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Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

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Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#211

Post by EliRivers »

DenisM wrote: post #136
EliRivers wrote: post #48

Being good at reading and writing. The ability to quickly and efficiently understand and mentally absorb large amounts of the written word, and the ability to write clearly, simply and coherently about subjects both simple and complicated. Being good at reading is a force multiplier in everything academic I have ever done, and continues to be a huge advantage in both learning and simply doing my job, and in so much o…

By way of writing feedback - you could have made your point in half as much text. What is your take on brevity?

I'm with Strunk & White.

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#212

Post by benji-york »

psiegman wrote: post #121
bemmu wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you go about learning this art?

My algorithm: 1. Start by saying something, something neutral/positive or a compliment: "Nice weather, eh?", "Great party!", "Nice tie" 2. Ask questions: "How are you doing ?", "What brought you here ?", "What line of work are you in ?" 3. Repeat #2 until you find something that you have something to say about. Could be that you discover you're in the same line of work, grew up in the same town, etc 4. Keep your talk…

Here's another question for your repertoire (that I picked up from someone else): "What's been keeping you busy lately?"

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#213

Post by tshannon »

mmirate wrote: post #184
dwaltrip wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are social animals that thrive in groups, not as lone individuals. This requires certain social behaviors.

Modern technology has made a mockery of the days when it took an entire family's labor just to raise an acre or two of crops.

Yeah as a species we're accomplishing much bigger things now than an acre or two of crops.

I like to think that we're working towards a bigger goal than simply surviving.

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#214

Post by svat »

treydey wrote: post #178
monster_group wrote: post #55

Learning Sanskrit. I have spent the last few years learning it and it's been tremendously rewarding. Sanskrit is a beautiful language. Learning it is a great mental challenge and gives great satisfaction (to me). Before learning Sanskrit I had never really pursued a hobby this seriously. Since I have been doing this I no longer feel like a machine who just goes to work, eats and sleeps. Before this, I used to feel gr…

This is an extremely interesting perspective. I actually had the opposite experience. I was forced to learn sanskrit throughout my high school career and I absolutely hated it. I'm an extremely practical person and I have no use for the language at all.

There is no contradiction actually. While talking about the state of Sanskrit in school education, Chamu Krishna Shastry says[1] that schools are factories for producing students who hate Sanskrit.

IMO, whatever other reasons there may be, a most compelling reason for learning a language is its poetry (Robert Frost defined poetry as that which gets lost in translation), and here Sanskrit poetry is unlike anything in the world. You may like to read this collection of essays[2] that my friend wrote during his first real encounter with Sanskrit poetry.

[1]: https://youtu.be/ZoS1nA8RVko?t=740 (starts at 12:20), https://youtu.be/WwtIJ8_bQf8 (ends at 35:00).

[2]: http://sadasvada.com/Sadasvada_Print_Apr2014.pdf

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#215

Post by uiae »

seer wrote: post #182

Dance lessons Was particularly helpful to me because it taught me so much more than how to appreciate human movement as art or to exercise. It taught me the intricacies of human interaction, especially with the opposite sex, because my computer oriented hight school was practically a monastery. Its a highly structured way to learn about those things, so easy on software people - just read and follow the instructions,…

I was just going to post this, but you where faster;)

So yes: I am also very thankful that I had the opportunity to learn a social couple dance (with 'social' meaning non-competitive and without fixed dance-partners)

The first lessons were hard and sometimes frustrating when you don't make progress as fast as you want to. But for me it paid out and changed my life. Today I go dancing twice or more a week. No matter how stressed I am after work: I always come home from dancing relaxed and smiling.

When dancing you have to deal with a multitude of things in parallel:

1) You listen to the music carefully and match your body movement to it.

2) You are creative and come up with figures/movements fitting the music in realtime (you cannot plan too much into the future)

3) You constantly "read" your partner: You only have fractions of a second to feel his/her center of mass, anticipate her/his possible future movements and react accordingly. Blindly forcing your partner into movements he/she can currently not execute (for example due to having the weight on the "wrong" foot) will not work.

Besides that it helped me to:

* Get to know interesting people outside of my bubble. I've been in CS academics for over 10 years now and it is so refreshing and mind-opening to talk to people of different backgrounds

* Get a boost self esteem. Nowadays I can stay calm and natural when talking to people that are new to me. This wasn't the case before. Especially when talking to people of the gender, I'm attracted to.

Bonus: You get healthy exercise (not a joke: most of us bring 1-2 additional spare shirts to the dance to change during one evening) and improved body control for free.

Here are some popular couple dances without particular order. Of course the list is not complete and a single video will not completely represent each dance and its subgenres.

Samba de Gafieira: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9ia7iGVY-M

Forró: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhMHZsvGHlg

Zouk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_j8SiLBAoU

Salsa/Bachata: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-JofUEsbD0

Lindy Hop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GTrNLauLrs

Blues Dance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpPwmclBxiw

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#216

Post by stevesimmons »

Flamenco dancing, from Andalucia in Spain: https://youtu.be/t5nusnPUXSY

I had never danced before, had no coordination, and was petrified of looking stupid in front of others.

Then five years ago, I saw an ad for beginners' flamenco dance classes and decided to give it a go. Right away, I got hooked on the physically demanding athleticism, the precision of the complex rhythmic structure, the way you make the music with your feet stamping on the floor, and the way it requires total concentration. After a high-pressure day in front of the computer at work, I love leaving that behind and walking into the dance studio...

The most rewarding part is I now take classes taught by the top Spanish dancers. It's a real buzz to see them perform on stage on a Friday night then spend the Saturday and Sunday in workshops with them teaching the same choreographies.

Incidentally, that You Tube link above is of Marco Flores and Manuel Linan, two of my favourite male flamenco dancers. I will be doing a workshop with Manuel Linan this Christmas and one with Marco Flores in Spain next February.

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#217

Post by smnplk »

Arubis wrote: post #195
smnplk wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone know of a service that matches people who want to chat via Skype to practice speaking skills ?

It’s non free, but italki.com may suit your needs.

Thanks. Tandem also looks nice and might be free.

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#218

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

Learning the very basics of photography: what shutter speed, ISO and aperture do, and how to adjust them for each situation.

It takes literally half an hour to learn this, and of course you won't be taking professional quality photos, but your photos will go from crappy to OK or even good, even if you only have a phone (as long as it has manual mode). You know that time you took a random photo and the light and colors came out better than normal? You can achieve that consistently.

After learning this, I felt dumb for not having spent that half an hour years before.

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#219

Post by lquist »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #218

Learning the very basics of photography: what shutter speed, ISO and aperture do, and how to adjust them for each situation. It takes literally half an hour to learn this, and of course you won't be taking professional quality photos, but your photos will go from crappy to OK or even good, even if you only have a phone (as long as it has manual mode). You know that time you took a random photo and the light and color…

Link for this?

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#220

Post by mathgenius »

msluyter wrote: post #134

Toastmasters — I only did it for a few months but it was enough to get over the general fear of public speaking and make it pretty easy for me to get up and give presentations. Highly recommended.

Toastmasters is very cool, and also a bit weird. It's like AA for people that are addicted to shyness.
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