Dagon comments on Less Wrong Book Club and Study Group - Less Wrong

34 Post author: Morendil 09 June 2010 05:00PM

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Comment author: gwern 09 June 2010 05:50:09PM *  7 points [-]

My outside view, in that I have rarely seen online book clubs or group readings ever work out*, is that you will probably fail.

Many times the attempts seem to founder on a lack of clear objectives or a clunky technical setup. I suggest you work on these; many short, automatically graded exercises, and a quick easy interface to them may work for a math-heavy PT:TLOS.

(Even if you did set up such a site - which would be a great resource - I am still pessimistic. I have PT:TLOS, and it requires quite a bit of math. Better know your calculus well.)

(Oh, and you might want to make a PDF version with the various corrections added in. Little is more frustrating than errors in a math book.)

(Also of relevance: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/etjaynesstudy/ )

* offhand: one failure to read through Dune, 2 different groups failing to read through The Book of the New Sun, multiple failed attempts at The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs and Real World Haskell, and no doubt some others that escape me now

Comment author: Dagon 09 June 2010 07:09:01PM 0 points [-]

If anyone has already reformatted (automatic conversion is not as good as one might hope) to an ebook format for easy Kindle use, I'd appreciate it. For a good non-DRM conversion, I'd be happy to pay up to $72 (the current Amazon.com price for a new dead-tree copy).

Comment author: apophenia 13 June 2010 11:46:57PM 0 points [-]

I'm using the Sony Reader, and I I've found the PDFs to be adequate so far. What specifically is your problem?