Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 876 posts

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

#311

Post by JamesBarney »

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 don't know about squat and deadlift. I'm in my mid 30s and 20-40% of my friends who squat and deadlift had to stop because they injured their back in the last couple of years. All of them looked like they had great form and half had gone to a trainer as some point to make sure their form was good.

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

#312

Post by kerkeslager »

AstralStorm wrote: post #24
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.

Honesty is not a skill, lying successfully is. Neither is kindness. (And forced kindness can be patronizing.)

> Honesty is not a skill, lying successfully is.

Nonsense. The skill of honesty is fighting your instinct to lie. If you actually try to always be honest, you'll discover that it's not as easy as you are claiming.

> Neither is kindness. (And forced kindness can be patronizing.)

Well, let me ask you, when you decided to leave a comment, did you make that decision with kindness in mind? :)

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

#313

Post by inkeddeveloper »

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 feel that's why food trucks became popular. Low barrier to entry (relative) and allows people that know how to cook quickly cook for those that don't.

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

#314

Post by magic_beans »

neuroticfish wrote: post #294
tnel77 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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've been trying to learn to cook off and on for years now and I get so discouraged all the time because I'm still either overcooking or undercooking something, still not getting the flavors right, not using the right amount of oil despite the recipe's prescription. I can't be alone in feeling that way.

Don't judge yourself too harshly. Cooking requires quite a lot of intuition. Trust yourself and I promise you'll make something worth eating.

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

#315

Post by marcofiset »

neuroticfish wrote: post #294
tnel77 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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've been trying to learn to cook off and on for years now and I get so discouraged all the time because I'm still either overcooking or undercooking something, still not getting the flavors right, not using the right amount of oil despite the recipe's prescription. I can't be alone in feeling that way.

It took me years of cooking every day to get to a level where I'm confident in my cooking skills. It's a lot of trial and error. Look up a recipe that looks good, and try to follow it exactly. There's no eyeballing when you are learning. There's a reason those ingredients are added in that particular order and quantity.

I've come to a point where I can whip up a recipe and improvise some, but that's after years of following recipes, experimenting and eating a fair share of disappointing meals.

Learn the fundamentals. Binging With Babish on YouTube is an excellent show to learn with its Basics With Babish series.

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

#316

Post by posedge »

ptero wrote: post #149

Interpersonal skills. Those are usually in very short supply at tech companies. This wide spectrum with many sweet spots. For example, if you can learn what a developer is doing without pissing them off or boring them out of their minds and translate from techno-babble to humanspeak and back you can quickly make yourself appreciated in many tech companies. Time management skills. Learn to rest, really rest so that yo…

Curious, what else would you recommend to really rest?

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

#317

Post by butler14 »

cpursley wrote: post #277
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.

The health risks of not doing deadlifts far outweigh the risk of doing them. It's the only thing that has resolved my back pain and improved my posture. Disclaimer: hire a trainer to learn the correct form

this is probably one of the most absurd comments I've ever read on HN

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

#318

Post by brodouevencode »

bradgnar wrote: post #192
deepGem wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will add Kettlebell swings to Squat and deadlift. They are one of the best all round exercise for muscle development particularly around the lower back and for cardio as well. In fact, I haven't come across a full body muscle building and cardio exercise that can match Kettlebell swings.

TURKISH GETUPS!!

Underrated, and great for your core.

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

#319

Post by linsomniac »

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…

Agreed. The skill I'm working on this year seems to be woodworking. I made my wife a little box to put her Christmas present in, and designed and built a storage system for the garage over the holidays. Now I'm working on building a new set of workbenches for the garage to replace the ones the previous owner built.

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

#320

Post by exdsq »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #234
imjustsaying wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>pseudo-science I'm not sure why you mention this as a contrast. Macro evolution also does not follow the scientific method as there is no repeatable experiment you can design to falsify the hypothesis. This is well-known among evolutionary biologists.

Stop spreading pseudoscience. There's no macro-evolution, there's just evolution. Pick up a biology book instead of your Bible

I hadn't heard of macro-evolution so take this from the stance of a skeptical relatively well-reasoning individual. I can't see anything from a cursory browse that suggests it's a pseudoscience? Am I missing something?

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroevolution

- https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_48

- https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/macroevolu...

- https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/macroevolution/

Post reply on HN