Vanity reading list 2024

Kindle

• Yellow Face by R. F Kuang

  I wonder if this topic, authenticity and who is allowed to speak about what, will be still a concern in 10-20 years. I presume, once more and more identity becomes more blurry, (like mentioned in the book), the unwritten rules need to be replaced. Gradually, then suddenly.

• Never Enough by Jennifer Breheny Wallace

  We are slowly and collectively ruining our kids’ future by spending more money and attention, hoping to one-up each other, making mediocre services rich along the way. Book should have been an article, but I will add this to my echo-chamber about education. Design the environment.

Hardcover

• Choke Point by Rebecca Giblin

  I am still amazed by the idea of passive protest days against Amazon (or any big tech) for that matter. Why hasn’t this
  been done before, or has it? How to build more democratic platforms for creators is a wonderful problem. Choke points are bad.

• Scaling People: Tactics for Management and Company Building by Claire Hughes Hudson

  A rare book, where one does not mystically and subtly boost his success while pretending to give world-shattering advice, but instead give re-usable/adaptable tactics with the context. I understand a lot of it came from the internal stripe blog post, makes me wonder how I would have done in such place.

• How Big Things Get Done by Bent Flyvbjerg

  Plan a lot, iterate and learn from the mistakes. What is the name of the phenomenon where, by the time it takes one to figure out how to manage/achieve difficult, one is never again in an easy position to do them again.

• Time to think by Hannah Barnes

  The gender topic is an endless well, where one can find himself on the ‘wrong’ side of the argument, since the sides of the same dargument are wide. One thing I am not surprised, how large organisations and system fails. This is very straight forward, I guess. What I really wanted to learn is the surge of the natal females who are referred to the clinic after 2013. I only found one link where it says NHS will investigate. Some of my wtf’s from the book:

  • Some parents prefer their kids to be trans than gay.
  • Being trans might considered as another way to hurt their body when they are in distress.
  • Talking about this topic withouc vindicated as transphobic is not possible, even for the professionals.
  • Blockers do not have long term studies and do not provide time to think. They don’t.
  • gender dysphoria is not a mental illness, but it is treated with mental health professionals.
  • gender non-comforming kids do not necessarily have gender dysphoria.

• 37Thigs One Architect Knoes About IT Transformation by Gregor Hohpe

  This book was supposed to help me navigate a tech disaster and apprach anew to the topic, hopefuly equiped with insights. I should not critize the book on its content (shallow) since it only offers a glimpse into his journey, which I found depressing and very unmotivational. It definitely contributed to my discontent, since a lot of the stories where very similar to what I have seen and the way out of them where as blurry as twitter threads offerintg wealth in 10 steps.

  I will took away one picture though, which I tried to explain with words to many engineers why static service architectures are not usefull, how they could become more usefulcon. I believe this image explains it, better.

  Also avoid authority without responsability or accountability.

• The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman

  This dude has a dream resume on everything related to AI. Yet, apart from the hidden-but-not-hidden doomsday calling, many of the containment ideas/suggestions are suffering from the first-order-thinking in his narrative. While it is intriguing to pose these questions, it is a bit mental-cowardness not to pursue any of the multiple scenarios (deadly virus, political manipulation, financial chaos..) a bit further. I also fear that an AI-designed and SB-engineered super-virus could wipe out half of the humanity but how could an AI-monitored health system fails to detect it and AI/SB powered scientific community is unable provide a cure. I am not optimist on that matters but reading someone thinking deeply about this would have been really wonderful.

• The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus

  Fuck me if I understand any of this but I love reading it.

  If I see a man, armed only with a sword, attack a group of of machine guns, I shall consider his act to be absurd.

  We are the ones with the sword, I guess and the act of living is absurd, but we should chill..

• The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein

  I am late to the game, and in a way, I am glad to read this very late. My worst nightmare is private-city-states, and being trapped in the RedZone. And reading the book reminded me how close it is. Unlikely but possible..

• Buying a small Business by buch of rich guys

  We are not there yet…

• The Bee String by Paul Murray

  I have surprised myself by finishing such a long book, following a family drama. Am I losing my cynical edge? The father losing his job, that he never wanted, working for his dad, slowly getting out of touch with his kids. He cannot just be there, instead builds a bunker. Oh, this is I think the first time I read 100-or-so pages without any punctution, which described nicely the hental state of the narator.

• Bilingual Brain by Albert Costa

  Growing bilingual does not make your kid smarter, though it helps. There is no concerete evidence in either direction.

  We believe someone who sounds like a native speaker more than someone who speaks with a accent.

  It would seem that inviduals take language use as A MORE indicative sign and not so much the colour of a person’s skin

  Emotional values of the words in second language seems to be smaller and grabs our attention less, and it does not interfere much .

  The cost of language change is greater when one must switch into the dominant language. The cost of switching is asymmetrical. The paradox, therefore, is that switching into what is easier for us is actually more costly then switchign into what is more difficult.

  First language attrition is a fascinating topic. Also alos, the expriments on this book on babies about languages/learning were fascinating…

• How the world _REALlY_ Works by Vaclav Smnil

  It starts with the queston I love: “Why do most people in modern societies have such a superficial knowledge about how the world really works?”. Anyone who dooes explain big, complex stuff by reconstructing it with basic parts will have my unconditioned love. yes, love.

• Clear Thinking by Shane Parrish

  This dude is a scammer, but hey, he is MY scammer. He is bascically hashing the same wisdom, over and over again in different forms and I keep following. Sorry but not sorry.

  What would you advise yourself (Assuming I could tolerate myself to have a civilized conversation)

• The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt

  Ok, this was a big one, because I have learned the actual names of many ideas/problems I had in mind, and people thinkinng/writing about those. The premise of the book is simple, and data backed: Social media is bad for the kids, even worst for girls. The suggestions at the end are shallow and too generic (except the kid phone toggle). It is going to be hard…

  Also, there is a duded called Frank Furedi, who, among other smart things, pointed out the breakdown of adult solidarity. Should you trust the adult in the street to do the right thing with your kid?

  Across cultures and throughout history, parents acted on the assumption that if their children got into trouble, other adults –often strangers– woudl help out. In many societies adults feel duty-bound to reprimand other people’s children who mishebahve in public.

  My best quote from the book :

  When a woman became depressed, it increased the odds of depression in her close friends (male or female). When a man became depressed, it had no measurable effect on his friends.

• Algorithms to live by by Brian Christian

  Meh.. Makes great cocktail conversation and fun to geek out on sorting algorithms..

• Numbers Don’t Lie by Vaclav Smil

  Remember how, once you discover a great song, you try to find and listen everything from the band/singer, and eventually you realize you only liked the first song. This me and Vaclav. I guess he felt the need to make even more simplistic and shorter explanation, to get his point accross. This one was too -light- and mostly felt like scrolling reddit.