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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?

#281

Post by vonquant »

Normal_gaussian wrote: post #245
dsego wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

To be somewhat insensitive; it sounds like he was doing it wrong. I'm recently on a kick to take my fitness more seriously; for me that means a three month stint with a personal trainer, bringing in a dietician soon, and planning on rounding out with a running coach. As a note, all of this isn't that expensive - its just coming out of most peoples holiday and expensive treat budgets. Doing it like this means you cons…

>Those are really dangerous and easy to do wrong.

>it sounds like he was doing it wrong.

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

#282

Post by tasubotadas »

moltar wrote: post #56
heinrichhartman wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

deadlift's are quite dangerous for the untrained. Start with "Fix Rounded Shoulders" and "Fix Anterior Pelvic Tilt" if you have not already done so. Plenty of great advice on YouTube on those topics.

Watch Mark Rippetoe videos on YouTube. He has excellent, science-backed explanations for all major movements. Also quite a character.

I've read his book (now a decade ago?) and I am amazed how people get squats wrong.

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

#283

Post by ryanmercer »

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.

Instant pot (best kitchen purchase I've ever made) and meal prep. There's entire subreddits dedicated to meal prep with a lot of good ideas.

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

#284

Post by kerkeslager »

rriepe wrote: post #205
kerkeslager wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> deadlift's are quite dangerous for the untrained. It's odd to me you picked deadlift to call out as dangerous. The deadlift is certainly dangerous, but only in the sense that almost any large lift is dangerous for the untrained. But in my experience, the deadlift is a very natural motion for me and most people who I've seen get into lifting heavy. Fixing people's natural instincts is usually just pointing out a few…

I've seen people confuse clean and jerks with deadlifts. Maybe that's what's happening here? The biggest deadlift injury I've seen is scraped shins. It's hard to injure yourself without straps.

Well... the two common issues I see are:

1. Hunching your back. This can cause slipped discs and some muscle issues.

2. Trying to controlled-lower the bar to the ground. Contrary to the policies of a lot of gyms, you should get to the top of your deadlift and basically drop: you might keep your hands on it to keep it from rolling away after it reaches the ground, but you definitely don't want to try to slow it down as you lower. If this is too loud for you, use bumper plates or a deadlift platform. This is pretty much guaranteed to cause you severe soreness and tightness as you go up in weight, which will likely clue you in that you are doing something wrong, but if you persist or jump right up to too high a weight, you can tear muscles or ligaments.

Both of these can cause pretty serious long-term injuries. But they're also both pretty easy to fix.

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

#285

Post by ngsx »

bitexploder wrote: post #35

I will share one that has served me well for over 20 years: learn RDBMS and SQL. Learn normal forms, good schema design, and how to write complex queries. NoSQL adopters often avoided schemas like the plague and ended up with unmaintainable messes after a few years. I have seen more than a few NoSQL -> SQL conversions by now. Data is the most important thing in your app. Give it a great design. Plus databases like Po…

Do you have any recommendations on how to learn RDBMS/SQL? I'm currently using NoSQL at my day job (and agree with your points on it), but have struggled to find a good side project to really dig into RDBMS/SQL. I have used SQL briefly in the past (side projects/class projects) but I'm looking to really cement the skill in my mind.

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

#288

Post by astura »

tnel77 wrote: post #225
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…

What blows my mind is how much I took my ability to cook for granted. So many people my age (millennial) can barely cook anything. I have friends who eat out every single meal of every single day. People give me weird looks when every single workday I have the same answer to “you wanna go out and get some lunch?” “Nope. I have leftovers!”

> I have friends who eat out every single meal of every single day.

I have friends who do too but it's not because they don't know how to cook, it's because they don't like to and don't wanna bother and can afford the luxury of having someone else to do it for them.

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

#289

Post by ryanmercer »

mesaframe wrote: post #270
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.

Starting conversations with strangers. But how? I have anxiety and it's really difficult to talk to strangers. Edit:I would also like to mention. I talk very less reason being whenever I tell people honestly about my feelings. Later or sooner they use it against me.

Start at work if you aren't remote "Hey I'm mesaframe over in department, what department are you in?" in the break room or hall (NEVER the bathroom if you are male, NEVER, please watch Male Restroom Etiquette to learn the ramifications of talking in the bathroom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzO1mCAVyMw )

Or if you stop for coffee some place regularly, eat some place regularly, etc ask someone that serves you regularly how their day is. For years I used White Castle for my socialization. I'd go in every Saturday and Sunday morning and order the same thing and would chat to the employees once I'd established myself as a regular. Similarly some friends and I had a Denny's waitress that we eventually followed to another location and then even to another restaurant chain as we were there so much at night that we became friends with her.

It was super easy to for me to become friendly with a specific individual when I would see them over and over with small exposure doses.

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

#290

Post by cloverich »

tnel77 wrote: post #225
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…

What blows my mind is how much I took my ability to cook for granted. So many people my age (millennial) can barely cook anything. I have friends who eat out every single meal of every single day. People give me weird looks when every single workday I have the same answer to “you wanna go out and get some lunch?” “Nope. I have leftovers!”

Some of those weird looks might be that they want your company at lunch occasionally!
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