My problem with the series is the premise that invasion of another star system is worth it.
With all the resources Trisolarians put into colonization of Earth, and all their superior technology - they could've made space habitats that had perfectly safe orbits around whichever star they prefer, and put all of their citizens on them.
What's the point of risking mutual destruction by hunter in the dark forest (and we know they were afraid of it since the start), if you can create habitats in your own star system, or choose any nearby uninhabited star system if the 3-body-problem is really making it impossible to put these in your own system (and realistically - it wouldn't be so bad, just make a dyson swarm around the whole system.
Invading our Solar System was worth the risk for Tri-Solaris. Because of the Dark Forest nature of the universe they could not just pick a star where they thought there was no life, as life there could just be especially good at hiding. When they found earth they found a luxurious planet containing a race which was ignorant of the true state of the universe and technologically incapable of doing anything about it anyway. On top of all of this, our solar system was very close by :). Their own star system was hellish compared to ours, they needed to leave.
The final book in the series does a good job showing why Earth was a good option for them. Tri-Solarians knew far more about Earth than they could reliably determine about most nearby star systems.
If you're afraid that a planet will have life, then why choose a planet where you are sure there is life?
They were betting their existence on a species they knew already uses MAD as a basis for its' survival not figuring out that it could use MAD to defend themselves.
Their system was interesting, but ultimately not much worse than ours, once you leave the planet. And they have to leave the planet anyway.
Once you have nanomaterials allowing cheap access to space - putting your population in space habitats is cheap and easy. We could do it now, if we had space elevator. The cost of materials and energy is negligible compared to invasion of another star system. Especially with such conveniently storeable population :)
> Tri-Solarians knew far more about Earth than they could reliably determine about most nearby star systems.
There's nothing stopping them from figuring it out. You don't have to invade a system, you can send a stealthy probe. I would assume in their circumstances it would be a wise thing to do if they really don't want to live in space further away from the center of gravity of their star system.
Besides, if the dark forest is so important - why invade Earth at all and play with fire? You can kill everybody on Earth without bothering to show up or sending any warnings. Send a big meteor their way or make a deadly disease that looks like flu, infect everybody, and on set date kill all hosts. Much cheaper, and no risk of ceasing to exist.
What they did in the books was very risky and wasteful for no good reason.
> betting their existence on a species they knew already uses MAD
If ant colonies depend on MAD for continued existence, it means nothing to us. This example was used multiple times throughout the series. They didn't even make a singular bet on Earth. The invasion was just one avenue they chose for survival.
> You don't have to invade a system, you can send a stealthy probe.
In the dark forest of the three body universe you could send a probe, but you learn nothing if it finds no life in a system. The only reliable, actionable information a probe can provide you is if life is found. Finding an absence of life just as easily means that the life in the system is so far advanced beyond you that you cannot detect it. It would be far riskier to bet your future on a system in which you found no life. Not to mention that you are making a huge gamble on the stealthiness of said probe. The probe could be the very thing that makes you the target of a dark forest strike. Earth already appeared safe, so why take further action that carries real risk of notifying some other civilization that you exist? You can't be reliably stealthy because some other race can be technically beyond you.
> Send a big meteor
Earth was an un-imaginable eden to Tri-Solaris, it's made clear that they wanted the planet intact.
> or make a deadly disease that looks like flu
This requires a much longer timeline as multiple trips are required to carry out the plan. The Tri-Solarans were facing a very real threat of extinction that made a shorter plan worth the risk. It's made very clear that they did not wish to exterminate humanity.
Earth was valuable because in all probability the rest of the universe did not know it existed. Given that you are saying they were stupid for not building space habitats, you must not be aware of what actually happened to the Tri-Solarans :). Besides, those space habitats present their own form of danger to their inhabitants. Actually, the danger they pose is worse than existing on a planet.
> If ant colonies depend on MAD for continued existence, it means nothing to us.
But we're not an ant colony to them, we're already using technology that can be used for MAD (sending signals through the sun), and they know it from the start.
> Earth was an un-imaginable eden to Tri-Solaris, it's made clear that they wanted the planet intact.
As far as I understand every planet in the system was heaven for them, the orbit was important. Which is stupid, because you can make anything follow a circular orbit around some star.
> This [flu] requires a much longer timeline as multiple trips are required to carry out the plan.
Why? They have their stealth probe (don't remember how it was called), they can take a look at a spanish influenza or something and pimp it up a little. At worst they then need to send like 1 gram at almost light speed the conventional way - still much easier and faster than sending the armada.
> Given that you are saying they were stupid for not building space habitats, you must not be aware of what actually happened to the Tri-Solarans :).
They were destroyed because their coordinates were broadcasted. As they should expect from the start messing with civilization that broadcasted "hello".
> those space habitats present their own form of danger to their inhabitants. Actually, the danger they pose is worse than existing on a planet.
How? They aren't any less stealthy than sattelites, tv, or radio.
Tri-Solaris technologically stomps humanity throughout the series. Humanity was ignorant of the dark forest, and Tri-Solaris knew that. Further, they're able to suppress the Sun's broadcast capability. From their vantage point there was no feasible way for humanity to become aware of the dark forest. Their misunderstanding of humans is a central plot point. By every single measure Tri-Solaris had the advantage in a massive way.
> Why? They have their stealth probe
It was not stealthy. Humanity literally saw the probe pull ahead of the fleet and knew the probe was coming 50+ years before it arrived. Sometimes hiding behind an asteroid or planet is not stealth.
> They were destroyed because their coordinates were broadcasted.
No, the Tri-Solaris civilization still existed near the end of the universe. Their planet was destroyed, but they lived on as a space faring species.
> How? They aren't any less stealthy than sattelites, tv, or radio.
Do you recall what light-speed capable ships do to the fabric of the universe?
> Humanity was ignorant of the dark forest, and Tri-Solaris knew that
Tri-Solaris knew only what their sect was aware of, not what everyone on Earth thought. Also - they were somehow aware of the dark forest, would be very naive to think others can't discover it on their own. They were clearly considering it a real threat, because they tried to stop him and reacted so quickly when the guy staring at the wall did the experimental star demolition.
> Humanity literally saw the probe pull ahead of the fleet and knew the probe was coming 50+ years before it arrived.
Wasn't it only seen because they were already looking there? I might misremember something.
> Further, they're able to suppress the Sun's broadcast capability.
Only after the girl is chosen as the person to hold MAD button, IIRC. At that point the decisions on invasion were made centuries ago. Counting on that happening would be crazy.
> Do you recall what light-speed capable ships do to the fabric of the universe?
Not really, I ignored most of that 3rd book technobabble because it was unphysical. They were destroying universe and making it 2d or something?
Anyway, why should it matter? Habitats are supposed to orbit somewhere pleasant, like any dumb rock would do, not move at light speed.
> No, the Tri-Solaris civilization still existed near the end of the universe. Their planet was destroyed, but they lived on as a space faring species.
My bad, don't remember everything from the book. Still - this only proves my point - it's possible, so they should have done that from the start. They were never in "existential danger", just lazy (but still somehow happy to spend lots of resources, effort, and risk to live on Earth).
> Not really, I ignored most of that 3rd book technobabble because it was unphysical
I think this is the basis of our debate. I can totally understand why many people did not like the series. The author at times drags the reader through multiple chapters of details that feel as though they have nothing to do with the story. They don't even feel like world building. Honestly, I had a really hard time with some of those myself. Especially the first few chapters of books 2 and 3. However, in the end all those asides really matter to wrapping up the story. Is that good storytelling? I don't know. I rather enjoyed it though :)
But yeah, the last 25% of the final book is full of technobabble, but that babble is pretty important to wrapping up the story and understanding the motivation of each civilization.
Which Sci-Fi book or series of books would you say are the best?
From serious ones I liked "Permutation City" by Greg Egan. It was also very abstract at times, but it focused on one kind of abstraction, and one that I liked.
Anathem by Neal Stephenson was nice, too, I loved the worldbuilding with construction of whole independent history of science and philosophy on a fantasy world, and how people used it in their lives.
Algebraist by Ian Banks is interesting (not in the Culture series, Culture books are ok too, but there's no tension in these books whatsoever).
I love Lem, especially the robot stories, but also Futorological Congress, Solaris, His Masters' Voice. IMHO Lem has the best aliens in all sci-fi. Maybe Blindsight by Peter Watts comes close.
I also like Jacek Dukaj who I belive wasn't translated to English. But now that I think he tends to do the same thing as in 3rd book of 3 body problem - a book starts with regular people and easily relatable stuff, and by the end it's all so abstract and weird you don't know what's going on. It kinda puts me off, I prefer constant level of abstraction all the way through.
This is exactly my problem with the whole idea of alien invasion. The technological resources needed to traverse star systems are so huge, and even then it's very unlikely any life-bearing planet will be all that habitable for your particular biology (the life there will have evolved for the conditions on that planet, which might very well be toxic for you). If you have such resources, it should be much easier to just build yourself some O'neal cylinders, or even terraform some more conveniently-located planets.
This is the one book I have seen praised here endlessly. I am sincerely hoping it can stand with Neal Stephenson's work. I don't think there is any other author I can recommend unequivocally.
If you like Neal Stephenson, you'll like Cixin Liu (especially when translated by Ken Liu), but you'll have to give Liu a fresh chance and let his work be its own thing. I love NS's work, and I've really enjoyed Cixin Liu's trilogy.
Three Body Problem is very thrilling to read; fast paced with a lot of cliff hangers, and excellent world building. The sci-fi/speculative bits are extrodinary, and although the characters can sometimes feel like their only role is to give a 'first person perspective' of the science, Liu can surprise you with the emotional depth that his characters exude.
The Dark Forest is in my opinion harder to get through than Three Body Problem, but the payoff is extraordinary. The pacing is slower with more world-building, and the perspective bounces around between a lot of characters without much forward movement. I had to put it down for a while and read some other books before I built up the motivation to finish it (it helped that I already bought the next book, so I felt guilty not finishing).
Deaths End, the third book, is unbelievably amazing. The pacing is more similar to Three Body Problem, and the science is astounding. All of the patience necessary for Dark Forest pays off because Liu is able to bring his world-elements into a mesmerizing display of action and conflict. I'm only half-way through and I've lost count of the number of times I've had to take pause and simply exclaim "Wow!".
Thanks, always looking for new stuff to read. (edit: not really new, but new to me :)
Concerning The Three-Body Problem, I found it a bit disappointing. Great build up with a rather traditional solution making some things of the build up looking a little bit silly.
I can understand why you say Three-Body has a rather traditional solution, but I would argue said solution is misdirection. The first book is really just setting up the real meat of the story, in the 2nd and 3rd books.
Start with Snow Crash or Diamond Age - some of Neal Stephen's later work is too focused on the science/history, while neglecting the characters and the story, which is fine for most people here, but it might give the wrong impression of him as an author.
I found the ideas were interesting, but the writing (plotting/characters) to be ho-hum. It’s a translation, of course - but I’m not sure I would rate it quite as highly others here.
Yes, if there's other life in the universe, then we absolutely don't want to announce our presence to it. Due to exponential growth in technology and the old age of the universe, we are the plankton of the universe and they are likely the fish.
I used to worry about that a bit when we discussed this a year or two ago, but then I realized that Earth has been broadcasting the fact that it is inhabited to any civilization only slightly more sophisticated than ours (like, literally only by a couple of years) who can see spectroscopy of our atmosphere when we transit in front of the Sun. Earth has been broadcasting that it has free oxygen for nearly two and a half billion years and we have no evidence of any attack.
I run on the theory that if an alien civilization intended to destroy Earth, they would have succeeded. An alien civilization that reaches out once every few dozen million years years to sorta kinda whack the Earth seems about as likely as aliens hopping in their FTL spaceships and traveling the vast distances across the cosmos to our primitive little dirt ball, only to constantly crash into mountains located near secret military bases.
Or put more generally, "Why would they care?" We'd have nothing a vastly more advanced civilization would particularly want from us, and we'd pose absolutely no threat to them.
If they are crazy genocidal monsters wiping out all intelligent life besides their own, then they're probably systematically looking for targets, sending out their own probes to check out any planet that could sustain life. If they have any kind of presence in Alpha Centauri that could detect these probes, then they'd be here soon enough even if we didn't send out a probe.
The part where the Trisolarians try to make the Special Thing was hands down one of the dumbest things I've ever read in science fiction.
The first 3rd of the book that dealt with cultural revolution fallout was awesome, though. But yeah---back half was bad enough to ruin the whole thing for me.
I liked the novel, but the whole setup is written under an inaccurate understanding of how the Centauri system is arranged. Proxima is a long way out from Alpha Centauri A and B (0.21 light years), orbiting their mutual center of mass, and A and B themselves are a fair distance apart (from 11.2 to 35.6 AU). Any of the three stars could have planets in close stable orbits; we already know Proxima has one.
At the bottom of the website, the authors compare the two and freeCodeCamp.
How does this compare to Open Source Society or freeCodeCamp curricula?
The OSS guide has too many subjects, suggests inferior resources for many of them, and provides no rationale or guidance around why or what aspects of particular courses are valuable. We strove to limit our list of courses to those which you really should know as a software engineer, irrespective of your specialty, and to help you understand why each course is included.
freeCodeCamp is focused mostly on programming, not computer science. For why you might want to learn computer science, see above.
I quickly audited all the courses a few months ago, I find OSSU to be much easier to grasp than teachyourselfcs.com because it doesn't always use modern day MOOC's which makes learning things way quicker
You can learn things by a book sure. But if you go on a udemy or coursea or whatever course, there's always Q/A comments with other people working on the same course and that insight is extremely invaluable so this is why I prefer OSSU over teachyourselfcs.com. I prefer MOOC's because there's also some level of accountability as well, you can go for the certificates too but I don't really care too much about them.
OSSU does have way too many topics just pick 80% of them and you should be okay, depending on what your weaknesses are.
Some course overlap in both so you should focus on those first and foremost. These include things like nand2tetris, 3blue1brown's linear algebra, data structures & algorithms (various choices, sedgewick, skienna, etc).
Do your homework on reddit threads as well before picking one or the other.
I like OSSU because it also tells you what the prereqs are clearly as well.
Currently doing nand2tetris because I have a lack of hardware knowledge and the course is fantastic. Also doing a lot of math courses so I can do mathmatical proofs much easier to understand why one algorithm is better than another, or how to derive it based on whoever invented it etc. I prefer a traditional book for math though, but everything else I prefer MOOC's.
I only read on a kindle, so obviously the marginalia system is out of question. Here’s what I do: I highlight the passage, write a note where I summarize it with my own words. That’s all. But I also have a (physical) notebook where I write using the Feynman technique. On top of it all, I read at least 1 hour a day where I’m fully focused (or at least at 80% capacity) and you know what ? Good shit sticks: I trust my brain to capture what it deems valuable. If I forget something I don’t sweat it, it’s more likely that I don’t need it.
I agree and also if I read similar concept in other book, even if I did not "remember it", I feel often dots connecting somehow in my brain and "ahh I just read that in other book". So it is more like gathering concepts than explicitly remembering that concept so I can quote it back when woke up past midnight.
If someone wants to quote book from his head go for Anki and drill, most of books I just want to internalize concepts.
Sure, here's a short version of my own story. In 2010, I moved to a new city knowing one person previously from college. We weren't close though.
I didn't want to be sitting in an apartment by myself all the time so I did a lot of research on how to make friends before moving.
I found the study from my previous post was a good start. I decided I needed to be in area of the city where a lot of people my age with similar backgrounds lived based on the proximity factor.
I also decided I needed roommates based on all three factors. I ended up moving into an apartment with two roommates who seemed nice when I met them.
After living together three months, my roommates and I were consistently hanging out inside the apartment and doing activities outside the apartment.
After six months, I would say we were friends.
I became friends with another person my age down the hall from our apartment. I happened to see him go into his apartment a couple of times previously. I knocked on his door and introduced myself. Fortunately, we had similar interests, hung out again and again, and became friends over time.
I repeated that with another person across the hall who one of my roommates had already become friends with. I also ended up meeting my fiancée on the elevator in my apartment after I mentioned the weather to her.
From my two roommates, the two people living in apartments nearby, my new girlfriend at the time, along with a person I met at my work orientation who lived nearby, I was introduced to probably over a hundred other people. Some of whom I became friends with. And I'm excluding other friends I made at work, through activities, and social gatherings etc.
By 2017, when I left the city, I had a close circle of maybe ten good friends, and an extended circle of thirty friends. It ended up working out well.
From the research I did and my own personal experience, I don't completely agree with the rest of the advice from the comments. I've seen similar comments on other forums before.
If there is more interest in what I've learned, I can continue. Any specific or personal questions, please email me (in profile).
Seems like your secret was age-proximal roommates. I've been trying meetups to no avail, but I've heard that roommates are a huge gamble in and of themselves. What are your opinions on both?
My quick thoughts. In my case, I agree, roommates were a benefit. They're not necessary though.
I could've gotten my own apartment and met people who lived in my apartment building on my own. I decided to get roommates as a way of meeting people and because the city I moved to was expensive.
I agree that roommates can be a huge gamble. I met these people and thought they were nice from a first impression. It turned out to be right. I could've easily been wrong also. It's a gamble that might be necessary for some people to take if you're young, single, don't know anyone, and moving to a new area.
Meetups sound good on the surface. You can meet new people. That I agree. My question is how easily can you see them again. People you meet there can live quite a distance from your home. This makes it hard to see them again.
If you happen to run into someone who lives within walking distance from you and you happen to get along, then I think it's great. Later you can meet up with them without much planning. But if the person lives further away, then it doesn't make it easy to become good friends.
If there was a meetup based on proximity, then I think it would be great. For example, a meetup for all the new people who moved to X neighborhood of Y city. Then you could be assured that the people you meet are nearby and you can easily see them again.
Meetups where you do activities (card games, video games, etc.) can be good because people will repeatedly come back for those activities. Again, how easy will it be for you to hang out with them outside of the meetup?
It's more likely because of Pixar's longstanding practice of keeping its core technologies openly available (Blender is rife with technologies originally developed by Pixar gurus, not the least of which is RenderMan). Disney may be a huge company but Pixar is the only part of it that has ever won an Academy Awards (it has about ten as I remember) except for a single award for Beauty and the Beast. A Pixar guru also runs both Pixar and the entire Disney Animation Studio. Jobs never had a reputation of being generous with patents. It's also just a smart move in general, people are tired of application-restricted file formats in this field.
I'm a "millennial", so I think I speak millennial pretty well. Twitch is a very niche product: THE go-to place for the gaming community, it's also trying to break into mainstream live-streaming but that's Instagram's territory.
Yeah but as more and more podcasters and talk show type youtubers start livestreaming on twitch to diversify income it'll get some more mainstream appeal.
Ways to figure out the truthfulness of a statement:
- Personal experience
- Have a smart friend.
- Other people's experience.
- Common sense
- Science (stats and stuff)
- Pattern (also, biases)
"Follow your passion" is a shitty advice.
Look at every failure as a learning experience. Think of it as pre-success.
Usually when you failure is up to your eyebrows it means that success is hiding in plain sight.
Goal oriented people are losers. Suppose you've achieved your goal ? Then what ? And there goes circular reasoning.
Goal, in this context, is something that once achieved, it's gone.
The solution is being system oriented. In this context, it means doing something everyday. A habit.
Successful people are usually people who failed 95% of the time. What made them successful is a combination of hard work, luck, determination, brains and good timing.
How do you know that the timing is good ? You can't know, you have to try.
"If you want to be successful, figure out the price and pay it" — something to consider.
Stop wishing. Decide.
Wishing starts at the head and stops there. Deciding means taking action, making a plan.
Be (reasonably) selfish. Put your needs first.
You're either a simplifier or an optimizer.
The former means that your plans involve doing simple things; being satisfied when something is 80% good while the latter involves doing things to a certain degree of excellence. Unless you can control 90% of the variables in a situation, always err on the side of simplicity.
Affirmation exercise: writing something X amount of time first thing in the morning (making it like a self fulfilling prophecy).
Priorities, think of it as a target. The smaller, central circle is your health, the bigger circle is economics and the biggest of all is relationships. Health > Economics > Relationships. Always put your needs first. Be selfish.
Do things you enjoy in order to maximize your energy.
If there's an opportunity but you don't have the required set of skills, say yes then figure out a way to do it. Don't wait until you deem yourself ready.
Your job is to always be looking for a job because there's always something better for you. Abundance mentality.
If you're not in a good mood, smile. Note: smiling make you more attractive to others.
Sitting position affects your mood/energy.
Persistence, quitting is a step in the process of success. If something didn't take off from the beginning it's highly unlikely that it'll succeed so there's no need to be persistent and look like an idiot.
Success formula = every skill you acquire doubles your odds of success. Good + Good > Excellent.
Résumé trick: each unnecessary word = $100.
Knowledge formula: the more you know, the more you can know.
Particular set of skills that should be acquired:
Public speaking,
psychology,
business writing,
accounting,
design,
conversation,
overcoming shyness (act it out – fake it 'till you make it),
good grammar,
persuasion
Storytelling:
1. Setup (start): keep it brief.
2. Pattern: establish a pattern that the story will stir from.
3. Foreshadowing: leaving some clues about where the story's going.
4. Characters: fill in with some character traits/personality.
5. Relatable: pick a story that the listeners will relate to.
6.The twist, plot twist (necessary)
Topics to avoid: food, dreams, tv, medical stuff.
Patterns, always be on the look for them. Covey's book:
1. Be proactive (decide, don't wish)
2. Take risks (not physical ones) – don't be afraid of embarrassment
3. Always keep learning
Humor, it is important. Just be human and you'll do fine.
Traps to avoid: over complaining, mocking people (including yourself), puns and wordplay.
Affirmations, they help. Try them.
E.g. "I, X, will be rich."
(Include them in your morning routine)
You can write them, say them or just think them. Note: for them to work, you have to have a 100% unambiguous want for them to happen.
Experts, if your gut feeling disagree with their assessment take it seriously.
Association programming, i.e. You are the average of the 5 people you speak with the most.
Note: if you had to take only one thing from the book it’s this: Decide, don’t wish. Be on the watch where the pendulum is shifting.
karimdag's summary is pretty complete (and very good). I also recommend the book - it's mostly very practical, generally free of the "one magic trick to fix your life" sentiment, and it has enough humor and voice to make it worth reading end to end. I thought I'd share the few tidbits I highlighted and got the most out of.
- He talks a lot about luck, but mostly in the context of managing it, not making it. His advice sort of combines the two old sayings about "the harder I work, the luckier I get" and "worker smarter not harder." Manage your opportunities and skills so you can capitalize on luck; find and take high percentage shots.
- "In our messy, flawed lives, the nearest we can get to truth is consistency".
- "Some people act much more decisively than others. And that can be both persuasive and useful. Decisiveness looks like leadership."
- He is a big proponent of the concept of managing personal energy ("The way I approach the problem of multiple priorities is by focusing on just one main metric: my energy"), I really agree with this and found this book to be one of the best treatments of the idea. He explicitly contrasts energy with passion: "Energy is good. Passion is bullshit". "Success causes passion more than passion causes success", i.e. don't rely on passion.
- "The trick to eating right is to keep willpower out of the equation for your diet. Laziness can make you choose healthy foods if you are clever enough to make those foods the most convenient in your house." In my experience, this works very well, and not just with food. Work hard to set yourself up for lazy success.
- That last bullet goes very well with what I think is the best advice in the book: "If you want success, figure out the price, then pay it." "Success has a price, but the reality is that the price is negotiable. If you pick the right system, the price will be a lot nearer what you're willing to pay". People often wish for things but never actually decide to have them. Set yourself up for success, focus on making smart choices to make things easy for yourself.
I also really liked the book. My review of it (on Amazon)
Scott Adams tells the story of his life, and describes his philosophies for how to succeed. There were four ideas in the book that really stood out for me.
1). Use systems, not goals. A goal could be complete a marathon. However, once you reach the goal, there is nothing to keep you going (unless you immediately set a new goal). A better way is to have a system. For example, the system can be to always run four times a week. A system lets you feel good every time you follow it, whereas a goal only makes you feel good when you reach it (but then its motivating power also disappears).
Another example of goal versus system is on how to find your next job. If you are constantly on the lookout for a better job (even when you have one), you are much likelier to keep finding good ones than if you only look for another job when you have to.
2) Combination of skills. One way of becoming successful is to extremely good at one thing. But that is also extremely difficult. However, if you can be good (say top 20%) in more than one domain, then that combination of skills can be enough to make you very sought after. An example given in the book is for professionals in California. If you are good at your profession, and also speak Spanish fluently, you have a much better chance of succeeding. As Scott writes in the book, every skill you acquire doubles your chance of success. Put another way: good + good > excellent.
3) What all adults should know. On the subject of adding skills, Scott has a list of skills he thinks all adults should have. Some of those skills are: public speaking, psychology, business writing, accounting, design, and conversations. Chapter 21 goes through all of these (and more), and give advice on how to acquire them.
4) Learning from failures. This is a theme throughout the book. Each failure can teach you something. If you attempt something and fail, you at least gained experience. This experience will be useful for your next project.
These were the main takeaways for me. But there is other good stuff as well. The six filters for truth in the introduction are also good. How can you know if an idea works – make sure at least two of these agree: personal experience, experience of people you know, experts, scientific studies, common sense, pattern recognition. I also like his advice on how to say no to something effectively - say “I am not interested”. And the powerful story of the importance of praise: after a really bad presentation by a very shy student, the instructor did not scold the student. Instead he said “Wow, that was brave”.
In summary, many good ideas worth discovering in here.
