Very interesting to see this article on HN. Guess we're having a Merlin run here?
I'd actually go as far as to say that "Better" has shaped my thinking about social networking and the Internet in general. Attention is a finite resource -- even moreso for those who struggle to focus -- and as someone with an economics background I'm tempted to consider the marginal benefit vs. marginal cost of the things I read about on the Internet.
Usually these comparisons usually come out strongly negative, even when we're talking about Hacker News. We would get much more out of a chapter of CLRS or an OSS patch than something from Techcrunch or Daring Fireball.
You would probably like the economist Tyler Cowen's books. There are several but in one (I forget which) he goes so far as to say you should walk out of movies after 10 minutes if you aren't enjoying it and walk into the middle of another. Any other strategy is a waste of precious time.
He writes a ton of book reviews on his blog (marginal-revolution.com), but half the time the review is "I probably won't be finishing this one."
I'd actually go as far as to say that "Better" has shaped my thinking about social networking and the Internet in general. Attention is a finite resource -- even moreso for those who struggle to focus -- and as someone with an economics background I'm tempted to consider the marginal benefit vs. marginal cost of the things I read about on the Internet.
Usually these comparisons usually come out strongly negative, even when we're talking about Hacker News. We would get much more out of a chapter of CLRS or an OSS patch than something from Techcrunch or Daring Fireball.
Just something to consider.