Not about this book in particular, but I wanted to thank you for creating this amazing resource. As someone who obsessively bought every MIR title he could while growing up in Delhi, do take a bow.
Been using it for several months now and it’s my default reading location and I read a lot. Reading is essential to my life and work and I have been looking for a solution that solves all my information consumption problems. Readwise has a good chance to be that solution as long as they don’t go the way of Google or Evernote.
One continuing irritation: PDF reading on iPadOS isn’t as good as dedicated apps (I use PDF Expert). Highlighting works fine, but writing by hand using the Pencil is nowhere near as responsive or accurate as PDF Expert. I hope you invest resources into making PDF consumption the best in class - it’s the only thing preventing me from fiully embracing Reader as a complete solution.
A suggestion - not arising from irritation, but a matter of positioning - much of the communication of Readwise/Reader’s utility is around productivity, of reading to optimize information uptake or insight maximization. I would prefer if it also highlighted creativity and imagination. I read to make new connnections and (hopefully) think new thoughts that I haven’t thought before. It’s an idyllic vision of the vocation of reading but one that has a long history in the annals of bibliophilia. Perhaps you should target not just the Tech Bro, but also the Romantic Reader.
PS: an unexpected delight - I liked how I was onboarded by an existing user and had to turn around a couple of weeks later and help onboard the next generation. If done well, Readwise/Reader can become an essential social reading app for nerds, with the tool being the hub for a community of serious readers. Books are already read in circles - perhaps you should try to replace Google+ as well as Google Reader
I agree with the thrust of this article, especially this line:
"For a long time I felt somewhat unique in this regard, but COVID has made my longstanding reality the norm for many more people. Their physical world is defined by their family and hometown, which no longer needs to be near their work, which is entirely online; everything from friends to entertainment has followed the same path."
The unbundling of physical and digital reality is certainly happening, but I also think new forms of rebundling are also happening. Before COVID, I would never dream of calling my daughter in the next room, but now I do it all the time - not (only) because I am lazy, but because the call or text is less intrusive than knocking on the door and therefore has better UX.
To see what's happening as only:
1) "the real world is the combination of the digital world and the physical world and that the real world is not just the physical world."
or
2) "the Metaverse is the set of experiences that are completely online, and thus defined by their malleability and scalability"
is to downplay the combinatorial possibilities of dis-aggregating and recombining the digital and the physical. It feels to me that a certain 'computational style' is becoming widespread tacit knowledge and shouldn't be identified only with the digital/online/virtual.
Z-Y is a fantastic book, especially if you have a decent math education already. Soviet style math and physics education - if done well- teaches you how to think with math, i.e., mathematics as an augmentation of the human intellect in the Engelbartian sense. Somewhat paradoxically, it's a humanistic approach to mathematics education.
PS: https://mirtitles.org/ is a treasure trove for people who like books from the Soviet Era.