kashyapc

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by kashyapc 5y ago
"Too many books" was apparently a problem already 2000 years ago; here's Seneca advising his friend against it, in his letter-2: [quote] Be careful, though, about your reading in many authors and every type of book. It may b
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by kashyapc 5y ago
Richard Dawkins once used the word " humane -ist" (and humane -ism) to be considerate of other species. Though I like the idea, the word feels a bit "stretched"; I don't know why. (Maybe it's the humanist in
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by kashyapc 5y ago
I'll quote this response[1] from the other day's thread: "Imagine a world where all or most of our interactions are in the digital realm. When you wake up in this place you are naked, cannot show anyone anything about yourse
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by kashyapc 5y ago
Yeah; I've had this "send us a letter via snail mail to cancel" recently. Saying "it's unreal" doesn't capture the absurdity.
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by kashyapc 5y ago
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. [...] Please don't post shallow dismissals." https://news.ycombinator.com/new
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by kashyapc 5y ago
? I took the time to write constructive recommendations of people who have spent decades thinking about the said topics. Most of these books have stood the test of time. Your comment and comparison doesn't make sense. If you do your re
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by kashyapc 5y ago
For what it's worth, one of the QEMU (the open source emulator and virtualizer) maintainers, Paolo Bonzini, recently gave a talk about this topic. Here's an extended summary of that on LWN: "A QEMU case study in grappling wit
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by kashyapc 5y ago
Oops, I repeated the first URL twice. I meant to link to the following one for the Stoicism guide/deep-dive: [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22990579
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by kashyapc 5y ago
Your rant is spot on. Unfortunately, a lot of people (even the "sophisticated" ones) are falling for the tactics of these dodgy fellows. I just hope people make a little bit more time when picking books to separate the wheat from
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by kashyapc 5y ago
(Excuse the length; formatted it for readability.) Your guesses are all good (and by "classics" I meant the works of Seneca, Cicero et al). You'll also find many gems in the bibliography section of any book with real substan
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by kashyapc 5y ago
I have seen that retraction comment when it came out, and I've quoted it myself here several times over the years. That said, you are being overly harsh. "Bottom of the list"? Give him a break. I'm no Kahneman "def
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by kashyapc 5y ago
See this recent article that was discussed here: https://replicationindex.com/category/kahneman/
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by kashyapc 5y ago
I forgot to add the caveat -- I don't mean to say just gobble up whatever the said researchers wrote. Read them with a healthy dose of skepticism. Especially all the psychology and "behavioural economics" books. Yes, some of
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by kashyapc 5y ago
I hope more people will see what you're saying. Newport (the "author" of the above fluff piece) himself is no slouch either. He implements the same Ferris modus operandi you describe. As I noted it more than two years ago he
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by kashyapc 5y ago
Not a bookshop, but I found the design of Stockholm's public library to be excellent too[1]. It was designed by the Swedish architect, Gunnar Asplund. The same gentleman was also one of the architects of the stunning woodland cemetery
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by kashyapc 5y ago
I see some comments to the effect of "so much for going back to normal". But only those who have actually been to FOSDEM will grok why they chose to go online for 2022. It's jam-packed in the best of times, and many contract
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by kashyapc 5y ago
Not at all astonishing. :-) Modern cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) originates[1] from the 2000-year-old work of Epictetus. Cicero memorably called philosophy as "the medicine of the mind". Going back to Socrates and Epictetus
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by kashyapc 5y ago
Yikes ... I didn't even consider the "devices == gadgets" angle when I was writing it (I'm old enough to have lived a decent portion of my life without any gadgets and gongs). I'll be charitable and hope that a se
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by kashyapc 5y ago
One of my favorite quotes from his book, Flow : "The ultimate test for the ability to control the quality of experience is what a person does in solitude, with no external demands to give structure to attention. It is relatively easy
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by kashyapc 5y ago
A hot-tip: if you live in a town/city with a university, it can be highly worthwhile to subscribe to the faculty library of a topic of your interest. These faculty libraries tend to have far more valuable references. I pay a paltry
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by kashyapc 5y ago
For the patient reader/listener, the mentioned book and podcast have several ideas to implement. Obviously, there are no shortcuts but methods that require discipline. As a quick example, one suggestion is to not reward yourself everyt
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by kashyapc 5y ago
On understanding dopamine, FWIW, I recommend two excellent resources: one is Robert Sapolsky's 720-page tome, Behave —he gives a robust intro to dopamine in the second chapter, "One Second Before", and expands on it further
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by kashyapc 5y ago
Along with the other good responses in this thread from bonzini and others, you might want to also check out this[1] response. It talks about useful command-line tools for KVM- and QEMU-based virt. [1] https://news.ycombinator
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by kashyapc 5y ago
On Stoicism: I suggest to avoid poor remixes (e.g. Ryan Holiday) and pop-Stoicim videos like the plague and seriously engage with the originals for at least two years (yes). See my other comment here[1] for suggestions on robust English tra
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by kashyapc 5y ago
Unless you absolutely cannot afford to, I firmly suggest to invest in a solid English translation. A bad translation is a deal breaker. For Seneca's works, I recommend these: → 'Letters on Ethics' (University of Chicago P
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by kashyapc 5y ago
The article mentions Epictetus (incorrectly as "Roman"; he's actually Greek). While he's fantastic[1] on his own, I think Seneca (the Roman Stoic) writes more beautifully about pleasure and virtue—particularly in his es
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by kashyapc 5y ago
Well, if Kuhn cited Polanyi "pretty extensively" this wouldn't happen; citing from the Wikipedia (I know; there's a reference) entry: "Supporters of Polanyi charged Kuhn with plagiarism, as it was known that Kuhn a
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by kashyapc 5y ago
I only very recently learnt that some of the main ideas that are attributed to Thomas Kuhn have their origins in the works of Michael Polanyi[1]. "... Although they used different terminologies, both Kuhn and Michael Polanyi believed
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by kashyapc 5y ago
Reeve is a long-time Plato scholar; do check out his edition. I also consulted in parallel the Allan Bloom translation[1], which is more literal and aimed at the "serious student", as he puts it. It also comes with a long (and con
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by kashyapc 5y ago
> Walking through my school library many years ago, I walked past a copy of Plato’s Republic, walked back, picked it up, and started reading. If you've never read Plato before, I'd suggest not to start with the Republic —

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