The Art of War

What Hacker News says

1. NishanStepakOct 2026
   Frank Herbert Dune, book, there is a graphic novel of the latest edition which I glanced through. Machiavelli The Prince Sun Tzu The Art of War Epictetus The Enchiridion Tao Te Ching- different editions The Odyssey in variety of formats, illustrated, graphic novel, book The King James Bible-- Different pieces at various points. Proverbs many times. Lewis Carroll-- Alices Adventures In Wonderland, book, annotated edition
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2. edniteJun 2025
   Reading this thread, and having been around a while, I agree with most of what’s being said. If I could go back and coach my younger self through the mess of work life (promotions, burnout, undervaluation), I’d hand over three books that ended up being practical maps more than just philosophy.

   Some valuable insights from thee books are:

   Sun Tzu: The Art of War Success often comes from preparation and positioning, not effort alone. Promotions tend to go to people who made themselves hard to ignore before opportunities opened up. Don’t fight every battle, pick the ones that matter.

   Marcus Aurelius: Meditations Focus on what you can control. Most stress comes from chasing recognition or reacting to things you can’t change.

   Dale Carnegie: How to Win Friends and Influence People Being technically strong isn’t enough. Careers are shaped by relationships. Listening, being likable, and helping others shine often creates more traction than pushing your own brilliance.

   If I had started with these mindsets earlier, I probably would’ve saved a few years of frustration. Good luck to everyone dealing with these issues.

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3. toughMay 2025
   The art of war by Sun Tzu is pretty timeless tho
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4. simneDec 2023
   Thank you! War is heavy test of endurance, because of this I will be grateful for any support, but must admit, different ways will give magnitude different results with same resources spent.

   For more detailed explanation better if you read Goldratt's Theory of constraints and for beginners introduction good books "the goal" (1/2/3). Also good to read classics - Sun Tzu, the Art of war, it is very short but unfortunately written on old Chinese, which nobody knows, so different translations are significantly different, best if read all translations you could reach in parallel and compare.

   Javelins are made with strict reporting, and considered to storage few years. American/European medicine working on evidence based principles and strict protocols.

   But at war and emergency, strict protocols usually disabled (and planned operations shift right), because they are extremely slow and expensive, and most Western weapons and supplies are not stored significant time, they near immediately consumed.

   And also important, bureaucracy is not good, but Ukrainian bureaucracy now is just disaster, fortunately Ukrainians smart and good in peer interaction, so always when possible, better to use lower level.

   So exists few variants to help:

   1. If you will help to medicine, via some large fund with their bureaucracy, well, I'm not very optimistic on effectiveness, but I'm grateful.

   2. If you find some way to help buy weapons, like Bayraktar heavy drones, also via some big fund, this is better. I'm also grateful.

   3. The best, if you hire me, or with your support I'll make my business, probably open source. In this case will be triple win: First, I'll make decent product, I feel very strong importance of tech for community; Second, I will have some predictable future, so I could plan my life and care about health, not wait for medical emergency, so 1st variant will be just not happen with me; Third, I will spend time to talk with Ukrainian military people, I think you understand, they could tell much more to me in private talk, than for people abroad, and I will try to make them best help for this time.

   As example, what I could do, FPV drones, which are less effective then Javelin, but cheaper and cost effectiveness of drones is much better. Second example, all drones very depend on communications, I'm really good in communications hard/soft, so I could make things, to make Ukrainian drones communications more reliable, and to interfere enemy communications or intercept them. And others and others. We here at HN, are knowledge workers, all we talk about gather information, store information, and process information, and you might know, knowledge at war is literally life, because with modern weapons, people in many cases don't see enemy, just got info from intelligence that enemy in location X,Y, and who will make successful fire first - will survive.

   To be strict, now Russians still have significant advantage in heavy and modern weapons, and strong intelligence, and for them typical to attack civilians, so anything what make more heavy/modern weapons for Ukrainians and less heavy/modern weapons for Russians, will made huge impact on volumes of work for medics.

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5. QuinzelNov 2023
   The Art of War - Sun Tzu. One of my favourite books ever. Everyone should read it.
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6. iancmceachernNov 2022
   The art of war
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