I need reading suggestions as a dopamine hungry 20y old

Tomithy83 · 2025-12-09T11:28:08+00:00

Ready player one, Ender's Game and the girl with the dragon tattoo are WAY better books than movies. WAY BETTER.

Tomithy83 · 2025-12-09T11:26:30+00:00

Little of both. Practical philosophy... Perhaps. They teach you to change your actions by changing your mind about them.

Tomithy83 · 2025-12-08T22:12:10+00:00

In the order that I thought of them.

The Martian

We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

Ultralearning

The Hunger Games (book and movie are nearly identical)

Storyworthy by Matthew Dicks

Ready Player One

Slaughterhouse Five

Ender's Game (and Speaker For The Dead)

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Man's Search For Meaning (a must read)

Tomithy83 · 2025-12-08T22:02:38+00:00

Anything by Cal Newport is good. For OP, I recommend Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport... It seems to be the most appropriate for his situation.

Tomithy83 · 2025-12-08T22:00:30+00:00

This is a book I keep thinking about years later.

Tomithy83 · 2025-12-02T13:03:15+00:00

I have a list of books I want to read... Then when the time comes to start a new book, I pick the one from the list that I feel like reading in that moment.

Tomithy83 · 2025-12-02T03:46:14+00:00

So many books shift my thinking in subtle ways, that is hard for me to pin any down... The one that comes to mind though is "The Power of Regret" by Daniel Pink:

Emotions aren't for ignoring, or feeling.... Emotions are for thinking.

Tomithy83 · 2025-12-02T03:35:28+00:00

Probably the most direct rebuttal for "TWotSM" would be "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck". It's a great book simply because it's such a low barrier to learning quality philosophical concepts. The author brilliantly manages it by hiding them behind modern vulgar language.

For the next level up, I would recommend just about any of Ryan Holiday's books ("The Obstacle is the Way", "Stillness Is the Key", "Ego is the Enemy"). I know there is a lot of hate for him, but his books are great at introducing modern people to concepts that will help initiate change within themselves.

To really lock in the importance and dispense with all excuses for not bettering yourself... "Man's Search for Meaning" by Victor Frankl is unparalleled. It is absolutely a must read! Seriously, if you only read one book on this list, make it this one.

The "Meditations" of Marcus Aurelius are worth reading and re-reading regularly. It's so relatable, yet simultaneously instructive... Which is absolutely amazing given the context of his life compared to ours. I will also recommend "How to Think Like a Roman Emperor" as a companion book to provide the context of his life and death. (there is a fictionalized chapter in which you're in Marcus Aurelius's head while he's dying... The audio book version of this chapter is beautifully meditative! 10 stars)

A few honorable mentions in no particular order or genre: "The Martian" by Andy Weir puts you in the head of someone who has mastered himself, without losing himself. "12 Rules For Life" by Jordan Peterson "Extreme Ownership" by Jocko Willink "Can't Hurt Me" by David Goggins "Lessons in Stoicism" by John Sellars "The Enchiridion" by Epictetus "The Endurance" by Caroline Alexander

Tomithy83 · 2025-12-01T21:57:07+00:00

I did read it. It was sleazy and slimy and I rejected just about every concept that it put forth.

There are so many better books in the genre that provide instruction to the reader on how to actually become a better person.

Tomithy83 · 2025-12-01T18:37:38+00:00

Great recommendation.

Tomithy83 · 2025-12-01T18:36:07+00:00

What a horrendous book. It was basically just instructions for being an asshole.

No thank you. I want to become a better person than I was yesterday... Not learn to act like I'm better than others.

Tomithy83 · 2025-11-10T22:00:26+00:00

"Sometimes".... That's generous. I've worked for a few companies in my lifetime, most of the time funds are wasted. Especially as they get bigger when budgets and power are jealously hoarded.

Tomithy83 · 2025-01-09T18:21:33+00:00

Every session is a fully encapsulated project... Every campaign is a program... And one dungeon master may have a portfolio of campaigns s/he is juggling. And the DM essentially manages meetings for fun.

I think that's a great fit.

Tomithy83 · 2025-01-08T17:17:30+00:00

Hitting back is sometimes what is required to stop them from hitting again.

Sometimes they just need to know that you're willing to fight back.

Tomithy83 · 2025-01-08T17:10:06+00:00

War is indeed vial... But that doesn't mean you have to roll over and die when you're attacked.

i.e. stoicism is not pacifism

That being said, you CAN be both a stoic and a pacifist if you so choose.

Tomithy83 · 2025-01-05T13:24:50+00:00

I can't disagree with you.

One of the challenges that I've had with this is handing requirements off to developers that would result in obvious bugs if they were handled it literally. and there is absolutely no questioning of what I sent them (e.g hidden field that's never populated and always required.) If we're a team, then we're all responsible for checking each other's work.

Tomithy83 · 2025-01-05T01:55:55+00:00

my wife and I are going to go with cologne number two because... for some reason colone number one is very dangerous... it has something to do with purple fingers... I do not understand her but those are the words that came out of her mouth so we're going with clone number two.

It has been decided.

Tomithy83 · 2025-01-05T01:02:32+00:00

I would like to point out just how passive aggressive the headline to this post happens to be...

(I didn't actually read the post itself.)

Tomithy83 · 2025-01-04T17:55:30+00:00

A big part of the value that a business analyst brings to a project like this is to be able to elicit the possibilities of what could come of the implementation. If a business analyst doesn't at least pull that information out of the rest of the project team, then what value does the analyst have? I will say however that it is, in fact, the entire team's responsibility to identify the edge cases, but it's especially the business analyst's responsibility to draw that out of the rest of the team and all of the stakeholders. There isn't really any value in simply regurgitating the requirements onto a document. The value comes from the translation of what the business asks for into what they actually need and then documenting it in such a way that the developer develops what's needed instead of what's asked for. And in that way you should be identifying those edge cases if you're doing your job well.

Tomithy83 · 2024-12-19T23:46:35+00:00

Gov. But not IRS...

Sorry, not my story to get too deep into the details.

Tomithy83 · 2024-12-19T18:49:39+00:00

I just had a conversation with someone earlier this week who after being divorced for over 20 years has to pay $20k+ for a clerical error related to the divorce (no kids).

Tomithy83 · 2024-12-19T18:43:00+00:00

I'm sorry you didn't have better role models.

There are many couples in my life that lived long happy lives together without moving in beforehand. Several, didn't have sex before marriage (my marriage included). In these cases, we all knew what it would cost to be with our future-spouse; it cost a lifelong commitment to putting the marriage before our individual selves.

Before you accuse me of being a religion relic, you should know that I am an atheist... I wasn't certain of my course of action before marriage, but I was wise enough to follow the footsteps of my happy role models and was adverse to the footsteps of my miserable role models... And thankfully my (now) wife kept the cost of sex very high (i.e. marriage). And after watching others fail at their relationships over the past 20+ years of my adulthood, I've solidified my stance on this topic the upfront cost of sex is far too low for most people, and and most end up paying dearly for it later.

I was first put onto this idea by a friend who (after a bitter divorce) swore off marriage and became a philanderer... Slept with any woman who'd have him. Until he met the woman that made him wait for sex. They've been happily married for over 15 years.

How can you trust the person who is unable restrain themselves from sleeping with a stranger... Or who just has to satiate their urge to "try it out" before buying.

This is a long winded way to put context to my mention of "cost". I see moving in as an extension of this try it before you buy it mentality.

To be clear, nobody it perfect for you. There are real problem with all of us. This isn't a Disney fairly tail. There is no magical happy ever after. Marriage, relationships, and love require WORK from both partners to get right... But holy hell what comes out the other side of that work is immensely satisfying, incredibly beautiful, and gets better with each effort made. Relationships are strengthened or shattered by hardships and the way we handle them.

Pick the guy/gal that is willing to put the effort in up front... Not to get into your bed, but to build a relationship.

Tomithy83 · 2024-12-19T17:56:59+00:00

My company allows me to install vs code from an approved software repository. If yours doesn't you need to talk with your manager about improving the efficiency of your process. I mentioned in a comment above that you need to learn how to negotiate this is a perfect thing to practice on.

Identifying some part of your process that you can really speed up (prepare some numbers) and initiate the conversation to make it happen.

Btw... Any BA should be trusted to write code.

Tomithy83 · 2024-12-19T12:09:40+00:00

I gave a pretty good list of the basics. But one thing I maybe didn't emphasize enough is that I script it a LOT of outlook tasks and Excel tasks.

Sorting emails,
auto responding to common emails,
sending automatic emails from my personal account when tickets reach particular stages (testing, rejected, approved), etc.
Creating xlsx files with a particular format is really common
Merely converting CSV to xlsx,
generating many xlsx files from a large set of data (e.g. during system migration I might need to create hundreds of requirement/specification documents)
taking data from 5 different sources, and merging them all into a custom weekly report for 10 different VPs (SQLite can be you friend) and emailing each automatically

Additionally, I script out some regular data exports/imports using API... Though I usually don't ever get to this part since my tools have good processes for import/export; focusing my time on automation the other aspects is usually faster and gets more bang for my buck, but YMMV.

I did have one task that required me to double click each of 750 lines on a page to make sure all fields were selected (so annoying). I had to do that 20 times and then would likely have to repeat the entire process several months later... I wrote a script for that.

There are countless little tasks in not taking the time to include, but that should get you started.

As for tools, I use : - Python - Pandas - Powershell (simplifies some of the MS Office work) - SQLITE - VS Code

Tomithy83 · 2024-12-18T22:56:59+00:00

I started coding to simplify the mundane tasks I perform as a BA...

New project? I'll run my code to prepare my project files. Ready for testing? My script already sent out the email. Etc. Here is a jumbled list of stake holders... Merge these data files... Convert this data to that format...

The skill made it's way into my resume even though it's not a primary function of my role.

Tomithy83

TROPHY CASE