Towers of Midnight

What Hacker News says

1. mindcrimeDec 2016
   It's Not the Big That Eat the Small...It's the Fast That Eat the Slow: How to Use Speed as a Competitive Tool in Business by Jason Jennings & Laurence Haughton

   Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software by Charles Petzold

   What Is Relativity?: An Intuitive Introduction to Einstein's Ideas, and Why They Matter by Jeffrey O. Bennett

   Spooky Action at a Distance: The Phenomenon That Reimagines Space and Time—and What It Means for Black Holes, the Big Bang, and Theories of Everything by George Musser

   Towers of Midnight (Wheel of Time, #13) by Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson

   Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov

   Just started reading The Penguin History Of The World by J.M. Roberts & Odd Arne Westad. I'd always found history interesting in a general sense, but other than a couple of specific periods that I found interesting (the American Revolution, WWI, WWII), I had not studied the subject in much depth. So I figured I'd start with a good single-volume overview of World History as a whole, then go back and dig deeper into additional areas that pique my interest.

   So far it's pretty fascinating. It's especially interesting when you see how elements of our modern world have roots that can be traced back for millennia. It's also fun to note the extent to which geography and climate have impacted the evolution of human civilization(s). It gives you a lot to think about in terms of dealing with anthropogenic climate change. Even if human civilization isn't wiped out completely, we could certainly see massive changes in the nature of our civilizations as a result. At least history seems to suggest so.

   Show morethread
2. mindcrimeDec 2016
   Books I finished in 2016. There are others that are still "in progress", but I'll skip those for now.

   - Towers of Midnight (Wheel of Time, #13) - Robert Jordan

   - Artificial Intelligence: What Everyone Needs to Know - Jerry Kaplan

   - The Gathering Storm (Wheel of Time, #12) - Robert Jordan

   - Ashley Bell - Dean Koontz

   - Spooky Action at a Distance: The Phenomenon That Reimagines Space and Time—and What It Means for Black Holes, the Big Bang, and Theories of Everything - George Musser

   - What Is Relativity?: An Intuitive Introduction to Einstein's Ideas, and Why They Matter - Jeffrey O. Bennett

   - Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software - Charles Petzold

   - The Seven Pillars of Statistical Wisdom - Stephen M. Stigler

   - Deliver Us from Evil (A. Shaw, #2) - David Baldacci

   - Total Control - David Baldacci

   - Second Foundation (Foundation #3) - Isaac Asimov

   - Foundation and Empire (Foundation #2) - Isaac Asimov

   - End of Watch (Bill Hodges Trilogy, #3) - Stephen King

   - Foundation (Foundation #1) - Isaac Asimov

   - Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity - David Foster Wallace

   - The Meaning of Science - Tim Lewens

   - Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition - Guy Kawasaki

   - The Last Mile (Amos Decker, #2) - David Baldacci

   - Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble - Dan Lyons

   - Management Strategies for the Cloud Revolution: How Cloud Computing Is Transforming Business and Why You Can't Afford to Be Left Behind - Charles Babcock

   - It's Not the Big That Eat the Small...It's the Fast That Eat the Slow: How to Use Speed as a Competitive Tool in Business - Jason Jennings

   - Predictive Analytics: The Power to Predict Who Will Click, Buy, Lie, or Die - Eric Siegel

   - Mastering the Complex Sale: How to Compete and Win When the Stakes Are High! - Jeff Thull

   - The Bazaar of Bad Dreams - Stephen King

   What would I recommend out of this batch? Pretty much all of the fiction titles, and out of the non-fiction, I'd call out these as particularly recommended:

   Mastering The Complex Sale, by Jeff Thull

   Code, by Charles Petzold

   and

   It's Not the Big That Eat the Small...It's the Fast That Eat the Slow by Jason Jennings.

   The one I'd call out as "not recommended" is

   The Seven Pillars of Statistical Wisdom by Stephen M. Stigler. I guess it has it's place, but it didn't turn out to be as enlightening as I'd hoped it would be.

   Show morethread
3. mindcrimeNov 2016
   Towers of Midnight - book 13 of Robert Jordan's "The Wheel of Time" series.
   thread
4. careersuicideNov 2016
   A few years ago I started reading "The Wheel of Time" by Robert Jordan. I had somehow timed it so that the week I finished the thirteenth book "Towers of Midnight" the fourteenth book "A Memory of Light" came out. I blew through the first chunk of the book and then got to a chapter that was over a hundred pages long, maybe even longer, Google says it was over fifty thousand words. It was the last battle, the moment the previous four million words had been leading up to. I read a few pages and then set it down. For six months. It was obvious the series was going to end in a way that was bittersweet (as all good stories end) but I just couldn't bear the thought of there being nothing left.

   By putting it down I was freezing the moment I had left it in time. When I returned to finish the book I felt that familiar sense of sadness. A period of my life (fourteen months!) was over. I'll probably re-read the books someday, but I know it won't be the same. I often get that feeling when I finish a work of fiction I enjoyed greatly. But there was something about "The Wheel of Time' that made it much more profound.

   Any medium that can tell a story that people find intense and immersive will produce that same feeling. Why would VR be any different?

   Show morethread
5. jasonlotitoNov 2010
   Towers of Midnight, by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson.

   Blood and bloody ashes.

   thread
6. tremendoNov 2010
   Started on A Game of Thrones (G. Martin), in at around 100 pages it hasn't really captured me, and now Towers of Midnight (Jordan & Sanderson) is here so I think I'll postpone GoT.

   Also started The Land of Lisp as a total Lisp newby and got royally confused at the end of 1st section with cons, car, cdr, cadr… what?

   thread