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

Ask HN: What's the most valuable thing you can learn in an hour?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 1001 posts

Re: Ask HN: What's the most valuable thing you can learn in an hour?

#321

Post by Symbiote »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #277
ZoomZoomZoom wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wondered why in English the constant and the letter π pronounced as /paɪ/ when the Greek letter is obviously /pi/. It really grinds my gears, there's no pie in π! Does Enlgish routinely localize foreign alphabet names? If so, it's bad practice. I believe no one in the world learns English alphabet pronouncing it arbitrary, and not as /ˈeɪ/ /ˈbiː/ /ˈsiː/.

Just a wild guess, but perhaps it's part of a vowel shift either in modern Greek, or modern English. I know UK (bee-ta) and USA (bay-ta) pronounce Beta differently but am slightly ashamed to say I don't know how modern Greeks pronounce it. I understand it's derived from Hebrew's Beth, though? Language is a constant curiosity.

"In Ancient Greek, beta represented the voiced bilabial plosive /b/. In Modern Greek, it represents the voiced labiodental fricative /v/."

For centuries, and probably still today, the language taught at school was Ancient Greek -- that's where I learnt the pronunciations. I don't know if pi had a similar change in Greek pronunciation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta

Re: Ask HN: What's the most valuable thing you can learn in an hour?

#322

Post by roenxi »

anonu wrote: post #242
tempestn wrote: post #144

How, and why, to invest in a simple portfolio of index funds. Split between equity and fixed income based on your risk tolerance, and diversify equities globally. This will give you a low-cost, set-and-forget investment portfolio that you can add to over time without ever having to worry about what you should buy or what the market might do. Just add to it regularly over time, and end up with solid retirement savings…

I think the market needs better, easier portfolio tools for the lay person. Tools that can help coach the user as well

That counts as financial advice; or gets close enough to it that it will probably run afoul of the same problems. Financial advice is all fun and gains until there is a down year and someone loses 10% of their savings. Or worse.

The hard challenge in the field is how to attract customers that are not quite savvy enough to figure out how to open their own brokerage account but not people so clueless as they'll go into old age with a 100% allocation to stocks. The more accessible the higher earning (ie, riskier) options are to unsophisticated the more catastrophic the backlash will be when the bad years arrive.

In a sense the regulatory system evolves to make the cheap-management options harder to find and tailored financial advice easier, because the people who aren't already in the market are going to get eaten alive making rookie allocation errors.

Re: Ask HN: What's the most valuable thing you can learn in an hour?

#324

Post by huhtenberg »

unglaublich wrote: post #269
tempestn wrote: post #144

How, and why, to invest in a simple portfolio of index funds. Split between equity and fixed income based on your risk tolerance, and diversify equities globally. This will give you a low-cost, set-and-forget investment portfolio that you can add to over time without ever having to worry about what you should buy or what the market might do. Just add to it regularly over time, and end up with solid retirement savings…

Switzerland makes it very interesting to follow your advice: you can deposit into a 'third pillar bank-account' which your local bank helps you invest in predetermined portfolios, and the investment will be tax-deductible.

For those from Canada - that's a Swiss version of RRSP basically.

Re: Ask HN: What's the most valuable thing you can learn in an hour?

#325

Post by scandox »

ehecatl wrote: post #232
scandox wrote: post #209

Credibility of sources. I learned this in 40 minutes of a medieval history class. It is simply the constant habit of asking: Who is speaking? Why are they speaking? What have they to gain or lose from speaking? What have I to gain or lose from believing/disbelieving what is said? I actually by instinct tend to believe people are mostly speaking in good faith so this is a great corrective for me. Also I have a habit o…

And "To whom are they speaking"? What you are giving a succinct overview of is Aristotle's _Ars Rhetorica_ Cracking read, BTW.

Yes indeed I had neglected the "To whom"...which reminds me how often I think a message is aimed at me (egomania) when in fact it has an audience I am not even aware exists...

Re: Ask HN: What's the most valuable thing you can learn in an hour?

#326

Post by jeltz »

aeternum wrote: post #11

Regular expressions fall into this category. While they might take longer to master, you should know the basics after an hour. I've been surprised at how often people convert long lists line-by-line. You can sometimes take what was a multiple-hour task and complete it with a handful of cryptic characters.

Can you really learn regex in one hour? I learned them so long time ago and in a gradual way that I have no idea how long it would take if you focus on it, but I feel like it would be more than an hour since I think most people would need to play around quite a bit to really grasp them.

Re: Ask HN: What's the most valuable thing you can learn in an hour?

#327

Post by superhuzza »

dokem wrote: post #53
arvinsim wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember learning these before but due to not finding any use case for them, I already forgot how to do them properly. Only thing I regularly tie nowadays are my shoelaces. EDIT: Grammar

I’ve also learned a number of knots. The only knot I ever really tie is the tautline hitch. The average person cannot string up a piece of rope and remove all slack because all they know is the granny or square knot. This knot is also incredibly simple and versatile. If you are reading this do yourself a favor and learn this over the next 5 minutes. The bolin should also be learned because the tautline hitch cannot b…

Just so you're aware, the bowline is considered somewhat dangerous because it has a high chance of being tied incorrectly.

The only real advantage it has over a double figure 8 is that it's easier to untie after dynamic cinching.

https://rockandice.com/climb-safe/climb-safe-rethinking-the-...

Re: Ask HN: What's the most valuable thing you can learn in an hour?

#328

Post by stakhanov »

self_awareness wrote: post #248
Ensorceled wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you’re not saying “no, not bee, DEE” the rest of your life.

If I want to spell out something over the phone, I'm saying: Hellen, Eve, Lawrence, Lawrence, Ophelia, Wallace, Ophelia, Robert, Lawrence, Donald.

But doesn't it sound so much cooler and so much more badass to say

hotel echo lima lima oscar whiskey oscar romeo lima delta?

Makes the person on the other side of the phone immediately have the kind of respect that one would have for someone who can order air strikes :-D

Re: Ask HN: What's the most valuable thing you can learn in an hour?

#330

Post by lawlorino »

borumpilot wrote: post #308

How to fight and take a punch. People are capable of taking much more punishment then they think. With an hour of practice, you can overcome the initial fear and act much more rational when push comes to shove. I understand that this is not just "intense concentration" while sitting behind your desk, but that is exactly the point of learning, get out of your bubble.

So, what's your advice for practicing this? Ask a friend to punch me in the face for an hour?
Post reply on HN