Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?

#111

Post by LaGrange » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 2:57 PM UTC

orbz wrote: post #68

phowat wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From this list, the thing I struggle most with is conversations with strangers. Any suggestions on how to improve that?

- Meetups with like-minded individuals - Board game/trivia group at your local bar - Join Toastmasters

I like this answer because it starts with finding a setting that the other strangers chose likely to meet some strangers, instead of finding ways to lock some random person in a conversation. It's the first sign of basic respect that can, in my eye, excuse _a lot_ of awkwardness.

Re: Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?

#112

Post by cercatrova » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 2:57 PM UTC

yawgmoth wrote: post #23

hijinks wrote: post #3

Kubernetes.. almost all the companies are on it or looking at it in one way or another.

I like Docker, I like microservices, but I feel like I'm just not excited about Kubernetes itself. There seems to be a "bullshit complexity" that people add to it that I really don't think is going to stick. But, I really do like the "GitOps" experience. A merge to a master branch is a deploy. Should I just get over this perception and learn Kubernetes, or could I find joy and professional usefulness out of another t…

You can get the same GitOps approach with something like Dokku, which is just one container I believe. It acts like a self hosted Heroku.

Re: Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?

#113

Post by snarf21 » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 2:57 PM UTC

ryugarden wrote: post #64

Learn how to make more friends. Communicate. Learn how to talk with people, how to be adaptive and contextual. Learn about yourself as much as you can, either via introspection or from other people. Learn what your values are, and what makes them satisfied. "You are your own ally, when you make yourself an enemy even though you should trust yourself, you become the victim hit the hardest". Learn agency. Remember that…

I've come to believe that introspection is the one true real superpower.

Here is an exercise for the reader. Every year on your birthday, write down what you "know" to be true about life, work, love, politics, money, meaning, happiness, environment, etc. and then seal it. Now read what you wrote last year and see how dumb you used to be.

Re: Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?

#114

Post by mechhacker » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 2:58 PM UTC

misiti3780 wrote: post #105

mechhacker wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I learned with a really inexpensive (30 bucks) boxed set called Living Language Then once I knew the basics I went to conversation hours About 3-4 months to low conversational if you practice 30min-hr every day

this https://www.livinglanguage.com/faq/downloads/french/complete ?

Yep that's it

The boxed set has 3 booklets (Essential/Intermediate/Advanced) that cover all the grammar. Libraries usually have it.

I recommend them for the main romance languages and possibly German but for Slavic or Asian languages I would recommend other sources (I am barely intermediate in Russian and Czech and was trying Mandarin for a while).

Re: Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?

#115

Post by a_bonobo » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 2:58 PM UTC

inform880 wrote: post #108

chrissnell wrote: post #100

Some suggestions: - Build something. A new workbench for your office. Fix up an old car. Build a pull-up bar in your garage. Use your hands, cut some wood and metal, and treat yourself to a new tool or two. Do this with every project and you will have a nice tool collection before you know it. - Learn to take pictures on a manual camera. You can do this with a modern automatic camera if it has a manual mode. Learn ab…

The cooking thing really hits home. I work in a high stress, banking environment at a fortune 500 company, and I eat out most days. I know theoretically how to cook, but between the time it takes to shop, cook, and clean, AND I'm doing well financially it's so hard to convince myself to cook. Living alone doesn't help either.

If you have the money (and it sounds like you have), there are quite a few recipe box companies which send you boxes of ingredients and recipes every few days. It's a nice stepping stone towards fully cooking for yourself as it cuts out the shopping/deciding part.

Re: Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?

#116

Post by mcv » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 2:58 PM UTC

maayank wrote: post #97

mcv wrote: post #58

Graph Databases. Most companies have problems where graph DBs are a great solution, but people who have experience with them are rare.

Do they though? Haven’t seen many companies with graph problems at such scale that require a new solution integrated, leaving aside the social network trope

You don't need scale to make graph databases useful. As soon as relationships between items are more important than the data within a table, graph databases make your data easier to navigate than joins upon joins.

Re: Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?

#117

Post by collyw » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 2:58 PM UTC

phowat wrote: post #62

kerkeslager wrote: post #9

Starting conversations with strangers. Squat and deadlift. Eating healthier. Doing something kind for someone else every day. Honesty. Listening to people you disagree with. Driving safer (this is the most dangerous thing we do on a regular basis). Meditation.

From this list, the thing I struggle most with is conversations with strangers. Any suggestions on how to improve that?

Alcohol.

Secondly, be more interested in listening to the other person than in talking about yourself. Most people want to talk about themselves.

Re: Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?

#118

Post by personlurking » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 2:59 PM UTC

dmichulke wrote: post #82

phowat wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From this list, the thing I struggle most with is conversations with strangers. Any suggestions on how to improve that?

"Hi , my name is .. . What you've been up today?" - Start conversion with something you notice about the other person, the event, the surroundings ("the color of your watch matches with your sweater - stylish!", "is this stuff boring or is it just me?", "you know why they put that thing over there?") - Topics: Family, Occupation, Recreation, Dreams - Repeat the last few words of the other person and look asking. The…

Plus

- some version of asking for a recommendation (ie, "what's good here?")

- in a social event, try "Hi, we haven't met yet, I'm ______"

Re: Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?

#119

Post by alasano » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 2:59 PM UTC

1337biz wrote: post #90

haidrali wrote: post #2

not sure about others but I am looking forward to invest time and energy in video editing

Thought about doing the same. What's your plan to learn it?

I'm helping my girlfriend produce videos, usually for social media and such. In the process I'm learning a ton about my camera, lighting and also software. Currently using DaVinci resolve which is amazing and free.

I think as in other things, just trying a project and learning as you go is the quickest way to get started.

Re: Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?

#120

Post by inform880 » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 3:00 PM UTC

a_bonobo wrote: post #115

inform880 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cooking thing really hits home. I work in a high stress, banking environment at a fortune 500 company, and I eat out most days. I know theoretically how to cook, but between the time it takes to shop, cook, and clean, AND I'm doing well financially it's so hard to convince myself to cook. Living alone doesn't help either.

If you have the money (and it sounds like you have), there are quite a few recipe box companies which send you boxes of ingredients and recipes every few days. It's a nice stepping stone towards fully cooking for yourself as it cuts out the shopping/deciding part.

Anyone have suggestions for these?