Bozhidar
Книгата не е написана по най-увлекателния начин, но определено покрива добре модерната история на България и ролята на Русия в нея - обикновено в ущърб на България. Покрити са всички важни събития от Освобождението до края на комунистическия режим у нас.
Днес виждам толкова много паралели между това, което се е случвало в Царство България преди и в Република България сега, че ми се струва много важно да си научим уроците от миналото, за да не повторим грешките, които сме направили тогава. За съжаление много малко българи наистина си знаят историята, а още по-малко разбират ролята на Русия в нея. Би било хубаво повечко хора да прочетат тази книга и да се замислят какво точно е направила Русия за България...
I first came across this book around 2005, while studying C# at the university. Back then I was reading a recommended book on C# programming by Charles Petzold, which I liked, and I looked into other books written by him. “Code” immediately caught my attention but for various reasons I didn't buy the book for 10 more years and I didn't read it until this month.
Well, the long wait was certainly worth it as this was one of the best introductions to computing I've ever read! The author guides us through the process of building a simple computer from scratch in an extremely detailed, yet entertaining way, and we learn a lot about a lot of topics as we go along. That's probably one of the best texts on the history of computing as well, and modern electronics/communication tech in general.
So, why 4 stars instead of 5 then? Well, the book quality varied with chapters and I definitely didn't enjoy the final chapters as much as the earlier ones. Perhaps because those were the most outdated (e.g. the one on peripherals), or simply because that's the part of computing I didn't really need a refresher on (operating systems, programming languages, etc). Still, I have to admit the book has aged very well (it was written way back in 1999!) and most of its content is pretty timeless.
Funny enough, Charles Petzold has recently announced a second edition of “Code” that's due any day now - mid-August 2022. Let's see if I'll manage to read it in less than 17 years this time around!
After 8 books of varying quality I was hoping for a power final chapter of “The Expanse”, but alas - the book was pretty mediocre and the ending was super disappointing for me. I won't go into any details, but in hindsight I kind of regret picking up the series in the first place.
I sensed after a couple of books that the authors were struggling with both the development of the main story line (it was barely moving for a while) and the main characters, but I guess I became a victim of the sunk cost fallacy and my endless optimism that things would improve.
The book is written in an engaging way and is a very quick read. I did enjoy it overall, but I was also quite frustrated with the one-dimensional portrayal of the main characters in it - e.g. Ev is timid, good and kind, Jack is a lonely vindictive egoist, who tries to emulated Steve Jobs, etc. Life has taught me that real people are rarely as shallow as this.
Nick Bilton spends a lot of time trying to pass judgement on the actions of the Twitter founders, which doesn't seem right to me. I would have appreciated a somewhat less biased narrative. I'm also wondering how much of the book is fact and how much is fiction, given that many episodes are narrated in such details, that I simply can't imagine came up in the interviews that Nick Bilton conducted for the book. As this is common in the genre I assume it was done mostly to make the storytelling more engaging.
And, of course, today we all know how the story continued and that Jack truly won. Seems that Nick predicted his return as CEO quite accurately. His massive success with Square/Block indicates that he wasn't as incompetent early on as Nick's portrayal of him implies. I guess with Jack's recent departure it's time to revisit the story of Twitter's founders and add the final chapters to it.
I have to admit that reading this book was somewhat painful for me. It touches upon some great ideas, but it's super repetitive and disjointed. Taleb touches upon a ton of ideas in a very superficial manner, and often goes overboard with references to the work of others. I respect him for doing things his way, but that's not my way.
The book's core message is quite simple, even though it may be hard to understand (and apply):
We favor the visible, the embedded, the personal, the narrated, and the tangible; we scorn the abstract. Everything good (aesthetics, ethics) and wrong (Fooled by Randomness) with us seems to flow from it.
5 stars for getting a peek into Jeff Bezos's way of thinking and working, but not for the book itself. I've pondered whether to give it for 3 or 4 stars, mostly for some the following reasons:
* half the content is shareholder letters that everyone can read on Amazon's IR site. I knew this when I bought the book, so it's not a big deal for me. Still, it means that the book was assembled in a rather mechanical fashion.
* there's a lot of repetition in the latter shareholder letters, which is probably not a big deal if you read one of them per year, but becomes kind of annoying if you read them a minute apart
* there's a lot of repetition in 2nd part of the book - I think I read some things like 3 times. Not a big deal, but I would have expected the editors to try to avoid this.
Those small complaints aside, I was impressed by how consistent Jeff was over the years - it's clear he truly had a long-term vision for Amazon and some solid core beliefs, supporting it. I also loved his thoughts on fundamental business premises, Type 1 and Type 2 decisions, the role of senior leaders in a company, the role of big companies in society, inventing by wandering, etc. It's safe to say I like him and Amazon more after reading this book.
The book is an easy read and a great primer to technology for most people. I'm clearly not its target audience (I've worked in Tech for almost 2 decades), but I still enjoyed reading the “case-studies” and I learned a few things along the way. Probably the most education part was the one dedicated to emerging markets, as I wasn't familiar with the dynamics between the various players in regions like SEA.
I know this book is touted as a potential prep resource for Product Management interviews in tech, but I definitely don't see how this can be true - the book is pretty shallow and doesn't go in any depth when it comes to Product Management. It does reference many resources for interview preparation, though, and the authors have a “deep dive” follow-up book. At any rate - I think that PM candidates will need additional resources to learn what the job is about.
In the end of the day I'll say that the book certainly achieves one thing - reminds you of all the awesome things that technology can do for everyone, and inspires you to follow-up in the footsteps of the companies that changed the world.
Horrible book that reads like a bunch of random ramblings on the topic. It's beyond superficial, needs a lot of editing work and some degree of cohesion (e.g. the chapters could have had some consistent structure). It's basically a listing of a few popular cryptocurrencies, and little else.
It might be free, but your time isn't so do yourselves a favour and find a better into to cryptocurrencies.
An approachable and short introduction to the complex subject of valuations. Nothing more, nothing less. While some formulas might be a bit intimidating you don't really need to know much about mathematics or finance to benefit from this book. For me the most useful topics in the book were the different valuation models for the different types of businesses - e.g. young, growth and mature companies, financials, cyclicals/commodity producers, etc.
The book is a great resource for everyone who wants to be a better boss. The Radical Candor framework definitely resonated with me and gave me plenty of food for thought, even if I've been working in a somewhat similar fashion for a while now. One of the things I really liked in the books is that it's full of practical and actionable advice, although the quality of the different chapters varies somewhat and the book could have been written in a more compact fashion.
I'm dropping one star mostly due to the crazy amount of name-dropping to support the author's arguments, and for choosing too simple examples to illustrate many important points. The updates in the new revised editions are mostly worthless (e.g. new foreword and afterword), except the performance review tips.
A typical self-help book full of repetition, grand statements and pseudo-science. The book is certainly not what I expected it to be - it's more of a (bad) psychology book than a book on trading.
Still, it offers some truly valuable advise on creating a robust trading strategy and sticking to it.
The entire essence of the book is not more than 20-30 pages, so I'd advise people to just read some summary/abridged version of it instead of wasting their time with the entire book. For me the biggest takeaway of the book is that it reaffirmed my belief that day trading is pretty much gambling (as the author often mentions himself). I do get the excitement of speculation (gambling), but I'd rather focus on investing instead.
Книгата не е лоша, но е организирана доста хаотично. Предполагам че основната причина за това е че голяма част от съдържанието са просто индивидуални статии, които авторът е публикувал онлайн през годините. По-добра редакция определено щеше да помогне много. Малка инвестиция в оформлението нямаше да е излишна също - особено дразнищо е че почти не си личи къде започват и свършват главите.
Чел съм доста книги за персонални финанси (работих няколко години в инвестиционен брокер и работата налагаше да се образовам в сферата) и определено тази е една от по-добрите (поне за начинаещи) - няма много празни приказки и разтягане на локуми (но все пак има много повторения), написана е на много лесен и разбираем език, има някакви практически насоки и няма обещания за бързо забогатяване. Основното предимство на книгата е че е ориентирана към българи и е съобразена с родната действителност. (затова и пиша ревюто на български) Това очаквах от нея и това получих, та определено не съм разочарован от покупката.
Леко съм притеснен, че Стойне представя Робърт Кийосаки като свой идол/кумир, понеже според мен той си е един класически мошеник, но като цяло съветите му са разумни и си мисля че болшинството от хората биха спечелили от тях. В заключение - ако нищо не разбирате от лични финанси и/или искате повече информация за опциите ви по темата в България, определено ви препоръчвам да прочетете тази книга.
The most important takeaway for me from this book was that one has to have a philosophy of life and it should govern everything that one does. Whether that philosophy is Stoicism, something else off-the-shelf, or something you've cooked up yourself doesn't really matter - the only thing that matters is that by abiding by your life's philosophy you end up living a happy and fulfilling life.
It was also interesting for me to get acquainted with Stoicism and to read a modern interpretation of the words of the ancient Roman Stoics. The author makes a compelling case for the value of tranquility and outlines a lot of concrete suggestions and tactics for attaining it. I still wonder whether Stoicism and me are compatible, though, as I've rarely sought tranquility in my life, but I'll definitely ruminate on the contents of the book in the months to come. All in all - I believe it's a valuable read regardless of whether you ever decide to become a practicing Stoic.
A good intro to Clojure, but nothing more than that. There's nothing of value in the book for an experienced Clojure developer.
“Getting Clojure” has a slightly different structure than most intro Clojure books - doesn't focus so much on concurrency and offers only a minimal coverage of more complex features (e.g. dealing with state and macros), which is a good idea for an intro book IMO. Generally concurrent programming is barely covered here and I recall that older Clojure books made a lot of fuss about it. Lesson learned I guess - Russ had the opportunity to observe how Clojure's actually used in the wild and focus on what matters the most.
Russ's writing style is fluid, clear, fun and engaging. I loved his Ruby work in the past and I'm happy to see him in the Clojure realm these days. If you've read any of his Ruby books (e.g. “Eloquent Ruby”) you'll find lots of similarities with “Getting Clojure”. I can certainly recommend the book to anyone looking to learn Clojure!
I'm not in the habit of writing book reviews (who has time for all of the reviews we have to write these days, anyways?), but I feel like this book deserves a few words.
It's simply phenomenal! Sure, it's a bit dated (it was written originally in the 80s and slightly updated in the 90s), but most of the content in it is timeless. The foundational ideas about running a business, building a team, managing a team, etc transcend both time and industries. The only thing that really changes seems to be what's considered a good idea/practice at any given time.
It's really refreshing to read the management playbook of true manager, who has proven himself and the merits of his ideas/beliefs. It's also very refreshing that often Andy admits that there's no recipe for success and all you can do is experiment and see what works best for you. You'll rarely see people as successful as him be so humble and frank about the challenges they face.
The book is certainly not a page turner, but even if you can't stomach all of it I can heartily recommend reading at least Part II (Management is a Team Game) and Part IV (The Players). I enjoyed those parts immensely and I deeply regretted not having read this book years ago. Once I actually read some abbreviated version of the book, but without all the context the ideas simply didn't stick with me.
The book consists of mostly basic advice, that's common knowledge, but overall I enjoyed it. It's nice to have all the basics of a healthy lifestyle collected in a single resource. The book could have easily been named “The Healthy Office Worker” (since nothing in it is specific to programmers) but I'm glad it wasn't - otherwise I probably wouldn't have come across it. :-)
