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Ask HN: What Are You Learning?

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Re: Ask HN: What Are You Learning?

#221

Post by wjossey »

I’m learning to fly. Working on my private pilot license in SoCal.

I had spent a lot of time prepping before starting my training, so some stuff has been expected but other stuff has been a pleasant surprise.

One of the things that crosses over to engineering is the concept of flows. This idea that you’re constantly wanting to check on certain items throughout flight, and then at different phases of flight work through a flow.

You have checklists that you use and reference, but certain flows you commit to memory. This is very similar to incident response work as someone who has been in infrastructure for the last decade. How I triage and work through a problem has a very specific flow to it that helps me quickly sort out where the issue is (even if it doesn’t immediately tell me how to fix it). I always love seeing how two skills, like engineering and flying, can have correlated patterns.

For anyone with a love of aviation, go take a discovery flight. General aviation flying is a wonderful thing.

Re: Ask HN: What Are You Learning?

#222

Post by ducharmdev »

- F# : I've learned basic concepts of functional programming through JavaScript/typescript, but have wanted to learn a more functional language. I do C# for work, so F# seems like a logical next step.

- Databases : in the past I feel that I've learned too heavily on ORMs, so lately I've been trying to learn how databases actually work. Things like how to interpret execution plans, the data structures used for indexes, etc. Found some really cool tools like Postgrest & Postgraphile that are making me more interested in database-centric apps.

- Math : as a self taught dev that studied English in college, I was never exposed to much math. But I love thinking about the underlying patterns and structures of anything, and math seems to be an invaluable tool in doing this. Not sure how I'm going to self-teach math (or where to begin), but the little bit of discrete math I've learned has been super fascinating.

Re: Ask HN: What Are You Learning?

#223

Post by aaron-santos »

programmarchy wrote: post #97
barcoder wrote: post #20

How to make beautiful 3D characters and scenes. I started with Blender and now I'm learning Substance for painting the models because the work flow is creativity focused. The possibilities are truly amazing with today's tools. Working in 3D has opened my eyes to new possibilities. I believe that having skills in 3D will become very important over the next five years with adoption of mixed reality hardware.

Totally agree. I'm working on a mixed reality app and have started learning Blender as well to set up asset pipelines and toolchains, so being sucked into the 3D modeling world also. I've been surprised to find a ton of overlap between 3D modeling and ML-based tools to assist in the process. Would love to trade notes if you're available to chat sometime.

I'd love feedback too. I tried my hand at using scipy.optimize to tune Blender lighting and materials to a reference image that didn't turn out how I expected. Would love to hear other about other ideas in this space.

Re: Ask HN: What Are You Learning?

#224

Post by drevil-v2 »

orionhall wrote: post #202

In specifics, I'm learning about using AWS's CDK to set up API Gateways and Lambdas. On a broader level, I'm learning about creating APIs/microservices. On an even broader level, I'm learning how to make (architectural) decisions and run projects.

What resources are you using for the first two?

Re: Ask HN: What Are You Learning?

#225

Post by kian »

jacquesm wrote: post #58
gandalfgreybeer wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mind sharing resources you’re using to learn? Also do you have background in music theory or is this from scratch?

I built pianojacq.com to help me practice sightreading and to keep track of where I'm making mistakes. It is still far from perfect but quite useful. The main problem is to get the pieces I want to practice into MIDI format, but there is a wealth of MIDI files out there that can be used with a little editing. I have this pipeline where I take a youtube video, download it as an MP3, convert that to MIDI and then edit…

Piano has also been my go to this pandemic. I've also been finding a lot of joy in applying my programming skills to music as well. What are you using to convert MP3 to MIDI? How accurate is it?

Re: Ask HN: What Are You Learning?

#226

Post by UnpossibleJim »

firefoxd wrote: post #131

As a web developer, I'm often ashamed to admit that I knew very little about AI. Especially because I worked on a AI product on my day to day. I was perfectly fine debugging our python code and updating spacy, but had no clue what it was doing internally. So 6 months ago, I quit my job, published a short book, then studied AI. It's funny how so many material makes the vast assumption that you already know so much. Th…

Funny you should mention this, as I'm on my way there. I'm just at the Data Analytics with Python portion of my studies, but with time I want to learn the Machine Learning and AI (baby steps, I suppose). I like to know the behind the scenes sections and the inner workings, so I tend to get side tracked on occasion and deep dive into parts that interest me... Probably not good for forward momentum, but better for my interest, I suppose =/

Re: Ask HN: What Are You Learning?

#227

Post by exdsq »

ducharmdev wrote: post #222

- F# : I've learned basic concepts of functional programming through JavaScript/typescript, but have wanted to learn a more functional language. I do C# for work, so F# seems like a logical next step. - Databases : in the past I feel that I've learned too heavily on ORMs, so lately I've been trying to learn how databases actually work. Things like how to interpret execution plans, the data structures used for indexes…

Math: if you're self taught, have you heard or looked at Open Universities maths degree? It's well regarded for an online course and around £18k for the entire thing. I know a DPhil at Oxford who came from that course.

Re: Ask HN: What Are You Learning?

#229

Post by 0-_-0 »

omnicognate wrote: post #219
Anon4Now wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stopped using a pillow under my head because back sleeping + pillow = neck pain. Then I got a thin, light pillow and placed it on my chest to mimic the "wrapped up in blankets" feeling I was used to.

Normal adult pillows are no good for back sleeping but I found having no pillow wasn't very comfortable. I ended up using a memory foam pillow for toddlers[1] that we originally bought for our son. It's perfect - provides just the right amount of lift for me. [1] https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004M3PS4O/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_gl...

I did the same thing! Works well, but I have some shoulder pain now and I don't know if it's related
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