Steve Jobs - I have to admit, it is not at all what I expected. I thought it would be a gushing tribute, but instead he comes across as a complete asshole-tyrant (so far... I'm about halfway thru the book) and his success was almost in spite of himself. He was dead wrong almost as much, if not more, than he was right (at least until he rejoined Apple, which is where I'm at right now). Not a glowing biography in the least, which is shocking but I guess refreshing.
Michael Lewis recently wrote an article about Kahneman and the book, and the discussion of that on HN really piqued my interest. (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3219240)
It shows what I've been reading lately, notes, etc...
Speaking of which, something that aggregated Kindle reading patterns of HN readers is something I would love to see as an application. How cool would that be? Popular books, notes, etc...
I'm surprised at how good a read this is, it is anything but a hero worship style book. Its long for a biography but Steve's life is a very interesting one, and am yet to be bored with it.
If at some point you found Physics wonderful, and then lost it when everything became calculations, I wholeheartedly recommend this book, and the other volumes once you are done with it.
Feynman has an engaging conversation style, and when you are immersed in the book, you literally feel the wonders of the universe. You go through Newton's motion and gravitation laws, and then using simple numerical methods, he plots you the orbital path around the sun of a given planet.
It does has derivations, but it doesn't let derivation take over the idea it's discussing. And some derivations and deductions will be enlightening when you already know something about something - for e.g for the first time in my life, I saw why the observed velocity won't exceed speed of light.
Even for the ideas I know, Feynman's explanation either add something, or make me thing "Holy Shit I didn't think of it that way." While discussing Newton's laws, he mentions this whole set of laws depends on a coordinate system - but we really can't say all experiments are to be performed at place x - but you know what, these laws are independent of the axis you choose, and here is how.
You are left thinking, hell, I kinda knew it but didn't approach it that way.
Then he will tell you a system moving with constant velocity in a straight line will observe the exact same laws of physics, and here is why, which is just an extension of the previous axis transform.
Even if you don't like Physics, give this book a try. Most likely you will understand universe better when you are through.
If somebody hypothetically knows nothing of Feynman or physicals, would this be a good starting point? Or would you suggest this book as a follow-up to something simpler and more immediately engaging?
You don't have to know anything about Feynman or Physics. The book assumes a basic knowledge of Mathematics and Science, and that's all you need to understand it.
But be warned - this isn't an easy book, and you can't skim through it. This is an extremely dense book; it builds on what it already has told you, which makes sense because "Observe, Reason, Experiment" is how you do science. To reason/deduce, you need to have a base and then you take it from there. When it introduces concepts that can't be deduced, it tells you that. Also, it clearly says analysis/logic alone isn't a killall - sometimes you just go the numerical method road(which is somehow similar to brute-force algorithm most of the times), and it gives you results which analysis alone can't.
I am reading it a very slow pace, because the book is packed with information with no superfluous content, and many a times I have to stop to think about what it's telling me.
I would recommend you read the first chapter "Atoms in motion" first. Well, I already knew everything is made of atoms(duh), but still, it presented things to me in a very engaging way.
Some gists to give you a preview:
Everything is made of atoms; water is made of molecules which are atoms in a bond; molecules are held together by mutual attraction; molecules always jiggle; the jiggle is represented as heat; you heat water - you increase the jiggling; increased jiggling loosens the mutual molecular attraction and some molecules escape, and you get steam.
And molecules which escape are the ones which are jiggling badly; because the ones which aren't jiggling hard won't be breaking the mutual attraction; and when high energy molecules escaped, the net energy of the system is lower.
Oh, and now you know why you feel cold when your sweat evaporates.
60 comments
[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 63.8 ms ] threadSalt: A World History - Mark Kurlansky
The Pragmatic Programmer (Andrew Hunt)
Cashflow Quadrant (Robert T. Kiyosaki)
Hackers & Painters - pg
I Have America Surrounded - John Higgs
Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault. 0x4ea43cbc in memcpy () from /lib/libc.so.6
Axis (Robert Charles Wilson)
Coders at Work (Seibel).
Michael Lewis recently wrote an article about Kahneman and the book, and the discussion of that on HN really piqued my interest. (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3219240)
Thinking, Fast and Slow : http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00555X8OA?ie=UTF8&tag=...
Here's my Kindle @ Amazon link - does it work if you're you and... well, not me? https://kindle.amazon.com/profile/David-N--Welton/208047#rec...
It shows what I've been reading lately, notes, etc...
Speaking of which, something that aggregated Kindle reading patterns of HN readers is something I would love to see as an application. How cool would that be? Popular books, notes, etc...
Early Retirement Extreme - Jacob Lund Fisker
I'm surprised at how good a read this is, it is anything but a hero worship style book. Its long for a biography but Steve's life is a very interesting one, and am yet to be bored with it.
Ruby on Rails 3 Tutorial: Learn Rails by Example - Hartl
Blood Meridian - McCarthy
If at some point you found Physics wonderful, and then lost it when everything became calculations, I wholeheartedly recommend this book, and the other volumes once you are done with it.
Feynman has an engaging conversation style, and when you are immersed in the book, you literally feel the wonders of the universe. You go through Newton's motion and gravitation laws, and then using simple numerical methods, he plots you the orbital path around the sun of a given planet.
It does has derivations, but it doesn't let derivation take over the idea it's discussing. And some derivations and deductions will be enlightening when you already know something about something - for e.g for the first time in my life, I saw why the observed velocity won't exceed speed of light.
Even for the ideas I know, Feynman's explanation either add something, or make me thing "Holy Shit I didn't think of it that way." While discussing Newton's laws, he mentions this whole set of laws depends on a coordinate system - but we really can't say all experiments are to be performed at place x - but you know what, these laws are independent of the axis you choose, and here is how.
You are left thinking, hell, I kinda knew it but didn't approach it that way.
Then he will tell you a system moving with constant velocity in a straight line will observe the exact same laws of physics, and here is why, which is just an extension of the previous axis transform.
Even if you don't like Physics, give this book a try. Most likely you will understand universe better when you are through.
But be warned - this isn't an easy book, and you can't skim through it. This is an extremely dense book; it builds on what it already has told you, which makes sense because "Observe, Reason, Experiment" is how you do science. To reason/deduce, you need to have a base and then you take it from there. When it introduces concepts that can't be deduced, it tells you that. Also, it clearly says analysis/logic alone isn't a killall - sometimes you just go the numerical method road(which is somehow similar to brute-force algorithm most of the times), and it gives you results which analysis alone can't.
I am reading it a very slow pace, because the book is packed with information with no superfluous content, and many a times I have to stop to think about what it's telling me.
I would recommend you read the first chapter "Atoms in motion" first. Well, I already knew everything is made of atoms(duh), but still, it presented things to me in a very engaging way.
Some gists to give you a preview:
Everything is made of atoms; water is made of molecules which are atoms in a bond; molecules are held together by mutual attraction; molecules always jiggle; the jiggle is represented as heat; you heat water - you increase the jiggling; increased jiggling loosens the mutual molecular attraction and some molecules escape, and you get steam.
And molecules which escape are the ones which are jiggling badly; because the ones which aren't jiggling hard won't be breaking the mutual attraction; and when high energy molecules escaped, the net energy of the system is lower.
Oh, and now you know why you feel cold when your sweat evaporates.