Learn a another human language. You don’t have to be good at it or even able to converse. Languages are systems of thinking as much as they are systems of communication. Some thoughts only make sense in a given language! The process of learning a language builds cognitive skills and perhaps fights cognitive decline. If you have absolutely no “ear” for human language start with Esperanto and work your way to additiona…
Can anybody recommend a good app to learn another language?
Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?
321–330 of 876 posts
Re: Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?
#322Starting 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.
Not pursuing any athletics is going to kill you and make the late years of your life frustrating a you lose capabilities. And you'll probably get injured as your body deteriorates.
You choose.
Re: Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?
#323Earlier 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.
Also, can’t more highly recommend reading anything by Kenji Alt Lopez. A google of nearly any food you want to cook plus “kenji” will lead you to accurate, well explained, scientific based approach to cooking it. Or just pick up a copy of the Food Lab.
Re: Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?
#324Starting 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” a skill?
Re: Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?
#325Earlier 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?
Re: Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?
#326- Identify your values
- Measure your behaviors and thoughts against your values
- Build a network of people who will give you genuine feedback
Re: Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?
#327Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 a…
Sumo deadlifts are easy enough for a novice and are relatively lower impact. Form strictness is less of an issue for most people with these, and are a good starting point for deads.
Re: Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?
#328Earlier 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!!
Re: Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?
#329Earlier 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?
When you get past the level of limericks and children's poems level, suddenly you have interpretive choices to make because the precise flow and timing of sounds can work different ways and some work better than others, and as a reader you have to bring an interpretive faculty to these works. When you get to something like John Donne's poetry, you're now deep in "every bit of timing and inflection matters."
For children's poetry to get started, Belloc's 'The Bad Child's Book of Beasts' or the Looking Glass Book of Verse are high quality collections. Then it's worth getting something like a Norton Anthology of Poetry as a way of reading very widely very quickly to find out what appeals to you right now, and explore that further.
Many people recommend the Oxford Book of English Verse. I don't, because I think Quiller-Couch had insipid taste and his editing ranges from the uninspired to the positively atrocious (what he did to John Donne's 'The Ecstasy' is horrid). I have found Garrison Keillor's 'Good Poems' to be particularly approachable, high quality collection of verse. I also suggest Ezra Pound's 'ABCs of Reading', though you shouldn't take what he writes about Chinese as anything other than a metaphor for his topic at hand.
Spend time with Shakespeare, of course. I recommend the Oxford complete works. I do not recommend the Yale complete works. Did my wife and I have a tiff about that? Yes, we did. Was I able to demonstrate by reference to passages that I was right? Yes. Do we only have the Oxford in the house now? Yes.
Robert Frost's complete works are cheaply had and a necessity for someone studying modern poetry. Two or three poems of his are butchered in every school class, and the full range of what he worked on is generally ignored, because it can require a very finely tuned ear to hear and interpret the force that his longer, narrative poems can produce.
But really, once your ear starts to come together, dig through the Norton anthology and use it as pointers to further things to read.
Re: Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?
#330I would say focus on building a solid, functional body vs. say focusing on goals like "how much can I lift?" or "how much do I weigh?" or "how fast can I go?". Those goals, while laudable, can also cause you to break down your body in your quest to achieve them. An example from literally yesterday. Over the past few months, I struggled with medial knee pain that was limiting my ability to walk up stairs and do other…
Plus rock climbing is fun and mentally challenging, like chess with your body.