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Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?

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

#251

Post by rchaud »

thedayisntgray wrote: post #8

Marketing is a big one for me. Building a great product means nothing if you can’t reach your target audience. And I don’t mean learning how to used Facebook or Google to run ads, I mean the theory behind marketing. I would like to read more books similar to the 22 immutable laws of marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout

There is no universal theory behind marketing, it's going to be different depending on the customer demogrpahics, the product type, the part of the world you're in, etc.

You might actually learn more by running a Google ads/FB ad campaign for a side project. Put some money on the line and I can almost guarantee you'll be more committed to learning than if you were just reading a book.

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

#252

Post by jwdunne »

tashoecraft wrote: post #193
komali2 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fully support the value system here in that we both want people cooking for themselves more, but I have to say that sous vide cooked steaks taste like boiled meat to me, aka terrible. People around me are swear by it until I slap a ribeye onto the pan for them, high heat, making sure to render the fat. To each their own but imo a sous vide is a big, expensive, plastic waste of counter space.

If sous vide is tasting really bad to you, you’re doing it wrong. Almost certainly you’re not doing the final step, finish in a pan. You shouldn’t take something right from the sous vide to the plate, hit it in the pan at the highest heat you possible can to get the Maillard reaction and develop the crust.

Was going to reply with this, you need to brown a steak. That’s where the flavour comes from. Much easier to brown a steak that is already warm too. Would need to be careful of overcooking if you’re used to 90 secs each side on a seating hot pan.

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

#253

Post by falcolas »

langitbiru wrote: post #223

Here are what I am learning in 2020. I try to be a holistic person. So I am learning technical skills, business skills, and social skills. Technical: Blockchain programming (mostly on Ethereum). I believe Ethereum is the future. Programmable money. How cool is that? However if you think blockchain is fad, you could replace it with cybersecurity. Business: Corporate finance (stocks, bonds, future contracts, options, e…

Something of an aside, and not a dismissal of any of your points.

> Programmable money. How cool is that?

It's actually really, really scary. Money is already volatile enough, I would rather we not add a bunch of new bugs and security vulnerabilities to it.

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

#254

Post by yters »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #221
yters wrote: post #128

Learn about intelligent design theory and how it impacts biology and computer science. Google papers by Dembski for the mathematical underpinning. I recommend his papers 'search for a search' and 'specification: the pattern that signifies intelligence'. Read Winston Ewert's paper 'Dependency Graph of Life' for an amazing application of CS to bioinformatics, and 'algorithmic specified complexity in the game of life' f…

No, don't waste your time on "intelligent design". It's pseudoscientific garbage pushed by the Christians.

Thomas Nagel, David Berlinski, and David Stove are all atheist/agnostic philosophers who find the arguments of intelligent design worth considering. They don't agree with inferring a deity from the findings, but they do think there is something special about mental causation, and it seems to show up in biological history, which is the core of ID theory. Theological inferences are a tertiary matter that is not fundamental to the theory. The theory itself is purely mathematical and empirical. So, I would suggest you take a second look at the works I recommend.

Also, here is a short, readable article by Nagel laying out his view that mental properties are an essential, and unexplored feature of our universe.

https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/the-core-of...

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

#255

Post by billfruit »

gozzoo wrote: post #244
billfruit wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Learn to enjoy poetry. There is so much of great poetry in English, but I think it is not being read and appreciated enough. It is a kind of mental challenge like doing a puzzle, to unlock the full vivid meaning. Also reading fiction, though how exactly it helps one is beyond me, but it offers glimpses into other worlds. For example I read recently 'The French Lieutenant's Woman', I doubt its richness of detail, and…

I've been trying the same and each time I failed miserably. I just don't get it and certainly can't enjoy it. Can someone recomend good poetry sutable for highly analytical mind or a book about apreciating poetry?

I would recommend 'Understanding Poetry' by Robert Penn Warren and Cleanth Brooks, as a good introduction, it also includes a reasonable collection of poems from various poets to appreciate.

I would also suggest getting an anthology like 'The Golden Treasury' or Anthony Quiller-Couch or Robert Penn Warren (Six Centuries of British Poetry) or G B Harrison. They are available often in small pocket editions, which one can carry around with one.

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

#256

Post by Anon84 »

ravenstine wrote: post #217

Here are my suggestions: - Learn to fast. I'm not talking about intermittent fasting, one meal a day, or fake fasting like juice fasting. I'm talking not eating for 48 hours, 72 hours, or more. With electrolytes, it becomes a lot easier than you think. Once you can comfortably achieve 72 hours of no eating, it will seriously change your perspective on food. You'll realize that you've been throwing your money away eve…

Any recommended resources on learning how to fast?

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

#257

Post by whatshisface »

PhaseLockk wrote: post #219
whatshisface wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any evidence that poems have meaning? I could easily imagine a world where poets fool themselves into thinking the words they wrote contained their intentions, while readers fooled themselves into thinking they had uncovered those intentions.

"Is there any evidence that tweets have meaning? I could easily imagine a world where posters fool themselves into thinking the words they wrote contained their intentions, while readers fooled themselves into thinking they had uncovered those intentions." As with all natural language, production and interpretation of poems is subjective. Poetry is just an attempt to use natural language without the constraints of pr…

Actually, that speculation about tweets sounds pretty realistic to me...

But seriously, I think we can all agree that among the literary arts, poetry is the most likely to be accidentally uninterpretable. Due to its cultural context it is also the area where uninterpretability is the most likely to be accepted. This creates an environment where you run a serious risk of developing a culture of meaninglessness.

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

#258

Post by jsjolen »

dsego wrote: post #212
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.

I would never recommend deadlifts. Those are really dangerous and easy to do wrong. My friend shattered his spine doing deadlifts and needed surgery and months of recovery and he still can't bend down or sit in certain positions.

He shattered his spine? Was he 80 years old and his spine calcified?

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

#259

Post by faheywf »

komali2 wrote: post #169
ravenstine wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a similar vain, I recommend getting a sous vide circulator. You'll make perfect steaks and pork chops every time, and it's extremely clean and convenient. You can cook all sorts of other things sous vide style as well. I recently got one, and I've been cooking at home a lot more often as a result. I think more people would cook their own food if they knew how to make it taste really good.

I fully support the value system here in that we both want people cooking for themselves more, but I have to say that sous vide cooked steaks taste like boiled meat to me, aka terrible. People around me are swear by it until I slap a ribeye onto the pan for them, high heat, making sure to render the fat. To each their own but imo a sous vide is a big, expensive, plastic waste of counter space.

Have the steaks you've eaten been seared? That's a key piece to successful sous vide cooking!
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