9 ms·

Bill Gates: Books I Read this Summer

266 points by clbrook 14y ago

alid 14y ago
Thanks for posting this! I look forward to reading Bill's full review of Academically Adrift - higher education is ripe for the disrupt.
sixQuarks 14y ago
It's kind of funny that he recommends: "Awakening Joy: 10 Steps That Will Put You on the Road to Real Happiness" Step 1: Be worth billions of dollars On a serious note, I realize that money doesn't buy happiness. Proven scientifically over and over again, people get used to their situations usually within 6 months, good or bad, and get back to their "normal" happiness levels regardless.
- AVTizzle 14y ago
  If I remember correctly though - there is a "happiness-threshold" of income, below which life-satisfaction and income are positively correlated. I think that number for most of the US was around $70k or something. So below that number, income is correlated to happiness. Above that threshold, and the two are unrelated. It makes sense. Different things start to matter once you have your basic physiological needs in place. But you have to secure that base.
  - rlu 14y ago
    I learned that the threshold was actually simply poverty level which would be significantly under 70k
    - AVTizzle 14y ago
      This topic actually piqued my interest and sent me on a little wiki-stroll: "Money correlates with happiness, but the rate diminishes with more money. In 2010, Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton found that higher earners generally reported better life satisfaction, but people's day-to-day emotional well-being only rose with earnings until a threshold annual income of $75,000." This entire article is sweet, by the way. Definitely recommended reading for anyone that finds this type of stuff interesting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happiness_economics#Individual_income http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happiness_economics#Individual_...
  - Evbn 14y ago
    That is for daily happiness of an employed individual, so for planning a lifetime, one must add overage for future retirement, disability, and medical expenses, and for any dependent spouse and children.
  - hackinthebochs 14y ago
    I think this study is cited more than it is warranted. The study measures happiness compared to income. But it says nothing about overall wealth. It makes sense that more income helps happiness only up to a point, as the stresses of simply securing that income become the main drivers of daily stress once basic needs are met. I wonder what the relationship between hourly rate vs happiness looks like. When income is casually mentioned it is usually understood to mean wealth. This study is then implicitly an argument against focusing on amassing too much wealth, with the claim that being richer won't make you happier. But the methodology of the study just doesn't back this up. We need to be careful how and when it is cited.
  - bound008 14y ago
    http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslows_hierarchy_of_needs http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslows_hierarchy_of_needs
    - alttag 14y ago
      Downvoted, as I don't believe adding the link without commentary adds value to the discussion.
  - doktrin 14y ago
    The study you're thinking of noted that $75k was the level above which additional income would not significantly impact "happiness". While there are a multitude of caveats needed for any such claim, the most obvious is the fact that $75k means very different things depending on where you live. The WSJ adjusted the number for cost of living, below : http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2010/09/07/what-salary-buys-happiness-in-your-city/ http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2010/09/07/what-salary-buys-h... All of the above should be taken with a grain of salt, but the basic TL;DR is that the figure is actually ~$100k+ in most major US cities.
    - nazgulnarsil 14y ago
      The flip side of this is that you can also achieve many of the same objectives (i.e. things that impact happiness) on a smaller budget by paying attention to the relevant research on what really makes us happy. The value of happiness research is where it shows us how bad we are at predicting our own preferences. Incorrect predictions are expensive.
  - ctdonath 14y ago
    Interesting things may happen when one is raised & ingrained with the correlation of income to happiness, then rise above that "happiness threshold". The basic physiological needs may be in place, but the mindset rooted in their absence is not.
- arscan 14y ago
  This is my favorite paper on money & happiness (actionable & grounded in science): http://dunn.psych.ubc.ca/files/2012/09/1-s2.0-S1057740811000209-main.pdf http://dunn.psych.ubc.ca/files/2012/09/1-s2.0-S1057740811000... "Money is an opportunity for happiness, but it is an opportunity that people routinely squander because the things they think will make them happy often don't." I completely agree.
  - AVTizzle 14y ago
    Awesome share. Thanks.
marcamillion 14y ago
What's curious is that none of the links to the books are on Amazon. I wonder if he did that intentionally. All of them go to the publisher - which seems a bit odd.
- manaskarekar 14y ago
  Other than the fact that the Publisher's link is 'more right' to link to, it may just be the fact that Amazon's a competitor in the tablet space.
  - marcamillion 14y ago
    I know it may be 'more right'...but if some random 'tech famous person' were writing this post, which links would they use? More likely than not, they would use Amazon's links. This seems like it took extra effort to look for these titles on each of their publisher's sites.
    - manaskarekar 14y ago
      "I know it may be 'more right'...but if some random 'tech famous person' were writing this post, which links would they use? More likely than not, they would use Amazon's links." I don't think Bill Gates needs the referral link revenue from Amazon ;)
      - marcamillion 14y ago
        I wasn't alluding to affiliate revenue. Rather just an easier experience for users.
    - officemonkey 14y ago
      I also doubt that Gates worries about finding links for his blog. He probably has microserfs to do that for him.
- pilgrim689 14y ago
  Makes sense to me. Link to the source when you can. "Give credit where it's due" and all that. People can go to Amazon or other distributors on their own if they so wish.
metatation 14y ago
Surprising to me is that Amazon is charging more for the Kindle version than the hard cover of "Awakening Joy" ($19.34 vs $17.16): http://www.amazon.com/Awakening-Joy-Steps-That-Happiness/dp/055380703X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347758067&sr=8-1&keywords=Awakening+joy http://www.amazon.com/Awakening-Joy-Steps-That-Happiness/dp/...
- corkeh 14y ago
  Weird, it's showing up as $15.99 for me.
  - metatation 14y ago
    Seems like there a general trend toward lower pricing transparency in online retail. Airlines have been doing this for years...sucks that it's spreading everywhere.
- cmwright 14y ago
  I find this happening more and more often, quite often I'll have to pay as much as a $5 premium for the digital version.
- jakeonthemove 14y ago
  It's pretty interesting: this was bound to happen since digital copies are no longer the cheap variant that costs nothing to reproduce, but are becoming the more convenient version for which people pay a premium....
- ojbyrne 14y ago
  Also seeing $15.99 for the Kindle version.
- brown9-2 14y ago
  I believe Amazon sets the price for the hardcover, whereas the Kindle version says "this price was set by the publisher".
- elteto 14y ago
  Yep, Amazon lost the battle with the publishers to price ebooks their way, hence the illogical prices. I own a kindle but I am not purchasing as many books as before. I have found that $5 is sort of a magic number for me, any more than that and I will just skip it, any less and I'll seriously consider buying it if I am interested. Since I do know, more or less, what is going on behind the scenes with the digital distribution model, there is no way I am spending more than that on a digital book, and with DRM added on top.
at-fates-hands 14y ago
The academically adrift book was quite interesting, although I disagree with the conclusion. For the most part, I find the first two years of college are really more about filtering out those who are there to party and those who are there to learn and get a degree. If the same results were achieved on third or fourth year students (assuming most students are in for 5 years these days), then I would be concerned.
BadassFractal 14y ago
Any thoughts on that Moonwalking With Einstein book? I'd love to improve information retention in my day to day life, especially in software. I'm not so much interested in remembering the to-do list as retaining broader concepts for long periods of time. I'm lucky enough to get to learn a ton of things every day, but my long term retention of them is terrible unless I spend considerable time applying these ideas in practice, which is often not practically possible. This leads to a lot of wasted time, it's as if I never even read the darn thing. Often, and this is the sad part, I won't even bother reading something because I know I'll forget it almost immediately, unless I have a block of time available to dedicate to trying it out in practice. For example, I'm really fond of the underpinnings of programming language design and compilers, and it's thousands over thousands of pages of information (most of it very interesting and useful to me), but I fail to retain the vast majority of the great info and need to continuously go back to the texts whenever I'm in doubt about something. There were a couple of valuable techniques recommended in Pragmatic Bookshelf's Pragmatic Thinking and Learning, such as "now pretend you have to teach this concept to your former self who knows nothing about this", which supposedly helps with retention and internalization into the brain's "web of known facts". Is there anything like that in the book? Would it be of any help?
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- DRA40399 14y ago
  Yes it's a good book and the principles of memory and how the brain remembers are useful in context of both to do lists and long term memory. You just have to practice them
- dsrguru 14y ago
  Yeah, the book starts by stating that everyone can have a photographic-like memory if they practice the right techniques, goes on to explain the history of the art of memory, and then intersperses detailed descriptions of the techniques with a fascinating autobiography. It's probably not the best tutorial, but it's a great starting point and also a really fun and fast read. At the very least, I can guarantee it will greatly change the way you look at what the human brain is capable of.
gbog 14y ago
I find it very disturbing and revealing that such a high level and respected guy did read no real book, I mean real books that will be read in 50 years, literature or philosophy, or classics like Seneque, Proust, Montaigne, Austeen. It maybe he read them all already? Probably not, because if you read Austeen you probably can't spend all your holidays reading self motivation books.
- elteto 14y ago
  > ...read no real book... Your post just lost all credibility from that point on. What are "real" books? Can you define it? I'm pretty sure you can't, because there is no thing such as "real" books. Do they have to be pre-1900? Do they have to be written in dense prose or the author from the Victorian era? I just finished reading Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman for the second time and in all honesty is one of the most simply written books I have ever read, and yet is deep, thoughtful, fun and I can probably say is more enjoyable than some of those you call classics. Where do we draw the line?
  - dkersten 14y ago
    Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman I love this book! Its entertaining, interesting and inspiring.
    - elteto 14y ago
      I am a big time Feynman fan, sure we've had our share of great thinkers and awe inspiring intellects, but Feynman is just the perfect combination of that and a likable character that remains human for the rest of us. Einstein was also like that in many ways but he was the child of another time and while he was always humane and simple, Feynman was much more likable, full of funny and witty anecdotes that connect with people. Also if you have not seen Feynman lecturing on Physics then you haven't seen a great educator, see [1] and [2], just plain wonderful. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3pYRn5j7oI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3pYRn5j7oI [2] http://research.microsoft.com/apps/tools/tuva/ http://research.microsoft.com/apps/tools/tuva/
  - 14y ago
chrismealy 14y ago
Is there a HN filter to weed out "rich man has opinions" type stories?
- irahul 14y ago
  > Is there a HN filter to weed out "rich man has opinions" type stories? Yes. The title says "rich man has opinions". Don't click the link, don't read the comments and don't post comments about how you didn't want to see this.
- praptak 14y ago
  The closest "filter" I know of is: whenever you dislike the frontpage contents, go upvote something better.
ahquresh 14y ago
I find it amazing that Bill Gates seems to still have the time and passion to read books that will help him grow as an individual with everything that he probably has going on in his life and everything he has accomplished. Over the past couple of years, I have personally have had a hard time keeping up with reading habits due to school and job demands. I still read, but look to reading as a relaxing activity as in picking up Game of Thrones for an hour when I have it. I guess that's what makes Bill Gates who he is.
- conradev 14y ago
  I would think that Bill Gates would have more free time than one who is burdened with school and work. I, too, don't get as much reading in as I would like.
- jlarocco 14y ago
  What? He's a retired multi-billionaire. If he doesn't have all the time he wants to read whatever he wants, then he's doing something very, very wrong.
- brc 14y ago
  I would assume that, given the long history of Bill Gates being intimately involved in many aspects of Microsoft, that he has a particular talent for taking written material and absorbing it at a very fast rate (look for Joel Spolsky's story about Date functions in Excel). That's the sort of skill which never diminishes. I bet Bill G can absorb a relatively short book at a very fast speed, especially if he's on vacation with large blocks of reading time available.
jacques_chester 14y ago
I'm finding that writing reviews, even very surface-level reviews, of books I am reading is helping me to derive a lot more value from them. Firstly, while reading, I find myself reflecting more on the book. After all -- I will be writing a review, I need to be an active participant. Secondly, I find that books will often spark some thinking on a topic and the review will essentially morph into an essay. I wrote a 3000-word review of one book[1] that diverged into fuzzy logic, theories of jurisprudence and a few other areas in order to properly explain my reaction. Right now I'm writing a review of Waltzing with Bears that will diverge into financial accounting and a pet theory of mine about how tools create paradigms that shape entire bodies of knowledge. Third, books can often be connected to one another. I find that my reviews tend to link to each other. Not because I am trying to drive internal link traffic (I'm basically a nobody in internet terms, it's not worth the bother). But book A will have tangentially touched on the topic of book B; or perhaps book C illuminates something only poorly discussed in book D. To the point where I refer to books from before I started reviewing with an "unreviewed" annotation. Finally, some people find my reviews useful. My hobby is Olympic-style weightlifting and I do a lot of reading both on it directly and on allied subjects (eg, anatomy). Fellow strength nerds have found my reviews useful in helping them select books for their own libraries. It's nice when people give you positive feedback on something like that. [1] http://chester.id.au/2012/04/09/review-drift-into-failure/ http://chester.id.au/2012/04/09/review-drift-into-failure/
additive 14y ago
It's amusing to see Bill Gates upset about college students not learning much and many not finishing. He's a billionaire. But he's also a dropout. And now he's reading self-help books. I'd like to see Bill Gates go back to school and earn a degree or two. Is that a bad thing to do? Why? He obviously has the time and money. But how dare I even suggest the idea? Who am I compared to Bill Gates? A mere plebian. So why would I suggest it? Beause it would be a great example to set. In my opinion. Not sure if he is a believer in setting examples and the tendency of young people to emulate "role models". Like, e.g., billionaire dropouts.
- tayl0r 14y ago
  That would also be a good way for him to see what college is really like, since he is so intent on fixing it. (I'm a dropout too)
fts89 14y ago
On Kindle Store: A Nation of Wusses: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007OWRBEK/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&tag=asdfdsa-20&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B007OWRBEK&linkCode=as2 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007OWRBEK/ref=as_li_ss_tl?... Moonwalking with Einstein: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004H4XI5O/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&tag=asdfdsa-20&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B004H4XI5O&linkCode=as2 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004H4XI5O/ref=as_li_ss_tl?... The Art of being Unreasonable: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007WLU96A/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&tag=asdfdsa-20&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B007WLU96A&linkCode=as2 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007WLU96A/ref=as_li_ss_tl?... Academically Adrift: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004LE9ILS/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&tag=asdfdsa-20&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B004LE9ILS&linkCode=as2 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004LE9ILS/ref=as_li_ss_tl?... Awakening Joy: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0030DHPDO/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&tag=asdfdsa-20&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0030DHPDO&linkCode=as2 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0030DHPDO/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...
sproketboy 14y ago
The Road Ahead first edition? You know the one where you forgot to mention the world wide web and had to recall it?

266 points by clbrook 14y ago

alid 14y ago

Thanks for posting this! I look forward to reading Bill's full review of Academically Adrift - higher education is ripe for the disrupt.

sixQuarks 14y ago

It's kind of funny that he recommends: "Awakening Joy: 10 Steps That Will Put You on the Road to Real Happiness" Step 1: Be worth billions of dollars On a serious note, I realize that money doesn't buy happiness. Proven scientifically over and over again, people get used to their situations usually within 6 months, good or bad, and get back to their "normal" happiness levels regardless.

AVTizzle 14y ago
If I remember correctly though - there is a "happiness-threshold" of income, below which life-satisfaction and income are positively correlated. I think that number for most of the US was around $70k or something. So below that number, income is correlated to happiness. Above that threshold, and the two are unrelated. It makes sense. Different things start to matter once you have your basic physiological needs in place. But you have to secure that base.
- rlu 14y ago
  I learned that the threshold was actually simply poverty level which would be significantly under 70k
  - AVTizzle 14y ago
    This topic actually piqued my interest and sent me on a little wiki-stroll: "Money correlates with happiness, but the rate diminishes with more money. In 2010, Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton found that higher earners generally reported better life satisfaction, but people's day-to-day emotional well-being only rose with earnings until a threshold annual income of $75,000." This entire article is sweet, by the way. Definitely recommended reading for anyone that finds this type of stuff interesting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happiness_economics#Individual_income http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happiness_economics#Individual_...
- Evbn 14y ago
  That is for daily happiness of an employed individual, so for planning a lifetime, one must add overage for future retirement, disability, and medical expenses, and for any dependent spouse and children.
- hackinthebochs 14y ago
  I think this study is cited more than it is warranted. The study measures happiness compared to income. But it says nothing about overall wealth. It makes sense that more income helps happiness only up to a point, as the stresses of simply securing that income become the main drivers of daily stress once basic needs are met. I wonder what the relationship between hourly rate vs happiness looks like. When income is casually mentioned it is usually understood to mean wealth. This study is then implicitly an argument against focusing on amassing too much wealth, with the claim that being richer won't make you happier. But the methodology of the study just doesn't back this up. We need to be careful how and when it is cited.
- bound008 14y ago
  http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslows_hierarchy_of_needs http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslows_hierarchy_of_needs
  - alttag 14y ago
    Downvoted, as I don't believe adding the link without commentary adds value to the discussion.
- doktrin 14y ago
  The study you're thinking of noted that $75k was the level above which additional income would not significantly impact "happiness". While there are a multitude of caveats needed for any such claim, the most obvious is the fact that $75k means very different things depending on where you live. The WSJ adjusted the number for cost of living, below : http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2010/09/07/what-salary-buys-happiness-in-your-city/ http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2010/09/07/what-salary-buys-h... All of the above should be taken with a grain of salt, but the basic TL;DR is that the figure is actually ~$100k+ in most major US cities.
  - nazgulnarsil 14y ago
    The flip side of this is that you can also achieve many of the same objectives (i.e. things that impact happiness) on a smaller budget by paying attention to the relevant research on what really makes us happy. The value of happiness research is where it shows us how bad we are at predicting our own preferences. Incorrect predictions are expensive.
- ctdonath 14y ago
  Interesting things may happen when one is raised & ingrained with the correlation of income to happiness, then rise above that "happiness threshold". The basic physiological needs may be in place, but the mindset rooted in their absence is not.
arscan 14y ago
This is my favorite paper on money & happiness (actionable & grounded in science): http://dunn.psych.ubc.ca/files/2012/09/1-s2.0-S1057740811000209-main.pdf http://dunn.psych.ubc.ca/files/2012/09/1-s2.0-S1057740811000... "Money is an opportunity for happiness, but it is an opportunity that people routinely squander because the things they think will make them happy often don't." I completely agree.
- AVTizzle 14y ago
  Awesome share. Thanks.

marcamillion 14y ago

What's curious is that none of the links to the books are on Amazon. I wonder if he did that intentionally. All of them go to the publisher - which seems a bit odd.

manaskarekar 14y ago
Other than the fact that the Publisher's link is 'more right' to link to, it may just be the fact that Amazon's a competitor in the tablet space.
- marcamillion 14y ago
  I know it may be 'more right'...but if some random 'tech famous person' were writing this post, which links would they use? More likely than not, they would use Amazon's links. This seems like it took extra effort to look for these titles on each of their publisher's sites.
  - manaskarekar 14y ago
    "I know it may be 'more right'...but if some random 'tech famous person' were writing this post, which links would they use? More likely than not, they would use Amazon's links." I don't think Bill Gates needs the referral link revenue from Amazon ;)
    - marcamillion 14y ago
      I wasn't alluding to affiliate revenue. Rather just an easier experience for users.
  - officemonkey 14y ago
    I also doubt that Gates worries about finding links for his blog. He probably has microserfs to do that for him.
pilgrim689 14y ago
Makes sense to me. Link to the source when you can. "Give credit where it's due" and all that. People can go to Amazon or other distributors on their own if they so wish.

metatation 14y ago

Surprising to me is that Amazon is charging more for the Kindle version than the hard cover of "Awakening Joy" ($19.34 vs $17.16): http://www.amazon.com/Awakening-Joy-Steps-That-Happiness/dp/055380703X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347758067&sr=8-1&keywords=Awakening+joy http://www.amazon.com/Awakening-Joy-Steps-That-Happiness/dp/...

corkeh 14y ago
Weird, it's showing up as $15.99 for me.
- metatation 14y ago
  Seems like there a general trend toward lower pricing transparency in online retail. Airlines have been doing this for years...sucks that it's spreading everywhere.
cmwright 14y ago
I find this happening more and more often, quite often I'll have to pay as much as a $5 premium for the digital version.
jakeonthemove 14y ago
It's pretty interesting: this was bound to happen since digital copies are no longer the cheap variant that costs nothing to reproduce, but are becoming the more convenient version for which people pay a premium....
ojbyrne 14y ago
Also seeing $15.99 for the Kindle version.
brown9-2 14y ago
I believe Amazon sets the price for the hardcover, whereas the Kindle version says "this price was set by the publisher".
elteto 14y ago
Yep, Amazon lost the battle with the publishers to price ebooks their way, hence the illogical prices. I own a kindle but I am not purchasing as many books as before. I have found that $5 is sort of a magic number for me, any more than that and I will just skip it, any less and I'll seriously consider buying it if I am interested. Since I do know, more or less, what is going on behind the scenes with the digital distribution model, there is no way I am spending more than that on a digital book, and with DRM added on top.

at-fates-hands 14y ago

The academically adrift book was quite interesting, although I disagree with the conclusion. For the most part, I find the first two years of college are really more about filtering out those who are there to party and those who are there to learn and get a degree. If the same results were achieved on third or fourth year students (assuming most students are in for 5 years these days), then I would be concerned.

BadassFractal 14y ago

Any thoughts on that Moonwalking With Einstein book? I'd love to improve information retention in my day to day life, especially in software. I'm not so much interested in remembering the to-do list as retaining broader concepts for long periods of time. I'm lucky enough to get to learn a ton of things every day, but my long term retention of them is terrible unless I spend considerable time applying these ideas in practice, which is often not practically possible. This leads to a lot of wasted time, it's as if I never even read the darn thing. Often, and this is the sad part, I won't even bother reading something because I know I'll forget it almost immediately, unless I have a block of time available to dedicate to trying it out in practice. For example, I'm really fond of the underpinnings of programming language design and compilers, and it's thousands over thousands of pages of information (most of it very interesting and useful to me), but I fail to retain the vast majority of the great info and need to continuously go back to the texts whenever I'm in doubt about something. There were a couple of valuable techniques recommended in Pragmatic Bookshelf's Pragmatic Thinking and Learning, such as "now pretend you have to teach this concept to your former self who knows nothing about this", which supposedly helps with retention and internalization into the brain's "web of known facts". Is there anything like that in the book? Would it be of any help?

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
DRA40399 14y ago
Yes it's a good book and the principles of memory and how the brain remembers are useful in context of both to do lists and long term memory. You just have to practice them
dsrguru 14y ago
Yeah, the book starts by stating that everyone can have a photographic-like memory if they practice the right techniques, goes on to explain the history of the art of memory, and then intersperses detailed descriptions of the techniques with a fascinating autobiography. It's probably not the best tutorial, but it's a great starting point and also a really fun and fast read. At the very least, I can guarantee it will greatly change the way you look at what the human brain is capable of.

gbog 14y ago

I find it very disturbing and revealing that such a high level and respected guy did read no real book, I mean real books that will be read in 50 years, literature or philosophy, or classics like Seneque, Proust, Montaigne, Austeen. It maybe he read them all already? Probably not, because if you read Austeen you probably can't spend all your holidays reading self motivation books.

elteto 14y ago
> ...read no real book... Your post just lost all credibility from that point on. What are "real" books? Can you define it? I'm pretty sure you can't, because there is no thing such as "real" books. Do they have to be pre-1900? Do they have to be written in dense prose or the author from the Victorian era? I just finished reading Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman for the second time and in all honesty is one of the most simply written books I have ever read, and yet is deep, thoughtful, fun and I can probably say is more enjoyable than some of those you call classics. Where do we draw the line?
- dkersten 14y ago
  Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman I love this book! Its entertaining, interesting and inspiring.
  - elteto 14y ago
    I am a big time Feynman fan, sure we've had our share of great thinkers and awe inspiring intellects, but Feynman is just the perfect combination of that and a likable character that remains human for the rest of us. Einstein was also like that in many ways but he was the child of another time and while he was always humane and simple, Feynman was much more likable, full of funny and witty anecdotes that connect with people. Also if you have not seen Feynman lecturing on Physics then you haven't seen a great educator, see [1] and [2], just plain wonderful. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3pYRn5j7oI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3pYRn5j7oI [2] http://research.microsoft.com/apps/tools/tuva/ http://research.microsoft.com/apps/tools/tuva/
- 14y ago

chrismealy 14y ago

Is there a HN filter to weed out "rich man has opinions" type stories?

irahul 14y ago
> Is there a HN filter to weed out "rich man has opinions" type stories? Yes. The title says "rich man has opinions". Don't click the link, don't read the comments and don't post comments about how you didn't want to see this.
praptak 14y ago
The closest "filter" I know of is: whenever you dislike the frontpage contents, go upvote something better.

ahquresh 14y ago

I find it amazing that Bill Gates seems to still have the time and passion to read books that will help him grow as an individual with everything that he probably has going on in his life and everything he has accomplished. Over the past couple of years, I have personally have had a hard time keeping up with reading habits due to school and job demands. I still read, but look to reading as a relaxing activity as in picking up Game of Thrones for an hour when I have it. I guess that's what makes Bill Gates who he is.

conradev 14y ago
I would think that Bill Gates would have more free time than one who is burdened with school and work. I, too, don't get as much reading in as I would like.
jlarocco 14y ago
What? He's a retired multi-billionaire. If he doesn't have all the time he wants to read whatever he wants, then he's doing something very, very wrong.
brc 14y ago
I would assume that, given the long history of Bill Gates being intimately involved in many aspects of Microsoft, that he has a particular talent for taking written material and absorbing it at a very fast rate (look for Joel Spolsky's story about Date functions in Excel). That's the sort of skill which never diminishes. I bet Bill G can absorb a relatively short book at a very fast speed, especially if he's on vacation with large blocks of reading time available.

jacques_chester 14y ago

I'm finding that writing reviews, even very surface-level reviews, of books I am reading is helping me to derive a lot more value from them. Firstly, while reading, I find myself reflecting more on the book. After all -- I will be writing a review, I need to be an active participant. Secondly, I find that books will often spark some thinking on a topic and the review will essentially morph into an essay. I wrote a 3000-word review of one book[1] that diverged into fuzzy logic, theories of jurisprudence and a few other areas in order to properly explain my reaction. Right now I'm writing a review of Waltzing with Bears that will diverge into financial accounting and a pet theory of mine about how tools create paradigms that shape entire bodies of knowledge. Third, books can often be connected to one another. I find that my reviews tend to link to each other. Not because I am trying to drive internal link traffic (I'm basically a nobody in internet terms, it's not worth the bother). But book A will have tangentially touched on the topic of book B; or perhaps book C illuminates something only poorly discussed in book D. To the point where I refer to books from before I started reviewing with an "unreviewed" annotation. Finally, some people find my reviews useful. My hobby is Olympic-style weightlifting and I do a lot of reading both on it directly and on allied subjects (eg, anatomy). Fellow strength nerds have found my reviews useful in helping them select books for their own libraries. It's nice when people give you positive feedback on something like that. [1] http://chester.id.au/2012/04/09/review-drift-into-failure/ http://chester.id.au/2012/04/09/review-drift-into-failure/

additive 14y ago

It's amusing to see Bill Gates upset about college students not learning much and many not finishing. He's a billionaire. But he's also a dropout. And now he's reading self-help books. I'd like to see Bill Gates go back to school and earn a degree or two. Is that a bad thing to do? Why? He obviously has the time and money. But how dare I even suggest the idea? Who am I compared to Bill Gates? A mere plebian. So why would I suggest it? Beause it would be a great example to set. In my opinion. Not sure if he is a believer in setting examples and the tendency of young people to emulate "role models". Like, e.g., billionaire dropouts.

tayl0r 14y ago
That would also be a good way for him to see what college is really like, since he is so intent on fixing it. (I'm a dropout too)

fts89 14y ago

On Kindle Store: A Nation of Wusses: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007OWRBEK/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&tag=asdfdsa-20&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B007OWRBEK&linkCode=as2 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007OWRBEK/ref=as_li_ss_tl?... Moonwalking with Einstein: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004H4XI5O/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&tag=asdfdsa-20&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B004H4XI5O&linkCode=as2 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004H4XI5O/ref=as_li_ss_tl?... The Art of being Unreasonable: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007WLU96A/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&tag=asdfdsa-20&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B007WLU96A&linkCode=as2 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007WLU96A/ref=as_li_ss_tl?... Academically Adrift: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004LE9ILS/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&tag=asdfdsa-20&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B004LE9ILS&linkCode=as2 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004LE9ILS/ref=as_li_ss_tl?... Awakening Joy: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0030DHPDO/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&tag=asdfdsa-20&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0030DHPDO&linkCode=as2 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0030DHPDO/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...

sproketboy 14y ago

The Road Ahead first edition? You know the one where you forgot to mention the world wide web and had to recall it?