[HN Gopher] Books I loved reading this year ___________________________________________________________________ Books I loved reading this year Author : Tomte Score : 170 points Date : 2021-11-22 18:18 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.gatesnotes.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.gatesnotes.com) | joconde wrote: | So I was excited about Project Hail Mary and went to the | Wikipedia page [1]. | | Can someone who has read the book tell me if the current intro is | a spoiler, or something we learn in the book's first third? ("He | gradually remembers that...") | | I know Wikipedia doesn't put spoiler tags, but they are usually | confined to the "Plot" section. | | [1] | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Project_Hail_Mary... | tjader wrote: | That is revealed in the first third of the book. I would prefer | not having that info before reading, but it is part of the | basic premise. | joconde wrote: | Okay thanks. That's on me for being too impatient I guess. | gwbas1c wrote: | It's not a major spoiler. | | He remembers that within the first few chapters, well before | you're a third into the book. | joconde wrote: | Thank you! | mikepurvis wrote: | I loved PHM and was particularly relieved that it was great | after the letdown that Artemis was. It's definitely a much more | fanciful story than The Martian (you know what I mean if you've | read it), but I think it's a good balance of still being | totally believable and plausible. | bluesquared wrote: | Yes, very slight spoilers but probably not much more than you'd | deduce from reading the jacket of the book. Certainly something | that you find out from the first few chapters. Basic | progression without too much spoilers is main character wakes | up and deduces that: | | 1. He is not on earth 2. He is on a spaceship 3. He is not in | our solar system 4. He is there for a reason | PaulDavisThe1st wrote: | I've mislaid my copy of Bill's "How I put a computer on every | desk while totally fucking up everyone's idea of what software | is, how it could be developed and how it might be used". To be | honest, it was a riveting read but I don't really want to get | into the sequel "How I became a nice guy and everyone forgot | about the terrible things I did in business". | azinman2 wrote: | Would you rather Gates just takes his billions and spend it on | private planes and yachts, retreated away from the world? | | I'm glad he's taking his acumen and treasure to things that are | intended to positively benefit the entire world, personally. | There's a lot of great things he can still achieve in this | lifetime regardless of his past. Computing has largely moved on | from his Microsoft days and it's control of the world and | business. | nnoitra wrote: | Right as if "helping the world" is not self-serving | PaulDavisThe1st wrote: | Oh, he's a great guy now (mostly). I fully applaud 99% of | everything he's tried do with the Gates Foundation. | | But what he did to the future of computing lingers on, and | will do so for another decade or threee. | cinntaile wrote: | What did he do to the future of computing? | PaulDavisThe1st wrote: | He created the public understanding that "software" means | ready-to-run executables. He created the public | understanding that "software" is non-repairable, non- | modifiable and created (only) by wizards in corporations. | He created the public understanding that software had to | cost money, and specifically per-copy, per-platform, per- | user licensing terms. | | None of these things were accepted before Gates et al. | create Microsoft. Sure, there were versions of them | floating around, but they were still competing with | alternative visions of how computing was going to work, | and there was at least an equal chance that the more | anarchic vision of things that ultimately gave rise to | GNU and libre software would have won out. | | Gates' letter to "hobbyists" stands out as a turning | point in the history of software, and because its author | ended up with an enormously powerful corporation behind | him, his views of how this stuff should work became the | dominant one. | etc-hosts wrote: | Instead of paying more taxes, he has spent billions on | privatizing schools. | | He has worked harder and accomplished more than anyone | reading this, all of us work in a world shaped by his will. | | I was still very disappointed to learn that at some level | he's just another out of touch billionaire. | | His excuse for hanging out with Epstein is he was seeking | more access to philanthropic organizations. That's | hilarious. | hellbannedguy wrote: | You realized his 501c3 gives back less than 1% back to the | country that birthed, and coddled him. | | As to his contribution to computing--I have no idea other | than an added cost (practically a tax) on every PC I | bought. | greedo wrote: | Wait, MS no longer controls computing in the business world? | Show me a Fortune 1000 company that doesn't use MS | extensively. | davemp wrote: | Google? | hyperbovine wrote: | I'd hazard a guess there are thousands of machines | running Windows to be found somewhere within Google--they | write plenty of software for that platform after all, and | most on the sales/biz side are going to be trained on it | too. Plus a lot of engineers using VSCode. MSFT also own | GitHub, and, well, https://github.com/google. Same goes | for pretty much all companies listed in the sibling | comments as well. | onedognight wrote: | Apple? :) | itisit wrote: | AWS? | [deleted] | KineticLensman wrote: | I'd second Hamnet, which is a really fascinating take on | Shakespeare's early life and relationship with his wife and son. | I liked Project Hail Mary too, but Hamnet has more compelling | characterisation and believable world-building. | newaccount2021 wrote: | Airport bookstore Books I loved reading this year | gwbas1c wrote: | I partially liked Hail Mary. Most of the book was good, but I | found Eva's character too hard to suspend my disbelief. | | IMO, I found her character "lazy" on Weir's part. I wish he tried | a little harder to make her easier to believe as a real person. | 0xFACEFEED wrote: | Agree, but Weir isn't very good at writing women. I'm glad that | he kept her character relatively simple and as a sort of driver | for the narrative. Had he attempted adding more depth she'd end | up in a cringey love triangle or something. | TedDoesntTalk wrote: | > Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir | | No. Just no. It is hard science fiction, but there is no | character development. I had no empathy for the main character | and did not care about him or his fate. Also he is unusually | prude, which he blames on being a school teacher, but even his | inner dialogue consists of "HOLY COW!" when surprised. I mean, | really?? | twinkletwinkle_ wrote: | I think that's just Andy Weir at this point. I enjoyed The | Martian, but Artemis was horrible. Characters were | indistinguishable from one another, they were all just Andy | trying to emulate the success of the cocky sarcastic hero from | The Martian. After reading that I don't think I need to read | any more of his work. | mdturnerphys wrote: | With _The Martian_ , a later "classroom edition" was published | with the profanity removed. Maybe he just wanted to avoid | making a second edition this time. | TedDoesntTalk wrote: | Interesting, I did not know about that. Thanks. | localhost wrote: | I was disappointed by A Thousand Brains. The last part of the | book veered into ... I don't really know. On the other hand, I | loved Jeff Hawkins' earlier book on this topic: On Intelligence | [1]. It's easily one of the top 5 books that I've read and the | first part of A Thousand Brains recaps much of that work, so | still relevant today according to the author. | | [1] https://numenta.com/resources/on-intelligence/ | criddell wrote: | How well regarded is the Numenta software regarded in the AI | community? | BoiledCabbage wrote: | It seemed like the ideas from On Intelligence were ahead of | their time. I'm surprised it never seemed to pan out into | anything industry leading (at least as far as I can tell). | | Did it just not get enough eyes and resources? Was it a | flawed premise? I'd be curious to know more. | GeorgeTirebiter wrote: | To me, top level, this seemed like a re-discovery of | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Mind but with more | detail as to how the actual neocortex works. | | I think the most important part of 'kilobrain' was the clear | description of a single Functional Unit, that appears to be | replicated throughout the neocortex and, ultimately, performs | all functions we consider 'higher'. This, in a way, reduces | Applied Intelligence to building an actual 'Function Unit' in | something other than meatware (e.g. CMOS); and having high- | bandwidth ways to hook FU's together to build (at first) sub- | parts of the brain (e.g. maybe the auditory system). This would | be an "MVP" type proof-of-concept that 'should' allow | construction of a Full Brain. Now, exactly how such h/w would | be 'programmed' (or trained) to perform said function -- that, | I don't understand yet. | TickCount wrote: | Is Bill Gates still programming nowadays? He seems to have | completely abandoned it. Which seems a little sad, because if he | really liked doing it you'd expect him to at least work on a | utility app or something in his spare time. | rococode wrote: | He said in a fairly recent AMA: | | > My code no longer goes into shipping products so I am rusty. | I do like to try the new tools to understand how they help. I | just did a review of the low-code tools where there is a lot of | great innovation. | | https://old.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/m8n4vt/im_bill_gates_... | Uhhrrr wrote: | I read Hawkins's "On Intelligence" a few years ago and enjoyed | it. For anyone here who's read both that and "New Theory of | Intelligence", what's the relation between the two? | Minor49er wrote: | I also read "On Intelligence", though quite some time ago. It | was much better than the various Ray Kurzweil books that I had | read around the same time. "A New Theory of Intelligence" is on | my reading list. | | If you're interested in the biological aspects of the human | brain, I would suggest "I Am a Strange Loop" by Douglas | Hofstadter, which explores a concept of where consciousness | comes from, or "The Man who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" by | Oliver Sacks. | briga wrote: | Basically it's his updated thoughts along with some new | research his company has done on cortical columns being the | basis for human intelligence. It's a good read but perhaps a | bit over-ambitious in trying to propose a unified theory of | cognition. | dunefox wrote: | I'm reading Dune and I just bought a couple of neuroscience and | math books. Maybe I'll even have time to read them! | chestertn wrote: | > The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future | of the Human Race, by Walter Isaacson. | | The Nobel prize should have gone to Francis Mojica. Of course, he | does not have all the PR machine that Doudna has, the futuristic | TED talks and all. | CrazyStat wrote: | Why? | | Mojica did important work on CRISPR, yes, but Doudna and | Charpentier were the ones who showed how to use it as a DNA | editing tool, without which very few people would care about | it. | chestertn wrote: | He did not just "do important work". He discovered and | described the CRISPR mechanism. Without CRISPR, there is no | CRISPR-cas9. | | > showed how to use it as a DNA editing tool | | Don't we care about basic research anymore? | sjostrom7 wrote: | The book is great at emphasizing and re-emphasizing the | incremental nature of the journey, all the competition and | co-discovery and the tiny steps building on each other's | work that led up to Doudna and Charpentier's breakthroughs. | Including the researchers that concurrently discovered | CRISPR. Despite centering around Doudna's life and career, | it very firmly gives credit where credit is due. | CrazyStat wrote: | A general-purpose DNA editing tool is still basic research | by most standards. | | The Nobel Prizes are awarded for conferring the greatest | benefit to humankind. Showing how to use CRISPR as a genome | editing tool (Doudna and Charpentier) confers much more | benefit to humankind than "just" characterizing CRISPR | (Mojica). I don't mean to trivialize Mojica's work, but at | the end of the day if not for the later work of Doudna and | Charpentier, Mojica's work on CRISPR would be unknown and | irrelevant to 99.9999% of the world population. | LadyinMT wrote: | I'm reading a novel with my PIM (partner in mischief) titled The | Mandibles, by Lionel Shriver. I was thinking that the novel may | have been written recently because so much of it reminds me of | our current economic & political situation, but I was very | surprised to learn it was originally written in 2016! It's eerie | how much the author has gotten right! | rememberlenny wrote: | _- List for the lazy -_ | | A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence, by Jeff Hawkins. | | The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future | of the Human Race, by Walter Isaacson. | | Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro. | | Hamnet, by Maggie O'Farrell. | | Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir. | adamgordonbell wrote: | Project Hail Mary was so good. I loved The Martian but Artemis | not as much. By that measure Project Hail Mary was a return to | form. | | It was just a fun, breezy read that hit the problem solving | part of my brain in just the right way, but with a different | angle on things than "The Martian". | Baeocystin wrote: | I liked a lot of the ideas in PHM. I found the protagonist | insufferable throughout, though. Perhaps Weir was going for a | more flawed character after Watney? (Never read Artemis, so I | can't comment there.) | | I still think it's a good book, and well worth the read. But | man did that character grate on my nerves. | evgen wrote: | I either listened to or read an interview with Andy Weir | where he said that he was aiming for just such a flawed | protagonist in PHM. I think he felt the Watney character | was criticized for being the fantasy self-projection of a | certain variety of nerd/geek (a variety that is over- | represented on HN) and so he decided to try to make a hero | who was not as likable, brave, or self-sacrificing as | people like to think they are. | CodeGlitch wrote: | Rocky was an amazing character though. | mritchie712 wrote: | Yes, I think he was going for someone less likable. Watney | was almost too likable. | talor_a wrote: | artemis was disappointing, Weir seems like he has no idea how | to write a female protagonist. this was my introduction to | his work, seeing that others feel the same way makes me think | it was probably just the wrong pick and I should try his | other books. | oh_sigh wrote: | What does Weir not understand about a female protagonist? | It's not possible that the female protagonist just doesn't | fit _your_ mold of what you believe a female protagonist | should be? | 0xFACEFEED wrote: | Project Hail Mary is worth a read. Totally different vibe. | | It felt like he was trying to do something very different | with Artemis and failed. I rarely have to put a book down | but I just couldn't finish Artemis. The whole scene with | the "strong" cop holding her down had my eyes rolling so | hard they almost got stuck. | fernandotakai wrote: | project hail mary's audiobook is the best audiobook i've ever | listened to. it's.... incredible. they adapted parts of the | book that were kind of hard to "get" perfectly (and for | people that read it, i think you know what i mean). | | i totally recommend it. | metanonsense wrote: | It absolutely is the best. Ray Porter's way of narration | opened a new, almost visual, dimension. Maybe it's this | very intimate ,,inner speech" style, but to me this was a | truly novel experience. | pchristensen wrote: | I listened to Audible, and that made me wonder how | effective it would be in the book, or how it would be | written in the book at all. | | +1 for Audible. | cridenour wrote: | Yea when they added that element I first assumed my Airpods | were dying or Audible was broke. Really loved it in the | end. | zwieback wrote: | We're reading this one for my at-work bookclub, looking | forward to it. We did the Martian back when and people | enjoyed it. Although easy reading it has enough depth to | spark a good discussion. | Arainach wrote: | It's an interesting choice for a book club. Due to the way | the narrative progresses (you start with an amnesiac | protagonist and gradually reveal backstory via memories) | discussions could get tricky/problematic if anyone is | reading ahead faster than the rest. Obviously all books | have some risk of that but PHM is more challenging than | most in my opinion. | zwieback wrote: | Our book club finishes the whole book before we have the | discussion. You're right, an as-you-go approach would be | much more challenging. | reggieband wrote: | I was going through goodreads yesterday and came across my | review of The Martian there. I gave it 5 stars because I use | what I understand is the Roger Ebert style of rating. The | Martian is imperfect, pulpy and at times a bit over | sentimental. But it succeeds at exactly what it sets out to | achieve. It isn't Dostoevsky or Proust but it isn't trying to | be. It made me laugh, kept me engaged and turning pages. It | made me think, this situation is impossible but if it was | possible then this is about as realistic as I could expect a | novel to portray. In exchange for suspending my disbelief it | gave me an enjoyable diversion. | | All that to say, if Project Hail Mary is equivalent to that, | it is going on my to read list. | pchristensen wrote: | It is, very much so. | greeneggs wrote: | Doudna has her own memoir, "A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing | and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution." Why would you | read Isaacson's third-person account, when you can get the | information from the scientist herself? | | Well, I read both books, and Isaacson's is much better. In | fact, Doudna's book was largely written by her coauthor, her | then-graduate student Sam Sternberg, based on long interviews. | This is the same process Isaacson used. But, in my opinion, | Isaacson does it better, incorporating more of Doudna's | personal anecdotes with similar levels of science. | | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30971755-a-crack-in-crea... | | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54968118-the-code-breake... | [deleted] | tfang17 wrote: | Surprised there's no marriage books on this list... | jjordan wrote: | I recently read Enough: True Measures of Money, Business, and | Life, by Jack Bogle, the founder of Vanguard. Written during the | 2008 recession, it's so much more than a business book. It | highlights in detail how the financial industry at large leeches | so much wealth for itself while creating so little, and offers | insights from someone truly introspective of life, business, | finance, and the future of the country. Highly recommend a | read/listen. | | https://amazon.com/John-C-Bogle/e/B001H6NWEM | elhudy wrote: | Check out The Price We Pay: What Broke American Health Care - | And How To Fix It, for a similar story and crisis facing the | healthcare industry right now. Written by a Johns Hopkins | professor and surgeon. | qwertyuiop_ wrote: | He should add this book Perversion-Justice-Jeffrey-Epstein-Story | to his collection and make this a "required reading". Because [0] | | https://www.amazon.com/Perversion-Justice-Jeffrey-Epstein-St... | | [0] https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity- | life/inside-... | alphabettsy wrote: | The source is The Sun, equivalent to National Enquirer. | [deleted] | throwawaymanbot wrote: | No Epstein related ones eh? | rasulkireev wrote: | Good books. Surprised to see some fiction, didn't know Bill reads | that :) | melling wrote: | He's been doing his list for years and often has fiction: | | https://bookriot.com/bill-gates-book-recommendations/amp/ | 99_00 wrote: | I'm super impressed by the production level of his 5 books I | loved reading video. | joconde wrote: | Assign me a $140B net worth and I can do the same :) | tomgp wrote: | Doesn't that video seem odd though? I don't understand what's | going on here, it's just surreal. Like if I was a multi- | billionaire would I hire a film production crew including a | bunch of extras and Christmas themed set to tell the world | about 5 (already high profile and best selling) books? Is | this just marketing for Bill? To what end? I guess everyone | has to have a hobby. | etc-hosts wrote: | Yes this is just marketing for Bill. | notatoad wrote: | things just grow on their own sometimes, especially if | you're successful enough. | | it's perfectly reasonable for a multi-billionaire to want | to write a blog to publish his thoughts on various things. | the existence of "the gates notes" is pretty normal. and | when you're rich, you hire somebody to run the website for | you. web design and marketing are pretty interlinked, so | the guys running the blog do some promo, and generally run | it the same way they would run any other content site. | which includes making some video content targeting the most | widely-viewed types of posts. | melling wrote: | We need the HN 2021 list. | | Fiction and non-fiction: | cinntaile wrote: | There used to be monthly(?) threads, but I guess that got shut | down because it doesn't really lead to interesting discussions? | 0xFACEFEED wrote: | Aw, that's a bummer. I'd definitely participate. | PhileinSophia wrote: | _Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology._ | | Incredible work for those interested in "how we know" ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-11-22 23:00 UTC)