of information you need in a handy searchable pasteable internet format.
(Non-programming book recs: recently The Man Who Stole Portugal (non-fiction, surprisingly relevant to crypto) and The Time Of Gifts (biography, extravagantly written, requires checking wikipedia every 5 dozen words unless you have a really excellent knowledge of European history)
TAOCP always finds its way back to my desk. Volume 2 is here at the moment. I don't really keep any books as references, though. I have kept K&R on my desk before but these days I mostly use online documentation.
218 comments
[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 226 ms ] threadDomain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software
[1] https://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-Definitive-Guide-Activate-... [2] https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp... [3]https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Probability-Models-Tenth... [4] https://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Black-Book-Important-Informat...
I've been meaning to read it, and I think it's really interesting that it provides enough value to be among the others.
If you read this book, you'll learn how absurdly influential Kahneman has been: he did the original research on the endowment effect, anchoring, loss aversion, and tons of other stuff you'll see quoted around here all the time. He's also heavily cited by Taleb.
I wish more academics would write like this. It's a hard book to summarize because it's long and completely free of bullshit. It's more or less 400 pages of "here's the question, here's what we did, here were the results, we were surprised because" 20-30 pages at a time. It's an outstanding book by an outstanding professor.
Kahneman writes:
[quote] What the blog gets absolutely right is that I placed too much faith in underpowered studies. As pointed out in the blog, and earlier by Andrew Gelman, there is a special irony in my mistake because the first paper that Amos Tversky and I published was about the belief in the “law of small numbers,” which allows researchers to trust the results of underpowered studies with unreasonably small samples. [/quote]
Previous discussion:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15228712
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translations_of_One_Thousand_a...
I'm not sure where you can get it in the states.
Man Against Myth, Barrows Dunham
The Elements Of Style, Strunk & White (4th ed.)
Telling Writing, Macrorie
The Zen Teaching Of Huang Po
The Pocket Pema Chödrön
Why I Write, George Orwell
Others come and go from time to time, but those stay.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-Intelligent/dp/...
Coincidentally, I have The Undiscovered Self sitting on my desk at this moment.
It's one of the most informative books I've ever read with a really valuable perspective to view information through. I find myself applying it more frequently the more recently I've re-read it.
thats really intersting. curious if you have any examples tht come to your mind.
Although it covers a plethora of topics, what really binds it together is the idea of 'strange loops,' and how loops are existent in most everything, how they signal information, how they come in various steps, etc, etc, etc.. I'm sure the author would disagree with that summary actually, but it's the best I can do.
In finance for example, it's prompted me to more actively search for loops in any given analysis, and sometimes at a much more macro level. In politics, I've ended up thinking a lot more deeply about some loops of how civilizations progress and ideologies change.
To summarize: The book does a fantastic job at showing you how all of these loops are present throughout computer science, physics, chemistry, music, art, and practically everything imaginable. Once you realize the existence of these loops that you were previously oblivious to, you start to search for them more actively. You should definitely check it out if this sounds interesting!
The author is interested in how meaning can arise from meaningless components. For example, any one cell in the brain doesn't seem to have awareness, intelligence, etc. -- so why is it that a brain's worth does seem to have these abilities? To take it further, one could consider the constituent atoms and such.
There are analogies with music, visual art, and more subjects. How is it that a single musical note conveys so little, yet certain arrangements convey so much?
The author has a rough idea about how this happens. He thinks this event (meaning arising from meaningless parts) is the core scientific-philosophical question for developing strong AI.
Mind you, I have that with particular novels & movies I return to, too.
edit: typo
Hofstadter's 2007 book "I Am A Strange Loop" develops one of GEB's themes in more depth. It's written in a more straightforward style than GEB, so it's less remarkable as a reading experience, but its perspective has stuck with me in a pretty fundamental way, so I would recommend it to anyone who enjoyed GEB and wants to dig further into the puzzle of consciousness.
More seriously, I generally don't re-read books. One exception is The Cuckoo's Egg, which I reread every ~5 years.
I do too, others I like to reread "hackers" by Steven Levy and Showstopper by G. Pascal Zachary. I don't know why but I always find these books highly entertaining.
Glad I'm not alone.
The only negative is the biscuit recipe isn't very good.
Where I still find books useful is in learning a new subject from scratch. Reading an entire book from cover to cover gives me a broad mental overview of the whole subject, and that is extremely helpful when trying to put the random bits of knowledge I find online into context.
A few Chinese language books (to help communicate with co-workers)
A few Algorithmic Trading related books as well as a few math books.
And, laugh if you wish, a few Buddhism books to help remind myself patience, no negative energy, etc. If I am feeling frustrated I can read a few quick thoughts.
Could you share your favorite books on algorithmic trading? I've been interested in it for a while.
"Options, Futures, and Other Derivatives (10th Edition)"
and a few other Economics and Finance books. Happy to share a complete list if anyone really wants it.
https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-cor...
C++:
"The C++ Programming Language", Stroustrup
"Programming: Principles and Practice Using C++", Stroustrup
Quant:
"Quantitative Trading", Dr. Ernest Chan
"Algorithmic Trading", Dr. Ernest Chan
"Machine Trading: Deploying Computer Algorithms to Conquer the Markets", Dr. Ernest Chan
"Advances in Financial Machine Learning", Marcos Lopez de Prado
"Options, Futures and Other Derivatives (10th edition)", John C. Hull
Buddhism:
"Open Heart, Clear Mind", Thubten Chodron
"Buddhism For Beginners", Thubten Chodron
"Working with Anger", Thubten Chodron
Reading For Pleasure:
"Naked Statistics", Charles Wheelan
"Algorithms to Live By", Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths
"Dark Pools"
"The Quants", Scott Patterson
"The Physics Of Wall Street", James Owen Weatherall
Plus some Chinese books, I wont bore with the details, unless anyone wants to know. Fun Fact, while I was in China for 8 weeks in late 2017 I bought 60 Chinese books and stuffed them in a suitcase. It cost me $4,000RMB (~$604 USD) to check all of my stuff and purchases home :-)
The Math books are:
"Discrete math", Susan Epp
"Discrete with Ducks"
various Calc books. If you want to learn math, find books that work for you. We all learn differently here.
My opinion: The Chan books are just amazing. Thought provoking and motivational. I am still reading the Prado book.
My opinion 2: If you ever want to slow down in life and learn what you are about, read about Buddhism. I'm not trying to start a flame war. It just works for me. It isn't being told what to believe because that is the way it is. I feel Buddhism lets me explore myself to find the right answers that work for me. Since studying my anger levels are in check. I am a better Husband. My wife comes first always.
Also, all that Chinese Internet humor is a reward :-D
If you're using the term in a more general sense, then social science provides evidence for the efficacy of various Buddhist practices (e.g. mindfulness). I know the state of affairs in the social sciences are suboptimal (e.g. the replication crisis) but it's the body of knowledge we have to work with now.
Philosophy does not require evidence. Philosophy does not require justification. In fact at times it’s best to remove those from your philosophical thought experiments in order to better understand some principle or thought.
Rationalism as a philosophy isn’t without its faults. And many lovely arguments have been made around it. Keep that in mind.
Scott Adams' [How to fail at Almost every thing and still win big]
Meditations by marcus arelius
Honestly, I've yet to find a physical book that has proven to be a useful reference in the long run. Programming languages just change too quickly; it's the web or the code.
As for more meta-programming/business/interpersonal books, the few that I've read are not ones I've ever had any real desire to go back to.
Wow - same with me. Perfect size to match my monitor base! I also keep a 2002(?) copy of "Creating Web Pages for Dummies" to remind me of my roots.
In the old days you might use a compiler for 3-4 years. Nowadays, something you'd buy a book on could change versions in less than a year. Anything I bought in the early days of XCode/iOS was obsolete before I knew it. I bought a JQuery book and it was already a point release behind.
Me either, but how else do you signal to other programmers how knowledgeable and well-rounded you are in the field?
Apart from K&R, there are very few programming books which are worthwhile; up to about 10 years ago the ORA series were worthwhile, but nowadays especially with StackExchange it's just far better to get the one fragment of information you need in a handy searchable pasteable internet format.
(Non-programming book recs: recently The Man Who Stole Portugal (non-fiction, surprisingly relevant to crypto) and The Time Of Gifts (biography, extravagantly written, requires checking wikipedia every 5 dozen words unless you have a really excellent knowledge of European history)
-Sapiens : A brief history of humankind
-Zen pencils
- Book of Life - By J. Krishnamurti
Also Functional Programming in C#.
I'm a bit of a Manning junkie