The Manga Guide Series | Hacker News Reader

The Manga Guide Series

ohmsha.co.jp

261 pointsrg11183 comments

When I was around 8 to 10, I got REALLY into computers through this book my parents got: https://bashny.net/t/en/34007 (Энциклопедия профессора Фортрана / Professor Fortran's Encyclopedia). It laid out all the fundamental concepts like algorithms, storage, memory, etc. I didn't even have a computer at the time, but this book I think pretty much laid the path for me.

My dad also had these ones, which I also loved: https://archive.org/details/worldofcomputers/page/n17/mode/2... (Мир компьютеров в вопросах и ответах / World of Computers in Questions and Answers). It's probably got an original Japanese version, but I can only find the Russian ones. These books are more advanced, and go into computer basics all the way to telephone and packet networks.

The first one has a Russian wikipedia page with some more details:

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%AD%D0%BD%D1%86%D0%B8%D0%BA...

It's reminiscent in style to the Usborne books of similar vintage

https://usborne.com/us/books/computer-and-coding-books

It looks like this is the original book:

http://webcatplus.nii.ac.jp/webcatplus/details/book/1862799....

It looks like there's a copy in my local library. I'll have to go hunt it down next chance I get!

I enjoy this series quite a bit and read more than a few but these books are far denser than people realize. After each manga section there are several pages of an afterword of sorts that feature some of the densest textbook level explanations you'll ever see simply because they can't give the needed depth in the manga parts of the story if their goal is to actually teach something.

Found a pdf of the microprocessors one if anyone feel like sampling what the content is like.

http://50.116.28.134/MangaGuidetoMicroprocessors.pdf

Imo I love things like this just for the fun (novelty) of them!

my browser, FF, just said nope to that link. maybe a good thing as I didn't actually mean to click it.

it said so as it's HTTP not HTTPS

maybe so, maybe that's all it thought was scary. luckily for me, i had no intention of downloading the item as it was an accidental click while trying to click a different window. It just so happened to come from suspicious looking IP only address with a PDF about manga. So it just worked out in my favor.

you can't deny that it is a very suspect link even if giving benefit of doubt that surely an HN user would never post a link to something untoward, right?

What makes it more suspicious other than the lack of a domain name? Would you trusted more if it was http://righto.com/MangaGuidetoMicroprocessors.pdf instead? (using Ken's blog as an example) Or did you do an IP look up in your head that told you this IP is related to malicious activity?

What if it has HTTPS instead? Would that make it less risky for you? (From my understanding of HTTPS, it wouldn't. Maybe make it harder for other people to see that you're viewing a pdf..)

Basic self protection of the interent is don't click on suspicious links.

PDFs are known vectors of malware.

PDF only links as submissions to HN receive their own mod to the title to indicate that it is a PDF for multiple reasons.

Using a term like manga is click baity as well, as it will help lure people in to clicking a link. A common ploy for people needing to use ploys.

I was mainly upset that with all of the effort I go to in order to not click suspicious link, this is how it happened. It also just happens to be a supsicious looking link that for whatever reason(s), my browser decided it would not download it. For me, this worked out just fine as I had no intention of attempting to download it.

Videos also get modified by HN btw. I have firefox HTTP warning turned on as well, so I assume that's what you saw.

I still don't understand what you found so sus about my link, as it's exactly relevant to the thread here. It's not uncommon to see links in HN threads that bypass paywalls for example.

Ig there's no conclusion to be reached other than, be more careful next time? If you are really worried, you could sandbox your firefox with Qubes OS.

EDIT Just noticed that Ken must've seen this thread.. @kens well played! You got me good :D

Why are you taking this so personally? If it were normal, I would be very hesitant to click a link that looked like yours. I've already stipulated that a bit of benefit of the doubt on another HN viewer would be less likely to post suspect links, but bots are a plenty.

I've already listed my reasons, and I really don't think there was fault in any of the reasons for my personal "keeping safe on the intwebs". You may find that in your day to day life, you are much more cavalier about links you click. You do you, I'll do me.

However, it's 2022 now, and to not be using HTTPS is pretty much just a whole level of not trying very hard. So much so, the browser warned against it.

I don't see how is HTTPS related to the safety of a file. The problem is not that you have your reasons, it's that they seem irrational/show a lack of technical understanding and this is HN so of course people will challenge you.

If you don't understand how HTTPS protects one's safety while traversing the wilds of the internet, then I would posit it is you that doing have technical understanding of how things like MITM is a bad thing. Everyone that has challenged is focused on one single aspect vs the hollistic view of it. Given any one thing of the reasons I posted may not be enough on its own, but added all together the link becomes something I would/do choose to ignore.

But there is nothing to MITM here, it’s a link to a file. Either you trust the person posting the link or not, but the host and the protocol are irrelevant in that case to evaluate if it’s safe or not, period. It’s not that people are challenging details, it’s that your concept of holistic view makes no sense here, there is nothing to add together.

Also having that wrong mental security model makes you more vulnerable (i.e. you’ll be less on your guard when seeing https and a reputable host, where you shouldn’t and apply the same level of scrutiny).

> Basic self protection of the interent is don't click on suspicious links.

You still haven't explained why you think it's suspicious. You keep getting close and then avoiding actually explaining; is it PDFs that are suspicious? Raw IPs? Unencrypted HTTP? Describing it as "manga"?

What? It's the sum of all of those reasons. Getting close to what? I just point by point listed the things about the link that made me leary. Good lord, why is it so hard to believe that I felt the link was just odd and definitely worth hesitation on validity.

If you feel it is hunky-dory to just click willy nilly never think about it lalalala all the live long day, then click away. You do you. Me, I tend to see links like that and take pause on if I feel the risk of following that link would be worth the potential reward. I make these types of decisions all day long while traversing the web, reading emails, tweets, etc

Yooo, that's the full book right there. Thanks!

While PDFs can contain malware and for some reason people trust hosts with domain names more than bare IPs, the sole reason Firefox showed the warning was because you attempted to download a file via HTTP from a HTTPS page - it had nothing to do with the file type or bare IP.

The reason for that is browsers already have some methods of differentiating between HTTP and HTTPS when displaying web pages, but not for downloads. So folks at Mozilla decided to implement a feature that warns the user in this specific situation. Personally I disabled this feature (block_download_insecure in about:config) but for the majority of the population it might be a good thing.

Interestingly, Firefox for Android didn't complain about it.

This is such a retarded new security feature of Firefox. Oh no! Something wants to be downloaded from plain HTTP! As if malicious actors could not figure out HTTPS...

I assume it can be turned off in the config.

you say retarded, at least in this particular instance, i say thank you. if the browser warns you it is http and not https yet allows you to download anyways, then no harm no foul. it's not any different to me than when a browser warns you something is hinky with a website's cert with a scary warning, yet allows you to view it anways.

I've only read a few but its hit-or-miss... to be expected since the series is written by so many different authors.

I think the Manga Guide to Databases was really good, but the Manga Guide to Linear Algebra was pretty bad.

To be fair, Linear Algebra is really difficult to teach and hard to think of a silly story to wrap it together. But the Princess in the "Database" story is trying to organize the apple-orders of her kingdom, and that's just enough "story" needed to be a good, practical example of Databases, 3rd normal form (as well as the inconsistencies you'd come across in just 1st or 2nd normal form... and how those inconsistencies could lead to double-orders or incorrect data).

The only book you need to get a solid foundation in Linear Algebra is Linear Algebra Done Right by Sheldon Axler. Not only a very good book on LinAlg, but a very good book on any topic.

Larry Gonick did western equivalents of these; Cartoon History of the Universe is either the best book I've ever read or the best comic book.

It's rather 70s though, so the art can get psychadelic and it covers several different religions as if they're literally true. But it has to be the only kids' history book written in the US that treats China and India's history as just as important as ours.

I love Gonick's books! I have his Cartoon Guide to Calculus, Modern History, and US History too! His bibliographies at the back of the books would make for excellent syllabuses

I'll vouch for the Manga Guide to Databases. It's a solid first introduction wrapped up in a silly little story about a princess and a fairy. Read numerous 5-star Amazon reviews for more.

It's such an odd coincidence to see this now; I just discovered this series a week ago. I teach elementary school science and math, and I've already used a few excerpts from this (from Universe and Calculus) to help illustrate important ideas. I'm also a huge fan of Gonick's The Cartoon Guide to Genetics, which I'm using with the younger kids. As far as I'm concerned, we'd replace pretty much every textbook with comic books.

If you have a safari books online subscription, the manga books are available through them --- I think all of them.

https://learning.oreilly.com/

Could anyone with this subscription tell us if it's worth getting? I'm in the software industry and do read books from time to time, maybe just one every quarter or something like that. Still worth to get the subscription?

> Could anyone with this subscription tell us if it's worth getting?

My local library has a deal with them: connect to the library's website, enter your card number, and get bounced through a proxy to O'Reilly's site to read any content.

Perhaps check if your local library system as the same deal.

My local library for sure doesn't have access (it has around ~100 books available at any given time, and because of lack of funding/maintenance recently had to give away their computers).

Since you do have access, could you maybe share if you think it's worth paying for?

> Since you do have access, could you maybe share if you think it's worth paying for?

It has been handy for a few things, but given the finite hours in a day/week I tend to not read tech stuff in my off-hours, so haven't used it much in general. Most recently used it for some Postgres stuff and IPv6:

* https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/ipv6-address-planning/9...

I was going to reply "so worth it" but I checked my subscription - $399/year (legacy) now $499/year. I had gotten it when I was starting consulting and needed to read books per client projects, and could write off the expense for taxes.

Now, I'd have to say no. I read maybe one book a year. ( I "could" read hundreds, but in the end, I don't) I could buy the physical book, which I prefer, and 7 or so others and keep them, instead of a virtual library. Or get them from my public library. Or from archive.org.

The only advantage was the unlimited library and the auto-update of books from revision to revision. But your question has caused me to cancel the subscription.

If you can get it from library or university, I'd say it is -- but not unless you read a lot of books per year.

All I can say is it is incredibly useful, not just O’Reilly but they have got collections from a lot of other publishers. It is really useful as a reference or when you want to deep dive into something new. To top it, if you get to complete couple of books cover to cover, it is even better.

I can’t say whether it is worth the subscription fee. I have got my employer to cover for my subscription for the last 2 years, but not sure if I will be willing to pay it out of my pocket.

Membership to ACM (acm.org) comes with access to the o'reilly learning platform along with some other benefits and costs $99, so that's a pretty good deal. Have to admit I don't read enough to make it worth it though

I don’t know how good these are for actually learning a subject matter, but I’ve always been tempted to pick up a couple, if only to keep on the shelf. There are some that cover topics I’d genuinely be interested in and have a poor enough grasp on that they would likely be useful as introductions if nothing else. And even if not, it’s difficult to deny the novelty :P

> The Manga Guide to Molecular Biology

> The Manga Guide to Organic Chemistry

> The Manga Guide to Quantum Dynamics

> The Manga Guide to Soil Mechanics

> The Manga Guide to Project Management

They have everything.

Reading some comments here on perceived sexualising in manga, I've started to think that's why we have that ugly asexual Corporate Memphis illustrations everywhere.

These kinds of educational manga have been quite common in where I grew up in and I devoured them one after the other. Never though I was “studying” but still got a good broad picture of the topic. I think that’s how education should be! I get so annoyed at how utterly boring my school was.

I’ve been thinking about drawing something similar for software engineering and have a draft for introducing Apache Kafka that I want to publish some day.

These are great, I used to read these back in the day, if only for the novelty.

Are they capable of fulfilling the role of primary learning material? Or are they supplementary to more traditional texts?

Yeah they do teach what you need to know, in my experience, but they're not textbook level in explanation, simply because there's no space for that much text on the page.

Some of them are. Both the Electricity and Microprocessors books have lengthy sections that are mostly text with a few diagrams, as opposed to the normal manga format.

I got most of these when Humble Bundle was running a 35% off sale on No Starch Press (here's the book set: https://nostarch.com/manga-guide-13-book-set). Still a splurge, but it saved me a good chunk of money.

I like the book series ... just find funny that there are again typos in the title: "The Manga Guide to Statistics: Regression Analysys"

Who Is Fourier was the OG manga guide to fourier analysis. And kind of a weird book in general.

Looks interesting. Where can you get these outside of Japan?

They’re pretty widely available. If you are lucky you can even find them in the few remaining American book store chains.

The publisher has an online store https://nostarch.com/ But, it looks like it’s getting hugged to death at the moment…

Click your country's flag under each book.

I found these on O’Reilly and they’re awesome.

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