Introducing the Humble Indie Bundle 6 - <AUTHOR> http://www.humblebundle.com <comment><USER2> Negative Nelly warning: I've bought a couple of these bundles but won't buy another. One big selling point of the bundles is that they are cross-platform compatible, and that's one of the reasons I buy, as I have Ubuntu on my home computer. Unfortunately, at least some of the games which are advertized as working on Linux simply did not work for me, Trine in particular (which is sad because that game was the main reason I bought the Frozenbyte bundle).

I initially had issues on an older machine & updated ubuntu, followed the threads (it was a common issue), followed the debug & fix steps, but to no avail. I chalked it up to the hardware but with a brand new linux box and new (months later) download of Trine it _still_ didn't run. I haven't bothered spending another hour searching down and going thru all the fix steps. It looks like there might be a new, possibly working version by now but it's been months and months and I've basically forgotten about it.

I don't expect everything to work OOTB in linux, but I'm using a popular distro, many of the games work fine, and if I'm paying for a "Linux compatible" game I expect it to be Linux compatible with a reasonable small number of clear steps without spelunking thru a dozen forum threads &c.. This is not "free" software, I paid for it and expect it to work.

I want to support humble bundle but it's too frustrating to buy a game and have it not even load.

<comment><USER3> It's really hard to port games like these to Linux. Many of them use closed- source or even binary-only libraries that have no freely available replacements. You can blame the game developers for using non-free technology, but in some cases there aren't any good alternatives.

Indie game development has such thin profit margins to begin with that most developers can't justify sinking man-months of effort into a Linux port that might not produce enough revenue to pay for itself.

This kind of depends on your configuration too: Sure, you may be on a modern version of Ubuntu, but what kind of GPU do you have? Does it have modern drivers that are well-supported by the manufacturer? Does it support the variety of extensions and features that a game can rely on having on Windows/OSX? 'many of the games work fine' is only meaningful here if the games all have the same system requirements and you meet those requirements. If not, the best course of action is to try and communicate clearly to the developers that there are customers who are being shut out by system requirements, to see if there are cheap ways for them to lower the requirements.

<comment><USER4> > Many of them use closed-source or even binary-only libraries that have no > freely available replacements.

How do they port it to Linux, then? (They have to re-compile it right?)

I've developed games before and I can tell you, if you're not using propitiatory platform-dependent libraries, porting your game is a piece of cake. What I've noticed is that most of the games on Humble Bundle use a library known as SDL (Simple DirectMedia Layer.) SDL is a library that handles two main things that aren't platform-independent: creating a window and receiving events (keyboard, mouse, e.t.c.) The rest is taken care of by the cross-platform OpenGL, OpenAL, etc. libraries.

In addition, there's an even better library than SDL called SFML (Simple and Fast Multimedia Library). SFML is much more fully featured than SDL, and is C++-based and OOP. With both SFML and SDL, all you have is _just recompile_. And done!

So really, it's not that hard to port a game. "can't justify sinking man- months of effort into a Linux port" sounds a bit stretched. There are plenty of free libraries available for game dev (atleast 2D game dev), like Box2D, CEGUI (Crazy Eddie's GUI), etc. so if from the get-go you plan on supporting multiple platforms use some of those libraries, and porting will be a breeze.

<comment><USER5> > How do they port it to Linux, then? (They have to re-compile it right?)

Many use a WINE wrapper (or a derivative, like Cider); the same goes for OS X versions. Especially for a lot of these indie games, where a small performance hit isn't a big deal as they don't tax the hardware.

<comment><USER6> According to wikipedia LIMBO is the only port to bundle wine(CrossOver).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I love this, even if you aren't a huge fan of games, it's a great way to donate to EFF and Child's Play and get _free_ games.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's interesting to see that Linux users ($8.92) on average donate around 40% more than everyone else ($5.36). Also, Windows users are cheaper than Mac users.

This is from the average donation amounts on the page.

<comment><USER9> There are fewer Linux users than Mac users, and fewer Mac users than Windows users. Thus, the mean sale price for Linux users is more strongly affected by any single big sale than the mean sale price for Mac or Windows users.

I'd be curious to see the median sale prices.

<comment><USER10> Also any random Linux user is more likely to be a developer, which likely motivates them more to support the indie devs. And since Macs are 2-3 times as expensive as their PC counterparts, owning one tends to imply you have money to throw around.

<comment><USER11> Macs aren't 2-3 times as expensive as their PC counterparts. Not even 1.5x as expensive. If you spec out a system with the same components and build quality from any of the PC builders you'll end up with roughly the same price. People just ignore things like screen quality and memory speed when pricing stuff out and then compare consumer PCs to workstation macs.

Feel free to post a Mac that is 2-3x its equal though you'll be the first person in any of the times I've posted this reply that will be able to do it.

<comment><USER10> Well, finding 2 computers that are exactly equal in specs is more effort than I care to put in, but here's the first reasonable comparison I see at Best Buy:

[http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Toshiba+-+Satellite+14%26%2334%3...](http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Toshiba+-+Satellite+14%26%2334%3B+Laptop+-+6GB+Memory+-+750GB+Hard+Drive+-+Champagne+Silver/5560019.p?id=1218704973366&skuId=5560019)

Compare it to the 13" Macbook Pro (for the sake of being generous towards the Mac). It's just over half the price, has a bigger screen, more ram, a larger hard drive, and seemingly identical processor and graphics. Naturally there are give and takes on both sides (just about everything is inferior to Apple in terms of "build quality", though this is tough to put a price on), but I don't think it's unreasonable to say this is a comparable laptop, and the specs easily make up for it being $50 over half price.

I don't say this to disparage Apple, I've got a MBP myself, but whenever I look at PCs with comparable specs, I do find that they tend to be about half the price.

I'll withdraw 3x though, that probably is too high and even if I could hunt around and find one example, it's not like that would prove the point.

<comment><USER11> Worse quality screen, graphics card, audio, and slower cpu. Worse keyboard(no backlighting), worse trackpad(my missus has one they are pretty awful), thicker case.

Nothing is stand out worse but everything is just a bit worse which when your pushing the upper edges adds up to a lot of cost. Not even counting build quality.

<comment><USER12> By this logic, is anything but a Macbook comparable to a Macbook? How would you compare build quality objectively? I think it's safe to say if you're paying extra for a backlit keyboard, you're throwing around money.

<comment><USER11> Yes but they cost just as much. As you'll note I said ignoring build quality even though it should be factored in.

If you've ever had a backlit keyboard you will realize the usefulness of them. I consider them as essential as a good screen but again I just pointed out that its a worse keyboard not that the keyboard is make or break.

<comment><USER12> I guess I tried to address two issues in this. Let's put it this way: one man drives an Audi RS4, and the other has a Toyota Camry. Nobody argues that the man with the Audi has the better car, but one might infer that he also has more disposable income. That is why we assume people with Macbooks have more disposable income; they've purchased a luxury item when there is a commodity alternative. A backlit keyboard is definitely not required to use a laptop, no more than heated seats are necessary in a car. You think they're essential because you have enough disposable income that the utility of the money you'd use to buy the keyboard has become less than the utility of the keyboard. This is the notion of value. You can also, likely, afford to give a few dollars to a charity if you'd like.

<comment><USER11> Thats a fair comment but is a different discussion than the one this subthread is built on which is whether a mac is more expensive than a comparable pc. When discussing that then features like a backlit keyboard are important.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> In the past, Humble Bundle has occasionally used strong sales of a bundle as a reason to release some of the games in that bundle as Open Source. If they'd consider pre-committing to that based on target thresholds, I'd donate to this in a heartbeat; we need more good Open Source games.

<comment><USER12> Open-sourcing some games seems like a really good idea, but I think a lot of the Humble Bundle games typically fall into a category where design is much more significant than technology. It's one thing to allow modding on the Source engine, which would otherwise be out of reach for most developers. But given the code for Braid, how would the community improve on it? It's clearly the vision of one man, and it's been developed fully. A lot of indie games focus on fine game balance, distinctive graphics design, or plot to differentiate themselves, where I think of Open Source as a very technically- oriented model. Do you have examples of games you think would benefit from being opened up?

<comment><USER13> I can see two major cases where it seems like a particularly big win.

First, quite a lot of indie games build an engine and then numerous variations of levels to support a plot. Braid, Bastion, Iji, Super Meat Boy, Gish, World of Goo, and many more where those came from follow that model: impressive engine, pile of well-designed levels, plot. In those cases, the ability to create more levels and add some technical variations can nicely extend the lifespan of a game.

Second, and even more importantly, the much broader space of design ideas in indie games means many more interesting components with unusual variations. Braid has a physics engine that supports time-based mechanics. Super Meat Boy has an extremely impressive record-and-replay mechanism (used to great effect at the end of each level to show you all the ways you died simultaneously). Several indie games have very impressive lighting models. The Bit Trip games have music syncing engines. Many indie games have impressive dynamic-content- generation engines. The more of these components that become readily available, the more impressive the starting point for any future indie game.

<comment><USER6> > The more of these components that become readily available, the more > impressive the starting point for any future indie game.

I'm not sure to what extent these things can be recycled(other then for ideas).

Actual advantages I see:

Fixing bugs/maintaining long term/packaging. This allows people to spot bugs easier, contribute back code, and generally maintain the game better(fix anything that break thanks to old platform assumptions).

Porting to other platforms(especially arm, maybe android these days), many who open source games allow you to use a copy of the data for one platform on any platform.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I feel like the last Humble Bundle might have set the bar too high for the following bundles.

<comment><USER15> I know this would wreck their whole sales strategy ("X amount of time left"), but I wish you could go back and buy an old bundle for something like double the average or whatever made sense for them.

<comment><USER16> I doubt the developers want to have their games available permanently on sale. So unless you really want to pay $50-60 for old bundles, it won't happen.

It makes more sense just to buy the stuff you want directly from the developers. Or wait for another sale.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> can someone explain to me how you can make money on a game like Rochard (one of the games in the bundle)? There is such an incredible amount of detail in the background in each scene, it looks like few thousand hours of work just that.

<comment><USER18> Basically you don't.

Most of the games business is a high risk, high reward gamble. New IP much more so than working with an existing franchise. This is in no way unique to a game like Rochard, it'd apply equally much to $0.99 iPhone games or AAA games launching on all platforms and needing to sell 3 million copies to break even.

In this case the original target market was the PS3 store, and my understanding is that the very highest selling indie games there have lifetime sales in the half million unit range. And the sales figures are likely obeying a power law, with the median sales in the thousands of units. It does seem like a pretty horrible place to be selling to.

For Rochard, we can try to make a rough estimate of the cost. First of all the studio making the game was formed for an overly ambitious project (Earth No More), which was scrapped after several years. Mostof the team dispersed, but a skeleton crew started on a new game, and shipped Rochard around 1.5 years laters. The credits show 15 people, but I doubt they would all have been on the project full time. So let's guess 10-15 man-years of work.

On the funding side, clearly they won't have had much if any money left at the start of the project. Early on they sold some part of the rights to the game to an outside investor for 400kEUR.

Even if we ignore overhead, the cost of things like voice acting, and assume Finnish pay levels, it seems clear that the team wasn't working for full market salaries. Maybe they just really wanted to work on games rather than CRUD apps. Or they all had significant equity, and were hoping to hitting it big with that 1% surprise hit.

Judging by Rochard not appearing on the top 20 most sold lists on the PSN, it seems like a fair bet that it did not make a profit there. I don't know whether it flopped completely or had mediocre sales. For the purpose of making money, it doesn't really matter. There's a good chance that they'll make more from the Humble Bundle than from PSN. Even so, it doesn't look like a project that would have broken even for the investors, or for anyone working on it at below market wage.

(Edit: Which is a shame. It was one of my favorite games last year, and I certainly didn't mind paying for it again as part of the bundle).

<comment><USER19> Dustforce dev here. We (4 people) just lived super cheaply in a shed and apartment, working day and night for a year and a half. Expenses were about $25k per person per year (pretty much just food, rent/utilities, beer). Lived off of savings and prize money from a prototype of the game.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> These games look pretty good, unfortunately I literally can't spare any more money this month.

Would it be a dick thing to do to pay $0 for this bundle and promise myself to pay a lot more for the next bundle (even if the games suck)?

<comment><USER21> No. They're offering you the games at whatever price you can afford, you're allowed to take them up on their generosity! If I were you, I'd pay the minimum $0.01, use the torrents to minimize their costs, and increase the amount you're paying later.

<comment><USER22> As an alternative to torrents, if you're playing on Windows you can just take the keys they give you and put them into Steam, rather than downloading off HIB servers.

<comment><USER23> You have to pay $1 to get a steam key.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Uh oh - I wasted a lot of hours on Torchlight. Luckily I had to return it (complicated story). I think I should pass on this bundle, too dangerous.

</comment><comment><USER25> I keep buying these and never seem to have time to actually play all of the games :(.

</comment><comment><USER26> I keep hoping that they will release Trine 2 as part of the bundles. I know it's only been less than a year since Trine 2 came out. Humble Bundle introduced me to Trine 1, which was the first game I've completed in ages.

</comment><comment><USER27> 'Pay more than the average of $5.50 to unlock Dustforce!' Genius. This _should_ just keep pushing the price up and up as each person pays more than the average. Wondering how this will work out.

<comment><USER28> Those paying less than $5.50 are probably paying a LOT less than $5.50, so the average may stay fairly stable.

<comment><USER27> The bundle is fascinating as the page gives many different pricing signals. Other factors being equal I think people don't like to miss out on things. Mentally as this one game has a unlock restriction it 'must be a better game', I think the risk of missing out in the best game by going under $5.50 will encourage people to pay over the average and still be able to mentally reconcile their pricing reasoning as to why 'they' got a good bargain.

People paying a lot less are also already factored into the average and I see no specfic factor driving low payers to be greater in quantity than usual. Hence why I love this approach.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm a FP gamer, if some of these were FP I'd love to buy them.</comment>


How Not to Sort by Average Rating (2009) - <AUTHOR> http://www.evanmiller.org/how-not-to-sort-by-average-rating.html <comment><USER2> Also discussed in Cameron Davidson-Pilon's Bayesian methods for Hackers in the context of Reddit ups/downs: [http://nbviewer.ipython.org/github/CamDavidsonPilon/Probabil...](http://nbviewer.ipython.org/github/CamDavidsonPilon/Probabilistic- Programming-and-Bayesian-Methods-for- Hackers/blob/master/Chapter4_TheGreatestTheoremNeverTold/Chapter4.ipynb#Example:-How- to-order-Reddit-comments)

For Amazon, though, which is the example in Evan Miller's post, I don't really get why you'd first dichotomize the five-star rating into positive vs. negative and then use Wilson intervals. Just construct a run-of-the-mill 95% confidence interval for the mean of a continuous distribution and sort by the (still plausible) worst case scenario a.k.a. the lower bound of that: `mean - 1.96 * SE`, where the standard error is `SE = stddev(scores)/sqrt(n)`.

Because of the central limit theorem, you can do this even if scores are not normally distributed and it'll work out too.

<comment><USER3> For better accuracy with small samples you could use the multinomial distribution instead. The covariance matrix for the rating probabilities can be found here for example: [http://www.math.wsu.edu/faculty/genz/papers/mvnsing/node8.ht...](http://www.math.wsu.edu/faculty/genz/papers/mvnsing/node8.html) Then the variance for the expected rating can be calculated as a weighted sum of the values in the covariance matrix.

These companies really should be hiring statistics consultants instead of relying on the intuitions of their programmers.

<comment><USER2> I'd prefer to just treat scores as continuous and correct using `t_ppf(.975, n-1)` instead of the normal approximation (1.96) but I suppose working from a multinomial distribution would give pretty similar results.

<comment><USER3> You're still relying on the central limit theorem (i.e. a reasonable amount of data) : using t instead of z just corrects for the fact that you only have sample variances instead of population variances. However, I suppose it's not unreasonable to assume that the ratings are likely to have a bell shaped distribution (which could be checked), so the normal/t approximation is probably going to be OK.

<comment><USER2> Ah yes, true. Let's call it a bias/variance tradeoff ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have fundamental problem with democratic voting systems. Whatever the general view likes will tend to come on top, hence cat pictures on reddit. The most philosophiycally elegant solution I've encountered so far is the "quadratic voting" (see [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9477747](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9477747)), where every user has a limited number of credits to spend per time-period. Every vote will have a quadratic cost.

Assume user has/obtains 1000 karma points a month. If the user merely likes a post or not he gives his 1 vote, which cost him 1 karma. If he strongly wants one post up he can spend a maximum of 31 vote on it. This way the minorities will have also extra influence on the voting process.

The requirements is that each user have 1 account, e.g. maybe by some form of payment for 1000 karma to avoid fake voting fraud. Maybe using bitcoins if it picks up to avoid privacy problems.

Do you think this will hinder the workings of sites like reddit?

<comment><USER5> What I always thought was that there really should be some user-based weighting system. Like, if a user upvotes 90% of the things he sees, his upvotes are probably worth less than upvotes by someone who upvotes only 1% of the posts he sees.

Same thing applies to things like Yelp reviews. Maybe a user with close to a 5-star lifetime rating average should have his reviews "renormalized" to 3's because his standards are probably just lower than the guy with a 1-star average.

The problem is that there are so many other factors here (maybe the 5-star average person only visits (? or just _reviews_ ) really good places). Maybe the crazy upvoter just spends more time reading each page on Reddit. These are complicating factors that are hard to predict and if the simple case is working, why try? If there were a simple, clearly better way of voting/rating, it would be done.

<comment><USER6> > Same thing applies to things like Yelp reviews. Maybe a user with close to a > 5-star lifetime rating average should have his reviews "renormalized" to 3's > because his standards are probably just lower than the guy with a 1-star > average.

Another problem is the perception of star ratings. It seems like 5 (maybe 4 also) is the only "positive" rating for many people. Anything less and it might as well be a 1.

<comment><USER5> Of course, there's many areas that I didn't even mention. Another thing in the same vein for upvotes that I sometimes think about is, what is the meaning of upvoting? Does it mean, "I like this," or can it also mean "I think this submission should be higher?" Maybe I think too much but I've refrained from upvoting posts I like because I don't think they should be higher than their current position.

<comment><USER7> Can the design tell the user the meaning of upvote("I like this" / "I think this submission should be higher")? Because the significance of upvote could be either of the two depending on the area. Also, then one can sort accordingly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wrong solution #1 sounds like it could work quite well for UrbanDictionary, since it would tend to reward posts that have a lot of engagement. It's probably a good solution for a lot of sites.

<comment><USER9> The problem here is feedback. The higher rated ones get higher rated, so more people see it so it gets higher rated. That opens up a whole extra can of worms you don't want to deal with.

<comment><USER10> This is exactly true. You gotta balance freshness, quality, and uncertainty.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Previously: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=478632](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=478632)

<comment><USER12> It was also discussed about 3 years ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3792627](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3792627)

Some of the comments from that posting give concrete examples where the formula fails. Such as: an item with 1000 upvotes and 2000 downvotes will get ranked above one with 1 upvote and 2 downvotes. This is because the formula uses the lower bound of the Wilson interval.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm ranking movies by critics ratings. Most of them have too low numbers, and thus naive bayesian ranking by avg does not work. IMDB gets away with it, but I cannot. And you should be able to see a good preview of the expected ranking even with low numbers.

So you need to check the confidence interval with Wilson, but you also need to check the quality of the reviewer. There are some in the 90%, but there are also often outliers, i.e. extremities. Mostly french btw.

I updated the c and perl versions, compiled and pure perl here: [https://github.com/rurban/confidence_interval](https://github.com/rurban/confidence_interval)

</comment><comment><USER14> First two points are great, but why then we see this:

"Given the ratings I have, there is a 95% chance that the "real" fraction of positive ratings is at least what?"

What normal person thinks in terms of confidence intervals?

The obvious answer is people want the product with the highest "real" rating. That is the rating the product would get if it had arbitrary many ratings.

To get this you just find the mean of your posterior probability distribution. For just positive and negative reviews thats basically (positive+a)/(total+b) where a and b depend on your prior.

His proposal would mean that a product with zero reviews would be rated below a product with 1 positive review. This may deal with spam and vote manipulation since things with less information are penalized more but that is a separate issue.

</comment><comment><USER15> I have always wondered what amazon was thinking with that way of sorting. Perhaps it's a deliberate way to spread purchases out over a span of products instead of just the two top products?

<comment><USER16> I think it's about a product discovery. If we always sort this way, new products don't have a chance.

And I don't think Amazon would sort like this, it would make more sense for them to use hn/reddit way to sort items that give a chance for the new items to get to the top.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> There is a much simpler and elegant method. Just rank posts by their probability of getting an upvote. This is just (upvotes+1)/(upvotes+downvotess+2).

<comment><USER2> This gives an advantage to new posts for which the probability is much more uncertain: it's easier to get 1 upvote and 0 downvotes (rank 2/3) than to get 1999 upvotes and 999 downvotes (also rank 2/3). Maybe that's what you want, but the post is exactly about those cases when this is _not_ what you want.

<comment><USER18> New posts frequently start with a disadvantage though in existing systems. Temporarily biasing them favourably increases odds of _any_ moderation. Alternatively you could present them only to a subset of readership. I've suggested this as a solution to HN's new submissions queue problem.

Increase the presentation as ratings increase.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Interestingly, I _think_ the Reddit algorithm basically makes this mistake too -- although embedded in a more complicated algorithm that combines with 'newest first' altered by positives minus negatives.

I don't think the HN algorithm is public, but wouldn't be surprised if it does the same.

Perhaps the generally much smaller number of 'votes' on a HN/reddit post makes it less significant.

<comment><USER20> For posts, I'm not sure what the algorithm is (I think it's deliberately more complicated, and has to take into account time of posting?), but after this article [the op] was written, reddit implemented the method for comments, as explained by Randall Munroe: [http://www.redditblog.com/2009/10/reddits-new- comment-sortin...](http://www.redditblog.com/2009/10/reddits-new-comment- sorting-system.html)

You only get this ranking method if you sort the comments by 'best' though

<comment><USER19> Not the default 'top' though, I think.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Awesome if you are using only "up" and "down" ...

<comment><USER17> It should work for star ratings, and generalize to non discrete rating systems too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> How well does this work when you don't have a binary (+/-) rating system, but a multi-valued one (1 - 5 stars) ?

<comment><USER22> See the discussion elsewhere in this thread for confidence intervals in multinomial distributions. [https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=9856607&goto=item%3Fid...](https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=9856607&goto=item%3Fid%3D9855784)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> First off, for anyone looking at web reputation systems, _read the book on the subject_ : Randy Farmer and Bryce Glass, _Building Web Reputation Systems_ :

Book: [http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596159801.do](http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596159801.do)

Wiki: [http://buildingreputation.com/doku.php](http://buildingreputation.com/doku.php)

Blog: [http://buildingreputation.com/](http://buildingreputation.com/)

I can pretty much guarantee there are elements of this you're not considering which are addressed there (though there are also elements which Farmer and Glass don't hit either). But it's an excellent foundation.

Second: If you're going to have a quality classification system, you need to determine _what you are ranking for._ As the Cheshire Cat said, if you don't know where you're going, it doesn't much matter how you get there. Rating for popularity, sales revenue maximization, quality or truth, optimal experience, ideological purity, etc., are all different.

Beyond that I've compiled some thoughts of my own from 20+ years of using (and occasionally building) reputation systems myself:

"Content rating, moderation, and ranking systems: some non-brief thoughts" [http://redd.it/28jfk4](http://redd.it/28jfk4)

⚫ Long version: Moderation, Quality Assessment, & Reporting are Hard

⚫ Simple vote counts or sums are largely meaningless.

⚫ Indicating levels of agreement / disagreement can be useful.

⚫ Likert scale moderation can be useful.

⚫ There's a single-metric rating that combines many of these fairly well -- yes, Evan Miller's lower-bound Wilcox score.

⚫ Rating for "popularity" vs. "truth" is very, very different.

⚫ Reporting independent statistics for popularity (n), rating (mean), and variance or controversiality (standard deviation) is more informative than a single statistic.

⚫ Indirect quality measures also matter. I should add: _a LOT._

⚫ There almost certainly isn't a single "best" ranking. Fuzzing scores with randomness can help.

⚫ Not all rating actions are equally valuable. Not everyone's ratings carry the same weight.

⚫ There are things which don't work well.

⚫ _Showing_ scores and score components can be counterproductive and leads to various perverse incentives.

I'm also increasing leaning toward a multi-part system, one which rates:

1\. Overall favorability.

2\. Any flaggable aspects. Ultimately, "ToS" is probably the best bucket, comprising spam, harassment, illegal activity, NSFW/NSFL content (or improperly labeled same), etc.

3\. A truth or validity rating. Likeley rolled up in #2. But worth mentioning separately.

4\. Long-term author reputation.

There's also the general problem associated with Gresham's Law, which I'm increasingly convinced is a general _and quite serious_ challenge to market- based and popularity-based systems. Assessment of complex products, including especialy information products, is difficult, which is to say, _expensive_.

I'm increasingly in favour of presenting newer / unrated content to subsets of the total audience, and increasing its reach as positive approval rolls in. This seems like a behavior HN's "New" page could benefit from. Decrease the exposure for any one rater, but spread ratings over more submissions, for longer.

And there are other problems. Limiting individuals to a single vote (or negating the negative effects of vote gaming) is key. Watching the watchmen. Regression toward mean intelligence / content. The "evaporative cooling" effect ([http://blog.bumblebeelabs.com/social-software- sundays-2-the-...](http://blog.bumblebeelabs.com/social-software- sundays-2-the-evaporative-cooling-effect/)).

</comment><comment><USER23> The most important criteria for sorting should be the 'engagement'.

<comment><USER18> That's a useful element to consider, and I do favour implicit ranking inputs, but "best" requires you know your goal. _What are you selecting for?_</comment></comment>


Facebook's TransCoder AI Translates Between Programming Languages - <AUTHOR> https://venturebeat.com/2020/06/08/facebooks-transcoder-ai-converts-code-from-one-programming-language-into-another/ <comment><USER2> "When translating from C++ to Java, 74.8% of TransCoder's generations returned the expected outputs.

When translating from C++ to Python, 67.2% of TransCoder's generations returned the expected outputs.

When translating from Java to C++, 91.6% of TransCoder's generations returned the expected outputs.

When translating from Python to Java, 56.1% of TransCoder's generations returned the expected outputs.

When translating from Python to C++, 57.8% of TransCoder's generations returned the expected outputs.

When translating from Java to Python, 68.7% of TransCoder's generations returned the expected outputs."

Probably beats standard models but at first glance still seems far from useful for any sizable project.

<comment><USER3> I mean, unless it's 100% it's not very useful. Maybe if it does the trancode and can then tell you where in the code to look for problems. Otherwise, you would have to spend a lot of time looking at the code to figure out what went wrong. And at that point, you might as well do the transcode yourself.

Depending on how badly it does, it might be useful as a starting point though.</comment></comment>


Metformin inhibits mitochondrial adaptations to aerobic exercise training - <AUTHOR> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6351883/ <comment><USER2> Context: Metformin is a simple, very safe, and very common diabetic drug that appears to improve all-cause mortality and have some positive health effects in the average person, even if minor (such as improving blood glucose levels and insulin resistance), thereby slightly lengthening human lifespan and improving the process of aging. For this reason it has been touted as an anti- aging drug by many, and is taken by many non-diabetics for this purpose.

However, there have been more studies surfacing recently that show that it can make exercise less beneficial, of which the link in OP is a piece of evidence in favor of this.

For those interested in other interesting substances in this area, I suggest looking into Acarbose and Rapamycin, but there's many others that seem pretty cool, even if highly speculative. Also adding after reading a child comment to this, Peter Attia is one of the many great people worth following in this area, with a very high-quality information-dense podcast.

<comment><USER3> Good for me as I don't exercise. I'm not sure why people believe that exercise is beneficial for life span - it is as much beneficial as it is detrimental. I see those people jogging for "health" right next to car exhausts and I keep scratching my head. If you look at the longest lifespans, you won't see any athletes at the top. In fact, you will see a lot of scientists who mostly live sedentary lives, but most of them do walk regularly, that's a fact, although not really an exercise. Aerobic exercise is the single biggest source of ROS', which is part of its benefit - it can kill pathogens, it can occasionally have a hormetic effect. Outside of sex, I don't see a any proof that jogging will make me live a longer, happier life (especially when you subtract the time spent jogging). Most of the benefits of exercise can be accomplished via diet and lifestyle changes. Maybe some flexibility exercises like callanetics are worth the effort though, which can be accomplish with simple yoga.

<comment><USER4> > Outside of sex, I don't see a any proof that jogging will make me live a > longer, happier life (especially when you subtract the time spent jogging).

Still a valid use case for cardio training IMHO.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, but at least it's real fun, unlike jogging. :D

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have a friend who is obsessed with min-maxing the supplements he eats including Metformin.

What's wild to me is that he doesn't even exercise. It's like we're so bored/tired of the concept of exercise that even people seemingly obsessed with various health subtopics will glance past it.

Meanwhile, I bet adding an extra run to your week does 1000x more than Metformin will ever do. A lot of this stuff seems like obsessing over the shape of your car's exhaust pipe for performance when you don't even change the oil.

I wonder how many HNers who take it are the same [https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=metformin&sort=byPopularity&type=comment).

Edit: On second read this seems like a harsh, debbie-downer comment. I certainly hope a drug like Metformin is a magic pill you can take independently of the rest of your habits. It's just that this news is a reminder that we can't yet have things for free in pill form. At the same time, we have this constant aversion to the few things that we do know work, today.

<comment><USER3> Really? What is that run going to do for your lifespan?

<comment><USER6> First example that pops into my mind to address your question:

Running builds muscle and improves balance (among other things). Many people late in life die from head injuries caused by falls. I have a better chance of living longer and healthier with a stronger body.

I'm primarily concerned with healthspan over lifespan.

Goal to be sharp and as healthful as Jack Lalanne at 95: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkdYrAQJu6g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkdYrAQJu6g)

Yeah, I know he died a year later from pneumonia. He mentions his ego in the video as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I really think that any effective anti aging therapy is going be something that is specific to, or based on information from, the specific patient. Here's my logic: if there was some molecule or hormonal tweak that would defeat aging in every individual that was given it, then the improvement would be heritable. And some organism at some point in earths evolutionary history would have found it by now, which means we would know about it. So, there likely is none.

So, if there is an anti aging therapy of some kind, it must be something that is not a simple heritable molecule to be synthesized. That means some kind of genetic or stem cell therapy.

I'm not a biologist though so ymmv.

Edit: on that note: [https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/03/old-human- cel...](https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/03/old-human-cells- rejuvenated-with-stem-cell-technology.html)

<comment><USER8> Genes for living longer reproduce in a population only if they enhance fertility rates, but I suspect throughout history humans have been food constrained, and so there was never an opportunity for an older couple to have another baby when the younger couples were "maxed out" with babies already. Given food scarcity, living longer only means the clan needs more food, which hurts the clan's overall fertility.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> In general, you don't want to take anything if you can.

Drugs usually inhibit biological processes. Metformin inhibits mitochondria. This can be good for diabetes and good for aging, but it depends. Hopefully your doctor understands when to prescribe it.

<comment><USER2> With that said however, the average American diet is generally messed up enough that a lot of substances could benefit them, because there's so many existing problems that have room for improvement which are created by bad diet.

With a perfect diet, the amount of drugs you may want to take would definitely go down, perhaps even to zero.

<comment><USER10> Given that we're talking about longevity extension here, that "perfect diet" would have to be perfect indeed, to make you immortal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Endless. Eat well, cut carbs, fast now and then, exercise AF. The rest is a prayer.</comment>


Big Websites Start Small - <AUTHOR> http://www.rosshill.com.au/article/big-websites-start-small/

<comment><USER2> The $200 figure was created by digg PR. Later on they decided that $1000 was more believable (also not true). And elance wasn't involved. The site was pretty ugly for the first 6 months. But that was in 2004, the barriers to entry are higher now.

<comment><USER3> agreed...if you could get away with putting up a crappy design in this day and age, pg would have made that a point for the YC startups.

<comment><USER4> Frankly design (as in look) does not matter as much as design (as in usability). You can get away with a very basic design as long as you are providing a valuable service. In other words what you can do with great programming and basic HTML skills will always be superior to what you can do with great Photoshop/CSS skills and little programming experience. This is the same reason why small restaurants with great food, but crappy look can easily outscore a million dollar establishment with poor food quality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Focusing on making everything look slick upfront is an easy mistake to make. The first step is to get the essential "process" working. In some cases, the graphical design of the site is a part of that task, but in most cases, the core of the site's success is in whether the user workflows work well and people are using the site. So it's certainly wise to focus on that first.

<comment><USER6> It really depends on your target demographic. Look at HN, where the most fascinating feature is it's simplicity and that's an ideal of beauty for hackers. But there's tons of people who would turn away because the layout is not shiny enough.

<comment><USER7> Definitely. I can't wait until gradients go out of style again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _Have you got the next million-dollar idea? Head over to RentACoder or eLance and make it happen._

I am totally against this kind of advice, i always believe people should not get into businesses which they don't understand; be it Internet, Stock markets, Space Tourism or selling Coffee. At the end of the day, you have to understand what you are doing and why you are doing it. With this kind of advice, you will have innocent(dumb) people thinking that, all they have to do is find a developer on RentaCoder and pitch him their million-dollar idea and they are rich. There are many more subtleties in starting a startup and like any other businesses, you have to be knowledgeable about it to make it a success.

<comment><USER9> "i always believe people should not get into businesses which they don't understand"

I don't think internet businesses are all about writing code... There isn't any strong correlation between web development skills and ability to build a successful web business...

If a person can conceptualize a service that he can take to market and spend some money from his pocket to get it developed... I'd say his chances of success would be higher than average web developer who develops something that might not have a market</comment></comment>


Tesla: No self-driver, but exotic features and go-fast model - <AUTHOR> http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2014/10/09/tesla-musk-safety-driver-aids/16986665/ <comment><USER2> [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2014/10/09/tesla- musk-safety-driver-aids/16986665/)

</comment><comment><USER3> There's a bootleg stream of the event at: [http://new.livestream.com/accounts/10419610/events/3475766](http://new.livestream.com/accounts/10419610/events/3475766)

<comment><USER4> Over 3500 streamers!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> So much for news embargos.

</comment><comment><USER6> HAWTHORNE, Calif. — Tesla Motors didn't announce the self-driving car that some had expected but did roll out an exotic suite of driver-aid and safety features Thursday night.

And it said it'll have a hopped-up version of its Model S that has all-wheel drive and blasts to 60 mph in little more than 3 seconds.

Tesla's moves are closely watched by its shareholders, who seem to bid up stock prices wildly, then sell, so the Tesla shares rocket, then tumble, somewhat like technology stocks. And the electric-carmaker's moves are considered a foretaste of what mainstream automakers might need to emulate to stay abreast of the latest technology.

Tesla announced Thursday that the all-wheel-drive versions of its Model S electric car will manage a slight increase in range of about 10 miles on a charge vs. the rear-drive models — for a maximum of 275 miles — because of efficiencies designed into the new system.

The AWD cars have a second electric motor to drive the front wheels. AWD hybrids, such as the Lexus RX, likewise use separate electric motors front and rear to accomplish all-wheel drive. That eliminates the need for a front-to- rear driveshaft and other cumbersome hardware.

CEO Elon Musk called his system "a huge improvement" that he claims is "taking the technology to the next level."

The AWD cars will carry the designation D, and the new top version of the Model S, the AWD P85D, will be among the fastest-accelerating sedans ever: 0-60 mph in 3.2 seconds, according to Tesla. Five or six seconds is considered very quick.

The 85D models start being delivered to buyers in December. The other AWD models, 60D and 85D, arrive in buyers hands in February.

The addition of all-wheel drive will allow Tesla to compete more vigorously in the snowy East and Midwest, broadening is buyer base beyond the Sunbelt.

Jaguar made a similar move to AWD in 2013, figuring it was competing in a shrinking minority of the luxury market without AWD.

Tesla's suite of safety features and driver aids is partly catch-up, partly leapfrog.

Brands from Mercedes-Benz and Infiniti to more mainstream nameplates such as Hyundai have features that will keep a car in its lane, steer it back if it begins to wander, stop without driver help if it's racing too fast toward the car ahead.

But Tesla CEO Elon Musk says Tesla is adding innovations to those.

Two highlights:

•The new system will move the car over a lane when the driver uses the turn signal.

•The car reads speed-limit signs and adjusts the car to the speed on the sign.

Other features match the lane-departure warnings and other safety and driver- help features that are getting common.

Tesla says the cars it's building now have 12 sensors each able to "see" 16 feet to enable the safety tech. Those can't be retrofitted to older models, Tesla says.

<comment><USER7> > The car reads speed-limit signs and adjusts the car to the speed on the > sign.

I hope this feature can be disabled. Where I live, the flow of traffic regularly exceeds the stated speed limit - sometimes by 20 mph. It would be very silly to be limited like this.

<comment><USER8> I am kind of curious what the vision system does when the sign has different speeds for different classes of vehicle. Or signs for night vs day.

<comment><USER9> Or on various Seattle roads, like I-5 where the speed limit is variable not just by time of day and congestion, but even which lane you're in. (Not to mention that the signs over each lane don't show the standard white rectangle with black text.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> as someone who just picked up my model S last week, it'd be kind of crappy if I missed the cut for these new sensors. the car is so nice though it's hard to complain.

<comment><USER11> isn't there a massive waiting list?

<comment><USER12> December for new orders, not too bad.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's one book that changed your life? - <AUTHOR> What's one book that changed your life? <comment><USER3> Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

I lead a team to translate the whole book to Vietnamese fifteen years ago as a freshman highschool student, and released it for free online. We beat the printed book publisher by months. I should have gotten into tons of troubles, but everyone was kind enough to not beat me down. I didn't get into any legal troubles partly because people saw the values in doing it, partly because they didn't know what to do with it, partly because we were anonymous later on. The website received so much traffic I couldn't believe. Later on, I wrote an ajax-based site: after loading a very simple skeleton, it would only load plain text on demand afterwards, yet it would quickly saturate any free hosting bandwidth I could get. To put it into perspective, I had several HN front page stories nowadays and I got about 50k unique visitors worldwide a day at best. I got 5k a day just from Vietnam back then.

It was how I knew and met half of all the important people that shaped my early twenties, many of them were writers, translators, poets, reporters. It was an incredible stretch of luck and a huge eye-opening experience to be starting it and seeing how powerful the internet could be and where following a passion could lead me to at that age. I was a college dropout at 19 and an internet celebrity I knew from that incident picked me up and suggested to me that I should look into studying in the US. If not, I would have been typing this in a dark hot corner in Vietnam today.

I wrote a bit in more details about it here: [http://www.tnhh.net/posts/Harry- Potter-and-me.html](http://www.tnhh.net/posts/Harry-Potter-and-me.html)

Archive of the translated book in 2004: [http://web.archive.org/web/20040213105923/http://huanhuu.net...](http://web.archive.org/web/20040213105923/http://huanhuu.netfirms.com:80/harrypotter/index.htm) (it was lame)

<comment> a-saleh This is awesome! Order of the Phoenix has a special place in my heart as well, because this was the first book I have read in English :D Me and my mom didn't want to wait half a year for translation.

But actually on-upping professional translators? That sounds amazing!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "A Guide to the Good Life" by William Irvine. It's an approachable guide to stoicism and it helped me become less attached and less anxious about things that I have no control over. I really value the increased peace of mind.

I took a lot of notes when I first read the book ([https://booknotes.quora.com/Notes-on-A-Guide-to-the-Good- Lif...](https://booknotes.quora.com/Notes-on-A-Guide-to-the-Good-Life-by- Irvine)) and I still revisit them occasionally. (The notes don't replace reading the book, but give a good sense of its contents.)

<comment><USER5> +1 for the book recommendation and the reading notes.

I have always had a little bit of the spiritual side to me, but in the last ten years I have come even more to appreciate both the philosophy of stoicism and Buddhist teachings, which have a huge amount of overlap in my opinion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> _Zen Mind, Beginner 's Mind_, by Shunryu Suzuki

I was 19 and living in a van, camping under bridge overpasses in Colorado so I could just ski all day every day. My naive uneducated mind was formulating some sort of psuedo-hippy philosophy around the state of ecstasy reached in the perfect ride down a mountain through powder. Little did I know the "no- thought" mantra I had been inculcating was just a pale impression of this thousands year old tradition of mindfulness. When I picked this book up at a library I just sat down reading page after page being blown away by how he would describe the exact same sensibilities I had been reaching for. It was my first spiritual awakening as an adult.

<comment><USER7> Hey man, where did you do most of your skiing? Also I would love to chat with you about how you went from ski bum to professional programmer (I'm assuming) but you don't have an email in your bio. Cheers

<comment><USER6> Mostly Abay/Keystone

We liked to hate on Vail on that side of the pass, but it really is the best. The only problem was affording it ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The Inner Game of Tennis. My coach gave me his copy from like 1998 that was very, very worn and I could tell he had read it many many times.

He was a badass, grew up in South Central, would ride his bike to nicer areas of LA where there were tennis courts, and just hit against the wall until someone else would show up & he'd ask to play with them.

Ended up playing in High School, and getting a full ride to a DI college.

He told me that reading this book when he was trying to get scholarships to college was one of the turning points in his life and then said, "How I'm teaching you to respond to adversity on the court is preparation for the more important challenges you'll face in your life off the court."

To this day, I often suggest this book to anyone as it played a similar role in my life as well.

<comment><USER9> I am a classical musicianby profession (principal bassoon in Norrköping Symphony orchestra if that tells anyone anything). I have used the techniques in the inner game of tennis daily for about as long as I can remember. A teacher of mine noticed I had a very uneven level and made me read it. One of the most important books in my professional career.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> _The Game_ , by Neil Strauss.

I know, I know, PUA's are despicable and all that. But as a super sheltered Mormon nerd who had zero flirting instinct and put girls on a pedestal/treated them like aliens, it absolutely refactored the social part of my brain for the better.

When I read the book, I was 22 and had never been on a date. Six months later I was engaged. Still married now, almost ten years later.

</comment><comment><USER11> The Space Merchants, co-written by Frederik Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth. Mind you, I was barely a teenager at the time I read it. But:

-It led me down the path to the realization that advertising in almost all of its current forms is unequivocally evil and has no credible moral justification in our current society. I have been running adblocking software on all of my devices (and that of my family's) and feel mildly disgusted every time I see an ad in the street or on the rare occasions I watch television.

-It opened my eyes on the fact that corporations having more power than governments is a huge deal, especially at times where government is often equivocated to 'lazy bureaucrats' and opposed to private companies' supposed 'efficiency' (but for whom?).

-It made me realize that environmentalists are not just some rambling, soft-natured and out-of-touch hippies but simply ringing the bell about how we are going to be _royally screwed_ if we don't radically change our current consumption habits.

But the most shocking thing about that book is that _it was written in 1952_. There was no targeted advertising and tracking, no concerns about global warming, no oil peak. Critics at the time said it was witty and light-hearted, but far too much of a caricature to be taken seriously. Reading the thing more than 60 years later gives the whole experience a sour pang of irony.

<comment><USER12> >But the most shocking thing about that book is that it was written in 1952.

Corporate greed and advertisement is quite old, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Introduction to Algorithms, Charles E. Leiserson, Clifford Stein, Ronald Rivest, and Thomas H. Cormen

Not because of contents, but because of the fact how i got it. Our local "search engine" (already dead) make a gift to everyone in the country - <USER2> can pick any IT book that you wish and they will give it to you for free.

That was a great example how spending (very little i suppose) money can help a lot of people. Most of my friends got something from them. Eventually when i won several prizes on coding contest i have done same thing - i gifted 50 books to young developers and they was able to pick anything they want too. That was a great experience and after years people sometimes still tell me that how it helped them.

</comment><comment><USER14> This book called Mindfulness[1], was gifted to me, is very short and easy to read, it has nothing to do about spirituality (which I though it was), and has real life and practical examples. So because it changed my view then I could benefit from a lot of other good materials and talks that before this book I'd not even consider. Long term it also gave me a rational reason to meditate.

I think the saying "the master appears when the student is ready" kind of applies to books, it the depends the moment of your life the book will tell you something or not.

[1][https://www.amazon.com/Mindfulness-25th-anniversary- Merloyd-...](https://www.amazon.com/Mindfulness-25th-anniversary-Merloyd- Lawrence/dp/0738217999/)

</comment><comment><USER15> Economics in One Lesson by Hazlitt.

It's old but many of the lessons he teaches are still relevant today. It opened my eyes to the danger of only thinking about the things that are easily observable, and ignoring the "unseen" things.

> The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at > the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the > consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.

<comment><USER16> This book is complete trash. You should find a better book.

<comment><USER17> Care to explain why?

<comment><USER18> I'm not the guy who posted, but probably because the book has a conservative lean.

Regardless, I think the book is great as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Quiet by Susan Cain: realizing that i am normal, that my need to be alone is something that many other also feel. Realizing that its ok to be like this made me really emotional, sitting there on the train to work, almost crying of relief.. Yep, changes my life for the better, made me feel more secure about my self.

</comment><comment><USER20> The Easy Way To Stop Smoking, by Alan Carr.

Very logically made me realise that willpower was really just about changing how you talk to yourself. Essentially learning impulse control.

I lost a deadly, expensive habit and a fair bit of weight. Clean for 6 years.

<comment><USER21> Great book.

It was the fourth or third book I had read in my life up until that point.

I read it and realized that in order for me to quit smoking, I had to quit drinking(I was around 19 at the time and a heavy drinker), and in order to do that I needed to change/get away from the circle of friends at the time. That day, after finishing the book the decisions were obvious and I did exactly what needed to be done. It was like: 1,2,3 done. I did it!

I quit drinking for 1,5 years. Moved to a different tow, to get away from all my friends at that time. Started reading books like mad, because I realized that the info in a book can substantially change my life.

I'm 30 now. I've been free from smoking for more than 10 years. Reading books has led me into having a well paid(by the standards of my country) job in SEO/digital marketing. I have not started, nor finished uni.

I think I need to re-read it, because I'd like to kick my habit of drinking and a few other bad habits.

I could not recommend it enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> 101 BASIC Computer Games by David H. Ahl.

This was a book published in the 70s by DEC. I vividly remember at either the very beginning or the very end of the book there was a section on how to send submissions for consideration in future editions, complete with instructions on how to properly pack oiled teletype tape for shipping. :)

I found a copy of one of the editions of this book in my parent's book stash in the 80s some time after I got a C128. Up until then the C128 had spent most of it's time in C64 emulation mode alternately running a BBS, downloading cracked games while taking some liberties with the telephone system, or playing those games. Starting on that book put me on the path of teaching myself to program.

If the OP is looking for something that changes philosophical outlook, or something that might be relevant today, then I probably disappoint. However in taking the question literally, I'd guess this book set me on the path to the life I live today more than any other single book.

<comment><USER23> I started in a similar way with my C64. At that time I didn't have access to cracked games or anything like that so I started typing up BASIC programs (not sure it was that book in particular, the cover does look familiar). That led to teaching myself programming. It was a wonderful time having found a machine that let you express your thoughts in such a new way, very exciting. Not sure young kids nowadays can have the same connection, things have become way more complex.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Its about thinking biases, by far the book with the greatest information density I have ever read. 2 pages per thinking bias. Paid of a 1000 times.

[https://www.amazon.de/Art-Thinking-Clearly-Better- Decisions/...](https://www.amazon.de/Art-Thinking-Clearly-Better- Decisions/dp/144475954X)

</comment><comment><USER25> How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

<comment><USER26> I refer to my handwritten notes on this all the time, and seemingly no matter how consistently I apply the ideas in my dealings with others, I always have a feeling that I wish I was doing better at it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

I read it during a stay in a psychiatric facility. I had checked myself in because I felt unsafe towards myself.

I couldn't focus reading anything else. I could focus reading this. It even made me smile. Then even laugh.

The author killed himself before he ever saw it published. It's a remarkable book. In addition to helping me get out of my head for a bit, reading it facilitated a desire to make / build / write something good and live to see it exist in the world.

That was 2006. Happy to say I'm still here, still trying.

</comment><comment><USER28> Sapiens ([https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23692271-sapiens](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23692271-sapiens)) Gave words to describe my feelings for various ideas in my head. Another thing that happened (probably unrelated), after this I reestablished my reading habit that got lost for nearly 10 years.

<comment><USER29> This book is a great read. It is about how homo sapiens became the most powerful species on earth. It changed the way I used to think about various things such as religion, capitalism, nationalism, race, gender, equality, independence etc.,

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> "Bring Me Your Love" Charles Bukowski

Bukowski's style gave me a permission that I didn't know I was looking for. It was raw and accessible. It showed me that prose and poetry didn't need to be buried in metaphor and riddles.

That extends to much of life: let's get on with it. Sometimes it's fine to drop ceremony and adornment--especially if it's not genuine.

</comment><comment><USER31> The Brothers Karamazov, by Dostoevsky, without doubt. Seriously, the chapter with the Legend of the Great Inquisitor forced me to ask myself what was the meaning of "freedom", and this in turns urged me to reconsider a lot of beliefs I had hold before.

<comment><USER32> For me it's The Idiot, due to Myshkin being such a distinct character. But all of Doestoevsky's work was eye-opening for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> "1984" by George Orwell and "Gödel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter.

<comment><USER34> How did "1984" change your life?

<comment><USER33> I was probably to young for the book when I read it (about 15): the explicit description of a brain-wash torture with the result, that two lovers won't recognize each other emotionally anymore afterwards was beyond my imagination and left me with a mild form of capgras delusion that lasts until today.

<comment><USER35> > capgras delusion

So, that's what it is called? Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> "Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War" by Robert Coram was the first biography I really enjoyed. John Boyd's dedication to his ideals is inspiring. The retrospective that comes from seeing an inspiring life, with all its trade-offs and inevitable end, was life changing.

</comment><comment><USER37> Maybe not one, but 3 books:

Into the Wild (book and movie): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7ArZ7VD- QQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7ArZ7VD-QQ) When I was in high school I was considering the same path as Christopher took, but then I heard about him and I learned from his story. "Happiness only real when shared"

Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6289283-born-to- run](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6289283-born-to-run) This is how I got really hooked up to triathlon and ultramarathons. Great book, I lent it to many people and changed some of their lives too.

Learning PHP and MySQL: [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40544.Learning_PHP_and_M...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40544.Learning_PHP_and_MySQL) The book is ok, not great, but it changed my life. This is how I learned to program.

But I would say that other media also had an impact. Like poems:

"If—" by Rudyard Kipling: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qH5txHlSOUI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qH5txHlSOUI)

Then there are some short videos: The Race: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM5A1K6TxxM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM5A1K6TxxM) Godspeed: [https://youtu.be/pNSWTwB-_bk](https://youtu.be/pNSWTwB-_bk) "The Hubble Ultra Deep Field" by Deep Astronomy: [https://youtu.be/oAVjF_7ensg](https://youtu.be/oAVjF_7ensg)

</comment><comment> mck- The art of worldly wisdom, by Baltasar Gracian.

Timeless classic, tiny book of 300 maxims. Each one very profound, highly re- readable as you go through life. I've been reading it over and over little bits at a time, for well over a decade by now. Life changer for sure.

<comment><USER38> Definitely in my top ten list, too. Like Machiavelli, but its D&D alignment would be Neutral Good.

<comment><USER39> Nothing whatever like Machiavelli. I don't understand that last part you wrote, sorry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Surprised it's not mentioned yet -> "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho.

This book is pure gold, however one has to approach it with a right mindset. It's not the best literature, per se, you will ever read, but if you take a deeper look, it's very simple, yet very profound. It somehow reminds me of the quote from Charlie Munger (Warren Buffett long time associate, and one of the wisest man alive) - "Take a simple idea, and take it seriously"

<comment><USER41> I had a very The Alchmist experience while I was reading The Alchemist. I was reading the book on the bus and and was so engrossed that I missed my bus stop. Then I decided that since it was a nice day, I'd take a walk around the neighborhood I ended up in. At the guitar store, there was an amazing Martin guitar that I couldn't put down. I still have it 15 years later. Kismet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I learned to be less Arthur and more Ford about my approach to living my life in general, and dealing with Fenchurch winking out of existence in particular.

<comment><USER43> Did you learn how to fly yet? ;) I think at that point, Arthur learns how to be less Arthur himself. I don't think things between him and Fenchurch would've worked out, had he been the same person he was at the beginning of the books.

Then again, the last book really depressed me - I can't imagine having my Fenchurch being ripped away from me...

That part was probably worse than the ending for me.

I hope you are doing well.

<comment><USER42> I'm doing well now. Thank you! Hope you are too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> A friend loaned me a copy of Ken Wilbur's _A Brief History of Everything_ , which I credit with starting me down the path of philosophical thought. I honestly don't remember a whole lot about the book, but even if I did I'm not certain I'd recommend it if only because I've noticed this tendency of people to read a book about philosophical ideas and then just stop thinking about the ideas and treat them as some kind of dogma. I do recommend deep philosophical thinking though, and to try not to get caught up in the academic side of philosophy.

Terry Pratchett's _Hogfather_ , in retrospect, laid the foundation for a fundamental shift in my understanding of belief and how it interfaces with reality.

</comment><comment><USER26> Moral Mazes by Robert Jackall.

It helped me better detect and understand seemingly hypocritical and self- defeating actions by middle managers in companies, and also a lot of the disingenuous emphasis on "passion" used to suppress wages in start-ups or sell job candidates on a reduced salary or equity package with poor expected value or risk characteristics.

I wouldn't say anything from Moral Mazes was surprising when stepping back to think about known manipulative behavior of middle and upper management. But it did give an excellent analytical and even a normative philosophical framework to use for recognizing and diagnosing it, which sometimes helps for avoiding it, choosing your battles, or knowing when to quit or turn down job offers.

</comment><comment><USER9> I read practical ethics by Peter Singer in a time of my life when I was struggling to justify my way of life. It pushed me down a path that I still follow today.

Gösta Berling's tale by Selma Lagerlöf was also very defining. It kept me away from the niilism that often strikes teenagers. Truly wonderful writing (Although I can't vouch for any translations).

<comment><USER45> Interesting you mention Practical Ethics. How did it impact you? Is it more towards post-modernism and leftist ideas or tilts towards the right side of the political spectrum?

<comment><USER46> That's a tough question to answer, as he's often both. For instance Singer assigns many animals personhood, yet doesn't assign it to new-borns.

The upshot of this is that he advocates veganism, but also abortion, and even acknowledges that the killing of infants is potentially okay here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes.

Read it first when I was 16, at the recommendation of my literature teacher in high school. For the past... - darn, this was long ago! - ...more than 20 years, I've read it at least once a year, and intend to do that for as long as I can read.

That book changed me, like nothing else since.

<comment><USER48> Happy to see this mentioned here. While I can't claim that it was "lifechanging" for me, I still maintain it to be one of the best SciFi novels I've ever read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> _Outliers_ by Malcolm Gladwell. Hailing from a village in India and having seen Bill gates and other celebrities as real successful and been amazed about it, I had an entirely different notion of success and talent before reading outliers. But after that I started believing that Success can come from anywhere and whatever we call IQ or Intelligence, that is all something that's another skill and can be honed. It broke the myth of innate talent and success.

</comment><comment><USER50> Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig

I read it only recently but it changed the way I look at everything now. I am now seeing how our creative culture is being hurt without most people noticing. I have become an advocate for free culture and contribute all my art to public domain. The book itself is freely available, you can google it and download it right now if you want to read it.

</comment><comment><USER51> Count Zero by William Gibson. Somehow I ended up reading it before Neuromacer. It was in the early 90s. I was maybe 16 or so and I remember just getting sucked into that world. It was also the time when I was getting more and more into coding and learning about networks and when I managed to connect to the internet from home for the first time.

</comment><comment><USER52> The book "Non-violent Communication" changed my life.

After I read it, I had some of the best communication with romantic partners I ever had. I also had fights with friends transform into heartfelt conversations when I was practicing NVC, even though my friends weren't practicing it.

</comment><comment><USER53> Operating Manual For Spaceship Earth By Buckminster Fuller

I first read it when I was ~25 and it made me think about the way the world is, the historical reasons it is this way and how we can nudge it towards being better.

It frustrates me that Fuller wrote the book nearly 50 years ago and all the same stupid crap continues to happen and humanity doesn't seem to be getting its collective shit together.

But then I remember the lessons from the book on why the world is like it is and how we can only nudge it slowly....

You can read it here: [http://designsciencelab.com/resources/OperatingManual_BF.pdf](http://designsciencelab.com/resources/OperatingManual_BF.pdf)

Edit to also mention; Small Gods by Terry Pratchett (as well as basically every other book he ever wrote).

</comment><comment><USER54> Why I Am Not a Christian, by Bertrand Russell (1), 16 years of Catholic indoctrination (0).

<comment><USER55> I love his essay on the benefits and virtue of idleness. Incredibly relevant today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse

<comment><USER57> After that, I had to read all the others too!

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> The Art of Loving by Erich Fromme

A description of how love (romantic love, brotherly love, love for God, love for oneself) has to be actively practiced much like any other discipline and what the consequences are for individuals living in a society that by and large does not hold this belief. As a younger person who often gets frustrated with how easy it is to get caught up in his own narcissism and materialism, this book helped me better understand myself and what my core drives are moreso than anything else I've encountered to date. Only like 120 pages to boot.

</comment><comment><USER59> The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible, by Charles Eisenstein.

I almost passed on this one due to the corny sounding title, but I'm so glad I didn't. It renewed my optimism about the future of humanity at a time when my faith was deeply challenged and I was bringing a new person into the world.

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17345270-the-more- beauti...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17345270-the-more-beautiful- world-our-hearts-know-is-possible)

</comment><comment><USER60> Gravitation by Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler

The Road to Reality by Penrose

The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli

"For a long time, we have tried to understand the world in terms of some primary substance. Perhaps physics, more than any other discipline, has pursued this primary substance. But the more we have studied it, the less the world seems comprehensible in terms of something that is. It seems to be a lot more intelligible in terms of relations between events.

...

We therefore describe the world as it happens, not as it is. Newton's mechanics, Maxwell's equations, quantum mechanics, and so on, tell us how events happen, not how things are...we understand the world in its becoming, not in its being. Things in themselves are only events that for a while are monotonous. But only before returning to dust, everything returns to dust.

The absence of time does not mean, therefore, that everything is frozen and unmoving. It means that the incessant happening that wearies the world is not ordered along a time line, is not measured by a gigantic tick-tocking. It does not even form a four-dimensional geometry. It is a boundless and disorderly network of quantum events. The world is more like Naples than Singapore.

If by 'time' we mean nothing more than happening, then everything is time. There is only that which exists in time."

Very influential in my teens:

Absalom, Absalom by Faulkner

USA by John Dos Passos

Cache Lake Country by Rowlands

</comment><comment><USER61> To kill a mockingbird.

Quite frankly that both introduced me to racism and taught me to strongly condemn it. I also learnt the value of education and the utility of appropriate conduct.

</comment><comment><USER62> Dune (and the sequels through God Emperor).

I've never found a writer who could discuss humanity writ large — both in masses, and over enormous spans of time — like Herbert. Dune is the easy to read, fast moving approachable yarn that gets you in. The real masterpiece is God Emperor, where we get to see humanity over thousands of years, and we really learn Herbert's most important lesson: beware the charismatic dictator.

</comment><comment><USER63> Don't know about changing my life, but these books changed the way i look at things:

The Tao of Pooh: Benjamin Hoff

Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade by Kurt Vonnegut

TI 99/4a basic reference manual

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, by Abelson, Sussman

Object Oriented Analysis and Design by Grady Booch

Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler

Thieves in the Night by Arthur Koestler

All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren

The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck

The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

War and Peace by L.N.Tolstoy

Chapaev and the void by Pelevin

</comment><comment><USER64> The war of art, by Steven pressfield

<comment><USER36> I've listened to this book over a dozen times on Audible (also available on audio CD). I love the added energy given to the reading by listening at about 1.4x speed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Mindset by Carol Dweck

</comment><comment><USER66> The Three Body Problem series

Just great, modern, adult scifi books that describe scale of time and space really well in a constantly surprising plot

</comment><comment><USER48> I'm amazed at all the "big names" mentioned here. Thinking about the quesion, I don't think I could pinpoint a book that drastically changed any "philosophical" views of mine.

I'll go with "Turbo Pascal für Kids" instead. It's the first programming book I've read as a kid and the topic has stuck with me so far :)

</comment><comment><USER67> Immanuel Kant's critique of pure reason

<comment><USER63> Wow, that's a very tough book

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> The one book is probably actually three books that were read more or less at the same time: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K Dick, Little, Big by John Crowley, and Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe. These books led to a change of reading habits in way that led eventually to working in publishing.

</comment><comment><USER69> Gates of Fire, by Steven Pressfield, because I realized how simple are my own troubles compared to those 300 spartans that faced death against a force that easily was 1000 times bigger. Now every time I'm facing difficults I remember about those guys and nothing looks so hard in comparison.

</comment><comment><USER70> Atlas shrugged I read this for the first time during the summer I graduated from college and was backpacking through South America. It struck me like a thunderbolt, putting into words principles that I strongly believed in but had not seen in print elsewhere.

</comment><comment><USER71> zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance

masterpiece

<comment><USER57> "Gumption trap". oh yeah. Book of wisdom. Eventually I read the sequel, also good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> A Constitution for Living (Buddhist Principles for a Fruitful and Harmonious Life)

[https://www.amazon.com/Constitution-Buddhist-Principles- Frui...](https://www.amazon.com/Constitution-Buddhist-Principles-Fruitful- Harmonious/dp/B005QP7PKC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1527916809&sr=8-1&keywords=A+CONSTITUTION+FOR+LIVING+P.+A.+Payutto)

or get it free via

[http://www.watnyanaves.net/uploads/File/books/pdf/a_constitu...](http://www.watnyanaves.net/uploads/File/books/pdf/a_constitution_for_living_thai- eng.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER73> This is an interesting question to me, because I've read lots of books over my life and I don't really think I can say a book has 'completely' changed my life.

However, I've read books with interesting ideas that I've probably applied in my life to varying degrees, which I guess one could say has changed my life to some extent. If that's the criterion, then there are probably too many to list.

Since I'm likely being over-analytical, if I had to recommend one book to read it'd be something like 'James and the Giant Peach' or another book that would sufficiently open one's imagination.

</comment><comment><USER74> My first ever programming book was "Usborne Guide to Understanding the Micro: How It Works and What It Can Do" written in 1982:

[https://www.amazon.com/Usborne-Guide-Understanding-Micro- Ele...](https://www.amazon.com/Usborne-Guide-Understanding-Micro- Electronics/dp/0860206378)

It's introduction to microcomputers and programming on ZX Spectrum.

I've read russian version of this book in 1994.

In post-soviet area in 1990, time was shifted, so in 1990s we had wave of popularity of ZX Spectrum and 8-bit game console NES (i.e. what was popular in 1980s in the west).

</comment><comment><USER75> Ghost in the Wires.

Reading of Kevin Mitnick's exploits and benign (to me) curiosity was inspiring as I was testing out my own hand at hacking and social engineering in college. His approach to SE allowed me to get over the fear of dealing with individuals in my job hunt and to generally see people more as people (strangely enough).

The book is full of excellent anecdotes on the joys and consequences of sincere curiosity. To this day it still inspires me to ask "What is behind x/ if I push/pull/turn/fuzz this x" and "What happens if I just ask for x"

</comment><comment><USER76> The Taoist Classics, Volume One: The Collected Translations of Thomas Cleary

(Tao Te Ching / Chuang-tzu / Wen-tzu / The Book of Leadership and Strategy: Lessons of the Chinese Masters)

</comment><comment><USER77> Getting Real by 37Signals - [https://basecamp.com/books/getting- real](https://basecamp.com/books/getting-real)

Got me started building my first business.

</comment><comment><USER78> Real Food/Fake Food by Larry Olmsted taught me to care about the quality and source of the food I eat.

Just caring about that has helped me lose 94lbs, and changed my life forever. Thank you Larry.

</comment><comment><USER79> Dream Yoga and the Practice of Natural Light by Chogyal Namkhai Norbu. Gives you a completely different perspective on life. Also Awakening Upon Dying by the same author.

</comment><comment><USER23> "Why employees are always a bad idea" \- put into words something I always felt possible but was too afraid to demand. Gave me finally the motivation to start my own company. I was a wannabe for a long time, always searching for the right "idea" to start something when I realised that all I really wanted is a work environment where I have the freedom to choose how I want to work while still be part of something bigger.

</comment><comment><USER80> The Bible

<comment><USER81> Agreed. A close second for me is Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem. It helped me understand the Bible and put the things I was reading into categories. It's a thick book, but very readable. If you want something a bit smaller, there are two thinner books that are a summary of the original:

* Introduction to systematic theology (the discipline, not the book): [https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/whats-systematic-...](https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/whats-systematic-theology-and-why-bother/)

* Introductory book: Christian Beliefs

* Mid-Level: Bible Doctrine

* In Depth: Systematic Theology

</comment></comment><comment><USER82> Eragon. I think it was the second book, where Eragon is training with the Elf in the Elf kingdom.

That part _changed_ me. Ironically I've now forgotten the exact life lesson.

</comment><comment><USER83> "A Pattern Language" by Christopher Alexander. Helped me to understand the language of architecture. What works and why, and what doesn't work and why. To this day I can still pick up this book, turn to a random page and get lost for hours in it. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pattern_Language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pattern_Language)

</comment><comment><USER84> 10X bei Grant Cardone, read this January. Honestly, 10X is, in itself, nothing too new. It does not reinvent the world (like 4HWW did). Yet, by its open language and Grants directness, this book somehow got me started and since January I feel like I have rocket boosters attached.

The stuff I managed to do in recent months was unseen in my life so far (not that I was unsuccessful, but the time after reading this book is really different).

</comment><comment><USER85> Kevin Kelly's New Rules for the New Economy. I gave away probably twenty copies to my friends to explain why I left one career to do a startup.

Course that book and Kevin Kelly post bubble were roundly criticized. But looking back he got most of it right. Sadly he stopped writing for quite a few years. That book motivated me that I was doing the right thing. That startup failed, but the next one didn't.

</comment><comment><USER86> The Story of B by Daniel Quinn helped break me of the last vestiges of magical thinking. Immediatism by Hakim Bey helped me see the beauty of disobedience.

</comment><comment><USER87> The way it is by Ajahn Sumedho. A collection of talks, perhaps a bit rambling at times, but very insightful, by a Theravadan Buddhist monk.

I read this every few months.

[https://cdn.amaravati.org/wp- content/uploads/2014/10/26/Way-...](https://cdn.amaravati.org/wp- content/uploads/2014/10/26/Way-it-is-by-ajahn-sumedho.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER88> This book [1], which after reading the first page (numbered page 6) will provide all the insight you need to understand the revolutionary changes of Vatican II. [https://www.mostholyfamilymonastery.com/2nd_edition_final.pd...](https://www.mostholyfamilymonastery.com/2nd_edition_final.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER89> "Gödel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter. I did not understand much the first time I read that book (I was 16 or so); maybe I understood well only one thing: that I wanted to understand more. That book made me clearly see what I wanted to do. (I am now a professor of mathematical physics). I should definitely read it again...

</comment><comment><USER90> Probability Theory: The Logic of Science by E. T. Jaynes

I was doing a post-grad degree in biomedical engineering and that book set me on a path to become a statistician -- exclusively Bayesian at the start, but now well-versed in all sorts of approaches. (Still prefer Bayes, but I'm only dogmatic about it in theory, not in practice.)

</comment><comment><USER91> "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman, it made me learn to start questioning my own thought processes.

</comment><comment><USER92> Finite and Infinite Games by James P. Carse

Truly a mind-expanding book, which can help remove a lot of contraints on ones' thinking.

</comment><comment><USER93> _Gruts_ by Ivor Cutler.

 _Milk, Sulphate, and Albie Starvation_ by Martin Millar.

I was introduced to Martin Millar by a very close friend who stole very many books. She was good at it, and she stole hundreds of books.

In turn I introduced her to Ivor Cutler. We'd sit in her room drinking tea, eating pikelets and jam, listening to Ivor Cutler.

<comment><USER94> "Go and sit upon the grass, and I will come and sit beside you." What a genius.

</comment></comment><comment><USER95> Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi [0]

It helped me understand certain things I experienced in life without consciously knowing about them.

\- [0] [https://www.robinwieruch.de/lessons-learned-deep-work- flow/](https://www.robinwieruch.de/lessons-learned-deep-work-flow/)

</comment><comment><USER96> Mrityunjaya, the death conqueror. A novel depicting the life of Karna (one of the Mahabharata character). Once you read this, your entire view of Mahabharata will change. I read this in my teenage years. It has changed my view of looking at life, and I started to take life seriously.

<comment><USER97> Could you mention some of things you realized reading this book and how you are using it in daily to daily life.

<comment><USER96> I realized that life is not always fair with you. But however cruel it is, be firm with your principles. Know yourself and ignore the discrimination by others. I read this in my teenage year, the time in life which makes you, and the values of Karna become my values. I was so impressed by this book, that some year later, in my college days, I read another book by same author on Krishna's life named Yugandhar (roughly meaning emperor of Era). Now every time I am in tricky situation, I always think what will Krishna do in this situation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER98> Dandelion Wine

<comment><USER57> Bradbury creates a special experience that few other authors manage. Like Le Guin.

</comment></comment><comment> alok-g Minds, Brains and Machines, by Geoffrey Brown: [https://www.amazon.com/Minds- Brains-Machines-Mind-Matters/dp...](https://www.amazon.com/Minds-Brains- Machines-Mind-Matters/dp/1853990132)

</comment><comment><USER99> Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker.

This has changed how I approach sleep.

</comment><comment><USER100> Fight Club, the book/movie, put the final nail in the coffin of my waning materialism.

</comment><comment><USER101> Kim by Rudyard Kipling.

Despite Kipling's jingoism in other works, Kim spoke to me in school. It opened me to a world of adventure and fearlessness that I didn't know was possible. I really haven't been the same since I read that book.

<comment><USER102> What an excellent book, great story and reads like it was written yesterday. If you're trying to understand India this is the book.

</comment></comment><comment><USER103> Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut

<comment><USER39> How did it change your life? I have to say, me too! I didn't know how to pick just 1 book, but this is a great choice. The first novel I ever read that really spoke to me 100%, I read it over and over for many months on the school bus. So funny, so touching. I never go very long without talking about something from it. Hope the movie's 1/2 good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER104> Atlas Shrugged gave me a different perspective and changed a lot of viewpoints.

</comment><comment><USER105> Ayrton Senna's Principles of Race Driving

His insight about trying to predict how the car will behave was staggering. Literally, it makes the impossible something that is achievable... terrifying but achievable.

</comment><comment><USER106> Infinite Jest. Re-opened my mind to the aesthetic beauty and raw technical skill of competitive sports, after years of repression following negative childhood experiences.

</comment><comment><USER107> The Poker Face of Wall Street by Aaron Brown

Tied together a lot of concepts from my undergrad with my new work, and on top of it also Poker, which became one of my main analogies for life.

<comment><USER60> Reminiscences of a Stock Operator

Fascinating story of a fabled trader from the bucket shops of mid-America in the Gaslight era to the roaring twenties on Wall Street.

[https://smile.amazon.com/Reminiscences-Stock-Operator- Commen...](https://smile.amazon.com/Reminiscences-Stock-Operator-Commentary- Livermore/dp/0470481595/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER108> The Disappearance of the Universe, by Gary Renard...and following naturally, A Course in Miracles (supplemented by lots and lots of Kenneth Wapnick).

</comment><comment><USER109> Structure And Interpretation Of Computer Programs.

</comment><comment><USER110> "Crime and Punishment", "Science of Evil", "Developers Hegemony".

Well, it's 3 - but it is a hard question.

</comment><comment><USER41> Not the only one for sure, but A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. The plain-spoken honesty in that book contains multitudes.

</comment><comment><USER111> The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger.

</comment><comment><USER112> The 6 Pillars Of Self Esteem.

I can palpably feel my awareness expanding as I do the sentence completion exercises.

</comment><comment><USER113> I can't give just one, but here are a few that had a strong influence on me: "12 Rules for Life" by Jordan Peterson, "Why Switzerland?" Jonathan Steinberg, "Little Book of Common Sense Investing" by John C. Bogle, "A Random Walk Down Wall Street" by Butron Malkiel, "Liberalismus" by Ludwig von Mises, "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius, "A Treatise of Human Nature" by David Hume, "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman, "The Law" by Frédéric Bastiat, "Autobiography" by Benjamin Franklin, "Common Sense" by Thomas Paine, "Gespräche mit Goethe" by Johann Peter Eckermann, "Walden" by Henry David Thoreau, "The Old Regime and the Revolution" Alexis de Tocqueville, "On Liberty" by John Stuart Mill, "A Treatise on Political Economy" by Jean- Baptiste Say, "The Man Versus the State" by Herbert Spencer, "The Revolt of the Masses" by José Ortega y Gasset, "Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy" by Joseph Alois Schumpeter, "The Logic of Scientific Discovery" by Karl Popper, "The Machinery of Freedom" by David Friedman, "On Power" Bertrand de Jouvenel, "1984" by George Orwell, "The State" by Anthony de Jasay, "Sketched With the Quill" by Andrzej Bobkowski, "My Correct Views on Everything" by Leszek Kolakowski, "The Captive Mind" Czesław Miłosz, "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, "The House of the Dead" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, "Conversations with an Executioner" by Kazimierz Moczarski, "Diary 1954" by Leopold Tyrmand, "The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov, "A World Apart: A Memoir of the Gulag" by Gustaw Herling-Grudziński

<comment><USER45> Maybe you can format it to make it more presentable. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER114> What do you do after you say hello - Transactional Analysis book, mindblowing.

</comment><comment><USER115> Carlos Castaneda, definitely.

<comment><USER57> Great fun following that saga. Esp. 'Separate Reality'

</comment></comment><comment><USER109> The Hundred-Year Language by Paul Graham. Essay in Hackers & Painters.

</comment><comment><USER116> Ethical Intuitionism by Dr. Michael Huemer

It gave me a plausible alternative to Nihilism.

</comment><comment><USER109> Writing On Water by Mooji.

</comment><comment><USER117> "Revolutionary Wealth", by Alvin and Heidi Toffler.

</comment><comment><USER109> The Glass Bead Game.

<comment><USER118> Seconded. I didn't enjoy reading it, but it made a tremendous impression on me nonetheless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> (two authors of many) Fritjof Capra. Michael Polanyi.

</comment><comment><USER109> The Laundry Files.

</comment><comment><USER119> The Art of Shaolin Kungfu by Wong Kiew Kit

</comment><comment><USER109> Wizards Presents: Worlds And Monsters.

</comment><comment><USER120> The Great Transition, James Martin.

</comment><comment><USER16> Middlemarch.

</comment><comment><USER121> Emyth

</comment><comment><USER122> The Book of Mormon.

It teaches about Jesus Christ and answers questions like "Where do we come from?", "Why are we here?", and "What happens after we die?". It's had a incredible effect on my life by helping me understand the purpose of my life and provides the right perspective when making big decisions in my life.

I know it's a true book that can change the life of anyone who reads it.

</comment><comment><USER123> The Bible

</comment><comment><USER124> Blink by Malcolm Gladwell.

</comment><comment><USER125> Cliche, but How to Won Friends and Influence People, along with Atlas Shrugged were the 2 biggest influences for me when I was trying to get sober. Or rather, they kept me dedicated when I was getting sober and wanted to deviate.

</comment><comment><USER126> 12 Rules for Life

<comment><USER45> I second 12 Rules of Life. Can you give a specific instance where it helped you?</comment></comment>


Swinging the Vote? - <AUTHOR> https://themarkup.org/google-the-giant/2020/02/26/wheres-my-email <comment><USER2> They signed up for email from all candidates, then assume that Trump didn't send any emails because nothing showed up. A more chilling possibility is that the email was simply deleted by Gmail, never even making it to the spam bucket.

<comment><USER3> That seems the likeliest explanation</comment></comment>