2022-08-28 Weekly Report 04 - Starting a New Job, How to Read a Book

(Translated from the Chinese version with the help of Claude.)

Starting a New Job

This week I started at a new company, and there’s a lot to learn. I estimate this suffocating underwater state will need to continue for about three to four months before gradually improving. Lowering expectations leads to pleasant surprises. But if I’m following Hofstadter’s Law and already expecting surprises, will the surprises still appear?

Last week’s goodbyes to old colleagues were somewhat melancholy, while this week I’m slowly building connections and getting to know new colleagues. What I didn’t expect was that the new company is so large - there are quite a few high school classmates, college classmates, graduate school classmates, and former colleagues at the new company, which actually provides me with opportunities to “renew old friendships” 😊 Life is wonderful - it’s all about fate!

Taking advantage of this transition, I organized my browser bookmarks (completed) and old notes (a massive project, taking it slow). I realized that some things, when unused for a long time and not easily discoverable, eventually become useless.

I told my new boss, maybe I could start a “How to get into FAANG” YouTube channel and begin the path of selling courses to make money. Reply: you can start by writing on your blog 😅

Privacy Issues with In-App Browsers

Following the revelation of Instagram’s in-app browser issues, Felix Krause continued his efforts and exposed TikTok’s in-app browser problems as well. Please see the original article for details.

Book Review - “How to Read a Book”

Last time I said stop wasting time reading news, so let’s read books instead. Sharing reading experiences should be a good thing, but it’s been tainted by people like Luo Zhenyu and Fan Deng. First, let me clarify that I’m not some reading expert - I’m just sharing some personal insights, so please go easy on me. Let me start with a video from Teacher Luo Xiang, discussing why we read, what to read, and how to read.

Teacher Luo mentioned “How to Read a Book.” This book is quite famous and, besides discussing reading methods, also addresses why we read and what to read (the author was also the initiator of the “Great Books of the Western World” project). Let’s start with this book to discuss these questions.

Why Read Books

The author identifies three levels of reading purposes (higher-level books may simultaneously serve lower-level purposes, but not vice versa):

1. Entertainment
2. Information acquisition
3. Cognitive improvement and mental growth

It’s 2022 now, and personally I think that for entertainment and information acquisition, video and other media have greater advantages. I think the purposes of reading include at least the following:

1. Crudely speaking, learning something new that can be directly or indirectly useful at work, improving one’s labor value (treating people as tools rather than humans);
2. Learning from historical masters and great works (if you’re qualified enough, “dialoguing” with them);
3. Looking down on others - look at you all during your free time, watching movies, scrolling phones, traveling, how can that compare to my reading… Do you know the four ways to write the character “hui” in fennel beans? Actually, reading is not superior to other time-killing activities. Once you have this “I’m better than you” mindset, your reading is wasted, you’re not superior, and your level of cultivation is still lacking.
4. As Teacher Luo Xiang said well, it’s nothing special, just finding something to do, fighting against meaninglessness.

How to Read Books

The author divides reading into four levels from low to high (learning to read is like learning to drive, ski, or swim - beginners break down the key points, but after mastering them, these points become less important):

1. Elementary reading: Can you recognize this character, can you understand this sentence;
2. Inspectional reading: Understanding the main content of a book within limited time;
3. Analytical reading: The most thorough reading of a book with unlimited time;
4. Syntopical reading: Reading a category of related books to research a particular topic.

The middle two levels are most relevant to our daily reading. If we define a “reading gain function,” plotting reading gain percentage (y) against reading time (t), then for many books, the function graph might look like the following:

Inspectional reading hopes to find a certain t that maximizes y/t, possibly with conditions that t must be less than a certain value and/or y must be greater than a certain value. Okay, I admit I can’t continue this analogy… Actually, the principle is simple: don’t pick up a book and start reading word by word from the first page (I personally think this is a bad habit developed from reading textbooks in school). You can’t and don’t need to remember every word. This stage has only one purpose - is this book worth reading further? The author proposes several key points:

• First, skim through
  • Title
  • Table of contents
  • Index (keywords)
  • Chapters of interest
  • Last two or three pages
• Then read through once, don’t stop when you encounter something you don’t understand, keep reading - you might understand it as you continue
• Try to summarize the book’s main theme and arguments, and your initial evaluation (is it true? does it make sense? what does it mean to me?)

At this point, you should be able to decide whether to continue reading. Of course, you can adjust accordingly based on the author’s reputation and recommendation sources. You can also watch the author’s lectures and interviews when they promote their book. They definitely will extract the most attractive things for you.

As for analytical reading, it’s only a theoretical possibility, since you can’t really spend infinite time reading a book. Not many books deserve analytical reading. The original book provides a framework for analytical reading, which I won’t elaborate on here. I think writing notes/reviews after reading (like this article) is very helpful for deepening understanding. These writings will become your map for reviewing the book and might help others too. Also, don’t force yourself to understand everything in one reading. The greatest works will improve as your level improves - the book is still the same book, the text hasn’t changed, but each reading brings new experiences. For example, I believe reading “Journey to the West” at ten, twenty, and thirty years old will yield different feelings.

What to Read

After inspectional reading, I categorize books into three types (the same method can be used to categorize work tasks and other things):

1. Comfort zone - books that are too easy, or where the author’s viewpoints align with your existing views (my recent personal example is the book “The Art of Not Reading News” mentioned last time). Reading such books won’t yield much benefit - either skip them or skim through quickly.
2. Panic zone - books that are too difficult (like giving calculus to elementary school students, or giving me Kant and Heidegger 😭). Forcing yourself to read them can be discouraging. When you’re not ready (knowledge base, reading skills, mental investment), don’t force it. Consider critically reading some peripheral materials (like others’ interpretations) as preparation. If it doesn’t work out, that’s okay - if there’s fate, you’ll meet again naturally.
3. Growth zone - content that, compared to the reader’s current level, is neither too low to be boring nor too high to be completely incomprehensible. If you encounter such a book, start reading. If it suits your taste, congratulations, enjoy it. Hopefully, after reading, your comfort zone will have expanded a little bit. Maintaining an open mind is important. If the author’s viewpoints contradict your existing beliefs but the author makes substantial points with reasonable evidence, the book is even more worth reading. Either you find flaws in their arguments and strengthen your own beliefs, or you’re convinced and change your stance (this is difficult - don’t I need to save face?), or you’ll develop the superpower of simultaneously holding two or more contradictory ideas.

Extension - How to Bootstrap

The biggest dilemma in reading is often that when you’re completely ignorant about a topic, you don’t have enough knowledge to judge the quality of books on that topic. Imagine a programming novice learning JavaScript for the first time, facing numerous textbooks and courses - it’s hard to judge which ones are higher quality and more suitable. My solution is:

• Search around, and if a resource is recommended by multiple independent sources, its quality is guaranteed. For example, if I want to learn C++, and everyone says “C++ Primer” and “Effective C++” are good, I might consider these two books.
• Choose what you like. There are many good books, and all roads lead to Rome. Don’t worry about which one is “right” - liking it and being able to read it is important.
• Don’t be afraid of taking detours. After accumulating some knowledge, inspectional reading of related books becomes much easier.
• With more similar experiences, encountering new topics becomes less daunting.

Extension - Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing

Good authors make readers’ inspectional reading easier. They help you summarize the key points in the book, clearly mark important vocabulary and sentences, and explain their meanings to avoid misunderstandings.

As for listening and speaking, the author wrote another book called “How to Listen, How to Speak.” It’s much less famous, but the main principles are similar. There might be opportunities to elaborate on this in the future.

Conclusion

The author says not to miss the ending of the book in the first step of inspectional reading, and the ending of this book is also excellent. Do you remember those “if you were stranded on a desert island and could bring ten books, which would you choose” articles? The author says:

You might initially think this imaginary situation is somewhat strange and unrealistic. Is it really so? We don’t think so. To some extent, we’re all no different from people exiled to a desert island. We all face the same challenge - how to find internal resources and live a better human life.

Happy reading.