First off, thank you for taking the time to reply to my message. I understand that not many people are helpful, even on LW, so I appreciate what you are doing.
Thank you for your suggestions.
I don’t think the classics are helpful for me because I cannot afford to take the time to understand them right now.
I read most of the Sequences. I planned to convert them to Anki cards but am unable to summarize most concepts. So I have given up on that.
I try to keep a buffer of Anki cards to learn always and a book from which I read and. Convert to Anki cards.
I read a lot, but I am restricted to reading relatively straightforward books—things you don’t have to think about to understand. This is because I aim to spend the majority of my time studying to get into college.
So I have been searching for books that fit my rather idiosyncratic criteria -
Reading it will contribute to improving my life. Eg − 48 Laws of power, that Social Psychology textbook lukeprog recommended in his epic dating post.
The book must give straightforward advice, suggestions, or facts. Some textbooks are better than others in this sense. Popular psychology books also work, but I find many don’t pass the 3rd criteria.
Has to have a minimum of 3.9 rating on Good reads and the top review should show the book isn’t all hype (Economics in One Lesson, for example. I am not reading it because I haven’t found a good intro to economics and the top review of this book points out a hell lot of supposed problems (I don’t get what the review said).)
It takes me an hour or two to find books worth reading.
Let me tell you of my recent reads to give you an idea.
George Ainslie—Breakdown of Will. Bloody brilliant. I cured most of my Akrasia that has almost destroyed my life (I am taking a gap year to study now.) Using personal rules. I didn’t Anki amythinh, because I reread the damn book enough times.
Nick Soares—That epub currently being linked in the discussion section. Now bad, but his blog posts on motivation seem more useful. But the first essay in this epub was Anki worthy.
Algorithms to Live By—Amazing book, but hard to Anki. I will spend more time reading it though. It is worth it.
Cormen—Algorithms Unlocked. I aim to get into the CS field in college. So this is sort of an intro, a preliminary reading or whatever. It should be fun.
I also am trying to read Epictetus and rereading Marcus Aurelius. When I get around to it.
Thanks for the resource of LW link. Awesome rabbit hole to fall into.
You don’t really need to reply with recs actually. You have helped me.
I read a lot, but I am restricted to reading relatively straightforward books—things you don’t have to think about to understand.
No such thing. Reading is thinking. I’ll assume you mean that it doesn’t take too much effort, but effort is relative to your ability. Reading some enjoyable fiction to help you unwind would be a terrible chore for most kindergartners, for example. This is true even for your past self. What will your future self consider easy? That might depend on what kind of books you read.
Since you’re interested in CS and algorithms, and aren’t looking for anything too difficult, I recommend Petzold’s Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software. This is a pop book, not a textbook. I found it to be a pretty easy read, though there were small parts in the middle that you may gloss over. That’s fine. One of my better computer science classes in college was Computer Architecture. Code does an excellent job of covering most the same ground. You’ll feel like you could engineer a computer from scratch (if only you had a multimillion-dollar chip factory).
There are a number of other CS book I’d recommend, but they take more effort.
First off, thank you for taking the time to reply to my message. I understand that not many people are helpful, even on LW, so I appreciate what you are doing.
Thank you for your suggestions.
I don’t think the classics are helpful for me because I cannot afford to take the time to understand them right now.
I read most of the Sequences. I planned to convert them to Anki cards but am unable to summarize most concepts. So I have given up on that.
I try to keep a buffer of Anki cards to learn always and a book from which I read and. Convert to Anki cards.
I read a lot, but I am restricted to reading relatively straightforward books—things you don’t have to think about to understand. This is because I aim to spend the majority of my time studying to get into college.
So I have been searching for books that fit my rather idiosyncratic criteria -
Reading it will contribute to improving my life. Eg − 48 Laws of power, that Social Psychology textbook lukeprog recommended in his epic dating post.
The book must give straightforward advice, suggestions, or facts. Some textbooks are better than others in this sense. Popular psychology books also work, but I find many don’t pass the 3rd criteria.
Has to have a minimum of 3.9 rating on Good reads and the top review should show the book isn’t all hype (Economics in One Lesson, for example. I am not reading it because I haven’t found a good intro to economics and the top review of this book points out a hell lot of supposed problems (I don’t get what the review said).)
It takes me an hour or two to find books worth reading.
Let me tell you of my recent reads to give you an idea.
George Ainslie—Breakdown of Will. Bloody brilliant. I cured most of my Akrasia that has almost destroyed my life (I am taking a gap year to study now.) Using personal rules. I didn’t Anki amythinh, because I reread the damn book enough times.
Nick Soares—That epub currently being linked in the discussion section. Now bad, but his blog posts on motivation seem more useful. But the first essay in this epub was Anki worthy.
Algorithms to Live By—Amazing book, but hard to Anki. I will spend more time reading it though. It is worth it.
Cormen—Algorithms Unlocked. I aim to get into the CS field in college. So this is sort of an intro, a preliminary reading or whatever. It should be fun.
I also am trying to read Epictetus and rereading Marcus Aurelius. When I get around to it.
Thanks for the resource of LW link. Awesome rabbit hole to fall into.
You don’t really need to reply with recs actually. You have helped me.
But I would still enjoy reading your recs.
No such thing. Reading is thinking. I’ll assume you mean that it doesn’t take too much effort, but effort is relative to your ability. Reading some enjoyable fiction to help you unwind would be a terrible chore for most kindergartners, for example. This is true even for your past self. What will your future self consider easy? That might depend on what kind of books you read.
Since you’re interested in CS and algorithms, and aren’t looking for anything too difficult, I recommend Petzold’s Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software. This is a pop book, not a textbook. I found it to be a pretty easy read, though there were small parts in the middle that you may gloss over. That’s fine. One of my better computer science classes in college was Computer Architecture. Code does an excellent job of covering most the same ground. You’ll feel like you could engineer a computer from scratch (if only you had a multimillion-dollar chip factory).
There are a number of other CS book I’d recommend, but they take more effort.