In my view, non-fiction books can be a good answer to that. Authors put a lot of work into curating a set of ideas and (in some cases) mental tools, models, etc. that have long-term, portable value across domains. They can also give you good insight into how experts think about certain problems. Some of the most thoughtful writers aren’t publishing their work in digestible chunks — and many published before the Internet was even invented.
I think it is just a matter of the source in your case, which may have led you to feel that 90% of what you read doesn't contribute to your knowledge.
Reading a Wikipedia page or watching a video, almost always dismisses the ideas that lead to a conclusion, which is what you need if you want to THINK, not walk around with containerized ideas that other people came up with.
Few modern authors are willing to buck the trend and publish a 100 page book, but they do exist. Take a look at Christopher Alexander's Notes on the Synthesis of Form.
In any case, mind sharing your favorite sources?
The value that comes with a book is its structure and its limited size. You don't get all information, you'll get the important information. And it is structured in a way that helps you learning.
But reading and books opens the world of ideas and knowledge to anyone. Nowadays, post internet and www, when information is abundant, reading long form books isn’t the advantage it used to be. But it can still be beneficial to read long form exposition by experts.
But ever since the Internet became a thing, and almost universally became the main source of information for everybody, I often feel like many people are holding on to books because they're not willing to let go.
...a case of false attribution in regards to format vs. content, if there's such a thing.
It's not a format vs. content thing. I'd rather have all my books in a six-ounce Kindle than on massive bookshelves lining my walls. It's simply that the vast supermajority of recorded information collected by the human race has been in the form of books. If you stay on the internet, you're barely dipping your toes in the water.
That having been said, there are a ton of useless books that can easily be skipped, many of which stem from stretching an essay-sized idea into 200 pages. The Internet cut out a lot of that nonsense. And there are certain things, like programming, that you're usually better off learning directly from the internet. But once you're past the intellectual puddle-jumping of popular business and self-help, books are where it's at.
Replace books with a (credible) data source on the Internet, and you'll have the same result you're describing.
Judging by the amount of downvotes I've received, people are clearly not making the distinction between content and format, which I regress, was the point I was attempting to make.
Which servers do I have to visit to verify the verification and whose approval would this all rely on? With books, there are copyright libraries containing printed physical artifacts that I could use as a verification of a given printed text.
Also, I have the book and can stay immersed in it far easier than trying to read the same from a screen. I have read plenty of short stories on screens, but have abandoned every attempt at reading a full length novel that way, whereas in book form, I can finish a novel in a night. Books are simply better suited for this job, at least for me.
I believe dead-tree books would rather profit from such a change than suffer from it.
IMHO shitty trade and mass-market paperbacks should die a much needed death and the few books that survive should be Folio Society style, well bound books with good typography.
Looking to my bookcase, do you think I am made of money?
I love consuming other types of media but they all have their place.
For fiction (especially SF) I love audiobooks — I listen to them for a couple of hours before I go to bed and while I was working I listened to them during my commute.
For non-fiction I hate audiobooks, unless it's narrative non-fiction like Bill Bryson. I really need the ability to quickly jump between parts of the book. If fact this is the reason why I hate the kindle for non-fiction too.
For math or something that is easier to understand with animations I prefer videos. YouTube is such an amazing resource for educational materials that it blow my mind that people still read textbooks for topics like Group Theory or Calculus. Interactive websites also work for math too.
For the social sciences I like regular hardback books. I like the ability to flip between pages, to have one finger holding one section open while looking at another. I love to serendipitously see something while skimming.
For anything current I prefer blogs. A book isn't going to be as relevant for something written about how some feature of Rust sucks and here are some alternatives.
To circle back, one feature a book has that a lot of other media don't is that they are put together very carefully and edited and are very thoughtful about how the information is presented. I'm sure Knuth has been a LOT of time deciding on the ordering and wording of his books.
Even if you manage to spend 100% of your time on "productive" things, it's not obvious that that's an optimal way to live.
Anyways, I have to get my eyes checked out every year because I have type 1 diabetes, and my print-related disability was missed by ophthalmologists, year after year, until I was diagnosed with a medical problem that affects my peripheral nervous system, that is unrelated to the diabetes.
This article may help you with making the reading less of a daunting task. I know it is not easy: https://untappedbrilliance.com/how-to-read-books-when-you-ha...
You need to get into books. It affects your income (accurate, but not the best visual representation of the data): https://www.statista.com/statistics/896534/number-of-books-c... [Sorry broken link...a screenshot is here: https://ibb.co/s5SJpHp ]
I posted on this thread how I manage to read several books per year, via screen readers. That takes time to get used to. I would recommend Voice Dream Reader, if you are interested.
You may want to try audio books via your local library, for just starting out. You can join some libraries in the US for a very nominal fee, if your local one does not have good media databases. That way, you get some of the best media databases of any public library imaginable.
Personally, I enjoy history books the most. On Tyranny and Black Earth are the books that got me in to reading. I also love seeing whatever book reviews FinancialTimes.com (subscription site) posted, and I usually will read at least 2 books per week.
I would like to not use any screens for a couple of month and see if that fixes it but I am unable to make room for that kind of a program.
This sounds just like a visual perceptual disability (visual motor deficit), such as convergence insufficiency (which I have), which 13% of children have, or some other form of accommodative dysfunction (or perhaps something else): https://www.bouldervt.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/478/2015/...
I just prefer to use a screen reader to deal with all of this, as it is easy and convenient for me to use, compared to most of those tips. If I am using standard, printed text, I usually use a notecard plus a mechanical pencil (as a stylus) to help me read.
Also note that on the bottom of page 3 there is a "sample" of what a visual perceptual disability is like. I do not flip p, d, b, letters, at all, like in the sample, but reading is literally that much work for me. It really is just about that difficult. I usually "detect words" by looking for various patterns of consonants/vowels, instead of actually reading whole words. If you were to read my writing, in general (not necessarily on HN), you would see a lot of duplicate prepositions or missed prepositions in my writing, too.
There is a more detailed presentation about this material here, but it may not be as helpful: https://www.bouldervt.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/478/2015/...
The cause of my convergence insufficiency is actually due to a very rare disease (there are only case reports and cohorts in the medical literature, at best, about it) that affects my autonomic nervous system. My diagnosis story (not an important read), is here: https://rareandextraordinarycom.wordpress.com/2016/05/14/fir...
Anyways, prior to being diagnosed with the rare disease, I was seeing random ophthalmologists (who are medical doctors) that were not associated with a hospital at a local academic medical center.
After I was diagnosed with the rare disease, the ophthalmologist that was works at the hospital (that is tied to a medical school), examined my eyes very closely. Anyways, there are three ways that this rare disease affects my eyes. Most importantly, I have convergence insufficiency.
I was referred to a neuro-ophthamologist for this, and there is not much that one can do for convergence insufficiency. They can test out the degree of accommodative dysfunction and quantify it, and give you tips and accommodations for work.
Also, actually any ophthamologist/doctor can sign off for things like Bookshare.org/LearningAlly.org/BARD library (https://nlsbard.loc.gov/login//NLS) which are tremendously helpful if you have something like this. Bookshare is actually the largest digital library in the world, and it is only for people with print-related disabilities. It is a valuable and precious resource.
If you cannot get a proper diagnosis even with these tips, then you may want to look for an optometrist who does "vision therapy", at least for the diagnosis.
"Vision therapy" is controversial for these reasons, and I do not recommend it, as it is unlikely that it will be covered by your insurance and it is tremendously expensive: https://www.teachingvisuallyimpaired.com/vision-therapy-cont...
If you want to discuss this more, you can email me at [email protected]
“A dog can look forward to seeing his master. But can he look forward to seeing his master next Wednesday?”
I like reading, i.e. if there's a news topic, I prefer reading an article than watching a video about it, but I detest books.
In my opinion, authors fill books with superfluous nonsense that I couldn't be bothered with. It's often the same with news articles, I hate it when journalists start telling personal stories that convey emotion. It's just... terrible and a waste of time, in my opinion.
And just as bad: superfluous details.
Once you get bored and start to see the patterns, books are there to expand your worldview.
I do enjoy listening to audiobooks though. But that's more of something I do when I'm on an airplane or long car ride. That's what I always did in school when we had to "read" something.
No no, that is not the case. I do enjoy reading books and get good stuff from them. It's just that I feel some stuff gets lost eventually. This thread is making me see it in a different light though :)
I've never enjoyed reading books - right from childhood up to now. I try to avoid it. I have gifts from birthdays and christmases from years ago where the book sits entirely unread on the shelf for a year or two until I give it away once the guilt has subsided.
The thought of starting reading a book from start to finish just fills me with a sense of tedium and of wasting my time. I've not read a single book in perhaps the last 20+ years.
I feel like there is a glimmer of how I feel from this question: "how to get the most out of each book"... are you actually getting anything at all by reading each book? Are you like me and just feel like you should, but actually deep down you just don't really get anything from it?
Am I alone?
(P.S. I am a fluent reader and readily enjoy reading the news & technical docs (and don't really watch TV or movies that much - maybe an hour or two a week), but books - boy oh boy I simply couldn't care any less)