(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best business & investing skills books

So this is a bit of an area of expertise for me. I'm actually a writing a book about communication and it is kind of a skills book, but not as you might traditionally think of one. I can tell you more if you like, but don't want to bore you.

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Here's the thing with skills books when it comes to communication...most are ok, some are even good, but most are essentially the same...they put together some combination of "do these things" and "do not do these other things" and market you a book that ultimately isn't going to help you a whole lot...at least not to communicate better in the aggregate. (How to Win Friends and Influence People is an example of this.) I call these any "Do these 10 things to communicate better" books. There is no magic list of skills that if you just learn these things, you'll communicate better. Communication doesn't work like that.

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That said, there are a few decent enough communication "skills" books out there that are worth your time. It really depends on the type of communication skills you're looking for...for example, there are books out there entirely dedicated to how to give a good presentation (say, at work). There are books on conflict resolution. There are books on persuasion. All of these, which I don't think is what you're looking for only give you part of a very big puzzle. As far as more general communication books there are a couple you might consider:

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(A note that most of these are not likely to be at your local library, but if you as your local friendly librarian how to they could get you one of these books, they can probably easily help you. Ask! Librarians are awesome! Also, most of these should be available on Amazon for not much money.)

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1. Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life
   Author: Marshall B. Rosenberg, Ph.D.
   A book with an overall good perspective. A little sappy and cloying at times, but in general the intentions are in the right place with this one. Could come off as a little bit squishily academic, but an ok read and a good perspective.
   
   
2. If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face?
   Author: Alan Alda (From M*A*S*H, The West Wing, and much more)
   I'm actually reading this book right now and it is a funny take on Alda's life and work and he relates his stories through (and about communication). Alda is actually pretty smart about communication and comes at it differently than most anyone else on this list. Funny and witty, what you might expect from such a great actor and comedian. Definitely worth reading.
   
   
3. Simply Said: Communicating Better At Work and Beyond
   Author: Jay Sullivan
   More about work than other contexts but good advice overall. I only skimmed parts of this one so can't speak to every aspect, but appeared to be decent enough quality when I reviewed it.
   
   
4. The Art of Communicating
   Author: Thich Nhat Hanh
   Different from the others on the list, this one is written by a Buddhist monk who takes a more spiritual view of communication. It is a good philosophical approach. I found parts of this book enlightening. It is not scientific-ish enough for me and it makes no claims to be. It is a philosophy book on communication, but an easy, accessible read and worth your time.
   
   
5. Crucial Conversations Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High
   Author: Kerry Patterson
   A good enough book if you're looking to navigate conflicts/difficult conversational things at work or in relationships. Deals more with the challenging aspects of communication, but for what it is, good enough advice.
   
   
6. How to Talk to Anyone: 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships
   Author: Liel Lowndes
   Similar to the book above, but more about making conversation with people. As far as these types of books go, this one is ok enough and actually has some good advice on things to try when attempting to communicate with others.
   
   
   Books like Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus, which comes up when you look for communication books should be avoided entirely. That book, and other books like it, are trash. You might as well get your advice from Cosmo.
   
   
   Sorry for the length here, but like I said, this is an area of expertise. I hope you found this helpful. I can answer questions about any of these books if you like.

The first thing to understand is that there are two basic approaches:

1. Lecturing
   
2. Educating
   
   This is my problem with the school system growing up: for lack of a better word, many teachers are nerds about their chosen topic & "geek out" when explaining it. Because they have a crystal-clear understanding of the topic & everything makes sense in their heads & they have years of repetitively verbalizing it, they lecture "at' you, instead of teaching you. If I simply wanted to learn by lecture, I could just pick up a book & read it out loud to get the same effect. But I want to learn & be taught & get educated & ask questions, not just get lectured at!
   
   So the critical difference there is "excitedly spewing your knowledge" vs. "actually capturing someone's attention & explaining it in a way that hooks them & keeps them interested." There are a number of tricks to doing this, but first, let's address your core concern:
   
   >Before writing this post everything made perfect sense in my head and I was sure about what to write.
   >
   >...
   >
   >now that I am actually writing it it feels like my head just wants to put it all on the screen in once.
   
   So you've stumbled across something important here: the mental-to-physical conversion muscle. Translation of a thought into reality is a hard thing for a lot of people. And not just for writing, but for any type of idea. Take an inventor, for example - you have to take a concept you have & make it work. It's said that Edison tried a thousand different ways to make a lightbulb before finding a method that worked - he knew what he wanted to do (make an electric light) but had to find the right way to express it physically (filament in glass, powered by electricity).
   
   Likewise, entrepreneurs who start their own businesses do this...they take an idea & work to turn it into a reality. What you're trying to do is no different, whether it's talking to someone in person or writing things out on a reddit post. And in fact, being charming & witty & well-organized verbally, on the spot, is an entirely different skill than when you can sit down at a computer & take your time to write out a well-thought-out post. If you specifically want a procedure for how to write out a blog post, try this method:
   
   
3. Open a new Google Document (auto-saves, so if your browser crashes, it won't nuke your writing, which is especially important on a long post)
   
4. Create bullet points & start typing up ideas you have, as many as you can think of
   
5. Re-order those bullet points in a flow that makes sense, instead of being scattered all over the place; in our minds, we can see the whole picture & the "big idea", but in words, in America at least, we read those line-by-line, left-to-right, so information is poured into our brains in a steady but linear stream. So it helps to put your ideas in some kind of logical order so they make more sense when your reader is reading them as new-to-them information. This goes back to my issue with many school teachers...it's easy to just blab about your topic & unleash your excitement on someone, but that typically doesn't hook them or teach them anything, or even really clearly convey your point or points.
   
6. Create sub-indents of data points for each topic you wrote out. If you're writing about video games, you may want to talk about Pac-Man, Mario, and Pong. If you're talking about Mario, you may want to talk about Luigi, the Princess, and Bowser.
   
7. Once you've got that core structure arranged & filled out with some sub-data points, all you really have to do is translate that to English, the way you speak it. You wouldn't just read a list of bullet points, you'd normalize it with sentence structures & stuff. So just rewrite those lines into paragraphs, exactly as if you were reading it out loud to someone & explaining it to them.
   
   I've done that process so many times that that's just how I write reddit posts now. I'm pretty wordy to begin with, but generally I try to arrange my thoughts, flesh them out, and then make them readable. It's a skill you can develop, backed by a process checklist, as listed above. Go look through my reddit posting history if you want an example. I don't consider myself an articulate person IRL...it takes me 5 minutes to come up with a good comeback, for example; I don't think on-the-spot very quickly & need time to gather my disorganized thoughts together (that is, when my brain doesn't go blank when I'm in the spotlight, haha!). Writing is actually a lot easier for me because I can think about things & give birth to the ideas instead of just randomly spouting off potshots about my ideas left & right in a way that doesn't make sense to anyone listening to me, lol.
   
   There are a ton of little tricks for improving your communication skills like that. For example, there's a show on Netflix called "Jerry Before Seinfeld", where he shows off all of the material he's developed over the years (fills up a whole street worth of paper!). He can talk about virtually any topic an audience throws at him because he's put on his Seinfeld-humor glasses & thought about each situation & written down his thoughts about it. Here's a sample clip from the show on Instagram, featuring some of his notes:
   
   https://www.instagram.com/p/BYFFfKnFKfM/
   
   A good approach to structuring your explanation involves a 5-step process to make what you're saying clear & memorable. There's a really good podcast with Andy Stanley here:
   
   http://buildingastorybrand.com/episode-122/
   
   As well as a written explanation here:
   
   https://michaelhyatt.com/five-questions-to-ask-as-you-prepare-your-speech/
   
   The core idea is this:
   
   

• What is your one-liner? What is your one key take-away? What does what you're trying to convey boil down to? What's the one thing that you want people to know here?
  
  To implement that, you ask 5 questions when preparing your thoughts:
  
  

1. What do they need to know? (information, aka your one-liner)
   
2. Why do they need to know it? (motivation)
   
3. What do they need to do? (application)
   
4. Why do they need to do it? (inspiration)
   
5. What can I do to help them remember? (reiteration)
   
   This is a great way to teach & to convey a message or a thought, because instead of bumbling around, it gives you (1) a specific topic to talk about, and (2) a 5-question structure that informs people, motivates people, teaches them how to apply it, inspires them, and helps them remember your topic.
   
   Another thing to work on is flair. A good starting place, if you're up for some reading, is a book called, "The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience":
   
   https://www.amazon.com/Presentation-Secrets-Steve-Jobs-Insanely-ebook/dp/B002Z8IWMS
   
   In his heyday, Jobs had a knack for capturing an audience, which has been widely replicated. Just look at any TED Talk out there...they use a lot of the same principles for capturing & keeping people's attention. On that tangent, there's another good book for creating Powerpoints called, "How to Design TED Worthy Presentation Slides: Presentation Design Principles from the Best TED Talks":
   
   https://www.amazon.com/How-Design-Worthy-Presentation-Slides-ebook/dp/B00FX3IMZY
   
   That author, Akash Karia, actually has several really great books for things like delivering a TED Talk, making small talk, and so on (if you have Amazon Kindle Unlimited, most of them are free to read digitally under that subscription!).
   
   part 1/2

Yes, do it. but taking a loan is worth getting to the higher income more quickly. 20 yr old, and I only make 1k a month- working 30-40 hrs a week. Advice:(though I could stand to take some from you)

1test for credit if you can teach yourself, it's about $75 for a shot at 3-4 credits. look up which tests your school accepts. My community college accepts most, but my state school doesn't, and they transfer stuff on a class by class basis, except the state transfer program MNTC, which they take as a unit, so I'm appyling them to that.

2 re-take placement tests if you can, and do serious studying beforehand. you probably won't get credit for the stuff you bypass but it's something you don't have to take/ pay for. I understand not bothering and taking the easy classes, but then you're just wasting your education

3 plan how it will transfer try to get certifications/degrees as you progress so you end up with maybe an certification, asoociate's, and bachelor's in 4 years

apply for a crap-ton of scholarships- the more specific, the better. Go for stuff that only a few people are eligible for. At my community college that has 12.5k students, they didn't award a few of the 130-ish scholarships because not enough people applied. go for local stuff, specific to your major, race, financial situation, anything. Google scholarship search engines. Be smart about your odds and amount of time needed to apply compared to potential payoff. They are not giving it to you for charity just to you. They expect a return, just not as money. They expect you to do something useful with it for your field, community, culture,exc. Get volunteer/ leadership experience. FMSC is great for low commitment/flexible volunteering. If you're not especially rich, or your parents don't have 4 yr degrees, apply for TRIO. Worth it.

4 If you're not in school now, learn something useful if you want to move up. Anything. Coding or a foreign language are common choices- preferably something useful for your region, but if it's kinda obscure you won't be easily replaced if you find a niche- an instrument, learn to cook and shop frugal, teach yourself drafting/autocad, or just work out. Consider getting a certification that you study on your own time then test- pharmacy tech, anything in IT or medical, something in a field you enjoy. Any of these will either increase your earning potential, help you spend less, or just be happier.

5 Learn to write and research. This is critical to most jobs and all of college. Reading critically/ analyzing is a big part of this. most useful textbook i've had also, before you ever pay for a MLA formatting guide,use this free online guide

6 work on your communication with people. Some of that means just getting out and practicing, and if you act like you know what's up, people generally believe you. good and worthwhile analysis in communication is this also invest a little time and $ to make yourself look "upstanding" or just project an image that will be effective. People stereotype. It's inaccurate, and it sucks, but it happens, so use it to your advantage and stop doing it

7 buy the older editions whenever the professor is ok with it. They usually are, and they're occasionally using an older edition than what the bookstore tells you to buy. Always get the international edition if you can (same thing, different cover, maybe different pg #'s)

8 Joining campus clubs or student gov looks great on an application, and it's the easiest way to meet people with a common interest. Also networking. At least try a club or 2, there's no commitment; they're just glad you showed up

9 most schools offer free or discounted software or deals at local businesses. state colleges give you free access to software that otherwise costs thousands (photoshop, autocad, solidworks). Use it. Community college has some, ya just gotta ask a professor or the tech dept.

10* Get a planner. Use it, write your assignments from the syllabus on it. Schedule regular time to be undisturbed and get stuff done. You are paying thousands for the opportunity to learn. Do not waste it. Show up to class on time, know people in the class who will let you get notes if you skip. Only skip if you absolutely have to- calculate exactly how much you paid for that hour of instruction and see what you're wasting. Go over what they're going to talk about that day ahead of time. This isn't high school, nobody gets it all on the first time hearing it. That homework that's not being graded? understand how to do it, and do some of it. If you don't practice, you'll never finish exams on time, even if you "got it." did I mention to learn discipline and keep a schedule? It's the single most important thing here. even if you son't feel like doing it now, just start, then it gets easier. Cramming sucks, and doesn't end well

edit: if your college allows you to take anywhere from 13-18 credits for the same price (pretty common), consider taking 18 credits and not working much, if you can. it'll be cheaper

Mostly awesome suggestions in here! Just a reminder - if you're stocking up, be sure you include some nonfiction books, or at the very least, realistic fiction. We seem to be a lot of fantasy lovers in here (myself included!), but some kids just aren't into that.

One set that I recommend is "The Survival Series for Kids" by Joy Wilt Berry, which are all dealing-with-regular-life or etiquette stuff, such as cleaning your room, learning first aid, "getting dressed" (ie choosing appropriate clothes and caring for your clothes), taking care of a lawn, and so on. They are informative, have cute pictures, and funny dialogue between the characters in the margins.

For younger readers, the same author has a series of what are basically graphic novels, called the "Ready-Set-Grow" series (partial set linked here for <$20 on ebay!). Those ones have just a few lines per page. They are more of making sure kids grow up confident and understanding how life works. They cover subjects like decision making, recognizing and handling emotions, handling differences of opinion, understanding that people are all different, dangerous things, verbal and nonverbal communication, being creative... it's hard to convey in such a small space, but they basically cover a lot of topics that well-adjusted parents usually go over with their kids on their way through life, helping the kids become well-adjusted. Some of them are a bit outdated, but even then they're pretty good. For instance the one introducing the concept of gender is titled "You're Either One or the Other" which would scare people nowadays, but the actual text spends the whole book explaining that people are just people, some guys like football and some like dancing, some girls like dressup and some like climbing trees, etc - in other words, be accepting of differences.

The best thing is that they're written in a way that kids can understand and relate to, with enough humor to not be stuffy.

I cannot recommend these books highly enough, especially for kids who are in less-than-ideal homes. They are incredible.

> Just because something hasn't been peer reviewed and isn't evidence based, doesn't mean it has zero value in the world.

Authentic faith isn't some leap into nothingness, or some 'holy hoping for the best' - it's the result of careful, reasoned, intentioned thought.

Plenty of evidence for the authenticity of the bible:

Secular sources verify historical claims[a]
Some opposed sources alluding to the supernatural acts of Jesus[a]
There are flood accounts in very many cultures that agree largely with [b], and scientific evidence suggesting the plausibility of[b1], the flood of Genesis
There's also the aspect of prophetic writings that undeniably came true in history that is currently past but had not come to pass at the time of the prophetic writing. [c]
Further, current science that backs up certain miracles in the old testament - but at the time of the writing they had no access to such knowledge. Two examples of this are the commands around food and hygeine[d], and the tree sweetening bitter waters in the wilderness[e, e1]
As a third example, the parting of the Red sea has been shown as feasible through natural phenomenon[f]
In the preceeding 3 cases the naturality of the occurrences doesn't diminish the miracle - it rather reinforces it. In the case of the tree making waters drinkable and the hygeine concerns, they flat out did not have the knowledge at the time to know to do these things - so if the source isn't man's knowledge, that leaves us with scarce options aside from that the source of the knowledge is correctly ascribed to God.
in the case of the parting of the red sea, the timing seems rather impossible aside from supernatural intervention. In all cases then, at least given that these events occurred, our current scientific knowledge shows the plausibility of these, while still upholding the miraculous nature of them due to knowledge and circumstances.

As for the non-historical claims of the bible, they can still be observed and reasoned about/tested to an extent with the laws of logic as well as general reasoning. Some of this brings personal experience into play and is not up to the standard of the scientific method but is also not devoid of evidence and reason.

I think that atheists especially, in general, think that all religions are equally devoid of real truth/logic. However, through the methods above, the vast majority of religions (at least) - can be fairly easily invalidated as man-made.

There is one objective truth in the world - and I hold that there is one God who created and ordered the universe and everything in it, and that He gave us a way to seek and know him through His word, the Bible (as well as through the glory of His creation itself[1,6]). His commands are good for us[2], but all people at the depths of their heart hold some if not all forms of evil[3,4], and above all naturally seek the good of themselves above the glory of God[5,6]. I believe that sin separates us from God, because He is so Holy and perfect that sin cannot exist in His presence[7]. In order to satisfy justice, He sent His Son to live the perfect life that we find ourselves unable to live, so that He could be an acceptable substitute for the Justice every single one of us rightly deserves for rejecting God[7].

pardon the spotty citation. i plan to expand it, having trouble finding a few specific sources I'm looking for.

[a] https://probe.org/ancient-evidence-for-jesus-from-non-christian-sources-2/
[a0] http://www.ancient-origins.net/history-important-events/egypt-remembers-ancient-accounts-great-exodus-002295/page/0/1
[a1] - independent secular verification of the plagues on egypt - https://www.gotquestions.org/evidence-ten-plagues.html
[b] one example - the gilgamesh account https://www.icr.org/article/noah-flood-gilgamesh/
[b0] [ctrl-f 'traditions around the world'] (https://answersingenesis.org/the-flood/flood-legends/a-comparison-from-secular-historical-records/)
[b1] James Trefil - 'Evidence for a flood', Smithsonian.com
[c] https://www.allabouttruth.org/bible-prophecy.htm
[d] McMillen, M.D. - 'None of these diseases'

[e] Bush - 'Notes, Critical and Practical, on the Book of Exodus' - p197
[e0] one specific suggestion - https://godasagardener.com/2011/09/05/moses-and-the-mangrove-tree/
[f] Kate McAlpine - 'How wind may have parted the sea for Moses', newscientist.com


[1] Ps 19:1-3
[2] Romans 13:9-10
[3] Mark 7:20-23
[4] Jeremiah 17:9
[5] John 3:19-20
[6] Romans 1:18-22
[7] Romans 3:21-26

Books:

Writing Software Documentation. It's an oldie, but a goodie. Great text to help with learning the basic concepts behind tech writing (task orientation, audience analysis, etc).

Business and Administrative Communication. Super expensive, but, imho, one of the most solid all-around books about writing in the business world. It covers everything from memos and effective PowerPoint presentations to RFPs and Feasibility Studies, and it does it extremely well. This was one of my college textbooks that was so useful that I kept it, and when the HR department "borrowed" it and "forgot" to give it back, I bought it again.

I remember The Handbook of Technical Writing being a good base, too. That was the text for my intro to technical writing class. Covers usability studies and other fun things.

A style guide of your choosing. If you want to write for software, though, get the Microsoft Manual of Style. Otherwise, Chicago or AP.

Software:

Download a trial version of RoboHelp and play with their sample projects, and learn how to use it. After you do that, try the same for madcap Flare. FrameMaker is important to some technical writers, but I've never had a job that didn't phase it out way before I started working there. It feels like one of those products that is slowly dying but just won't let go (but, then again, RoboHelp felt that way in 2007, so I am probably wrong about that one!). FrameMaker is primarily used for publishing layouts and such. If you work in hardware you might see it more often. Software generally doesn't ship with printed guides these days, though...

Learn to use MSWord like a pro. Specifically, learn to use styles, the reference tools, automatic TOCs, indexes, review, the developer's tab, and pretty much everything that is on the MS Word certification exam. Secondary to that, make sure you understand Excel and all the other office tools fairly well.

Learn a CMS, like SharePoint.

Personal:

Get used to criticism. Everyone thinks that their writing is better than anyone else's, and everyone has ideas. People will pull your writing in fifty directions every day.

Extinguish passive voice. Forever. Kill it dead.

Use fewer words and send your adjectives on vacation. Simple and sweet.

Be awesome at figuring things out on your own.

Visit a whole bunch of help and documentation for various products and geek out on it. Study the good and bad, the effective and not, the appealing and the ugly. Keep notes about what you like and want to emulate and what you hate and don't find helpful.

Practice:

Take your new skills and use them. Find a good open source project and volunteer some time writing up some documentation. Some potential projects are tiki.org, Mozilla, etc.

Fun:

Read all of the Tina the Tech Writer strips from Dilbert. That will be your new life. :)

It's kind of shame that there aren't more good books out there on these topics. And that a lot of what is out there is shameless self-help-style wankery.

Here's what I'd suggest: Jump straight into good stories about finance, and pick-up the lingo and concepts as you go. Investopedia -- despite the cheesey name -- is a great resource for when you encounter an idea with which you're unfamiliar.

Good stories about finance include:

• Michael Lewis has, to my knowledge, never written a bad book, but Liar's Poker and The Big Short are great places to start.
  
• Roger Lowenstein's When Genius Failed is a good story about the hubris of hedge funds.
  
• James Stewart's Den of Thieves does a great job of covering the bond market and the white-collar insider-trading scandals of the 1980s. His Disney War is also a great introduction to corporate governance, in addition to being a novel-esque good read.
  
  On a more abstract, less story-based level, you might also look at:
  
  
  
• Taleb's Fooled by Randomness, the precursor to the much-lauded "Black Swan" (and in my opinion, the much superior book).
  
• Bernstein's Against the Gods, which gives a broad (and accessible) tour of how humans throughout history came to understand and build whole markets around probability and risk.
  
  Good luck!

You already have a great foundation. Most who start trading or are even remotely interested in it, don't appreciate the value of statistics in finance, of all professions.

1. The book Forecasting by Makridakis is specifically focussed towards students of business/finance. It is quick and easy to read, and reaches to the meat of the subject (ARIMA stuff) pretty quickly (you can skip or quickly read through the introductory chapters). You can pdf version on scribd. There is another book, Mathematics of Financial Engineering, which provides a more mathematical overview of various financial instruments (eg bonds, options, futures, forwards). Some other books I mention here that's worth reading for trading, but you might know most of it with your background.
   
   
2. I go with Forex, EURUSD specifically simply because: huge volume (trillions worth transaction per day), some specific parameters to follow (interest rate, central bank mandate, gdp, inflation, purchase manager indices), a comparatively easier intuitive assessment (you can get an idea of investor sentiments by looking at the economic indicators/central bank statements). Whether it should be spot FX or futures FX is something to decide: people might prefer futures because there is a central exchange, more transparency.
   
   
3. You can get all the data you need by getting a MT4 platform from your choice of broker. You don't need to pay for it, or even have a live account. Just open a demo account and you will have access to historical data.
   
   
4. MT4 is the most widely used platform. You can write programs for it too (Expert Advisors execute tick-by-tick operations; there are scripts and custom indicators too). The programming language is MQL4, which has a syntax very similar to C/C++, so it's easy to adapt to it.
   
   Best of luck!

A good book about this is Flat Earth News, which details how and why the media have changed in the last couple of decades. I found it very insightful.

The gist of it is that because most media are owned by media conglomerates, fewer reporters are paid less to produce more, which has inevitably led to a lack of fact-checking, copy-pasting press releases from whoever sends them in, and no time or money for investigative journalism.

Some media maintain a high standard of journalistic excellence, such as the New Yorker and the Guardian, but the industry as a whole has changed dramatically.

The best point the author makes is that journalism has traded in objectivity (finding out what's true and reporting it, a time-consuming, tedious task) and neutrality (reporting the controversy and letting both parties have their say, without taking sides, an easy task that requires no knowledge of the point being debated).

The more extreme politicians and activists are wise to this and use it to their advantage. The government shutdown is a good example: in the past, the GOP would have been cut down by the media for sabotaging the country just to postpone a law that passed through Congress, was signed into law, and passed a constitutionality test in the courts. Now, the shutdown is presented as a "game of chicken" in which both sides are on equal footing.

It's also a logical consequence that you can get a lot of made-up bullshit reported as truth by the media. This has been proved time and again.

It was once thought that the brain loses its neuroplasticity with age, and that idea trickled down into the common assumptions people make, much like other old outdated science that had trickled down and people still assume it's true. It is not true. This is partly propagated by stories of famous scientists who did groundbreaking work when they were young, Einstein, Heisenberg etc. However, these stories are only well known because of their remarkable circumstances, and that does not make them general.

One example is here However I recommend searching for more rigorous research like this only this is dated, Im sure more recent work is available.

In short, the brain is not holding you back, it has the full potential to achieve whatever goals you set. Only attitudes about age and excuses will hold you back. Keep your mind open, learn as if everything you see is new for the first time and question things like a child would.

TLDR: do not let thinking about age get in the way of thinking about science.

P.S. I highly recommend this book

You are in England, right?

Go get a copy of Motorcycle Roadcraft: The Police Rider's Handbook

It is the most honest, frank, broad and informative guide to staying alive and in control on a motorcycle on the roads today that exists. It's the textbook for british empire motorcycle police.

I got a copy for xmas and the giver had to pay import tax and shipping from New Zealand, but they practically give these things away to locals. You can likely find the older edition in a bin or find someone happy to hand it down.

www.tso.co.uk for more info.

She doesn't have an implant. I have no idea what the oralist thing means. She knows sign language, and I see her use it all the time, so I think she is cool with it. Is it okay for me to ask these things?

This hasn't been a problem so far. It was kind of goofy, and we were laughing a lot. My face is really expressive, I'm not stoic at all.

Yeah, we ended up using the notebook a lot.

Yeah, the lip reading lead to some interesting misunderstandings... I was talking about how I'm trying to become a musician and she asked if I was pre med. Anyway, I got some basic signs down. I bought The American Sign Language Phrase Book and Talking with Your Hands. Can you recommend any more books on ASL or the deaf community?

Every News outlet as a predetermined agenda and self censors on that basis; to believe in the shiny beacon of "freedom of the press" is deeply naive. "Freedom of Expression" in the press is kept under check in a narrowly defined agenda to suit their corporate interests and political agendas. I would highly recommend reading Nick Davis Flat Earth News. The Narrative being pushed now is that freedom of the press is under attack is a sham; that disappeared a long time ago.

I only see 2 hats, sysadmin and desktop support.

Also, it seems like you aren't delegating nearly as much as you should (e.g. why are you fixing the web server and not 'the webadmin'?).

You should check this book out when you get time, it's a great read: https://www.amazon.com/Time-Management-System-Administrators-Working-ebook/dp/B0026OR2WM

+1 for Corporate Confidential, it's a really good book.

I also recommend Secrets to Winning at Office Politics.

Roberto Bolano - The Savage Detectives - E genul de carte care nu te părăsește niciodată. Mă gândesc constant la ea, la mai bine de trei ani după ce am citit-o. E, într-o singură carte, o glorificare și în același timp o demistificare a stilului de viață boem.

Thomas Pynchon - Inherent Vice - Pynchon e printre autorii mei preferați, dar e un scriitor greu de citit de obicei, pentru că e dens, plin de referințe la orice de la jazz din anii 20 la fizică la teologie. Dar Inherent Vice nu e așa. E Pynchon-lite. E foarte digerabilă, ciudată, amuzantă și cool. Recomand foarte tare ca punct de intrare în Pynchon. S-a făcut și film.

Philip Roth - American Pastoral - Ca majoritatea romanelor americane bune, e despre moartea visului american. E scrisă foarte bine și o să te facă să fii nu de partea tinerilor radicali, ci a moșnegilor conservatori, ceea ce e impresionant în sine.

Nick Davies - Flat Earth News - Dacă ți se pare că presa a devenit foarte proastă în ultima vreme, nu ești doar tu. Tipul ăsta folosește presa tabloidă din UK și războiul din Irak ca să îți demonstreze cum și de ce asistăm la o degradare puternică a presei.

Jennifer Eggan - A Visit From The Goon Squad - Volum incredibil de mișto de povestiri legate între ele (protagonistul fiecărei povestiri e adesea un personaj secundar dintr-una precedentă) despre oamenii din jurul scenei punk, despre tinerețe, bătrânețe, despre sărăcie, bogăție. Acțiunea se petrece oriunde între ani 70 și viitorul apropiat.

Edit: Paul Murray - Skippy Dies - Are acțiunea plasată într-o școală catolică din Irlanda și urmărește un an din viața elevilor și a profesorilor de acolo. E o tragi-comedie genială care e atât de amuzantă în primele trei sferturi, că nu te aștepți niciodată să fie atât de tragică în ultima sa parte. Cea mai bună carte pe care am citit-o tot anul ăsta.

Spune-mi ce te-ar interesa mai mult, ca să îmi calibrez recomandările.

Watch a couple of YouTube motorbike crash videos, and try to understand what happened and whether it could have been avoided.

When approaching junctions, pay close attention as drivers pulling out may not notice you. This is an interesting article explaining this.

As far as filtering to the front of traffic is concerned, don’t be in too much of a rush to do it. Stick in lane, essentially like a car, and get used to riding in traffic first.

On roads you’re familiar with, make sure you’re still riding within your ability to stop quickly if needed. Especially on twisty roads, be conscious of how far ahead you can see.

Pay attention to your lane position.

Importantly, ride at your own pace - don’t try to keep up with more experienced riders, however tempting it might be.

Oh yes, and one last thing, get yourself a copy of this - it has everything you need in an easy to read format.

Most programming for financial engineering will be in C++, Python, R, or MATLAB; some books written by Mark Joshi or Daniel Duffy may be a good place to look for how C++ is used in FE (Duffy also has an online C++ course that's quite good).

If you have a physics/math background then you likely have 90% of the required maths, such as calculus, linear algebra, probability and statistics. I would recommend taking a course/reading a book on advanced probability, real analysis, and stochastic calculus, but these are not trivial subjects. If you are more interested in learning specifically about how math is applied to FE you can take a look at a book such as a primer for the mathematics of FE.

Also, check out online forums that discuss this such as quantent.

Totally agreed. For what it's worth, this sounds like what Nick Davies called 'flat Earth news' - a story that gets repeated and repeated without anyone stopping to check the facts. If you're interested in how (pre-Trump, pre-Brexit) news is so vulnerable to falsehood, distortion and propaganda, it's well worth reading his book.

Start with Secrets to Winning Office Politics.

I also like Dealing With People You Can't Stand.

Do not read these at work!

70 Japanese Gestures: No Language Communication would be a fun book to check out. It contains photos and brief descriptions of some of the most commonly used gestures. Here's an excerpt:
>11 | Wait a moment.
>
>「 Chotto matte 」
>
>Show the palm of one hand to the other person. It also means to wait there. Both hands are used at times.
>

>In the West, gestures meaning "wait" often involve raising your index finger. However, in Japan, showing the palm of one hand or both palms to the other person is the basic gesture. If the Western-style gesture for "wait" is made in Japan, the Japanese would think of it as "1," as in No. 1.

Loads. My dad was a licensed rider for a british police force, and the skills taught there were invaluable to him. He recommended this book for me to learn more with, and it definitely helps (although you have to flip the sides of road over as it's really for a British audience.

What is the best source for English language books?

I'm looking for this book which is significantly cheaper on US Amazon (about half the price even with shipping), but if I'm going to have to wait that long for shipping from the US then I might as well see if there's anywhere else in Japan that I can get it faster.

Read a great book about that almost a decade ago that explained the process of degradation and the consequences which were already in full swing since the early 2000's. Where we are now did not come as a surprise and I highly recommend the book, written by an English fella. Always have a couple of chuckles whenever I stroll through r/worldnews while witnessing the "being on the right side of history" hive mind. There's always that comment along the lines of "if only the other side knew how much they're being brainwashed!".

If you're interested in this sort of thing you should definitely read Nick Davies Flat Earth News.

If you're interested in this kind of thing I just listened to this book https://www.amazon.com/Because-Internet-Understanding-Rules-Language/dp/0735210934 and it goes into stuff like this.

You could give Whoever Tells the Best Story Wins a shot. I'm reading it right now.

Both

The Owners Manual for the Brain By Pierce J. Howard

A User's Guide for the Brain John J. Ratey

Are great introduction books.

I was just listening to an audiobook about this exact topic regarding punctuation and sentence structure and how it relates to the when people got on the internet ( relative to the age of the internet, not the people).

It's quite fascinating to see the perspective of an actual linguist about how we talk online and the way different people interpret every aspect of a message.

Presentation Zen is an exceptional book for getting a better philosophy of making slides.

However I will warn you - the author makes a great argument why your slides should augment your presentation, not contain it. If you need a self-contained package of the presentation to leave behind, create a PDF. If you accept and adopt this approach, you will find yourself often getting frustrated with other team members who don't get it and keep whining that your slides don't have the words on them.

If you ever want to present, you have to be good at it. I highly recommend Presentation Zen . There are a lot of other good books, but this is a great foundation.

Time Management for System Administrators. This and the other two already mentioned. Primarily a Windows admin - have no idea where I picked up my "Introducing Windows Server 2008 R2" ebook. Also have Windows Server 2012 Unleashed - in general, the Unleashed books are pretty good.

They would go after the lawyer and his family. There's a good book by a journalist on how the Mail operates http://www.amazon.co.uk/Flat-Earth-News-Award-winning-Distortion/dp/0099512688/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1457562674&sr=8-1&keywords=flat+earth+news. It's actually very good on how all newspapers work. The Mail chapter is scary.

You can read about their lawsuits here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daily_Mail#Libel_lawsuits and see the penalties for losing are higher than for winning. Also..not very many for a shitstirring paper?

There's a good book (so my wife says) about it!

https://www.amazon.com/Because-Internet-Understanding-Rules-Language-ebook/dp/B076GNS3J4

what specifically are you interested in?

https://www.quantnet.com/threads/quantnet-best-selling-books-of-2012.12190/

https://www.quantnet.com/threads/master-reading-list-for-quants-mfe-financial-engineering-students.535/


http://www.nuclearphynance.com/Show%20Forum.aspx?ForumIDKey=8

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http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/~skiena/691/

http://developers.opengamma.com/quantitative-research

http://www.thalesians.com/finance/index.php/Reading_List

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http://www.amazon.com/Primer-Mathematics-Financial-Engineering-Second/dp/0979757622/

commonly heard: "Just read Hull OFOD" http://www.amazon.com/Options-Futures-Derivatives-DerivaGem-Package/dp/0132777428/

http://www.amazon.com/Stochastic-Calculus-Finance-Binomial-Textbooks/dp/0387249680/

Motorcycle Roadcraft is also a good book for street riding

I agree with /u/Neat_Description

If you don't intend to complete a degree, or leverage the coursework towards a career objective, I'd hold off on university until you reach a point in your life where you can pay cash for classes as a non-degree-seeking student.

I understand & respect your wish for deeper understanding of your passionate hobby, but taking out student loans for a hobby that has no impact on a career doesn't make a lot of sense.

You might try:

http://www.openculture.com/literature_free_courses

https://www.classcentral.com/subject/grammar-writing

https://www.edx.org/course?search_query=literature

https://oyc.yale.edu/english

https://online.stanford.edu/courses/sohs-y0001-adventures-writing

https://online-learning.harvard.edu/subject/humanities

https://www.amazon.com/Do-Story-story-world-listens/dp/1452171467

https://www.amazon.com/Unleash-Power-Storytelling-Hearts-Results-ebook/dp/B079XW94M5/

https://www.amazon.com/Whoever-Tells-Best-Story-Wins/dp/0814409148/

I recommend you read Flat Earth News. Nick Davies, the Guardian journalist who uncovered the tabloid phone hacking scandal, looks the the decline in standards in the American and British press over the last thirty years, and explains why it has occurred. Essentially, more news combined with less money and time to produce the news. This leads to 'churnalism', where newspapers recycle as much second hand, unverified content as they can get their hands on.

I have this book. Pretty interesting, and it uses a rating system for politeness in addition to brief cultural explanations.

I had to learn about Office Politics the Hard Way myself. ; (

A few of my ALL TIME favorites. Some go back a few years but helped me immensely:

• Secrets to Winning Office Politics
  
• Working with Difficult People
  
• The No A$$hole Rule
  
• The Art of Saying No.
  
  Don't read this at work! I read that somewhere. ; p

It looks like The American Sign Language Phrasebook.

Anyone with a real interest in just how close the media is tied to PR firms should read Nick Davies's recent book Flat Earth News. You'll never trust journalists again:

http://www.amazon.com/Flat-Earth-News-Award-Winning-Distortion/dp/0099512688/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1318790573&sr=8-1

Not only that but also a bit of churnalism into the mixture: basically the media copies what comes in from other media, wire stories and from press releases (by the government) without undertaking any research or checking due to pressures of time and cost. Then a sort of consensus is formed in the media and in the public opinion: wikileaks is the bad guy who endangers lives. It's not really any sort of censorship, it's more the way the media network works which allows for governments and public relation firms to easily inject stories into the press that get bounced around the news (like an echo chamber). I recommend anyone interested to read this excellent book: Flat Earth News

Here in New Zealand (road crash death rate about 9 / 100 000 per year for reference) I have a couple of close calls per year, riding about 10 000km per year. And by 'close call' I mean an occasion when hard braking, swerving or brisk acceleration is required to prevent a collision. And none close enough to cause more than a brief rise in heart rate either. That's way fewer than I had when commuting by bicycle BTW and close calls on the bicycle are generally scarier as well —Kiwi drivers hate bicycles on the road with a rabid passion and will force them into the kerb. A motorcyclist just might be a gang member and makes a bigger dent in the ute, so more caution is applied ...

Predicting that something stupid is about to happen and deliberately not being there when it does; or seeing dumb-arse stuff happen nearby is way more common. Probably a daily occurrence. Still working on the prediction skills, I'd like to get the close call rate down even lower.

You posted you did an MSF course, so that puts you in the US? Have a look at the MCRider channel on youtube —that has lots of tips on road strategy to help you predict what might happen and his videos are on your kind of roads. Other useful resources are 'The Science of Being Seen' and Roadcraft: The Police Rider's Handbook. Although the latter is a more 'drive on the left' and most applicable to UK/NZ type conditions, it does have useful tips on prediction and a system you can apply.

I would add Roadcraft as well.

Flat Earth news is a book all about this sort of 'churnalism'. Well worth a read.

Read Flat Earth News for an explanation.

More of a intro to the math/finance used in an MFE course, but this is a great book. http://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Financial-Engineering-Advanced-Background/dp/0979757622

In realtà ho visto degli inglesi che gesticolavano... sarà stata la birra, ma le mani non stavano granché ferme.

I gesti utilizzati per comunicare qualcosa, per altro, fanno parte di tante culture.

Ad esempio, mi regalarano il libro 70 Japanese gestures. Li usano moltissimo, al posto della comunicazione verbale. Anche con gli stranieri.

The BBC is/used to be a reliable source. See 'Flat Earth News' for more on this topic.

People really need to read Flat Earth News, this stuff has been going on for years. https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/0099512688

https://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Financial-Engineering-Advanced-Background/dp/0979757622

Nick Davies - Flat Earth News

Today's non-Joe Rogan podcast recommendation:

Ezra Klein interviewing an internet linguist (the author of Because Internet)

Have you read Presentation Zen? and/or its sequel Presentation Zen: Design? They really helped me focus on what I was putting into my slides, and how I designed my eLearning courses.

http://cemovial.com/contacto-cemovial/ también da clases de manejo táctico. De hecho ese compa es el que da cursos a la policía de Guadalajara y otras corporaciones en otros estados. Un libro que me gusta bastante para ese tipo de manejo es el que usan como libro de texto en UK. Se enfoca mucho en la psicología y manejo bajo presión. Está pa kindle aquí. Saludos.

Motorcycle roadcraft: the police rider's handbook https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0117081884/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_-I8YCbCXS95EM

^ I think that book has all the answers.

and read Nick Davies' Flat Earth News which is from 2009

It can be a bit tricky. There is a little more to think about and do for each manouevre that I wasn't doing before, and a few new things to think about that you aren't taught at all for the test (like in road positioning).

Basically they expect you to read Motorcycle Roadcraft and follow it to a tee.

How much experience do you have? If you've been riding for at least a year, I don't see why you couldn't do it.

I don't know why you're being downvoted. It's a pointless story released solely to make up for him fucking about in Las Vegas. The mindset that blindly publishes this crap is the same one that blindly published all the WMD bollocks being put out by US and UK governments prior to the Iraq war. 'Only publishing what they told me to gov' is not a defence.

I think you'll enjoy this book www.amazon.co.uk/Flat-Earth-News-Award-winning-Distortion/dp/0099512688/

and this website www.churnalism.com.

I finished Jia Tolentino's Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion yesterday and really just want to recommend it to everyone. Incisive essays that go in unexpected directions.

Then started Gretchen McCulloch's Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language and I'm enjoying it so far. Also looking at a few pages of this Yves Saint Laurent coffee table book each day because I'm a nerd.

Next, looking forward to Sady Doyle's Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power.

Give Flat Earth News a read, it's not even about political news, just news in general. There are examples showing how everyone uses bad scientific conclusions and just poor reporting in general to make false conclusions to further a goal or just to make money.

Also if you like that you'd also like Propoganda by Edward Bernays.

This is a little bit off-topic but there is Flat Earth News by Nick Davies for general media bias which touches on state censure and propaganda, there's also Trust me I'm lying by Ryan Holiday which is mainly about PR.

It's not journalism.

It's "news" websites, it is absolutely not journalism. It's not even "churnalism"[0], it is just page-click generation from things happening now.

Due to the infinite breadth of the web "news" can cover everything from the serious to the completely trivial. If we give this article more of our time and attention than an article on what is happening right now in Avdiivka then that that reflects badly on us, not the people providing such news-entertainment.

Real journalism is slow and expensive. We live in an age where spending a week or two getting to the bottom of a story is a wasted investment. By the time a the full story is uncovered everyone will have "moved on" and people won't pay it attention unless it is dramatically revealing somehow, which almost all of it will not be.

Journalism is seen as a wasted investment by papers and news media struggling to meet the bottom line.

Initially this led to churnalism, the process of barely re-writing stories from the wire before pushing out to live leading to a lack of critical eye and reporting PR puff pieces and heavily biased sources as "news". Now it has gone further and reporting twitter comments - even from effectively unknown people - is "news".

If Donald Trump tweets, then I considered that fair game for being news worthy. If someone random happens to say something a bit witty that the editor - I am not sure the correct term for someone who puts together these stories - it is not news and reprinting it as such is just pure entertainment. It is copying something witty for the sake of entertaining visitors and has absolutely no news worthiness. That it's put in both in text and then repeated as an embed is down to a combination of SEO and wanting to fill the page.

[0] Coined I think by Nick Davies in Flat Earth News, [2009]. Amazon links: UK US. A must read about the decline of British journalism which pre-dates the bulk of the phone hacking scandal, or at least the fallout from it and pre-dates the impact of twitter and social media on the news media.

Flat Earth News by Nick Davis. Seriously, once you've read this book you will never look at news in the same way again. I've turned into a cynical bastard about everything I read. I think I preferred living in ignorance.

But still, read it.

Also, Bad Science by Ben Goldacre.

My citation is to a book:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Flat-Earth-News-Award-winning-Distortion/dp/0099512688

And the quote is about a study done by an academic in a university and published.

And the book talks about global media.

The fact that you're upvoted more than my comment just shows how much people want to believe rather than research.

Here's a review of the book:

Author and journalist Nick Davies has written one of the best exposés of the media. The book started when he saw that the government's lies about Iraqi WMD became widely accepted as true because too many in his profession spread them uncritically. As he writes, journalism without checking is like a body without an immune system.

Commercial forces are the main obstacle to truth-telling journalism. The owners cut costs by cutting staff and local news suppliers, by running cheap stories, choosing safe facts and ideas, avoiding upsetting the powerful, giving both sides of the story (unless it's the official story), giving the readers what they want to believe, and going with moral panics.

He cites a Cardiff University study of four quality papers which found that 60% of their home news stories were wholly from wire agencies, mainly the Press Association, or PR material, 20% partially so, 8% from unknown sources, and just 12% generated by reporters. The Press Association reports only what is said, it has no time to check whether it is true. There are now more PR people, 47,800, than journalists, 45,000.

News websites run by media firms recycle 50% of their stories from the two international wire agencies, Associated Press and Reuters; those run by internet firms recycle 85% of their stories from those two. On a typical day, Google News offered 14,000' stories - actually retelling just 24 events.<br /> <br /> The government has 1,500 press officers, issues 20,000 press releases a year, and also spends millions more of our money on PR firms. The Foreign Office spends £600 million a year onpublic diplomacy'. The CIA spent $265 million on information operations' in 1978 alone, more than the world's three biggest news agencies together. It focuses its efforts on the New York Times, CBS, Newsweek and Time.<br /> <br /> Davies notes the non-stories - bin Laden before 9/11, 80% of world's people living below the poverty line, poverty and inequality surging since the 1980s, wars in the Ivory Coast, Liberia, Congo and Nepal, the global water shortage, and the vast expansion of tax havens (a third of the world's GDP goes through them).<br /> <br /> He notes how the scare about heroin, which is not a poison, led to the rise of the black market and the consequentwar' on drugs, which now costs the USA $49 billion a year. In Britain, every pound the state spends on prohibition stimulates £4 worth of crime. Again, the nuclear power scare is based on lies: Chernobyl killed just 56 people (World Health Organisation figure), not the six million that Greenpeace's Russian representative claimed.

Finally, Davies shows how Rupert Murdoch and Andrew Neil destroyed the Sunday Times and its Insight team, how the Observer suppressed stories that disproved the government's claims about WMD and how Paul Dacre rules the Daily Mail through fear.