Ask HN: What nonfiction books do you keep rereading?

Lean startup is a recent discovery for me - and boy do I wish I’d read it sooner!

Edit: also I highly recommend Stephen Covey’s audiobooks of 7 Habits and First Things First (read by him)

It's hard to do justice to that in a few words. I think I had a different reason for reading it the second time, as opposed to the first time.

The first time around, I think I was more reading it because I like to think of myself as an educated, scientific-minded person, and it was one of "those books" that any self-respecting "educated, scientific-minded person" was sort of "supposed to" have read. That and I was mentally already in a place somewhere in the nether regions between "agnostic" and "atheist" and I knew of Dawkins as a strong advocate for atheist thinking, and I guess I was looking for something that might convince me one way or the other. Or maybe that's just post-hoc rationalization on my part, but that's what I felt like I found. I felt much better about just calling myself an atheist after reading the book.

Anyway... one thing I was struck by though, was his discussion of things like kin altruism and reciprocal altruism and some of the game theoretical stuff, including mentions of Robert Axelrod and his research. So the second time I read the book, I was really looking to focus more on those sections, and take notes and do some further research. And all of that was really driven by my interest in evolutionary computing / genetic algorithms / etc. and a thought that I might find something there that I could apply to those areas. I wound up buying Axelrod's book The Evolution of Cooperation, but I sadly have not quite gotten around to reading it yet.

> And read the author's sequel books to it.

I've also read The Blind Watchmaker twice, although that was sort of by accident. I forgot I'd already read it, and I was moderately deep into the second read before I realized I'd read it before. It was worth it though.

I still have Climbing Mount Improbable, The God Delusion, The Ancestor's Tale, and a couple of other Dawkins books queued up to read as well.

I read it shortly after buying the house that would be (and is) our 'family home', of a very similar vintage (early 80s, East Coast.) Certainly not every home from the past was artfully constructed (or even well-built), but something just feels different with the modern, Fortune-500 homebuilders that rush an army of interchangeable subcontractors through cookie-cutter plans to maximize interior square-footage and stack as many units as possible on a tract of land.

Switches (specifically Layer 2 switches) will send broadcast frames to all ports*, but traffic that is unicast to a specific MAC address will only be sent to the port where that MAC address was learnt. To keep track of the MAC address to port mappings, a switch will have one or more "forwarding" or "MAC-address" tables.

Routers (and Layer 3 switches) are not necessarily Internet connected, but will mostly be seen in larger networks. Being mostly Ethernet-based these days, they maintain two tables - an ARP table (mapping IP Addresses to MAC Addresses) and a routing table (mapping IP prefixes/routes to destination IP addresses). When an IP packet comes into a port, the router will consult it's routing table and find the most specific route that matches the destination of the packet. From the destination IP of the route, it will then determine the egress interface that it should send the packet towards, then use the ARP table to work out the destination Ethernet MAC address for the Ethernet frame it will construct to transport the IP packet in on it's way to the next-hop router.

* During the early 00s there were "Dual-Speed Hubs", which were basically two hubs (one 10Mbps, one 100Mbps) joined together internally via a two-port Ethernet switch. Fortunately the price of 100Mbps Ethernet switches kept falling and they weren't around too long.

* Provided those ports are all members of the same broadcast domain/VLAN

It is a great book, though.

e.g. To build a flossing habit, floss just one tooth a day. Once you've got into the habit of pulling out floss and flossing just one tooth, you can move onto flossing two teeth and so on.

If at any point you feel resistance to doing the bigger habit you're trying to build up, you can always revert back to doing the initial tiny habit of flossing just one tooth.

# Identity

There are only two possible foundations for long-term behavioural change: 1. a re-prioritisation of personal values 2. a substitution of an existing behavior $X$, which is based on a personal value $V$, with a different behavior $Y$, which is also based on $V$.

# Dealing with Existing Habits

Before we can effectively build new habits, we need to get a handle on our current ones. All habits serve you in some way—even the bad ones—which is why you repeat them.

# Implementation Intentions

Implementation intentions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implementation_intention) have been empirically shown to be effective. The idea behind implementation intentions is to eliminate ambiguity. Explicitly write down WHEN and WHERE you will do WHAT.

Write down a list of implementation intentions for all habits you wish to develop.

# Three Layers of Behavior Change

1. Identity 2. Process 3. Outcome

Identity is what you believe, process is what you do, outcome is what you get. Systems lead to outcomes.

# Four Steps of Habit Formation

1. Cue (triggers behavior) 2. Craving (desired change of state) 3. Response (behavior performed to achieve change of state) 4. Reward (outcome delivered by response)

Of these four, only cues can reliably be manipulated. Design your environment around the habits you wish to develop. The two most common cues are time and location.

## Breaking Habits

1. Remove the cues from the environment. 2. Expose how the bad habit inadequately addresses the underlying motive that caused its formation. Clearly describe the negative consequences of the habit in writing. 3. Replace the bad habit with a good one that more effectively addresses the underlying motive.

# Habit Scorecard

You need to be aware of your habits before you can change them. To create your scorecard, write down everything you do for an entire day. At the end of the day, mark each behavior as either bad, neutral, or good.

# Underlying Motives

* *Reducing uncertainty* * Conserve energy * Social bonding * Social approval

Cravings are arbitrary manifestations of underlying motives. Evolution hasn't set up our brain to reward e.g. playing video games in particular. But it did set up our brain to reward a reduction in uncertainty. Products and services don't create fundamentally new motives, they latch on to existing ones.

# Miscellaneous

Without good health habits, you will always seem to be short on energy.

It is easier to associate a new habit with a new context, than to build a new habit in the face of competing cues.

You can break a habit, but you’re unlikely to forget it. This means that trying to resist temptation is an ineffective strategy. In the short-run, you can choose to overpower temptation. In the long-run, environmental cues overpower you.

Every day has multiple decisive moments, where split-second decisions decide how you will spend the next one to three hours. It's easier to continue what you are doing than to start it.

In deliberate thoughts, as well as in speech, always use formulations of the form "I go for a run", not "I have to go for a run", regardless of how you feel about it.

Every habit is about overcoming obstacles to get what you want. You don't want the habit itself, you want what ...