What Do You Care What Other People Think?
One of the greatest physicists of the twentieth century, Richard Feynman possessed an unquenchable thirst for adventure and an unparalleled ability to tell the stories of his life.
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114mentions
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2007–2026years
47% recommend52% neutral1% critical
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What Hacker News says
- For some reason I thought of the book
"What do you care what other people think?"
which should be read after
"Surely, You're Joking Mr Feynman"
Completely unrelated books about curiosity not people skills, but still lots of fun.
- The Boy's Second book of Electronics by Alfred Morgan(1957) introduced me to electronics in the 1970s, and lead to a technical mindset and lifestyle.
The Engineers Notebook by Forest Mims really taught me the basics of electronics.
What do you care what other people think by Richard Feynman(1988) introduced me to the idea that nobody is really as much of an expert as you might think.
1632 By Eric Flint, and the subsequent series, got me thinking about the nature of civilization and all the things that go into making it.
There are a lot of books in this world, and they all helped author who I am.
- Feynman has a fantastic anecdote about getting over what we might today call burnout. He was not interested in work at all in his professorship, when he noticed a wobble in a plate being thrown, and wondered about it. He spent all day working on the physics of this toy problem, and claims discovering play as the key to his recovery.
If you haven't read them yet, "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman", and "What Do You Care What Other People Think" were great reads in my 20s.
- The other book is, "What Do You Care What Other People Think?"
https://www.amazon.com/What-Care-Other-People-Think/dp/03933...
I particularly liked it for the in depth discussion of how Appendix F came to be written.
- Diary of an Early American Boy - Eric Sloane. This book spoke to my heart in a deep and profound way.
The Art of Electronics by Horowitz and Hill - Everything you want to know about the practice of electronics, as opposed to theory, once you're going to design electronics.
The Programmers Stone - https://www.datapacrat.com/Opinion/Reciprocality/r0/index.ht... - Teaches the concept of Mappers and Packers, I'm a mapper, and I've worked with packers, once I knew this, and used it to help bridge the gap.
Flatland - Edwin A. Abbott - A bridge towards higher dimensional thinking from back in elementary school.
The Boy's Second Book of Radio and Electronics - Morgan, 1957. - https://www.worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Technology/T... - This is the book that cold started me into electronics in 1973, in 4th Grade.
The Engineer's Notebook series - Forest Mims III - Once I was in electronics, gave a ton of useful tips.
What do you care what other people think - Richard Feynman, a good set of lessons about expectations and motivations of others, as told by one the folks on the Manhattan project.
Computer Lib / Dream Machines - Ted Nelson - A great exposition of what computers could be used to do, We're nowhere near catching up yet.
George Gilder: When Bandwidth Is Free - Interview in Wired Magazine - https://www.wired.com/1993/04/gilder-4/ - It was here (I think) that I first heard his call to waste transistors in pursuit of performance, that the BitGrid came into mind as a viable idea.
The Cluetrain Manifesto - Levine, Locke, Searls, Weinberger - Changed the way I view the internet and advertising.
- Oh wow my mistake. Yes it is actually the sequel "what do you care what other people think" that was written after his death.
Yeah knowing he wrote it, I guess it does come off a little more egotistical than I at first assumed. Still a good book though.
