5 ms·

Cialdini is classic. It's the only science book I've stayed up all night to finish, it's such a page turner. Plus I remember astonishingly more of it than I do

by gruseom 15y ago

Cialdini is classic. It's the only science book I've stayed up all night to finish, it's such a page turner. Plus I remember astonishingly more of it than I do of most books. His anecdotes really help with that. (It was a different edition though.)

tptacek 15y ago
I read Cialdini years ago because Joel Spolsky recommended it here: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/navLinks/fog0000000262.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/navLinks/fog0000000262.html From that list, I also highly recommend: * Peopleware (get your cofounders to read it too) * Godel Escher Bach * A Pattern Language (but don't bother reading it straight through) * Growing A Business
- gruseom 15y ago
  I love Pattern Language and use ideas from it all the time. It, and Alexander, are much more interesting than the mechanistic stuff that software people reduced him to. I think Chris Alexander is one of those rare cases where it's possible to see that an individual is right and an entire field is wrong. Growing a Business I read because you recommended it on HN a few years ago! Peopleware I remember as being pretty enlightened in spirit and ahead of its time for software projects, but one of those once-you-get-it-you-get-it things. Also, they totally made shit up in that book (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=333694 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=333694). GEB, meh. Hofstadter always struck me as the pseudo-profound type. Perhaps I am unfair.
  - akkartik 15y ago
    Wow, first criticism I've ever heard of GEB. Finally got off my ass and purchased Pattern Language. (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195019199 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195019199, right?)
    - gruseom 15y ago
      That's the one. I hope you enjoy thumbing through it. The first thing from that book that caught my attention was his point about rooms feeling more alive when they have light coming in on two different sides. I've noticed that, or the lack of it, in just about every room ever since. Hofstadter? It's always the same grad-students-drinking-beer mentality: hey man, this thing is totally like that other thing. The connections seem profound, but are not, because they don't have deep roots in anything. The real tell is that nothing of great value ever comes out of this way of doing business (I mean this style, not H's work specifically). It's an intellectual sugar rush. But again, perhaps I am unfair.
  - tptacek 15y ago
    I'm not as rigorous as you are; the idea that Demarco and Lister made up historical anecdotes in the book doesn't perturb me too much, because the value of the book isn't so much prescriptive ("break your company into tiny teams and let them each pick a far-flung cool-looking skunkworks office") --- it's more that it provides a new way of looking at how your company is organized. On the other hand, I didn't "get" Surfer Rosa for like a year after I bought it, because by the time I had (in the early 90's) almost all the music I listened to was more or less cribbed from Pixies songs. Maybe the same thing happened with Peopleware, where pretty much every blog post we read about dev teams expresses a sentiment traceable to some part of Peopleware. In my defense with GEB: I didn't read it because Joel Spolsky told me to, I read it because a girlfriend did. A similar logic had me pretending to enjoy Faulkner. My take on Hofstadter may be oddly colored. Also: I haven't read any of his other books and am not a Lisper, so he's had fewer opportunities to annoy me.
    - gruseom 15y ago
      Oh, the making shit up part doesn't perturb me (well, maybe a little) - I just think it's worth mentioning. Your Pixies analogy is very clever. If Peopleware is the Pixies then maybe Jerry Weinberg would be the Velvets? Maybe not. The Velvets kind of stand on their own pretty well. Maybe the MC5. There's a band I never got, though they were pretty influential pre-punk. (My point is that Weinberg's early stuff on human factors in software -- Psychology of Computer Programming -- was seminal, but not particularly readable now.)
      - akkartik 15y ago
        I wish I could grok these references :/ I didn't grow up in the US, so my musical knowledge ends with classical rock (and even that's not very deep).
        gruseom 15y ago
        Do you like rock n roll? If no, I wouldn't bother. If yes, there is an unbelievable world of music to explore, and you're in luck, because you can easily get most of it on the internet instead of spending countless hours combing through dingy record stores as we used to have to do. As far as alternative rock music (the stuff that never got played on commercial radio) goes, there are basically two schools: the kick-ass school (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDNzQ3CXspU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDNzQ3CXspU) and the melodic school (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=844bENvq0e0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=844bENvq0e0). If you like either of those, there's a universe out there. I've always loved both. And that's not to mention the parallel/intersecting universe of black music with its tremendous riches. The five peak years or so of late 60s soul, when blues and gospel merged, are particularly great. Their emotional resonance is unmatched by anything anywhere. A mid-period example is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5fqWugnIhk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5fqWugnIhk (1967) and a late one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPUGC4zFMjc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPUGC4zFMjc (1971 or so). Again, there's a whole universe of this. Several, rather. The 60s and 70s were a musical supernova. Especially the 60s, though the 70s stuff often sounds better. It seems you can spend the rest of your life finding amazing stuff from that era. A guy I knew named Greg Shaw who was one of the great champions of punk and garage rock had over a million records. He went all over buying them for pennies at yard sales because people thought they were junk. Later he released selections of his favorites on low-budget compilation albums. Every generation rediscovers this music. Stuff like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoBB0e-dVhc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoBB0e-dVhc and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZXkzao9KvA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZXkzao9KvA. As far as rock music goes, the best material today is no different from the best of decades ago. It's the exact same patterns being reworked. Take e.g. the Black Keys- that's all they do. That's no criticism; it's the same thing the "originals" were doing. It's a little weird that 45 years mean so little culturally - i.e. that the music of 45 years ago and today are (technology aside) about the same. The process hasn't been linear. It's more like a state change occurred in the post-war years and we've been living in that reality ever since.

by gruseom 15y ago

tptacek 15y ago

I read Cialdini years ago because Joel Spolsky recommended it here: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/navLinks/fog0000000262.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/navLinks/fog0000000262.html From that list, I also highly recommend: * Peopleware (get your cofounders to read it too) * Godel Escher Bach * A Pattern Language (but don't bother reading it straight through) * Growing A Business

gruseom 15y ago
I love Pattern Language and use ideas from it all the time. It, and Alexander, are much more interesting than the mechanistic stuff that software people reduced him to. I think Chris Alexander is one of those rare cases where it's possible to see that an individual is right and an entire field is wrong. Growing a Business I read because you recommended it on HN a few years ago! Peopleware I remember as being pretty enlightened in spirit and ahead of its time for software projects, but one of those once-you-get-it-you-get-it things. Also, they totally made shit up in that book (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=333694 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=333694). GEB, meh. Hofstadter always struck me as the pseudo-profound type. Perhaps I am unfair.
- akkartik 15y ago
  Wow, first criticism I've ever heard of GEB. Finally got off my ass and purchased Pattern Language. (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195019199 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195019199, right?)
  - gruseom 15y ago
    That's the one. I hope you enjoy thumbing through it. The first thing from that book that caught my attention was his point about rooms feeling more alive when they have light coming in on two different sides. I've noticed that, or the lack of it, in just about every room ever since. Hofstadter? It's always the same grad-students-drinking-beer mentality: hey man, this thing is totally like that other thing. The connections seem profound, but are not, because they don't have deep roots in anything. The real tell is that nothing of great value ever comes out of this way of doing business (I mean this style, not H's work specifically). It's an intellectual sugar rush. But again, perhaps I am unfair.
- tptacek 15y ago
  I'm not as rigorous as you are; the idea that Demarco and Lister made up historical anecdotes in the book doesn't perturb me too much, because the value of the book isn't so much prescriptive ("break your company into tiny teams and let them each pick a far-flung cool-looking skunkworks office") --- it's more that it provides a new way of looking at how your company is organized. On the other hand, I didn't "get" Surfer Rosa for like a year after I bought it, because by the time I had (in the early 90's) almost all the music I listened to was more or less cribbed from Pixies songs. Maybe the same thing happened with Peopleware, where pretty much every blog post we read about dev teams expresses a sentiment traceable to some part of Peopleware. In my defense with GEB: I didn't read it because Joel Spolsky told me to, I read it because a girlfriend did. A similar logic had me pretending to enjoy Faulkner. My take on Hofstadter may be oddly colored. Also: I haven't read any of his other books and am not a Lisper, so he's had fewer opportunities to annoy me.
  - gruseom 15y ago
    Oh, the making shit up part doesn't perturb me (well, maybe a little) - I just think it's worth mentioning. Your Pixies analogy is very clever. If Peopleware is the Pixies then maybe Jerry Weinberg would be the Velvets? Maybe not. The Velvets kind of stand on their own pretty well. Maybe the MC5. There's a band I never got, though they were pretty influential pre-punk. (My point is that Weinberg's early stuff on human factors in software -- Psychology of Computer Programming -- was seminal, but not particularly readable now.)
    - akkartik 15y ago
      I wish I could grok these references :/ I didn't grow up in the US, so my musical knowledge ends with classical rock (and even that's not very deep).
      - gruseom 15y ago
        Do you like rock n roll? If no, I wouldn't bother. If yes, there is an unbelievable world of music to explore, and you're in luck, because you can easily get most of it on the internet instead of spending countless hours combing through dingy record stores as we used to have to do. As far as alternative rock music (the stuff that never got played on commercial radio) goes, there are basically two schools: the kick-ass school (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDNzQ3CXspU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDNzQ3CXspU) and the melodic school (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=844bENvq0e0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=844bENvq0e0). If you like either of those, there's a universe out there. I've always loved both. And that's not to mention the parallel/intersecting universe of black music with its tremendous riches. The five peak years or so of late 60s soul, when blues and gospel merged, are particularly great. Their emotional resonance is unmatched by anything anywhere. A mid-period example is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5fqWugnIhk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5fqWugnIhk (1967) and a late one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPUGC4zFMjc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPUGC4zFMjc (1971 or so). Again, there's a whole universe of this. Several, rather. The 60s and 70s were a musical supernova. Especially the 60s, though the 70s stuff often sounds better. It seems you can spend the rest of your life finding amazing stuff from that era. A guy I knew named Greg Shaw who was one of the great champions of punk and garage rock had over a million records. He went all over buying them for pennies at yard sales because people thought they were junk. Later he released selections of his favorites on low-budget compilation albums. Every generation rediscovers this music. Stuff like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoBB0e-dVhc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoBB0e-dVhc and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZXkzao9KvA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZXkzao9KvA. As far as rock music goes, the best material today is no different from the best of decades ago. It's the exact same patterns being reworked. Take e.g. the Black Keys- that's all they do. That's no criticism; it's the same thing the "originals" were doing. It's a little weird that 45 years mean so little culturally - i.e. that the music of 45 years ago and today are (technology aside) about the same. The process hasn't been linear. It's more like a state change occurred in the post-war years and we've been living in that reality ever since.