Just Fucking Sell - <AUTHOR> http://learntoduck.com/startups/just-fucking-sell/ <comment><USER3> "Series A investors are now looking for real businesses with real potential."

When were they ever _not_ saying that? We can say that "this time" it's different, but I don't remember "series A investors" ever saying "well, we're just looking for some BS project to flip in 6 month - we don't care if you're actually going to make money or not, but we don't want to tell you that to your face".

So if they're weren't saying it years ago, and aren't saying it now, how else do you judge what they're looking for? Do you look for what they're investing in? color.com, anyone? Yes, that's a below-the-belt blow, but no moreso than comparing every new startup to facebook/google in terms of potential revenue/marketshare/eyeballs/etc.

Yes, "build something that people want and make revenue from it". Yes, we get it. That's sane business sense. But we don't see enough of those smaller success stories in the press. Billion dollar valuations of projects that haven't even opened yet suck most of the air out of the room, and everyone else who gets to ramen-profitable (or before) seems they need to get heard by stating (what should be and is the) obvious, but they're largely preaching to the choir here.

</comment><comment><USER4> _"You are either building, selling or leaving."_

I like pithy witticisms like this - reminds me of something business guru Peter Drucker said:

"Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two--and only two--basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs."

</comment><comment><USER5> In the vein of the OP, I'm not going to tread lightly:

This post smacks of the founder "culture" post that isn't focussed on business. He provides a lot of powerful-sounding admonitions, none of which equate to "build a product people want, and sell it". Sorry, but this seems far more The Social Network than that-company-that-made-something-cool-and- got-money-for-it.

<comment><USER6> _He provides a lot of powerful-sounding admonitions, none of which equate to "build a product people want, and sell it"._

From the post:

 _For a company to be successful there are literally only two functions the company has to perfect. Building and Selling. Thats it._

Did you actually read it?

<comment><USER7> I think he meant "all of which".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> No way- selling should be a primary focus?

If this comes as some kind of revelation to you, you need to take time off of whatever you do and learn about selling.

Go talk to a seasoned quota-carrying sales manager and show him your vanity metrics- he'll laugh at you and ask you how your pipeline looks and why haven't you closed XYZ Co. this week. Way too many founders are catering to investors vs. universal sustainable business practices these days. The vast majority will never, ever, ever raise beyond friends/family, you may as well cover your own ass with an executable sales strategy that can keep you in the game.

"Stop getting excited by the "maybes" and "lets have another meeting" responses you get to your product. IT MEANS YOUR PRODUCT SUCKS.Budgets, approvals, etc are all excuses as to why they don't want to buy, but don't want to say no.."

Unless you have a team of field sales guys getting these kinds of responses you could be making a colossal mistake.

Typically, a very small number of people are in the market, ready to buy what you are selling right away- especially with zero credibility in the marketplace or if you have a very new approach to solving their problems. If you're not taking those "no's" or "soft no's" and putting them into a nurturing or marketing funnel then you are missing future business for when they are ready to buy. This is the way of the B2B sales cycle hath been written by the B2B sales gods. Force feeding people your product at gun point and not taking no for an answer makes you look like a needy asshole that no one wants to buy from- now, or in the future.

FWIW I read a new book over the weekend on building sales teams and lead gen systems called Predictable Revenue by a guy that ran sales teams at Salesforce- very highly recommend.

P.S. Wish I had never heard the term grinfucking - creepy as hell...

</comment><comment><USER9> I see the motivation, but picking one proxy metric to understand your business by seems like an overreaction. Unless it's not a _proxy_ metric, that is; if you could predict discounted future profits, then "estimated present value of net future profits" would be a great metric (assuming those are _accurate_ estimates). But if it's really a proxy metric, all proxies are wrong in more or less interesting ways, so you might want several angles from which to view what's going on.

<comment><USER10> How about this as a metric: revenue. Or another: gross profit.

Yeah, picking one metric might be extreme. The point is to discard the bullshit ones.

<comment><USER11> It reminds me of the "good to great" book's focus on choosing a metric which represents your economic driver.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Well there's 60 seconds I'll never get back.

<comment><USER13> here: <http://youtu.be/9W63RzhO-J0> hope we are even now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I see so many consumer startups brag about vanity metrics. If you're a consumer startup doing something that's not mobile-focused, the # of unique visitors you're getting per month as viewed in Quantcast or Compete just tells the complete story. And even if you're mobile-focused too because Foursquare actually gets over a million uniques through their website. No excuses for you not to as well.

<comment><USER15> What if your startup sells something besides ad impressions?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> People grinfuck you when you waste their time.

The core point lost in the delivery is startups need to build and sell. We learn how to deliver. Few are taught how to sell. (& certainly not in any top 10 MBA curriculum!)

<comment><USER17> To your point about MBA curriculum not having a component on selling - <USER2> true.

Here are a few courses at Chicago Booth that are all about selling (for entrepreneurs):

Entrepreneurial Selling by Craig Wortmann Commercializing Innovation by Scott Meadow

And to a certain extent,

Building the New Venture by Waverly Deutsch and Craig Wortmann.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I have no idea what you are talking about.

</comment><comment><USER19> Definition of grinfucking from feld's blog:

"please don't grinfuck me by saying how wonderful the talk was as you think in the back of your mind 'wow – Feld is a real moron – he totally missed the point on the blah thing.'"

</comment><comment><USER20> Man, I agree. We should have a lot more talk about selling here on HN. It is much more relevant than politics. Isn't the essence of a business- and all startups are young business-- the mechanism that generates revenue? And isn't selling a primary method of it? Sales so often seems focused on selling the product that is your stock, not the product that is your business's purpose.

He talks about finding that feeling that your product gives.

I've heard this called: "Made, Laid or Paid". How does your product do one of those three?

I also heard that Sequoia wants a 7 deadly sins slide- how your product enables one or more of those seven deadly sins.

Also, I think that revenue is important. I think too many startups maybe get easy money or seek investment as their goal, and thus vanity metrics hold sway... when the better choice is revenue or ramen profitability. When your profitable, you no longer have that clock ticking, you're a lot harder to bend over the barrel and you can be a lot more selective about from whom and under what terms you take investment.

Everywhere else in life, being in that position means that people want to do business with you more than they do when you _need_ them.

I've spent too much time at too many startups where the CEO & CFO and usually one more key person were MIA for quarters, if not years at a time because they were always chasing money.</comment>


How I Learnt Git - <AUTHOR> http://feint.me/articles/how-i-learnt-git

<comment><USER2> tl;dr --- the guy read:

* RailsTutorial: <http://railstutorial.org/book/>

* Getting Good with Git: <http://rockablepress.com/books/getting-good-with-git/>

* ProGit: <http://progit.org/book>

These are online ebooks, of which the first and third have free access to the HTML. ProGit seems most useful.

Aside from these pointers, the blog post itself has very little technical content.

<comment><USER3> The article "Git from the bottom up" has also helped me understand git. [http://www.newartisans.com/2008/04/git-from-the-bottom- up.ht...](http://www.newartisans.com/2008/04/git-from-the-bottom-up.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wish "Git" weren't synonymous with "DVCS". I don't know if these articles mean I should switch to Git from bzr or if they mean I should use a DVCS, which I do.

For this article, it's the latter.

<comment><USER5> The first DVCS I used was darcs, because I wanted to contrib to a project using it. Next was hg, because it seemed very nice for my needs. Now I'm using git, for various reasons of my own. I don't think I'm all that different from others out there, in that I'd heard of DVCS and heard many of the options, then was prompted to try one so that I could mess with an open source project, then found which one I personally like. Git is only synonymous with DVCS to people who barely know about DVCS, because it's used for some high profile projects. If that success causes some manager to pick git over svn then the world is a slightly better place.

<comment><USER4> That is not the issue at all. Git's popularity is great, sure, but this is an issue of semantics. The things the author mentions are not specific to git, they're common to all DVCSes. People will pick git up because other people use it, not because the term DVCS has been annihilated.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are your favorite books or essays written at least 100 years ago? - <AUTHOR> For example, "On The Shortness of Life" by Seneca (c. 4 BC – AD 65) <comment><USER11> _The Count of Monte Cristo_ , hands down. Published 1844 by Alexandre Dumas, one of the greatest writers to have ever lived.

I'm an avid reader and I always laughed at the idea of having a "favorite" book.. until I found mine. I loved the book so much, I resolved to learn French (et je l'ai fait!) just so I could someday read it in the original French.

<comment><USER12> This is going to sound weird, but...

I remember your comment from four years ago (!) [0] and it really stuck with me. However, I could never find the thread, so when I saw this thread, I simply had to check if you wrote a comment again; and here we are! I recently began reading it and is really enjoying it. Thanks for the recommendation!

[0]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12245036](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12245036)

<comment><USER13> Ha ... not as weird as you might think, 'cos I also thought the same, unless there're a few others on this site dedicated enough to learn French to read this book ...

<comment><USER14> ha, I also began learning French because of Count. Maybe we should start a club.

Also, the only book I have found close/equal to Count of Monte Cristo is Les Miserables. The book is amazing, no idea about the musical. There are so many parts of the book (Waterloo) that just blow my mind. Also served as a motivation to learn French.

<comment><USER15> Curious about how you undertook learning French. What is the best way.

<comment><USER14> Not sure about the best way, there are definitely better ways to do it than my route. I used Duolingo for vocabulary and the Coffee Break French podcast along with reading and listening to as much material as I could find (french movies and shows, french wikipedia, french news sites)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Maxwell's book on electromagnetism, it shows his hindsight perspective on interpreting the phenomena. One can look at the papers and works he wrote that led up to it, but they are full of detours and unbalanced attention with small dead ends. When he writes his book he tries to convince the audience of his time in one comprehensive work.

What I love especially, is that he is very careful and systematic about his conclusions, splitting up in cases, instead of simply producing the solution and then proving it is _a_ valid solution.

For example he does not assume that every point in space has a single value for total potential. First he describes how it is at least theoretically conceivable to follow a path and observe the total potential to vary continuously, and arrive back at the point of departure but end up with a different value of the total potential. He is effectively describing the possibility of wormholes (which didn't bear the name "wormhole" yet back then), or "charge without charge" (think Wheeler). But after this part of the book he assumes that the total potential is singlevalued (not because he proved so, but because describing physics in spaces with complicated topologies is far from straightforward, even today).

<comment><USER17> Which book is this? I believe reading the original masters who came up with the discoveries is the way to understanding. It is said that when the Great Mathematician Gauss was asked as to how he made his discoveries, replied; "By studying the Masters and not their Students". There is something about the process of trial and error, testing various hypothesis', going down dead ends and then doubling back and finally lighting upon the answer which clarifies and provides intuitive understanding that can only be conveyed by the person who went through the experience i.e. The Discoverer himself. Everybody else is just parroting the end results without understanding (there are always a few exceptions of course).

<comment><USER18> I'm guessing this: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Treatise_on_Electricity_and_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Treatise_on_Electricity_and_Magnetism)

<comment><USER17> I am thinking this: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Dynamical_Theory_of_the_Elec...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Dynamical_Theory_of_the_Electromagnetic_Field) :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I really like books written by Jules Verne. Those books were really ahead of its time. He was a prolific and best Sci-fi writer. I would like to mention few of his works like 20,000 leagues under the sea, journey to the center of earth and Around the World in Eighty Days. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Verne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Verne)

<comment><USER20> When I was a child, I loved Jules Vernes' novels. My favorite were "L'île mystérieuse" et "Michel Strogoff". I've read them again after a few decades, and I enjoyed them both.

"L'île mystérieuse" is the survival adventure of a small and disparate group, but the main theme is how science can dominate nature. The mystery part is better enjoyed if the reader knows a bit of Jules Verne' other books.

"Michel Strogoff" is a pure and romantic adventure in Russia, at the time of the Tatar invasions. It was sometimes brutal for a child reader, but I could still remember many scenes thirty years later.

Other good novels are "Voyage au centre de la terre", "Vingt-mille lieues sous les mers", "Cinq semaines en ballon", "Le tour du monde en 80 jours", "Les indes noires". I've a few others which I enjoyed at a lesser point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I second the votes for War and Peace, Anna Karenina and Brothers Karamazov ... but I think I can add a unique (and very special to me) entry with:

Chesterfield's Letters to His Son:

"Begun in the 1737 and continued until the death of his son in 1768, Chesterfield wrote mostly instructive communications about geography, history, and classical literature, – with later letters focusing on politics and diplomacy – and the letters themselves were written in French, English, and Latin, in order to refine his son's grasp of the languages."[1]

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Stanhope,_4th_Earl_of_C...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Stanhope,_4th_Earl_of_Chesterfield#Letters_to_His_Son)

</comment><comment><USER22> Since many other people have mentioned ancient essays I like, I'll go for something more "modern". Some of Bertrand Russell's earlier works are well worth a read even though they're obviously dated.

* The Problems of Philosophy (1912) gives a short introduction to philosophy that he at the time considered "positive and constructive". [https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5827/5827-h/5827-h.htm](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5827/5827-h/5827-h.htm)

* Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays (1901 to 1915) is an anthology of his ideas that were still evolving even then. [https://www.gutenberg.org/files/25447/25447-h/25447-h.htm](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/25447/25447-h/25447-h.htm)

<comment><USER23> His History of Western Philosophy is really great, too.

<comment><USER24> That book has a large number of criticisms for its (in the opinions of the views it criticizes) misguided polemics; if it's worth reading, it's also worth reading its criticisms.

<comment><USER22> In philosophy this is the rule not the exception. And reading the sources is also valuable, as he himself pointed out. Especially now that we have the web so you don't even need to visit a well stocked library to see how accurately he represents a philosopher's writings (his views on those views not withstanding).

<comment><USER24> Sure, I agree, but there are different standards for books which claim to expose a history than there are for books which are replies and polemics to other points of view. A history book shouldn't be the place to argue a point of view, and if it is, it shouldn't be so blatant as to be sourced as one of the main places where Russell does make his polemics. I don't intend to get into a discussion about how everything written carries with it a point of view and bias, but with a book like that, you can come away with the impression you have an accurate picture of Western philosophy when really you've just got one philosopher's view, and from a book written by someone with such esteem as Russell you come out parroting objections to Hegelianism that were refuted sixty years ago. And for the record, I wouldn't recommend Hegel's _History of Philosophy_ lectures for the same reason.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Candide by Voltaire

It was the first book I read for school that made me laugh out loud and realize that some of these old boring books were actually pretty awesome (which is why people are still reading them centuries later)

<comment><USER26> Loved it when I read the first time. Still have the first copy I read, lent to some friends, and every now and then I browse it a bit. Really fun!

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Essays by Michel de Montaigne

Self Reliance by Emerson

Theory of Moral Sentiment by Adam Smith

A Treatise of Human Nature by Hume

And the memoir of my vote for the most interesting man who ever lived, Humphry Davy's Consolations in Travel

<comment><USER28> Second Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Both have been mentioned a bunch of times, but I also find that the _Tao Te Ching_ [0] and _The Prince_ [1] both pop into my head, in fragments, from time to time when I'm thinking about the modern world and the humans in it.

Also, if you're wondering where things like genome editing lead us, they lead us to _The Island of Dr. Moreau_ [2] (H.G. Wells, 1896).

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tao_Te_Ching](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tao_Te_Ching)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prince](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prince)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_of_Doctor_Moreau](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_of_Doctor_Moreau)

</comment><comment><USER30> Meditations, Marcus Aurelius => A lot of wisdom on how to lead and live

On The Shortness of Life, Seneca => An essay about how to handle life and how to see what is really important

On War, Clausewitz => An important essay about strategy and war, politics and management

The Prince, Machiavelli => A little bit cynical but quite realistic about the nature of power in the hands of humans

Thirty-Six Stratagems, multiple authors => A list of strategies that can be used in any situation, whether when winning or losing

<comment> blaser-waffle Clausewitz and Machiavelli... but no Sun Tzu?

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Some links from Project Gutenberg:

 _Essays, by Michel de Montaigne_

In English (Vol. 1), [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3581](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3581)

In French (Vol. 1), [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48529](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48529)

 _Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius_

English translation by George W. Chrystal, 1902 [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/55317](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/55317)

English translation by George Long, 1957 [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15877](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15877)

 _Les Misérables, by Victor Hugo_

In English (Full), [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/135](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/135)

In French (Vol. 1), [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17489](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17489)

 _20000 leagues under the sea, by Jules Vernes_

In English (slightly abridged), [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/164](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/164)

In French (with illustration), [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/54873](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/54873)

</comment><comment><USER32> It's been a long time since I was acquainted with Uncle Tom's Cabin. I remember clearly how the opening presented an idyllic scene that could have been written by a proponent of slavery, but things went quickly downhill precisely because the slaves were not free. I was struck by how this was a judo-like persuasion technique. I don't remember the rest of the book well, but my curiosity is piqued by controversy surrounding the book that I found trying to verify a quote. I wish I had time to pick it up again. [https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/2629860.0030.104/\--lincoln...](https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/2629860.0030.104/--lincoln- stowe-and-the-little-womangreat-war-story-the-making?rgn=main;view=fulltext)

</comment><comment><USER33> Thus Spoke Zarathustra - Nietzsche (esp. Walter Kaufmann preface edition). It's an energetic, angry, poetic, and often rambling tour de force on mankind overcoming its smallness. Halfway through you'll start wondering if Nietzsche is a genius or a lunatic, and the answer is Yes.

</comment><comment><USER34> On the Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin. It's pretty dense, dry, and can require a bit of a commitment, but there's some pretty interesting bits and pieces in there aside from just proposing evolution.

<comment><USER35> I would also highly recommend the sequel, the Descent of Man. That's where Darwin _actually_ discusses the evolution of humans, a topic he gingerly avoided in TOOS

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I've seen Meditations being mentioned a lot on this thread but for me, 'letters from a stoic' (or 'moral letters to lucillius' ) by Seneca has been more approachable than Meditations.

<comment><USER37> 'Letters from a Stoic' is indeed a masterpiece, and I've found that the Penguin Book's translation is fantastic. It made me feel like I was reading my own grandpa's letters with warm-hearted instructions on how to be a good person when I become a grown-up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Les Misérables. First read it when I was in elementary school. It was a beautiful, touching piece. Not only did it tell a story, but also it presented the whole cultural background upon which the story occurred. Every time I read the book, I learn something new. In elementary school, I was mostly moved by Jean Valjean's resilience, calmness, and competency. Later on, I started to appreciate the humanity shown in other characters as well. Then, I read into the culture. It was most interesting to compare this book to A Tale of Two Cities.

<comment><USER23> Notre-Dame de Paris is great too, and similarly deep in historical and cultural reconstruction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I'm intrigued by the scarce mention of Spanish authors, particularly those from the Golden Age. Other than Cervantes, I haven't seen any of his coevals listed: Lope de Vega, Francisco Gómez de Quevedo, Luis de Góngora, Calderón de la Barca and many others.

What are the reasons for this phenomenon, which is not unique to HN? Are the the works too archaic for modern taste? Are the translations just not good enough to convey the virtuosity of the originals? Lack of exposure? I'm truly curious to hear from this audience of why this phenomenon.

<comment><USER40> I'm convinced it's just lack of exposure.

Amazon or Barnes and Noble don't feature their books, librarians don't mention their works, and most folks have probably just never been exposed to them (even in college).

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> On Being the Right Size:

[https://irl.cs.ucla.edu/papers/right- size.html](https://irl.cs.ucla.edu/papers/right-size.html)

Only 90 years old, but it came to mind and it was close enough that I needed to check the date.

</comment><comment><USER42> Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (1884) by Edwin Abbott Abbott

</comment><comment><USER43> Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus

Basically the first science fiction, and the warnings of the perils of technology are still just as relevant today.

</comment><comment> a-saleh I would almost considered quoting the great ancient literature a cheat-code but I still do really like the Ecclesiastes.

From the other end of the spectrum, "The Adventure of the Dancing Men" is the book/story that inspired my interest in cryptography. In the end I never worked in infromation-security but I did enjoy it from my 10 years til I left college, and I still do enjoy going for puzzle-hunts with some of my friends :)

</comment><comment> 52-6F-62 Essay: _A Modest Proposal_ by Jonathan Swift. First read it in high school. A revolutionary piece of sardonic wit—especially for a young person after so many literature classes of pure gravitas.

Book(?): And I'm not sure it qualifies but a collection of Rimbaud's poems and lyrical prose is a sure winner as well. I have difficult time wrapping my mind around the fact that he was so young.

</comment><comment><USER44> Meditations by Marcus Aurelius is a pretty obvious one for this demographic.

</comment><comment><USER45> Crime and Punishment (1866) by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

</comment><comment><USER46> Meditations by Marcus Aurelius has been mentioned 5 times in this thread so far. I endorse it as well. This book is the private diary of the Roman Emperor. He doesn't say anything about politics or much about other people, just exhorting himself to do better and be better. This man walked the walk.

<comment><USER47> To follow up your recommendation: he was more than a Roman emperor, he was arguably one of, if not the most powerful people on the planet. Some might argue that any Roman Empror was, but his reign I believe was near the zenith of Rome's Empire in terms of territory (please correct me if I'm wrong).

Therefore you're reading his diary, realizing his own worries, all the while being this person.

<comment><USER46> In terms of territory, the Empire reached it's zenith under Trajan.

<comment><USER47> Was Trajan later or earlier? Thanks for the clarification in any case

<comment><USER46> Earlier. After Marcus Aurelius it was a steady downward trend.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea- Jules Verne (1870). Also many other novels by the same author.

</comment><comment><USER49> Kahlil Gibran - The Prophet.

 _Timeless themes written in beautiful prose_ :

It's out of copyright (first published in 1923, so almost 100 years), someone has put a website together of each theme, here is one on work:

[http://www.katsandogz.com/onwork.html](http://www.katsandogz.com/onwork.html)

I've probably moved on from this book a little now - but it's still beautiful and sometimes gives much needed perspective.

</comment><comment><USER50> The Hacker Classics - [https://jsomers.net/hn/](https://jsomers.net/hn/)

</comment><comment><USER51> The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau

Second Treatise on Government, John Locke

<comment><USER52> Second, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau, lucid and understandable essay

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> I am currently listening to Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, and it is by far the most interesting book I've read/listened to. I have been moved to tears again and again by this book.

Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun (1917) just turned 100, and it is also one of my most favorite books of all time, it too was moving me to tears again and again.

<comment><USER54> I just finished Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God is Within You. His writing about the plight of the workers and peasants was striking. It was also creepy to read his fears in 1890 about the threat of a senseless Europe-wide conflict. His criticism of governments, the church, and military service all seem valid to me. However, his advice to improve humanity is based on the assumption that the reader is a hard-core christian who wants to follow the literal words of Christ.

[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43302/43302-h/43302-h.htm](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43302/43302-h/43302-h.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> The poetry of Rabbie (Robert) Burns.

He led a life of grind, hustle and debauchery, and his poetry is remarkable for its thematic breadth- Burns talks of love, solidarity, nationalism, drinking and everything else that concerns an intelligent young man of ambition and low birth.

Its sort of a mix of Trainspotting (the book) and rap set 250 years ago in Scotland.

</comment><comment><USER56> The Bible.

Mysterious Island (1874), Around the World in Eighty Days (1873), and other books by Jules Verne.

Books by James Fenimore Cooper.

The Sea-Wolf (1904) by Jack London.

The Count of Monte Cristo (1844) by Alexandre Dumas.

Oliver Twist (1839) by Charles Dickens.

<comment><USER57> We share some favorites.

20000 leagues under the sea by Jules Verne was my introduction to science fiction and I also enjoyed Mysterious Island (which overlaps, but is less science fiction).

I had forgotten James Fenimore Cooper, and I have forgotten almost everything about the books, but yes, these were in the school library too and I read them.

(we had no TV when I grew up so I read a lot, mostly books in the styles mentioned above but also historical books and fiction from the WWII, but obviously none of these are over 100 years old.)

Also the Bible, it might not be highly regarded here, and I'm obviously biased, but as someone who reads other texts as well I think a number of people here could find parts of it interesting, especially contrasting it to what school and others might have told you. (Spoiler: besides the endless listings of who was who that most people will learn to skip, the full version is also a lot messier than what anyone working in school or wanting your money will tell you ; )

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Victory - Joseph Conrad

Notes from the Underground - <USER2>

Brothers Karamazov - Dostoyevsky (there is a bunch of other brilliant Dostoyevsky books)

</comment><comment><USER59> The Prince by Machiavelli, 1532

Chuang-tzu, 4th century BC

The Art of War by Sun Tzu, 5th century BC

Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong, 14th century AD

<comment><USER60> So you are in management position?

<comment><USER59> Lol, no, although I think these are valuable lessons that anyone needs, not just managers or princes. I'm omitting a lot of the great books I would suggest but others have suggested as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> "The lost tools of learning" by Dorothy Sayers [https://classicalchristian.org/the-lost-tools-of-learning- do...](https://classicalchristian.org/the-lost-tools-of-learning-dorothy- sayers/)

</comment><comment><USER62> Tao Te Ching by Lao-Tzu. Short, concise and applicable to modern world.

Not an essay per se or book though.

<comment><USER63> Agreed...

..also "Zen Flash, Zen Bones" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_Flesh,_Zen_Bones](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_Flesh,_Zen_Bones)

[http://www.ibiblio.org/zen/cgi-bin/koan- index.pl](http://www.ibiblio.org/zen/cgi-bin/koan-index.pl) [https://terebess.hu/zen/101ZenStones.pdf](https://terebess.hu/zen/101ZenStones.pdf)

<comment><USER62> Never got across this one, but it does look quite interesting. Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> I share many favorites with iBelieve ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20914527](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20914527)) and others but here are some I also enjoy that I don't see mentioned yet:

\- a lot of the viking stories (Soga om Eigil Skallagrimson etc)

\- viking poetry, particularly Håvamål: a kind of a viking version of the Proverbs.

\- old Norwegian fairytales (a number of them can be read in more than one way besides the obvious bed time stories for kids and others aren't for kids, but you'll recognize the topics from modern films as well.)

</comment><comment><USER23> A clear winner for me: The Odyssey by Homer.

</comment><comment><USER64> A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain

North of Boston by Robert Frost

Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle (+ the other Sherlock Holmes')

Candide by Voltaire (was reminded by other posting - this is great!)

<comment><USER41> I read a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court when I was around 12. It was fun and fantastical, but perhaps I didn't absorb any deeper meaning because I was too young. I'm curious what makes it top your list?

<comment><USER64> It came to mind as I recently finished a new Twain biography. As an old and very jaded tech person, I appreciate the idea of technology proving not a panacea.

In order, I'd put it under North of Boston for sure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> For me, its The Sorrows of Young Werther. Published in 1779. It is a short read and quite beautifully written.

<comment><USER66> Goethe's later work Faust (I+II) is my absolute favorite. The first book (play) is quite short and extremely well written in the german original. The second book is much thicker and extremely convoluted.

After a long journey through human abysses, it ends on the note "Who ever strives with all his might, that man we can redeem." which has always stuck with me and is one of the core ideals of my morality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster (Written in 1909)

Enchiridion of Epictetus

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

<comment><USER68> +1 for the machine stops. it's happening right now

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> Some of the speeches of Robert G. Ingersoll. Great oratory from an age when oratory was prized.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_G._Ingersoll](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_G._Ingersoll)

[http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/2662](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/2662)

Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason. Not intended as oratory, but like Ingersoll's lectures, great fun to read aloud.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Paine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Paine)

[http://thomaspaine.org/major-works/the-age-of-reason- part-1....](http://thomaspaine.org/major-works/the-age-of-reason-part-1.html)

> But some, perhaps, will say: Are we to have no word of God—no revelation? I > answer, Yes; there is a word of God; there is a revelation. THE WORD OF GOD > IS THE CREATION WE BEHOLD and it is in this word, which no human invention > can counterfeit or alter, that God speaketh universally to man... The > Creation speaketh an universal language, independently of human speech or > human language, multiplied and various as they may be. It is an ever- > existing original, which every man can read. It cannot be forged; it cannot > be counterfeited; it cannot be lost; it cannot be altered; it cannot be > suppressed....

</comment><comment><USER70> The Secret Doctrine [0]

[0] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Doctrine](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Doctrine)

</comment><comment><USER71> Nicomachean Ethics - [http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html](http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html)

On Liberty - [https://www.utilitarianism.com/ol/one.html](https://www.utilitarianism.com/ol/one.html)

Reading those allows a masterful foundation for understanding ethics, which is crucial for a deeper understanding of utility as a primitive concept.

</comment><comment><USER72> The Revolt of the Masses by José Ortega y Gasset

Edit: Not quite 100 years but will leave it here for posterity

</comment><comment><USER73> Here a short list \- The Edda \- Lots of Latvian Dainas[1] \- Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Immanuel Kant, (1785) and Critique of Pure Reason (second edition 1787) \- Goethe's Faust, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, (1828–29 edition \- Divina Commedia, Dante Alighieri, (1320)

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daina_(Latvia)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daina_\(Latvia\))

</comment><comment><USER74> Tons of good stuff already here. I love lists like this.

Two short b-sides: \- The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber by Ernest Hemingway \- The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy

</comment><comment><USER75> "Extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds" : stock bubbles! Politics of beards! Ancient memes! History of fiat currency! Tulip mania! All very relevant to our times.

Ancient novels may require some leeway on the part of the reader. Dumas' Three Musketeers certainly stands up well. Ivanhoe is mostly good fun with some horrific antisemitism.

Brits will enjoy "1066 and all that", although not strictly 100 years old.

<comment><USER76> "Madness of Crowds" is an entertaining read, but its not really solid history. His account of tulip mania in particular seems to have depended largely on stories in religious pamphlets about the dangers of greed. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania#Mackay's_Madness_o...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania#Mackay's_Madness_of_Crowds)

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> The Conquest of Bread, Peter Kropotkin

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conquest_of_Bread](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conquest_of_Bread)

It was written in the backdrop of massive industrialisation.

Many argue that it predicted both:

(1) the problems with capitalism and massive state protection of private property that go along with it, as well as

(2) the atrocities that would occur if most production was centralised, as in the USSR.

Anarchism, Libertarian Socialism and the anti-authoritarian left is definitely an overlooked branch of the political spectrum

<comment><USER78> See also Anarchism and Other Essays (1910) by Emma Goldman. It reads like it was written yesterday.

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> Walden by Thoreau - on self reliance and nature

De architectura By Vitruvius - classical construction and architecture

Song of Myself by Whitman - <USER3>

Hound of the Baskervilles by Doyle - <USER4>

</comment><comment><USER80> I'd like to chime in, although may be a bit late.

One book I will never get tired of reading over and over again is:

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

There's just something magical on that book which even to this day brings a lot of essence on how I understand and value life.

This book traverses generations, and is always a good read regardless whether you are at a schooling age or even close to retirement.

</comment><comment><USER81> It's been mentioned before but meditations is great, but I would also like to add "How to live on 24 hours a day" by Arnold Bennett [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2274](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2274)

In fiction Sherlock Holmes and the Three Musketeers is some of my favorites.

<comment><USER82> _Sherlock Holmes and the Three Musketeers_

I wish that was one book.

<comment><USER18> It was a wicked quote:

> _In his poem "Each June I Made a Promise Sober," Ogden Nash voiced the > common cry of those who work in bookstores or libraries or live otherwise > surrounded: so many books, so little time! Always the guilt-inducing pile of > unread books, eyeing us like neglected pets. He lists some of the classics > he hasn't read—my own list includes, I blush to say, Moby Dick, War and > Peace, The Brothers Karamazov, The Faerie Queen, etc. etc. etc. etc.—and > concludes:_

"So every summer I truly intend / My intellectual sloth to end / And every summer for years and years / I've read Sherlock Holmes and The Three Musketeers."

Sources: [https://www.bookbarnniantic.com/single- post/2014/05/24/74-RE...](https://www.bookbarnniantic.com/single- post/2014/05/24/74-REREADING-SHERLOCK-HOLMES-AND-THE-THREE-MUSKETEERS)

Nash, Ogden. "Each June I Made a Promise Sober," The New York Times Book Review (June 7, 1953), 1.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> [https://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Bestsellers,_American,_1895-1...](https://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Bestsellers,_American,_1895-1923_\(Bookshelf\))

From that, I've recently decided to start reading The Inside of the Cup by Winston Churchill, and Psychology and Industrial Efficiency by Hugo Münsterberg

</comment><comment><USER84> The first 19th century book to impress me was Nicholas Nickelby by Dickens. It's a British sort of "Les Miserables", A Christmas Carol style. And my wife reads Pride and Prejudice at least once a year. It's a surprisingly modern book, very much worth reading if you don't mind the romance.

</comment><comment><USER85> In the 'travel essay' genre, Xavier de Maistre's "A Journey Round My Room"

[https://publicdomainreview.org/collections/a-journey- round-m...](https://publicdomainreview.org/collections/a-journey-round-my- room-1794-1871/)

</comment><comment><USER86> On the Sensations of Tone by Hermann von Helmholtz

The Road by Jack London

all of the Oz books by L. Frank Baum

The Scottish Students' Song Book

Heart Songs

The Age of Reason

The Art of Money Getting by Barnum

</comment><comment><USER87> The Confessions by Augustine of Hippo.

</comment><comment><USER88> The entire _Arsene Lupin_ series by Maurice Leblanc, been reading them again and again since I was 12.

</comment><comment><USER89> Starry Messenger - <USER5>

Very fun and readable. He's so excited to tell the world about what he's learned.

</comment><comment><USER90> Progress & Poverty (1879) by Henry George

Orthodoxy (1908) by G.K. Chesterton

The Brothers Karamazov (1880) by Fyodor Dostoevsky

</comment><comment><USER91> Between - very roughly - 100 and 200 years ago books (some containing essays) were where the intellectual life of the west happened. Since we are not in any meaningful way different - or smarter - than people from the 19th and early 20th century a lot of what they concerned themselves with is still relevant for us, especially the stuff that managed to get itself canonized.

The novels that managed to become classics became so for a reason (and if you've ever read some second rate 19th century material you'll appreciate the the distinction).

The art form of the fiction as moral treatise probably hasn't been surpassed since then. So just pick up a few big 19th century novels and start reading :-)

</comment><comment><USER92> All the essays of Emerson, GK Chesterton, Hazlitt, Oscar Wilde, RL Stevenson, William James

Every book by Nietzsche (except _Zarathustra_ ).

La Bruyere - <USER6>

Charles Mackay - _Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds_

Ambrose Bierce - _The Devil 's Dictionary_

</comment><comment><USER93> Anna Karenina, by Tolstoy

<comment><USER91> A solid contender for the title "best book of the 19th century".

Together with Madame Bovary.

Which wins, IMHO. But still: great book.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Economics:

\- The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith

\- Das Kapital, Karl Marx

\- That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen, Frederic Bastiat

Philosophy / Politics:

\- The Republic, Plato

\- Second Treatise on Government, John Locke

\- The Law, Frederic Bastiat

\- Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes

\- Meditations, Marcus Aurelius

\- Democracy in America, Alexis de Toqueville

\- On Liberty, John Stuart Mill

Fiction:

\- The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, Mark Twain

\- The Story of an Hour, Kate Chopin

\- Metamorphoses, Franz Kafka

\- Candide, Voltaire

\- The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas

<comment><USER94> If you are going to read Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, then you should probably read _The Theory of Moral Sentiments_ first. It helps with the understanding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I'm intrigued by the scarce mention of Spanish authors and their work, particularly those from the Spanish Golden Age. Other than Cervantes, I didn't find any other coeval authors: Francisco Gómez de Quevedo, Luis de Góngora, Calderón de la Barca, Lope de Vega, and many others.

What are the reasons for this oversight? Is their work too archaic for modern taste? Are translations too poor to convey some of the originals' virtuosity? Lack of exposure? I'm truly curious as to why this phenomenon happens, and HN is not the only forum where I've observed it.

</comment><comment><USER95> The John Carter of Mars books have traveled remarkably well through time.

<comment><USER23> And the Pellucidar series too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER96> Panchatantra -- more than 1000yr old collection of fables from India. It's a kind of self help book that uses vivid storytelling with animal characters, to impart practical life lessons.

<comment><USER97> I would suggest to read the one with the sanskrit verses being translated into hindi/english/others as the conversation between the characters is very illuminating.

</comment></comment><comment><USER98> The Art of War by Sun Tzu.

It might be a bit of a cliche but it really is profound and is actually more useful than I first thought. Especially "show strength at your weakest, show weakness at your strongest" is something that I've used during negotations and presentations. It sounds like common sense when you read it, because you've seen a lot of this stuff work out ahead of reading it, but it's only once you read it that it becomes abstract and defined enough for me to apply it.

</comment><comment><USER99> The Count of Monte Cristo

<comment> v-erne I second that.

There's also a lot of movie and tv adaptations of this book out there(Alan Badel was probably the best Count) and I really enjoy compering them to the book.

</comment></comment><comment><USER100> L'Ancien Régime et la Révolution (1856) by Alexis de Tocqueville. In English it is either The Old Regime and the Revolution or The Old Regime and the French Revolution.

</comment><comment><USER101> The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James (1902).

</comment><comment><USER102> "Beginning Of Guidance By Imam Ghazali"

Written by the popular 11th century philosopher and jurist on topics around the purification of the heart.

This book was written towards the end of his life, where he didn't care much for what influential rulers might say.

[https://archive.org/details/BeginningOfGuidance](https://archive.org/details/BeginningOfGuidance)

</comment><comment><USER103> A Message to Garcia by Elbert Hubbard from 1899.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Message_to_Garcia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Message_to_Garcia)

[https://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.803/pdf/hubbard1899.pdf](https://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.803/pdf/hubbard1899.pdf)

<comment><USER103> For books, I'd say Herodotus and also Plutarchs Lives of the Great Greeks and Romans.

</comment></comment><comment><USER104> The Phantom Rickshaw and other Eerie Tales, Rudyard Kipling. This is the one that includes "The Man Who Would be King" that's a fairly well known film with Sean Connery and Michael Caine.

His other short story books, such as The Jungle Book and Just So Stories - <USER7> much better than the Disney.

The Time Machine and other Stories, H G Wells.

</comment><comment><USER105> Spinoza's Ethics

Euclid's Elements

Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics

</comment><comment><USER106> Anna Karenina

For a lighter, but still interesting read, anything by Saki is good - <USER8> Vashtar was the first story of his I read and I still come back to it decades later.

[http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/vashtar.html](http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/vashtar.html)

</comment><comment><USER107> _Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships_ (1726)

This book is filthy, funny, misanthropic, insightful, and ridiculous in all the right ways.

> I was complaining of a small fit of the colic, upon which my conductor led > me into a room where a great physician resided, who was famous for curing > that disease, by contrary operations from the same instrument. He had a > large pair of bellows, with a long slender muzzle of ivory: this he conveyed > eight inches up the anus, and drawing in the wind, he affirmed he could make > the guts as lank as a dried bladder. But when the disease was more stubborn > and violent, he let in the muzzle while the bellows were full of wind, which > he discharged into the body of the patient; then withdrew the instrument to > replenish it, clapping his thumb strongly against the orifice of then > fundament; and this being repeated three or four times, the adventitious > wind would rush out, bringing the noxious along with it, (like water put > into a pump), and the patient recovered. I saw him try both experiments upon > a dog, but could not discern any effect from the former. After the latter > the animal was ready to burst, and made so violent a discharge as was very > offensive to me and my companion. The dog died on the spot, and we left the > doctor endeavouring to recover him, by the same operation.

Yes, this is a passage about trying to inflate a dog with a bellows. This is why this book is in the Western canon.

 _The Beetle: A Mystery_ by Richard Marsh (1897)

This novel is bizarre... _to the max!_ (I'm bringing it back.)

This shit came out in the same year as Dracula (1897) and outsold it. That tells you that this is a boss novel that you should read immediately.

The plot is that a shapeshifting beetle person with mesmeric powers is trying to revenge themselves on a member of Parliament. After reading the first section of this book, in which a tramp is mesmerized, given spooky powers, and sent to steal some letters, you'll want to start shouting _THE BEETLE!_ just like the characters in the novel. Keep an eye out for Sydney Atherton, a scientist who uses the mysterious fluid known as Electricity to fight our antagonist, and who randomly kills a cat with sarin gas to make a point in a conversation.

 _Dracula_ by Bram Stoker (1897)

Not as good as _The Beetle_ , obviously, but holds up shockingly well. In this rollicking novel, Victorian organizational technology (gramophones, stenography, typewriters) triumphs over the undead. But read _The Beetle_ first, it's way better.

 _Evelina, or the History of a Young Lady 's Entrance into the World_ (1778)

This is another awesomely messed-up book that's a great beach read in 2019. People are constantly getting kicked out of carriages and rolling down hills, falling down stairs, etc. It's like Jane Austen but with violence. Incidentally, Frances Burney was Austen's fav writer. There's an old person race in this novel, so enjoy that.

</comment><comment><USER108> i enjoyed reading this one:A History of Freedom of Thought [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10684/10684-h/10684-h.htm](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10684/10684-h/10684-h.htm)

</comment><comment><USER109> Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville. Not an easy read, but one well worth the effort.

</comment><comment><USER110> A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder, 1888 [1]

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Strange_Manuscript_Found_in_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Strange_Manuscript_Found_in_a_Copper_Cylinder)

</comment><comment><USER111> Ars amatoria - Ovid (a book on picking up women, TL;DR: things have not changed much since back in the ancient Rome)

On speeches - Cicero (the only book that breaks down a speech is such a detail, same thing as above)

Gorgias - A Socrates dialog with a Gorgias, a sophist (men that were very well versed in the art or persuading but without having real knowledge), hard as it was (and it still is nowadays ) Socrates debunks this guy claims with elegance and class.

</comment><comment><USER112> The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy, my favorite book of all time.

I loved the characters, how they evolved and their relations with them. A weak character will through years become successful while another character they admired will fail miserably.

<comment><USER113> Ah yes! Thomas Hardy, Far From The Madding Crowd.

</comment></comment><comment><USER114> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satipatthana_Sutta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satipatthana_Sutta) \- Establishing Mindfulness, ~500 BC, by supposedly Siddhartha Gautama.

</comment><comment><USER115> The Confessions of St Augustine

</comment><comment><USER116> What is Man? And Other Essays by Mark Twain

[https://www.gutenberg.org/files/70/70-h/70-h.htm](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/70/70-h/70-h.htm)

</comment><comment><USER117> Phantastes, George MacDonald.

<comment><USER52> My favourite fiction book, well worth the read, and the author was hugely influential on a lot of later well known-English writers including, Lewis Carroll, and according to Wikipedia, a major influence on "W. H. Auden, J. M. Barrie, Lord Dunsany, Hope Mirrlees, Robert E. Howard, L. Frank Baum, T.H. White, Lloyd Alexander, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Walter de la Mare, E. Nesbit, Peter S. Beagle, Neil Gaiman and Madeleine L'Engle."

</comment></comment><comment><USER118> Since no one has mentioned them I just wanted to add "The Canterbury Tales" by Chaucer and "Beowulf" to the list. I've both read them in high school and liked them very much.

<comment><USER113> I remember reading the Canterbury Tales in high school. Was just recently talking with my girlfriend how studying history and people's lives of the past puts our struggles we have in some context. The Canterbury Tales is a good example of that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER119> Alice in Wonderland is one of my favourite books, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was also the most read > 100 year old book (well, not counting any religious writing!)

</comment><comment><USER120> Anything by Oscar Wilde.

</comment><comment><USER121> Ambrose Bierce, Tales of Soldiers and Civilians

O'Henry, the Gentle Grafter.

</comment><comment><USER122> I recently came across a really great quote / piece-of-advice and it applies nicely to this thread:

"If you want to learn something NEW -- read an OLD book."

</comment><comment><USER123> For novels, I love Shogun, by James Clavell, The Terror by Dan Simmons. For science book: QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter by Richard Feynman.

</comment><comment><USER124> The War of The Worlds, H.G. Wells, 1898

Great Expectations, Charles Dickens, 1861

Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper ("On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies"), A. Einstein, 1905

</comment><comment><USER125> Bhagavad Gita

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhagavad_Gita](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhagavad_Gita)

</comment><comment><USER126> Michel de Montaigne, his Essays are awesome and touch a wide range of subjects. The 100+ chapters in three books require an investment that will payoff.

</comment><comment><USER127> Don Quixote

</comment><comment><USER128> Sailing Alone Around the World by Joshua Sloacum.

</comment><comment><USER129> The Art of War by Sun Tzu, 5th century BC

</comment><comment><USER130> _Traffic_ by Ruskin I reread quite a lot. For background, it's a lecture he gave when invited to speak, as the eminent architectural critic of the day, to dignitaries on the opening of a new exchange building. Was expected to talk about the architecture, but he talked about capitalism instead

> You shall have thousands of gold pieces; - thousands of thousands - <USER9> > - mountains of gold: where will you keep them?

More technical, but I constantly use Ruskin's _Modern Painters_ as art reference. Each volume has detailed chapelters on natural forms (trees, mountains, etc). The attempts at geometric drawings of the structures of cloud patterns are particularly beautiful imo. He's a phenomenal writer, anyway.

Mentioned by others elsewhere in the comments, but _Candide_ and _The Count of Monte Cristo_ are possibly my two favourite books. The first one feels incredibly modern, which is quite impressive given that it's basically the first European novel. Second one I've always thought is like an exceptionally good airport novel (and the sci-fi version is also one of my favourite books, and one of the best sci-fi novels ever written). Very difficult to put down.

Also, anything by Swift, Hazlitt, Twain I can read and reread endlessly. I read a lot of opder stuff, but I've noticed I'm often quite quick to discard it if it doesn't scan as contemporary writing -- those three I find in particular have quite modern styles

<comment><USER131> What is The sci fi version of the Count of Monte Cristo?

<comment><USER130> _The Stars My Destination_ (or _Tiger! Tiger!_ depending on when and where it was published) by Alfred Bester

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER132> Atlas Shrugged had the most profound impact on me. Ishmael was a funny, short and enlightening read.

<comment><USER133> The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged also had a profound impact on me, but not in the way Ayn Rand had intended :-)

It's strange, reading Rand; I liked her use of language but didn't like her "heroes", nor the points she was trying to make. And after The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged reads like a twice-as-long, twice-as-over-the-top rework of the same material, just with a female heroine. So it's safe to skip it if you're pressed for time.

<comment><USER132> I was fortunate enough to start with Atlas Shrugged and read Fountainhead after. It does feel like Fountainhead was her runway into Atlas, her way of getting a clearer picture of the story she wanted to tell. Although I like Ayn and her philosophy I think its safe to skip Fountainhead.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER134> The World Set Free - HG Wells

(I wanted to put in the Shape of Things to Come but it doesn't quite make the cut)

</comment><comment><USER135> "Civilization and its Discontents" by Freud

"Frankenstein" by Mary Shelly

"Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde

</comment><comment><USER136> The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

<comment><USER41> A disturbing, compelling, and influential book. But do you still see it as relevant today, aside from understanding history?

<comment><USER136> I do, I don't know that I would categorize this at the top of what's been listed but I still think it's worth reading.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER137> The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

</comment><comment><USER138> Einstein's "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies".

</comment><comment><USER139> The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy is a tremendous book.

</comment><comment><USER140> Everything Dostoievski

</comment><comment><USER141> Moral Letters (Seneca)

</comment><comment><USER142> Plato's Dialogues

</comment><comment> oh-moses As a kid I really enjoyed the Winnetou stories by Karl May

</comment><comment><USER143> A clear winner for me: 'The Odyssey by Homer"

</comment><comment><USER144> _My Airships_ , by Alberto Santos-Dumont, 1904

</comment><comment><USER145> I'd recommend My Ántonia by Willa Cather

</comment><comment><USER146> Dostoyevski, Nietzsche, Seneca, Montaigne...

</comment><comment><USER147> The Book of Lies, by Aleister Crowley.

</comment><comment><USER148> Reform or Revolution? by Rosa Luxembourg.

</comment><comment><USER149> Does "Mahabharata" count?

<comment><USER97> ... and the various - interpretations "teekas" of Bhagvata Gita that came up subsequently.

Mahabharat has everything in it. However west has not yet warmed up to it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER150> Tao Te Ching

</comment><comment><USER151> "451 Fahrenheit" by Ray Bradbury

</comment><comment><USER152> Growth of the Soil, Knut Hamsun

</comment><comment><USER153> Return to Tipasa - Albert Camus

</comment><comment><USER154> Darwin's Dangerous Idea

</comment><comment><USER155> That's quite a broad category. _At least 100 years ago_ was a good period for books and essays.

</comment><comment><USER156> Euclid's _Elements_.

</comment><comment><USER24> Karl Marx's _Capital: A Critique of Political Economy_ , Volume I: The Production Process of Capital.

</comment><comment><USER157> Dao De Jing of LaoTzu

</comment><comment><USER158> Anne of Green Gables

</comment><comment><USER159> Also sprach Zarathustra.

What a book.

</comment><comment><USER151> Ray Bradbury

</comment><comment><USER160> The Odyssey

The Iliad

Moby-Dick

Anything by Dostoevsky

</comment><comment><USER161> In no particular order:

Moby Dick

Les Miserables

Crime and punishment

Alice in wonderland

The Prince

</comment><comment><USER162> poetry from jalaludin rumi

</comment><comment><USER163> The Art of War - Sun Tzu

<comment><USER163> Is having Art of War as favorite book an unpopular opinion ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER164> Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Art of war

</comment><comment><USER165> The State and Revolution - <USER10>

</comment><comment><USER166> Dune series by Frank Herbert, not much comes close.

<comment><USER167> Dune was released in 1965.

<comment><USER166> Dammit, I skipped the "at least" part... I read "during the last 100 years".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER168> Pro Spring 5: An In-Depth Guide to the Spring Framework and Its Tools 5th Edition</comment>


Ask HN: Is there an alternative title to founder? - <AUTHOR> In the past I thought titles were silly little trinkets for the ego (still do for the most part), but have learned that they can be important in terms of establishing credibility with people you don't know, etc.
About 10 years ago, I started with a startup about a month after their founding, there was only one other developer who was to be frank terrible, did a ton of sweat equity work to the point that I was working for free for a number of months, but never bothered to stake claim to a title. The company eventually sold for $500MM. I came out with a very healthy exit given the sweat equity, but don't have my name associated with it as, say, CTO, which in effect I was for about 18 months.
Now, I've become involved with a startup. I have about $100K in the seed round of $500K, am working full time as the only programmer. Since I'm not one of the guys who actually started the company, I don't feel I should call myself a founder. I was there pretty much day 1, though, and working as if I were a founder. I'd like to make sure I stake claim to a title this time, but am not sure what it would be.
Thoughts? <comment><USER2> If you are at all consulting focused, I think Principal is a great title. Flexible, but has credibility.

</comment><comment><USER3> Founding CTO or Starting CTO or Initial CTO?</comment>


What Happened When I Got a Job at a Soul-Crushing, Abusive Warehouse - <AUTHOR> http://www.alternet.org/comments/corporate-accountability-and-workplace/what-happened-when-i-got-job-soul-crushing-abusive-warehouse

<comment><USER2> Single page link:

[http://www.alternet.org/corporate-accountability-and- workpla...](http://www.alternet.org/corporate-accountability-and- workplace/what-happened-when-i-got-job-soul-crushing-abusive- warehouse?paging=off&current_page=1)

For those who prefer the article whole, instead of chopped up into 10 separate parts.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Still, most people really don't know how most internet goods get to them. The e-commerce specialist didn't even know, and she was in charge of choosing the 3PL for her midsize online-retail company. "These decisions are made at a business level and are based on cost," she says. "I never, ever thought about what they're like and how they treat people. Fulfillment centers want to keep clients blissfully ignorant of their conditions." If you called major clothing retailers, she ventured, and asked them "what it was like at the warehouse that ships their sweaters, no one at company headquarters would have any fucking clue.""</comment>


New Audis will count down to the light turning green - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2016/8/15/12488300/audi-traffic-light-vehicle-to-infrastructure-v2i-a4-q7-allroad <comment><USER2> Yet I'll still be stuck behind Seattle drivers fiddling with their phones, flipping me off because _I_ dared honk after we already sat through one light cycle.

Snark aside, I assume this is a preview of bigger things. As it is described, I'm not entirely clear on what problem is being solved (unless is has <voice=ominous>"Put the fucking phone down, it's green and other people need to get to work."</voice>). I like the "light's turning red, let off the gas", but I didn't get the impression that's being implemented soon.

<comment><AUTHOR> Two fuel/engine efficiency problems solved:

1\. Calculate perfect speed to hit the light exactly when it turns green, modulo safety

2\. Engage engine/gear preemptively 5 seconds before light turns green

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here's the cities where this is being developed,

[http://www.traffictechservices.com/deployment.html](http://www.traffictechservices.com/deployment.html)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Also found a video of the concept here,

[http://www.weebly.com/uploads/4/6/4/6/46468541/traffic_light...](http://www.weebly.com/uploads/4/6/4/6/46468541/traffic_light_online_info_service_- _youtube\[via_torchbrowser.com\]_124.mp4)</comment>


Awesome Science Fiction - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/sindresorhus/awesome-scifi/blob/master/readme.md <comment><USER2> Ready Player One:

> This is easily in one of my top 5 favorite books I've ever read. It's SO fun > to read, and every single person I've recommended it to has loved it.

Good litmus test for the list.</comment>


Announce Day - YC S11 Applicants Chat on Wompt - <AUTHOR> http://wompt.com/chat/yc

<comment><USER2> Abtin, great job on Wompt. I'm pretty impressed that you're running Wompt on the EC2 free tier. What is your CPU utilization at?

<comment><AUTHOR> Its hovering around 0-1%. Such is the power of node.js :)

<comment><USER2> Very impressive, hope that you guys get in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Sombody pwned the chat with a scrolling bug.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup. This goes back to PG's advice - release early to core users to find the bugs before the mass market does.

<comment><USER4> With that in mind, what is your idea for Wompt? Why would the mass market adopt it? I mean no disrespect but Wompt is pretty simple in its current form. Where are you going to go from here? How do you plan to keep people using it after today when there's no reason to discuss whether or not others have received an email from YC?

<comment><USER5> Straightforward simple no-sign-up-to-read group chat sounds useful to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Someone must have down-voted... bummer.</comment>


Outbreak of common colds at Antarctic base after 17 weeks of isolation (1973) - <AUTHOR> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2130424/ <comment><USER2> It's interesting that the "Environment" section mentions this in passing:

> Food comes mainly from packets or tins [...] There is a daily bread bake, > and special occasions merit the thawing of a small amount of meat from a -20 > C. freezer or from an ice cave in the nearby glacier.

Then in the "Discussion" section:

> The occurrence of a common cold during isolation, when the chances of > introduction of new infection from the outside are virtually nil, implies > that in some way virus persisted, either in the environment or in the men

It then goes on to suggest animal reservoirs as a potential cause, as well as inanimate objects and that a virus "might have persisted in the respiratory tract of one or more men".

But one of these packets of meat being opened and thawed isn't mentioned as a potential cause. I could find a couple of papers claiming that viruses survive for months or even years in food. Mystery most likely solved without the need for hitherto unknown or unlikely transmission vectors.

That seems to me to obviously be the most likely cause. Someone sneezed on or otherwise contaminated a packet of meat that was then frozen and thawed months later.

These people aren't truly "isolated" in the sense that they're going through a continual process of opening time frozen time capsules from the past.

One of the papers that cite this one (published in the same year) discusses such "time capsule" effects, although not with food, but from opening presents kept in storage, unpacking stored clothing etc.[1]

1\. [https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge- core/c...](https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge- core/content/view/B2473CA4D9EB915221145A1480743FD9/S0022172400022919a.pdf/common_colds_in_antarctica.pdf)

<comment><USER3> > Someone sneezed on...

Sanjay Gupta was talking on CNN (I know, not the most reputable source) and at one point flat out said "If a cook in the kitchen of a restauraunt you're ordering from has covid19 and sneezes on your food, it won't get passed on to you, since this is not a food borne illness".

I was quite shocked to hear that.

I'd be very curious to see what actual science says about food as an infection vector.

<comment><USER4> I have recently watched two of Gupta's videos about grocery shopping and disinfecting groceries, and they were light entertainment, with very little practical value.

There can be little difference between the virus reaching your lips by coming in contact with recently handled food or your hands. Restaurant food is absolutely an infection vector, we're just in the phase where we pretend it not to be for economic reasons.

Wipe or wash groceries properly, not like in his videos, and stay away from food that was recently in contact with people outside your household and that cannot be properly cleaned, such as fast food.

Here are the videos:

[https://edition.cnn.com/videos/health/2020/04/03/sanjay- gupt...](https://edition.cnn.com/videos/health/2020/04/03/sanjay-gupta-wiping- cleaning-groceries-demo-town-hall-vpx.cnn)

[https://edition.cnn.com/videos/health/2020/05/08/cnn-town- ha...](https://edition.cnn.com/videos/health/2020/05/08/cnn-town-hall-grocery- store-safety-coronavirus-gupta-sot-vpx.cnn)

<comment><USER5> Please stop spreading misinformation about a serious topic.

"Currently there is no evidence of food or food packaging being associated with transmission of COVID-19."

[https://www.fda.gov/food/food-safety-during- emergencies/food...](https://www.fda.gov/food/food-safety-during- emergencies/food-safety-and-coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19)

<comment><USER6> I for one hate this "no evidence" phrase that people are using.

Sure, there are no double blind, placebo controlled randomized studies looking at that.

Also, because of the respiratory nature of the spread of coronavirus, it would be really hard to tease out someone who got it from food or food packaging.

However, Corona virus isn't the only virus that we no about. We know Hepatitis A can spread in the food. We know Norovirus can spread in the food. Talk about how coronavirus is different that makes you think that spread is unlikely. Also, If you don't have any idea, say "we don't know".

But scientists and doctors use "currently we do t have evidence of" to avoid making a call. Then when lay people see that statement, 9 times out of 10 they take it to mean that "scientists think that you can't get coronavirus from food." When the statement is saying no such thing.

But "currently, there is no evidence of" needs to go. Experts need to step up to the plate and give their expert opinion. If there are no direct studies say so and then use your knowledge of various viral protein and related viruses and food conditions, etc to give an actionable recommendation.

I saw this with the question of masks. Experts hid behind "no evidence that masks prevent infection". Yes the double, blind placebo co trolled studies are lacking, but medical knowledge suggests that reducing the number and spread of infected dropplets is probably a good thing, and given that wearing a mask is a very safe intervention unlikely to cause side-effects, masks should probably have been recommended from the start. The Asian cities where wearing masks is more cultural seemed to have fared a lot better.

In the midst of a pandemic, I think for a lot of questions the null hypothesis should be that corona virus can be transmitted by this, and I should have evidence with 95% confidence that it cannot be.

Thus, a phrase "no evidence of" makes we worried about whatever they are discussing.

<comment><USER7> Yes, the citation of "currently no evidence of X" as if it meant "good evidence of NOT_X" is just the sort of thing that demonstrates that those who support policies of silencing "misinformation" are no better informed that the rest of us.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Reactivation of latent[0] adenovirus infection due to the stress of Antarctic living?

[0]: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3142679/#S2titl...](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3142679/#S2title)

</comment><comment><USER9> Whenever I see a paper from this long ago, I immediately check to see how often it's been referenced in the literature.

Google Scholar says this study has been cited by a measly 16 papers since it was published in 1973:

[https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=1453678737796934715...](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=14536787377969347156&as_sdt=10005&sciodt=0,8&hl=en)

Without any other context, I would assume that the relative lack of studies that reference this paper suggests that there might be issues with reputability.

But who knows? Maybe it's a gem that never got the attention it deserved.

<comment><USER10> "There have been many experiments running rats through all kinds of mazes, and so on--with little clear result. But in 1937 a man named Young did a very interesting one. He had a long corridor with doors all along one side where the rats came in, and doors along the other side where the food was. He wanted to see if he could train the rats to go in at the third door down from wherever he started them off. No. The rats went immediately to the door where the food had been the time before.

"The question was, how did the rats know, because the corridor was so beautifully built and so uniform, that this was the same door as before? Obviously there was something about the door that was different from the other doors. So he painted the doors very carefully, arranging the textures on the faces of the doors exactly the same. Still the rats could tell. Then he thought maybe the rats were smelling the food, so he used chemicals to change the smell after each run. Still the rats could tell. Then he realized the rats might be able to tell by seeing the lights and the arrangement in the laboratory like any commonsense person. So he covered the corridor, and still the rats could tell.

"He finally found that they could tell by the way the floor sounded when they ran over it. And he could only fix that by putting his corridor in sand. So he covered one after another of all possible clues and finally was able to fool the rats so that they had to learn to go in the third door. If he relaxed any of his conditions, the rats could tell.

"Now, from a scientific standpoint, that is an A-number-one experiment. That is the experiment that makes rat-running experiments sensible, because it uncovers that clues that the rat is really using-- not what you think it's using. And that is the experiment that tells exactly what conditions you have to use in order to be careful and control everything in an experiment with rat-running.

"I looked up the subsequent history of this research. The next experiment, and the one after that, never referred to Mr. Young. They never used any of his criteria of putting the corridor on sand, or being very careful. They just went right on running the rats in the same old way, and paid no attention to the great discoveries of Mr. Young, and his papers are not referred to, because he didn't discover anything about the rats. In fact, he discovered all the things you have to do to discover something about rats. But not paying attention to experiments like that is a characteristic example of cargo cult science."

\- Richard Feynman

[http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~ravenben/cargocult.html](http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~ravenben/cargocult.html)

Maybe it's one of those papers that, by a less charitable interpretation than Feynman, invalidates an entire field of study and undercuts it's central assumptions, so it just gets ignored.

<comment><USER11> I've tried to find this paper, but I can't. There's a Paul Thomas Young, who did study rats in that timeframe. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/1421573?seq=1](https://www.jstor.org/stable/1421573?seq=1)

<comment><USER12> I've look too. Couldn't find.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Cargo_cult_science#Rat- ru...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Cargo_cult_science#Rat-running)

[https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/02/the_rat_experi...](https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/02/the_rat_experiment_you_dont_know_about_but_should.html)

<comment><USER13> Indeed, the closest things I've been able to find have been these two studies [0, 1] which investigate a large number of different possible incidental stimuli (from lights all the way to the placement of the assistants during the experiment). Neither of these mention sand as far as I can tell nor were they written by a "Young". There is a paper that _does_ , though, found here [2], which used it in the walls of the maze, but it does not mention a reason for doing this.

For fun, I also found this 1938 paper as I was looking around that I haven't read. It's interesting what random things scientists were doing during this time and what debates were had [3].

\-----

[0] "The effect of incidental stimuli on maze learning with the white rat" [https://doi.org/10.1037/h0071189](https://doi.org/10.1037/h0071189)

[1] "Further studies of the effect of incidental stimuli on maze learning with the white rat" [https://doi.org/10.1037/h0075810](https://doi.org/10.1037/h0075810)

[2] "Correlations between conditioning and maze learning in the white rat" [https://doi.org/10.1037/h0053662](https://doi.org/10.1037/h0053662)

[3] "The effect of a native Mexican diet on learning and reasoning in white rats" [https://doi.org/10.1037/h0061906](https://doi.org/10.1037/h0061906) (The study found that the rats had less body mass, but did not find a statistically significant difference in maze solving ability.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I noticed this in my own family of four. We've been in isolation for 2 months and we've all had colds for a week. You'd expect after 4 weeks for it to stop but nope. We've been social distancing and only one person goes out to pick up groceries curb side. We've been wiping stuff down too. I think this is one reason they say sars-cov-2 aka covid-19 is inevitable..

<comment><USER15> Same here, two weeks in 3 of 4 in our family had mild fevers (99<100) this was end of March. Last week the wife had another bout of 99+ (but less than 100) for a few days. Drive through windows and me going to the store have been our only exposures.

I also discovered my temp is generally 96-97, rarely goes up to "normal".

<comment><USER16> >Drive through windows and me going to the store have been our only exposures.

Let me reword this for you: "interacting with a teenager who deals with about a thousand people a day, and going to a facility that is frequented by tens of thousands of people a week, has been my only exposure."

<comment><USER17> Seriously, how is this not comprehensible to people? If you or your family members are going outside, you HAVE NOT been in isolation. You've been interacting with people outside and bringing in germs from your visits.

<comment><USER16> As Jeff Goldblum would say, "Life finds a way."

I'm avoiding Covid conversations as my self-esteem is too fragile to tolerate downvotes. ;) But, if I were opining on the subject, I'd say that masks, social distancing, lock-downs, etc. are absolutely and utterly worthless and unecessary. But, if it makes some people feel virtuous to wear their placebo masks while cowering in the apartments, so be it. As for me, I'll be at the river this weekend tubing with several hundred others, drinking a Corona, and thinking of you all.

<comment><USER17> Is the irony not lost on you? You're not really avoiding a COVID conversation in your comment...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Does anybody else here have tonsilloliths? By their awful smell I assume that they may contain all kinds of bacteria or virii. Is it possible that they can survive in there and reactivate several months later again?

Warning: You will need a strong stomach if you intend to search for "tonsilloliths" on Google or Youtube.

<comment><USER19> Yeah, I hock one up every couple months. I know I shouldn't, but something inside me makes me squish and smell it. It's always as disgusting as I know it will be, yet here we are.

<comment><USER18> Why shouldn't you? I have been removing them with water (syringe with plastic tip) for quite a while and haven't seen any negative effects. I also feel more confident that I do not have a bad breath.

<comment><USER19> No, I'm saying I should not squish and smell them because it's always gross.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Viruses can linger in the body and "hide" waiting for immune system to weaken.

This is how people get shingles many decades later after chicken-pox, it's the same virus, just hid in nerve cells and spinal cord.

<comment><USER21> Some can stay latent for a long time - herpes viruses, retroviruses like HIV, Epstein-Barr, shingles like you said - but most viruses don't, as far as we know

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus_latency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus_latency)

<comment><USER22> > Epstein-Barr

Am I the only one who had to look this up, thinking it was a hidden commentary on current political items?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Amusingly, I currently have a flu and can't focus for more than 5 minutes, could someone give me a summary of the findings (if there are any)?

<comment><USER24> By far the strangest comment.

The first comment sums it up well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I wonder if after 17 weeks of isolation their immune systems atrophied due to limited exposure to pathogens, making them more susceptible to relatively a 'small' initial exposure?

Are there implications for the millions of folks isolating and reducing their daily exposure to pathogens?

<comment><USER8> Atrophy, yes, but not from lack of challenge. More likely due to limited exercise, highly attenuated sunlight, and questionable diet.

<comment><USER26> No worse than your average winter in the northern US. We get that for 4-5 months at a time in upstate NY.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> There's a lot we don't know about infectious disease.

</comment><comment><USER28> (1973)

<comment><AUTHOR> Would have added it but the title was too long

<comment><USER29> The (1973) is probably the most important part of the title...

<comment><USER30> Why do you feel that? Being old doesn't somehow invalidate results.

<comment><USER31> You don't see that someone might read the title and infer there's a current outbreak of Covid-19 in Antarctica? The title seems like deliberate clickbait without a year.

<comment><AUTHOR> Didn't make that connection but it's obvious in hindsight. sigh

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> there was one article about how viruses are involved in sheep fetuses, when they took out the viruses, the eggs and sperm wouldn't turn into a fetus or something</comment>