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Thanks for your comment Paul! Kudos for a book a day, just in my honest opinion, that's an overkill. I think it's really important to have time to think and m

by 300 10y ago

Thanks for your comment Paul! Kudos for a book a day, just in my honest opinion, that's an overkill. I think it's really important to have time to think and make notes about what you read. Even re-reading the same books can often give you different insights, depending on your inner state, life circumstances, etc. I respect your opinion on your points, and I'll not argue those. I shared my insights, based on my experience, and I wish I knew some of them before much earlier - it would save me a lot of time. -Jovica

Paul_S 10y ago
The problem complicating re-reading "the best" book is how do you know which one is the best? Reading a new one has a non-zero chance of reading a better one. A variation on the secretary problem where interviewing can have a negative cost. As for a book a day being overkill - you're right, I'm not going to keep this up next year. Normally I read ~80 books but last year I was unemployed for several months and ended up reading >200 even though I was busy looking for work (which involves a lot travel and waiting around which is when I got religious about using my deadtime rather than "killing" time with HN) and I thought fuck it, I'll give it a go at which point I got hired within a month but wanted to see if I can keep going. It's getting really busy with deadlines but I'm confident I can catch up during christmas. For people wondering: yes, I have no family.
- 300 10y ago
  Good question. I put quite a lot of effort to explore available books on the topic, but that would take another (much longer) blog post. Good luck with your quest! If you need some inspiration for books to read, check out this great list: https://sivers.org/book https://sivers.org/book
  - Paul_S 10y ago
    Open the page, sort by "best" and see how far up you have to go before you get to a book that doesn't get a negative review. As far as I can tell no one has this figured out yet and it's a no way of proving a program will stop without running it sort of a thing - all we need now is a name for this law relating to books.
    - TeMPOraL 10y ago
      Everything gets negative reviews - even if God Himself stepped down and put a poem on Amazon that was explicitly designed to trigger hidden backdoors in people's firmware to induce state of extreme pleasure, somebody would leave a negative review because they've only read second stanza while drunk, and decided it sucks. One has to get used to it, and learn not to flinch away from reading an occasional negative review to make sure whether it's just someone's very specific subjective opinion, or whether it can be a problem for many other readers too.

by 300 10y ago

Paul_S 10y ago

The problem complicating re-reading "the best" book is how do you know which one is the best? Reading a new one has a non-zero chance of reading a better one. A variation on the secretary problem where interviewing can have a negative cost. As for a book a day being overkill - you're right, I'm not going to keep this up next year. Normally I read ~80 books but last year I was unemployed for several months and ended up reading >200 even though I was busy looking for work (which involves a lot travel and waiting around which is when I got religious about using my deadtime rather than "killing" time with HN) and I thought fuck it, I'll give it a go at which point I got hired within a month but wanted to see if I can keep going. It's getting really busy with deadlines but I'm confident I can catch up during christmas. For people wondering: yes, I have no family.

300 10y ago
Good question. I put quite a lot of effort to explore available books on the topic, but that would take another (much longer) blog post. Good luck with your quest! If you need some inspiration for books to read, check out this great list: https://sivers.org/book https://sivers.org/book
- Paul_S 10y ago
  Open the page, sort by "best" and see how far up you have to go before you get to a book that doesn't get a negative review. As far as I can tell no one has this figured out yet and it's a no way of proving a program will stop without running it sort of a thing - all we need now is a name for this law relating to books.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    Everything gets negative reviews - even if God Himself stepped down and put a poem on Amazon that was explicitly designed to trigger hidden backdoors in people's firmware to induce state of extreme pleasure, somebody would leave a negative review because they've only read second stanza while drunk, and decided it sucks. One has to get used to it, and learn not to flinch away from reading an occasional negative review to make sure whether it's just someone's very specific subjective opinion, or whether it can be a problem for many other readers too.